Tammy with the Good Hair

     Once upon a time in our lexicon, "crumb" was one word assigned to a lowlife asshole. Popular in the 1940s-early '60s, a variation came with a basement, "crumb-bum", spouted in hard-boiled fiction by guys with little cigars between their teeth from New York's lower boroughs.

     Once, Northpoint held two inmates answering phonetically to the word, a surname spelled Crum. It suited this duo splendidly. One was a whore, dope fiend, and rat. The other was my partner, and I'd sit munching popcorn with the first while I tossed the second to a starving grizzly sometimes if I could. Make no mistake though, I have rarely ever been dazzled by anyone more than that waste of sperm and eggs. So much I wouldn't have to hear or think his name or face - he became a force that would wash over me to experience ecstasy. I hate with mirroring abandon capacities balanced, I've realized, and both run with greater depths than most folks seem capable.

     This isn't about that jackass, but an altogether other inmate he dubbed uproariously "Tammy With the Good Hair". The first likely ten times my giggle-box tumbled over with elegant irony. Splatter of crap he could be a handsome, hilarious, and smart redneck, though? With that blondish hair, big toothy smile, ocean blue eyes, and wide shoulders, add covert brilliance born to a garbage family from a bona fide prostitute and a gangster, he was removed at an early age because his nightmare mother was horsewhipping him, and fostered by a family of means in Indiana. Possessing clandestine intelligence (he didn't want me telling others he was an Eagle Scout, for instance), and when it was only us, it shone bright I'd want to hold him for dear life sometimes. He'd tell me on occasion his people didn't do affection, so he couldn't for me. Fool couldn't grasp it wasn't me I wanted it for. Wearing thick-rimmed glasses with a tank, reading aloud from a book I bought him about how the internet had changed the sexual morays of the world one time, I was dizzy from feelings, and never wanted to be without him consider my shredded heart DOA. Conversely, he was an arrogant fuck-up that torched every bridge he stumbled upon, ran over anyone unlucky enough to care for, but begged for respect from those who couldn't care less about him if they were paid to. He exited razor wire without options or support due to these asinine qualities. Last I heard he was halfway house-hopping on an endless quest for "dirty-butts and dope". Yep, great use of faculties. Now, lets focus on the one with that hair...

     Surviving 1980's Middle America, hearing "Tammy", I imagine feathered coifs, shiny Camaros, expertly rolled joints, county fairs, and glitter t-shirts. Aware there's an inmate answering to the name, consider me prepped to be fucking dazzled. Word was, she came from the Luther Luckett lockup with the convicted lined up nights for a Blowjob Goddess. My thoughts? Duh! It's TAMMY, fool, the name says it all. Triumphant fellatio is implicit fuck, I was hoping she strode into the wing on horseback, too. This was the first girl-titled trim to hit the 'Point since I did, and I was eaten alive with curiosity. We'd had trannies and living cock-Hoover Peaches- another queer from outside like myself, only deftly unquenchable. However, here's a new phenom to me: a dude who opted to become a chick in prison, a phenomenon I became aware of on a '70's procedural TV show, I think it was "Quincy". I'm sure "they" helped Jack Klugman bust a case wide open when he visited them in the "joint", and he was thinking of Tony Randall every fucking second (if you understood anything in the last two sentences, congrats on your successful thawing).                           Unfortunately, the opening salvo was uncool, but no fault to this girly-guy. I was in the Hole because I got busted 1 AM rack-jacking (Easy to break down, I was taking care of business at home instead of the shower or shitter - not a lack of respect or creep factor for a room of 43 dozing convicts. I have this issue where I cant erupt unless I'm horizontal, I guess from growing up doing it in bed, or sideways in a dry tub. Me being smitten with dudes as most dudes are over chicks, selfish love is crucial to my existence living with 1200 of the worthless bastards. My wing-mates then knew my plight, and were cool with it after four years spent in that room - except the puritanical dick-hole who ratted on me, a 67 year-old who knocked-up a 13 year old), and the female officer, an embittered, Mr. Spock-eared walking Macy's Thanksgiving float of a gal named Riddle, tried to file a "pursuing" charge, saying my nocturnal under-covers venture was on her account, which the investigation official laughed out of court call when he saw which inmate I was. A "sexual performance" write-up was assigned, nonetheless, since my behavior hit paper.

     My legal aide, Fat Jim, for the first time in recorded history busted into a run. His mission, besides splashing coffee cups throughout the facility, was to tell me Tammy had blown Shaggy. Further details involved Dino, my former side-bunky, a white trash lowbrow who loved to show his pics on the tablet gallery off to let everyone know that he burnt through 120.00 a pair on blue jeans he wrapped his flat ass in and owned six pedigreed pit-bulls, changing in no way that he resembled an upright pug in possession of a fifteen year sex charge, nor did it evaporate multiple regrettably botched suicide attempts, brokering this act. Three packs of noodles from Tammy got him to coax an almost mischievously horny Shaggy into the toilet under the belief that letting a trim throw him a hummer, in the eyes of pleasant society, equaled a lady due to institutional constraints. NEWS FLASH: Shaggy was a 'tard. Once Fat Jim threw in the prurient details, I sank into a mire of grief. From the thick, dirty window we bantered through to the concrete box I was trapped in, a full-tilt meltdown came privately. Jealousy or the sort this wasn't. True, this guy had been viewed as my partner because we'd been inseparable on and off for months, but that was about domesticity we ate and watched TV, and together erected a setup that escaped prison. During Covid lock-downs, we scheduled monster movie marathons, favorite recipes, and other rituals he got up most mornings by his choice, and headed straight to my area carrying out chores like hand washing my shirts, icing my cooler, or making my rack, and took pride in doing them right. We'd only fooled around once for about three minutes, and that was the size of it. Sheer mutual opportunism navigated that experience, then weirded us both out. In confinement, I'd epiphanized that loath as I was to admit it, he was my kid. One that told me he wasn't gonna do anything sexual with anyone in prison a young person who cheered when the hero kissed the girl at the end of a hokey 80's flick one I wanted better for than getting his damn equipment slobbered on for three packs of ramen by a prison whore.

     This athletically built 22-year old factory working nerd had a daughter aged two named Lori back in Louisville who lived with his mom. I was thinking about this 30-something guy in Lexington that worked part time with me at a pizza place in the early 90's (the melt plus crunch of doughy and flaky Mozzarella-coated cheese sticks dunked in garlic butter is abusing my malnourished psyche as I type...) that was attractive in his own way, but awkward like this guy. He'd go to a gay bar once in a while, hit the drag show, and tip a performer repeatedly. Then that person would (reputedly) service him after the night, too - that amounted to his sex life. Being intelligent and not undesirable, I can't judge, but help wonder - is this all he wanted? Now, I'm picturing grown Lori with a dad she can't get a read on, not knowing his idea of intimacy is going on Grindr and getting blown by a cross-dresser, and it all started with a measly prison bit, and some pathetic jerkwad being fucked up about three packs of Texas Beef flavor Dollar Store Asian noodles.

     Shaggy's journey from there would be more extra in the short term than my indie-film script prediction: for starters, I got moved to B-side of the compound due to my lack of a sex case when released from the hole. Seeing my prior wing-mates, they were excited and wanting me back. Shaggy was apathetic as hell, due to my inability to cook up some mac and cheese or hook up a TV in the library he barely acknowledged my existence, acting like I was a random asshole he'd dined with in the chow hall once. Stated, he was my (typical) kid. Decapitating the bitch was what I wanted at that time. Here I get moved with the violent criminals (like ME, for shit's sweet sake!), and clearly the yippie little shit-ball worried not one second about my life, despite me daily being concerned about his. My grandma Juanita when my Pa George died, walking around the funeral home bawling "What's gonna happen to ME now?" was what kept running through my head. Shortly thereafter, Shag took a boyfriend - one with half his scalp melted off from scalding microwaved baby oil called Chicken-Head. Working in the kitchen together, they encountered my forthcoming person of interest, Crum. Predictably, my sweet baby stole cookie dough and had Shaggy hold it for a minute, during which the lil' rocket surgeon got busted, and demonstrating his capacities as a craven pussy, rolled on Crum. Great love of my sorry life was written up and lost his job, which he was soon to receive a culinary certification he could take to the streets for employment from the Aramark family of food-interests he earnestly needed (his only résumé fodder predating lock-down being methamphetamine sales and distribution - references that's hard to verify as Regional Management tends to relocate often). The paper write-up documented Shaggy squealing on him. Quite cross, Crum yanked Chicken-Head and Shag both into the bathroom and made his intentions (a matching set of sound ass-beatings) known - Crum being a scrappy holler dog, Chicken-Head abandoned his partner, abruptly choosing bachelorhood. Displaying his mettle, Shaggy rose to the occasion by planing off his beard, painting his glasses rims violet, and getting a doctors note declaring him transgendered, making assault an embarrassment to his attacker, and a potential federal hate crime. Inside two months Shaggy went on female hormones, entered a relationship with a "store-man" named Will, began coughing up dude-gina as to not have to pay high grocery rates on overpriced Dollar Store-type vittles, and now responded to feminine pronouns. Oh, and my daughter had nothing to say to me now. I spent six months raising that girl and this is how she goes and does me. Parenting really is the world's most thankless job. I ain't having no more, by God. Has anybody seen my purse? Now I need a smoke, dammit.

     Tammy, by this point, I'd finally laid eyes on, and let me remind anyone seeing this that's never been an inmate: Political Correctness shrivels up and croaks in prison, yet I try to be pleasant and/or diplomatic here and there. Let's have story-time. There was this OTHER trim, named Benji, who was notorious for being, well, nine kinds of notorious, and once in the hallway Tammy walked out to hear Benji's evil Black ass (which, BTW, looked impossible, as if sculpted from Nerf) say "Goddamn, Tammy, you the ugliest muthafucka in here", and then splattered the foyer with hyena laughter. Needlessly cruel? Yes. Spot on? Ditto.

     Tammy was a rough stretch of road. Their face a sheet of wide pores, bulbous nose, wolfish eyebrows, and an onion-bald cranium with a mullet occurring in the rear. NOT "Good Hair" - frequently George Washington was referenced. Crum also moniker-ed Tammy "Baloney-Top", due to the appearance of a slice of lunch meat stapled to the apex of her noggin.

     Effeminacy doesn't help a rough looking cuss as being trim casts an illusion of being genuinely female in prison. With an all male population the need for feminine energy is so intense that anyone answering to a sister name and servicing peter tricks the mind with the perception of womanhood. It even works on me. I'd be talking to my friend Sweets who is by no stretch trans, and literally forget his given sex, despite the obviousness of his towering over me at 63. I've come to realize while not missing the competition of womenfolk on the sexual terrain, the need for their kinship urges causation to morph the next best into the real McCoy.

     Tammy was a snitch. Lots of people at the 'Point get accused of this, but her? Undeniably. (S)he was constantly an epicenter of controversy after clearly blabbing on somebody, then checking into the hole to keep from getting slaughtered, inevitably but temporarily moving into a wing where somebody needed head so she'd live to squeak another few days.

     Kodak was Tammy's main man, the poor sonofabitch whose gig was making that ho' his housewife. This diminutive African-American gentleman (Is it wrong that as I type I want to VERY ironically call him "Steadman", Oprahs beard?) once paraded her around, Father of Our Nation haircut and all, with a matching black eye set he perpetrated. Before you get as huffy about it as many did, ask yourself- did he paste his woman, committing abuse on a broad, or did one inmate merely pop another, as happens daily? Likely, Mrs. Kodak was shlobbin' some other dude's knob, ignoring sage advice, or ratting somebody out and caused "Sugar Gay" Leonard there bushels of grief. Again, it's the ILLUSION of another gender, a change coming after incarceration to maintain food and safety (that worked out great...). According to mutual friend Price, K. "considered" me to replace his old lady, like Tammy was Old El Paso and now that he's run out he'll just swing by Trader Joes and pick up a jar of Screaming Mimi's Sweet and Hot Batman flavor. Once I backstroked that ocean of no-fucking-ways sprung from the fact he was with Tammy to start with, I'd get up and remind Steadman of those shiners. Hard pass, Homeo. Interesting side-note here- there's all this talk of trims and tops in lock-down, some participants acting like they're not even gay, but lacking alternatives. Not unsurprising to anyone knowledgeable about dude-on-dude relationships, Kodak here and scores of his kinsmen infamously get busted with the meat in their mouths- and other orifices- on the regular. In-betwixt relationships they shit-talk the 'mos and attend church services where they condemn others for the practice until they find someone new with whom to join their backdoor shenanigans. The practice of fooling around happens a lot in the one-man bathroom at Northpoint with a trash barrel pushed out meaning "occupied". My philosophy has always been "what happens behind the garbage can stays behind the garbage can ", BUT if somebody steps in there with me and does something, lets say, ungentlemanly, then badmouths me on the yard, I have no issue with his pals knowing what that son of a bitch did last Summer.

     Tammy faced stiff competition in Brianna, also a sex offender that went femme to dodge torches and pitchforks, this one more frequently touted "ugliest trim on the yard". Personally, I'm Team Tammy all the way in the mo-fuggly-face-off. Most guys talked about Bree like they weren't standing there at all. Insults were deep and steady. Consequently, Brianna spent generous time in the hole for mental health issues, not surprisingly suicide watches (That's a lot of missed breakfast treats - word on the streets being those hecklers went in the bathroom with Bree in the wee hours for the "pleasure pressure", the price of which was a box of off-brand Pop-Tarts. A wretch of a tranny named Stephanie scored a can of cream corn for blowing Fat Cowboy, and I learned that story when I had my gig cleaning the Hub. I was famished the rest of the morning. See, I ADORE cream corn.) She briefly had a partner in the form of Bethany - yep, trim-on-trim action! Joining this maelstrom was an elderly cuss with a grey goatee identifying as a "trans-lesbian" called Whiskey, and one look established this motherfucker polished off about 100 trailer tanks of the sauce, all the rubbing alcohol in someone's medicine cabinet at least once, and lest I should forget all your kid's cough syrup. He looked as if jerked out of a hobo's ass. My favorite quote regarding this community leader came outta my 6'4 transgendered African-American bunky Moo-Moo, in abject disgust surmising him thus: "That's somebody's granddaddy in prison suckin' DICKS!" He was the third in an hyperactive sex club/ménage au trois, that made me feel worse for the poor SOB's at Internal Affairs that have to review camera footage than I do most NYC first responders. One cracked and resigned from optical exhaustion, no lie.

     Bethany's tenure was brief at Northpoint, as she was cuffed incessantly, then shipped in result. I don't care for folks whose focus is sexuality to the point of making it mundane, predatory, or ridiculous, but her I found charming: blame a complete ignorance or denial of self. Only a damned dog could be so self-unaware. This person didn't give two ripe farts if you were Brad Pitt, King Charles, the plumber, or a toothless slob from Meth Holler, she was going to tell you something worth hearing that was attractive about you, then die trying to get you into the bathroom with your pants down. Her blow-job pitch made me think that post-incarceration the aluminum siding industry should scout this lady-man. In possession of a work ethic I couldn't bring myself to hate on, that person was 1000%. I wasn't going in, but understood why those horny dogs (including one butthole partner I needed to have my brain inspected over to begin with - "Ace", as one astute staff member pointed out, sometimes it doesn't beat all, and deuce takes it - sums this winner to a "T") kept doing it. Key was an hypnotic, soothing voice that even though (s)he looked like pure-D drag-strip trash - a weird and fat little man with long, womanly hair and a recognizably sick aura, still there was comfort like dusty canned generic chicken soup from a country store in a ghost town you might say "oh, fuck it" and risk botulism for.

     All members of the trio went to the hole over their sex-fest, and apparently Bree and Beth exited solitary as bitter enemies. Whiskey fell by the wayside, back to his molesting wheelhouse. I voiced contempt for a gross relationship where an older dude kept a younger one drunk and doped up, screwing him constantly and visibly like some pathetic trophy with Whisky's response being "Men don't know how to treat their babies anymore". I detested this old skid-mark. Despite my desire to someday see rehabilitation found for the likes of him (I'd like to use my Sociology degree to advance causes related to sex offender reform and proactive means for their prey to stop cycles of victimization and incarceration), fervently unrepentant predators I could give a shit about the happiness or health of. To Hell with him, and I pray he never walks the streets with innocents again. Should an enraged convict stomp strawberry jam out of his skull, tough shit. His younger kin shouldn't ever know him. The first bunky I ever bonded with, Bailey, told me I'd meet people that would deserve the worst and bring it out in me. Sister, that hometown queer pegged it.

     Brianna and I wound up in the same wing shortly after the sex-capades. We'd never actually interfaced, but knew each other as yard figures. At this point, I was in on A-side, and was like a maternal/paternal figure in my wing. Bree immediately made herself an unpaid domestic, getting up early every morning, when she'd undergo an aggressive cleaning campaign of the wing from end to end. The ungrateful posse of Young Ass Punks looked through her as if she was a shit window. I was furious, but unsurprised. I took to giving her a shot of coffee starting her morning daily, and when available a cookie, Pop-Tart (no oral necessary), or other pastry. She deserved something hell-fire, she was at it until the hulking, grey-haired, and sexually dysphoric matron passed out from exhaustion daily. The sweet/drink combo made her day. Giving me a warm hug, and telling me often how much she loved her Sissy gave further rise to the phenomenon I mentioned earlier, where we perceive another gender in others to fill the void. It can be akin to the scenario where the abyss gazes into us as we view it Brianna was asea in sexual morphism, and took me along, like I was her big sister in this multiversal version shed crafted and placed us in. Funny thing, I felt natural there, without reaction to correct or change a thing. This was Bree's world, and I was riding shotgun.

     Crum was in the wing across the foyer, and we'd stand at the crash gates and have our back and forth. Sending things like food, notes, and books to one another, which was illegal, involved throwing and catching objects between the bars, and rescuing them off the floors before getting busted. Equally irritating and frustrating, until Brianna made it her mission to keep our relationship solvent by getting things to and fro for us with Godspeed, and so she did, also bringing me jars of butter every week from the chow hall to cook with, because she knew I needed it to fix dinner for myself and the man nightly, too. Came a point when I realized Bree would probably take a bullet for me. Built like a linebacker, she was my 'guard dawg'. Simple kindness to someone everyone else kicked created one of the most hardcore allies I'd ever had. I loved her, too. I didn't hang out with her though. That relationship worked as it was, for what it was. Unfortunately, it didn't last. Brianna was shipped on the heels of running into the hole on the accusation of ratting on a hooch-making outfit. I have no idea if she did it or not, but I didn't want to believe it, naturally.

      Bree was discarded by my bunky Amir, a three foot tall Nigerian adoptee with the body of a cologne model (Quick anecdote - once I boiled some eggs and gave him one. I asked if he wanted me to devil his, and he looked at me with horrified wide eyes and repeated "devil??" like I was honestly trying to put a voodoo charm on his food. Crum about pissed himself over that one) who after a long dry spell I had to deny the advances of to not upset Bree (he was so tiny and his penis so big, you could clothe the dick and zip him inside the britches - my friend Millard Hillard - given name I swear, saw him and Brianna in coitus, and said it looked like he was having to pole vault to the target). He wound up dumping her over the ratting allegations, then going for TAMMY after I turned him down. That's like telling Manson he's all wrong, getting rejected by some quiet IT guy, then opting for Hitler. He was obvious with his and Baloney Top's relationship, causing the Muslim community he must have forgotten he was a member of great upset. Never mind they don't play that gay shit, but to pick the WORST piece on the yard to boot? Cross-hairs were drawn, and in short time (pun intended), Amir staged a fight with a Corrections sergeant, ended up on the business end of a taser in the chow hall, then shipped to another facility. Hopefully he and his penis both went to the same prison.

     Divining for that disproportionately humongous shlong of Amir's, Tammy ran afoul of me the first and only time. I was on the bullpen for dorms 1 and 2, when Tennessee, the runner for the Unit Administrator, came over and asked me if I agreed to a bed swap. Turns out Tammy had asked for my real name and inmate ID # so she could fill out a move with the claim I'd given the go-ahead to switch out with her. Upon relay, I dizzied from the world spinning. Ten minutes later, Crum and I were sitting at a table when out comes Good Hair, and my partner pulls his "let your man handle this" horseshit, asking if she put in a bed-move. Before an answer was fully proctored, a tornado of me streaked across the pavement, and everyone on the yard with ears became keenly aware that I didn't have a sex case, was imprisoned for stabbing a person, could have lost the bed across the way from my partner, various financial interests would have been disturbed by this un-arranged and unwanted move, and this dumb bitch better get her ugly ass back inside and never let me see them on the bullpen again unless she wanted her head stomped like a goddamned grape, as I gave chase and in the door she hied. This is the worst I'd publicly lost my cool since incarceration, and likely my biggest fanfare moment to boot. Not since taking The Moth storytelling stage (and winning) in Louisville back in 2012 did I garner that level of applause. I was balanced between red rage, embarrassment, and deep satisfaction over my Springer event. Not a week passed, and Tammy approached me in the foyer with two uniformed Internal Affairs agents standing behind her, telling me I owed her an apology. I could've bowed to the audacity.

     Less than two months passed and Good Hair moved into the same wing with me, directly across the aisle, in fact. During 3 pm count, the officer passed, and I broke into clearly audible public speaking mode to my bunky - "When it gets to the point that you contribute nothing but sucking oxygen, dicks, and taxpayer funds, seems like you'd start to ask what to do to give back, as you serve no purpose other than being a walking Kleenex fossil, which this place has easily a hundred of. I mean, its clear that you're dumb, ugly, and unwanted, there's really only one fucking route you can take to boost community morale: kill yourself. No one would be disturbed over the suicide of a rat. In fact, your gift would be a party this yard would throw to celebrate you removing your worthlessness from our ecosystem. For once, do the right thing and terminate your life, you waste of energy. Give us a cause to celebrate for once, shit-bag." Laughs, claps, and gasps burst around the room. After the counting official split, I walked over to Tammy and asked if she needed a cup of coffee. Gratefully, she accepted. I doubt her fried head even registered my speech or if so, that it was aimed at her. I peered into those eyes for the first time and saw nothing alive looking back. Whatever was there got exterminated way before I made the scene. Did awful inmates do this? Maybe. A grownup when this person was tiny, setting them on the path to being a prison bitch before entering kindergarten? Could be. None of the above, but mouthfuls of psychotropics to numb malice lobbed at everybody by a born sociopath? Sure, why not. I think about the partners I've aligned with since coming in, and how almost all of them have been viciously corrupt. Did Tammys do this? All of the above? What I do know is, once I peered into her soul, my hate was obliterated, further vacated after saying to go kill herself ergo the coffee. Love thy neighbor time.

     My friend Veto, a spicy New York Italian, was being terrorized by Tammy later, who relentlessly pursued him when they cohabited a wing. He came to me, unsure of how to handle it. I simply walked to the poor thing, pointed to Veto, and told her he was one of mine. She practically flinched, apologized profusely, swore it wouldn't happen again, and left him alone. She'd wave and smile, that being us on the daily until her release not long after. I kept wondering what fool would allow an institutionalized disaster like Tam out on Americas streets on parole, but I see now that was so they could keep sights to toss the serial predator back in, rather than allowing a serve-out scenario. Her liberation lasted no time. Arriving at Luther Luckett, a guard watched while Good Hair got used for a punching bag after years of tattling and whoring. According to an eyewitness, bloodshed was massive.

     What place in society is there for the likes of Baloney Top, Brianna, Bethany, or Whisky? Ill lie here a while and feel that son of a bitch I want to serve to that hungry bear wash over me while it feels too good to quit, glutton for punishment I am sometimes, then figure out what's to be done with the rest of those rejects.

     

     A woman's work is never done, y'know?

      

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