“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
― George Carlin

One of the pleasures of calling home when you’re stuck a few miles from the Canadian border in a New York State prison — especially being there for providing new housing for immigrants that the Hamptons politicians would have preferred live in the woods — is making a phone call. Not only was there a line but it was complicated by being operated by gang members. NOT waiting your turn could get you killed or badly beaten. Here’s an outake from my memoirs about waiting to call home while in a Residential Treatment program in prison which I took to be able to write about.

______________________________________________________________

February  17th, 2015

I’d gotten in last night from the Law Library where games were on the rise. One of the phones was apparently available but currently, Sha, was the Maitre D’ of the phone list. I came  in and asked him who was on the list. Phone etiquette in prison is, basically, fucked. While there IS a protocol, it just depends upon who’s on the list. For the most part, everyone in ASAT is looking to finish the program so the usual, possible problems are subdued. The Bloods had tried  to take over the phones in my last dorm but most of them went to the Box and I’d had an easy time making a call. 

The ASAT dorm was full of guys who never shut the fuck up. One of them was Moussa, the fat guy from Guinea who was in the next cube to me. But, he’d just gotten a ticket and was going to be moved out of his cube and was also cube-confined and was not permitted to use the phone.

When I came in, Sha said there were three guys ahead of me and then, suddenly, he said, “Listen, ahm gonna’ be two clicks, gahead an’ take it if’ya only gonna beonit fa’a click.” I said I’d only be on it for about 15 minutes and he pointed to the phone booth where one guy was talking but said the empty one was okay. So, I thanked him and walked quickly over to the empty phone booth.

There was a white sock covering the receiver and it was hung up. 

There was also a  chair in the booth and a towel hanging over it. It was the booth that Brown used, one of the assistant-coordinators, a job title that elevated people with a 5th grade education to a level of importance that was equal to a porter in a Mall that closed a year ago. In this case, Brown was a 20’s-something black kid with 3 front teeth, a smile that Napoleon’s girlfriend learned to subdue to cover her rotted teeth that he should have been urged to emulate, and an I.Q. that even George H.W. Bush would look down upon. In fact, he was dangerously stupid. I’m on the phone talking to my son, who is 10 years old and this 5’5” tall mental midget comes up to the booth, opens the door and says, “Dincha see the sock ona phone?”

“Well, no, I just thought the receiver was growing spores from the ignorant, dirty, hepatitis-riddled clowns like you who just push into the middle of conversations.”

But, I didn’t say that. He was a Blood.

Fortunately. I hung up the phone on my child and turned to him and said, simply, “Sha told me this phone was free. Here, take it.” And, got up from the chair and walked out. He then took the phone and cleansed the receiver, you know, the phone piece that had been handled by 30 or 40 others after scratching their balls, their asses, spit on it, wiped urine from their hands after taking a piss, and slobbered on it with numerous other unknown diseases. 

I mean, if they’d blow their noses into the sink next to you while you were brushing your teeth, as they did, what would they do to a phone receiver?

All things, however, have consequences in prison. Brown routinely stayed on the phone for 1, 2, or 3 clicks, a click being the amount of time before the company that raped the consumers but were the only monopoly in town allowed, before disconnecting you. It was usually about 25 minutes before you were disconnected and had to call again to continue the conversation.

In this case, the consequences could have been severe for someone who, unlike myself, would take umbrage that a little ignorant shit threw me off the phone.

“He’s a Blood,” said Sal, who, himself was essentially hiding out from having run over and killed a MS-13 gang member, “the last thing you want is one of them coming down on you. It’s like killing a bee.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Well, even if you DID get rid of one of them, like punch him out, you’d have twenty of them descend upon you. They’re like killer flies. And, you’re the shit.”

“I see.” I said, seeing the elegantly described wisdom of NOT getting into an argument with a cretin.

I decided to make the call later.

Then Danger came up to me after my mini-education about the current phone etiquette and remaining alive in the process.

I’m leavin’ in two weeks,” said Danger, my future Foreign Legion contact.

“No shit?” I said, where’re you going?”

“Well, see, immigration cain’ pick me up, so’s I’m gonna’ get ma fadda to pick me up. An’ den we gonna skip ta Boston and fro’ der to Mexico.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “what about Parole?” 

“Fuck Parole, I’m gettin’ outta town.”

“How you going to do that?”

“I’m gonna hire private security an’ gota Mexico.”

“Private security? What do you mean? Someone to drive you to Mexico?”

“Yeah,” he said, wearing his Rasta hat over his dreds and corn rows, depending upon the day, and stroking his goatee. “dey cost aboud $3000.”

“You’re gonna’ pay someone to drive you to Mexico from Boston for $3000?” I looked at him with more than a little disbelief.

“Yeah,” he said, “dey doit alla time. An’ ‘en I’m jus’ gonna hop a plane ta France.”

“You ever think about just finishing Parole or moving to the Dominican Republic before joining the Foreign Legion?” I said, figuring he was going to be picked up long before  he got anywhere near Mexico. All of this, of course, was part of the grade B movie that turns out bad – which I was living in.

“Nah,” he said, “dis’s more fun,” he laughed. 

Danger would be back.

Copyright 2024: The Snake Pit