Contributors Anderson
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Steve Smith DEAR OCCUPANTS, ACCIDENTS AND OCCIDENTALS Just yesterday it was yesterday Confuse not mercy with weakness Only certain curtains can be drawn Do I worship the moon or sun
BACK IN BLACK IN WHITE FILM NOIR I once thought I was the good guy, the hero in white. But in truth few of us are heroes, and black is more wearable than white. White shows the soul’s stain. My first six months in jail I was in the tiers. A tier was five two man cells and a shower all enclosed in bars. Each night we'd be locked in our cell, each morning let out to wander the 10 by 50 foot communal area. Our tier had Ringo. He said they couldn’t get him for murder because the dude he beat to death was still alive when he walked away. Ringo was big, black, brutal - and he did not like me. Not because I was white, but because I wouldn’t get out of his way when he walked. He walked all day in this continuous oval, with a short detour each loop around me. He was working towards hurting me and said so. He scared the shit out of me – but I scared me more because I couldn’t give in. When I’m that afraid, I seem to go out of my way to piss off what I’m afraid of even more – and what I was afraid of was a bigger, stronger, faster, meaner, proven fatal fighter. I did not feel good. Then the odd backhand of salvation. I smuggled one too many letters out of prison. Unfortunately this letter described a psycho sicko guard’s brutality. The warden called me down. Showed me the letter. Said smuggling is 18 months. Wondered if I had anything to say about my charges against the guard (who of course like everyone else in jail on both sides of the bars had a cliche name... he was Sarge, the 400 pound guard was Tiny, the undercover narc was Speed). I told the Warden what I’d said was true and I hadn't even scratched the surface of his mean spiritedness or verbal and physical abuse of visiting wives. He told Sarge to return me to my cell and for me to think about the 18 months, that we’d finish tomorrow. I go to my cage and worry. I worry about tomorrow. I worry about Sarge's retaliation. I worry about 18 more months. I worry about my wife who’s sleeping with an ex-con who’s not me. And I really worry about Ringo. The next day the warden casually tells me I’m moving downstairs to the dorm where he’s making me head cook. No mention of the letter or Sarge or the 18 months. The one thing every prisoner wanted was a job that got you to the dorm with its one locked gate plus radio, TV, eating what you wanted when you wanted where you wanted. And of all the jobs, the cockerel’s walk was cook. Switching from such certain sorrow to unwarranted wealth in but a breath fucks with your mind, sends far too many threads in way too many directions, yet instantly I flash in relief - RELEASE FROM RINGO. That for this tat for tit. One of the dorm trustees ratted Ringo, who in punishment was in a locked cell in a locked tier 3 floors above. We're sitting around watching TV, and in he walks - taller, stronger, larger than any of us. The rat was maybe Woody Allen’s size and build. Ringo walks up to him and says "you ratted me out." Rat says no. Ringo repeats "you ratted me out." (He really did rat Ringo and we all knew it + he’s the one who ratted my letter). Rat tries to explain but Ringo hits him hard, knocking him to the concrete floor, then stomps 5 times on his head with his work boot; each stomp Rat's head bangs against the concrete and bounces up to meet the down coming boot which smacks his head even harder into the concrete as Ringo says (one word per stomp): “you. . shouldn’t. . have. . done. . that.” None of us moved or spoke the entire time. When he was done, Ringo looked at us to see if he had a problem, decided he didn’t, turned and left. We thought him dead, but rat got up and started stemming blood, his head swelled thrice its size. That’s when I knew I was not the me I thought was me, the me I needed to be. It's not my only lesson, but it is the one that worked. Had I said or done something, two things could have happened: 1) I’d be dead or broken. 2) The others would have rallied and we’d have stopped him. But had that second happy Hollywood scene happened, at some time at some place Ringo would have found me and hurt me. A lot. I know now I did the right thing, for me, but it did cost me my mirror mirror on the wall who's the hero here of all reflection. Love the can do. Hate the do do. ALMOST PERSUADED I’ve been told too many truths for justice
I crow denial thrice GODS The gods died.
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