CLACK CLACK, CLACK CLACK

Officer Parker kept her word so the section is open.

After I’m clean and feeling refreshed, JJ and I play cards with Bones and Los. We win enough games to win back one of my milks and both my cakes. More importantly though, I have a good time laughing at the table. Jokes and shit-talk make up 90% of what comes out of everyone’s mouth while playing, so I feel right at home. Should it worry me that I’m starting to fit in with criminals?

I receive an odd sense of sympathy from the other guys as they hear my story. Some of these old-timers have done as much time behind bars as I’ve been alive, and to them I’m just starting my new depressing life in the system.

After many games of spades, JJ has to make a phone call. I’m pumped up from the excitement of actually enjoying myself for the first time in a long while, so I want to keep socializing. There’s a group over at the TV standing around watching the last inning of game 6 of the World Series, so I walk over and sit down next to a stranger.

“What up?” I say with an up-nod of my head. “How long’s it been tied for?” I’m trying to reach into my brain for the rules of baseball.

“The Cubs just scored in the last inning to tie it up. It’s the bottom of the ninth now and Cleveland’s trying to stay alive to force a game seven.”

It seems like he’s telling me this as a way to manifest its reality. In the interest of making another friend and risking absolutely nothing, I decide to suddenly have a preference for who wins.

“I’m hoping Cleveland takes it, man. I have a friend in Ohio who’s a huge fan,” I tell him the half-truth.

“Oh yeah? What part of Ohio?” he asks.

“I can’t remember exactly where, but we met when I was backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail for three months. I started off alone but we ran into each other about a month in and he started teaching me guitar. We traveled together the rest of the time I was out there.”

It goes down like a smoothie. My P.C.T. stories are like conversation ammunition when I meet anyone for the first time.

Number one, I get genuinely excited when I talk about it, and when I get excited, my energy is contagious.

Number two, it makes people genuinely interested in me, which makes them more likely to share something interesting about themselves.

The conversation just has so much more flavor when both people are engaged with genuine interest.

“Wow, you spent three months out there? What did you eat, like berries and stuff?”

“Haha, no, it wasn’t like that. It’s a pretty popular trail and there are places to resupply every few days. I used to think I was getting scammed paying fifty cents a noodle until I came here. I mean, a dollar for a noodle?”

“Oh I know. It’s criminals in charge of criminals. But what can you do?”

I like his nonchalant attitude, and he speaks more clearly than most of the other inmates I’ve met so far.

“Well, the—”

“Okay guys, it’s time to wrap it up and head to your cells,” Officer Parker says to our group at the TV.

“Ah, come on, CO, it’s the last inning,” someone pleads.

“I don’t know what that means! Baseball is the most boring sport I don’t see how y’all enjoy watchin’ it. How much longer’s it’s got left?”

“Well, it’s tied. Probably won’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes,” the same guy replies.

“Okay, you’ve got until 9:15 which is about fifteen minutes,” she says, looking at the clock.

“How about 9:25?” someone else asks.

“How about 9:10?” she retorts, taking five minutes off her offer.

“No, no, no!” about six people say at the same time.

We all go back to what we’re doing. Most people weren’t actually watching the game, but there’s a shared sense of dread about going back into the tiny 8x10 we just spent the whole day in.

“Anyways.” I turn back to my new acquaintance. “I just learned spades earlier, do you play?”

“Cards aren’t really my thing. I’m more of a chess player.”

“Get out of here!” I say excitedly. “Chess is my game! I didn’t think anyone here played.”

I realize what a stupid thing I just said, because he raises his eyebrow at me.

“I mean, I just haven’t seen anyone play, so I thought it was like getting a sweatshirt.”

“You ain’t from around here, boy, are ya?” he says in an ol’ Western accent and chuckles. “No, yeah, they have a chess board.”

“Hell yeah, man, I literally love chess. I’m Knight, by the way,” I say, holding out my hand.

“Your name’s Knight? I wonder what your favorite chess piece is,” he says, shaking my hand while cracking his dad joke. “I’m Dan.”

“Good to meet you, Dan.”

“Good to meet you too.”

We turn back to the tube and watch Chicago win the World Series.

CLACK CLACK, CLACK CLACK

“Top tier!” a short yet very buff guard barks at a sleepy section.

I watch inmates from the top tier shuffle along in line to get their food. This copper is over-the-top intense as he thrusts his meaty sausage hand into the bucket of spoons like he’s trying to catch a fish.

He’s a walking steroid. Veins burst from what used to be a neck, and you can feel the tension and rage just waiting to explode. I notice he’s wearing a ring, and I picture how miserable life must be for his spouse, being married to such a buffoon. “You got red potatoes!? I told you yellow potatoes! IS IT SO HARD TO FOLLOW FUCKING ORDERS!?” *Throws half-empty beer at the wall.

I sit down in my cell with my tray and look at this bullshit breakfast. Lukewarm scalloped potato slices with zero seasoning, some fruit from a can that’s been sitting in preservatives for months, maybe years, a small portion of corn flakes, and a little carton of milk (no passing milks when Officer Blood Pressure is watching).

After shoveling the “food” down my throat, I put my tray back on the cart, my spoon on my cup port, hop back into bed, and eventually drift off.

CLACK CLACK, CLACK CLACK

I’ve been awake for the past hour, but I keep my eyes closed and pretend to be asleep. I do it so no one bothers me.

It’s hard transitioning into consciousness. I hate everything and everyone around me. I want to go back to the adventures in my sleep. But it’s lunchtime now so I gotta get up.

I sit up, rubbing cognition into my still-sleepy eyes. Looking out into the pod, I see the section door open and a trustee bring in the food cart. Officer Steroid counts spoons like he used to count ammunition in the Marines.

“Dude, how can you sleep that long?” JJ asks.

I shrug. “The pills are strong, I guess.”

Clack Clack

Lunchtime came and went. Now it’s time for daily house cleaning. Cell doors open two at a time on top tier and two at a time on bottom tier. My celly’s done a lot of time and knows the best way to clean. We take the spray bottle and spray every surface in the cell: the metal toilet and metal sink connected to it, the metal corner table and metal stool, and the gray concrete floor. We wipe the table, then the sink, then the toilet. Last, we grab a grip of paper towels and wipe down the floor by hand instead of using the mop, or “Hep stick” as JJ calls it (short for hepatitis stick). Cleaning the cell makes me wonder about the kinds of bacterial colonies that have grown resistant to the weak spray and are thriving under the microscope.