17
Prison Daze
“Got your hand’s bound, and your head down,
And your eyes closed, you look so precious now.
I have found some kind of temporary sanity in this
Shit, blood and cum on my hands. I’ve come round full circle.
From the song “Prison Sex” by “Tool”…Maynard James Keenan.
Hey Rookie, don’t forget to lock up your weapon in the drawer!
In the drawer? (What good’s it gonna do me in there?)
Yeah, you want one of these scumbags to grab it and cap your ass?
(They wouldn’t do that would they?) Nah definitely wouldn’t want that.
Let’s go! Everybody! Warden said every swingin’ dick wearin’ a badge get up there quick!
You want me to come too? (Surely not, it’s my first day; my shift doesn’t start till 3:00. I’ll just hangout here at the desk.)
Yeah! Let’s go sunshine! Get your ass in here, Deputy…umm, Danzig! We might need some extra meat!
Okay. What’s going on anyway? (What if this elevator gets stuck? Holy shit! Breathe! Relax!)
Hurry! Third floor! Fuckin’ “Caveman’s” out again!
Who’s “caveman?”
Crazy fucker that killed his Grandma with a sledgehammer!
(HUH?) Gulp!
Which one of you “ass clowns” want him this time?
Not me. I almost broke my fist on that son-of-a-bitch last week!
Fuck that! I ain’t tackling that crazy fucker unless I got to!
(Well sounds like some poor bastard’s gonna have to deal with him! Glad it ain’t this “ass clown!” Just keep looking down. La-da-DEE, La-da-dah. Don’t make eye contact with anybody, just blend in. I bet my blood pressure’s high as a cat’s back! Wonder why they’re eyeballin’ me? Hey wait a minute!)
(OH SHIT! WAIT A MINUTE! NO, HE’S NOT GONNA, No, no, no…NOOOOO! HE IS! OH NO, NOOOO, PLEASE GOD HEEELLLP MEEEE! Church bell rings, accompanied by thunder, rain, gloomy distortion and Iommi’s three chord riff from hell with Geezer’s stained glass shattering lows…)
Let’s give him to the new man!
Yeah! Let Danzig have him!
How bout it Deputy Danzig, You want him? (Shit, Shit, Shit! I gotta get outta here NOW!)
YOU WANT HIM MAN HUH? YOU WANT SOME? WHOOOWWW! YEAH! LET’S KICK SOME ASS MEN!
We gonna check ya fuzz Deputy Danzig, see if ya got any!
(OH MY GOD, WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE?! Are they for real? Maybe it’s just a hazing type initiation or something. They gotta be joking. Powers probably put them up to this!)
Elevator doors slowly slide open to sounds of screaming and total chaos. Heart racing one thousand mph. Panic, anxiety, fear, apprehension, all gripping me like a giant boa constrictor. Screams reach bloodcurdling level around the corner. Trembling and labored breathing hopefully not noticed by the “goon-squad.”
“WHA TIS THIS THAT STANDS BEEE-FORE ME?”
Naked bad-guy to my right pursued by good-guys, approaching fast, something brown on skin, penis dangling to MID THIGH LEVEL, SWEET LORD IN HEAVEN!…NAKED BAD-GUY WITH… DICK THAT RESEMBLES A STICK OF BOLOGNA AND WHAT APPEARS TO BE POOP SMEARED ON CHEST SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER APPROACHING FAST! I CAN’T DO THIS! OH SHIT! IT IS SHITTT!
Instincts somehow take over.
“COULD THIS BE THE END MY FRIEND? CAVEMAN’S COMING ROUND THE BEND!”
(Okay head up, tail down. Stay low. Good form tackle the way Coach Joe taught us in high school! Make crazy grunting noise the way Coach Mac said to startle and intimidate your opponent! Drive him into the ground, allow his body to absorb the impact. Now sprawl and apply the “Power’s Sleeper Hold.” Spread feet wider and crank up hard on the neck. Do not let go no matter what! Hold on till the Calvary arrives! Can’t stay on top much longer! It’s okay when he flips me over just wrap legs around his midsection and keep choking! Is one of these “good guys” gonna help or what? This son-of-a-bitch is crazy! He’s not going out! Where’s my damn backup? Hold on, he’s almost done. Okay he’s out! He’s done. Let go. It’s over… it’s over. I think I’m okay. Thank God, it’s over.)
The Sergeant in charge of dayshift (A big sloppy fellow nicknamed “Snapshot.”) was hysterically high fiving his fellow officers as I collapsed onto the cement floor from exhaustion and nerves.
Nice job Officer Danzig! You get the honors Rookie! I told ya’ll we should’ a got this sombitch on our shift!
(Honors, I’m just happy to be still breathing.)
What honor is that?
You get to drag that fucker to the hole!
(Apparently this was some kind of ritual to illustrate dominance and make a name for oneself among the inmate population as an officer who did not take any shit. Not even from murderers named Caveman with dicks like summer sausages who rub doo-doo on their torsos like “Panama Jack” tanning oil.)
It may have appeared that I didn’t take shit, but I had shit smeared all over my perfectly starched and creased uniform. This had been a major confrontation to me and drama of any sort was something that I avoided like the plague.
To every other Officer in the department this was just a day in the life of a thrill seeking adrenalin junkie looking to add another feather in their Police caps. And at which time you brandished enough feathers, you may be considered as a candidate for the one sacred duty every jailer dreamed of being assigned to; a Patrol Officer with his own squad car. I knew damn well that this environment was not conducive for my living life with any sense of normalcy. Plus I had zero burning desire to attain the rank of Patrolman, and despised the idea of harassing people and writing tickets. My first shift hadn’t even started and I was ready to retire my
badge, gun (that I had to keep locked up anyway) and shit stained uniform. But of course I was all out of career options and a fool in love will do crazy things!
So I grabbed a wooly ankle and drug “Caveman” like a hunter drags a dead deer on the smooth polished gray floors towards the hole. Finding the hole was easy; just follow the most sickening smell you could ever imagine. It would guide you straight to the dank every time.
I felt somewhat like “Teddy Roosevelt” after bagging a cape buffalo on an African safari. I was waiting for the jailhouse photographer to appear and instruct me to place a foot on my trophy and pose for a commemorative photo. Cell 3North was buzzing about the new deputy who had performed such an act of bravery.
Hey Officer! Yo, Mr. POE-leece. You look like Clark Kent with those glasses! Yeah, it’s Superman! Superman put “Caveman” to sleep! He don’t play dude! Superman’s a bad dude! Hey “Soup” let me holla at’cha real quick man! “Soup!” Deputy, com’eer sir. That’s “Soup”mutha fucka, and he don’t play! Soup’ll put yo ass ta sleep up in this mug!
So it was from that day forward, that I would be known as “Soup” by each and every inmate in the jail.
And “Soup” didn’t play, which was a good thing, because Daxx (Soup’s alter ego) was lost in his guise of “super cop” which attached itself like a leech beneath the pretext of bravissimo and pit bull spunk. I now carried a reputation.
At 1430 hours the “Legion of Doom” arrived at the jail in all their splendor. I was allowed to go home for a much needed fumigation and change of uniform. My brain was anxious and fretful of what the future had in store for me being associated with this fanatical band of “merry men.”
Part of me relished in the valor and prestige of adorning the silver star, but the reality of knowing without a shadow of doubt that I was not cut out for this madness was apparent as well. Upon my return one would have thought I grabbed the “immaculate reception” from Bradshaw to defeat the Raiders.
The members of the Doom Squad were beside themselves. I had attended pep rallies at USM football games that weren’t as hyped and filled with exhilaration. The “Motley Crue” made up of Sergeant Powers, myself, and three other rhapsodized desperados met for roll call and a pre-shift briefing.
There was Vickers who was without a doubt the scariest dude I had ever met in my life. His eyes told me instantly that he was more psychotic than any convict who had ever graced this musty hell hole. He puffed on a big Cuban cigar and wore a cowboy hat with a rattle snake head mounted on the brim. The thin line separating insanity from genius was slightly frazzled, possibly even severed as I recall many of his antics.
He had arrived at the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department via the Natchez Police where he was a Patrol Officer.
Vickers was no stranger to the snap on his weapon holster as he had little problem drawing and firing his stainless Smith & Wesson at a perceived crook (or varmint, I heard he had killed every opossum, squirrel, armadillo and coon in the Natchez Trace!). He was rumored to be dismissed from the Natchez Police Department for firing eighteen shots at an unarmed suspect that fled the scene of a vehicular accident.
Vickers was deceptively strong and somehow appeared to seemingly grow at will. When he was just “everyday Vickers” he stood about 6’ tall and weighed in at around 220lbs. But let a situation arise where there was the slightest chance of physical combat or an altercation may ensue, and I swear he morphed into “Werewolf Vickers” who looked every bit of 6’4’’ and 250lbs. Not to mention the fact that pain had no affect on him whatsoever. He was just one of those guys you wanted in the foxhole, the battlefield or dark alley and especially in a cell with you if and when things got hairy (and they always did).
Next there was a Deputy known simply as “The German.” He was the spiting image of the actor Rutger Hauer who played the villain in the movie Nighthawks. To be more accurate, he was what Hauer would have looked like had he been injected with massive doses of anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, Winstrol and Dianabol. He was a competitive body-builder and power lifter with a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice from USM.
In his mind those credentials were more than worthy to justify an immediate ascension through the ranks of the Investigations Division, bypassing the jail, patrol and all other lowly assignments. He would carry a bit of resentment towards the “brass” that made the bullshit decision to place him in this demeaning and lowly cesspool of corruption known as the Gulfport Jail. He was a nonconformist who would slit the throat of establishment every chance he got, when he wasn’t banging hot cheerleaders from college, studying Hitler or benching 400lbs that is.
A disgruntled guy on juice with a chip on his shoulder is a lethal enough mix, but when you also throw in that he was a Nazi sympathizer who exhibited episodes of “roid rage” and disdain for inmates who weren’t of true Aryan descent (which the jail happened to be full of!) he was a ticking time bomb.
I would later discover that much like myself he was burdened with his own mental demons, but managed to conceal them well, as I did.
German had a pre-shift ritual of woofing down boiled egg whites and raw garlic cloves which made for quite the interesting odor that perpetually exuded from his person throughout each shift. That aroma, combined with another distinct smell from some sort of menthol cream like “Ben-Gay” (except fifty times more powerful and pungent) that he massaged into his joints was keenly overwhelming. The German’s physique was near perfect with pleasing elongated muscles packed onto his 6’ and 195lb frame.
Rounding out the immortal five was the ever dangerous and controversial Fred Redding. He was known as “Rambo” by the inmates and convicts across the coast. He was assigned to the jail as punishment for yet another excessive force violation received while on patrol. His vigilante style of a “law dog” from the old west made him expendable but a calculated risk the Department was willing to take.
Society needed Redding out there chasing criminals as a modern day Wyatt Earp and the Sheriff knew it. Having Fred confined to the jail when there were bad guys on the streets raping, robbing, and killing was like playing in a Super Bowl with Joe Montana healthy, but relegated to pacing the sidelines. It just didn’t make good sense, but rules and procedures must be followed I suppose.
Retting was fearless in the face of death and relished in the notoriety and prominence that go hand in hand with being tagged as “Rambo.” That embodiment would accompany him into any meeting or gathering of Law Enforcement personnel like a stamp on his forehead. Fred may have had a tendency to go overboard at times but as with Powers, Vickers, and German, you could count on him to be there no matter how dire the circumstance.
Fred was 5’10, probably 210lbs and not overly muscular, but solid as a brick wall. He was an expert marksman, handy with a PR24 Police Baton, proficient with basic martial arts, pressure point applications, and joint lock submission holds.
Every shift was kicked off with the sound of an instrumental Grand Opera playing the music from a scene in the movie Apocalypse Now, where a squadron of helicopters attacks a Vietnamese village. The song titled Ride of the Valkyries was from Act3 of Die Walkure written and composed by Richard Wagner. The German had
informed Powers that in World War 2 a group of Nazi tank soldiers had broadcast the song over their shortwave radios preempting an assault in the Battle of Memel (I believe it was). I later researched the German’s nostalgic compendium and found it to be an accurate depiction of events that transpired. A firsthand account of the entire scenario was later documented in a book entitled The Forgotten Soldier written in the late 1940’s.
The song’s triumphant melody would be forever attached to the valor and resolve of these German soldiers and the book would label it as “a fitting accompaniment to supreme sacrifice.”
Blasting from a bass heavy boom box, it prepped us to wage our own bloody battles inside the jail, where the odds of surviving eight hours made outmanned Nazi’s of us all.
I had about as much business being accepted into this shrouded brotherhood of daredevilry as Richard Simmons did into the Hell’s Angels. They could jump out of airplanes and I couldn’t get on one. Their days were spent rehearsing tactical maneuvers, practicing ambidextrous shooting from a prone position, and polishing Police gear. I shopped for Z.Cavaricci pants, Giorgio Brutini shoes, shaved my legs, wrote poetry and enjoyed smelling good. They repelled down bridges into the gulf wearing dive gear and I couldn’t drive across a bridge for fear of getting stuck on one. The only thing I had going for me was my reputation as “Soup” which was somewhat like being “The Fonz.” But eventually, even Arthur Fonzarelli has to remind the masses of who he is and why.
The Deputies and inmates had a saying for guards they observed to be passive or timid which went “That dude looks like Tarzan but fights like Jane!”
Now “Chachi” or “Ralph Malph” I could pull off, but playing the part of “The Fonz” would prove my most challenging role to date. This dark sitcom allowed no second takes and could go from hilarious to somber in the time it took for someone to thrust a makeshift spear into your spleen.
I was trapped in a nightmare episode; yet the pilot had only just begun.