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Chapter 15
I sat and waited, with my legs splayed wide. My mind did wander to Milton's famous line, "They also serve who only stand and wait ." Well, I did not have to stand, but I did have to display my crotch and little equipment under my boxers. "SHIT, they are looking in cells. Get up, you lazy asshole, and stand at attention. Not here--there, at the back of the cell!" I welcomed the chance to get out of the uncomfortable and demeaning position. I rose and stood as straight as possible, with my hands at my sides. I had never been in the military, but it was my best attempt at standing at attention. When military men do that, it's supposed to give them a sense of pride. When a convict does the same thing, it just makes him more of an object, an object in a fixed position, waiting for something to be done to it. Or maybe nothing, depending on the unpredictable whims of its correctional officer. When you picture what the officer sees, a convict at attention is still just a shapeless brown suit with a bald head sticking out of it, one more subhuman entity to be hauled, stored, and hauled again. When you picture what some accidental visitor might see, it would be something looking vaguely like a man, that might have been a man at some time in the distant past. But it wouldn't be worth thinking about. What this convict saw from the back of his cage was the beginning of another parade of chained convicts, entering his line of sight. "CELL B-22," one of the guards intoned. "Harris 114832. Cox 117213." "TO THE BARS ASSHOLES!" the other CO barked. My owner was already at the bars. I moved as quickly as I could around him to my own place, squeezed between the bars and the bunks. This was the penitentiary parade, all right. There were already four inmates with their hands secured behind them in a set of cuffs attached to a chain that locked them in line and spaced them about two feet apart. They were duplicates of the chains I had worn on my chauffeur-driven trip from the jail to this resort of shock and degradation, then boredom and subjugation. But which of us was going on a trip today? I hoped it was Harris 114832. Then I would still be in the cage, but I would be free of him. I hoped it wasn't Cox 117213. Cox did not want to go to some warehouse that might be even bigger, uglier, and tougher than this one. Cox had had enough of his fantasies of prison life. But it would be even worse if Cox and Harris went together. Cox couldn't stand to think about that possibility. He stood at the bars, his hairless pits suddenly dripping. "COX 117213. Your assignment's been made. Put your personals in the bag, and stand at the bars for attachment. Do it fast." Harris glared at me but moved aside. I worked hard to keep my face blank, but inwardly I was smiling--about him, anyway. I was going, but he was not going with me. I was being removed from the grip of a master who had already shown how completely he could degrade and own me, who had announced his intention of furthering my education into prison slavery tomorrow, when our tier went to the showers. New York, the familiar porter, appeared on the other side of the bars. He was holding a plastic bag in his hand, about the size that would fit into a small trash can, and he pushed it through the bars at me. "Good luck, man," he muttered; then he was gone. I hastily grabbed the little batch of items that the state had so thoughtfully provided for my maintenance as an incoming inmate. I thought of the shower shoes, and also a couple of things I had ordered with the $10 I had been generously given. As if to read my mind, the guard recited, with all the feelings of "This is a recorded announcement": "Any prison store purchases pending will be transferred to your receiving institution." I noted an upgrade in terminology. I was now on my way to an "institution," not just to a "prison." Of course the "your" didn't mean that the facility belonged to me; it meant that I now belonged to the facility. I didn't need long to finish the task of collecting my meager worldly possessions. When they were all in the bag, I moved forward and stood next to my former master. Now he was the one between the bunk and the bars, and I was the one waiting expectantly for the only mobile part of the cage to move aside and allow me to exit. He stepped aside with a sneer, but I knew he must be thinking, "Who's gonna replace the old queer? Some big dude who'll make me his bitch?" I hoped that would happen. But my happiness went away when I realized that although I had missed the worst option, being transferred with him, I had also missed the best one, staying in the same place. Now there was only one option left--I was going to "my (final) institution." Someplace, far beyond these walls, there was an institution waiting to "receive" me. My reservations had been made. I was expected. There was a room for me. My travel agents had arranged transportation. Soon I'd be touring a part of the country I had never had a chance to see before. All accommodations free. All expenses pre-arranged. I knew that institutions came in various sizes and shapes and "security grades," from minimum to super-max. Some of them were the kind of places that the newspapers called "country club prisons"--minimum-security facilities, where men had "college dorm-like housing, appropriate recreational facilities, education and job training programs," and many "privileges." Those were places for people like me--a completely non-violent offender, with no spots on his record--a college professor, in fact. Then I remembered: I wasn't that person anymore. I was somebody called Jim Cox. To be more explicit, I was Cox 117213. Cox 117213 might not get a chance at minimum security. He might be given a higher grade, in this case not a good thing. He might be sent to a facility that was something very different from a country club. I'd thought the word "penitentiary" before, but only because it alliterated with "parade." Now I got the picture in my mind. The penitentiary. The Pen. It wasn't a country club, and it wasn't pretty. It was what they called the Big House. It was the kind of place I had fantasized about, the kind of place that was to blame for my being here. In my dreams, that was where I'd wanted to go. Now it was the last place I ever wanted to see. I sneaked a look at Harris. Yeah, I would rather stay here, even if it was with him, than go to the Big House. And I remembered what I'd gathered from Stretch's remarks, but had tried to forget: it wasn't a good sign for the future, that I'd been put on Tier B, where they put most of the repeat offenders and the ones with big sentences. Was my placement on Tier B Jim's little joke? Or did it mean that he had no more influence to spend on me? In either case, was Tier B the staging ground for one of those prisons . . . the kind that you see in movies . . . the kind that I thought were exciting but I now wanted to forget even existed, because, by some chance, I could end up in one . . . ? I noticed I was sweating harder now. The good thing and the bad thing was, it wouldn't do me any good to worry. I was in no position to choose where I was going to live.
I was well-schooled enough to know, however, that I should be grasping my bag of possessions behind my back, so when they took me out and moved me to the next set of handcuffs, I could be cuffed and attached to the chain in only a few seconds. But keeping that bag in my hands wasn't easy, because now I was shaking with fear. I moved my hands behind my back, hoping that the sweat on them wouldn't make the slick, cheap plastic bag slide out of my grip. Out on the tier, the cons on the chain stood looking forward stolidly. No one made eye contact. Then the lead officer returned, leaned over the rail, and signaled to the desk below. The bars started moving--the officers were shifting their stance, getting ready to take me out. I had a sudden impulse to run to the back of the cell and squat and hide till they went away. But they wouldn't go away. It was me that was going away. My hands were roughly snatched and the cuffs locked on my wrists. I was now the fifth occupant of the long chain. Two more were added toward the end of our tier; then we trudged slowly to the bottom tier, and filled in our chain of ten. We were packed together, nuts to butts, as I'd heard Stretch say, but I really didn't pay much attention to my fellow chain gang inmates. This wasn't a moment for erotic thrills. I moved when ordered . Well, actually, I moved when "INMATE" stenciled in black on the broad brown back in front of me began to crease and twist, and I realized that the convict ahead had begun to move forward again. Twenty boots stomped on steel; twenty boots stomped on concrete; then 20 boots went silent, as the beast with 20 feet and 20 arms and 10 bald heads waited passively for one more door to be unlocked. Then the beast shuffled through the barrier, and the process began again. When we waited, we were like concrete blocks, lined up and sinking into their mortar: hard, silent, identical. When you wait like that, you don't expect any of the doors to actually open. Now, I realized, I was even more numb than scared. My intellectual curiosity, which was the most important part of my life as a scholar, when I'd had a life as a scholar, had been extinguished in less than a week in this environment of dull repetition and mind numbing supervision. Finally, when a door opened, I saw not another hallway but a large open room. There were ten inmates already there, standing like cows, linked together on another chain. That, I knew, was the way my chain gang looked as well. But this was the moment when we were released from the cuffs. Not that we were allowed to roam free, or that there was any place to roam. The room was big, square, and totally concrete. There were no windows. There was no furniture. The only ornament was a set of little numbered boxes painted on the floor. The only sound was the click of locks and the clank of chains on the floor. Then, as each of us was uncuffed, we were sorted into the boxes. "Next! Box 12! Next! Box 8! Next! Box 3! I said THREE, shit-head!" The young man in the brown uniform scurried to Box No. 3. "Next! Box 11! Next! Box 15!" I was the inmate ordered to Box 15. When all of us were standing in our little square boxes, an officer moved to the front of the group. He glared up and down the lines of brown suited men--20 inmates, sorted and boxed. Then he cleared his
throat and started to talk. Inside that concrete room, even talking turned into a loud steel clang. "Listen up, offenders. You have completed the processing phase of your incarceration and are listed for immediate shipment to the institutions designated for permanent confinement. Close security is in effect during all phases of inmate transfer. When you came through that door" (he nodded at the thick steel plug blocking one end of the room), "you entered a Stage 5 security zone. Anything shipped out of here is fully shaken down. If you got anything on you that you ain't supposed to have, we're gonna remove it now. Understood?" Nobody said anything. I guess we all understood. "All right. Glad we're all on the same page here. All offenders will now strip down, fold their browns, and leave the browns in front of them. Boots and socks will be placed on the right of the browns. Personals will be dumped out of the bag, onto the floor. Do it." All of us had been through enough to know that orders were to be obeyed immediately, so I immediately bent down, untied my shoes, pulled them off, stripped off my socks, and stuffed them inside the heavy leather. I removed my shirt and my white tee and took off my trousers. Then I paused and looked at the other convicts. They were already bare butt naked. So I finished stripping down and folded the last of my clothing in a pile. Trousers on the bottom, then the shirt, then the tee, then the boxers. This is how college professors spend their sabbaticals, I thought. Folding convict uniforms. But I wasn't a college professor. That was a delusion. I was a naked convict, squatting in a box beside 19 other naked, boxed up convicts. Finally I spilled my personals onto the floor, and rested the plastic bag neatly beside them. "ATTENTION" was the order when all of us had made ourselves naked, and had our little piles of clothing stacked as ordered, and our personals dumped out. Standing there naked, I wondered if I would ever get used to being naked in an open area, around other men. It's true, my little numbered box gave me some imaginary privacy--some freedom from sudden invasion--but everywhere I looked, when I dared to look, there were eyes looking back at me. Eyes of black men, white men, older men, younger men, but mostly younger men, younger and tougher, with much bigger dicks . . . . It was some relief that they all seemed to be dazed, or preoccupied with their own thoughts. Like me, they were thinking, "Where am I going? Where are they sending me? What will my new home be like? Why won't they let me out?" My thoughts were interrupted when four more officers came into the room, divided off in two's, and began their examination of each naked prisoner in front of them. Suddenly a pair appeared in front of me. They each snapped on plastic gloves. I was not an expert, but this had happened to me before. "Hands above your head!" I raised my hands. "Wiggle your fingers." I wiggled my fingers. "Grasp your wrists." Keeping my hands above my head I grasped my wrists. Other men's hands roved over my arms, and rubbed across my bald head. "Push your ears forward." I complied, and felt their fingers examining the backs of my ears and showing a flashlight inside my ear canal. "Arms straight out from your shoulders. Wiggle your fingers." I did both. "Open your mouth." I opened wide. My mouth was invaded first by flashlight, then by fingers that went over and around my teeth. I had to move my tongue up and down, then from side to side. "Close your mouth. Tilt your head back." The flashlight looked up my nose. The officer with the light must have found something fascinating, because he grabbed the edge of my left nostril and wiggled it, then stuck his finger up inside. I had to struggle to keep still. Then they progressed, with my arms still out straight, to rubbing down my chest and back. "Arms down. Bend over. Spread your cheeks," I was told in the same bored way that I had been given all the other orders. I knew this one was coming, but in some sense you are never really prepared to expose your asshole to inspection. I didn't know whether I was going to have to do knee bends, like I had seen in movies, or what. "Wider, asshole!" I suddenly had to concentrate, so as not to smile. Didn't this jackass realize that what he said could be interpreted as meaning he wanted me to push out my asshole to make it bigger? I somehow knew that smiling about having your butthole examined could bring me nothing but trouble, and I pulled my butt cheeks as far apart as nature would allow. I felt the rubber -clad finger examining my crack and going down across the perineum. Then it happened--a finger invaded my butthole and wiggled around, deep inside. I definitely had to concentrate. Yes, I had annual prostate exams, when I bent over the doctor's examination table, and he warned me that it was coming by saying "Pressure." This time, of course, I got the finger with no warning in front of it. With this done, the other guard came around and grabbed my penis. "Don't think he could anything much," he said, "with this little thing." The o ther guard, fresh from finger fucking my butt, came around to look. "Yup but you
never know. Make him open up the piss slit. Some of these tiny dicked guys don't think we'll expect to find anything hiding up that little thang." He grabbed my dick and forced the slit open, then he rubbed his plastic finger up and down the slit. I thought to myself, now I've been violated both back and front. I was recovering from having my piss slit violated when my balls were grabbed, rubbed, pulled, and smashed against each other. "I don't think this one's got anything dangerous in his little pea pods," the ball-smasher said. He was smirking, but I fought and kept my face and mouth from getting me into trouble. Finally, my legs were rubbed down and my feet were ordered up, the bottoms rubbed over by the same fingers that had been up my butt and playing with my piss slit. Then I was slapped on the butt and told to stand at attention, inside my box. The first officer was right--this was high security. I hadn't felt this violated even on that horrible day when I was first processed into this place. Now I had been intimately violated by two men, manipulating me while I was forced to endure it without a hint of complaint. Maybe I needed more than one lesson, but this strip search convinced me, as I had never been before, of my subhuman status. I was a convict . . . offender . . . inmate . . . something lower than the animals that people keep as pets. I thought to myself, Is it any wonder that men coming out of prison no longer know how to behave in society? Being treated more like an animal than a human would change any man. I wondered how much I might be changed, perhaps permanently, by my six-month sentence. Thank heavens it was only six months. I might still have some humanity left. One of my attending officers now rummaged through my personals, using his boot toe. Nothing was said, but I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking it myself: "This junk on the floor is all he has, and even this is all state property. Any street person has ten times more than this." "Box 15," he said. "Sack up your junk." "Yes sir," I said. Then I bent over like the hairless ape I had become and scooped my personals back into the little plastic bag. I waited quietly as the rest of our group received their exit inspection. A porter then appeared from the door, loaded to his chin with orange material. He was a good-looking young guy--doe eyes, red lips, clear complexion. But his face was topped by that hideous bald dome. I wondered what a young guy like that could have done, to merit being sent to a place like this. He couldn't have been more than 19. "Boss jumpsuits Boss," he said loudly, obviously trying his best to please. "Issue a jumpsuit to each offender, porter," the officer in charge replied. The porter began at the end of the boxes and moved down, giving each of us an orange suit before moving on to the next offender. I noticed that this suit was heavier than the last one I had worn. There was black lettering on it that I couldn't read, until such time as I was ordered to unfold the thing. The porter reached the end, and looked expectantly at the officer. "Permission to inform the offenders of the distribution Boss?" "Shit yes porter." "Offenders," the porter began, emulating formal address, rather than calling us "shitheads," "assholes," or just plain "inmates." He was obviously conforming to some script that had been written for convicts assigned to process other convicts. "I have checked your sizes as previously recorded, and I have arranged your transport suits in the order of your lineup here. You will now don your transport suits." I noted there was no underwear, and momentarily thought that perhaps I should raise my hand to ask. I immediately realized that was a crazy idea. I wasn't standing in Box 15 in a convict shipment room because my advice or questions were important. I was standing in Box 15 so I could get orders and obey them. I remembered my induction into this place, which showed that gaining the boss's attention is NOT a good thing. As I was processing this information I heard the unexpected. "Boss do we keep our boxers Boss?" Some other con had asked that question. "PORTER, DID YOU FORGET TO TELL THESE CONS ABOUT THEIR BOXERS?!" the boss shouted. A moment passed. "Boss yes Boss," the porter responded loudly, but not shouted. "Tell these piles of shit"--I noted a new title for us, related but new--about the FUCKIN' boxers!" "Offenders," the kid stammered, "will keep their boxers from their previous clothing issue. At this time, offenders will don their transport uniforms . . . uh . . . including boxers." As I leaned down, along with my fellow naked offenders, to retrieve the boxers, the boss shouted, "PORTER! Front and center!" If I watched what was happening, I wouldn't be able to follow orders, and it was necessary to follow orders. So I slithered my boxers back over my balls, and unfolded my new orange jumpsuit. "Unfurled" would be a better word. This thing was bigger than the last one, at least one size too big for me. The kid was obviously not much good with records. While I was struggling into the uniform, I saw what the new black markings were. There was a stencil on the back, in big block letters. "DANGER," it said, "PRISON INMATE." Over the left pec, there were another black stencil: "D.O.C. INMATE." Running down my right leg was the word "PRISON"; running down my left leg, "INMATE." In case I escaped on the way to my new institution, anyone encountering me would know exactly what I was, and that I was a DANGER. I noticed the other inmates putting on their socks and shoes, so I bent down and started putting mine on too. There were no orders, but I certainly didn't want to get the porter into more trouble than he already was in by asking. Now we were all dressed up in our new orange suits--but I noticed that there were some who had also put their tees on, and some, including me, who hadn't. The boss noticed. "PORTER what else did you omit?" "BOSS," the kid said in a quavery voice, "offenders should keep their boots, socks, and tees Boss." "You fucked up bad didn't you, porter?" "Boss yes Boss." "Any excuse, porter?" "Boss this time is my first time as exit porter Boss." "Well porter, can you think of a way I can help you remember to give these offenders all the information they need, so they won't slow down the process and make ME have to correct YOUR mistakes? Boy?" "Boss yes Boss." "AND???" "Boss porter knows as with all offenders their brains are in their asses Boss. Boss this porter needs to have its brains stimulated Boss." The kid obviously didn't want to lose his job as porter. He was trying to save it, in the only way he could. Sometimes you get these students, I thought, who turn out to be smarter than you thought they were. More brains. More vocabulary. At that moment, it didn't occur to me that I was no longer a professor, assessing young people's performance. I wasn't even a porter. I was just a bald man with "DANGER--PRISON INMATE" stenciled on his back. Then I noticed a rustling around me, as other inmates were pulling down their jumpsuits and pulling on their tees. I did it too. I didn't want to get caught out of uniform. Meanwhile, the drama continued. "Porter you show some potential. Assume correction position, boy." The porter immediately dropped his brown pants and boxers down to his ankles, and turned his pristine white butt to meet the boss's gaze. "Porter, where's the Board of Education, boy?" "BOSS on a hook on the back wall Boss." "Should I have to walk over there to get it, porter?" "Boss no Boss. This dumb piece of convict shit should have brought it to you Boss." "Well?" the boss yelled. The porter, still with his pants and boxers around his ankles, shuffled to the back of the room. Since it was behind us, I do not know where exactly he went, but after what seemed like a long time, he returned with a heavy wooden paddle. It looked like a larger version of the old frat paddles I had seen on campus. I always wondered whether they were actually used. In this instance, there was no question. The porter handed the paddle to the boss, grabbed his ankles, and awaited his fate. It did not take long. As we watched, the boss moved beside and behind the porter, whose butt was exposed in front of us, smooth and white and innocent. "I think for all the fuck-ups you did, that you earned two strokes per fuck-up. I figure you got twenty coming. Is that what you'd come up with, porter?" "Boss this porter is sure the Boss is always correct Boss," the kid moaned. "Well, porter those are the first intelligent words that have come out of your mouth. I might consider putting a few a them strokes on hold." "Boss thank you Boss!" It looked like the porter was going to say something more, as his mouth opened, but he shut it before a word came out. The boss placed the paddle against the porter's butt, and sort of rubbed it against the fleshy part. Then he pulled it back, and waited. I could see the porter struggling to maintain his position without making any motion. We could see, but the porter could not, as the Boss moved his arm with amazing speed. The polished wood hit the butt cheeks with a sound that echoed through the room. You could tell that the porter started to yelp, but stopped himself. You could also tell that he almost fell over, but he moved his foot and returned to position. "Boss, one Boss," he choked out. "Thank you Boss." "You need to stay in position and get your thank you out quicker. Otherwise, we'll just have to start again, boy." I could see the smirk on the boss's face. Once again he caressed the butt, drew back, and looked like he would knock the porter over, but the porter had adjusted his stance a little, to make him more secure. The sound was just as loud, but the porter was able to get his count and his thanks out. Swats two through ten went slowly and surely. I don't know about the other offenders who were watching the punishment, but I could almost feel how terrible that porter's butt must feel. "Turn around, boy, and show these offenders what's been done to your butt, so all of you will remember." "Boss yes Boss," the porter said, and without breaking position shuffled around. I for one almost gasped. His butt was already red, and bluish, and even purple. "Now I am going to make a little experiment here," the officer said, looking at us. "You offenders can see that this fellow piece of convict shit has paid something for his mistakes, but I want to know if any of you are willing to save him from the rest of his punishment. Here's the deal. There are ten strokes left. If ten of you are willing to take one of the strokes, I'll stop whaling his ass. For now. I'm going to count to five, and if ten of your hands go up, punishment will continue--on your asses, one stroke each. Otherwise, this boy gets all ten." I was impressed at the horrible choice he had forced on us. The thought came to me, "What do I care if one of these porters, who have a relatively easier time in this ring of hell than I've had, gets his ass beat up or not?" My hand didn't move. Then I saw two other hands move up, then more, and finally mine followed. I don't know why. There was a pause, and the officer said, "Well, that's nine, but not ten. I'll wait for the count of five to see if that last piece of convict shit agrees." One, two, three, and a pause. "All right, offenders, that is now all ten. Drop your suits and assume the position." I did like the other nine. The boss came down the lines of boxes. I was sixth, so I heard five sickening sounds of wood connecting with butt before I felt that wood gently caressing my own bent-over ass. It left, then returned and connected with my butt. I felt pain like I could not remember. I did remember to say, "One, Boss, thank you Boss," as I worked to keep from either pissing myself or bawling, to my disgrace and the shared disgrace of all the offenders in line. When all ten asses had been paddled, the officer said, "Hitch up, and we'll get you on your way." Ten of us were looking unsteady on our feet; the other ten were standing at attention, with faces frozen. They'd gotten the better deal, and I guess they knew it. As I raised my boxers and pulled my orange jumpsuit over my tingling butt, I realized that no one had thought it necessary to tell us which of the state's many places of punishment we were being sent to. None of us had dared to ask, and of course, no one in the DOC would consider offenders entitled to such information, even if they did ask. Telling them where they were going to spend their lives would just indicate to them that the state placed some value on their comfort, or understanding. Each of us simply waited for the next order. It came soon enough. "Grab your personals, put your hands behind you back, and get down on your knees." We all flopped down on our knees, and the officers came behind us and cuffed us up. This time, they also shackled our ankles. After all, we had DANGER written on our backs. Then they ordered us to stand, which is not all that easy when your hands are cuffed behind your back and your ankles are locked together. We got up, swaying, but still grasping our plastic bags. The cuffs and shackles weren't enough, however. The next thing they gave us was chains around our waists--pulled tight, locked on. Then they locked our belly chains to a long-line chain: two chains, in fact, ten cons to a chain. So now there were two chain gangs again, only this time, it wasn't the same gangs. It all had to do with those boxes where they'd had us stand. The cons from 1 to 10 were chained up together, and the cons from 11 to 20 were chained up in a second gang. Before we moved out, the porter reemerged with tear-streaked face and a stack of the familiar heavy plastic envelopes. One by one, he hung them around our necks. Now we were ready for travel-- 20 bald convicts, locked in 20 orange convict suits, with everything important enough to be known about us dangling in those envelopes against our chests. I was aware that the sign on my back warned anyone who might see me that I was a danger. But it's hard to feel dangerous when you're Position 5 in a chain gang--hands locked up, feet locked up, waist locked up, ID hanging from your neck like a sign from a pole; and meanwhile, you're attached by a chain to nine identical, hairless, orange-suited convicts, with every orifice of your body checked to make certain that you aren't taking anything with you except what the state has issued. There was a thick steel door at the back of the room, with a tiny window in the center. One of the officers went to the window and looked outside. Then he pressed a button, and a bell started clanging, loud enough to take your head off. "MARCH!" one of the officers yelled to the first gang. The cons that had been numbered 1 to 10 slowly shuffled out the door. Then it was our turn, the cons that had been numbered 11 to 20. "MARCH!" we were told, and we also started shuffling, clanking toward the door that would lead us out of the hell we knew to a hell we did not know. "And my six months," I thought, "have barely begun."