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THE PROFESSOR'S PUNISHMENT CHAPTER 3
I stood there feeling dumb. What was I supposed to do now? I had just been given a set of rules, but none of them seemed to apply to the moment.
"Well fish, get your bunk made up. And stow those personals there at the back of our house. Over there, by the back wall."
"Yes Boss." I stowed my personals-- towel, washcloth, soap, paper, pencil, and cup—on the floor at the back of the "house" and started unfolding the two-inch thick plastic that was supposed to be my "mattress." I made up my "bed" with the worn-out sheets and the thin blanket. I thanked my previous training in solitary about how to fold the sheet to make the bed have the proper smoothness of the sheets and how to place the blanket. I then moved the other personals of in the same small space on the floor. I then hung up my spare set of browns on my assigned hook.
I completed this task and looked over to see that the Boss was now sitting at the tiny fold down seat and desk observing me. "Not bad, fish. Sit down on the deck and tell me who you are and how long you'll be here with us."
"Boss, I just came from court. I was here at Princeton before but I was in segregation. I was serving six months to five years for breaking into cars. Then a prosecutor discovered that I had a juvenile conviction, and I didn't disclose that on the sentencing information. So I'm looking at 15 years, hard labor. The judge was pissed at the lying part, and he wasn't impressed when I tried the `juvenile records are sealed' excuse."
"Boy, you sure are one dumb fuck-up, aren't you?"
"Boss, yes Boss."
"You should fit in, all right. I guess I misjudged you. When you came in you reminded me of a college prof I had who flunked me once. I called the asshole and tried to get him off the F' because I was only six points away from a D-` but the fucker wouldn't budge. I spend a lot of nights in my bunk thinking of all the ways I'd like to educate him on some prison discipline. Course I'll be 60 when I get out, but I bet I could still scare the shit outta that pompous fuckwad."
I pictured the scene, and went with it. "I bet he'd croak if he recognized you at the door. What you really need to do is get in the door, slap some cuffs on him, then use his credit cards. Have him build a cage for himself, and show him some prison guard style. Take a shitload of pictures, and tell him if he ever tried to get back at you, you'd out him as a homo pervert who asked you to come and treat him like a con. Some of those college types really have that as a fantasy."
"Man, you are weird shit. Maybe you oughta go to the hole. I mean the real one, not that pussy solitary you were in."
"If you mean the one down a bunch of stairs, with a solid steel outside door and then a barred door inside of it, and you get to freeze your ass on concrete and use an open hole in the concrete to piss and shit in, I already got sent there."
"Bro, you don't look like you could piss anybody off enough to get yourself in the hole, but I guess it's true that sometimes you got to read the book and not just look at the cover. However, you're still my boy, and I'll let the rest of them know your k."
"Boss, thank you, Boss. I will try to be the best boy here, Boss."
"Boy you got to learn a new way of talking. You still sound too free world. We'll work that out."
"Boss, yes Boss."
I was beginning to feel a bit of relief from the tension that had been so prominent all day, from court to our pleasant little reception at Princeton CF, and especially Boss's attitude when I appeared at HIS cell.
"Boy, I'm going to explain dinner here because we will be going across the yard to the mess hall in about a half an hour."
I was surprised. When we got meals in Seg, they seemed about the normal times...probably around eight in the morning for breakfast, around noon for lunch, and around six for dinner. Admittedly they were always more cold than hot, but my biological time pattern was not upset. I would guess...depending on just how close Boss was in guessing that we would be eating soon, it must be closer to 4:30 than 5:00 right now.
He must have noticed that I looked surprised.
"Yeah man, the times for meals are fucked up, like everything else in the joint. The COs claim that the cons need to get back to their blocks for count. So they gotta eat early. Course, the times for count could be changed, but nobody in the CO corps is smart enough to think of that...or maybe they just liked fucking us over in one more way. Make it clear that we're shit and they are gods.
"Anyway, you'll hear the squawk box go off. That means if you're in less than your tee, your boxers, your browns, and your boots, you need to get yourself squared away. The cage doors are released by tier, top to bottom . . . Yeah, it's backwards, but again...you just need to figure what would be the right way to do something, then do the opposite, and you will have the Princeton Correctional Facility way. Hard labor cons form up in squads, like the army. Four across, 15 long. When all the squads are formed up, they open the bay to the outside, and we peel off single file through the sally port. Then we REform out on the concrete. Whatever boss is tier leader that week counts off a cadence and we march across the yard toward the mess hall. Man you should see the common cons scatter as we come to the door. All the other cell houses release the tiers and they just stream across the yard in clumps, with screws spaced out pretending to watch them. But when we start coming across the yard, the boss leader counting cadence and every boot hitting the pavement hard and together, you'll see them common criminals scatter to get out of our way. If these INMATES get in our way... Let's just say that we've got a straight path from this house to the messhall.
"We go into the chow hall in our four wides, through the big doors, then we split down the lines in order, trusties and their boys together. If I want more, I'll nod and the servers will get you a `good' serving for me to use. When we leave the serving line, we'll go to the first sets of tables. Follow the line. When we sit down the men will be on one side of the table and the boys on the other side. You'll sit with your hands at your sides, and await permission to eat. I'll take the extra I wanted, and then I'll let you start. You'll keep your mouth shut unless we give the boys a nod, which means they can talk quietly among themselves. When the men are finished, we'll put our trays on top of yours, and you boys will take it all to the drop window. Then you'll wait as we form again to leave the hall and go back to our block.
"When we get back here, we we'll have open cells for an hour. The men can go and visit other cells, and the boys if we let `em. Then at the head guard's whistle, we'll go back to the cells, the doors will be closed and locked, and we'll get to look at each other, play cards, or whatever until lights out, which is an hour later.
"Tomorrow morning—there's a bell at 4:30. We'll shit and shave, and go back to the mess hall, then back to the block. We'll form up, and the work orders for the day will be given. Then it's hard labor for the rest of the day. If we work off-site, they give us grub out there; otherwise, we go back for `lunch' at 10:00, then back to work until they prep us for dinner.
"There you have a 24 hour day in the hard labor block of Princeton Reformatory. There ain't much else. You'll get the hang of it in no time."
It had been a long speech, and I had listened carefully. "Thank you, Boss," was my reply.
I'd been sitting on the deck, in front of the Boss, but now I began to look around. I thought I'd like to go to the front bars, and just look out. I remembered my second boss con at R&D, so I asked.
"Boss, may I go to the bars and look out?"
He looked a bit startled.
"Sure, boy. Why you asking?"
"Boss, when I was still at R&D, I had two experienced cons that I shared the cell with. The first one was really helpful and considerate. The second one told me that he was my master, and I had to ask permission to move or do anything in the cell. When not under orders, I was to sit at the back of the cell, and just be ready to serve him whenever he wanted."
Boss did not rely immediately but just looked at me.
"Shit boy, you've been through some shit already. In this cell, you can move around, look out the bars, or sit on the deck either at the back or the front of the cell, without asking permission."
"Boss thanks Boss. I really appreciate your consideration."
Boss again fixed me with a searching gaze.
"Are you absolutely sure you were never a college prof? You sure do sound like one."
"Boss no Boss"
"Well you can stand or sit by the front bars, or any place in our house here except on the fold-down seat. That's mine."
"Boss thanks Boss."
I stood at the bars, and automatically did the prisoner thing, grabbing the bars. It wasn't possible to use a mirror to look out, because of the steel mesh welded to the outside of the bars. I looked out toward the cell house, listening to the background noise of an enormous zoo full of men, talking to each other. But even with so many inmates, the noise level was less than at R&D.
As I was standing there, I heard footsteps coming down the walkway. I expected to see a guard making his rounds to look at the animals in their cages. I did see a guard, but with him was a slightly framed young inmate with a sack of some kind.
I stood up, and moved over from the barred door of the cell to the small space between the bars and the sleeping shelves. The duo of guard and convict stopped in front of our cell.
"COX 117213" the guard stated.
"SIR yes SIR."
"Here is your crap from segregation."
The guard wrestled with his set of keys and opened the cell door a bit.
The convict him handed me a small paper bag.
The officer had a clip board, which he handed to me.
"Sign next to your number to acknowledge receipt of this crap."
"SIR yes SIR" was my now automatic response to any guard.
The convict runner, who looked like a late teen and probably weighed 115 pounds, handed me the paper bag.
"Look inside to make sure everything is there, then sign the receipt."
He was just a convict, so I knew I didn't need to respond to him. I looked inside. There were my legal pads, and some of the cleaning materials I had acquired for my clogged toilet.
I closed the bag.
"Look, dumbass," the guard said. "You need to empty the bag and check all the items to certify that everything you left in your cell this morning is in that bag. We don't steal from cons in here."
I took the bag and emptied it on the floor. My pencils and the legal pads tumbled out. Also one of the toilet cleaning brushes, and a bottle of the cleaner itself.
"SIR all items are here, SIR."
"K, shithead. Now you may sign."
"SIR, OFFICER, SIR Yes SIR." As I was signing the little form, I noted that I automatically signed myself as Cox 117213.
As soon as I returned the signed form, the two stepped away from the door; the guard locked it shut, and I stood there looking at the legal pads and toilet cleaning items. I thought to myself that my worldly possessions presented a somewhat interesting picture of convict 117213. His focus seemed to be toilets and legal briefs. I smiled to myself. Perhaps there was indeed a connection. My legal pads were part of my attempt to keep out of the toilet of society which is another name for the Department of Corrections, which was now correcting me.