Black: What, are you shittin me?
White: I have to go.
Black: You could hang with me here a little while longer.
White: What about my jailhouse story?
Black: You dont need to hear no jailhouse story.
White: Why not?
Black: Well, you kind of suspicious bout everthing. You think I’m fixin to put you in the trick bag.
White: And you’re not.
Black: Oh no. I am. I just dont want you to know about it.
White: Well, in any case I need to go.
Black: You know you aint ready to hit the street.
White: I have to.
Black: I know you aint got nothin you got to do.
White: And how do you know that?
Black: Cause you aint even supposed to be here.
White: I see your point.
Black: What if I was to tell you a jailhouse story? You stay then?
White: All right. I’ll stay for a while.
Black: My man. All right. Here’s my jailhouse story.
White: Is it a true story?
Black: Oh yeah. It’s a true story. I dont know no other kind.
White: All right.
Black: All right. I’m in the chowline and I’m gettin my chow and this nigger in the line behind me gets into it with the server. Says the beans is cold and he throws the ladle down in the beans. And when he done that they was beans splashed on me. Well, I wasnt goin to get into it over some beans but it did piss me off some. I’d just put on a clean suit—you know, khakis, shirt and trousers—and you only got two a week. And I did say somethin to him like hey man, watch it, or somethin like that. But I went on, and I’m thinkin, just let it go. Let it go. And then this dude says somethin to me and I turned and looked back at him and when I done that he stuck a knife in me. I never even seen it. And the blood is just flyin. And this aint no jailhouse shiv neither. It’s one of them italian switchblades. One of them black and silver jobs. And I didnt do a thing in the world but duck and step under the rail and I reached and got hold of the leg of this table and it come off in my hand just as easy. And it’s got this big long screw stickin out of the end of it and I went to wailin on this nigger’s head and I didnt quit. I beat on it till you couldnt hardly tell it was a head. And that screw’d stick in his head and I’d have to stand on him to pull it out again.
White: What did he say?
Black: What did he say?
White: I mean in the line. What did he say.
Black: I aint goin to repeat it.
White: That doesnt seem fair.
Black: Dont seem fair.
White: No.
Black: Hm. Well, here I’m tellin you a bonafide blood and guts tale from the Big House. The genuine article. And I cant get you to fill in the blanks about what this nigger said?
White: Do you have to use that word?
Black: Use that word.
White: Yes.
Black: We aint makin much progress here, is we?
White: It just seems unnecessary.
Black: You dont want to hear nigger but you about to bail out on me on account of I wont tell you some terrible shit the nigger said. You sure about this?
White: I just dont see why you have to say that word.
Black: Well it’s my story aint it? Anyway I dont remember there bein no Afro-Americans or persons of color there. To the best of my recollection it was just a bunch of niggers.
White: Go ahead.
Black: Well at some point I had pulled the knife out and I reckon I’d done dropped it in the floor. I’m wailin on this nigger’s head and all the time I’m doin that his buddy has got hold of me from behind. But I’m holdin on to the rail with one hand and I aint goin nowhere. Course what I dont know is that this other dude has picked up the knife and he’s tryin to gut me with it. I finally felt the blood and I turned around and busted him in the head and he went skitterin off across the floor, and by now they done pushed the button and the alarm is goin and everbody’s down on the floor and we’re in lockdown and the guard up on the tier is got a shotgun pointed at me and he hollers at me to put down my weapon and get on the floor. And he’s about to shoot me when the lieutenant comes in and hollers at him to hold his fire and he tells me to throw that club down and I looked around and I’m the only one standin. I seen the nigger’s feet stickin out from under the servin counter where he’d crawled so I throwed the thing down and I dont remember much after that. They told me I’d lost about half my blood. I remember slippin around in it but I thought it was this other dude’s.
White:
Black: Yeah. That’s really just the introduction to the actual story.
White: Did the man die?
Black: No he didnt. Everbody lived. They thought he was dead but he wasnt. He never was right after that so I never had no more trouble out of him. He was missin a eye and he walked around with his head sort of sideways and one arm hangin down. Couldnt talk right. They finally shipped him off to another facility.
White: But that’s not the whole story.
Black: No. It aint.
White: So what happened.
Black: I woke up in the infirmary. They had done operated on me. My spleen was cut open. Liver. I dont know what all. I come pretty close to dyin. And I had two hundred and eighty stitches holdin me together and I was hurtin. I didnt know you could hurt that bad. And still they got me in leg irons and got me handcuffed to the bed. If you can believe that. And I’m layin there and I hear this voice. Just as clear. Couldnt of been no clearer. And this voice says: If it was not for the grace of God you would not be here. Man. I tried to raise up and look around but of course I couldnt move. Wasnt no need to anyways. They wasnt nobody there. I mean, they was somebody there all right but they wasnt no use in me lookin around to see if I could see him.
White: You dont think this is a strange kind of story?
Black: I do think it’s a strange kind of story.
White: What I mean is that you didnt feel sorry for this man?
Black: You gettin ahead of the story.
White: The story of how a fellow prisoner became a crippled one-eyed halfwit so that you could find God.
Black: Whoa.
White: Well isnt it?
Black: I dont know.
White: You hadnt thought of it that way.
Black: Oh I’d thought of it that way.
White: And?
Black: And what?
White: Isnt that the real story?
Black: Well. I dont want to get on the wrong side of you. You seem to have a powerful wish for that to be the real story. So I will say that that is certainly one way to look at it. I got to concede that. I got to keep you interested.
White: String me along.
Black: That okay with you?
