I sat back and studied the inmates, like Paul had taught me, and looked for someone else that I might be able to control. But I still hadn't figured it out, so I stayed with Jake and learned to navigate the pressures. Balancing when to get Jake involved with someone who was pressing me, and when to just ignore troublemakers who were giving me a hard time. In exchange for his protection, I hooked up with Jake in the projectionist booth once a week during the inmate movie. Jake was as gentle as he could be, but he wasn't Paul, and he wasn't Slide Step.
After Sherry left, I sent several "kites" requesting a transfer to another prison-thinking it might be different somewhere else, but the only other medium-security prison for inmates who were under twenty-five was The Dunes in Kinross, Michigan. But The Dunes was made up of dormitories and, according to the policy at the time, homosexuals could not be housed in dorms.
Ever since I beat that ticket on a technicality, I spent time in the law library studying the Department of Correction's Policy Directives. I was fascinated by them and once again entertained the fantasy of one day becoming a lawyer. There was something empowering about knowing the rules and regulations as well, or even better, than some of the staff. And that's when the idea hit me.
That evening, on my way back to my cell, I picked up a stack of official grievance forms from the guard at the front desk. Warden Handlon hated grievances, so I started filling them out for anything I could think of-no matter how frivolous they might have been. I wrote one for not being allowed to walk on the grass, and another for how homosexuals were discriminated against in housing. And then another for not allowing magazines to be sold in the inmates store that depicted homosexual acts-even though the magazines they did sell like Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse, routinely showed spreads of lesbian action. It was male homosexuality they were outlawing; yet they looked the other way if it were women. I filed another grievance for the types of inmate movies they were choosing, and for Warden Handlon's refusal to allow a Prisoner's Progress Association. Anything I could think of, I wrote a grievance. Then I dropped them all in the box, smiling to myself at the thought of the warden seeing them appear on his monthly report.
Two days later I was called up to the Control Center and when I arrived there, two guards were dispatched to my cell to pack up my belongings.
"Bag and baggage," Mr. Jackson, the Administrative Assistant Warden, said to me. "Warden Handlon has ordered you transferred."
"For what?" I said, sounding innocent.
"For protection," he said. "In one of your voluminous grievances, you stated that you were in fear of retaliation from the guards or other inmates."
"Where are you sending me," I asked.
"M-R," he said.
"M-R! You can't send me to Gladiator School! And you can't increase my security without a disciplinary reason for doing it. At least not without an Administrative Hearing, beforehand."
"For protection, we can," he said.
"And if anything happens to me over there you know I'll sue," I said.
Mr. Jackson just looked at me.
"If you're really doing this for protection, why don't you send me to Riverside?"
"You'd go to Riverside?" he asked.
"Hell yeah," I said. "I've been begging to go there ever since I got here."
"Wait right here," he said.
Mr. Jackson went into the next room, and I could hear him speaking to someone in a hushed a tone. Then he returned.
"OK," he said. "You're going back to Riverside."
I tried, unsuccessfully, to keep from smiling.
Two hours later, I was once again crossing the yard of Riverside Correctional Facility, where the sounds of radios bellowed from all directions. I heard steel weights being dropped on concrete, and the familiar smell of earth and spring was in the air. If the place hadn't changed much, I surely had. I walked with a cat in my stride and few inmates on the yard even bothered to notice me. I was no longer a fish.
Once inside 10 Building, I breathed a sigh of relief when the guard took me upstairs to the second floor. And that's when it occurred to me. What if he wasn't here anymore? I stopped and stood in the hall. The guard, who was escorting me, turned around and looked at me.
I knew Riverside wasn't necessarily the best place for me. It was a closecustody prison, with guys who may not ever get out. And it was where the first of my rapes had happened. But at least Slide Step had protected me after that. And at least in here, there was someone who seemed to care about me. But what would happen if he were no longer here? Foolishly, I hadn't considered that possibility earlier, when I started executing my plan by filing all of those grievances.
I would learn later that at about that same moment, an inmate on the other side of the building ran up to Slide Step and told him, "Wait till you see this bad motherfucker who just walked up in here!"
Epilogue
It's my last night in prison and I sit in my cell hoping I will he able to sleep. My stomach felt nervous all day, and I couldn't eat. The thought of being released was exhilarating, but it was also scary. I didn't want to mess up again, like I had twice before. I was in a minimum-security camp for parole violators.
I remembered Miss Bain once say that if we're not careful, inmates can become institutionalized. We develop a learned helplessness, where we become almost dependent on
