I smashed a couple more cockroaches and then jumped when I saw another, on the wall just above my bed. After killing a dozen or so, and sitting there poised to get the next, a mouse with a long tail ran through my cell. It could have been a rat, but I'd never seen one of those before either. I let out a yelp, and the guard at the front desk flashed his light.
"No noise over there, 208, or you'll be spending the night in The Rock."
The Rock was the holding cell next to the guard's station. Talking and noise was forbidden at night, so with the exception of an occasional animal noise that the inmates loved to let out, like a cow's moo or a hyena's laugh, the first few minutes after lights out, the convicts pretty much respected the rule. But during those first few minutes, the guards snuck around, tracking the sounds. Some nights it would be barking dogs and cats' meows, while other nights it was lions, monkeys, and bears.
It was a nightly game that ended with a handful of inmates. sitting upright, on the rock-hard floor, until the 6:00 A.M. shift change. It usually took only one night in The Rock for an inmate to give in and respect the rule. But still, each night, there were several minutes of animal cries that echoed up the long stacked rows of cages.
After seeing the mouse, or rat, I climbed under my covers and tucked the sides of the gray blanket between my mattress and slab. I pulled the covers over my head, grabbing the slack around my neck and cried silently. It was going to be a long six weeks until I would be sent to camp. In the morning, I'd ask the guy in the cell next to me if cockroaches bite, or if rats could climb walls. But at that moment, I hated myself for being such a sissy.
If the days were long, the nights were even longer. I'd been there for over five weeks, and nothing had progressed with my classification. With the exception of a once-weekly shower, inmates on Two-Special were not allowed out of their cells. The sliding bars were top locked by a dead bolt at the top of the door, which prevented it from opening when the guards pulled the release brake at the end of the tier. At chow times, the others went down to base while our meals were delivered, usually cold, on Styrofoam plates.
The other inmates were also allowed out of their cells for yard, which made the guy in the cell next to mine pretty angry. He kept saying we were supposed to get an hour of yard every day. "It's in the fuckin' constitution, man. This is crude and unusual punishment!" But the only thing crude was his daily ranting about the injustice of it all.
"Stay out of prison," a guard told him, "and you can play in the yard all you want.
At least we didn't have to worry about someone grabbing our asses.
Inmates would occasionally stop at my cell and stare, or ask me my name or what I was in for, but the guards would appear and order them along. I welcomed the company, at first, but they were never allowed to stay long enough for a conversation. Sometimes, in passing, one of them would say something rude like "That punk is gonna need a man" or "There's no bigger joy than a pretty white boy."
I tried to escape into reading, but the library cart only came twice and by the time it reached us on Two-Special, there were only a few hooks left. They were usually titles that no one there would ever read, like Scruples by Judith Krantz.
I read Black Gangster by Donald Goines, which I was able to trade later for a Louis L'Amour western-I read the latter twice out of boredom. I traded the western for The Drifters by James Michener, and was taken away to Europe, by way of Canada, and to the running of the bulls in Spain. It was the highlight of my six weeks stay in Quarantine, and I read the hook twice, gladly.
I tried to sleep away my days, but the noise was maddening. There was a constant drone of inmates yelling, sliding cell doors banging closed, and the shuffling back and forth of convicts between program testing, the yard, and chow. I eventually learned to ignore it, but the only time I felt solitude was lying awake late at night.
For the once-weekly shower, we were paraded in our towels upstairs where we waited in line for one of the six open stalls at the end of tier three. They were in plain sight, between the two long rows of cells, so that anyone in the cellblock could look up and watch. Privacy was something you forfeited in prison, but I guess it was preferable to showering in a dark room somewhere and being afraid to pick up the soap, like so many back home had joked.
The guards gave us three minutes to shower, at which point, they'd shut off the water. If you still had soap on you, you'd have to use your towel to wipe it off. The green state soap didn't lather much, and even when thoroughly rinsed, your skin still felt greasy.
At first, I was nervous about showering in the open, but my erections were no longer a problem. Since jerking off was about the only thing we had for entertainment, it was probably the real reason I preferred staying up at night. Occasionally, a guard came along taking count with a flashlight and would catch me. But since most other cons were doing the same thing, I'm sure he was used to seeing it. I felt pretty embarrassed, the first time he saw me, but he didn't seem fazed at all.
Late one morning, I was startled by the guard's routine check of the
