The spot check seemed silly, because even if an inmate were able to get out of his cell, he still had nowhere to go; he'd need to get out of the block and then over the wall and past the razor wire and motion sensors and gun towers and dogs. I wondered what would happen if someone came in with a helicopter, but it would have to be bulletproof, since the guards would shoot at it from the towers. And tunneling wasn't an option, since we didn't get any yard time on Two-Special.
The guy next to me was also seventeen. He was shorter than me, about five foot eleven, and couldn't have weighed more than 130 pounds. He had short, dark brown hair and large hazel eyes, which seemed out of proportion with his face. An inmate porter commented on how he looked like a grasshopper, and from then on, the name stuck.
Grasshopper was serving time for arson. He grew up in Genesee County, in the upper part of the state. "The problem with getting jammed in the sticks," he said, "is that you end up getting sentenced by hicks."
Even though it was his first offense-and the only thing he had burned down was an abandoned building-the judge decided to make an example of him by sentencing him to eight years in prison.
"It's not like nobody got hurt or nothin'," Grasshopper said. He was worried about his classification, because even with good time, he'd have to serve seventy-two months, which meant he might have to go inside for a year until he could transfer to a medium security. "I know what happens to guys like me. If they send me inside, I'll never make it."
Grasshopper was pretty, by anyone's standards, and I was hoping the Classification Committee would take that into account. But arson was considered a violent crime so his chances didn't look good. He'd already had his physical and was now waiting to see the psychologist, before his final hearing.
With all the noise, it was hard to hear each other, so we stood at the back of our cells and yelled from around the wall. I purchased a small mirror from the commissary when my money from the county jail finally landed in my account, which only took four weeks. We used our mirrors to see one another as we spoke-sticking them out of the bars and tilting it at the other. Somehow, it was easier to hear, when I could see his lips moving.
The guy on the other side of me, who never talked much anyway, said even less after he returned from the psychologist. I wondered if lie, too, was being sent inside.
A guard with a clipboard came by my cell and said I was scheduled for my physical the next morning. He told me not to eat breakfast, because they'd be taking blood. I hated needles and giving blood, but was happy to see the process finally moving along.
I fell asleep early that evening, but was awakened by whistling and cheering, catcalls and the sound of the laugher. I sprang to the front of my cell to see, and there on the tier above, in between the two long rows of cells, were the three black drag queens.
In an effort to avoid problems, the guards showered the queens separately. So there they were in all their glory with their hands held high in the air. They were facing the wall and shaking their butts, while the cellblock went nuts with laughter. They turned in unison to face the open block. Their dicks were stuffed between their legs so that all you saw were their pubic hairs. It looked like they had real pussies, and from where I was standing, they looked liked women, especially Lisa Marie. They shimmied forward with their legs together and danced, their movements in sync with one another. The energy felt almost electric the way it sliced through the boredom and enlivened the giant birdcage. Even the guards, who were standing on the opposite catwalk, looked up and laughed, shaking their heads.
"I could use one of them bitches right about now," an inmate said, walking past my cell. "Shit, I'm tired of jerkin' oft:"
I was embarrassed by the drag queens. I didn't understand it, but they frightened me, and I felt ashamed for them. I wasn't like them in any way. I had no desire to be anything that flamboyant. No matter what thoughts I may have had about my identity, I was not going to be turned into one of those.
Turned-out was the expression for someone who was "turned" gay. To be turned-out, a guy was either raped or pressed into having sex. Men were expected to defend their manhood, and if it were lost, they would need another man to protect them. For a weaker con, the choice of having to do it with one was a better than having to do it with many. Or sometimes, inmates were even tricked into it by another punk or queen.
"There's this queen in here named Geraldine," Grasshopper told me. "She was huge! I saw her when I went inside for my physical. She was about six foot six, and weighed close to three hundred pounds."
I had first heard about Geraldine back at the county jail. Her reputation was almost legendary, and though I had never seen her myself, most
