Scatter was given his nickname because the inmates said he was so scatterbrained. I wondered why he was sent to prison and not to juvenile hall since he was only fifteen when he and his twenty-four-year-old cousin committed their crime.
The psychiatrist that testified at his trial said a teenager's wiring isn't done yet. They can't rationalize things the same way adults can because their brains and emotional reasoning aren't done yet. The judge didn't buy it so tried him as an adult.
The courts were cracking down on teenagers to solve the gang problems in Detroit. A couple of years earlier, some innocent bystanders were shot and killed at a Kool and The Gang concert at Cobo Hall. They started waving a lot of teenagers over to the adult courts ever since. The mayor eliminated gangs by aggressive sentencing. A large percentage was now over at the Michigan Reformatory.
"Most of them are in Gladiator School," Scatter said. "Doing five, six, and seven natural lives each. They ain't never getting out."
"I've got two cousins over there," Skullcap said, "they were part of the B.K.s," referring to the gang, Black Killers. "One got forty-to-sixty, and the other got six consecutive natural life sentences."
"Now how's a motherfucker going to do six natural life sentences?" Scatter asked.
"They'll bury 'em, " Skullcap answered. "And then they'll dig their black asses up again."
"Shit," he added, again with the half whistle. "Both of them fools ain't but nineteen and twenty years old."
We all sat quietly for a moment.
"The motherfucker wouldn't open the safe, so we shot him," Scatter said, contradicting his earlier claim that the murder had been an accident.
"What are you in for?" Scatter asked.
"Armed robbery," I said. I decided to stop mentioning the larceny, since the robbery sounded better.
Chet handed me a green sheet of paper. It had the official Department of Corrections letterhead and seal on top of it. I took it and looked at Chet.
"What's this," I asked Chet.
"Read it," he said.
I tried, but was distracted by Scatter. It had something to do with a security reclassification.
"What did you rob?" Scatter asked.
"A Photo Mat."
Everyone laughed. Skullcap whistled.
"A Photo Mat," Scatter said. "Homeboy!" He looked down and shook his head.
"With a toy gun," Chet volunteered. They laughed even more.
"You silly ass jitterbugs," Skullcap said. "You should at least go after something that has money in it."
"How much did you get?" Scatter asked.
"About hundred and fifty," I lied, tripling the amount.
"You should have robbed a bunch of'em!"
"I did!" I announced proudly.
Everyone laughed.
These guys made me comfortable, and I felt like I was being brought into the family. "Hey," I asked. "Do they have a lot of fags in here?"
The room got quiet.
"Well you're here!" Skullcap said. His face hardened as he looked at me.
A guy came out of the phone booth, and the stale unpleasant air filled the corridor. They watched me to see how I would react. Stunned and uneasy, I didn't know what to say. I blinked. My brother warned me that I would be tested, and I knew this was part of it, but I didn't know what to do. In that moment, I had decided that I would never ask that question again.
13
Lasting Impressions
Sharon loved to take us to scary movies.
My mom, on the other hand (though we hardly saw her now), would only take us to see G-rated movies, like The Love bug, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or The Sound of Music. Mom didn't agree with Sharon's choice of films, fearing that they would leave a lasting impression. But now I was almost thirteen, Mom gave in and finally agreed to take me to an R-rated movie. I was eager to show I could handle it.
We saw Papillon, which was French for butterfly, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. It was based on the true story of an innocent man, framed for murder, who was sentenced to life on the penal colony known as Devil's Island. After several attempts at escaping, he was hospitalized in the prison infirmary, where a trustee came onto the ward and placed a red carnation in the mouth of a young prisoner laying on a cot. I shifted in my seat as he ran his hand over the man's bare chest, across his stomach and into his underwear. I was terrified, as I watched this scene unfold, that my Mom could hear my heart pounding. It was the first time I felt a sexual stir; and it was something I would never forget.
When I was kid and visited my older brother in reform school, he told us stories of how older boys cut holes in the pocket of their jeans and then asked a newbie to help them get something out of it. They would explain they had sprained their finger and couldn't reach for it themselves. The unsuspecting fish would slip their hand inside the pocket only to find a swollen prick poking out from the hole. Ricky said that the longer it took a guy to realize what it was they were holding, the greater the likelihood they would have to service it later.
The thought of it was maddening as my mind vacillated between fear and curiosity. I heard stories about watching your ass when bending over to pick up soap, and about candy bars being left on pillows. Long before Ricky got sent away, Dad tried to scare us from a life of crime by telling us about the booty bandits inside.
Dad and Uncle Ronnie had served time in reform school, when they were kids, for stealing cars and breaking into a business. He said that when he was there, candy bars were left on the pillows of new prisoners, and if a guy ate it, someone who wanted it back would confront him later. If the fish had eaten it, he would have to
