"Who would like to pay my price," Miss Pepper sang. "For a trip to paradise?"
I smiled as I went by and Miss Pepper nodded at me. Pootic blew me a kiss.
I was starting to feel less threatened by then, especially since Slide Step reassured me that I didn't have to act or dress like them. I guess on some level, I was still feeling a little ashamed of who it was I was becoming in there, but it was also confusing, because it also felt liberating somehow. I was enjoying the attention, and I was free to become whoever it was I wanted to be, and Slide Step would make sure that nothing else bad ever happened to me. So as long as no one back hone found out about it-Why not?
Behind me, I heard Peterson the rookie guard come down the stairs. "Let's go ladies," he said to the queens. "The show's over."
Peterson was in his twenties and he easily blushed, so the queens loved to fuck with him. "Hey Petey," Pootie said. "You know what they say-a little time in the hole ain't such a bad thing, if you know what I'm sayin'."
"That's right," Miss Pepper added. "You just might get off with a little good behavior." Pootie stuck her butt out and rolled her hips.
When Peterson turned red, the two queens screamed.
My world was looking a lot different than the one I grew up in. So much was being thrown at me, that it seemed hard to believe I had only been in here a couple of months. I was getting quite an education-meeting pimps and pushers, real-life con men, and racketeers. I wanted to learn from them, as much as I could, so that my time inside would be productive. That way, when I got out, I could make up for the time I had wasted inside.
I would finish high school, as soon as I got back from court, and I might even take some college courses, which were offered at night. I would be the first person in my family who went to college (my dad never completed the sixth grade). I wanted to be smarter by the time I got out. I might even get me some ho's out there, so I could do some pimping. But then Red said that only "a man" could be a pimp.
I was starting to piece things together, but figuring out my identity was more difficult than I first realized. I knew I belonged to Slide Step and that my place in the pecking order was tied to him. But how could I he myself, if I didn't know what that was? I wasn't like the punks, and I wasn't like the queens. The queens were easy, because they were so far out there, but I wasn't like the punks either, and it left me confused about who or what I was.
Was I really gay? Did I actually feel the way I did the night before I came to prison, or was it just a trick I was playing on myself to make what was happening to me in there easier to take? In the past, if I lied to myself long enough sometimes I would start to believe it-pushing the truth so far from the surface that I began to doubt its existence. How much of what I had been thinking was just normal adolescent questioning? I didn't know anymore.
Allegedly, punks were fucking because they were weak. "He's fucking because he's a punk," I'd heard inmates say. Bottoms was a punk, turnedout when he first got to jail, and it was clear by the way everyone treated him. So was he fucking because he was a punk, or was he a punk because he was fucking? It was like the chicken and the egg.
When Taylor's boy, Paul, first arrived, they wanted to call him Miss Holly because of the combination of his red hair and green eyes. But Paul wasn't having it. He was gay and proud of it, but he wasn't a girl, and had no desire to be thought of as one.
At the time, I couldn't imagine anyone being proud of being gay, though I admired him for it and wished I had his courage. "I don't play that," he was quick to say. "Like it or not, I've got a dick and I'm not about to trade it in for a pussy."
Taylor, his man, was crazy about him. He would just chuckle. "Hey, I'll tell you what-my baby don't take shit from nobody, and that's just the way it is."
At five foot six and weighing less than 140 pounds, there wasn't much Paul could do on his own, but Taylor had his back, and that meant a lot. Paul just had to be careful not to disrespect anyone, because then Taylor would have to defend him. Although he was only eighteen, Paul knew how to handle himself. He had come to prison when he was sixteen, and before that, he spent time in juvenile hall. I liked Paul, but he never let his guard down when he was around me. We would become close, later on, when we were both at another prison, but for the time being-for reasons I wouldn't know until much later on-he seemed indifferent to me.
Since there was a distinction between being a man and being gay, I decided to tell myself I was gay before I got there. It was a way to feel better about the situation. I'm not sure this was clear to me then, but it was easier to tell myself I was gay than being completely powerless. I wasn't fucking because I was a punk-a sissy coward; I was fucking because I wanted to. At least this line of thinking allowed me to hold onto some degree of dignity. Yet even with Slide Step's gentle ways, I didn't like being penetrated
