Chapter Nineteen #2
Boudreaux rolls his eyes. “Lobo, you cray-cray. After all that meth you done, your brain cells probably ain’t even in double digits anymore.” He may have a point. Lobo’s pretty slow on the draw. His nickname is short for lobotomy.
He counters with, “Whadda you know, Boudreaux? You’re so dumb, you probably don’t even know ‘Meatstick’ is a Phish song.”
“Thass right, Einstein. I don’t know it ‘cause I don’t listen to no lame-ass white-boy music.”
“Your loss, motherfucker,” Lobo says. “I been to nine Phish shows and every one of them was fuckin’ epic . Hey, Ledbetter. I bet you’re into Phish. Right?” He and I are the only two white guys in the game.
I shrug. “Never paid them much attention.” I turn to Angel. “What’s the story, bro? We got thirty minutes out here. You going to deal or what?”
Angel deals the flop. I have a decent hand and I’m a pretty good bluffer, so I bet. Boudreaux and Angel both call. Lobo and Pacheco fold.
“Who you like then?” Lobo asks me.
“Me? Musically?… The Killers, Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, Amy Winehouse.”
Boudreaux’s eyes bug out. “Amy Winehouse? She dead, man. Thass messin’ with some bad juju.
” Andre Boudreaux, a New Orleans Cajun, is superstitious as hell.
Angel’s his cellie and he told me the last time the COs did room searches, they confiscated Boudreaux’s hoodoo shit and he was afraid to leave their cell because bad luck might chase him down.
Angel says, “Hey, Ledbetter, how come we don’t hear no bruthas on that list of music you like?” In my defense, I tell him I like a lot of old-school R & B.
“Then what about Wu-Tang or NWA? They old-school.”
“Older than that,” I tell him. “Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, Aretha. Some rap’s okay, though.”
“Yeah? Like who?”
“Kendrick Lamar, Common. I used to like OutKast. Are they still around?”
Angel ignores the question. “Tupac versus Biggie? Where you at on that?”
I tell him I’m neutral. “And anyway, I’m a convicted felon, so I’m not allowed to vote. Are we going to finish this hand before break’s over or what?”
Angel deals the turn. My luck’s still running.
Boudreaux folds and it’s down to just Angel and me.
When he deals the river, it gives me a full house without even having to bluff.
I show my hand, then reach across the table and scoop up my winnings: commissary shit everyone’s thrown into the pot.
I’m now the proud owner of three teriyaki beef sticks, five instant coffee packets, two envelopes of spicy vegetable ramen, and a minitube of athlete’s foot cream.
When I get back to our cell, Manny’s curled up in the fetal position on his bunk with a towel over his head. “Bad?” I ask him.
He whispers that it feels like there’s a jackhammer pounding inside his head, and when he opens his eyes, the lights make him nauseous.
I ask whether there’s anything I can do, anything I can get him.
“The wastebasket,” he says. “I keep thinking I might puke. I just wish everyone would turn their music down. The noise is killing me.”
“Here you go,” I tell him, propping the empty wastebasket against his hip. I feel for the guy but you can’t miss the irony of it. When it comes to playing the music he likes, no one jacks up the volume more than Manny.
I squint over at the digital clock. It’s 3:03 a.m. Sure, I’d rather be asleep than awake, but sometimes I don’t mind these middle-of-the-night bouts of sleeplessness.
During the daytime, the cell block can get so noisy you can’t hear yourself think.
Gets even louder in the evening from all the bickering, card game chatter, hip-hop, and shouting TVs.
But at three in the morning, I can hear it: the Wequonnoc river at the rear of the prison property, flowing past this place.
AA says we need to have faith in “a god of our understanding,” so let’s say for example’s sake that some undefinable spirit does exist—that it’s not all just random.
Maybe that spirit is speaking to me through the sound of moving water.
And maybe that sound is telling me to trust that not everything is stuck and stagnant—that forward movement is possible.
That by the time I’ve done my three years here, the sun will come up and light the path that leads me back to my wife and daughter.
I don’t know. Sometimes I think we’re all wandering in the dark and that it’s random and pointless.
But I’m trying to open my mind to the possibility of some deeper truths.
Trying to see the light and move in that direction.
At lights-out earlier tonight, the skies opened up and it began pouring like crazy.
I don’t hear the rain now, but the river is roaring back there. Clamoring to be heard.
I can’t get out of second gear today because I was up half the night, so pretty much all I’ve been doing today is watching TV in our cell.
Manny’s rallied after his migraine yesterday and he’s full of pep.
When I start dozing off midafternoon, he taps me on the shoulder and asks whether I want him to wake me up when it’s time to go eat.
I shake my head, then fall into a deeper sleep.
I don’t wake up until a couple of hours later when I hear him come back from chow.
“Well, Corbs, you missed all the action,” he says. “Dinner and a show. You know that tall skinhead with all the White Power tats?”
“Gunnar,” I say. “He was one of the ones who tried to recruit me for the big race war.”
“Yeah, him. So McGreavy was on supper patrol and there’s no love lost between those two.
McGreavy tells Gunnar which table to sit at and the dude ignores him and parks himself at the table where his neo-Nazi pals are at.
But McGreavy’s not going to let it go, okay?
Not when the guy’s just openly defied him in front of everyone.
He goes over there and gets in his face.
Gives him a direct order to move to the other table, but Gunnar just keeps eating and ignoring him.
The showdown starts getting everyone’s attention.
Then the other guard working chow goes over there to give McGreavy an assist. He’s one of those gung-ho newer hires.
Blond crew cut, ripped, cocky attitude.”
“Piccardy?”
“Yeah, him. He goes over there and says, ‘Offender, you’ve just been given a direct order, so you’d better comply unless you want to—’
“Doesn’t even finish what he’s saying when Gunnar stands up, grabs his tray, and says, ‘I have no problem complying when a white officer gives me a command, but I’m not taking orders from some spook wearing a sewn-on badge.’
“McGreavy goes up to Gunnar and pulls out his stick, probably just to scare him. Only Gunnar isn’t acting scared.
Everyone’s standing up now because it looks like something’s about to go down.
Then Gunnar drops his tray on the floor, grabs McGreavy by his shoulders, and fuckin’ headbutts him!
McGreavy loses his balance and starts falling backward, but what’s-his-name, Piccardy, catches him before he hits the floor in front of everyone.
Except now it’s on! Everyone starts egging them on, cheering, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ A few of Gunnar’s buddies stand up, ready to rumble, but so do three of McGreavy’s homies—those Black cons he’s chummy with.
Then before any punches get thrown, Piccardy gets fuckin’ trigger-happy and pepper-sprays Gunnar and his boys!
“He must have radioed for help, too, because pretty soon here come the storm troopers, wearing their helmets, face shields, and riot shit. You can tell they’re just itching to use some of their riot training, but the big showdown has already fizzled because of the pepper spray.
The White Power assholes get shackled, belly-chained, and dragged out of there, but the whole room stays, like, energized . Right?
“McGreavy must have felt he had to save face and remind everyone who’s still in charge, so he announces that chow time’s over and orders us back to our units.
We all started bitchin’ because we’ve only been there for like ten minutes and some guys haven’t even gotten through the line yet.
But Piccardy backs him up so that’s that.
They’re the bosses and we aren’t, so we all got up and headed for the door.
And it was Jamaican meat pie night, too, those cocksuckers.
I was stuffing mine down so fast, I started choking. ”
I shake my head. Tell him I’m glad I missed the show but sorry I missed the meat pies, which is one of the best meals they serve over in chow.
“I got you, dawg,” Manny says. “A lot of guys left them on their trays, so I grabbed a few on my way out.” I watch as he pulls a meat pie out of his sweatshirt like a fucking magician. I put my hand out and he tosses it to me. I take a bite and watch him pull another one out of his pants.
“Hey, thanks,” I tell him.
He gives me a garbled “no problem,” his mouth full of meat, gravy, and crust.
So yeah, Manny’s helicopter-parenting me can be annoying sometimes, but at other times it feels kind of good to be taken care of. Other than my poker buddies, he’s the closest thing I’ve got to a friend in here. And like I said, he’s a whole hell of a lot better than Pug.