Anyone who has done any amount of time in a prison knows that having the right cellie can be the difference between a living situation that’s bearable and one that drives you to commit murder in the first, second, and third degrees all at once. No, not all cellies are created equal.
During the few stays I’ve had in the actual prison system, I have had some interesting cell mates to say the least. I’ve had ones who were seasoned convicts and knew exactly how to do time, and I’ve had ones who were brand new to the system and acted like they have never once lived or shared a space with another member of the human race. And in my experience, the absolute worst kinds of cellies fall into two categories: The Youngster and The New Guy.
The first kind of Housemate from Hell is the Youngster. The Youngster is usually a kid who is anywhere from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, and he is either way too confident or scared shitless, with absolutely no happy medium. The youngster is the first one to join a prison gang and is almost supernaturally possessed by a driving need to be the so-called “Big Man on Campus.” He has just enough testosterone to want to challenge everyone and everything, but he also has the same I.Q. as a human torpedo. The reason this type of prisoner makes a shitty cellie is because they are either too ballsy (which brings unneeded heat and can cause a serious wreck) or they are a complete man bitch (which can also cause serious problems).
The second kind is The New Guy, and in my opinion The New Guy is hands-down the worst fucking kind of cellie you can have. The new guys come in any size or shape from tweaker to potential pachyderm, and in any age between eighteen and Methuselah (a Youngster can be a New Guy, but not all New Guys are Youngsters). The New Guy is someone who has never been to prison before. These are the prisoners who have no idea what to expect or even what is expected of them. They literally have to be taught how to live in prison. Initially, the new guy will live and think just like he did on the street, for better or for worse.
Sometimes they’re hygienically minded, and sometimes they’re a complete fucking scrub-ass Viking. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be more common. Stemming from a lack of prison experience, the New Guy, or “fish”, is going to constantly fart, belch, click their teeth, smack their lips, suck on their tongue, rack up debts in the pod, use all of your resources, jerk off in the cell to your wife’s pictures, buy more “toys” and snacks than soap when they do get any money from the street, sleep all day–every single potentially annoying thing they can come up with to make your cell a living hell. The worst part is that they don’t even know what they’re doing wrong, so you have to say something to them or it will never cease. Hopefully they are not mentally and/or emotionally unstable–they might try to fight you over correcting their behavior. It’s a lot like living with a giant four-year-old, and that could prove to be dangerous. You can tell a lot about someone by living in an eight-by-twelve cell with them. They live the same way that they’ve lived for God-knows-how-long before they came to live with you, and they haven’t learned that they can get their ass beat for it yet.
I once had a cellie who was a tweaker on the street. He wouldn’t take showers, had meth-farts that smelled like death and deep-seeded shame, and made noises with his tongue and lips that sounded like he was trying to suck himself off. These noises would always continue until I called his attention to it. I once let it go, thinking he would quit on his own, until three full hours had passed, and the importance of my mental stability trumped any amount of time I would spend in the hole if I lost it.
I will bring one more kind of cellie to your attention before I close this essay with a special message to those who may become someone’s cellie one day. This third and final nightmare cellie is the kind that can get you jumped by other inmates just by living in your cell. Nothing more than that: just because they’re there, sharing that space with you. I have known prison guards to use this kind of situation to retaliate against certain inmates for real or imagined crimes against the particular guard’s ego. This cellie that I’m speaking of is the dreaded child molester.
Any time you get a brand new cellie who you have never met before, it is always a good idea to do the “paperwork check” even before he starts unloading his property box. You do not want to get caught with a child molester or a rapist as a cell mate. Not only will it become a hit against your own character in the eyes of others in the pod that you have to deal with each day, but it can become physically dangerous and hazardous to your health.
If you do get stuck with some stupid fucking redneck who decided early on that abusing women and children got him higher than that time he snorted a crushed up valium off his sister’s tits, then you must fix the issue before the issue fixes you. Wyoming has no shortage of these kinds of people. You may have to fight your way out of having him as a cellie, but nine times out of ten, the sex offender will leave on his own accord when threatened with physical violence. But there are those times when he won’t. It’s better to engage in a single fist fight than a ten to one bashing, like what used to happen here before the guards and the warden grew some actual nuts.
In history, people have straight up murdered their own cellies over things that seem like simple crimes until you are forced to live with it day-in, day-out. In closing, don’t be “that one guy”. Your very life could depend on it.
No Comments