By Christopher Clark
A lot of individuals look at prison like asylum or a place where smiles and laughter doesn’t occur. That’s completely wrong. Even though I was sentenced to spend the rest of my life in prison, I try to find something to smile and joke about every day. It’s like, when I come out of the cell in the morning to floss and brush my teeth, I might see a person and they’ll just laugh or smile. It’s not the laughs like “look at this fool,” but it’s the laughs and smile of damn you had me crying while laughing yesterday.
God has given each of us talent, and it’s up to us to find it. My true talent isn’t in sports (though I’m pretty good in all sports); I don’t know how to sing, and I’m not an artist. What I do possess is the talent to make people laugh and smile. It doesn’t stop with inmates but goes to staff as well.
I’m incarcerated with people from all walks of life, and there’s guys in here that do not want to show a sign of a smile, but I shoot that down so quick. There was one guy, years ago, who would ask if I was outside because he wanted to be act mad all day and complain about tedious things. He would yell out the window and say, “Man, is Chris out there because I ain’t trying to laugh because I don’t feel like it today.”
Little did he know I was on the side of the building hiding. Soon as he came out he started complaining, “Man why the bathroom so dirty and why y’all keep laughing?”
So, when I came from on the side of the building, I yelled “Come here and get that evil off you, you need a hug.”
Let me tell you, this guy took off running back inside the building laughing and shouting. “Man, get the hell away from me.” My job was done, I had put a smile on his face before he escaped my bear hug. He came to the window acting mad, saying that we play too much and needed to grow up and he slammed his window and we busted out crying from laughing so hard.
We call our cafeteria the “chow hall” (for what reason, I don’t know). We are often served meals that no one eats, but there’s always this one person that will collect the unwanted food from everybody and later make the whole unit suffer with it. This one fool would sit in the chow hall with an altered state coat, which had another pocket stitched inside the coat. We have a meal we call “cat head.” It’s Salisbury steak but it’s nowhere near a steak, although it does have a stank. So, he’ll have his coat open and ask everybody that walks past, “You eating that tray?”
This fool will grab the tray and dump it inside his new pocket that has a garbage bag lining it. Once the garbage bag pocket is full, he puts up his tray and heads to the unit. The whole unit already automatically knows what he’s gonna do. He comes to microwave with forty cat heads (the state itself gives you two per person and they’re about the size of little meat balls). As I come up, he has the microwave set to twenty minutes.
“Man, how y’all let this guy get in front of y’all?” I ask, pissed off.
“Wait cha turn playa, y’all down there watchin’ ‘Love & Hip Hop’, and y’all shoulda’ hopped ya ass to the microwave.”
His English was horrible, he was making all of us suffer from the lingering cat-head smell, reminiscent of old shoes, spoiled hamburger meat, rust, and gravy. He would take his bowl out and stir it up put it back in and lick the spoon.
“Ughhh,” I said under my breath.
The whole unit suffered every other Tuesday and Wednesday. No matter how much we talked about him, it just made him go harder. The officer would come out from the back of the unit and yell, “Who in tha hell done stole cat head out of the chow hall?”
Everybody was laughing now because this fool was only on his eighth microwave minute and we were fed up with his BS. Still waiting, he would tap his feet, humming Missy Eliot,”I Can’t Stand the Rain,” looking into the microwave.
“Man, please can we have some time in the microwave?” I asked in sarcastic way.
“You want some time? Well buy you damn watch,” he snapped back.
I had no choice but to laugh and so did everybody else. The microwave line was as long a roller coaster line at Cedar Point. He literally used the whole time. When he was done, he took the bowl out and went about his way, lighting the whole unit up with that foul odor. He yelled back to me and said, “Next time stop talking all damn day in the chow hall and you’ll beat me back with your nosey ass.” Then he flashed his gold tooth, smiling like Joe Pecsi in the movie “Home Alone.”
In prison, we really have very few things to look forward to. Highlights for us include the gym, chow, mail, commissary, and the weight pit. Each place has its funny moments. The weight pit is, by far, the funniest. There is always that one person trying to get everybody to look at him.
One morning I came out to the weight pit and I wanted to hit a few sets of legs. It seems like this is always the one station guaranteed to be open because almost everyone only works their chest and arms in prison. I have a pair of sunglasses that I call my Busta Blockas. The name comes from the fact that I put them on trying to block out all the “bustas” aka other people I can. One guy in particular I try to stay away from. I have been to other prisons with him and he’s the same at every one. This guy grabs all the dumb-bells and set them around his bench so people will talk to him. “Anybody got these 40’s after you?” another guy will ask him.
“Naw bro, you can get em’, just bring em’ back”.
Now he has a habit of rearranging the weight pit so it’s suitable for him. He’ll start moving into other people areas trying to make room.
“Excuse me, Bra, I’m goin put this over here,” he said picking up the preacher-curl bench.
“Come on man, keep that shit over there”. One of the regulars said to the guy.
“You got enough room over there. Why is you all over here”? Another guy asked him.
“Never mind, y’all tripping,” he said, putting the bench back where it was. Now this guy has been like this for years. I observed that, while he actually had all this weight, he didn’t lift no dumbbells. All he did was move other things in people areas, getting everybody upset.
Then it was his turn to sit down and do his set. I give him some credit, he worked out every day Unfortunately, it didn’t show. He was a gym rat with a fat stomach, small arms, a little chest, and he wore these raggedy sunglasses. He would take his shirt off and put a weight pit belt on around his overlarge stomach, then he would put a large amount of weight on the bar and ask for a spot. Nobody wanted to spot him, but you always had some fool that would do it.
With way too much weight on the bar (at least 315 pounds), I knew he was not going to lift it. I did my set and this guy yelled out loud as hell, “Watch me dawg cuz this shit going up,” he said, showing off his Michael Strahan-gap in his teeth. “On three, dawg…”, he said. ” 1… 2… THREE”.
The guy behind him broke it and kept his hand there. The weight came down hard and bounced off his chest… but it didn’t come back up. The right side was going up, but the other side was sort of stuck.
“Get this bitch, dawg. NIGGA GET THE BITCH OFF ME!” He clenched his teeth struggling to get the bar up. His spotter wasn’t worth a fart; he was trying but needed help as well. So, two more guys ran over to help. When they got it up on the rack, gap-man turned to the spotter and said, “Some spot dawg. I almost died,” getting angry at the guy.
“Man, you do this shit every day, come out here and take all the weight and put the heaviest weight on and try and lift it,” his spotter said, defending himself.
“All you on some bullshit, I was better off by myself. Now, anybody want these 50’s?” he asked in a fed-up way.
It was my third set when he came over to me and asked, “How many more sets you got?”
“I got a couple left I’ll be sure to let you know when I’m done”. I said not wanting to be bothered.
“You mind if I get a couple sets?” He asked already knowing the answer.
“Not to be funny but I’m trying to train for something”. I said changing the weight.
“Y’all be acting funny with the weights. I ain’t mad though,” he said, getting upset.
I had been interrupted by him, so I had to reactivate my patented Busta Blockas’. He lingered over to the incline bench looking like a vagabond. His pants were rolled up to his knees, his French braids were struggling to reach his neck and he actually had some handmade shoes. Even though I didn’t want him around me, I had to admit that he was very creative. He had literally MADE some gym shoes. They were Adidas on top but Nike on the bottom. This fool had sewed some shoes together into some kind of unique hybrid.
He went to the incline bench and put 285lbs on the bar and literally yelled out to the whole weight pit, “Watch me!” The whole weight pit froze.
The guy that had spotted him the first time looked at him and said, “Naw, I’m good… that nigga was musty.”
I didn’t want him to hurt himself, so I went to spot him.
“Good looking, ain’t to many like you,” he said, sporting that gap and wrapping his hand around the bar. “On my three… one… two… three!” Then I broke the weight off the rack for him and kept my hands close to the bar. He let it come down, hitting his stomach, with the bar bouncing right back up. He did this three more times, risking an injury or hernia by lifting his ass up off the bench to get it. On his last rep, he was now struggling. His legs were dancing under him, whole body lifting off the seat, and his two teeth in the front was biting his bottom lip. You could actually see the spit bubbles coming through his gap from him struggling lifting the weight.
I was helping him, but he wasn’t strong enough for the weight. “I got chu man, just keep pushing,” I said, trying to get it off of him. “Rack it,” I then said, trying to put it back.
This fool then yelled, “I’m going for one more!” and I had to argue with him. He ended up racking the bar. I headed back to my station and he yelled, “Good looking bro-bro. You need any of this weight before I leave”?
“Naw, I’m good,” I said, “but good looking.”
Taking the belt off and grabbing his shirt, he left. Moments later, someone else there blurted out “Damn, that nigga is a bug.”
I could only shake my head and reset my Busta Blockas.
In prison, everyone here is innocent, if you let them tell it. So we have a place called the law library where you try to find a way out of prison through technical-error by Michigan’s beautiful legal system. This is the first place you should go if you’re incarcerated. Inside of the law library are all types of comedians, “legal beagles,” judges, manipulators, conmen, predators, and “politicians,” as well as people who are actually trying to get out of prison.
A lot of weird conversations go on in the library. I’m talking out-of-this-world-stuff. I was in Level IV (high security prison) and I overheard two guys talking one day. Usually, it’s quiet but Level IV inmates don’t care because they might be on sanctions (loss of privileges), which stops you from going to yard, gym, or anything else except the law-library. If you find yourself in prison, you might just sign up to talk to your homey, or just to get out the room.
So, I’m reading the law but really don’t understand anything I’m reading but I’m trying. These two had to be in their late 30’s and they started talking about religion. The bald-headed light-skinned guy was a Christian, and the smooth-talking dark-skinned guy was a Nation of Islam.
The dark-skin brother says, “Nigga why you think Jesus was white?”
The light-skinned brother says, “My grandma would’ve slapped you to the floor if you said some shit like that”.
“And then I would’ve body slammed that bitch to the flo.”
When I heard that I was laughing but holding it in but I knew the light-skinned guy was gonna him up for saying that.
The light-skinned guy just looked at him like he was stupid. “Bitch… that’s yo grandma too”.
They both busted out in laughter. I take it that these guys were related, and they happen just to end up at the same facility which is rare. “Grandma done fucked yo head up Bro,” the darker guy said.
“Why you say that”?
“Because you in this bitch praying to white-Jesus and he’s not about to open up no gate for you. I been in here for thirteen years and I ain’t never seen Jesus open up no gates for a nigga or a honkey. Now go tell Grandma that. You got her sending these crooked lawyers all this money,” the dark-skinned guy said, getting upset.
“What makes you so different? Islam this, Islam that. Fuck Islam,” the lighter brother said.
“Watch yo mouth man. You my lil brother but I’ll fuck you up,” the darker one said.
“You ain’t goin do shit to me.”
I just sat there like froze, wondering, what do I do? I really needed to get out of there, but I didn’t wanna show any sign of weakness since this was my first Level IV prison.
“Shhhh,” the librarian said.
The darker brother was breathing hard as hell and I happen to look up and tears were coming down. He hauled off and slapped the hell out of his sibling, knocking his own brother to the floor. Then he leaped over the table and got to choking his brother. “Bitch didn’t I tell you not to disrespect my religion.”
Papers and books flew everywhere and all you heard was “fight” and the librarian yelling “You guys knock it off.”
I just sat there and then the corrections officers rushed in quickly, grabbing the older brother and slamming him to the floor. The younger brother tried to get up but another CO, who we called “Lunch Pail,” landed right on top of him. Now Lunch Pail was so big that he had to turn sideways just to get inside the door entry; he had a long blond ponytail and he was going bald in the middle (he also wore these fat sketcher shoes that look like they were about to explode).
The younger brother screamed “Get your fat ass of me”!
“Stop resisting. I’m not going to ask you again.” Lunch Pail yelled back in his ear.
I stood there in awe just watching. Lunch pail looked at me and yelled “GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE”. So, I got up and left grabbing all my papers.
This is just the beginning of the law library incidents. There is humor in it but it’s also sad what a guy has to go through in here.
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