Page 34 of The River Is Waiting

“Good question,” she says. “I’ll have to get back to you.”

Walking out of her office, I remember that Dale did prison time forthe drunk driving that led to his niece’s injuries and her eventual death. I figure I won’t be seeing my sponsor for another three years or talking to him either. I forgot to write down his number and I don’t have an address where I can write to him.

No visitors for five more weeks and no phone calls either until someone sets up and funds an account with that rip-off prison telephone service company out of Texas that everyone gripes about. Once that’s done, I can make collect calls, but until then it’s snail mail. I bum paper, envelopes, and a couple of stamps from Manny and write to my mom, asking her to fund my account so I can talk with her and Emily and Maisie—at least let my daughter hear my voice. I worry that Emily might not even take my call.

I write to my father, too—reluctantly.

Dear Dad,

I hope you’re doing well, getting out to the golf course and the hiking trails during this nice weather. Prison takes some getting used to, but I’m okay—settling in here, more or less.

I’m writing to thank you for a couple of things. First, I appreciate that you and Natalie arranged for Attorney Dixon to represent me. And thank you for paying for her services. I’m grateful to you for taking care of that. I also appreciate that you came to court to support me the day they sentenced me. I’m sorry you had to see me getting carted off in chains. No father should have to witness that, but I appreciate that you were there.

If you want to write to me while I’m here, the return address and my prison # are on the envelope. I also put you on my visitors’ list. It will take about a month to get you approved to come here, but no sweat if you’d rather not. I’ll understand.

Yours truly,

Corby

My loneliness and my fear of the system and the people in it are making me crazy. I spend the long daytime hours pacing the confines of our cell or tucked in on myself on the top bunk. I’ve become hypersensitive to noise, so I skip a lot of meals to avoid the din in the chow hall. When hunger forces me to go, I usually end up sitting with Manny, whose cell is three down from Pug’s and mine.

Manny seems decent enough, harmless, but he never shuts up. I sit there, shoveling in whatever looks edible and not saying anything to anyone. Meanwhile, Manny spends most of his eating time yapping away, so that when the guards shout for us to clear out, he watches where they’re looking as he hides bread or cake up his sweatshirt sleeve, drops a chicken leg or half of a meat pie down his pants.

Throughout the day, after every meal and until lights-out at night, the guards count us to make sure no one has gone missing.Miscount us half the time, and when the numbers don’t come out right, everything stops until they do. Once the count clears, we get on-the-hour “common time.” The CO at the control desk pops all the cell doors simultaneously, allowing us five minutes out in the corridor—just enough time to make a quick collect call on the phone, or fill a Styrofoam cup with lukewarm water from the communal hot pot so you can make tea, instant coffee, or ramen, or just shoot the shit with someone other than your bunkie. None of this applies to me. My phone account hasn’t been funded yet, I have no packets of instant coffee or noodles, and I don’t want to talk to any of these guys anyway. I stay in my cell.

On odd-numbered days, our tier gets thirty minutes out in the yard for fresh air, exercise, and sunshine. I try it once, but I basically just stand there by myself, watching some Black guys playing a roughneck game of basketball with a netless hoop. A couple of the older inmates are playing checkers, and a bunch of the weight room bros are gathered around a picnic table, cheering on an arm-wrestling match between two of their own. It feels like I’m back in middle school, watching all the cliques I don’t belong to. Three poker-faced COs—one Black, two white—oversee us all like playground supervisors.

Having become more aware of the racial divide at this place, I notice that Manny is hanging with six or seven guys who are Black, white, and Brown—the queer clique from the looks of it. For once, he isn’t monopolizing the conversation. The person holding court is a tall, skinny, light-skinned Black dude with loud, affected speech and what sounds like a Jamaican accent. He’s wearing red lipstick, blue eye makeup, uniform pants rolled up to midcalf. There’s a purple feather boa around his neck that, apparently, the COs aren’t interested in confiscating. “So I said gurl, if I went down on that monster, I’d get lockjaw!” Having seen the attitude toward gays around here, I kind of admire his “fuck you” declaration of queerness in the midst of all this prison yard machismo.

I look away when he catches me staring at him. Too late. “Hey there, handsome! I’m Jheri Curl. Like what you see?” I try for an expression of bored indifference but can feel myself blushing. “I got some junk in the trunk for you, baby. Can you go deep the way I like it? Never can tell what you white boys got until showtime.” Hoots and laughter from the others except for Manny. He says something I can’t hear. Whatever it is, the drag queen says, “I was just jokin’ with Uptight Whitey was all. Can’t a gurl have a little fun out here?”

I look over at the COs to see whether they’ve picked up on any of this, but they’re occupied with their own conversation. When the hell are they going to let us go back to our cells? Thirty minutes? It feels like we’ve been out here for an hour.

Halfway across the yard, a skirmish breaks out and I follow some of the others who are gearing up to watch the show. Two guys are yelling at each other in Spanish. When it escalates into a shoving match, the three guards move in, separating them and threatening each with pepper spray if they don’t knock it off. One guy is compliant. The other one launches a hawker that lands on the shoe of his opponent. The CO who cuffs him escorts him out of the yard.

“Hey, Ledbetter!” someone calls. Who knows my name?

“Yeah?”

My eyes find two white guys walking toward me. The older one has a shaved head and a bushy salt-and-pepper beard. I’ve seen the younger one talking with Pug in the shower room a couple of times. Naked, this guy is covered front and back with tattoos: the Confederate flag on his left pec, on his right one a circle and cross. An angry-looking American eagle takes flight on the entirety of his broad back, along with the words “White Pride Worldwide.”

The older guy does the talking. “I’m Wes and this is Gunnar. We want to discuss something with you. Let’s get out of earshot.”

“Nah. I’m good,” I say. “How do you know my name?”

“Made it our business to find out,” he says. He lowers his voice. “Look, you’re new here, but you must have figured out by now that the spics, the spades, and the half-breeds outnumber us. Now that presents a clear and present danger to us three and every other white guy doing time here. Know what I’m saying?”

Play dumb, I tell myself. Shake my head.

“Then let me spell it out for you. You can already hear the beat of the jungle drum at this place and we’ve got reliable intel that the ‘libtard’ governor of this fucking state is pushing the commissioner to appoint a nigger as the next warden here. The nigs are already coddled at this institution and it’ll get a whole lot worse ifthathappens. Sooner or later there’s gonna be a war breaking out at a lot of prisons around the country, including this one.”

I look over and see the Black CO, McGreavy, eagle-eyeing us. I’ve got to walk away from these crackpots or I’ll be lumped with them.

“You better decide where your loyalty’s at,” the tattooed one says. “Wes and me just want to advise you not to betray your race.”

Is this a threat or a recruitment spiel? Whatever it is, before I can respond, I’m saved by McGreavy’s whistle. “Rec time’s over!” he shouts. His wingman—I think his name is Yarnall—claps his hands and shouts, “Let’s go! Back inside!” I’m relieved that “outdoor recess” is finally over. This is what I get for venturing outside my cell, but I don’t plan on makingthatmistake again.

Manny comes up from behind me as I enter the building. “Don’t let Jheri get to you,” he says. “She’s got a big mouth, but she’s harmless.”

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