Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison by T. Parsell (fiction novels to read .txt) 📗

I wouldn't be able to break a fall, and the last thing I'd want to do was take Moseley with me.

I was the only white guy inside my van. I noticed three or four others in the bullpens that morning. With six transports holding up to ten prisoners in each, I wondered why they didn't get a bus.

Jackson Prison was about ninety minutes from Detroit, but it seemed like we arrived in minutes. When the van pulled off 1-96 and onto Cooper Street, the prison was to the right. I turned around to look out, but it was hard to twist with all those chains.

I looked down and noticed my wrist was loose in the handcuff that was attached to the chain, so I brought it up to my other hand to see if I could wiggle free. Bunching my fingers together and pressing my thumb into my palm, I tried to make my hand the same size as my wrist. I squeezed the little finger around, and with my right hand that was attached at the waist I was able to push the cuff down to the bump at the base of my thumb. It felt like it was cutting into my skin, but it didn't break the surface, and the van got quiet as they watched me work. I leaned forward to spit, but missed, and it landed on my jeans. I spit again, and that time it smacked, perfectly, on the back of my hand. I rubbed the spit around the thumb and joint and was able to slip the metal cuff free.

I was fairly pleased with myself, as one or two other smiled on, but then Moseley spoke up. "You're a regular fi►ckin' Houdini. So now what are you going to do?"

I shrugged. If only I could do the same with my other hand, my ankles and the chain that was looped and locked at the waist. Then all I'd have to do is figure a way out of the van, all without alerting the two armed deputies in the front and the others that were trailing behind. At least I didn't have to worry about falling from the van. It also meant I could now twist around to get a good view of the prison.

Through a dark brown cluster of cedar trees, I could see part of the main complex. Covering nearly sixty acres, Jackson was the world's largest walled prison. But my anticipation turned sour, as the van made its way onto a circular drive and past a large arrowed sign that read: INMATE RECEIVING.

I felt a sudden urge to scream, but I kept my head silently turned out the window, afraid my face would betray me. I could not let the inmates see how the sight of the prison's massive walls hit me like I was entering a slaughterhouse. The chain at my waist was squeezing all the air from my stomach, up and out from the lungs. Suddenly, for the first time, I wanted to escape. And as Moseley had said, I was beginning to feel like a regular Houdini. But it was Houdini at the very end, in the movie version, where he was trapped inside a water tank and as everyone looked on, no one could see he was drowning.

10

Convict Orientation

One day on my paper route, a headline story jumped out at me. A ter- roristgroup had kidnapped Patty Hearst, a young newspaper heiress. The story caught my attention because a year earlier, while on vacation in California, we had taken a tour of San Simeon her grandfather's mansion. It sat on top of a hill, from which William Randolph Hearst once owned the land as far as anyone could see.

It was hard to fathom that be made all that money from selling newspapers. And then, later on that year, Patty Hearst was arrested for robbing a bank with the very people who had kidnapped her. She had become one of them.

We entered the prison through a side door. The sound of the electric gate hummed like a swarm of angry bees. Through large double doors and a barred gate, we entered the bubble of the State Prison of Southern Michigan. It was called the bubble, because it was the only portion of the prison that extended out from the structure's five towering walls. It was the reception center for all new inmates serving state time. Over the next six weeks, we would be quarantined until the Classification Committee determined where we would be sent to serve our time.

The bubble was also the entry point for visitors, although they entered through a different door, and once inside, were ushered past metal detectors and taken to the visiting room beneath a large rotunda. I noticed the rotunda as we came up the drive. It was set back beyond the bubble. On top, a large cupola doubled as a gun tower.

It had been easy to step from the van, as I loosely held on to the handcuff that was fastened to the chain. The deputies hadn't notice I'd slipped free, or if they had, they didn't care. Their twelve-gauge shotguns served as a good deterrent.

Before clearing the first chamber, I felt consumed by the noise, the echoes, the sound of distant screams and a dank, cold metallic odor that billowed out from deep within. My heart bounced as the first gate pounded shut. Each new set of bars waited for the ones behind to close. Inside, the air felt oddly still. It was hard to breathe. The last gate opened with a hiss and a wheeze, as the hydraulic pressure released the sliding rack.

I had suffered from asthma when I was younger, but it was triggered by allergies. My doctor said it was my lungs' way of rejecting something my body couldn't handle.

Several vans from other counties had already arrived, so the holding cells were full. There were close to a hundred fish waiting