Roman has to decide if he's going to clique up in prison or try to go it alone... The Brand wants him to cut his friendship with his old friend Jiggs because he's not white, and the Warrior Monks wants him because he's a skilled martial artist they want to use.
Roman has to decide if he's going to clique up in prison or try to go it alone... The Brand wants him to cut his friendship with his old friend Jiggs because he's not white, and the Warrior Monks wants him because he's a skilled martial artist they want to use.
All of the wings or houses in the castle were one man cells, not like county lockup, no multiple bunks stacked up in the community room or two man cells on the walk. This was a designated Super max and maximum security penitentiary… where one spent more time locked down than not and Roman figured there were less murders if the cons weren’t sharing a cell. He was perfectly cool with that, he preferred to be alone.
There was a heightened sense of danger present whenever the cell doors rolled open and the men filed out for chow hall, or to go to work, walk the quad for some fresh air… but especially at meal-time. The chow hall was the second deadliest place inside, the first was any blind spot.
When the steel doors rolled open with a loud clang and the bell rang he stepped outside of his cell preparing to go to the chow hall, he felt like he used to when he was in jr high and he had to go to the showers after gym class, preparing for battle… but now this was some grownup shit, real gladiators, not boys on the verge of puberty… hardened, violent men.
Roman knew he was once again in the minority, except this time it wasn’t race, it was dirty deeds. He knew he was one of the few men of the walk that wasn’t behind bars for murder. He kept his eyes straight ahead, his shoulders back and stood as straight and tall as he could, projecting the aura of someone who wouldn’t take any shit – with nothing to lose - this was the only way he’d survive in gen pop… to swim with sharks you had to be a shark.
As the single file line entered the chow hall, Roman scanned the enormous room, it held around 300 convicts, there was a low murmuring of conversation with only the clank of steel trays in the back of the kitchen, convicts ate silently keeping their eyes on their food with one arm protecting their tray while the other held a plastic spork.
Roman took each step matching the con in front of him always acutely aware of not entering his space. The food was pretty much what he had expected it would be… a scoop of instant mashed potatoes, a spoonful of canned green beans and what appeared to be a small square of spamish mystery meat, a carton of milk and a cup of fruit cocktail. Roman turned to scan the room full of steel tables… and couldn’t help but think he was right back in school cafeteria… the age old dilemma of which table to choose.
The jocks, aka, muscle heads yeah he could see himself squeezing in between the hulk wannabes and making small talk about how it was time to start bulking up.
Or maybe he’d slide in between the stone cold killers and swap stories of what it felt like watching life drain from his victim’s eyes…
Then he stopped short… no fuckin way… he could hardly believe his eyes, it was jigs. His ol friend from county was sitting alone at a table staring down at his food, roman couldn’t believe it. A friendly face in a sea of potential threats.
Roman quietly walked up to his old buddy and asked if he this seat was taken. “Unless you’re waiting for that ugly ass girlfriend of yours”
Jigs raised his head half expecting he was gonna have to take this honky ass white boy talkin shit downtown to a beat down before dessert.
“Whitebread! You crazy ass muthafucker! Jig’s smile was a dead giveaway that he too was happy to see a familiar face.
“When did you get here?” Roman asked.
Yesterday… there was about ten of us… four checked into PC. You’re the first one from county I’ve seen other than the dudes I rolled in with. How the fuck are you brother?”
Roman shook his head as he swallowed a sporkful of the mystery meat, “I’m alright… I’ve already had a run in with one of the gang members that run the yard, roman explained his encounter with Loner.
“I think they’re vetting me or some shit, trying to recruit me no doubt, same ol shit just a different gang… I went through that crap in Juvey… not interested.”
“Yeah, except this is the big leagues muthafucker… you can’t just blow these homeys off as easy I’m guessing…”
Just then a con stepped up to Roman’s side of the table, bent down and whispered “stick to your own kind in here” glanced over at Jigs and nodded, then disappeared in a sea of blue prison uniforms.
“What the fuck was that all about” Jigs asked.
Roman looked around scanning the hall for the con who had just invaded his personal space, his circle and saw him sitting at a table with Loner and what appeared to be several of the Outlaws and a few AB’s, the Aryan Brotherhood, Alice Baker, The Brand… the brotherhood that ran the yard.
As Roman scanned the chow hall a veil seemed to lift from his eyes and for the first time he realized there was an order to the seating throughout… the black cons all sat together, the latino cons were grouped up as well, and the same with the white cons… very few tables had interracial mixing… that is except for their table. Roman and Jigs were the anomaly.
Roman lowered his eyes and whispered, “It was a warning… apparently ol friends of different skin colors aren’t supposed to break bread together – kind like in church I guess, some things never change do they?”
Jigs looked around and nodded. “We done stepped on our first mine in a field of ‘em it seems whitebread.”
Jigs looked at Roman and smiled as he got up he winked and said, “Toto…we ain’t in Kansas no mo” and walked away. Roman had to stop himself from going after him and saying something like, forget these redneck hillbillies, they can go fuck themselves racist backwoods motherfuckers, but he didn’t. He sat there staring as his friend turned the metal tray in and exited the chow hall… he’d just have to figure a way to stay alive and remain friends with Jiggs… somehow.
Roman knew he was cast in a role where his life depended on what he did next. He recalled his father, Rev Rob, when Roman was just four or five, running up and down the pews at his father’s church… twenty years later and still the same ol shit, stick to your own kind… he was sick and tired if that message. When were people going to learn? This racist crap was getting old… wasn’t it time for all this to be in the past by now?
His old man didn’t think much of it back then and roman didn’t think much of it now… but he was all alone at this time, in a pit full of vipers, one wrong move and that was the end of it. Loner had already told him this wasn’t going to be an easy path to survive… all alone, time to clique up - join a gang, loners were easy prey on the yard, hell even Loner wasn’t a loner, he was definitely cliqued up in here, first with the Outlaws motorcycle gang, more or less acting like the enforcers for the The Brand, then with Zendokan Budokai, a splinter group of outlaws and AB’s, warrior monks… taking orders from whom? Roman wondered. Who played the role as “Shogun”… inside these walls? circles within circles, he had just been given a warning to pick a side… and he had best choose wisely.
Pete aka; “Bodhi”… the appointed spiritual leader of the ‘Kan’ or ‘House’ as it was known… every prison in the world has one gang, or group that controls the yard… much like a political party that controls the House or Senate… and this group or circle of power will have at its disposal another group or a smaller circle that they use to enforce their power or decisions.
The president of the United States has the Federal Bureau (FBI) to carry out his orders, he was the military to make war on his enemies, Then there’s the state troopers to enforce the laws of the land and then city cops and sheriffs to keep the peace in every city and town.
The hierarchy inside the Castle was modeled much the same; with the Aryan Brotherhood aka The Brand was at the top of the food chain, and the outlaw MC operated as the strongarm of the Brotherhood, keeping the peace and doling out punishment when necessary. Then there was the inner circle of the Outlaws and the Brotherhood, the Zendokan Budokai, or simply Budokai, the warrior monks, headed up by Pete & Loner as the sergeant of arms, and where Roman found himself standing in the doorway not sure if this was the right move.
Should he throw in with Loner and the rest even though that meant he would essentially be aligning himself within the ranks of the brand?
Or should he swim by himself… in a sea of sharks?
Several months later…
Every gang had their clubhouse… the AB’s controlled the rec room, had social gatherings and meetings there just like they would on the outside.
The Outlaws controlled the gym, the used the office as their personal tattoo parlour and social club… allowing Pete and Loner to utilize it also as their very own dojo, their budokai, where the members would perform katas and spar, stretch and meditate (share a joint or two and zone out).
When the death row cons were allowed to go to the gym… that’s right… there was a death rowin the castle… where they carried out executions old school… by electrocution. Ol’ Sparky was the chairs nickname and it was used more often than not, as a matter of fact the next convict was slated to ride the lightening in less than six months. His name was Red and Red had been an avid martial artist in his life outside, Tae-kwon-do was his thing and he was pretty good, good enough to use it to murder two people and get the death penalty. Whenever chance would allow, Red would get to practice with the budokai in the gym and dust off some old skills by sparring.
Loner urged Roman not to miss the opportunity to spar with someone that would soon be sitting in ol sparky… “you know I’m not going to kill you… I enjoy sparring with you too much! But with Red, well, ya just don’t know for sure if he will or won’t… it’s no skin off his nose. When’s the last time you got to mix it up with someone like that?”
And that’s all it took for Roman to step inside the circle with Red.
had Roman never felt so alive, every cell in his body was on high alert, every neuron firing as Red stepped closer and closer…
their focus is so intense that they’re oblivious to the crowd that has gathered to watch. The only thing that matters is the person in front of them, no longer a person at all, only a shape, a mass of nerves, muscles and flesh.
Closing the gap, moving away, a shoulder twitches, a strike is launched, hips swivel and a foot becomes a blur. Red is short, compact and powerful, with a shock of ginger hair, he moves slower but his blows are wrecking balls smashing down walls.
Roman is lean and stands just over six feet, with long hair and a beard that hasn’t seen a razor in years, his back covered in a traditional Japanese tattoo of a dragon symbolic of the spirit, poised to battle his foe, the tiger, symbolic of the physical, on a mountain covered in clouds and cherry blossoms.
Roman quickly moves in and dodges a strike to his head and blocks a roundhouse kick, with the gap between them now closed he places his left foot in such a manner behind the Red’s foot, his pivot foot. Left hand brushing against his opponent’s shoulder, with minimum force Roman causes Red to tumble to the ground.
“Five packs say’s Red takes him this time”, say’s one of the Death Row guards.
“I’ll take that.” Says a ranking member of the Outlaws.
“Me too.” Another convict chirps in.
The guards look over at the cons wagering on the outcome, then back at each other, “How ‘bout it - I got a tener say’s Red will be standing when it’s over.”
Red, a mass of roped muscle covered with freckles and currently on Death Row for murdering three people. One was wife, a single gunshot wound to her head… the two mean were rumored to have been beaten to death with his bare hands - had played a part of a threesome, when Red barged in uninvited, discovering his wife in coitus. As fate would have it, an unfortunate turn of events for all involved.
Red undeterred of being swept off his feet, quickly assumes a defensive posture on the ground and counters with a low kick aiming for a shin.
“Not bad, Romi, maybe next time you can finish me off… save the State a few bucks.”
“Screw that… I’ve grown quite fond of our little sparring matches… anyway who else on Death Row would let me slap them around.
All of a sudden a rifle shot echoed and the yard sirens began to wail.
The yard went on lockdown, all cons in their cell until further notice. Could be tomorrow – could be next month. Sometime these things took time. As the day’s drama unfolded, it turned out to be an act of retribution, somebody done somebody wrong and violence follows, usually resulting in one of their deaths.
… this was The Mountain… a super maximum security prison… made special for the incorrigible types that couldn’t play nice with other convicts.
It was soon uncovered that a splinter group of the Outlaws and AB’s known as Zendokan Budokai was practicing martial arts training in the back of the gym with certain residents on Death Row working out during a “unapproved” sparring session, the guards had left their post to observe… that’s when the unfortunate incident that caused the lockdown had occurred, one con laying dead in a pool of his own blood from a prescribed knife attack outside the gym.
Now reports and statements have to be made… convicts that were involved had to be separated from the other 900 convicts and punished… which usually resulted in some hard time in the solitary confinement block, known as the SHU , pronounced shoe, known as the Solitary Housing Unit.
… just another breakdown in procedure concerning the segregation of the death row and Gen Pop cons, which highlighted the overcrowding that was rampant in both federal and state prisons.
It’s a little known fact that prisoners are being shuffled about the whole country from one facility to another trying to keep them ahead of the prison regulatory board that oversees such things as monitoring overcrowded conditions… which have a direct impact on that prisons budget allowance… disregard of the guidelines and funds are withheld… it’s always about the money isn’t it?
Being everyone was confined to their cells during lockdown and that means the chow hall is closed down… supper consisted of a bologna sandwich dropped off in a paper bag by the guards, which didn’t really bother Roman, since he rarely ate the prison food served down in the chow hall these days.
“Chili Kool - here pass this down to Bertha for me”, Roman passed a couple of packs of smokes thru the bars to the con in the cell next to him.
Within each wing of the prison, there were several cellblocks and just about every cellblock had it’s own store so to speak, where an con could buy everything from snack foods like Lil’ Debbie’s cakes to chips or canned meat. The store was operated out of a well-connected convicts cell and that someone usually was fairly high up the gang hierarchy, every group of convicts had their own gang, the whites had the Aryan Brotherhood sometimes referred to as The Brand, the Latinos had La Eme or the Mexican Mafia, and were allies with the AB’s, they worked together to control prostitution, drug smuggling and weapons, sometimes even hits.
The blacks had Folk Nation and The Black Guerilla Family, often referred to as The Family, were Jigs had been inducted as their most recent member.
Now usually on the same tier or (floor) that the store is located on, you’ll find the grill, where cons can buy cheeseburgers, grilled chicken, hot dogs, ice cold sodas and chips. The grills operated with a series of ‘hot-plates’ wired together and the con running the grill also pulled double duty as a cook in the chow hall, this con was most certainly well connected and had the full protection of the gang that he had sworn loyalty to.
There are five houses or wings that make up the residents of the castle that housed the thousand or so convicts. Each wing or house consists of 200 one-man cells, that are broken down into four blocks; each cellblock holds 50 cons, Each block has two halls that run parallel to one another… so in essence one can look directly across breeze way into the opposing cell across the common area, or walkway.
These stores or grills can pull in any where from one hundred and fifty dollars a night to over five hundred on a good day… that’s seven days a week… four weeks a year… after year… after year. On average a well run operation will generate about seven grand a month… enough to keep each ‘Gang’ well stocked with every amenity they care to have.
In order to survive, Roman made the decision to join in with a gang of ex-military/bikers/ martial arts enthusiast …. Whom the brand utilized to collect debts from their sports book operation, drug and weapon sales.
There’s no such thing as a free ride. In order for Roman to enjoy the protective umbrella so to speak of a larger, more influential gang like The Brand/or Outlaws… he had to contribute, bring something to the table beside his good looks.
After much careful observation Roman saw there was a missing enterprise operating on the yard… as far as he could tell, there wasn’t a still. No hooch. No homemade wine being distributed. He remembered back in his county lockup days in the escape proof jail nestled within the misty hills of Kentucky he had marveled at the ingenuity of the inmates ability to make alcohol – hooch – toilet wine or Pruno, as it was called - with just a few simple ingredients. Sugar, yeast and fruit juice. All of which were in close proximity, all he needed was two or three weeks of uninterrupted time for a batch to set up, and ferment…. In his cell… without anyone knowing.
A few packs of smokes put in the right hands secured the sugar and cans of fruit cocktail that he needed, the yeast was a bit trickier, as soon as someone heard Roman whisper yeast the gig was up, he’s gonna make some hooch!
Luckily, Roman had just the con for the job… Jiggs. He was currently working in the chow hall for the Family smuggling out everything they required to run their own store and grill operations. Jiggs came through with the yeast that Roman needed,.
“Hey I better get the first jug you dig whitebread?”
“Absolutely, I wouldn’t have it any other way my brother from another mother”
Roman eye-balled the milk dispenser while at breakfast the following day, waiting for the right time to make his move.
Inside the dispenser Roman knew housed a cardboard box that contained a plastic bag that could hold five gallons of milk – it would be perfect to use for fermentation of the hooch.
Roman’s plan was to conceal the plastic milk bag (albeit cleaned out) inside his mesh laundry bag filled with clothes tucked under his bunk and run a small diameter rubber hose ( procured from a IV bag in the infirmary, during a bout of staged stomach flu) from the nipple of the old milk bag and run the hose out his cell window so the hooch could burp and breath when necessary… otherwise the smell of fermenting fruit would alert the guards and a search would be conducted throughout the entire cellblock… making Roman public enemy number one with his neighbors
It worked like a charm. Two weeks to the day, Roman sampled his creation and after half a cup felt the old sensation flood his memories. The warmth of the alcohol content made his face flush and he definitely felt a good buzz coming on. Cheers bitches!
Now it was D-day, time to move the hooch out onto to the yard… he thought the gym would be the most logical place, afterall, it was the domain of the Outlaws and the Zendokan… no guards to worry about… all he had to do was make it from his cell across the yard, he’d skip dinner tonight and head straight for the gym.
Roman capped the old milk bag full of hooch and made sure it was stuffed deep in his laundry bag well concealed. Every con had a laundry bag, obviously it was primarily for putting your prison garb in and sending it to the laundry facility where it got cleaned & folded then returned to your cell, but in reality, cons carried their laundry bag around like women carried their purses on the outside, always with them… they were used to transport all sorts of contraband, cartons of cigarettes (the primary currency inside besides dollars) weed, weapons and of course… hooch.
Roman waited for the doors to roll and the chow hall bell ring, then he tossed his bag across his shoulders and as non-chalantly as he could muster strolled down the walk just like every other con.
As Roman got closer to the doorway to exit his wing – it felt like the old guard standing there was zeroing in on him more than the usual passing glance he would normally get. Roman couldn’t help himself as he strolled past the old guard with his watery eyes, bulbous blood vessel covered nose and stole a glance in the old farts direction.
The guard seemed to literally be sniffing the air around Roman as if ferreting out his contraband. Roman strolled straight past head held high with not a care in the world. He knew it was just his imagination – paranoid thoughts.
Out in the bright sunlight… dinner was served promptly at five pm. Roman walked with a bit more purpose than he probably should have and by-passed the door to the chow hall – which wasn’t a giveaway in itself… many cons ditched the chow hall and opted for grabbing something to eat in the house store or grill.
As Roman was now on a straight path to the gym he noticed one until now interesting little factoid… he seemed to be the only con carry his laundry bag over his shoulder bulked up like santa claus’s with all of his clothes inside… weighted down with five gallons of yummy fruity toilet wine, that weighed somewhere in the vicinity of eight pounds per gallon or a whooping forty pounds!
Beads of sweat were running down his face by now… a combination of the heat and a slight panic attack.
Only a hundred feet to go before he’d be hidden behind the gym doors and safely tucked away inside.
No alarms, no shouting to freeze… no one was the wiser.
Finally… Roman shout the gym doors behind him and made his way over to the bleachers to set up his make shift bar.
He’d brought a dozen dixie cups he’d swiped from the chapel and started filling them up as free samples… then it would be twenty dollars or a carton of cigarettes for each bottle he filled.
He had customers lining up around him and business was brisk… then the gym doors flew open and the goon squad, aka, ERT (Emergency Response Team) charged through making a bee-line for Roman’s makeshift bar. Cons scattered like cockroaches and roman knocked over the hooch bag trying to empty all its contents of evidence… forgetting that he wasn’t on the streets and they didn’t require evidence to prosecute inside their walled city.
They jumped on Roman thrashing him with their batons, their gloved fists and kicked him with their black jackboots until he was cuffed and shackled.
Roman was dragged across the yard in full view of all to see. This is what happens if you break our rules.
They hauled him inside a building he hadn’t seen before, a long hallway to a solid steel door, then more hallways, more cellblocks, similar layout but slightly different construct.
Solid steel doors with small plexiglass windows that could be shut with a sliding metal door, no more bars, no more communicating with the con next door… extremely bright lights lit the entire cellblock up like a nova star… uncuffed and free of his shackles roman took in his new surroundings. A bunk, a steel toilet and a steel table… six by eight feet… everything was just like his old cell except for the door. So this was solitary confinement.
A hour later a guard came to his door and informed him that the punishment for violating their strict contraband policy was thirty days in the SHU for the first offense and hopefully his last stay.
Roman laid down on the thin plastic mattress bunk and stared up at the ceiling with it’s own searing light
he closed his eyes and played back the recent events to reverse engineer where he had made the mistake that led to this.
Obviously moving such a large volume all at once presented some challenges, and timing was crucial… dinner was not the time to try and smuggle out forty pounds of hooch.
But on the otherhand… he glanced around his new digs and felt oddly safe there… sure he was going to be locked down twenty three hours a day, but the upside was he’d be locked down twenty three hours a day. Maybe just maybe, he had found a way to survive.