There's a difference between jail and prison, just as there's a difference between boys and men.
But to get to either one, you must go through the cage.
But to get to either one, you must go through the cage.
The Jackson Cage by Chris Leek
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I walked over to the wall and took a lean. Rule one is keep
your back to it; nobody can jump you through concrete.
A police cell ain’t prison and holding tanks are the same
all over. I knew that better than most. I’d been in them since I was fourteen
and the cage had taught me more than my piece-of-shit old man ever did; it was the
one constant in my world. The smell of body odor mixed with piss and regrets; the
hard stares from empty eyes. The same four walls of misery, no matter if you
were in Carson or Chattanooga .
I looked around for a friendly patch and struck out, that was
nothing new either. Nomad is a hard ride and I was a long way from church.
This tank was a Saturday night special; local PD had scraped
the shit off their shoes and locked it away for the weekend. There was an AB
limp-dick stood at the far end, his sweat-stained wife-beater revealing arms
and a neck covered with crooked symbols of white-powered hate. It took a
special kind of idiot to ink the 88
on his jugular and feel good about it. I saw him checking out my cut when I
walked in. My top rocker tells its own story, and ole Alice Baker here should
know better than to fuck with the 1%, assuming of course he could read.
The other end of the cage was Barrio turf. Soul patches and
sideways looks from three Mexicali street
soldiers. These smart boys had done the math and figured the numbers made them top
turds in this shitter. They were fist bumping each other and giving me the
stink eye.
I gave it right back.
I wasn’t looking for trouble with white or brown, but rule
two is, don’t flinch. Fear is like blood in these waters and sharks could smell
it a mile away.
The rest of the congregation was a bottom draw mix of drug
store cowboys and third generation white trash. They clung to the walls like
fat girls at a senior prom, praying nobody asked them dance. Their eyes searched
the floor hoping to find salvation in the cracked tile.
“Hey, motorhead, I like your boots.”
The shout came from south of the border. I ignored it.
“Hey, I’s talking to you.”
The Chola with the biggest hard-on moved towards me with a
ghetto swagger. You know the drill, arms held wide, palms face up, head weaving
from side to side like he was dodging bullets.
“Chingate.”
The look on his face told
me it wasn’t everyday he got told to go fuck himself. Maybe he was somebody
back home in his sewer—the undisputed king of two crapped-out city blocks full
of dead ends and bad deals.
In here, he was pissing me off.
“A viente! Now,
you gonna bleed bitch.”
Rule three: there is always someone with a bigger nut sack
than you.
I had learned long ago to only pick the fights I could win,
or at least those I could walk away from. Jose here was young, dumb and full of
cum. He already had the chalk outline drawn around him; all I had to do was
provide the crime.
He opened up and swung at me like a rusty screen door. I
blocked it with my forearm and ducked inside, working his kidneys with three
sharp jabs and making sure he would wake up pissing blood in the morning. He
buckled, but I’ll give him some dues, he didn’t fold.
His hombres were cheerleading but neither of them seemed
inclined to join in. Everyone else was just enjoying watching a good old-fashioned ass-kicking. It was time to take Jose to school.
I feigned with a right and then drove a hard left into his
gut. This time he folded in half. I grabbed a hunk of his greasy hair and
mashed a knee into his nose. He tried to scream but it came out all mangled. I
let him go and he slumped to the floor.
School was out.
He lay amongst the stains and the lung butter, gasping for
breath; his face a grade school painting of snot and blood. I glanced over at
the cop sat behind the booking desk. He was time served with dog years spent
breaking up bar fights; risking his life for a dime-bag narc bust. His 30K a
year and the lousy health plan added up to exactly how many fucks he didn’t
give.
He was looking anywhere but in here.
“You like these boots, Ese?”
I said and kicked out Jose’s smile.
That’s the final rule, number four: If nobody’s looking,
fuck the rules.
