I'd been warned about people "running game" on you in prison. I'd been warned not to trust anyone. I'd been warned that everyone pays attention to every move you make. I'd been warned not to stick out, especially not for having access to money. But, in classic Joseph format, I need to learn things the hard way. 

 

After laying low for a week, I decide to acquire a Casio digital watch, used New Balance sneakers, a Sony digital handheld radio, gym shorts, and a commissary bag stuffed full of junk food. As if by "magic", people start to stop by my cell asking for free handouts and offering me "prison luxury goods" such as a large plastic cooking/eating bowls, a high quality drawing paper pad, cigarettes and of course drugs. I quit smoking upon incarceration and I'm sober for almost two years so drugs and cigarettes are out of the question. But, why not indulge in some of the other "premium" goods? A little comfort never killed nobody right? WRONG! Comfort is exactly what will get you robbed from, stabbed or even killed in prison.

 

Within a week of acquiring the goods, I was played by a "friend" of mine, named Chico. He had spent the week befriending me, telling me about his past, teaching me how to make a soup sandwich. Then one day he comes to me flustered, stating that he had just saved my ass. Chico tells me "an OG Inc. gang member" is planning on taking my watch, sneakers and all the commissary (snacks and coffee purchased at the prison store) from my locker. He then hands me a kite -- prison lingo for a note with important information -- that was given to him at the chow hall. The note read:

 

"Chico,

 

I need to borrow your banger urgently. There's a jew in Fox dorm, section 2, room 2404 dat gots hella cash. Tell him he needs to give up his watch, his kicks and everything in his locker and deposit $50 in my jpay account every week or imma stab his ass up (Prison ID G87655). Tell him he better not check in because we got brothers in solitary confinement and they will stab him up there if he try to play games. 

 

from,

OG Inc."

 

As my eyes glaze over the poorly written letter scribbled on the back of an "inmate request" sheet, my eyes begin to water with tears of terror. Every word tightening the knot of anxiety constricting my chest. How do they know I'm Jewish? How do they know what dorm, section and room number I'm in? Why do they think I have a lot of money? What have I done to them? I keep to myself and mind my own business. Confusion, fear and frustration overtakes my being. I feel paralyzed. 

 

Chico then says, "don't worry dawg i got your back. Imma squash this don't worry." Of course, I'm still worried. Worried is an understatement, I'm petrified.

 

The next day Chico tells me he has good news and bad news. The good news is that he was able to stop the OG Inc. guy. The bad news is that I need to give him my sneakers and watch as payment to him and his "gang brothers" for taking care of this situation. Without thinking twice I hand over the goods, feeling beyond relieved and grateful. 

 

The next five days straight I lock myself in the cell, too scared to go to the yard or chow hall. I have a strange feeling the whole series of events was orchestrated by Chico. The more time passes the more sure I am that no OG Inc. gang member was ever planning on robbing from me and the note was written by Chico himself.

 

However, at that early point in my prison career I was not interested in fighting for seemingly trivial material goods. BIG MISTAKE. The next problem was inevitably around the corner.

 

A couple days later, I'm in my cell working out when Chico storms in and sneers, "Yo you got coffee?" in his usual unnecessarily loud and aggressive tone. 

 

"No" I gasp in a strong exhale between bicep curling my commissary bag stuffed with books. 

 

"Why you lying to me Dawg?!?!"

 

"I'm not lying!" I snapped.

 

"Bullshit! Croc told me he saw a bag in your locker!!!"

 

"Yo can't you see I'm working out? I do have coffee, but only enough to last me until tomorrow and I've already said no to a bunch of people so why would I give you?"

 

"Listen dawg, you raise your voice like that at me again and imma beat the FUCK out of you! YOU HEAR ME?"

 

I stay quiet and calm and continue my bicep curling.

 

"YO BITCH! YOU HEAR ME? RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME AGAIN AND I'LL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU!"

 

At this point the blood in my body is circulating at the speed of sound and boiling at temperatures beyond belief. I'm grinding my teeth shut using every ounce of control to bite my tongue and contain my fist from lunging forward and breaking this entitled piece of shit's nose off.

 

"Dude of course I heard you. I'm right in front of you. I'm working out. I have no coffee for you."

 

"Aight dawg. You got me feeling some type of way now. You better watch your back kid," replied Chico, vanishing from my cell.

 

part #2 of 2

 

"CHOW! CHOW!" yells the guard outside my cell, signaling dinner time. For the next half hour I keep running through what had just happened in my mind. My thoughts flip to Master Marcus Aurelio, my jiu jitsu instructor, "never look for a fight, but if it's unavoidable, when it's on, IT'S ON!" Easier said than done. Sure, I'm a big dude very aggressive, varsity football captain of the defense middle linebacker and have been training jiu jitsu, boxing and Krav Maga for over a year now... but I've never had to apply any of that to a real fight, much less a prison cell locked-door brawl. 

 

After chow I head to pill line for my medications, my mind racing. I check my daily dose of Lithium and Lamictal -- my bipolar psych meds designed to keep my manic tendencies under control. I can sense trouble in the air and can feel it in bones that I may need to defend myself. Skipping out on my sedating medications is a small advantage in my favor and G-d knows I need all the help I can get. As I cross the threshold of my cell, I head towards the back wall window with the intention of inhaling some fresh air to calm my nerves. Halfway to the window, I hear a wave of people approaching behind me. Immediately, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I'm on ultra high alert, the adrenaline pounding through my body, fueling me like nitrous oxide inside of a drag racer's muscle car. Turning around I see Chico, Bullet and Tank his two gang brothers. One looking more menacing than the next. Chico lifts his shirt to reveal a nine-inch long steel banger tucked in the elastic band of his pants -- banger is prison lingo for a knife, dagger or any sharp object for stabbing someone.

 

"Open up your locker and give me everything you have, including your coffee," Chico says in a cool, calm, inconsequential tone as he fingers the banger.

 

At that moment, like an angel sent from heaven by the power I choose to call G-d, Big Country squeezes through the door. "WHOAAA! What's the deal?!? What's going on in here?!?!" roars the mountain of a man known as Big Country -- my Jewish, cigarette slinging, bad ass prison lord of a brother -- shows up in the nick of time.

 

Chico stutters, "your boy here disrespected me and lied to me."

 

"WHAT HAPPENED?!?!" booms Big Country. I stay quiet. The gangbangers, Bullet and Tank, also weilding bangers of their own look at me, then at Chico.

 

"He wouldn't give me coffee, and... and he lied. He said he didn't have any... and then he yelled at me... and now I'm feeling some type of way."

 

Big Country shows an open mouthed frown, one of his buck teeth missing. His facial expression saying, "What the FUCK! All this drama over some coffee?!?" It was obvious Tank and Bullet were thinking the same thing.

 

"Put that BANGER away Chico! Let's settle this like men. Franco do you want to give him your commissary and coffee?"

 

"Fuck no," comes out of my mouth without my logical mind's permission.

 

"OK then, Chico, give Bullet your banger." Chico pulls the massive makeshift steel blade from his waistband and hands it to Bullet. Big Country continues, "Everyone out! Chico, Franco stay. Take care of your business."

 

The door slams shut behind Chico and it's just us two and G-d in my tiny, six by ten foot cell. I can see Bullet over Chico's shoulder spectating from outside the cell through the small plexi-glass window in the door, a sea of inmates gathered behind him. It's going down.

 

My hands go up to shield my face and body in fighting position and so do Chico's. Chico is about forty pounds heavier than I am, lending me the upper hand in mobility and agility. As if in a trance, I am overtaken by a state of Jiu Jitsu autopilot. No time for thinking, just acting and reacting being. I throw a couple jabs with my left fist, missing the first and lightly grazing his shoulder on the second. Chico throws two wild right handed rockets and I dodge them both. I show a big right handed cross coming and at the last instant fake it, unloading a fierce front kick, sending the bottom of my foot into Chico's bluberry gut, sending him reeling backwards with a loud BANG against the door behind him (major run on sentence, fix). I rush at him with a flurry of rapid fire shots, jab, jab, cross, uppercut, uppercut, uppercut -- connecting nicely on two uppercuts, the first to his gut and then to his face as ducks in pain from the first. In the process, he lands a blind overhand retaliation swing on my upper left forehead with his right fist. Chico grabs me in a suffocating bear hug as I flail violently in a futile attempt to escape his clutch. We bump into the sink, sending us toppling down to the floor next to the toilet. After some grappling and pounding on the floor, we reach a stalemate. Then, without exchanging words, as if mutually possessed by a sportsmanlike spirit we agree that this round is over. My adrenaline is through the roof and I am no longer acting on logical human thought, rather by animalistic beastiality and instinct. 

 

"Alright we good Franco, respect," declares Chico in a way that seems like he is proud of me and honored to have popped my prison brawl cherry.

 

"No! Round 2!! We need to go again!" I growl, once again words slipping out of my mouth without my permission. And so it went, we fought again with a similar outcome. This was the best and most alive I felt since my incarceration. 

 

As I exit my cell, our temporary mock-UFC cage, all eyes were on me. I felt like I was high on cocaine and molly at the same time, times 100. As I made my way to the water fountain I received waves of compliment after compliment, "good shit Knucci," "that's how it's done, respect," "attaboy Franco!"

 

After that, Chico never messed with me again.