FERGAL FLANNIGAN'S PRISON NEWSLETTER

Readers,

The lack of last month’s issue was not my fault, so I won’t be apologizing for that, thank you very much.  I will, however, thank all of you, my adoring, devoted readers (Dare I say fans?) for sticking by me during these trying times. These last seven months in prison have been the most peculiar time in my life, and I am black, natural redhead.  You all have been so unyielding in your fealty, it warms my heart in those times where loneliness takes hold of me and squeezes with its ice grip.  In my world full of doubts and toilet wine, your fidelity has never been a question.  I know, because that’s what you signed up for when you subscribed.  (Read the fine print for a reminder.)

For over a month, I was in restrictive housing.  Seg.  The hole.  They took away my commissary privileges, recreation, the phone.  Staying in shape without going to the gym has been difficult, but I can assure you all that I am still 130 pounds of pure fire.  Keeping it tight is almost as important as the worst thing the Man took from me: my mail rights!  I think that’s illegal, and I will be checking on it when I get out.  If one of you is a lawyer, or paralegal, or watches Law & Order marathons on a weekly basis, let me know.  I could use your help.

Seg gave me time to think, however, and over screams through the walls of “Let me out!” and the pestiferous stench of body odor, something like dog turds sauteed in garlic and seasoned with piss, I’ve decided to come clean.  I owe it to you, but mostly to myself.  I’m trying to become a better person, and self-care is at the top of my list.

First, I do have to say, some people are so rude.  The men in the cells around me had no consideration for my quiet, pensive getaway.  Accepting the things I cannot change and trying to turn a negative into a positive is so much harder when you’re trying to think and write, but the smell of… man… is so thick I could chew it.  The cracked concrete walls leaked some chalky brownish water and, if that wasn’t up to par, spit baths would suffice.  Literally anything.  They worked wonders for me. 

I guess I should start where we left off: Jabril and I were in love, him walking the halls and me tagging along, my finger in the pocket of his state-issued tan uniform pants.  Though he never said it, I knew he loved me.  When other men so much as glanced in my direction, his big, beautiful, black eyes would become fiery little slits, and he’d say, “That’s my bitch.  Don’t look at my bitch.”  The conviction with which he said “my” was so tremendous, so mountain-moving, I couldn’t help but agree.  And then he’d say, “Shut up, bitch!”  If that’s not true love, then bears must shit in the ocean.  

I would do anything for Jabril.  As you know, I did do everything for him.  Whatever he said, I jumped like a bunny hopping toward a pasture and away from the stresses of single life.  I slept in his bunk.  Made him gumbos, mofongos, and meat wraps.  Sometimes he sent me into showers with other men, and though they weren’t Jabril, I let them do whatever they wanted.  I can’t lie, I enjoyed the action, but I also did it because Jabril said so.  Because I loved him.  If he could read, I wouldn’t have confessed that, Lord forgive me.  Those men later gifted us valuable commissary items, like Dunkin’ sticks, oodles of noodles, Whole Shabang chips.  I’m particularly fond of the iced honey buns.  

At night he’d count all the food we were given (it was a lot!!!).  If I reached into our snack stash, he’d lovingly and playfully smack my hand away.

“Don’t touch the profit!” he’d say every time.  Ever the comedian, my man.  He’s so funny.

About six weeks ago two cops stormed our cell, and blasted Jabril square in the face with pepper spray.

“Stop!  Stop!” I shouted.  “Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt my baby!”

But my baby wasn’t hurt.  The pepper spray reddened his eyes, and his shining bald head became the color of a ripe cherry tomato, but it had no real effect.  He was pissed, though.  He garbled something unintelligible, his hands curled into hairy fists, and puffed up his chest like an ape putting on a mating display.  He lobbed sweats at the officers, and literally beat his chest while roaring a thunderous howl that still recurs in my dreams to this day.  My little albino King Kong.

The pigs cowered in terror, their faces contorted into sick masks of fear as Jabril started toward them.  By this point, I was thoroughly aroused.  What can I say?  It was hot.

Suddenly a third cop rounded the corner into our cell.  He shot Jabril with a stun gun.  I backed myself into a corner, slid dramatically down the wall until my ass touched the weird, green rubberized floor, and pressed the palms of my hands against my temples.  I shrieked as Jabril convulsed with the current, shaking like a fish out of water, but remained on his feet.  To my surprise (and delight), he began to take baby steps toward the officer with the gun trained on him.  

“Get him, baby!” I shouted at Jabril, now sitting against the wall with my feet to my chest and a tent in my pants.  

That was when the two scaredy-cops jumped in, beating Jabril with their batons.  Being a brolic behemoth, he held out far longer than most would against the crunches and cracks of their weapons against his body.  He’s so, so strong.  His muscles, when tensed, invoke tremors within me; even now I tremble recalling this memory for you, my patient subscribers.  Still, it took three guards to take down Jabril.  What that says about their ranks and my man is ineffable.  

“Don’t say anything, you hear me?”  Jabril shouted as the officers dragged him from the cell.  He had finally succumbed to their onslaught and they’d cuffed him, pulling him by his feet.  His face and head were lumped and leaking like a bleeding melon which had a rough transit to the grocery store.  “Nothing at all, you hear, bitch?”

“I hear!  I hear!”

A fourth officer scrambled in, yanked me by arm to my feet.  He fixed me with wide, surveying icy eyes.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m totally fine,” I said, pulling my arm free of his grip.  I rubbed at the spot where he touched me, disgusted, in hopes I could remove the memory of his grimy hand by wiping it away.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Clearly I was suffering from some form of shock, and was confused by the preceding events.  So, too, was the officer, his brow furrowed and blue eyes scanning me up and down, before he focused on my face.

After a brief staring contest, he said, “Your face?  Your eye?”  I was unsure if it was a question or statement, but I told the truth.  

“I walked into Jabril’s fist.  I wasn’t looking where I was going.  It was my fault; I’m clumsy like that.”  I laughed to show that my clumsiness was a quirk, not a defect of character or a product of eviscerated self-esteem.  I’ve no shortage of self-esteem.  

“Sure,” the officer said.  “Do you feel safe here?”  As he spoke, he placed his hand on my lower back and led me to the bottom bunk, Jabril’s bed.  His touch, like his eyes, was icy, and made me feel defiled, tainted.  The thought of another man, especially not Jabril-approved, touching me is sickening.  I throw up in my mouth a bit every time I think of it.  Blegh!!

Left alone, I moped around the empty cell I used to share with the love of my life.  Though we only knew each other a month at that point (he beat up my previous cellie and subsequently moved himself in), our little square had become a home.  Now, despite the overhead light and the window overlooking the gorgeous meadow outside the prison, my prime real estate felt like a derelict, dilapidated, faded multi-family home on a corner in the part of town my parents forbade me from visiting.  I refused to leave for three days.  No recreation.  No chow.  I was much too heartbroken to function.  

With Jabril gone the men he’d asked me to shower with became ballsy.  They hooted and hollered like chimps on the other side of the glass at a zoo when they passed my cell.  It was as though I was defenseless, delicate baby bird chirping, “Daddy?” over and over.

On the third day, I woke to see Halloran, a particularly rough showermate, staring at me through the bars of my cell.  He pointed at me, but not with his fingers.  

“I’m Jabril’s bitch,” I shouted, cowering on my bed, pulling my state-blanket tighter around my shirtless body.  I felt exposed.

He laughed derisively and without much humor, and asked, “Then where is he?”  He barked twice, sounding like a dog dying of emphysema, and went on his way, walking sideways to keep his eyes on me.  The clang, clang of his… member… against each bar as he exited stage left still haunts my dreams like a sick, thin coffee mug banging around my brain.

On the fourth day our unit manager, Ms. Wilcox, called me to her office.  She was a nice lady, for the most part, and we’d never had any bad interactions before that meeting.  I kind of liked her.  In fact, since she was kind of pudgy and had adult acne and a lisp, her kindness had been her best quality, by far.

“Take a seat, Flannigan,” she said.  Her glasses were taped in the middle.  She had probably sat on them, more than once.  “How are you?”

I sat and asked, “Where’s Jabril?”  Readers, I’m sure you can understand my immediate hostility.  How I felt was like how I assume a bear feels when separated from her cubs.

“Listen, Flannigan,” she said, “we removed him for your own safety.”  Except the words came out as lithen and sssafety.  It was already a stressful situation, and this grown woman’s inability to speak properly sent me off the edge, hurtling toward the bottom of the loneliest canyon.  

“My safety?” I said, my voice cracking, but strong enough to pronounce the word correctly.  I repeated for emphasis, and to show how it should sound.  “Safety?  We were in love.  Love!”  I realized I was standing and didn’t remember getting up.  I didn’t care.  “I want – no, I demand – you bring him back.  Bring him back to me.”

“Love?  Oh dear!  Is this your first time in prison?  Wait, don’t answer that.”  She took off her glasses and placed them on her desk.  “Honey, he didn’t love you.”  Ms. Wilcox cleared her throat loudly, and suddenly looked like a horned toad that had swallowed several smaller toads and was about to regurgitate them.  “He was your primp.”

My god, the audacity of that woman.  I wanted to slap her into next year, but thought better of it.  I was afraid of new charges, especially a violent ones, when all I did was a little bank fraud, but most of all, I was terrified of the cystic pustules pocking her face exploding on impact.  Instead, I stated the obvious as that tiny office felt more and more like a closet.

“That’s homophobic!” 

Ms. Wilcox sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes.  “Oh, come on.  Give it up.  We know all about it: the shower meets, the payments, all the men.  He toted you around like merchandise.  He beat you, for Christ’s sake.”

“He did not beat me!”  I didn’t care who heard anymore, and an officer peeked in at the sound of my shouting.  “He told me that I lost my balance, and, in his worried confusion, he accidentally pushed me into the wall instead of catching me.  It happens to people all the time.”

“You were for sale, and everyone but you knew it,” she sighed, shaking her fat head.

“You’re wrong,” I told her.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure.”

“That settles it.  When should I expect him back?  In time for dinner?  I could make a banging Doritos and sardines wrap for my man’s homecoming.  Or maybe a nacho blast.  He says I’m quite the little chef, thank you very much!”

She started rubbing her temples in small circles with her fingertips, her face cast down at a stack of papers on her desk.

“Mr. Flannigan, we’re removing you from this block.  Immediately.  You’ll never see that man again.  You’re welcome.”

I used to think when people said their blood was boiling that it was exaggeration, hyperbole, like when people said they were so hungry they could eat a horse.  But in that moment, in that office, my blood temperature was hotter than a pig in a sauna at Equinox in the middle of July.

“You bitch!”  I lunged at the corpulent cunt, but the officer reacted quickly and caught me by the waist.  “You homophobic, lonely, sexless, jealous, fat bitch!”

The officer dragged me out of Wilcox’s office, arms and legs flailing like some feral hellcat, expletives flying like throwing stars aimed right at her raggy mug.

I spent thirty long days alone for what the disciplinary report called “a childlike outburst.”  They stripped me of ten days’ good time, too.  Damned homophobic, if you ask me.  I may have a lawsuit on my hands, if I play my cards right.  

The Man wanted to break me, to test true love, and they would never get that sugary satisfaction.  Not from me and, I hope, Jabril.  

Though my punishment was obviously unwarranted, I used my alone time to think, and, as I said before: this confession and the events relayed are part of my coming clean.  It’s not fair to you, my subscribers, many of whom must be mildly in love with me.

I’m going to ask Jabril to marry me!!!

He’d never say no to me.  I’m the happiest man from the Santa Monica Pier to whatever the east coast equivalent might be.  I’m told the closest thing to a beach they have is a big, malodorous landfill called the Jersey Shore. 

Despite this setback, I do still get out before him, so I’ll have to hold him down.  That’s jail-speak for send him money, not cheat on him, have phone sex, and smuggle him drugs in my jail-purse (that’s the caboose – sometimes, love is messy!!!).

Wedding details need to be ironed out, but I can already envision the whole affair: me decked-out in white (maybe eggshell or off-white to avoid virgin jokes) and Jabril looking resplendent in, perhaps, tan, to preserve the memory of where we met.

Well, that’s all the time I have right now.  Next issue I hope to expand upon some weeding deets.  I know you’ll all be dying to hear them by then.  But I can’t give everything away, yet.  I’m not that easy.  I need you, readers, to come back for the next installment of my newsletter.

And, please, no suggestions about the wedding.  This is my wedding, not yours.  If you were planning a birthday party, would you like if I suggested shit-pie for dessert?

I really must be going now.  I bit into my chicken sandwich and found between the wilted, browning lettuce and soggy tomato a note from Jabril (yes, of course, he found me – never doubt true love).

It read: “Shower tonight.  6PM.  Send the two soups he gives with tomorrow’s laundry, bitch.”

My man, ever the gentleman.  I love him so much.

Well, don’t forget to share this with your friends and, most importantly, make sure they subscribe.  Don’t forget to subscribe!  Love you all.  Hugs and kisses.  Muah!

*** P.S. – Courtney, stop sending me letters to be removed from the mailing list.  You can’t!!!  Didn’t you read the terms?  I thought you’d have learned to read by now.  Illiteracy is homophobic.  Grow up!

by Kashawn Taylor

Kashawn Taylor is a queer writer based in Connecticut. His work has been published by Prison Journalism Project, The Indiana Review, The Blotter Magazine, and more. He has work forthcoming with BULL Lit Mag, Querencia Press, and Oyster River Pages. He uses his free time trying to find a home for his current works in progress: a poetry collection and prison memoir.