Commissary Day, Part 2

(Originally Posted on May 22, 2015) 

Commissary Day (continued)

At around five o’clock, the gate to my darkly comfortable kennel will be popped open. I will be released, and I will race to face my trial in the Hyena’s Den (that’s what I call the dayroom, which is both a recreation area and a holding tank). As I consider the tedious wait ahead, I debate with myself, as I have a hundred times in the past, whether to take a book. It’s a steady compulsion, and ridiculous: I don’t think I’ve managed to read an entire page of text in the Hyena’s Den. Ever. If the word “library” has an antonym, surely it would be “penitentiary dayroom”. No two environments could have such opposite intentions. The dayroom is a relatively small, overcrowded, cacophonous room laden with combustible levels of testosterone and fear. Seems like only a fool would even attempt to distract himself with a book in such a volatile atmosphere, and yet, distraction and escape are exactly what I long for whenever I’m trapped there.

 

The loudspeaker eliminates the artificial quiet of my cell with an echoed screech. Twenty-two heavy steel gates release with a clamor, and I spring out like a racing greyhound, reaching to snatch my useless book at the very last second. A score of inmates nudge and jostle their way to the Hyena Den: move fast or get out of the way. When I arrive at the room I hate, I take in a venomous scene: demon and dragon tattoos and scary scars on huge flesh canvases, yelling at each other. Will they spill blood this early in the morning? Violence is compulsory on Commissary day, but it usually takes a bit of time to simmer. It’s like those bank panics back in the 1920s with people assaulting each other to be first in line to withdraw their money. That’s not really an analogy. It’s like that and for the very same motive: people afraid they won’t get to spend their money.

 

Soon a guard will come unlock the dayroom door and call for a shot of ten. Every man in the room longs to be one of those first ten. Too many things can go wrong and halt or cancel Commissary. That’s why there’s always a desperation in awaiting Commissary: You never know if you’re going to make it. The first ten are usually big, black and gang related (Homeboys). In a tribal society such as ours, numbers and strength determine much. If a white guy makes it into that first shot of ten, it’s usually because he’s being extorted by a high ranking homeboy. On some cellblocks, the Mexican homeboys are numerous and fierce enough that a sort of truce exists. Instead of warring over the Commissary line perpetually, they more or less share the coveted places in line. But the Mexican homeboys don’t have the clout on this cellblock, so the black homeboys sort of rule the line. The most popular or high ranking homeboys will go first, followed by the more aggressive soldiers.

 

This morning, there are too many alpha males who want to be in the first shot, so there’s a lot of posturing and yelling. Technically, homeboys aren’t supposed to spill blood without permission, but fragile young egos are at stake, and violence doesn’t follow many rules. All hundred plus men in the room are as tense as a sniffing prairie dog poised at the edge of his burrow.

 

Fortunately, the ranking homeboys huddle up, and sanity triumphs. Money is, after all, the ultimate motivator, and an early morning riot would get Commissary cancelled in this tomb for a week. Off we’d be in an economic depression. Gang leaders live by extortion and drug sales; making peace is simply a good business decision. Normal operations resume.

 

In the midst of dayroom chaos, I ask the inmates around me, without much success, what “line” system they’re using today. Line…As if there could exist something so orderly in a cave full of hyenas and sheep. The guards mostly let us police ourselves in the dayroom. Perhaps the resulting drama relieves their monotony. Sometimes we use the steel benches as a sort of line, but this system is flawed because there are far more men than seats, and when a guard calls for a shot, sometimes those closest to the dayroom door crowd out and to hell with the people waiting on the benches. Once you get out of the door among the shot of ten men, you go down the hallway and stand in the actual Commissary line, which holds about 30 to 40 men from different cellblocks.

 

After a few fruitless inquiries, I discover they’re using the “place holder” system. Nine guys hand a tenth their ID cards (ID cards are necessary for Commissary purchases, much like credit cards. So in theory, one guy represents ten people in line. Not a bad system. Except that criminals are in charge of it, and you have to keep your eye on the place holder who has your ID to make sure he doesn’t misplace it).

 

A large crowd of men try to make a line by chucking ID cards and insulting each other. I manage to shove my way into the eighth stack of cards, which isn’t bad out of twelve stacks. For the rest of the day, I’ll have to track my place holder, checking in with him periodically.

 

Amazingly, I find a seat on one of the powder-blue steel benches — a piece of luck because the majority of sweating bodies are standing, and many seats are held in perpetual reserve by certain men. Yet another reminder of man’s beastly kinship: an innate need to define and defend a territory. In this case, a 5-man bench. Not that my opportune seat is an untainted blessing… It’s true that many a poor bastard will spend the next twelve hours balancing on their dogs, but sitting, packed leg-to-leg, on bare steel, isn’t exactly comfortable either. Especially with a couple of sweating Siamese twins attached to both sides. Sweating Siamese twins, I might add. What stinks even worse is that one of my twins obviously doesn’t splurge his Commissary money on deodorant (hygiene products are known as “junk money” and have less than half value of edible Commissary).

 

It’s almost 7:00 when the loudspeaker screams dayroom time. The pile of human flesh ripples as late-comers shove their way in. Again, ugly words and rooster postures are exchanged as more brutes try to muscle into the line. Now there isn‘t a single area of the dayroom where a man can really stand untouched. Dozens and dozens of shouted conversations rock the air. My ears only translate a roar.  

End part 2