Is Fellini Dead?

What follows is the first short story (though hardly fiction) that I wrote while incarcerated, almost exactly a year ago.

I've shortened it considerably, as many of the detours that were in the original contain the stuff of blog entries already shared. The main narrative kind of got lost too. But I like this, and hope you will.

Finally typing it out is part of my refocusing on myself and my own work, which has been a healthy step long in coming. My efforts are not without unpleasant reverberations to those who have become to unhealthily dependent on me, but let the chips fall where they may.

Is Fellini Dead?

It is a nondescript, early evening in the Los Angeles Men’s County Jail, Section K-11, Dorm 5100, I am laying on my bed—that would be a top bunk, halfway through to the back—reading.

Suddenly "On your bunks!" is barked through on the intercom. We are used to this order, but it is always followed by "Count time!" and it’s a good hour before Count. Something is amiss.

Instinctively, I locate my one piece of contraband, a black ink PaperMate pen, purchased at the dear price of 3 soups and 2 candy bars, from the occupant of the bunk to my right, Jack Hammer. I slip the pen into a Colgate carton, and stretch out on my stomach, as the door to the dorm swings open. "Radio!" is called out, followed by "Walking!" "Radio!" is prisonese for "Quiet!" and is rather impressively obeyed. "Walking!" means guards are on the premises.

The deputies converge somewhat alarmingly in my direction, but bypass me for Jack Hammer’s bunk. Jack is not just a purveyor of contraband pens, he is the primary source in the dorm of Wellbutrin, a common anti-depressant prescribed to inmates and traded or sold to be ground up and snorted for an ersatz speed high. He is also the tattoo artist-in-residence, and practicing his art requires a battery-powered device which is strictly prohibited. Heavily inked himself, Jack has a tattoo of an eagle with wings spread across the back of his head, a swastika serving as its beating heart. I assume the Aryan skinhead look to be the result of a realpolitik gang association in a previous prison term, as Jack seems to interact quite cordially with the black inmates in the dorm. We are all K-11’s here after all, gay first; black, latino and white second. (There is also George, half Japanese and half Nicaraguan, but that’s another story.)

I use the term "gay" advisedly, as I hesitate to apply it to a segment of the population here. Many of the men, Jack among them, have "girlfriends," who run the gamut from transvestite to transsexual to transgender; from pre-op-with-big-tits-and-no-intention-of-making-the-final-cut to pre-op-can’t-afford-the-hormones-yet-with-every-intention-of-finishing-their-lives-as-real-women. Here, all of them are labeled "queens." (Those of us who are more traditionally homosexual are labeled "gay boys.")

I don’t know what to call the Jack Hammers. They are not attracted to other men, per se, but the "women" they make do with do have male genitalia. I assume on the outside they have "real" girlfriends. What they prefer on the inside, however, suffices for the triage deputies to gain them entry into the gay dorms, which are considerably safer and less harrowing than the "mainline."

Jack’s "girlfriend"’s name is Kay, and I don’t know how she sees herself in ten years, but right now she is one of the homeliest "queens" imaginable. She has clearly not had any hormone therapy, and her Mary-Anne-on-Gilligan’s-Island’s knotting of the tee shirt beneath the diaphragm does little to bolster the illusion of breasts. Despite wetted-pencil mascara, and an attempt at a French twist with too-short hair, she retains a distinctly male physiognomy, replete with an undeniably masculine jaw and gravelly voice.

She seems to understand that in cases like her own; the best defense is a good offense. This is evident in her attentive fawning over Jack, who seems to genuinely enjoy it and returns the affection in kind. Love is truly blind. I know this because I overheard Jack tell someone in the shower "Hell, I’ve been hooked up with Kay for a year and a half now, and I still haven’t seem her dick!"

M. Butterfly indeed.

For some reason, Kay is not assigned to this dorm, but to one of the other two gay dorms on the floor, 5200. (Where I am, 5100, is to 5200 like a Gated Community is to a Trailer Park. As for 5300, it is known as "Thunderdome." All of us in 5100 dread a transfer there, which is why my contraband pen is cause for trepidation. I have seen the residents of 5300 in the hall, lined up for Chow, and could only think of the faces of battered Italian proletarians in a Fellini movie. Then I wondered to myself immediately after, ‘Is Fellini Dead?’ and made a mental note to check upon my release.)

After Chow, sometimes the residents of 51 and 5200, whose entryways are opposite each other, engage in "roaming," i.e., visiting friends in the other dorm. This is tolerated by some of the guards, and not by others, all of whom work in shifts in a booth overlooking both 5100 and 5200. It is during these tolerated intermezzos that Kay slips in for a quick tete-a-tete with her paramour.

Or used to. Three days ago, Kay was sent to the "Hole," for what offense I do not know. Somehow she knew ahead of time, and I had seen close up her final farewell roam to Jack, which was surprisingly touching. This very afternoon, I had seen Jack read a note smuggled out from Kay, from which, by reading upside down, I caught a few choice words that indicated she reproached him for somehow not employing God-knows-what subterfuge to contact her. This impression was fortified by Jack’s obvious consternation after reading the billet-doux.

Now you understand the context of the present scene. The deputies are close enough to touch, but it is not me or anyone else but Jack they are concerned with. His bunk is being upended, all of his possessions tossed and searched. It does not take long for the deputies to discover Jack’s troves of PaperMates and Wellbutrins, and to fill up a plastic bag with thoroughly edible squirreled-away food. (The last is done to humiliate us, as the food is perfectly legal.)

The deputies snarl and puff, like a pride of lions during a kill. Eventually, they discover Jack’s tattooing-device. He had hidden this in an adjoining bunk, so the immediate suspicion is that the deputies were armed with specific information. I lie quietly, like a baby impala quivering in the savanna, thinking only of my precious pen. As I watch Jack being handcuffed and led away to the Hole, I feel bad for him, but even more, I feel relief for me.

I am a writer, and writing is what is getting me through this experience. We have nothing to sharpen the nubby, eraserless golf pencils we are allowed. After having been deprived of all writing utensils (not to mention a toothbrush and anything to read) for a week during a misbegotten "suicide watch," a pen is like gold to me.

Like Jack, I ink; therefore I am.

After the deputies have departed with their prey, the vultures, me included, swoop down to take what’s left. The stated intention is to hold on to everything unconfiscated in order to return it to Jack when he emerges from solitary. In my case, this is actually true. Thirty days later, I will hand him back the copy of Larry McMurtry’s "The Evening Star" that I will enjoy immensely during his absence. Thanks to Jack, I now have two treasures.

When things calm down, the buzz is about who informed on Jack. Whispers circulate like bees in a meadow, but no one is stung with an accusation. They do not know what I know, and keep to myself. I saw the look on Jack’s face when he read Kay’s cri de coeur.

I think Jack informed on himself, as the only way to get close to Kay, Ever resourceful, he must think he’ll find, or knows already, a way to smuggle notes from his cell to hers.

I do hope somehow Jack can lay his hands on a pen. Kay will want to read the notes over and over, and if the words are written in pencil, they may fade.

MCO 2005