Crimes and the People Who Commit Them

Dude

Dude

My name is “Dude.” I am a country boy and known as a bit of a cowboy, which is an uncommon background in prison. This name was hung on me decades ago, long before everyone was going around saying, “Hey dude.…” It seems a silly nickname now, but that is what I am known as and is too late to change it now. I used to work over in the Hospital Annex. As far as I am concerned, I lucked out and landed the best job in the institution. Who knew? I’ve had a pretty good run, actually.

That is all winding down and the era that shaped my reality is now is very much an anachronism. I don’t know how it all shot past me so fast—the decades, the generations—but suddenly I am an old burnout, a has-been ready for Boot Hill. Such is life.

The tales contained herein all took place at SPSM—State Prison of Southern Michigan—at Jackson. Jackson Prison has stood for many years, since before Michigan was a state, as the largest walled prison in the world. Forget the prisons you have seen on TV; Jackson was a village enclosed by brick walls—five thousand inmates on fifty-seven acres, and an infrastructure as complex as any you will find anywhere.

There were several full-size baseball fields and a football field on the big yard—the “back 40”—a dozen or so factories and several different rec yards. The area between Health Care Annex and the chow hall was called Peckerwood Park, and was primarily frequented by white guys and an ideal spot to smoke dope.

Over from there, the corner where Three Block meets Four Block, was an area known as Casino Royale—which featured three dozen tables used for gambling; poker, blackjack, keno, tunk, and the all-time favorite, skin, were played every yard period with enormous amounts of money changing hands every hour. There was a tacit agreement between those who operated these games and the yard cops—as long as there was no violence at your table, you were good to go.

Put a bunch of guys together and there will be gambling. Case closed, dot the i’s and cross the t’s. This was brought home a few years back when, in response to violence, a new warden declared that he would crack down on gambling and remove that scourge from the institution. It became illegal to play cards on the yard; there were horrendous penalties for being caught with dice or betting slips. Those activities faded away, and were replaced by such things as—Hey man, see those two pigeons on the Control Center roof ? I’ll bet you five cigarettes that the one on the left flies away first…There were a hundred variations that theme.

So much has changed over the years that when I try to tell these new guys how it was in the old days, they laugh it off. Never could there have been such a system in Michigan….

At some point many years ago, our state’s highest court determined that Yes, indeed, women may work inside of men’s prisons.

A lot of guys, old heads like me, especially, were appalled by the notion. Women supervising showers and other more personal moments of the daily routine? Women shouting orders and pushing guys around? Please, no! A large number of those female employees went to work in the Hospital building.

What was known as The Hospital addressed all health care needs. It was Sick Call, First Aid, ICU—which housed critical care patients— and long-term geriatric care. Inmates did all the work. Hard to believe now, but when I started as an Inmate Nurse, we not only did all manner of inpatient care, inmate nurses also did blood draws, sutures, all of the x-rays and lab work. All learned OJT. It worked. When women started working in the hospital, pretty much all the inmates on that assignment were fired and most of the staff hired to replace them were female. Instead of paying inmates sixty-five cents a day, the State hired RN’s, PA’s, Lab Techs, X-Ray Technicians and other professionals to do their jobs. At a million times the cost. Your tax dollars at work.

In those days, every department had at least one inmate clerk and for all intents and purposes, clerks ran the institution. Want a specific job? Give the Classification clerk three cartons of Lucky Strikes. Would you like a certificate for your parole board interview proving that you have attended A.A. for the last four years? See the appropriate clerk. There are a couple dozen clerks who are the real movers and shakers; those jobs are coveted and pretty much impossible to get. There are clerks in this facility who have been in their jobs for decades.

Sick Call has always been a major part of the daily routine. Send in a sick call request and next morning you have a pass to talk to a male nurse to discuss your ailment. It’s a triage sort of thing. It usually doesn’t get more involved than handing out something for athlete’s foot or sniffles. Anything more serious gets referred to a doctor. It is not uncommon for a couple hundred guys to show up for Sick Call.

As part of the on-going effort to keep distance between inmates and female employees, the Activities Building became the Hospital Annex. Sick Call takes place there five mornings a week. Since there is no female staff involved, there is a job there for an inmate worker. When my position in the Hospital was dissolved, my supervisor got me this job. I clean up and generally make myself useful. I was unenthused at first and was thinking of applying to the license plate factory. What a mistake that would have been.

There is an officer who comes to work every morning and does nothing but sit at a desk near the front door of this building. He “works” about two hours every morning. Come through the door and he will take your pass; when you leave he will sign it and give it back. The rest of the day, he does cross-word puzzles, talks on the phone and looks at girlie magazines. Good work if you can get it.

Claude is a very large man, and not what you would call an overachiever. The current state of affairs works well for both of us. I come to work in the morning and usually drop off a couple bear claws or other munchies at the desk, and sometimes a magazine or two. We spend a few minutes analyzing whatever sporting event was televised last night and ignore each other for the rest of the day. Sick call lasts a couple hours, after that we both do our own thing. My thing often is to sit by myself and enjoy an interlude of quiet. What an extravagance. You can be in jail for many years and never know a moment of privacy or quiet.

Once I realized what a sweet deal I had here, I put a lot of thought into making it work for me. The possibilities were endless. For example, there is a room in the back filled with long-forgotten items—a stack of old floor tiles, a one-wheel wheel chair, broken furniture. You know the kind of room. I had some five-gallon buckets in there I used to brew some pretty nice hooch. I could have gone crazy and made ten times as much but I have learned a few lessons over the years. As the Buddha so wisely said, all things in moderation. Having my operation found out would have meant immediate termination. I always had various items of contraband stashed around the place, but again, I didn’t go crazy with it.

The recipe for hooch is simple. Pretty much anything will ferment. You can use potatoes, tomatoes, Brussels Sprouts, corn, whatever. I have known guys who fermented such things prunes, onions, jalapenos, with a resulting concoction every bit as unpleasant as you might think.

I had a good connection in the kitchen, though, so I kept it simple and stuck with fruit. Toss it all into a bucket with sugar, add water and let nature take its course. For yeast to start it off, drop in a soda cracker. A few days later—presto-changeo—you got yourself some wine.

The big problem with this production is the smell. Fermenting fruit smells to high-heaven, and usually when a guy gets busted with some, it is the smell that gave him away. Consequently, a lot of guys making it get nervous and drink it before it reaches its peak. An immature wine is weak and very sweet. You can drink enough to get a buzz, but you will probably get sick and have a horrendous headache. Who needs that?

My brew was stashed away in a safe place, with the smell vented out a window. I could let it sit long enough to become strong as Ajax and sharp as rubbing alcohol. It was highly sought-after. I marketed my product in bread bags I got from a guy who works in the bakery. I’d measure out twelve ounces with my favorite coffee cup, tie a knot in the top, and there you go. Two dollars a bag and that’s a great deal. I let my clientele know when some was ready, and anyone interested (who am I kidding? Everyone was interested) signed up for sick call, where we made the transaction.

Like I said, I could have sold much, much more than I did, but that was never my thing. I dealt only with guys I knew to be absolutely trustworthy.

I made some money, but beyond that, most of my stuff went for barter. The guy who smuggled fruit and sugar from the kitchen got some, the bakery guy got some; there were a couple of old-timers I’d just give some to pretty regularly. I knew a guy who handled impressive amounts of m*******a. We did a lot of trading back and forth.

My thing worked for as long as it did because I always kept it low key. So many of these guys are show-boats and want nothing in life so much as to be seen as Mr. Big. I always thought of them as lightning rods. As long as they were occupying the cops’ attention, I could slip and slide beneath the radar.

Everything I did was designed to promote my one true passion in life: I want to hear your story. I don’t want to hear any boo-hoo, poor me tales; I’m not interested in ain’t it a shame? or the absurd, grandiose lies so many guys tell about where they have been and what they once had. Some guys are idiots and talking to them isn’t worth wading through the b.s. they bring with them. I have no time for guys who are full-time predators, always on the lookout for someone to rip off or otherwise victimize. When I say someone is “okay with me,” it means that he lives his life the best way he can without taking advantage of anyone or creating grief in order to get ahead. I don’t care what a guy did to get here; all that matters is who and what he is in this reality. If you can function as a decent human being in this mad house, you are okay with me.

If there is a real story to you, though—if you have had unique experiences or are just plain interesting, I am all ears. It probably sounds like I’m just nosey, but people who know me will verify that it’s not like that. I’m not “all up in yo bidness” as the bros say. I am truly interested. I believe the adage that there is a novel in everyone. I want to hear yours. I don’t repeat what I hear; I don’t gossip. I don’t judge. I just want to hear your story. I’ll tell you mine in return, if you wish. Tell me where you have been and what you did there and paint me a picture with it. Most people, you may be surprised to learn, are happy to do just that.

Over the years, a lot of guys have trusted me enough to reveal things they have never spoken out loud before. Sometimes the process was excruciating for them. I never took that lightly. Now, as my days on this earth are winding down, it seems a shame that those stories be lost. I have procured a typewriter and set to work preserving what I can of them. The following collection represents a few of my favorites, tales I have either received permission to repeat, or are the stories of guys beyond caring at this point.

One of my challenges here has been to transform much of the dialog into language that doesn’t alienate the reader in the first paragraph. The dialect spoken in prison is pretty rough. It consists of ever-evolving slang and massive doses of profanity. To actually present much of it verbatim would not only risk leaving the reader confused, but also offended. I’ve done my best to clean it up, but for the sake of verisimilitude, a few of those words were included. This is particularly true in A Canticle for Frank. Even though the language is considerably watered down, it may still be a bit much for more sensitive eyes. Fair warning.

Please contact me with any questions, comments, whatever, using the contact button on my Member Page at https://freshinkgroup.com/author/phillippert/.