The Mathematics of a Lock-up Artist
The Mathematics of a Lock-up Artist: Where to Go When There's Nowhere to Go and Exactly How to Get There.
Lock-up: V (lok-uhp): To refuse to return to your cell, or cube, in order to be relocated to another facility as an act of avoidance, most commonly over a debt or the threat of violence.
The kid comes in, all finger pistols and head nods. If it wasn't for his tattoos he could pass for a frat boy. We watch, wondering what city he's from, what joint he came from, if he gang bangs, and if so, what set. He's wearing the older edition prison blues, the ones that look like jeans, with the four pockets and an orange strip running down each leg. He must've bought 'em off the yard. He was just a baby when they still issued those pants. He's playing dress up, a few tattoos and a bald fade; a fish wearing the fins of a shark. He still has the blind confidence of a boy, on the perpetual edge of manhood, who's yet to have his spirit broken—his reality realigned.
My cubie, a fish himself, says they were in quarantine together. It means this kid is just a few months into his sentence and is already tap dancing down the rock of his second joint. Why and how he blew the last spot, the old clothes, the fresh haircut, and his nice-to-meet-ya attitude:
It all goes into the EQUATION.
Before he even gets his property he's asking about dope.
More MATH.
It's best to keep your distance until you know who you're dealing with—what you're dealing with—and if I'm right about this kid, it'd be best if he never knows my name.
With an eagerness, bordering on desperation, hanging in the air, it doesn't take long for the old predators to start circling. The kid's either so green he doesn't know what's happening or he simply doesn't care.
The term sexual predator can be misleading. They do target the weak and vulnerable, but if you're picturing a wild-eyed brute, willing to take what he wants by force, you're mistaken. Their approach is much more subtle, friendly even—at least it starts that way. It starts with innocent small talk, then a shot of coffee, maybe a soup, a honey bun here, a candy bar there. And once you're comfortable, they'll offer something more expensive, more illicit. It's a long con. Before the kid knows it he'll be in some predator's pocket so deep that he'll never be able to pay his way out, at which point an "alternative" payment will be proposed...requested...DEMANDED!
There are only a few reasons for a young kid to be talking to a predator, none of 'em are good. But there's something different about this one, like he's in on the joke. The kid moves like he's on a movie set, never more than a few moments away from the safety of a director yelling cut. He's too friendly for prison, too eager for conversation, too happy to be here, and too quick to tell you what he thinks you want to hear.
The NUMBERS are starting to get messy; the EQUATION, hazy. It's trickier MATH than I'm used to.
He's a young, white, fast-talking, out-going prison fish with an affinity for illicit substances burning through his second joint in months. I'm not here to perpetuate stereotypes but I don't ignore them either. Any one—even two—of these qualities aren't enough to pigeonhole this kid as a serious lock-up risk. But together?…Put it this way, if he was looking for life insurance, he'd have trouble finding coverage.
I told the guys that I fuck with, not to fuck with him, that the MATH wasn't adding up.
Most listened, some never do.
The next few weeks went by; the predators playing the long game, the kid playing the short. He borrowed and they loaned. Store came. The kid paid back just enough to boost his credit, he talked just enough to put people at ease, and did just enough to give the predators hope. He continued doing his two step, getting high and getting ink. Borrowed money. Borrowed time.
CALCULUS.
The kid only tried to talk to me once, late one night in the bathroom. He was washing clothes in the sink for spare change, probably a soup per item. He was in a wife beater and rapping along with an mp3 player when I came in. Even if he ordered the player, or the wife beater, on the first day he came to prison he wouldn't have gotten 'em yet. More borrowed fins, these ones—most likely—from an actual shark.
He asked me where I was from.
My words said, "Florida," my tone said, "Not interested."
He said he'd lived in Florida too once, in a mansion.
I finished pissing.
He said it was in Dade City, by Tampa or something.
I said I'm not from the West coast of Florida, that I don't fuck around out there.
He was describing a street full of clubs.
"Ybor city," I said.
"Yeah! That's it," he said, "Ybor."
I finished washing my hands. Before I left, he asked me what my name was. I pretended not to hear.
He said his name was "Remy."
I doubt it was.
DISTANCE.
Most of the time, when someone locks-up, you don't actually get to see it; they just disappear. Once in a while, if you're lucky, you get to be there for the walk of shame. The self-condemned man—hands cuffed behind his back—leads a row of cops out towards the control center (pun intended) where he'll be forced to give info, true or not, on his fellow inmates. The last cop in the line works the camera; a permanent record of disgrace. The Convicts watching the shame parade get in their last minute jeers and condemnations as the disgraced pied Piper slinks down the rock, and even farther down the prison hierarchy. I imagine this is how public hangings felt back in the day.
This type of formal send off is rare. Most lockup artists just evaporate. A wisp of smoke. Other than the debts they leave behind, it's like they never even existed. The only evidence of the departure is the cop pushing the laundry cart down the hall to pack up their shit.
The rock grows quiet whenever the cart comes. Inmates murmur their conspiracy theories and crane their necks down the hall to see who's cell it stops in front of.
The last few times it rumbled by, I bent my neck too, expecting to see it waiting outside the kid's cell. An omen that never perched in front of his door.
I went to sleep last night questioning my MATH, wondering if I was missing something, if my intuition was off, if I was losing my instinct, my mind. Maybe this kid was a unicorn, one in a million; a standup fish and a responsible dope fiend.
Maybe I was just wrong...
I woke up this morning to the sound of oversized keys and a laundry cart rattling down the rock. When I got up to check, the cart was sitting in front of the kid's cell...
I guess he was in on the joke after all.
The people I fuck with, that didn't listen, had to hear the I-told-you-so's, the store guys were out a few hundred bucks, and a couple of predators were left nursing broken hearts. "Never again!" they said. But the cart will be back. The only thing that changes is where it stops.
After the cart disappeared back into the laundry room it's like the world slid back onto its axis. It turns out it was never off. Up is still up, down is still down...and ONE plus ONE still equals TWO.
It turned out to be a simple equation, it always is; the kid was willing to trade his word and reputation for a few quick fixes. The rest, the pomp and circumstance, was just the sales pitch to close the deal.
PS: This was just a glimpse into the MATH of a lock-up artist I saw coming from a mile away. But everyone has a blind spot. Two days later, I was completely blindsided, knocked off my feet, by a lock-up that I never saw coming. TRIGONOMETRY. If you recently felt something different underfoot, it may have been the world tipping off its axis. For real this time....Stay tuned.
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