Prison Tales; The Ballad Of Juan Jose Garcia

During my tenure as a convict I've crossed paths with countless characters, any one of which you could drop into a packed stadium and be confident that their exceptionality amongst the crowd would stand unrivaled. And although prisons are fertile fields, there have been just a few individuals I've felt compelled to write about. And even then, it's only been superficial scribblings. 

My bunkie, Juan Jose Garcia, whose name should belong to a grizzled Mexican ranch hand not a pudgy white kid from Grand Rapids, has forced my hand. His behavior will no longer allow me to shirk my moral responsibility to document his existence for the sake of human psychology, sociology, education, and genetic mapping...as well as writers of comedy, satire, and tragedy. And makers of human leashes, helmets, and adjusters of IQ. 

I was really struggling on what to call him, both for anonymity as well as convenience. His government name is so poetically appropriate when taken into context. Juan Jose Garcia, is a doughy teenager, who alleges to have Puerto Rican and Mexican DNA stacked somewhere in the rungs of his double helix, but short of him volunteering this information, or checking his prison ID, you'd never guess at his Latino heritage. His nickname is Guerro, which is Spanish for white boy; a language he doesn't speak. It's not like he's Aryan white. He looks more like one of his parents could be part Italian, or Greek maybe. He looks "American white." If that's such a thing. But he definitely doesn't look like what our culturally prejudice ideas of what a Juan "should" look like. But that's not what has me wondering about what to call him here. It's all nicknames in here, no one goes by their government names. So I figure I'll just call him whichever name feels right in the moment; Juan, Guerro, dummy, but mostly I'll call him bunkie, which is what I actually call him anyway. And though he's no longer a teenager (he turned 20 a few days ago) I will most likely continue to refer to him as such. A decision I stand by; partly because he was a 19 when I met him, but mostly because, in a way, he always will be.

In full disclosure this is a proclamation/insult my very own sister frequently hurls in my direction. "Forever seventeen," as she puts it. I'd feel compelled to argue with her on the subject if she didn't have the advantage of being right. This immaturity is the common ground on which me & my bunkie meet. It's our love language. And it is the ONLY quality we have in common.

I want to make clear that I love the kid. In the way an older brother loves a pain-in-the-ass younger brother. He's got a great heart and sweet nature, rivaled only by his devastatingly prolific quality as a complete and utter airhead. Unfortunately, like many inmates, the environment and circumstance he grew up in actively sought to kill his softer nature at every turn (and apparently, a majority of his working braincells.) But nature is a stubborn bitch and will always find a way.

As frustrating as it can be at times, I'm glad he's my bunkie. And I'm trying my damnedest to get him together before he is inevitably sent to another joint, unit, or cube, where the likelihood of a relatively patient and understanding, slightly asshole-ish bunkie he respects, is practically nil.

He calls me his dad. A moniker I insistently rebuke, to no avail. He's also stubborn; quite possibly a side effect of the airy environment cultivated between his ears; and he's highly susceptible to peer pressure. Which is why—I like to tell myself—I use shame in my attempt to curb his behavior. He turned 20 this month. With the excuse of being a teenager, all-but gone, I've really tried to focus my guidance, hoping he will absorb something before we part ways. Again, to no avail.

What follows are simply a few tales of what it looks like to raise a teenager, that's not yours, behind bars. Care has been taken to make as little alteration to the actual events as possible, while still protecting the guilty an innocent alike. So without further adieu:

Raising Juan Garcia; The Taffy Hustle

My bunkie came to prison a few months ago. A full-fledged fish. Though it is his first prison bid, he's not completely unfamiliar with institutional life. Much of his adolescence was spent in group homes and juvenile detention centers. Though you wouldn't know by watching him stumble through this experience.

Tall Rob stopped at my window. Which isn't a window as much as it is just the space between the foot of my bunk bed and my locker where they but up against the chest-high divider wall that separates the eight-man cube and the hallway.

The imposing figure that so frequently darkens this prison window is Tall Rob, a 6'6 ex hitman/fixer for the Russian mob. Supposedly, other than Tall Rob, there's only one other inmate at this prison serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, after copping out (pleading guilty) to a 1st degree murder charge. Not taking a 1st degree murder beef to trial is like being all in on a pot of Hold 'Em and folding before you see the river. You've got nothing to lose by playing the hand out. The other guy is a serial killer, who copped out because they already had him on a bunch of other murders. What's another life sentence when you're already doing three. Tall Rob, on the other hand, copped out because he's a standup guy. Dragging his case to trial would mean a lengthy investigation. And I don't know what you know about the Russian mob, but they don't really like investigations. So he copped out to quash the investigation and is serving a natural life sentence. 

So Tall Rob's at my window when he notices my bunkie, covered in flop sweat, attempting to cut, separate, and wrap his 1st batch of prison taffy. Tall Rob asks, "Where are your gloves?"

With the excitement of a puppy that just saw something new, my bunkie says, "I asked the CO. He wouldn't give me any."

Any convict knows that latex gloves are for officers, and officers only. And, though not always enforced, gloves are unquestionably labeled illegal contraband when possessed by an inmate. But you must remember—I must remember, daily—that my bunkie isn't just ANY inmate.

"You asked the cops?…" I ask, between sips of morning coffee.

"Yeah, they wouldn't give me any."

I glance to Tall Rob. My eyebrows say, "You see what I gotta deal with?"

Fighting off a grin, Rob commences to inform my bunkie that not only will the cops not give him gloves, they could write him a ticket just for having them. He goes on to explain what, I assumed, was basic inmate knowledge of the importance of wearing gloves; how it’s mainly to show potential customers that your particular brand of prison taffy was crafted with at least some thought of personal hygiene.

While my bunkie was nodding along to the lecture, I dug out the pair of contraband-blue gloves I keep stashed in my footlocker and dropped them in his lap.

Rob headed back down the rock towards his cube, convinced his point was made.

One small step to my right and I retreat into the sanctuary of my bunk. Not so convinced. I pull the makeshift curtain, a shirt hanging from my bunkie's bed, closed, and wait for the caffeine to kick in. Robin Meade delivered the news.

My bunkie, I assume, continued whatever it was he was previously doing.

Ten...fifteen, minutes later, with instant coffee coursing through my bloodstream, I'm reasonably awake.

Open curtain.

Standing up puts me chest level with my bunkie's bed. A once clear Tupperware bowl, the one I gave him as a loaner two months ago when he first got here, is resting on his bunk covered in pink & purple splotches of taffy like some Jackson Pollack-inspired line of prison Tupperware. In the midst of the sugary melee, welded to the borrowed bowl, are the contraband-blue gloves I just gave him.

My bunkie was at the table, still wrestling the taffy with his bare hands, as if he'd never left.

With the timing of a shitty three-camera sitcom, Tall Rob stops at the window.

He's looks at the bowl, smothered in gloves, smothered in taffy.

He looks at my bunkie.

He looks at me.

I ask my bunkie about the gloves. He tells me the hot taffy stuck to 'em when he was pouring the bowl onto a flattened out chip bag. He tells me he couldn't get them off.

"Why were you wearing the gloves?!…" I ask, "You don't need..." I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands. The rest of the sentence comes out as a whisper, "...gloves when your pouring the taffy out." Approaching normal volume, maybe slightly louder, I tell him, "You need the gloves for when you're actually HANDLING THE TAFFY!"

Blank stare.

My frustration with the exchange is directly proportional to Tall Rob's joy at being there to witness it.

At hearing Rob's laughter my bunkie gets up and walks over, right up next to me, so he can see Rob at the window. So he can start performing. "It was hot as shit," he says, poking the taffy-covered gloves. "They're still good," he assures us. He runs his sticky fingers through his hair.

He's been growing his hair out since he came to prison. It's 1970s Elvis length. Somehow he has accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of producing a bountiful, never-ending, source of dandruff, while still having, otherwise, greasy locks. When you're on a bottom bunk, gravity is your enemy, hair is a weapon. Many altercations, leading to very real consequences, have started with falling hair. Bunkie's big dream is to get it braided. I don't know what he's waiting for; its been long enough for weeks. (I've since learned he's waiting until it's long enough to have two long braids, one on each side, hanging down past his shoulders before he gets it braided. Meaning another year of growth at least.)

Tall Rob tells him he needs to cut his hair.

I second the proposal.

"No way," he says, "I'm growing it out." This time he runs both hands through his hair. He looks at his palms before wiping them on his shirt.

"You should cut it," I say.

"Why?"

"It's greasy. And you're always touching it. And now you're handling food."

"I washed it yesterday."

“OK?..."

"With what?" asks Rob.

"With water. Tomorrow I'm using soap." He said it as if he was revealing a plan of sheer brilliance.

"Water?!" I'm approaching the edge, "You mean, you got it wet! You didn't WASH your hair, you got it WET!"

Tall Rob's eyes go wide.

"And TOMORROW..." I'm talking to Rob at this point, "he's going to wash it, not with shampoo," I grab one of the tiny state-issued bars of green soap from the top of my locker, "but this! “ HAND soap! And what does that have to do with not cutting your hair?!"

"Nothing. You said it was greasy."

"It is!" I say, "And to prove me wrong, you say you got it wet yesterday?" 

Everyone's laughing but me.

My indignation is equal parts performance and genuine frustration.

—Just now, as I am writing this, a C.O. leaned in the window and says, "Do you know where Garcia is?" My back is to her and I'm distracted. I assume she's talking to someone else. "Do you know where Garcia is?" I look over my shoulder. She's talking to me. "They need him to pick up his store bag.

Store day is once every two weeks and it’s an EVENT. It's payday. They go cube by cube calling inmates to go stand in line to pick up their commissary. If you miss it, because you're in class or at a healthcare appointment they'll send your bag back to the warehouse. If your lucky you'll get it a few days later, otherwise they'll send it back to the company and refund your money. That means another two weeks without food or hygiene. NO ONE misses store day.

"They're about to leave," she says, "if you know where he is you should get him."

Store day isn't something that you can sleep through or can pass by unnoticed. Especially when people owe you money. Especially if YOU owe people money.

Even more especially, when you owe your bunkie money. All of which apply to my bunkie's investment in not missing store day. 

I take the tablet with me, trying to finish that last sentence, as I look for this kid. I'm wondering where he could be. What emergency could account for his absence? Is he at class? Maybe his dumb ass is in the shower or passed out in a locker or dead on the back forty. None of which would be worthy excuses for missing store. I'm headed to the bathroom first. The day room is on the way, but I decide it'd be a waste of time to check there. There's no way he could be in the day room and not know it's time for our side to get store. Remembering who it is I'm looking for, I glance in the day room window on my way to the bathroom. And I'll be damned! There he is, in the first fucking row, laughing obnoxiously at a scene from Hell Boy. I thought it was Fast and the Furious, but he later corrected me as I was chastising him.

Hell Boy!!!

He made it there just as they were packing his bag up to take to the warehouse.

He reacted like he reacts to everything: Slightly oblivious, completely careless.

This is the shit I have to deal with. Everyday, two, three, times a day he gives me something that out does the last thing I figured I'd tell you about. His buffoonery rears its head so often that I get interrupted writing about previous buffoonery with current buffoonery!—

OK, back to the Taffy.

He finished separating, cutting, twisting, and wrapping the individual pieces of taffy courting mini disasters every step of the way. I did my best to talk him through the difficulties. Taffy was my hustle when I first came to the joint. I wanted him to succeed. He spent five hours doing what should've taken forty-five minutes, but eventually he got it bagged up and on the market.

I later found out that he had an investor that bankrolled his little endeavor. It wasn't his money he was gambling with. Which means he has less to lose, but it also means he's beholden to somebody. There is more pressure on his profit.

As I write this I can hear him in the cube kitty-corner from us, explaining the mathematics of his endeavor to his benefactor.

It's been about a week since his product hit the market and I get the feeling this will be his first and last venture into the confection game. It requires more than a couple hits of commitment. But who knows? Last night he told me, after paying to have pockets sewn into his pants, hands tucked deep into his newest obsession, that he was going to start investing in, "a ton of property." Whatever that means.

The timing of this piece seems like fate. Today is store day. Which is payday in the joint. That means he'll be collecting his taffy debts. I started writing this, unsure of my conclusion, and now an ending reveals itself.

My bunkie just plopped down in the chair next to my bed, the one he uses to get up and down from his bunk. He has a pen and a yellow legal pad. A debt sheet.

"Are you still writing?" he asks. It's a rhetorical question. He knows I'm still writing. It means he wants to talk to me but knows by now not to interrupt me when I'm doing something; a hard fought lesson, but a lesson learned nonetheless. Progress.

"Yes, I'm still writing," I say, "but I'm writing about you, so I can talk and still consider it work." I put down the tablet. "What's up?"

He looks at the legal pad, "I'd have to sell twenty-one pieces to make back the 7 dollars (the price of the materials)."

"How many did you sell?" 

"Eighteen," he says. The realization, that all his work was for less than nothing, dawns on him. He doodles something on the paper. "I don't think I like selling taffy bunkie." Defeat.

Now I feel like shit.

Like most kids his age, he's a blind optimist. And REALITY is—well, reality doesn't exactly follow suit. A quality he refuses to acknowledge.

He's a young dummy; It's his job to be all pie-in-the-sky about getting rich selling taffy. And It's my job to bring him back to earth, to tell him there are already three people in here who sell taffy, that there's only so much money in the candy market and most of it's cornered, to let him know that taffy doesn't sit well, so if he doesn't sell it fast he'll be sitting on a product with depreciating value. All of which I said.

Still, I don't want to see his spirit completely crushed. There's no fun telling someone you like, "I told you so." Especially when you actually told them so.

A beat later, before I can think of something to say to resuscitate his spirits, he looks up with a smile and says, "I guess I'll just stick to selling drugs." He chuckles at his comment, and heads out, onto the next adventure. He's only half joking. And just like that it's over. He's completely washed his hands, emotionally, of the entire situation. Any stress, wiped away in an instant.

Chipped, cracked, or caked in shit, his glass is always full, even when it's empty.

Part of my frustration with the shit he does, the shit he says, is out of some begrudging envy for how carelessly he moves through life. Setting fires as he goes. The best and worst thing about being a shark is the ten minute memory.

The gloves, the taffy, the hair, none of them are exceptional events in the life of Juan Garcia but I had to pick something to write about, something to give you a little glimpse into life with my bunkie.

As I'm finishing this up, I hear him across the hall trying to give the remaining taffy back to his benefactor, the smushed, stale, falling-out-of-the-wrapper taffy. He's out. Investors be damned.

Oh, to be a shark.