Yuk! This is Sully!

The following is an excerpt from Part One:

This is that same stunted freak who greeted me when I showed up for admittance to the illustrious N-Nancy mod this morning. My bundle of belongings was bigger this time; a few days have elapsed since my arrival. I possessed my very own deck of chewed up playing cards, a bag of white cheddar popcorn, some toiletries, and an extra pairs of socks; mostly items abandoned by their previous owners. This time I knew just the right paper and just the right crack to use. My little friend was not at all impressed. He jolted the door open and stormed into the hall, huffing and puffing. “Put your stuff down over there.” He nodded to a small visitor’s cubicle behind me. I placed my pile on the square, Formica-topped table.

The first thing of mine he grabbed was a Tupperware-type, compartmentalized container. It held breakfast, which I had not consumed before departing from my first mod which is designated for new commits. “What the hell is this?” My mouth had barely opened to respond when the lid was ripped off; sweaty scrambled eggs and bread slices were wildly tossed in the trash can. With the grace of a street urchin rummaging through a dumpster for food, he proceeded to fling my meager stack of earthly goods. He was determined to disperse the playing cards haphazardly from their cardboard package. Like bamboo shoots in lo mein, they were tossed and jumbled with my things. “Grab it. Let’s go. Move it, move it.” I frantically tossed my meager belongings into my blanket and balled it up. Impatiently, he swung the mod door open and pointed to cell number twelve, in the upper corner. Away I marched as he slammed the door behind me.

Now the twerp is just outside my cell door, tallying the count. I shuffle a little closer to the doorway, raising my hand like a child in school. “Uuh. I, uh, I don’t have a mattress.”

“Talk to the C/O on the next shift,” he grunts, without glancing up from his pad. Before he pivots to proceed down the steps, I catch a faint glimmer on the gold-tone name badge pinned above the chest pocket. I squint to focus in on the block style letters: SULLIMAN. I freeze. Yuk! This is Sully! That deranged piece-of-shit that countless men have come to disdain over the course of, god only knows, how many torturous years. I turn to my cellie who is still swaggering in an upright, semi-alert state of disinterest. “What’s a C/O?” I ask.

“Corrections Officers,” he mutters, yawning through the words. “That’s what we call ’em, C/Os.” José lazily flops back up onto his bunk. He covers himself completely with his charcoal-gray and speckled-white, woolen-blend prison issue blanket. I quickly scan our tomb like chamber. I need a comfortable spot to sit and compose myself from the attack by the creature from the black and blue abyss. An alcove created by the side of the desk and the corner of the room seems acceptable. I yank my crispy-crusty blanket from where I had begun to spread it on the slab and snuggle myself in.