The Patty Cake Polka

The following is an excerpt from Part One:

In Hell, on most nights the second shift is officiated by a particularly deranged character. He can pass as the offspring of Benny Hill on stilts and Lily Tomlin on crack. Word is that this C/O, Penelope—“Patty Cake” as some of us refer to him—aspires to the ranks of state trooper. He obviously does not have what it takes to make the grade, by a long shot. That tidbit of information comes to me from his cousin, who is my first cellie in Hell. He calls Patty Cake a “sick fuck.”

…Whenever my pal Penelope comes to mind or in front of my face, I cannot help but smirk, at least internally. My first days in Hell mod become an opportunity for Patty Cake and I to bond. What begins as “special times” together develops into a nauseating nightly ritual.

He releases everyone for chow, except me. When the last straggler is out of sight, a familiar buzzing sound precedes the reverberating clink of my cell door. It rattles throughout the solemnity of the emptied block. Emerging from my closet, I proceed down the steps, over to the vestibule outside the bubble. Patty Cake stands silently glaring. We are closed in like high school sweethearts in a parked car, privacy assured. His first lecture:

“I’ll tell you the same thing that I told your faggy-ass boyfriend when he was in my mod. When it’s my shift, you don’t come out for rec.” He stares blankly for a while, anticipating a response. I wait, with thoughts of get a fuckin’ life, you pathetic excuse of a human being. I continue to wait, as one would stop at a red light. After a while he screams, “You understand?”

I wait. He rants. Eventually, the doorway glides open. Without expression, I turn and head to chow. While I am gone, he raids my “crib.” (My boys taught me that lingo.) He rips the place apart, throwing things all around to be sure that I know he has been there. Frustration or boredom eventually kicks in. Following a few evenings of the same ho-hum routine, the baboon adds more foolishness to the mix—he confiscates my library book.