Time had lost all meaning by then but it must have been getting late because the evening news was on when a guard swung the door open and stepped in. He pointed at me. "Come on, you stinking turd. You've cleared processing. Let's get you down to your unit." After I was handcuffed, I was led down a hallway and shoved rudely on to the unit, the heavy metal door slamming behind me. There was two Indians, four blacks, and three other white guys sitting at several tables and who were all sitting there staring at me. One of the white guys was about the biggest dude I have ever seen. He was easily six foot six and way over three hundred pounds, some fat but a lot of muscle. Big cannonball shaved head with a tarantula tattooed on the top of it and a swastika inked right in the middle of his forehead. And he had mean, beady little eyes that had blue tears tattooed under them. Now that I think about it, he kinda looked like that fat bastard, Butterbean, that years later was always fighting on cable TV. A guard walked over and removed my handcuffs.
"Time to eat," was all he grunted.
Supper was being handed out, and man it
looked like shit. And I hadn't eaten in I don't know
how long. Suppose to be some kind of chicken patty
but looked more like someone had stomped on a
mouse, fried it up in a pan, and threw it on a bun.
There was a blob of mashed potatoes big enough to
feed two men and it was covered with some yellow,
gelatin like gravy. All topped with a pile of mixed
vegetables and a oatmeal cookie as big and hard as
a hockey puck. Kool Aid to drink. Kool Aid got
served at every meal .
There were three tables bolted to the floor
and each table could seat four people. Two of the
tables were full, the blacks had one table to
themselves, the two Indians and two white guys had
one, and the big man was sifting at the remaining
table all by himself. I could feel everybody
watching me when I walked over to his table and sat
down. Those beady eyes were burning a hole in me.
"Gotta pay to sit at my table, punk." He had
a voice that sounded like it had been thickened by
years of whiskey and cigarettes, but he talked real
low, kinda rumbled. "Ass, grass, or cash. No one
rides for free." Didn't that use to be a bumper
sticker?
"Excuse me?"
"What, are you fucking deaf? To sit at my
table you have to pay. Today it will cost you that
cookie and half of them spuds."
"What if I don't want to pay?"
"Then you'll have to squeeze in with the rest
of the retards over there."
I pondered his offer for a quick second and
decided fuck it. "Hey, man, I don't want any trouble.
But I'm hungry as hell. I haven't eaten for probably
three days now."
"Your story is tearing at my heart, but tough
shit."
This guy was fucking enormous. There was
no way in hell I could take him on and not get either
seriously beat to shit or outright killed. But I was so
hungry you could hear my guts rumbling from
across the room. I was beyond the point of caring.
That hotshot of mescaline or LSD or Angel Dust or
whatever that broad had shot into my IV had burned
a hole in my psyche. I had lost the ability to give a
shit.
"Look, man. I just got locked up in here so
I'm not looking for any more trouble. I respect
where you're coming from, I know you're the boss
here. But I'm fucking hungry, so if you want to get
squirrelly, I guess you should just fucking jump."
It got so quiet in there you could hear a
mouse fart in the corner. The big man didn't say a
word, just sat there looking at me like I had just
flown in on a starship. Suddenly his face broke into
a grin.
"Fucking A! Finally a motherfucker comes
in here that's got a set a nuts on him." He stood up
and pointed a sausage sized finger at the other two
tables.
'Unlike the rest of you fucking retards and
baby rapers."
He reached across the table to shake my
hand. I could feel the bones in my hand crunch.
"Norm Grabowski is the name. Those
pricks may think they run the show." He shot the
middle finger to the guards who were staring at us
from the observation pod. "But this is my fucking
unit."