Ben Langston - Jail Speak

JAIL SPEAK

JAIL SPEAK

Ben Langston

SWALLOW PRESS / OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

ATHENS, OHIO

Swallow Press

An imprint of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

ohioswallow.com

2020 by Ben Langston

All rights reserved

To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Swallow Press / Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).

Printed in the United States of America

Swallow Press / Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Langston, Ben, 1976- author.

Title: Jail speak / Ben Langston.

Description: Athens, Ohio : Swallow Press/Ohio Univeristy Press, [2020]

Identifiers: LCCN 2020001361 | ISBN 9780804012256 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780804041096 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Langston, Ben, 1976- | State Correctional Institution at Rockview (Pa.) | Correctional personnel--Pennsylvania--Biography. | Prisoners--Pennsylvania. | Prisons--Pennsylvania.

Classification: LCC HV9475.P42 S725 2020 | DDC 365/.92 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001361

For the squad.

The fam.

Life is hard inside.

Because its life.

This book is honest about jail. So its graphic.

There is obscenity, racism, sadism, sexism, rape, suicide, violence, and despair.

I hope the obscenity doesnt offend anyone.

Contents

Preface

I didnt take a jail job to write a book. I didnt even want a jail job. But the TV factory in town turned me down and I was broke and unskilled and mad about being broke and unskilled and the jail was doing something enchanting: it was hiring.

The jail was the State Correctional Institute at Rockview, located in central Pennsylvania, five miles from Penn State University. The areas name: Happy Valley. The jail held two thousand inmates of all security levels and handled the states executions. It still does. Its purpose and problems are universal to the judicial system. I ended up wearing a corrections officer uniform there for three years.

I call Rockview a jail because thats what the guards and inmates called it. The word prison is often used for places where guys do sentences of a year or more. Jails are typically places where guys do less than a year. So, technically, Rockview would be considered a prison. But really, call it what you wantjail, prison, big house, pokeyits a place where people are kept against their will. Some of those people make the worst of it. Others, the best. And call me what you wantcorrections officer, CO, guard, jailcopI helped keep people there against their will. For this, the jail rewarded me with paychecks, jail food, and, eventually, a concrete desire to escape.

Jail can be an anywhere, anytime. Bars exist everywhere. The woman who cant leave her abusive husband because she has two lovely freckled children, no job, and no family to take her in, yes, shes in jail. Jail can also be a high-interest loan, a wall between countries, a nightclub for an introvert, or a job that makes you wake up, put on a uniform, and act only according to the uniform. At Rockview, a young inmate had NO REAL FREEDOM tattooed in big block letters down his forearms. Listen to him. He knows what hes tattooing about.

I had advantages in lifeborn white to educated parentsbut chose a restless and distracted life of blue-collar jobs with a term in the army instead of following my parents examples. And after ten years of unskilled labor I was desperate to work at Rockview. Once hired, my primary occupation became fitting in.

After three weeks at Rockview, I met nineteen-year-old Melvin. He came to jail as an arsonist and burglar charged with eleven felonies and stood tall at four and a half feet. He was the anti-me, with none of lifes advantagesborn black to a drug-addicted single mother living in povertyhe had to fight and fight and fight. While I tried hard to fit in jail, Melvin was made for it. He never had a chance outside. And despite having an IQ of fifty-eight, the mind of a child, according to paid professionals, he told me once, Youre jealous of me cause I dont have to pretend. He was right for that.

The last time I saw Melvin, he had on a suicide-resistant smock and was strapped down to a bunk with five-point restraints. That was my parting image of jail: a tiny man attached to a metal bunk. It showed me how small and helpless people can become inside. Or maybe how massive and abusive. The room smelled like vomit. The scene was hopeless. And I had been the one to strap him down.

At Rockview, the inmates had clear plastic TVs. They were clear for security. You could see the circuit boards, the wiring, the working parts, any contraband, and all the cockroaches breeding inside.

This book is like those TVs.

JAIL SPEAK

Be a Man, Man

SHUT the car door. Look at the jail. Look at the towers, the razor wire, the coal-fired boiler plant, the twelve coats of blue paint on the locker-room door. Take a deep breath. Hold it. Smell the coal dust and iron and dirt and sweat. Thats jail. And jail is where dicks are measured. There are thousands in this one. And with all that measuring comes all the testosteronebuckets and buckets.

Smell it as you walk into the locker room. Soak it up. Look at the chew wads on the ceiling, the dried spit on the lockers. Add yours. Get in character. Youre a guard. Hear the lockers slam. Kick them to make noise. Here you can be loud. Theres no door on the bathroom. Walk in, spit in the urinal. Say fuck. Yell it for fun. Fuck! Come out and tape the serious guards locker closed. Then hide. Hell swear and kick and spit when he finds it.

Open your locker. Put on the uniform. Its gray. Its black. It fits like a sack. Wear a watch. No phone allowed. Bring a pen. Thats it. No gum either. It can be used to make key impressions. Bring it in anyway. It doesnt set off the metal detector. Leave the stab vest hanging on the hook. No ones going to shank you. They havent yet. Slam your locker shut. Be a man. Slam it twice.

Walk past the guard with the hairy ass crack standing in only his tighty whities. Hes at the exit. Compliment his package. Nice bulge. Say it loud.

Stand at the gate. Get jacked because you wait. Kick on the gate. When it buzzes, open it fast, walk in, and hold it for the guard running behind you. Then slam it in his face. Bam. Youre a man.

Swear at the time clock. Fucking clock. Cry about the fingerprint scan. Fucking scan. Throw your keys and belt past the metal detector. Hold up your pants and walk through. When youve made it, watch the next guard start through. Then kick the metal detector. That sets it off. Then run.

Wade through the roll-call room. Hit shoulders, punch kidneys, step on every shiny black boot you see. And twist. When your name is called say HERE like you got a pair. Bitch about the block you get sent to. Fucking A block. Bitch about the lieutenants making the schedule, but only after you leave the roll-call room and walk out of earshot, and then go a little farther and then look around to make sure its clear. Then you can say it. Fucking white hats. But not too loud. Or theyll put you at a worse post.

Slam the A block door. Its 6 a.m. Ignore the night shift guards leaving. Call them slugs after they shut the door. Fucking slugs