FINDING MY PLACE
“Shower!”
My eyes snap open. I’m awake. It’s 7:45am, I’ve overslept. Jumping down I hope to avoid collision with my cellmate whose whereabouts (or actual presence) I’m completely ignorant. He’s gone. I dress quickly and frantically conjure a mental list of things I will require state-provided medically approved shampoo. Check. Last Christmas exclusive store-bought bodywash. Check. Towel, shower shoes, socks, shoes, and I’m out the cell, just as the she-guard yells, “Closing!” and my door slams shut. It’s violence and loudness irritate me.
I stumble down the stairs of my concrete housing unit through the HVAC-ed warmth of the control floor lobby, down a steep grip-taped ramp past now absolute “NO SMOKING” signs, and into a bustle of men, shoulder-to-shoulder.
I realize that I’m just here to pick up clothes, because we have yard later and I plan on showering after I exercise. I wait in line until it’s my turn then I yell my jean size to a clothing room orderly and he tosses me a faded pair with oil stains on the front that looks like something on the streets would pay extra for. I move forward to the next station. I pick through a pile of freshly laundered shirts, pull out five of the nicest… three for me and two for my cellie to last us a few days…and I move forward.
I only need an area to fold these shirts, so I’m liberal with selecting a bench to use. I see an area slightly past where I’d normally set up. I set my things down after a minute. A man of a different complexion yells, “Hey! You in my spot?” I frown up at his actual spot a few seats away, from the bench of mine, then back at him, “…uhm, your spot?”
“Yeah… these brothers’ spots.”
“We share them with you.”
“We… as in … who? And share what?”
“Asians. This area.”
“Did you just get here?” He must’ve just got here. “I’ve been here for years. Ask any of your homies, we share shower with y’all.” (I probably wouldn’t have set up shop here this deep past the borders, if I was planning on showering.)
“Oh, alright, just I hadn’t ever seen any Asians around here.”
“That’s because there’s not many of us here at all.”
I tell him, “Yea, we share some of the tables in the Chow Hall with y’all, too.
“Oh, alright. Yea, you good.”
I’m done folding my laundry and I leave the spot. Ten steps later I pass two Afroed-Islanders and a slick-haired Cambodian getting from under the same shower spots that I normally would have waited to use.
A week later.
Half of the shower at OSP were shut down for maintenance. This meant that all those people who used them had to either find a way to share or go without, the latter option not one. Tensions were high the first day with six guards patrolling the shower hall instead of the usual two. Amazingly all my fellow gentlemen found a way to coexist and cohabitate during this ordeal with only one inmate losing his temper … at himself. | RNN