Prison Oatmeal Nazi
[This is an excerpt from Lookout for Shorts (Prison Memoir of a Drug War Casualty), an often comical account of a slacker’s comeuppance*. The following took place in 2012 at a North Carolina minimum security prison. All names have been changed. *Currently seeking representation.]
Finding a gray market oatmeal connection was my top priority upon arrival at Craggy. The lack of one, after all, meant a depleted canteen account and an oft-empty stomach. I eventually found oats, but at a sky-high cost of three stamps per sandwich bag full, due to a mysterious lack of supplier competition. I was gouged like a ghetto grocery store customer, and I couldn’t exactly hop on an uptown bus to find a better price. And also, racism.
A squat, middle-aged black guy − imaginably called “Shorty” − was the first kitchen worker I found willing to sell to me. His price was too high, though, and I told him as much. I asked for a bulk rate based on the high volume I consumed, explaining he’d make a stack of stamps in the long run. He balked initially, until I promised to protect his regular price by telling others I paid three stamps per bag. This appealed to his meager business sense, so we agreed on two stamps. Or so I thought.
Upon the next delivery the scoundrel still wanted three stamps per bag. I reminded him of our not even week-old agreement at two stamps, to which he mumbled some nonsense about a kitchen storeroom security crackdown, i.e. shit I wasn’t trying to hear. I paid him for the current goods, but decided to find a more worthy supplier for the future. I soon thought I‘d recruited a new guy, but he backed out upon learning the pilfered food racket was Shorty’s hustle exclusively. As if there was some Mafioso formality about it.
This blew my mind because at my previous camp everyone in the kitchen was venal, and price wars were standard. Even more amazingly, my short-lived new connection — the renegger — stood a thick six foot-two, and could’ve crushed Shorty with one punch. Unfortunately, though, that’s not how he rolled. He figured the storeroom hustle ran by seniority, not force. So I was stuck paying three stamps per paltry bag of gruel. Except not.
The next time I placed an order (i.e. acquiesced to Shorty’s shakedown) I was rebuffed: “No man, the heat’s on in there. Can’t do it anymore,” he shiftily explained.
This sounded like bullshit, and upon investigation I learned my attempted end-run around Shorty’s storeroom monopoly offended him. He had frozen me out. And worse, when I tried to enlist a buddy — a longtime Shorty client — to work as my secret oatmeal go-between, he refused. He couldn’t risk the blacklist, banned from purchasing his gray market powdered milk. “No way I’m crossing Shorty, bro. You’re on your own.”
I thought he was kidding at first, but he was serious as a constipated inmate waiting for a toilet stall to become available. Shorty had Soup Nazi-type power.
I eventually convinced a black friend of mine to play oatmeal middleman for me. Not only did he procure all he wished, he enjoyed attractive volume discounts unavailable to me back when I was an eligible customer. (I briefly considered filing suit under the anti-discrimination act.) Sadly, however, the black guy discounts didn’t trickle down because my go-between charged a recurring finder’s fee. Talk about a nice racket from his standpoint. Hell, he probably bought the oatmeal even cheaper than I knew and profited both coming and going.
Such was life in the jungle.
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