Bacchus Saves a Prisoner’s Day
The guy must have had a fucking horseshoe crammed up his ass. Me, I’d have gone down hard and fast for an intoxication ticket, and then been sent to isolation as a bonus prize. But I don’t begrudge Mark his good fortune, especially since he’s one of the few truly decent guys in the cell block, and besides, I consider him a friend. Plus, he’s fun to be around. The guy is a portly Muppet: the eyes of Beaker, with the demeanor and physique of Fozzy Bear.
We were locked in our cells, per usual, for the hour preceding dinner. The heat was focused on my company, where it became known that there were brewers. And the absolutely wrong guard was working that night, a total hard-on named Drumm. Now, Drumm is bad enough on his own, throwing around his authority, bullying, and just being an all-American buzz kill. But for the five o’clock round, he was accompanied by a cute female trainee, and guys like Drumm go right back to high school, looking to impress some skirt. In this case, he was trying to show her how on top of things he was by nosing around the odds and ends left on the long runway in front of our cells. “And whadda we have here?”
What he had there was a large, plastic storage bin. Inside, buried under dirty-looking towels, was a garbage bag of hooch, warm from the jerry-rigged hotpot underneath. Mark normally kept it in his cell, under the bed, but there had been a lot of random cell searches of late. Drumm stage-whispered to the trainee, “This is the type of thing that can get the whole damn company locked down for a week.”
Mark is a stand-up guy. He called out, “Yo, Drumm, that’s me.” Drumm was taken aback: “O.K. I like that you owned up to it.” He was spoiling for a confrontation, but got a snootful of class, so he continued making his round.
Mark told me later that he was sure he was screwed, that his cell gate wouldn’t open that evening, and he’d receive a misbehavior report. To which his response was, Fuck it, smoke some deuce. Mark laid back on his bed and lit up a joint of K2, the health risks of which are more dire than getting caught possessing a still. In for a penny, right?
From the quietude of my cell, I heard a gate thud open. A moment later, Mark walked past, carrying the large plastic tub towards the front of the company, where the guards sat around a desk. One of the klatch smiled and placed an empty Big Gulp cup on the desk: “This is for you. Drink up.” Being forced to drink one’s homebrew is a common punishment in prison. Hearing Mark recount the scene reminded me of college.
Mark went into the small slop sink, a clusterless fuck mere feet from the guards’ desk, and guzzled down the frothy wine. “Can I have another?” he said, and they laughed. When they realized he was serious, they got in on the action, as if they were at a bar, cheering him on. “Drink, drink, drink! And then he was free to go stumbling away, his supposed punishment meted out.
At my cell, Mark lamented, “It wasn’t done brewing, otherwise I’d be good and drunk by now.” They threw out his still and the kicker (the alcoholic starter that is left over and used to prime the next batch). But he was already planning to reach out to a friend who worked on the trash pile in a far corner of the prison.
And wouldn’t you know it, his friend spotted the still, which was double bagged. The friend snagged it, and returned everything to Mark, sloshing kicker and all. Angelic chorus for that Hallmark moment.
Mark went back to brewing his next batch. As he wobbled in front of my cell a few days later, goofy grin on his face, he said, “It was like the gods were telling me to do this.”
Danner Darcleight is serving a 25 year to life sentence in an American prison. His memoir, “Concrete Carnival” is out now. If you liked this story, please recommend it and share on social media.
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