I. Prison Blues and Familiar Faces

Buzzed in and buzzed out,

Cameras tracking shadow with

Glass eye and red blinking light

One last fuck-up, one lapse in judgment

To send black ass back

Under boot of man.

No luck, no attempt,

Just shuffling feet.

Trading orange jumpers for denim and whites

A pair of Jordan’s no memory of owning.

There’s a pocket worth of change

And a broken watch,

That skips back and forth

Tick tock, four and six

Five years skipped; faded to nothing

Behind concrete and iron

Holding court with the invisible lost. 

¤¤¤

I did not expect familiar faces, or familiar rides, yet there you, all liquid caramel and hard shadowed eyes, melded to a caddie of happier times.

And every gash in the vinyl spins me back into time where that Eldorado idled. Skipped classes, black ass, where we gave our first rubs, where we tripped our first drugs, first sale, first cut. And the bikers and the vatos that we used to know, used to deal, used to fear, are just stains washed away on scorched summer curbs.

Gunned down. Dragged away.

Nothing left.

Just broke dreams in Oakland streets,

Kids acting adults and adults acting kids,

Forgetting and forgotten

Unsure of who and shaky,

Shaky with the what.

Frightened of the when.

Just drugged delirium

in a bubble of graffiti'd ignorance,

Failed attempts to just Be Like Mike!

So here I am, there I am. Andy Warhol’s 100 Cans, a repetitious grid of ten by ten: yellow on red on white on why the fuck can’t I break free from these rusting cans… this nightmare prison of tin on paper.
 

Here I am, and there I go, frenzied and gluttonous, unable to stop gorging on ten cans by ten cans, my life’s noxious flavors, these miasmic beef flavors, rehashed and reheated in different bowls made from different bones.

The cold steel on my wrists is familiar weight, familiar flavor. C-Block special. Drifting mind. Black batons on grey bars, sliding metallic like xylophones. Clink. Chime. Clink. Chime. It’s the man’s favorite tune for his concrete jungle and chipped iron cells… torturing souls to bitter bleak maddening hell. 

Warm hands ease legs apart and warmer mouth pulls flaccid meat to hardened life. I twitch at the touch, so unfamiliar, so unrepentant.

Too much.

Too soon.

Scarred soul forgets meaning of intimacy.

I yank at the cuffs. Growl. Reactions taken to mean one thing when really, they mean the tragic other.

The flavors are just too similar. The sugared need too great.

So I’m dragged further in, sliding through humming wet tightness, past fluttering tongue, until gagged resistance and sharp nails in muscled thighs. She pulls off and wipes her mouth and smiles off kilter and ten shades of wicked. It’s a crooked thing, that wide lush mouth: painted rich violet, teeth flashing polished pearls… all painfully familiar and nightmarishly sad. Which makes it all the harder.

¤¤¤

Palms press hard into chest and strong fingers curl to sink cherry glossed nails into pebbled skin.

We’re caramel and

85% cacao

Folded in with hot pepper,

And some crack cocaine.

Flavor profiles not intended for second tasting, nor third or fourth. Which is exactly why she craves it… the heat and the burn on the tongue and the cheek. It’s addiction now. Seven years running and she still can’t cum without barbed thorns in fun.

Her hips wriggle and wiggle and gyrate and slap hard against mine: a frenetic dance of machine gun prance, like Beyoncé on stage, drowning in, soaking up, sweet drunk adulation. It’s rough and messy and fringed with desperate need. But with her, the soullessness mounts. Fucking for pleasure, and not for connection, not for emotion. And yet, perhaps there are different truths forming in those cinnamon eyes. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that cloudiness in her eyes, the bit lower lip, is expression of more.

- - -

I try to meet her halfway, growling and cursing and yanking at the cuffs hooked round the bedpost. I try to let fly mad savage want with bared teeth and a flash in the eyes. I owe her that… at least that. But it’s halfhearted masquerade. And fuck does she know it. We never fully meshed growing up on the streets. We fucked to learn. To pass the time. Until time stopped. Until she came along and ruined me for everyone else. Especially you. Young love’s Trojan Horse.

Her bottom lip curls and she screams. Her hips move faster and her hot inner muscles squeeze tighter, rippling along the thick vein on the under-side of my erection. Her red tinted dreadlocks frame sculpted features. A Medusa-like rage fuels the angry rhythm of her hips. Unlike Perseus though, I welcome the end. Deserve the end. For I am no hero of this fucked up Greek tragedy.

I reach up and grab hold of her snake-like hair, wishing the sweat slick locks really snakes with poisonous fangs.

Cuz the sad truth is this, friends from beyond.

I can’t understand, can’t appreciate, this gift she’s but dying to give, these unspoken words with wet angry eyes and scorching hot cunt.

So I’d gladly take death over this torturous fuck.

¤¤¤

She has me finish in her ass, the tabooed deed denied every other brother in the hood from stealing since we were but teens under the spray of a broken fire hydrant. And when that’s not quite enough, she has me pumping her drooling pussy with the compact police baton she stole from a squad car years ago. It’s depraved. It’s wrong. It’s the symbol of power we grow up to hate. It sparks dark thoughts and darker nightmares. And yet, it’s the one thing that has me really feeling anything but numbness and with a guttural cry I let go of… something, and fill her with a deluge of warm semen.

- - -

“Weekly calls,” she tells me as she laces up a pair of combat boots. “And a bi-weekly check-in at my office every Wednesday at 1pm. No bullshit. No excuses. More than five minutes late without a call and your black ass is cooked. Those were the terms of your release.”

“Slave driver.”

Her eyes narrow and she pulls on tight black polo over high, grapefruit tits. The probation officer’s crest bulges out proudly, taunting me with the reality of my current situation.

Her tactical belt comes next, followed by the gleaming black glock from the safe in her closet.

“Forgetting something?” I say as she’s about to leave. “Gotta have that proof of being the man’s bitch, right?” Her nearly forgotten badge arcs towards her and she snatches it out of the air and clips it on all in one motion.

New flavor. No longer clumsy.

“Better than dying in the Dubs from a stray bullet, J. Or a needle.” She winces as the words spill from her mouth. “I didn't…”

“Forget it,” I interrupt. “Honest mistake right? Only been five years. Maybe I forgot why I got locked up. Just tell me something. Do I sign in at the front to verify my presence? Or would you prefer me to sign my name in cum over that naked ass again? We’ll do it after the pat down. I’m open to either, baby.” I emphasize the last word, trying to make it hurt. It does. And I feel nothing.

Her jaw clenches and she goes through a quick breathing exercise. Probably some bullshit she picked up from the academy. Or maybe she picked it up further back than that. When she was meeting with the school counselor for anger management.

“I'm sorry,” she grinds out. “That. That was,” she waves her hands out,” this was all a giant mistake. I thought someone familiar might… I thought I could…” Her jaw clenches and her cheeks burn slightly red in anger. “No. No. I should have known. I just. Fuck,” she spits.

“Sounds about right,” I say, throat all tight, mouth desert dry.

“Right. I’ll see about getting another officer to handle your case.”

“Probably for the best.”

She turns back around but pauses at the door. Sighs. “You at least have a place lined up?” Her words are softened slightly though her shoulders are slumped. I really am a piece of shit. She’s a snow globe full of hope and dreams. The clean apartment, the expensive wine in the fridge, and the photo of us as kids on her nightstand... all testament to turning her life around. Except that one elusive thing she’s missing. And I’m smashing that and the globe to pieces.

“I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry bout me.”

There’s another sigh, breath hitting through teeth. “It’s a shit world, ya know? I think I loved you when you were drawing ugly stick figures with the sidewalk chalk I stole from Mr. Harrison’s shop. I think he probably knew. Way before I did anyway. And then she came along and stole that girlish fantasy. And then you…” Her fingers clench into a fist and she hits the doorframe.

“Disappeared.”

“Yea. That.”

A door in the hallway opens and shuts. A muffled voice leaks out.

“Fine, Miss Laney. Just finishing up with an old friend. I’m all right... No, I keep telling you I don’t handle Roscoe’s case. I’ll ask. Bye, Miss Laney. ”

The round of a walker rattles off into the distance and I walk towards the door, put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off.

“I’ll always have that one night though I guess. I at least have that. Mine. Not hers. Or anyone else’s.”

“Huh?”

She grows wistful. “You were nervous as fuck. We weren’t sure when Ray was coming back from his drug deal. But we were bored and there was a stash in the glove compartment. Remember?”

A pause. “I do.”

“Blazed as fuck. We sucked down way too much way too quickly. Then it got hot. Leather seats sticking to our legs. Sweat pooling even with the windows down. I don’t think you’d ever seen a pair of tits before, but your eyes went wide as an owl when I stripped my tank top off.”

“Great tits, even at sixteen. They were the talk of the dubs. I think they cured my asthma with all the hyperventilating I did.”

She laughs, a low sultry sound. “No. That happened when I dragged your hand into my shorts. Fuck I was horny.”

“And wet. Really wet. Scared me a bit.”

Another laugh. “First pussy. Little hood boys never get how the plumbing works the first time.”

“I was short, but I definitely wasn’t little.”

Your shoulders relax a little. “You right. You were a python, even then. Clumsy though. Quick trigger. And yet, it’s my favorite memory. I don’t even remember how we ended up naked after that. Just Public Enemy blasting and the leather seats squeaking loudly when you moved between my legs. Your dick barely grazed my clit before spurting all over my belly.”

That makes me smile a little. “Yea, well. That first pussy always has the greatest power don’t it?” And then frown. “I’m sorry. For that and…”

“No. Don’t. Don’t take that from me. I liked having that power over you. Plus, that moment made me a total cum slut, ya know?. Was never the same with girls after that. I like having a fat dick spurt all over me. It’s filthy wrong and right for a converted Sunday school girl like me. And it got me off knowing my scripture luvin’ momma would make my ass bleed if she knew that.”

“And I always thought Granny Teague had me in bible verse chains. Your momma was scary.”

She nods, adds, “Leesha got crazy jealous, ya know?”

“Leesha?” That was a surprise.

“Even willing to even try a threesome with you so she could fuck me again. Wimped out though. Too scared of penis.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again, but try real hard to mean it this time.

“Me too.” She steps through the door. “See you round, Jalen,” she says, never turning back. The door clicks with a note of finality.

“I hope not, Jasmyn. I hope not.”