Tyler is happily engaged when his life takes a turn. After a couple bad decisions, he ends up in California State's Prison. Surrounded by bad boys, hot guards, and a lot of testosterones, is Tyler going to manage to keep himself out of troubles?
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My First Year in Prison
Chapter 7: The debt collector
The other inmates mentioned "the parlour room" regularly but I had never really pictured it in my head. Would we have intimacy with our visitors? Would we be separated by a glass? I hoped not.
After Falcon let me in, I was a bit surprised that the space looked pretty much like a smaller version of our cafeteria with a bunch of small tables and some chairs. Two guards were overseeing but we were pretty much authorized to move around.
I immediately saw Ralph who was taller and broader than anyone else in the room. I tried to thank him with a nod but he did not pay the slightest attention to me, he was too busy staring at the girl who had come to see him. Well, more specifically, he was looking at her very deep cleavage as if he was contemplating a rare piece of art.
As I was entering, Xander was coming in from another door on the side, his hair was a bit messy.
He was holding the hands of a woman that I immediately recognized as his girlfriend, Mindy. She was cute. Xander had just enjoyed a "conjugal visit" and he seemed very content with himself as he was sitting at a table with Mindy. The two could not keep their hands off each other and they had to be scolded by a guard.
That made me smile.
The room was crowded but I did finally see him, Ryan was sitting at the furthest table away from me, on the other side of the room. He had not noticed me yet and seemed to be anxiously waiting. I have never thought to ask but I think this was his first time in a correctional centre.
I walked towards him, passing by Pope who was French-kissing a woman. When Ryan saw me, a large smile enlightened his face, shortly followed by a look of concern.
He stood up and I almost ran to hug him. He was just wearing some jeans, he had to take his belt off and the pants were sliding down a bit, and a black t-shirt. He was handsome, as usual. As a bonus, he was also wearing his geeky glasses that I loved so much on him.
I appreciated the hug and even got tears in my eyes. I tried to collect myself. With all the other inmates around us, it was not the best time to cry out.
Ryan took a long look at me.
"Ty... wow. This is so weird seeing you wearing this."
"Yeah, I know. Quite the style! By the way, It's good to see you too!" I said with a smile.
"Of course, It's good to see you littler brother!" He patted my hair affectionately. "Especially when I thought it would not be possible! What the hell was that?"
He sat down on his chair and started to explain:
"I arrive here like one hour in advance and they tell me your visitation right has been taken away from you, that I should just go back home. They could not even tell me why! I refused to go back of course. I had been waited for hours when finally, they told me that I could see you. No further explanation."
"This is so stupid Ryan. They told me yesterday that I was denied to come here, and this morning, they changed their minds. I'm sorry, they only let me know at the last minute."
"But they are not allowed to do that! Why did they remove your visitation right in the first place?"
I looked away, ashamed of this part. Mindy was showing some jewellery she was wearing to Xander.
"I was involved in a fight..." I mumbled.
"In a fight?" He yelled.
Some people looked towards us. Pope even got his tongue out of his wife's mouth for a few seconds.
"What the fuck, Ty?" Ryan said more quietly, regretting his outburst.
"A guy kinda attacked me and I had to defend myself... Basically, I punched him."
"Jesus, Tyler! What did the guards do?"
"Well, they took away my privileges! And this morning, they gave them back to me."
"No, I meant, what did they do about the guy attacking you? This is crazy Ty; you cannot let this happen."
"It's not like I wanted it to happen or that I purposely let it happen! This is prison, I don't really have much choice when someone comes after me!"
We had been talking for less than a minute and he was already frustrating me.
"But you should talk to the guards then." Ryan said seriously, he looked very concerned at this point.
I whispered:
"Ryan, the guards are worse than the inmates."
He sighed. I was stressing him out and I hated that feeling.
"I guess I have not realized that it would be so tough. How are you holding on, Ty? Really?"
"I'm ok." I lied.
"Damn, I bet you had never punched anyone in your life before. That's not your style."
"I guess I'm becoming gansta now."
"Don't even joke about that, you need to stay out of trouble or you might stay here for a long time."
"Don't you think I know that?"
I looked at my feet and he crossed his arms. We both remained silent as we were hearing a couple fighting besides us. The wife had just told his husband she was sleeping with the neighbour. One of the guards had to split them up. I figured that everyone was having their issues.
"You're sure I cannot do anything? Talk to a lawyer, to the warden?" My brother eventually said. As always, he was trying to fix the problem. But I knew I was on my own on this one.
"Oh gosh, please don't."
"But the other guy, won't he come after you?"
"I don't know... I don't think so."
"I'm worried about you, Ty."
"I know. But please don't say anything to mom and dad, or to Griffin, tell them that it's all alright. I don't want to worry everyone."
"Ok, I won't."
Ryan sighed again.
"Thank you."
The awkwardness lasted for a little while.
"Damn, I wish I would have told you in other circumstances but I do have some news." Ryan said after a while.
"What is it?"
He smiled largely.
"Mallory is pregnant."
"Oh, that's amazing!" I exclaimed.
"And only one beating heart this time! The twins are going to have a baby brother or a baby sister."
Ryan was still traumatized from the day when two beating hearts had shown on the ultrasound. I was super excited to be an uncle again.
However, after that good news, we only had about twenty minutes left to discuss. I was regretting so much arriving late.
In the end, I am not too sure whether I was feeling better or worse after this visit. When Ryan left, I desperately wanted to go with him, I almost begged for it but of course, I had to stay behind.
As we were all going back to our cells, I warmly thanked Ralph for getting back my visitation right but he remained very vague about what he had done to help me out. I did not want to mention Falcon and his weird comment as I did not want to sound ungrateful.
When we arrived at our cell, Ralph was busy asking Xander the details about "all the nasty thing he did to his girl", and was telling us that he could not wait to bring his own girlfriend (the woman he had just met) to the "sex room" the following week.
I smiled. Ralph was growing on me.
I thought about Griffin who was supposed to visit me the next Saturday, I even considered telling him not to come. We would not be able to kiss or to show any sign of affection. Would this visit make only things more awkward?
The following days were pretty uneventful. I saw Frenchy in the communal showers a couple of times but he just ignored me. I was glad. Falcon did not ask anything of me either, at least not yet.
Only Glenn was making me uncomfortable, he was often eating with us and could not help himself from making inappropriate comments about male-on-male action in District 2. But even this, I got used to after a while and he never mentioned our encounter in the bathroom.
I was getting in a routine, a depressing one, but a routine nevertheless.
In retrospect, punching Frenchy was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. Thinking about it as I am writing these words, that fight probably changed the course of my whole life. But we will get there.
Once everyone had gotten the words of what had happened, I realized that the other inmates were looking at me differently. Frenchy was not really liked among the others; he did not belong to any gang who would have beaten me up for what I did. On the contrary, pretty much all of the inmates were happy to know that he got punched in the face and I did gain some sort of respect around the prison.
But this was not even the best thing that came out of this incident. Frenchy had been appointed to another job to avoid any further conflict and I got rid of him during laundry time!
What a fucking relief!
I almost jumped of excitement when Foster told me the news. He was smiling too. I understood later that he was the one to have made the call to send Frenchy to work in the toilets, "cleaning duties" as the guard explained.
I was introduced to my new "laundry workmate" the next Wednesday, my heart skipped a beat when I recognized who he was.
"Braxton, this is Inmate Jensen, he will work with you in here from now on. You know we have an eye on you after what happened last week, so you both better behave. Everybody keeps their pants on!" Specified Foster.
Kurtis did not seem happy to be there but nodded a grumpy yes to Foster.
I must have frozen on the spot, too busy thinking of Jensen without his pants on. What a desirable sight. Maybe I could abuse my powers just like Frenchy did to me and ask Kurtis to smell my underwear? Of course, I would not. But maybe my new colleague would take his pants off willingly?
One can always dream!
The first afternoon working together was a bit underwhelming. Kurtis was moody, barely said a single word, and I was more uncomfortable than anything else. At least, I could admire his biceps as he was throwing laundry around, but the vibe was definitely off.
It was Xander who explained me his behaviour the following night; Kurtis' request for early release had been denied and he would stay in the prison for at least another year. I felt for him. He had been incarcerated almost 4 years before me. I was already breaking down after only a few days, I could not imagine what it would be like being between those walls for 5 years.
I tried to engage the conversation with him the next day, but he was still closed off. Not that he was usually talkative with the other inmates but I was kind of hoping to learn more about him. I had no idea what he had done to be locked up in there.
Before we were done working, I gave it a last-ditch effort, I had thought about a way to engage with him for the past couple of hours:
"I'd love to get myself a proper workout routine while I'm here. Do you think you could help me out?"
I know I am not the athlete and I would not define myself as a gym enthusiast but I figured, it was a good opportunity to get ripped while I was stuck in there and why not doing it with an Adonis by my side?
Kurtis scanned me from head to toes.
"Kinda lot of work to be done here." He said with a smirk.
I sighed and turned around.