Tyler Knight

May 6′th, and 7′th 2009

The shackles restrict me to baby steps. I’m being moved into a holding tank in Downtown LA’s Twin Towers. County jail. The chain gang holds a dozen of us, linked waist-to-waist, handcuff-to-handcuff. Everyone is in county blues jump suits with “LA County Jail” stenciled on the back in bold letters. On the feet of some of the men are county issued slippers. I’m the only one in street clothes: white linen Armani slacks, Donna Karen sweater, and Steve Madden sandals. You may as well have put a “my asshole is snug” sign on my fucking chest.

We shuffle to the holding tank. A group of Sheriff’s Deputies bark commands on top of each other, including “face the wall” and “spread your legs” as they take of the waist chains. A female deputy frisks me, hands roving up my inner thighs. She commands me to open my mouth, lift my tongue, then move it side-to-side. She takes off my handcuffs.

Another deputy is asking the racially ambiguous looking prisoners, who do you hang with? LA county jail separates the races into segregated areas for safety. Race riots are not uncommon inside. There are only four non black or Latino among us. They belong to three white guys and a Filipino kid. In the Twin Towers, you may be grouped in with guys on the way to prison for God knows what and for how long, so what the hell is another few months added for stomping on a new guy. The lone Asian kid is hyperventilating. Eyes darting.

The deputies leave and shut the heavy steel door. A few of the black guys are staring at me and talking amongst themselves. I do my best not to stare back, choosing to focus on a point on the wall across from me.

Time passes. The Asian kid is plucked away and soon after I’m moved into the black men’s tank. It’s a room designed to hold I’m guessing 50 people, filled with 200 or so. The tank is simple. One door. Steel benches bolted to the floor. Open faced toilet with an old man sitting on it. Linoleum floor, no windows, no clock so you have absolutely no sense of the passage of time.

There’s space on the steel bench but I do not sit. When my legs get tired of standing I pace to get the circulation going. More people looking at me, and talking amongst themselves.

One kid is tired of standing and takes a seat on the bench without asking. The “owner” of the spot folds the kid over his fist.
Other weak or unaffiliated men are fucked with for various, if not unknown transgressions.

A man shits himself walks around mumbling unintelligibles. Nobody fucks with Shitty Pants Man . Unfortunately my bowels are empty so this defense mechanism won’t work for me.

Time passes. Hours to be sure, but how many?. When you are in a sealed off and windowless chamber that is vacuum packed from the rest of the world, your internal clock is useless. People not high up enough in the pecking order are sleeping all over the floor. My eyes feel dry and scratchy. There’s unclaimed floor space next to the open-faced toilet but I’m not that tired that I would risk getting pissed on, let alone shut my eyes for a second.

A group of five guys that have been looking at me and whispering get up and cross the holding tank towards me. My adrenal glands scream awake. I give as good as I get sparing with pros at a local MMA gym and the Boxing gym and these guys look soft and out of shape. This is no comfort, their numbers render this observation moot. Regardless of my conditioning and skill there’s no winning. I’m not a “tough guy” in the street sense of the word and any victory to be had would be Pyrrhic at best. Still, not defending myself isn’t an option.

The pack advances closer. I fold my arms under across my chest, resting my chin on my fist so I can raise my guard in an instant. They stop within arms reach of me. My mouth feels as though its full of hot sand, and the more I fight it the more my eyes mist over.

One of them, the alpha male speaks. He says, “Hey, me and the boys was wondering…”

My voice sounds creaks out of my mouth, sounding like two bricks scrapped together. I say, “Yeah?”

Eyes from all over the holding tank, all of them, focus on the spot between my eyes, generating heat. Adrenaline dump fucks with my perception of time and my previously empty bowels now want to void themselves. My eyes can only perceive what is directly in front of me because my peripheral vision is gone.

Alpha male continues, “Are you Tyler-mothu-fuckin’-Knight?”

My ridiculous alter ego name never sounded more beautiful!

“Yes.” I say, “Yes I am!”

One of the guys in the pack says, “See? I told you Motha-fucka!! I he was that porn nigga!”

Another one says, “Yeah, I seen your black ass on Showtime last week! You was trimmin’ the pussy of this curly-haired bitch! What was the name of that show?”

I say, “Uh…Zane’s Sex Chroni…”

“Yeah that’s it! Zane’s Sex Chronicles!”

A crowd gathers. Even Shitty Pants Man seems interested and shuffles over.

Alpha Male turns to face the gathering prisoners and says, “Hey Y’all, check out my nigga! We gots us a Celebah-tee in tha house–”

This can’t be happening.

“–he makes da POOOOOOR-NOS!!”

Shitty Pants Man says, “Hey nigga, whachoo doin’ in here?”

Okay, just go with it. Do NOT fuck this up!

“It’s those racist mothu-fuckin cops, man!” I say “I was just driving, and they just pulled a nigga over!” (If you’ve ever heard me speak, you’d know how ridiculous I sound trying to talk ghetto.)

The crowd speaks:

“Thats some booool-shit right there man!”

“Shut up nigga! Let a nigga speak! Damn!”

“You better act like you know–”

Alpha Male takes control, “QUIET! Let the Tyler Knight speak!”

“Thanks dog,” I say, “so as I was sayin’–”

And I tell my story to the guys, holding court on a metal bench. The story of the LAPD then turns into the stories of my career in porn. They like my bukkake story the best, standing in silence as I tell it–laughing at the right places. One inmate calls bullshit on the cum-bong part but I remind him it’s on DVD.

I still don’t feel safe but I don’t dare stop talking. More time passes, and the other inmates start telling me stories. Some of them are actually pretty fucking funny. Many tales of their exploits remind me why I’m glad these guys are in here. My fellow inmate’s stories turn into confessionals and I’m dispensing sex advice, making shit up on the fly. I swear to Jesus to get them all into porn when we get out of lock up.

The crowd thins and a guy, I’ll say 6′5″ sits down next to me after waiting his turn.

He whispers to me, “Hey man. If they keep me in here in County, I don’t think Ima make it.”

Alpha Male says, “Hey TK, don-choo worry . Me and the boys, we got your back. Lay down and get some sleep. Nobody gonna fuck wit choo.”

I lay on the bench, doing my best to rest my brain with my eyes wide open. Apparently I doze off for a bit (who the fuck knows how long) because when I wake, there is a pile of plastic wrapped cookies at my feet. The Cookie Shrine.

Alpha, watching me as I wake up, says, “We figured you was hungry TK so we got you some cookies.”

Looking around the tank, there is evidence that lunch was delivered as I was sleeping. Some prisoners are eating apples. Others drinking cartons of OJ. Nobody has cookies.

Alpha and his gang watch me work my way through a half-dozen cookies from the pile. This is not the time to tell him about my low carb diet. The door opens. A couple of deputies enter and shout out a few names to see the judge. My real name among them.

As I walk to the door, several of my new buddies shout their e-mail addresses and Facebook pages at me. One of them, “Militant Man” says he will send me a friend request on MySpace. (He actually does.)

The second most beautiful thing in the world an incredible young woman’s ass. The most beautiful thing in the world is a middle-aged lawyer in a well-tailored suit who is there to get your ass out of jail.

As I’m processed out, a deputy cuts my prisoner identification wristband off with safety scissors.

Outside, I squint like an evicted mole. The sun is up but the day on the calendar is different. Amanda, my girlfriend of eight years, is there waiting for me on the steps. She hugs me. I cry.

Across the street is the property return office. My personal effects including my cell phone and wallet with my ID’s have been lost and the clerk tells me to wait while they look for them. When I ask how long this will take, the response is, however long it takes. I remember the show on National Geographic channel where the gecko sacrifices his tail to escape.

I say to Amanda, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” We leave.

A few blocks away is Plaza Olivera, the oldest street in Los Angeles. We find a cantina and watch the sip mojitos while the setting sun colors the smoggy Los Angeles sky purples and reds and oranges. When the first round is finished I order another, then another. We drink.

End.

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Tagged: Creative Memoir, Short Story