Death of a Pharaoh (8 page)

My mother gasped.

“Unfortunately,
your guilty plea leaves me no choice. On all counts, I hereby sentence you to a
period of not less than five years and no more than ten, to be served in an
adult facility. May God have mercy on my soul!”

He slammed the
gavel down.

I embraced my
parents while the court officer waited patiently to put me in chains.

They transported
me immediately in a Department of Corrections bus to the Downstate Medium
Security Prison in nearby Dutchess County, which serves as a receiving and
classification center for new inmates. I would spend five days there while I
completed a series of interviews, medical tests and psychological evaluations
so they could decide where to send me.

On arrival, they
deloused all of us even though I assured the officer I didn’t have any on me.
They gave me a permanent Department Identification Number, called a DIN, a free
haircut and DOC standard issue green overalls. I couldn’t have any visitors
until they assigned me a prison. On the fifth day, they told me I was going to
Sullivan County Correctional in Fallsburg; not too far for my parents to
travel.

T
he next morning after breakfast, they gave
me a large envelope with all my paperwork but I didn’t get on a van until late
afternoon after I waited hours for another prisoner going to the same facility.

They chained us to
a seat together. The other guy had a shaved head, bad teeth and tattoos all
over his body. Even though I had no interest, I soon learned that he was
Slovakian and an enforcer for a criminal gang that smuggled women from East
European countries with the promise of jobs as nannies and au pairs. When they
got here, they forced the girls to prostitute themselves. I tried to avoid any
contact but the guy was huge. His bulk took up his side and half of mine, and
the entire drive became an endless loop of rape, savage beatings and even
murder. He was a sadist who loved his work and I made a mental note to avoid
him as much as possible if we ended up in the same block.

We’d already
learned the drill at Downstate so the arrival process was quick and easy. They
finally separated me from the Neanderthal who went to a special wing for
violent offenders. I was happy to see the back of his head with its swastika
tattoo and all. After a walk down a long corridor where a different officer
scanned my DIN every time we came to a door, we finally arrived at Cellblock D.

The catcalls began
as soon as they pushed me through the main door like a steer at auction. I was
the first new inmate that week. Most of the comments blended into an
unintelligible din with everyone yelling over each other but I didn’t need to
be clairvoyant to know that I was in serious danger of losing my virginity a
second time. It probably wouldn’t be as much fun as it had been with Maria
Fanelli in her bedroom that night. Hard to believe that barely a year had gone
by since then. The guards slowed the pace to prolong the verbal abuse. I’d
heard that they placed bets on how long it would take for each new inmate to
get punked.

The lead guard
stopped in front of a cell then turned to face me.

“Welcome to your
new home, boy!” he announced with a sarcastic smile.

The door opened
and I stepped inside after a nudge from the second guard’s rifle butt in the
small of my back. I would never forget the sound of the door closing and
locking that first time. It had the same finality as the judge’s gavel after he
passed sentence. It was gloomy inside; someone had hung a frayed pair of boxers
over the light bulb to cut the glare. There was a pair of feet at the end of
the lower bunk attached to two white muscular legs, but the top mattress hid
the rest of the occupant. I stood for a moment while my eyes adjusted to the
light, holding the cardboard box that contained all the personal belongings
they allowed me to bring. It didn’t weigh much. I was at a loss for what to do
next.

“What’s your name,
fish?” said a voice out of the darkness. It sounded young yet old at the same
time. I wondered if prison did that to you.

“My friends call
me Ryan.”

“There are no
friends on the inside,” he assured me.

“Ryan James
Murphy.”

“Must be Irish,”
he assumed. “You sound smart.”

“Private school,”
I replied defensively but instantly regretted giving him the information.

“Well, well, we’ve
got ourselves an educated fish here!” he laughed. “Y’all sound whiter than me.”

The bed creaked as
the legs swung to the floor but I still couldn’t see my new cellmate.

“What ya do, rape
a classmate or something?”

“No!”

“Forget to file
your tax return?”

“Manslaughter, I
killed a man with a taxi.”

“Was it your
taxi?”

“No I stole it.”

“Did you want to
kill him?”

“He was about to
molest a young boy.”

“You killed a
chester and they still put your sorry ass in here?”

“Too many priors.”

“Priors for
stealing taxis or for running over pedophiles?”

I was trying to
think of a good answer when my cellmate stood up. He was young, maybe a year
older than I was. White with sandy colored short hair, blue eyes and that All
American look that suggested playing high-school football formed part of his
DNA. He reminded me of a young Matt Damon. We were about the same height but
this guy had massive shoulders and arms. Still, I knew instantly that behind
the swagger there was a scared teenager trying to be tough.

“You’re black.” He
sounded surprised. “You had me fooled.”

I didn’t have a
response for that one.

“I’m Zach,” he
introduced himself but didn’t offer his hand. He motioned for me to turn
around. I obliged shuffling 360 degrees clockwise until I looked him in the eye
again.

He whistled.
“You’ll drive those booty bandits crazy as soon as they lay eyes on your sweet
money!”

I didn’t
understand but suspected it couldn’t be good.

“You’ll be some
nigger’s bitch before lights out tomorrow, if you ain’t smart about it,” he
clarified.

That I understood.

“Can you fight,
Oreo?”

I ignored the
implied insult, “Black belt in karate.” Just a small lie.

“First lesson,
never broadcast any personal information. No good putting your shit in the
street, keep it to yourself.”

‘Yessir.”

“What’s your bid?”

I frowned,
confused by the prison slang.

“How many years
are you in for?” Zach translated.

“Five to ten,” I
informed him. “What about you?”

“Fifteen to
twenty. Two counts of attempted murder. I stabbed my stepfather three times in
the stomach but the son of a bitch wouldn’t die. That got me sent to juvie. I
tried again two years later but he knocked me out with a baseball bat before I
could finish the job.”

“He probably
deserved it!”

“What the fuck do
you know about anything, asshole!”

I already knew
that he tried to kill him to protect his mother from being beaten within an
inch of her life. I also picked up that she refused to testify against her
husband at the trial, condemning her eldest son to a long term in jail.

“I’m sorry about
your mother.”

Zach stared at me
as if he wondered how I knew. He relaxed his alpha-male posture just a bit.

“Make yourself at
home but don’t get too comfortable. I’d bet a crate of bones you’ll be in the
hole or you’ll cut up before the week’s out. You’ll never last in here,” he
affirmed.

I vowed to prove
him wrong.

“These are the
rules while you are my cellie. He started to count them off on his fingers.
“Keep the place clean. Leaving a mess will get the cell turned out by the boss.
No running off at the mouth. I ain’t interested in your life, how horny you are
or how much you miss your mommy. You better not snore and if you jerk-off, make
it quick and no groaning like a bitch. Got it!”

“I’ll only moan
when I’m thinking about you sucking my dick,” I shot back.

Zach tensed and I thought
he might hit me. I was ready. Instead he laughed.

“You’re learning,
never back down and give as good as you get. They respect that in here.
Bitch-up and you are one dead nigger. Understand!”

I nodded that I
did.

“You can put your
things over there,” he pointed to a shelf on the wall. “Hurry up, its lights
out soon and morning comes early for me.”

I didn’t sleep
well that first night. Half the dreams in the cellblock overflowed with
violence. They depicted rapes in the shower, guys being stabbed and a few
guards taking bribes for favors. If they didn’t dream of hurting someone else,
they were having nightmares about being the victims in other peoples’ psychotic
laced REM. I wondered how anyone stayed sane in there. Just below me, Zach
focused his thoughts on his younger brother and prayed that he would forgive
him for abandoning him to fend for himself. He was still awake.

“Your brother
understands,” I assured him.

Zach didn’t
respond and within a few moments, I finally drifted to sleep.

Morning did come early. It was still dark when the lights blared on at
six. I stood in front of the door as they briefed me at Downstate. I vaguely
remembered hearing Zach leave an hour earlier to go to work in the kitchen.

Just before the
door opened, he’d whispered. “They’ll bait you today just to see what you’re
made of. Fight back and don’t even think of running! I’ll watch your back.”

He was right. It
happened in the prison yard just after 4 pm. I stood alone, trying as best I
could to remain inconspicuous when a brother the size of a Mack truck and
wearing a white doorag over his hair pushed against me almost knocking me over.

I spun around in a
flash. Half the inmates and most of the guards watched to see what I would do.
I took a small step forward to adjust my balance then clocked the guy with a
hard karate kick to his jaw. I knew I broke it. My victim fell backwards and
didn’t get up but three of his buddies, even bigger than he was, stepped
forward shoulder to shoulder, so close they looked like a locomotive. I knew
that even my martial arts training wouldn’t save me against such odds. Just
then I felt someone on my left. I turned to see Zach.

“Leave my cellie
alone,” he demanded. ”Take care of your friend. He’ll be eating through a straw
for a few weeks.”

“Never took you
for someone who liked dark meat, fish!” the biggest of the trio observed.

“One look at him
pissing last night and it was love at first sight,” Zach announced, “so back
off, he’s my punk.”

They stared at
each other for a few seconds then two of them picked up their friend and they
all retreated.

None of the guards
even tried to intervene. Everyone knew what had just happened and I had passed
the first test. I even had some muscle in my corner.

Safe in our cell,
I thanked Zach for having my back.

“I didn’t do it
for you,” he sneered, “I don’t want no endless parade of fish coming through
here,” he explained then added, “and don’t believe any of that about you being
my bitch! If you so much as look at my ass sideways, I’ll rip your head off!”

“Anyone ever tell
you that you’re beautiful when you’re angry?”

Zach scowled for
two seconds then laughed. He was a different person when he smiled.

“You did OK today.
You earned respect. Might even make it more than a week.”

Before the end of my first month in jail, Zach and I were best friends.
Some people thought he’d punked me but everyone in the cells around us knew
that we were just two scared young guys looking out for each other. We even
showered together so no one could ambush either of us. Lord knows they tried.
After work in the laundry, I helped Zach study for his high school equivalency
exam.

One day as we
slogged through Catcher in the Rye, Zach suddenly asked me a question. He
blurted it out with all the urgency that suggested he’d been thinking about it
for the last hour or so.

“Can you read my
mind?”

I hesitated while
I considered whether to tell the truth. I decided it was time.

“I have a gift;
ever since I was a young kid,” I told him. “I can see what people are thinking.
Kinda like a movie; especially if they have real bad thoughts. If someone is
close or if I touch ‘em, I can pick up on their internal conversation. That’s
how I knew about your little brother.”

Zach considered my
answer for a moment, trying to wrap his head around the concept.

“That’s how you
were certain that chester was going to hurt the boy?”

“Yeah, I went
careening around a corner and bumped into him. I saw the boy’s face and
recognized him from the news. I knew that instant the man was going to rape and
kill him. I had to do something.”

“So you stole a
taxi and ran him over?”

“No, I borrowed
the taxi and rammed it into his garage door so the police would come and find
the boy. I didn’t know that he had gone into the garage from inside. I never
wanted to kill him.”

“Do you know what
I dream about at night?”

“About me fucking
your lily white ass!” I lied.

“I do not,” Zach
gasped in genuine horror, “tell me you’re joking!” he pleaded.

I laughed. “I try
to block it out to give you some privacy. This cell is small enough. What I can
say is that I know you well. You’re an alright dude and you don’t deserve to be
in here but to tell you the truth, I’m glad that you are.”

I couldn’t see
Zach in the bunk underneath but I knew that he had his face all screwed up like
when he talked to his kid brother on the phone and tried not to cry. I smiled
and fell asleep. Like every night, I dreamt that I was in the lake. The water
was black and I was drowning. Her face came to me in the darkness. I struggled
in vain to reach her. Just before I passed out, I woke up. The nightmares were
getting more frequent and I wondered what that meant.

My parents came to
visit every Sunday. I was always happy to see them but what really cheered me
up was the last weekend in May when my friends from school showed. They drove
up together in Tony’s car. Alex even removed his nail polish for the occasion.
Nobody had ever been in jail, except Tony and he asked the most pointed
questions. We talked all about school and I told them that I was tutoring my
cellmate. Alex wanted to know everything about Zach and he seemed real
disappointed that we hadn’t started a torrid prison romance. I think he had
fantasized about it for weeks. He referred to it as ‘situational sex’.

Susan’s father
agreed to let her go to Europe over the summer holidays so she could visit
museums and see more mummies. She’d scored a position as a volunteer at an
archeological dig in Pompeii. It wasn’t Egypt but she still might find a dead
body under all the volcanic ash. Alex had a gig to do makeup at a trendy summer
theatre in Westport, Connecticut. Tony planned to drive to Texas to visit
family. Only I knew that he actually wanted to spend the summer with Manuel who
was doing great in school. I was happy for all of them. They were getting on
with their lives and I only regretted that I couldn’t be there to share it with
them. They promised to come back in time for my seventeenth birthday in
September.

As the weeks
dragged on, life in prison took on a mind-numbing routine. The brothers made a
few attempts to get me to join a gang and Zach bruised some ribs in a fight in
the prison yard but mostly we managed to keep each other safe in the insanity
that is adult prison for two teenagers. We depended on each other for survival;
we didn’t exactly have many options.

Even the guards
were a rosary of human wretchedness; many of them frustrated cop wannabes with
little education and even fewer scruples. The inmates quickly learned who could
be bought, who would kite a letter in exchange for sex and who helped smuggle
in drugs and contraband. One correctional officer broke the mold. His badge
read, Ethan Walters. He looked about twenty-eight, a real money dude for a
white guy. He started at Sullivan about a week after I arrived. Zach noticed
that he seemed to watch me a lot and joked that he must have the hots for me. I
started to keep an eye on him and it did seem that he paid me lots of
attention, especially in the prison yard or the common area. For that reason, I
was a bit wary when he walked up to me one day.

“My name is
Ethan.”

“Mine’s Ryan,” I
told him, “but I ain’t no penny licker,” I added just in case he came looking
for a good time. After a few months, I had lost most of my private school
diction and now sounded more like someone raised in the Bronx.

“Whoa, don’t get
me wrong. Just being friendly,” he assured me. “My brother-in-law knows your
father and he asked me to keep an eye on you,” he explained. “But from what I
see you don’t need my help.”

“I can take care
of myself,” I shot back even though it felt good to know that my Dad was
looking out for me.

“He asked me to
give you something. I left it in your crib under the pillow. It’s a cellphone
with a prepaid card. There is coverage in your cell. I already checked. Your
parents will keep adding credit as needed. Keep it hidden and don’t let anyone
see you using it,” he warned me. “It might come in handy in an emergency.”

“Thanks!” I
responded, feeling bad I had doubted him.

“If you need
anything else, let me know.”

He patted me on
the back then walked away.

I knew he was a
good person as soon as he touched me but it took some time to convince Zach who
was always wary of the boss. He was a bit happier after I let him use my new
phone to call his little brother.

After that
encounter, I started to watch Ethan in action. It was hard to believe that he
was a rookie CO. I’d be walking around during recreation and he’d have me
controlled from the other side of the yard. Whenever things started to look
ugly, he would suddenly appear at my side like magic. He had a sixth sense or
something and I wondered if it came from military training. To be honest, it
felt like I had a bodyguard. The only thing missing was Whitney Houston
tickling her tonsils on the loudspeakers.

Despite his
interest, he kept his distance from me probably to keep the chatter down from
the rest of the inmates or the other guards. That made it difficult for me to
read his thoughts. Once I managed to sneak up behind him unawares and I was
able to get inside his head for a moment. He was thinking about how proud his
father would have been had he lived long enough to know that he was now the
fifth generation of the men in his family to serve. I wondered if his father
and grandfather had been CO’s? It didn’t seem likely; CO’s were not like
firefighters and policemen, it wasn’t a profession that tended to run in the
family. Maybe they’d all been in the military. I barely knew the man standing
six feet in front of me but I was positive he would take a bullet for me and it
was strangely comforting.

Ethan suddenly
sensed that someone was behind him and quickly turned around. When he saw me,
an unspoken phrase formed in his head as if he had lost control for a second.

“My Lord!” he
exclaimed in silence just before the door slammed shut again. It sounded
old-fashioned like in that butler series on TV. I wondered what it meant.

A week later,
Ethan arranged a transfer for Zach to the prison laundry where I worked. Until
then he’d slaved in the kitchen but that meant he had to get up much earlier than
me. It was hot and monotonous but the labor earned each of us $20 dollars a
month in our inmate account. My parents always made sure that I had enough
funds for all the necessities. The state of New York didn’t supply things like
toothpaste, deodorant or candy bars. The commissary, with thousands of items,
represented an important privilege for the inmates. Zach only ever received a
weekly letter from his little brother but never any money from his Mom. No one
had even visited him since I arrived. He protested whenever I used my credit to
buy him something but deep down he was grateful.

Diego was one of the longest serving inmates at Sullivan. He came from
Peru and claimed he was descended from Incan royalty. He spoke Quechua, a
language from the Andes region. Everyone thought he had a special way about
him. He was in for life without the possibility of parole.

Twenty years ago,
he came to the United States on a visit, scored some fake ID and eventually got
a job as a gardener with a wealthy Peruvian family. One Sunday, he brought two
automatic pistols to the mansion, walked up to the family during breakfast then
calmly shot each of them saving the father for the last. Both parents and three
children murdered in cold blood. He called 911 and waited for the police to
arrive.

Luckily, New York
didn’t have the death penalty or he would have fried years ago. The strangest
thing is that no one believed that a kind gentle man like him could have
committed such a gruesome crime.

The rumor mill,
not that you can believe everything you hear in prison, said that he was once
the mayor of a small but prosperous agricultural town in the Peruvian
highlands. A drug lord moved in, took over the region and forced everyone to
start growing coca leaves for cocaine. With the drug trade, violence soon
became a part of their lives and Diego was one of the only people who resisted
the cancer of corruption. He paid a terrible price. One day they slaughtered
his entire family, his wife and teenage daughters raped then killed and his
sons castrated while still alive. Even before the call came from the neighbors,
he knew something had happened by the look of shame in everyone’s eyes and even
the birds had stopped singing as he sped home.

After the funeral
that no one dared attend, he sold everything and came to visit relatives in
America. He worked with a landscaping contractor and became an accomplished
gardener. Eventually, he located the retired drug lord and applied for a job.
Diego soon became the most loved and trusted of the entire staff and they
treated him like a member of the family. Just before he shot the father, he
told him his real name and reminded him of what he had done years ago.

I knew it was true
because I often heard Diego praying silently at night asking for the forgiveness
of the Gods. He seemed to know a lot about plants and most of the Latinos swore
that his herbal remedies were better than any bug juice from the Doc. Never
spoke English to anyone, some said he only knew a few words. He mostly kept to
himself, and because of his reputation as a shaman, no one dared cross him.

Diego worked on
one of the large pressing machines for sheets. His regular partner was in
sickbay and the supervisor assigned me in the meantime to assist him. He
labored in silence and rarely even looked at me. Suddenly he spoke but not
aloud. I heard him in my mind and in Quechua, his native language. The funny
thing is that I understood what he was saying as if he was speaking English.
Nothing like that had ever happened to me before but I accepted it without
surprise.

“I salute you my
Lord,” he began then methodically raised the arm of the press to place another
sheet. “You understand my language and that is a good sign,” he added.

He activated the
pedal and the sheet inched toward me.

“Among my people,
you are known as
Churi Pariacaca
, the son of Pariacaca, the ancient God
of Storms and Rain. He is often represented by a Falcon; something you will
understand one day.”

He continued to
work without looking at me.

“Your future is
written, my Lord, and soon you will know your destiny.”

He slowly raised
his head and stared at me. He had a smile on his lips and his eyes looked
misty.