they have to be muled in. The gang that has the best traffic system could buy a lot more power with the profits. More fancy sneakers, more color TVs—stuff you could buy, that was how you showed off.
My first time, everyone knew the mob guys didn’t use mules. They got their supply direct from the prison pharmacy. It was the best connection of all, until the blacks started jumping them, right out in the open. That wasn’t about black against white; it was about gang against gang. The black gang might have been nothing on the street, but Inside, they way outnumbered the mob guys.
Some of the blacks ended up binged for life. Only too many of the mob guys ended up dead, so the blacks took over the drug trade anyway.
That was a long time ago, but I could see it was still that way. Only now, the Spanish guys had their own operation, too.
What did change was that other kind of contraband. On my first bit, if you got caught holding soft money, they’d lock you down tight. And if you got caught with a pistol—not a zip, the real thing—you’d probably never see daylight.
Only reason to have soft money was if you were planning to slip out. If you go without a dime in your pocket, you’re as good as caught. Plenty of guys plan how to get out, but don’t have a clue on what they’re going to do once they clear the wall.
You can’t make a life-without sentence longer, but you can sure make it harder. Anyone who ever got brought back after making an escape could tell you that.
A zip gun, that’s for settling an individual beef, not for trying to bust out. Even a real pistol’s no good for that—you can threaten to kill a guard all day and they’re not going to open the gates. But it’s great for taking hostages, and getting a lot of cells opened. Which means a riot.
Nobody could mule a pistol in. But a couple of gang bosses were known to have access to one. There had to be guards in on a deal like that.
That’s the first thing that hit me. I hadn’t been away that long, but now it seemed like nobody cared about going for the Wall anymore. The guys with real juice, they could get anything they wanted right there. They didn’t care about soft money. Or even pistols. What they really wanted was cell phones.
A cell phone, that’s super-bling. The ultimate. Perfect for a shot-caller who’s never getting out of Ad-Seg. That’s what they call the hole they dump you in for heavy violence now. Stands for “Administrative Segregation.”
With a cell, the shot-caller can reach out anytime he wants. And touch somebody, too.
I thought that was amazing, but a guy who’d done time in Mexico told me the narco kingpins always had cell phones there. Carried them around, nobody said a thing.
Some of the shot-callers spent too much time in Ad-Seg. Once they snapped that it was really going to be forever, it drove them nuts. They used those cell phones all the time, texting members outside about who needed to be hit.
If you’re in that guy’s crew, there’s no way out. If you say out loud that he’s having people hit for no reason, you’ll be the next to go. And even if you keep quiet, you could end up on that same list anyway.
Yeah, that was the real difference. Instead of scheming to get out, everyone was scheming how to make their life better right where they were. You can’t even plan an escape without some help. My last time up, the gangs trusted each other a lot more, too. Now being crewed up didn’t mean you were safe. Not even from your own guys.
Outside, I never went near dope. In my line of work, nobody trusts a junkie. You get a rep for that, you’re done.
For sex fiends, it’s even worse. A junkie might kick his habit. An alkie might get off the booze. But no sex fiend ever gets off his train. Everybody knows that. Except maybe the people who run those bullshit “programs.”
Or maybe they do know. It’s a pretty good hustle. The State pays you to do something that can’t be done, so you don’t get blamed when one of them goes right back to doing what he likes to do after he’s been cut loose.
There’s another part about that “treatment” thing—it probably makes them harder