BUNKY BLUES

I am currently addicted to quora.com, the 80th most visited site on the entire world wide web. The general idea is for someone to ask a question in a category - and for someone else to answer it. I have chosen this forum to reach the world on the subjects of imprisonment and the life inmates lead in confinement. In three weeks, I have garnered over 1.6 million views, a number exponentially more than I ever could with a blog like this. The following is an answer to the question "What is it like living with a celly in prison?" If you are at all curious to read my answer to 99 more questions like the aforementioned, click on the link: https://www.quora.com/profile/William-Mersey

My first celly in prison was a guy named Benji. He was 63 years old. And I was 68. We were the unit OG’s. Benji was probably my best bunky out of the six I had at MCC. But he did have a few issues. Like he smoked deuce too much. And he liked to argue just for argument’s sake. He wasn’t a violent guy at all. His crime was bank robbery. He did it with a password - not a gun. Benji also had diabetes. And the complications sent him to the hospital about the third week I was in. I had a single for a minute but eventually, the guards moved another black guy in. 

Dave and I had a stormy relationship. He was very generous - always sharing anything he ate. And we laughed a lot. But he was a bad guy underneath. Dave was a career drug dealer who shot a competitor in the stomach. And he was a violent individual. He’d actually beat the crap out of his last bunky and was thrown in the SHU and relieved of some of his good time for the assault. Dave liked to stay up almost all night and sing along (I use the word sing loosely - he sounded like a wounded animal) to his radio. I couldn’t get him to stop. 

Then he did something really fucked up. And rather than apologize, he went into complete denial and put up a harsh offense rather than a contrite defense. It was then I realized what a hardened criminal he truly was. One night we were talking about movies and I mentioned Mississippi Burning as a film I really liked. Dave confessed that he’d seen the movie himself…and that he and his boys went out and beat up white people afterwards. That was when I decided to lose Dave as my bunky. 

Next up was an abusive old Pakistani man who was convicted of food stamp shenanigans. Apparently, he owned a store and was giving people 70 cents on the dollar for their food stamps and then turning them in to the government for the full dollar. He was horrible. His shit and farts were out of this world. And he had rules and regulations as if he was the landlord of his shitty little cell. We’d get into shouting arguments and people would think I was the bad guy because he was an old man with a cane. In fact, he was a fat fuck who was three years younger than I am. But he looked feeble and that was good enough for the other inmates. 

Across the tier was an educated white guy whose bunky left for Fort Dix and RDAP. So I moved in with him. He seemed like a decent guy. But he turned out to be a gross chomo prone to temper tantrums about nothing (like an unused plastic spoon falling out of my pocket and onto the foot of his bunk). After a loud argument which everybody in the tier witnessed, I told him I’d be shoving off for greener pastures at which point he immediately did an about face, apologizing and saying he didn’t want me to leave. I don’t think contrition entered into his consciousness. I think it was more about him not wanting a gangbanger replacement. He’d been pretending to be an inside stock trader, but people were beginning to realize his real crime. And at least, he was safe with me. 

When that guy was released, I got Paul Manafort, who was a refined, educated intelligent money launderer and slimy political operative. Except for snoring loudly, and getting up in the middle of the night to read his bible by book light, he was acceptable - though Paul did a two-faced thing or two I didn’t like. It didn’t matter. Paulie left after his state appearances in court were completed and I moved a Chinese cyber stalker in about whom I could write a book. 

This guy was the single weirdest person I’ve ever met. He had severe obsessive/compulsive disorder. Like he’d wash his hands literally 50 times a day. And he was autistic as well. So he’d sit in one position for hours writing in the tiniest handwriting I’ve ever seen every name he could think of beginning with the letter C. 

And he had eczema. So he scratched constantly. I used to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of him scratching. His bedtime ritual was insane. He’d brush his teeth vigorously for 5 minutes - and then use mouthwash - swishing and gargling for another five! 

And finally, he’d spend ten minutes putting cream all over his body to relieve the itching. He was also a germaphobe and wouldn’t touch anything. If I dropped a bookmark on the floor and asked him to pick it up and pass it to my upper bunk, he’d just stare at the bookmark until I realized I’d have to jump down because he wasn’t gonna touch it. Before he ate a piece of fruit, he would suds it down with soap and water and wash it for three minutes. And he like Benji, liked to argue the other side of an issue constantly. It got really annoying. But at least he was intelligent. He’d actually attended Stuyvesant High School which if you don’t know, is the best public school in the State of New York and extremely difficult to get into. Even that had its downside. Chan was also a know-it-all who didn’t always know it all - if you get my drift. 

Anyway…I stayed with him for three or four months until my release. Had I'd suffered a longer sentence, I'd have moved on from Chan as well. Alas, I don't think I'm built for roommates. Or at least not criminals of the same gender. The bunk facet of prison life really did not appeal to me. And to this moment, I cherish and do not take for granted the alone time I now enjoy having been released from prison.