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​CHAPTER 10: George’s Facination, (Pages 48 - 54)

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Copying prison culture wearing stringless sneakers—called “felon sneakers” by those in law enforcement—became a common style for youth outside prison walls. In the early ’90s, beltless pants also became a style among young people, called “sagging pants.” Parents who knew that “felon sneakers” and “sagging pants” were part of the prison culture rebelled against their children’s adaptation of this style.

One of the correctional officers, known as COs, walked George to his new home and locked him in his cell. George introduced himself to his cellmate: “Hey man, I’m Turk.”

“Th-th-they ca-ca-call me-B-B-Beast,” the inmate stuttered in reply. He was sitting on the edge of his bunk, reading a book. The huge black man looked almost super human: his well chiseled muscles appeared as if he’d lifted weights all his life.

George stood silently, looking at Beast for a moment, and then asked, “Which bed is mine?” Beast pointed to the top bunk. Turk saw there were no covers or pillow on the top bed, but the bed where Beast was sitting had two of everything—pillows, sheets, and blankets. George asked Beast if he could have his bedding, and Beast told him that if he wanted that stuff, he would have to “be his girl.” George looked at him as if he were crazy and said, “What the fuck you mean, man?”

“Jus-jus-just like I said—if you want this stu-stuff, you will have to be my bi-bitch,” replied Beast. 

​George said, “Fuck it, then, you can keep that shit.” 

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“You are gon-gonna be my bi-bitch anyway,” Beast said. “You can make the shit hard if you wanna."

George ignored that last statement and attempted to climb the ladder to the top bed. Beast grabbed him and punched him in the mouth. George, a third-degree black belt in karate, hit him back, but Beast was too big, too strong, and he hit too hard. Though athletic and young, George’s slender frame was outmatched. He yelled for the guard.​

“Shut the fuck up,” Beast demanded. “The guards aren’t coming down here unless I call them. Now, I want you to take those clothes off and put on these panties.” He tossed a pair of pink woman’s panties on George’s bed.

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George stood there with his nose and mouth bleeding, his eyes beginning to swell, and his head aching badly. Beast told him, “If you don’t put on these panties, I’ll have no choice but to do you like I did my last cellmate.” He hesitated for a moment and added, “I broke his jaw, and they put him in the hospital.” Beast then said, “Hell, it ain’t gonna be that bad—they gonna cut me loose in three days. Just put on the panties, and I won’t bother you till tomorrow night.” George refused, and they scuffled again, but this time George put some hurt on Beast.

Beast told George he had until the next day.​

“I have a headache and need to see a doctor,” George told his imposing cellmate. Beast called the doctor.

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The doctor, Herman “Hey Doc” Wolonaski, was in prison as a result of a malpractice that resulted in the death of a young woman while he was giving her an abortion. That was not the first time his practices had been in question or caused others to suffer. It finally caught up with him and he wound up in prison. The warden decided that his expertise could be utilized in the prison, the same as the chef who was serving time and preparing meals for prisoners.

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While they waited for the doctor, Beast told George, “That doctor is an inmate, and he was once my cellmate. Sometimes he gives you the wrong medicine on purpose so he can knock you out.”

Within a few minutes, the doctor came in, looked at the wounds, gave George a pill, and also secretly slipped him a shiv, a homemade knife. George took the pill, despite Beast’s warning, and his headache started to ease immediately. Without his pillow and covers, George went up to bed. But he could not sleep. He was busy thinking of ways he could defend himself if Beast tried to attack him again. He felt confident he could successfully defend himself now that he had a weapon.

George had learned in one of his science classes which arteries bleed the fastest if punctured. About an hour passed, and Beast figured George was knocked out from the medicine. Beast eased his way up to George’s bed and started pulling at his pants. While Beast was doing that, George lay still, pretending to be asleep. He was well aware of what Beast was trying to do. As soon as Beast pulled down George’s pants enough where he thought he could rape him, George rose up and stuck the shiv into Beast’s neck. Although it was dark, there was just enough light for George to stick Beast in the right place.

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The sharp blade sliced open Beast’s left carotid artery; blood gushed out like water from a faucet on full blast. Beast fell off the top bunk onto the cell floor, screaming at the top of his lungs. His voice soon became just low moans as he lay there, helpless in a pool of his own blood. COs came and called the prison medics, who took Beast to the prison hospital, he died en route. One of the COs whispered to George, “Don’t worry, Beast had this coming to him. It’s obvious this is a case of self-defense.”

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The COs mopped up Beast’s blood and left George in the cell overnight. After being questioned by prison authorities, George finally went to bed and slept without worrying about being attacked. Beast was no longer a threat to his manhood, but, still, George was saddened that he had killed a man. However, he remembered what his karate mentor, his sensei, had always told him: “If you kill someone while protecting your own life in a fight that you did not start, it is justified in the eyes of the law, as well as in the eyes of God. So you must forgive yourself and move on.”

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George breathed a great sigh of relief, because he didn’t have to submit to Beast. He’d known that Beast would die from the wound he’d inflicted. The prison authorities did a quick investigation and determined that this was a clear case of self-defense. Being in a cell with no partner suited George fine. He certainly did not want to go through that ordeal again.

Soon after Beast was taken to the prison morgue, everyone went back to sleep. They all knew they had to get up early and prepare for breakfast lineup. Turk was used to going to bed early at home. He and his siblings rarely stayed up after 11:00 during the week, so going to bed early was not a big adjustment for him.

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The next morning, as the prisoners were heading to the prison cafeteria, some of them noticed George’s swollen face. Most of them were surprised to learn that it was Beast who had gone to the morgue. Prisoners treated George like he was a hero. As he walked in line, they yelled things like, “You’re the man, Turk!” and “You’re the boss man now!” He was not a full-grown man, yet he’d challenged and successfully defeated the prison’s toughest and most brutal inmate.

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George was glad to get into the cafeteria, because he’d missed dinner the night before. He noticed that the place was clean, and the food looked like the food he ate at home. For breakfast that morning, inmates were treated to scrambled eggs, pork sausages, cinnamon buns, and orange juice. Turk was sitting on the end of a long table with the seats attached, getting ready to eat, when he noticed someone staring at him. It was a thin, light-skinned guy with a beard who was wearing a black-and-white knit brimless, rounded cap called a kufi. George had seen this type of cap worn by some Muslims in the ’hood. He wondered why this man was staring at him; George was not Muslim.

The man got up from his table, came over to George, and introduced himself as Malik Muhammad. He asked George, “Are those pork sausages on your plate?”​

Turk looked down at the sausages and, in his best slang, said, “Yeah.”

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Malik said, “Man, you shouldn’t eat pork ’cause it ain’t good for you.”

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Then Malik reached down, grabbed the sausages from George’s plate and started walking away. While George was still watching him, Malik took about three or four steps from the table and started eating the sausages.

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George stood up and asked Malik, “Hey, man, what the fuck are you doing?” The COs rushed over to the table, got between the two inmates, and told George that if he didn’t sit down and shut up, they were going to remove him. George was hungry but did not want any more trouble, so he sat down and asked one of the COs to bring him some more sausages.

The CO said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

A few minutes later, the CO came back with four sausages wrapped in a napkin and put them on George’s plate.

George said, “Thanks, man.”

The CO replied, “You better keep your ass outta trouble, man, or you will be in here forever.”

Just about everyone in that prison was happy that Beast had not survived the fight with George, because he was no longer a threat to anyone. His family could not afford a funeral with a burial, so they had him cremated. He was not a church member, so the services were held in a funeral parlor with its director, Livingston Demise, giving the eulogy.

“It seemed Qualeb was doomed from the start,” said Demise. “In addition to being black and poor, he had a speech impediment. He stuttered, and that was never addressed. Instead of helping him, we teased and made fun of him; even his teachers wrote him off as a tragic burden to society. This made it very difficult for him to function as a productive member of society. So, in his mind, he used the only attributes he had to survive. He used his physical strength and power to rape, to rob, and to kill others. Prison was his home, and when he came out, it was as though he were only on vacation until he committed some crime that would put him back in prison. He was the opposite of most of us so-called normal people in that prison had become his home, and the outside world was a place to vacation. Many of you seem surprised to hear this, but many others in here know that this is the condition of many young black men and women throughout this country.”

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George remembered that something weird had happened during the investigation of the fight. He’d overheard the prison officials refer to Beast as Mr. Qualeb Poppytail. The name had sounded familiar, but George couldn’t place it. Then, it occurred to him—this was the same man who’d shot and killed his father! The district attorney’s office was convinced that this was just a coincidence, because when he’d first heard Qualeb’s real name, George hadn’t known who the attorney was talking about.

George was confused. At first he had felt sad that he had taken a man’s life, even though it was in self-defense. Those feelings turned to joy and relief that he had avenged his father’s death.

George had also learned that his father’s murder case was in jeopardy because one of the two witnesses, Skip, had disappeared three months after Leonard’s death, and the other witness, Butch, was withdrawing his story, because he was afraid to testify. That was how Beast had ended up in the same prison with Turk and the reason he’d said, “They gonna cut me loose in three days.”

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office could no longer legally hold Beast on the charge. It was a good thing—and some might say a miraculous or just thing—that Turk had helped him meet his fate. Otherwise, Beast may have gotten away with murder and been released to commit more crimes.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

—Reinhold Niebuhr