Tales From The Sea

2005. I noticed the mermaid as I left the building. It was a bright July day, mid-month and the temperature breached 80 degrees.

We made eye contact and neither of us seemed surprised at the existence of the other. I knew no one else saw her as she perched on a concrete bench beside the basketball court where a few inmates were making shots.

I turned my head and blinked, making her disappear. I can’t say I didn’t feel a sense of loss. I would have loved to put my arms around her and stroke her scales. Obviously, it was not meant to be. Life is nothing if not a series of disappointments.

I had not slept since my arrival two months earlier. Having entered the Federal prison system for one-year, I was abruptly forced to end a four-year methadone habit. I was detoxed for two weeks on some benzo drug which was a complete waste of time, like shooting an elephant with a BB gun. Cramps raged and spiders ran up my spine, the big furry ones that tickled. They were smart enough not to bite.

I shared a cubicle with two black inmates. One, a diabetic with an endless supply of gas, and the other, a weed-head Jamaican who thought I was the strangest thing he’d ever seen.

I had the top bunk, as low guys on the totem-pole always got the top bunk. I didn’t mind. On my sleepless nights I stared at the pipes which ran beneath the ceiling. Old memories appeared from nowhere. I took frequent hot showers through the night to ease my pain. Our floor was open, allowing us to ramble at will and watch Jerry Springer reruns in the TV room. I ignored the midnight hanky-panky in the neighboring stalls as rivulets of hot water rand down my spine. For a few moments I was free. And then I wasn’t.

It all led to my meeting with the mermaid. I was on my way to see Dr X, the prison physician, for help with my sleeplessness. Dr X was an Egyptian who spoke French, as well as English and together we had some broken conversations in French, the broken parts being on my end.

“M’aidez,” I said as I greeted him. I didn’t mention the mermaid. “Je ne peut pas dormir…je n’en peux plus.”

“Did I tell you I was shot in Egypt?” he says, changing the subject.

I take the bait.

“OK, why were you shot?”

“You know you need to lose that gut.”

“Are you one of those discount doctors that prisons hire?”

I have no gut. The prison food is loaded with carbs, designed to make you docile. Probably dosed with salt peter too.

“I can’t sleep,” I plead, “not since I arrived here in the Spring.”

The doctor looks cagey. He gives me the once over. I don’t know how they act in Egypt. Was he a cat in his former life? He acts like it.

“Look, how much time do you have left here, a few more months? You’ll feel like shit for awhile, but by the time you walk out of here you’ll be a new man. Look, you were detoxed according to the Federal guidelines.”

He tosses me a folder filled with pages.

“The Feds don’t know shit about kicking dope,” I counter, “in fact they don’t know shit. I can’t sleep, I see mermaids. And who the fuck shot you?”

He finally relents and prescribes some Trazadone, a drug that has never gotten along with me. I’ll try it.

It can’t be much worse. He also gives me a few perks, a script for tennis shoes and a pillow. I’ve been using my allotted winter jacket for a pillow since I arrived as I guess pillows can be used as serious weapons. Think about it. The annual death rate by pillow suffocation is nothing to titter at and prison is no different. I suppose, the inmates go out like lights from pillow death in the big houses. You just don’t hear about it. And tennis shoes would be a God send compared to the black steel-toed boots they issue to you upon arrival. You pick out a pair that fits you from a pile of previously owned boots that reminds me of a discard pile from Auschwitz. The shoes pose a much more violent means of weaponry than pillows. You could kick a hole through concrete with these shit kickers.

“Next time I’ll show you my scar,” he says.

“OK.”

I don’t give a shit about the crazy doctor’s wounds. I have my own. Tonight I’ll stand in pill line and get my blood pressure medicine as well as my new Trazadone script. It can’t make me feel much worse but it does.

I return to the court yard. Inmates are shooting baskets, joggers are running laps. Add a few jugglers and this could be Central Park.

I notice a scrap on the bench where the mermaid was sitting. I pick it up out of curiosity and read the scrawled lines –

“…ask any mermaid you happen to see..”

“what’s the best tuna,” I murmur to to myself. I pocket the note and head to my unit.