Fish.

Damien was assigned to the nearest prison, about 45 miles from home. After the trial his sister and mother had been tearful if for very different reasons.

His mother was tearful because she was sad, anxious, and worried.

His sister was tearful because she was pissed, pissed, and fucking pissed but at the moment she was unable to do anything productive.

Damien already had the bare bones of a plan to get started on his release, but it was a bit of a long shot and it had a lot of moving parts.

The first thing he had to do upon arrival was survive the first few days without losing face among the other inmates, and then contact the gang contacts in general population for a lifeline to protection and the outside world. These guys would be his conduit to the other people that could get him out of here.

First though, survival.

Movies embellish some things when it comes to prisons. First is the fact that everyone wants to rape you. Well...technically quite a few of them do but it isn’t because they haven’t gotten any in decades; it’s because they want to have that power over you. It’s all about status.

There were a few ways to get out of prison alive and....whole. One way is to keep your head down and maintain servility to gangs and their members while also not making yourself a target.

Another way is to join a gang.

And the last way was to befriend the biggest bad ass in the place. Not to be his bitch, but his friend. This way was tricky for more than one reason but it had the best outcome. Join a gang and you’re part of their gang for life. Skin heads, blacks, MS13, and white a few others were violent and increasing possessive of their members.

Damien was going to shoot for option three.

“FRESH FISH!” General population was loud. Very loud. Hundreds of men yelling and smacking whatever they happened to have in their hands on their cell bars.

‘Fish’ was what prisoners and guards called new arrivals. Fresh out of the sea, or off the boat, whatever the fuck it was.

Damien kept his normal confident smirk off his face. Cockiness would get him no where here. Bravado would get him killed.

His cell mate was a fat old man somewhere around 300-350 pounds with a full beard. Damien was curious how he maintained his weight, but figured he’d find out soon enough. The man seemed pleasant enough. He had a huge gap in his front teeth and people called him “Whistler”. He also farted about 4 times in a 30 second span.

“Fuck.” Damien was worried most about being able to sleep.