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The Convict – Part 15

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By Joshua Ryan

I unfolded the shorts. They were cheap and stiff and pasty white, with the same black brand on the leg and rump: CONVICT 353308. Even in your underwear, you had to be labeled. Your rump needed to be numbered so that nobody would mistake it for the rump of the inmate who was next in line. You could never forget that you were a convict, a package of meat with a barcode.

I pulled the right leg of the boxers over my iron and drew them up to my crotch.   I’d never worn whites before. Even when I was a kid, my mother always bought me something “colorful,” something “artistic.” And I’d never worn anything next to my body that felt as coarse and rough as those things felt when I pulled them on for the first time, watching my balls and dick vanish beneath the harsh white cloth that covered them like some exotic disease. I shuddered and reached blindly for the t-shirt.   The thing was as heavy and coarse as the boxers, and just as white, except for the familiar message stamped on the front and back — CONVICT 353308. I pulled it slowly over my chest. Now I was dressed in my prison underwear, with my prison name and my prison number glaring black from the naked white . . . and my dick was rising again. I never knew I could feel this way, sick and eager at the same time . . . Through the thick cloth of my t-shirt, I could see my nipples starting to tube . . .

“What’s the matter, convict?” College Boy asked. “You one of these boxer queens? Can’t get enough of your undies, man? I want you dressed out, convict. Make it snappy.”

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The Convict – Part 14

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By Joshua Ryan

“OK,” the officer said, when he got me out in the hallway again. “Your looks are improving, convict. I like that new ankle bracelet. I think you look real cute in it. And you’re gonna look even cuter after your next stop. I’m tired of watchin that little dick of yours floppin around on the outside. But I guess you faggots don’t mind hangin out — do you, boy?”

“Boss! No Boss!”

“Well, if I didn’t have no more than what you got, I’d never wanta bounce that thing. I’d keep it packed away. Look at it.”

He put his hand out and grabbed my dick, like you grab a piece of junk that you plan to throw away. He yanked on it, and I lurched in his direction. “You call that a dick, boy?” He opened his hand. My dick was lying there, open to inspection.   He was right. It looked like nothing compared to his thick hard hand, or the long gray sleeve, full of muscle, that connected the hand to his big, buffed shoulders.

I could smell the Krew Comb on his haircut. I could smell the cigar he’d been smoking. A voice inside me yelled, “Fuck, man! There’s a hillbilly grabbin your dick! There’s a fuckin prison guard grabbin your fuckin dick!” But that voice was a long way away. My dick was starting to grow. It was filling and hardening, and he was starting to stroke it and crank it, like I was his cow and it was time to milk me. The more he stroked, the more it hardened and swelled and thrust in his fingers. I didn’t want that to happen. But there was nothing I could do. It was his tool now. I wasn’t in control of it anymore. Maybe I never had been. My dick didn’t care whose hand it was in; it might as well have been my own hand milking it — except that this hand was attached to a man, not to a “boy” like me. It was sliding in his hand like a piece of well-oiled machinery, like a piston that’s found the right groove . . It was true, then . . . he was the man, and I was the boy . . . he was the guard, and I was the convict . . . My dick was throbbing and jerking, struggling for release . . . Just when it was about to lunge free. . . .

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The Convict – Part 13

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By Joshua Ryan

It was a strange-looking room. What you saw was a line of long metal benches, the kind of benches that are big enough for a guy to lie down on and spread out his arms above his head. The benches were lined up parallel, every few feet. And you could tell that guys were supposed to lie down on them, because they had cuffs and shackles at all four corners.

At the head of every bench was a table, with some metal instruments arranged on it.

The panic was rising again, but I didn’t have time to panic. “Go to the drain, boy,” the officer said. He was pointing to the wall across from the line of benches.

I went to the wall. At the bottom I saw a thing in the floor like a gutter, or a big pipe with the top cut off of it. “I want to see you piss, boy. Do it now. And make sure you squirt it all out. We don’t want any accidents later on.”

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The Convict – Part 12

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By Joshua Ryan

Processing! That’s what happens to a piece of meat. That’s what happens to a load of sewage. It was incredible. This morning I was a rising young executive. I had a job. I had an apartment. I had a lover. I had clothes! Now I had nothing but my skin. I was a “boy.” I was a naked convict standing in front of a hillbilly guard who had to teach me everything I was supposed to do, because I was a mindless asshole, a moron like every other convict. And he was right. When I had a life, I couldn’t wait to get away from it. I wanted to be with a convict. I wished I was like a convict. And the convict turned out to be smarter than I was. Now they were turning me into the convict’s replacement. I was a boy and the guy standing in front of my was my boss. I would have a boss like him for the rest of my life. Because they were processing me into a convict.

“This is Nolan. Open.” The officer snapped his phone back on his belt.

At the far end of the room, a steel door opened.

“Through the door, boy — double time!”

I scurried toward the door, my dick bouncing against my naked legs. As I passed the other convict, he gave another swab to the floor. I was nothing to him.

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The Convict – Part 11

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By Joshua Ryan

I was in another tall, old room, but this one was tall and narrow. Along one wall was a set of shelves, with line after line of metal baskets on top of them. Along the opposite wall was another one of those big old-fashioned desks — only this one was loaded with computer equipment. The equipment looked strange in a room like that, almost eerie. It was like two worlds were being jammed together. . . . The tears were still in my eyes, running down my face. I was having a hard time focusing . . . “Hit the prints!” someone barked.

There was a guard sitting behind the desk, and the guard was already yelling at me. “The prints on the FLOOR!” I looked at the floor. There was a pair of yellow feet painted there. I put my freshly polished black shoes on the fading yellow feet and looked back at the guard. He wasn’t looking at me. He was writing something, and it took him a long time. That is, I think it did. Time was strange at the moment.

The guard put a stamp on a thing that must have been part of my “docs”; then he got up and strode to the other side of the desk. He was young. He was Mexican. He was short and slight. His grays were freshly washed. His hair was freshly slicked and combed. There were deep thick furrows running through it, like newly plowed earth. And he had a paddle dangling from his belt.

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The Convict – Part 10

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By Joshua Ryan

THIS IS A STORY ABOUT ADULTS, FOR ADULTS ONLY

As I said before, I’d seen prison vans on the road. Maybe some of them were on their way to the Durant Unit.   I didn’t know. I was never really interested. I remember that when I saw them I wanted to look inside, but I couldn’t see in past the bars. All I could see was some shadowy things that looked like ghosts. Ghosts of men. Former men. I’d never thought about it that way, but that’s the way it had looked. You see a lot more than you realize.

Now I was inside the van, and the people on the street were seeing me go by. Some of them stared, and some of them glanced and looked away, like they were ashamed that they’d looked in the first place. Women in tapered suits, with little purses. Young guys in bright neckties, just getting off work. A gang of teenagers with their caps turned around, jumping on and off their skateboards, waiting for the light to change. “Dude!” one of them yelled, pointing at the van. “There’s a jailbird in there!” They all craned their necks and tried to see through the bars. They were starting to jump off the curb to get a better look, but Andre gestured at them to stay where they were, and they obeyed the man in uniform. The light changed, and the van moved on. I wondered if those kids would remember me, if they ever found themselves inside a bus that was headed for prison.

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The Convict – Part 09

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By Joshua Ryan

When you’re dreaming, you don’t have to plan; one thing usually just leads to more of the same kind of thing. That’s one of the reasons why I kept feeling like I was still in a dream. I used to start each morning by waiting for the prisoners to come from the Durant Unit; now I was starting the afternoon by waiting to go to the Durant Unit and become a prisoner. I was even dressed the same way I always was. My clothes had gotten a little rumpled. There was some dirt on my sleeve that I couldn’t rub off. But the clothes were still all right. That was one good thing about going through it all in one day.

The lawyer left, and an officer came by and gave me a sandwich and a diet coke. So that was the same as usual, too. Then there was nothing going on in the dream, so I took off my coat and tie and put my head down on the table, and I fell asleep. You might think that was surprising. But that’s what happened. I’d gotten up early that day, and a lot of things had happened. I even started another dream.

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The Convict – Part 08

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By Joshua Ryan

One of the officers carried my briefcase, and the other one led me by the arm. When we got to the top of the hill there was a woman jogging through the park. She had a cell phone on her someplace and she was talking into the air, the way they do, like they’re crazy people, and when she saw us she jumped back and put her hand on her chest like she was having a seizure. She looked at me like I was raping her at that very moment. Then she ran off, fast. No one had ever reacted to me like that before.

There was a black police car parked at the curb. One of the officers put his hand on my head and guided me into the back seat. His hand was gentle, in the way that hands are when they don’t want to touch something that they have to touch. The car door slammed. In 20 minutes, they were leading me into the Justice Center downtown.

I was surprised that they never read me my rights, but then I remembered — they didn’t have to do that anymore, now that the courts had approved all the new anticrime laws. There had been a conversation about that. I recalled it. A conversation in a bar. It was the night I first met Joey Madison. He was coming on pretty strong, so I told him, “You’d better back off. Otherwise, a cop is gonna show up and read you your rights.” “They don’t do that anymore,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder. “They just drag you off to jail.” We both laughed.

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