Page 19

I must have had too much sun the following day.

I walk across the yard to talk to the guy Bruce refers to as ‘Firecracker.’ As it turns out, Kevin Ramirez is just an eighteen-year-old kid with anger management problems..

. or so I think, at first. They’ve let him out of the straitjacket, but that makes me think that he’s probably too doped up to do much more than sit on the bench in the corner of the yard and stare out the chain link fence over the open field. I’m pleasantly surprised.

“It’s Kevin, right?” I start as I sit down on one edge of the bench.

He nods slightly, not taking his eyes off the field.

“Cool. My name’s Aaron.”

“Yeah, I know. The tough guys call you, ‘Bitey.’” Then he turns to me and asks, “Are you really a vampire?”

I laugh and run my tongue over the gaps in my gums. “To be honest, Kevin, I’m not quite sure of anything anymore.”

“Well, that’s a disappointment,” he replies, turning back to look at the field.

He’s inquisitive I give him that… but ‘Firecracker’? I’m not convinced he’s a problem child.

“They say you have quite a temper. What’s that about?”

He turns to me again. It’s obvious he wants to talk as much as I do.

“I wouldn’t call my ‘problem’ a temper, per se.”

“What would you call it, then?”

“I’d say I’m easily enraged by bullshit.”

“All righty, then.” Perhaps I should tread lightly with this line of questioning, as I’ve been known to spout bullshit from time to time, I think.

But, I’m intrigued and want to know more about this kid.

I’ve been formulating a plan, and something tells me that he could play an integral part.

“Tell me, Kevin,” I continue, “what kinds of things enrage you?”

“Anything, really. If it triggers an emotion, I get enraged,” he says, watching birds fly over our heads into the field.

“That is either very general or very specific,” I reply.

“It has a lot to do with who is spouting the bullshit.”

I nod, because I understand exactly what he’s saying. I eventually stand up and make my way over to Bruce.

Bruce looks up at me as I sit beside him. “What was that about?” he asks.

“Just being friendly,” I say.

A few days later, Bruce, Richard, and I are unlucky enough to see just how enraged Kevin can become.

Then it happens with increasing frequency.

All it takes is for someone to do or say something slightly off-key and he flies off the handle.

He throws things, attacks people, and throws some of the heaviest punches I’ve ever seen thrown by a scrawny eighteen-year-old.

.. Every time he does, it lands him in the ‘hole.’

At breakfast one morning, Bruce and I are chatting over our imitation bacon and toast when suddenly, a tray flies up in the air from along the cafeteria buffet line.

A hot cup of coffee is emptied in a male steward’s face, sending him screaming toward the kitchens.

Then, the hard plastic cup is being used as a hammer on the face of another inmate. Kevin is at it, once again.

Bruce and I stand so we can have a better look, but just like all the other inmates seated in the cafeteria, we know better than to make a move toward the fracas. We can barely make out the bloodied cup as it goes up and comes down over and over on the other man’s nose and lips.

Don and Terry come running in and grab hold of Kevin, prying him off the other man with one heave and slamming him face down on the ground.

Terry pulls Kevin’s arms behind his back and, with one knee in the small of Kevin’s back, Terry cuffs his hands.

He fusses and fights the whole time, even after Don delivers a boot kick to Kevin’s face.

Two doctors rush in after that. While one takes Kevin’s pulse and other vitals, the other fills a syringe with clear medicine and injects it into Kevin’s arm. Before he’s fully down for the count, one of the doctors asks him, “Why did you do that to Peter, Kevin?”

Kevin smiles. Blood is smeared all over his teeth from Don’s kick. “He was trying to cut in front of me in the line.”

When they lift Peter up onto the stretcher to take him to the infirmary, the whole room catches a look at his face.

I still shudder when I think of it. I’ve never before seen such damage done to a man with a cup and sheer brute force.

It looks like he kissed a truck that was going fifty-five miles an hour down the freeway.

Of course, Kevin makes another trip to solitary confinement and that time, he’s gone for two weeks.

I think my six-by-eight is depressing until Bruce gives me a full description of the solitary confinement holding cells.

They’re basically closets about half the size of a regular cell with a bench the length of it, a toilet in a corner, and a small door to one side.

Beyond cramped, there are no windows, no bars to look through, and just a slot in the metal sliding door for the orderlies to push food trays into the cell.

“No matter how aggravated you feel upon entering this hell hole,” Bruce says, “you come out as calm as a breeze. A depressing and humiliating place to spend a week.” Bruce’s exact words are, “The place gives you a fresh perspective on how you’ll want to live out your time at Fulton. ”

“Kevin, you gotta learn how to keep yourself from reacting to these things,” I say to him after he emerges from solitary. They’ve finally allowed him to eat in the cafeteria again.

“I used to be able to stay calm,” Kevin responds. “but I can’t anymore. I feel like I’m always ready to explode, and beating the shit out of someone makes me feel so much better.”

“There’s a difference between action and reaction, Kevin,” Bruce advises. “That’s what you have to learn... how to tell the difference between the two.” He stands up and goes to dump his tray. He’s done talking to the impetuous teenager. But I’m just getting started.

As it turns out, Kevin has landed himself a permanent residency at Fulton; life imprisonment in a mental institution for the murder of his father.

Apparently, that’s what you earn in Georgia when you suddenly up and blow the brains out of the man who’s been abusing you for the last ten years of your life.

Kevin’s been given a lenient sentence from a progressive judge.

Even so, he’s kinda been permanently flipped out after that…

Something I can completely relate to.