The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Cellmate.

The pen twitched and jerked six-inches from my left eyeball, “FUCK YOU, YOU RACIST MOTHA­FUCKAH – I KNEW YOU WAS AYE-BEE!!”

“AYE-BEE? AYBEE?! HOW THE FUCK COULD I BE ARAYAN BROTHERHOOD IF I’M HALF-FUCKING-JEW?”

It was just my fifth night in the twelve-by-eight foot concrete cell, and apparently my cellmate, a hilariously militant member of the Black Guerrilla Family, was convinced that because I’m white and spent rec periods sitting with the six or seven other white dudes at one of the picnic tables instead of among the fifty or so black and Latino guys – I just had to be racist.

“OH YOU’RE JEWISH, YOU FUCKING CRACKER? Jews stood on the docks WAITING slave ships to come in so they could buy my people on the CHEAP!! YEAH!” Every time he emphasized a word, the pen was thrust closer to my pupil, and I like to think sort of like clapping your hands to bring Tinkerbell back to life - that this was in fact when The Squad was born.

“DAMON, WHAT THE FUCK!! MY GRANDPARENTS GOT HERE FROM THE UKRAINE IN THE EARLY NINTEEN-HUNDREDS! Bro, no one was buying or selling slaves anymore at that point!” Given my situation, I figured it was a good idea to just give my paternal Jewish background, and not get into the fact that my Cajun maternal side may or may not have had a little free help on the cotton farms.

“I’m gonna take this fucking PEN and shove it right into yo’ fucking BRAIN, motha-FUCKAH! You ready to DIE tonight? Maybe I’ll kill you NOW, maybe I’ll wait to stab this pen into yo’ eye while you fucking SLEEP!! YEAH, BITCH!” Since getting stabbed to death through my eyeballs in my sleep isn’t my idea of a good time, I decided I was done calling his bluff - both my hands shot up to his wrist and I wrenched the pen free, and as it clattered to the ground I pushed him away from me and took inventory of our cell.