Going All City by Stefano Bloch

Author:Stefano Bloch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO000000 Biography & Autobiography / General
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2019-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

Birthday

I stopped racking CDs by year’s end, as stores hired more security for the holiday season. By then I had switched to car parts—windshield wipers and water pumps that I stole from small stores like Chief Auto Parts and returned for store credit at larger places like Target, where I would do my Christmas shopping for my little brother and sister. But right before my birthday in February, Tupac’s All Eyez on Me and the Fugees’ The Score had dropped, and record shops were offering top dollar: five dollars per CD. I “came out of retirement,” as we joked on our way to the Blockbuster Music in Glendale. It was my birthday, and I had spent the previous night bombing, so I was tired, still paranoid after a night out, and feeling sentimental about turning nineteen: my last year as a teenager. I decided to stay outside as my crewmate went inside for the new releases and possibly a few KD Langs on the way out to cover gas money.

I was in the parking lot when two police cars pulled up simultaneously from opposite directions. I put my arms up. One officer put me in handcuffs as the others ran inside the store with their guns drawn. My friend was put into one car while I was put in the other, then we were driven to the station a few blocks away. Processing was quick, as it was only about 9:30 in the morning. I was put into a two-person cell on a five-cell block that opened into a small, caged common area. My friend must have gone to another area because I didn’t see him. My cellmate didn’t say anything to me when I walked in with my bedroll. I just climbed on the top bunk, scared and tired. I fell asleep and woke up as a guard was placing food on the floor. The first thing I said to my cellmate was “Wanna trade your orange for my bologna sandwich?” He grabbed my sandwich as he nodded in agreement.

The light that hung right above my bed made a faint and constant buzzing sound. As soon as I noticed the buzzing, interrupted only by my bunkmate’s unusually loud farts, I couldn’t go back to sleep. What must have been four or five hours later, the cell door opened again, and a guard placed trays of food on the ground. And again I asked my cellmate for a trade: his apple for my Salisbury steak. He nodded, slid my tray over to his, scooted the wet meat onto his tray, and put his apple on mine before sliding it back over. That night, for what was presumably dinner, I ate two mealy Red Delicious apples, a serving of mashed potatoes, a side of cooked carrots, and a Styrofoam cup full of juice.

There was no “lights out” in this place—the lights were never turned off—but before “bedtime,” we were let into the common area, populated by an old Armenian man in

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