Keeplock by Stephen Solomita Page A

whatever and he reacted to the indignities of prison life by attacking anyone who frightened him. Eventually, a judge (white and Jewish, this time) added eight years to his eighteen months and he was shipped back up to statewide reception in H Block.
    By this time Tony had earned himself a reputation. Most of the other prisoners, no matter what their color, shunned him and the fury that surrounded him like a halo. But the system didn’t see what was obvious to the prisoners. They sent him off to a medium-security institution where he continued to fight anyone who excited his paranoia. Gradually, they moved him up the ladder—Attica, Comstock, Greenhaven, then Cortlandt, the end of the line.
    Most likely, if Eddie Conte hadn’t stepped in, Morasso would have spent most of his eight years in the box. Eddie decided that we needed more muscle in our crew and he personally recruited Tony. I was against it at the time.
    “Look, Eddie,” I told him, “this guy is a loaded gun that pulls its own trigger. If he goes off, we’re liable to end up in a war. Who needs that?”
    We were on the courts. Morasso was sitting by himself, pulling at a jam jar filled with hooch and eyeing us with suspicion. Eddie took me off to the side and explained the facts of life as he saw them.
    “First of all, cuz, this asshole’s got family on the outside. He gets a money order every month which he don’t even know how to spend. That’s good for us. Plus, I been thinkin’ we’re too fuckin’ laid back. Sure, Tony’s a bug, but we could deal with that. As long as we keep him under control, we could point him wherever we want.”
    What I wanted was to be left alone, and being part of Eddie’s crew was a major step toward achieving that goal. The courts where I hung out belonged to Eddie. I could have walked away, but I didn’t see how isolation would improve my situation.
    “So tell me how you’re gonna control him, Eddie.”
    “Cuz, it ain’t that hard to figure out. I’m gonna keep him stoned until I wanna use him. Plus, I’m gonna educate him about keepin’ his big mouth shut.”
    The drugs and the hooch helped, but the education failed miserably. Morasso still managed to fight his way into the box every couple of months. We’d always lived in peace with the black and Puerto Rican crews—mainly because we weren’t competing with them—but Morasso’s attitude got us into one beef after another. It finally built up to the point where I lost control of my temper and kicked the crap out of him. It happened out on the courts after he told a Muslim that Jesus liked to fuck Muhammad in the ass. That Muhammad spent his time in heaven bent over and begging for more.
    There were over a hundred Black Muslims in Cortlandt at the time and they wanted satisfaction. I gave it to them, though I wasn’t thinking about them when I went off on Tony Morasso. I was so mad, I wasn’t thinking about much of anything. Eddie tried to get between us, but I tossed him away like he was a sack of potatoes. If I’d had a real weapon instead of a piece of firewood, I think I would have killed Tony Morasso. But I didn’t and the best I could do was bust his head open before the boys pulled me off.
    Eddie was pissed, but like any other convict, he had to accept the reality of the situation. Eddie needed me (or, so he said) for my brains as much as he needed Morasso for his ferocity. My cause wasn’t hurt by the fact that Morasso’s beating had worked out well for the whole crew. The Muslims were accepting it as a kind of blood payment for his big mouth. As for me, my only problem was that Tony would probably try to kill me when they took off the casts. Even when Eddie returned from a bedside visit with a promise of no retaliation, I continued to prepare for war.
    But Eddie was right on the money this time. Not only didn’t Morasso want to kill me, he was actually afraid of me. I understood that fear lay at the bottom of Tony Morasso’s violence, but