CHAPTER 3 — SOUTH SIDE

The first time they slammed me into Southside, I thought it was just another move in the shuffle. B5. Four letters and a number. Didn’t mean shit at the time. But the moment that steel door locked behind me, I knew I’d stepped into a new level of their fucked-up game. R-Pod was a carnival compared to this. Southside was the carnival’s basement, the part they never let the public see—where the freaks live in cages and the clowns sharpen knives.

B5 was the first time the floor started moving under me. At first, I thought I was dizzy, like I’d just stood up too fast after drinking too much whiskey. I’d swing my legs off that ADA-compliant bunk—lower to the ground than the others, not the elevated torture racks—and I’d stumble five feet to the toilet. Dizzy every damn morning. Took me weeks before I realized it wasn’t me. It was them. Somebody had a switch. Somebody was controlling the vibration under my fucking feet. When I figured that out, it wasn’t dizziness anymore. It was rage with a pulse.

That’s when the Reeboks came into play. White shoes, courtesy of the fake Dr. Brooks. He’d already fucked my body with the insulin switch and the antibiotics that torched my nerves, but he also gave me the one piece of gear that made me see the game clearer: those clean white shoes. Every time that floor shook, I could see it in the way the soles quivered against the concrete. My body already fried, my nerves like live wires, and now the floor itself was telling me: this isn’t paranoia, this is planned.

Southside smelled different, too. R-Pod had been clean, almost pleasant, stainless steel shining, concrete spotless, laughter and card games making it feel almost like a dorm. Southside was piss and mildew, especially once you landed in a box. You couldn’t fake that smell. It crept into your nostrils and coated your tongue. In the box, the toilet stench merged with piss drifting up from the drain. Trustees would shit in the toilets nearby and the fans would push it back into your cell, weaponized plumbing. I used toilet paper to test the vents—sometimes they sucked, sometimes they blew. That wasn’t an accident. That was fuckery.

And speaking of fuckery, Southside had a whole playbook. They’d fuck with the TVs, swap a sixty-inch screen for a thirty-six overnight, or take the remote, or “forget” to fix it right when it was your hour out of the box. They’d dim the lights in the run so you couldn’t see the edges. They’d give cleaning supplies to everyone but you. They’d leave the door open so trustees could wander in and mop your floor with piss water. One time they stole every ace out of my deck of cards. Another time they took my Bible because I was in a smock and now it was “contraband.” Another time they shaved down my commissary soap with a knife, like it was their personal stash. Little fuckeries, endless. Death by a thousand cuts.

The med fuckery was worse. Pills changing colors, dosages switched, generics with no numbers on them. Sometimes they gave me estrogen—yeah, I’ll say it straight. My tits hurt like hell, sensitive as fuck. I was emotional, snapping, wondering what the fuck was happening to me. They doubled my blood pressure meds once and I nearly blacked out. They’d delay doses for 19 hours. EMT Miller laughed about my release meds like it was all part of the show. EMT Hallet gave my vitals to the ISF guys like HIPAA was a joke: “Yeah, his sugar’s this, he took X units today.” I could hear every stat echo down the run. They didn’t think I could, but sound has layers in Southside. Even with TVs blaring, I could peel back voices. That was my survival skill. That and writing down every pill number, memorizing them, calling my sister on the weekend to cross-check. They tried to confuse me. I adapted.

Then came the food. Trustees sliding bags under the wall. Eye drops in the trays. Literal poison. In R-Pod it was subtle—shits all the time, blood in my piss until I figured it out. In B9 it was constant. My kidneys screaming. My stomach twisting. I caught Drakard, young dumb ISF, handing eye drops to a trustee through the flap. I saw it with my own eyes, no pun intended. Commissary became my lifeline, but then they cut commissary off, too. My mom was still paying. Two-fifty a month. Seven weeks of commissary stolen outright. Gaslit by Mike, the commissary guy: “You signed for it.” Bullshit. I hadn’t had a single snack, pen, or sheet of paper in weeks. Tickets came back “unsubstantiated.” I called it theft. They called it policy.

And the policy was always torture. Open cells meant showers in the day room with trustees watching, so I ripped up towels and took bird baths to stay clean and keep my KSA status. Keep Separate All—that was my shield. They hated it. They wanted me in the day room, with the others, exposed. In B7 they tried to force me out by refusing commissary and pushing trustees to talk shit about my mom. One guy wouldn’t stop, so I scooped up piss water and hurled it at him through the bars. Didn’t hit him, but it sent the message: I’ll fight dirty if I have to. That’s how I figured out the towel-over-the-toilet trick. They’d cover it, let the smell build, then unleash it into my cell. Piss and shit as a weapon. They called it fun. I called it war.

Ramesh brought his own brand of war. One day he opened my box door, pointed a taser at my face. For anyone who doesn’t know: a taser isn’t just some zapper. It’s a gun with two cartridges, steel barbs that shoot into your skin, connect with wire, and deliver hell’s electricity. He aimed it at my face first. My face. Then dropped it to my chest. Finger on the trigger. Light glowing. I stood there, calm as a corpse. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. My message was clear: pull it, motherfucker. He didn’t. He slammed the door instead. But the memory of that red light hovering on my skin burned hotter than the air vents they used to freeze me in the infirmary.

Ah, the infirmary. Nine feet wide, coffin with a toilet. Bed three feet wide, desk and bench taking up the rest, shower disconnected. Dim light dripping water from a faucet. Felt like a coffin, smelled like mildew. Only positive: no cellmates. They let me out into the hall for TV and phone. That’s when I finally called my mom after two weeks of silence. That call meant more than the air I was breathing. But it didn’t change the fact: I was still a lab rat in their maze.

By the time they moved me to C14, I’d been through every level of their program. Open cells, boxes, infirmary. I knew the pattern: isolate, test, poison, gaslight, repeat. I knew about the painted numbers—floor three on floor four, elevator rides designed to disorient. I knew about Sergeant Ramirez holding the inspection camera and telling me, “Don’t worry, I’ve already seen everything.” I knew about the ISF guys communicating through rap, through prayer, through coded language: “Two shots” meaning crank the floor vibration higher. “Hospital” meaning plan to fuck me up bad enough to need outside care. I knew their system better than some of the COs running it. That’s why I overheard them debating: “Should we pay him? He knows too much.” Other voice: “Hell no. He doesn’t know that much.” They were wrong. I knew enough.

Every fuckery was documented in my head: TVs swapped, meds poisoned, commissary stolen, lights dimmed, floors vibrating, handcuffs twisted, piss water mopped, soap shaved, towels stolen, vitamins denied, even my legal documents raided while I slept on heavy meds. I numbered sheets into the hundreds, close to a thousand, just to keep track. They’d steal tablets, pens, anything. Property and Medical played hot potato with my multivitamins until they vanished. “Unsubstantiated.” That was their favorite word.

But my favorite words? Simple. Number one: I don’t fucking lose. Number two: I’m about to make you not forget it.