Shantih Journal 3.1 | Page 48

until I saw he enjoyed using me as a verbal punching bag. I finally said that I’d appreciate it if he kept his disrespectful comments to himself. That’s when he started calling me a pussy. It escalated after I told him that if he had some sort of problem with me, we could settle it physically. He said he wanted me to slip the cuffs. I didn’t like that idea since I had already been in the hole a year and a half, but I tried it anyway. Twice. I slipped the cuffs while I was still in a rec cage once and in a shower stall another time. By doing it that way, I could face them before they opened the door. He didn’t want to face me head-on, though. Only when they already had their hands on me and my back was to them did he want me to slip the cuffs. But I was nobody’s fool. He continued leaving the cuffs untightened so he could feel like a hard-ass, I imagined. We entered the stairwell, and Big One said, “Talk some shit back here, mother fucker. Go on, you fucking toughguy.” I smiled. “I don’t think you realize this, but you’re the one that—” 48 “That’s what the fuck I thought,” he sneered. “I knew you were too pussy to talk shit back here.” I should’ve laughed at this point, but I felt like I was being threatened. Being threatened is different from trash talk, so I told him, “Fuck you, bitch—” I wanted to ask him after that if he was going to beat me while I was in shackles and handcuffs like a coward now, but he slammed my head into the cinderblock wall beside me before I got the chance. He put his weight behind each slam. It’s hard to recall how many times he smashed my head against the wall before he stopped. I wondered how in the hell he thought he was going to get away with the assault until I felt him stop and pull one of the handcuffs off of me. And there was my answer. Worried that I may try to swing on him, Big One immediately threw his weight on me. Because I was in a corner, I was pushed down into a squat. He then jumped on me. Now, any serious weightlifter who has squatted massive weight and bent down a little too low can attest to the fact you can defecate doing this. And having the fat-ass Big One jumping on me from that position produced this effect on me. Even though shitting myself was something to contemplate, I was more