I’m sitting on my bunk and trying to ignore the sounds of two people fighting across the hall. I know the two girls, but I do not know why they are fighting.
Prison has taught me about fades (fights) and backfades (fights to have one’s back), so all I can do is sit here.
The sight of two people trying to inflict as much damage onto each other as possible is not something I can take pleasure in, so I won’t be joining the spectators at the window.
The screaming between the fighters signals a resting period from the punching but it won’t last.
I try to tune all the noise out and keep my television volume as loud as possible, but nothing drowns out the sounds.
The spectators are louder than the fighters, reacting as if it’s a live championship boxing match on TV. The commotion makes my heart beat fast like I drank a double shot of espresso. I’ve bitten down my nails to the nubs.
The correctional officers won’t come, so the fight will continue for several hours. Until it is over, my nerves will continue to be on edge.
I am a friend to one of the fighters and an acquaintance to the other. I desperately want to check that my friend is okay, but based on the spectators’ reaction, she is struggling, so I won’t look.
I want to help, but I cannot interfere in any way. Any support I show my friend would be considered taking her side, and I would risk being pulled into a physical confrontation myself.
I also cannot offer my friend any sympathy because it will make her seem weak and make the predators smell blood in the water.
I can’t try to talk sense into the pair to stop them from fighting because I am not in such a position of power in the prison hierarchy. I’m still just trying to get the hang of the prison norms and politics.
Though I don’t know everything about prison politics, I do know that sets, gangs, neighbors, girlfriends, friends and cliques stick together. This is the premise for backfades, which is not a “gang thing” nor a “prison thing,” I am told.
To most girls here, it is just a life thing.
If a girl fights your close friend, then you must go fight the girl’s partner or help your friend fight the girl if there is no stud involved.
If your set, gang, neighbors, friends or clique call for backup, you should be ready to jump in and fight.
If you are not “in the mix” and not called to act, you must stay out of it.
You are expected to just watch helplessly as a friend risks getting caught, losing their privileges, losing their visits, losing their phone calls, losing their bed assignment, losing their rehabilitation progress and risk losing their date to go home to their family.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Here are our ground rules:
- You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
- No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
- No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
- No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
- No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
- Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
- If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
- If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
- Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.