“Back in the Day”

Callaloo, 31, no. 2, Spring 2008

Monroe wheels himself into the day room for rec. The C.O.'s give him a little extra time to get where he is going. Maybe they even nod or greet him, if they notice him at all. He's an old-timer, a threat to no one anymore. Those who have been around long enough to hear the stories know about what a fighter he was, the badass nobody would mess with, back in the day, a man who could get respect by the way he entered the room, seeming to rearrange space, owning any territory he chose.

To the young ones he is Pops, too detached and feeble to notice, let alone fear.

He sits by the window looking out, looking back. Watching the young ones from a distance as they braid each other's hair and trade war stories, rocking to that rap music he can make no sense of, talking of bitches and ho's, bragging about their drugs and guns. "In my day," he wants to interrupt and shake them, "we didn't call our women names unless they crossed us, and we knew how to fight. We hid behind no gun." Some of these young ones, like this one in the corner, name of Quake, they say they've never worked a job. He wants to suck his teeth and tell them how things were, but they would only laugh, or worse. Unless Travis was around.

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