There are over fifty of us crammed into a holding cell about the size of your bedroom. There is no window, only a steel door. We can’t breathe very well in there, we sweat profusely in the build-up of body heat, we twitch a lot. Smoking makes things worse, but everybody does who can. The guards periodically threaten to close the door if anyone smokes. Court appearances are nightmares for inmates—I have just undergone a long bus ride in chains, hours sitting on concrete in these small cells, a day without food, a major gap in my medications: all to tell a judge I waived my right to be there.

The guy who stands out in this crowd is a blonde, light skinned Chicano with perfect English and native Spanish, a long blonde ponytail and a pair of gorgeous breasts. Crammed in the black hole with all these cons, the latter two attributes attract a lot of attention. Divided by pleasure in the attention and fear of its possible results, he is alternately flirty and belligerent. I stay outside the door, trying to get as much air as possible, and watch the reactions of two very case-hardened, joint-time cons who just came back from court. The tits mean one thing to them…”stuff”. They almost drool watching the young “transformer” and discussing the possibilities. One says. “I ain’t jacked off today, how about you?” They move into the room. So do I, pushed in by the guards in their periodic tamping of this body depository. Someone has gallantly offered Ponytail a seat, and he has responded by giving in to popular demand to show off his boobies. Bad move, kiddo. I watch from the door as everyone wants a touch. The kid’s pale skin is almost luminous in the dark cell full of inmates, mostly black, in dark jail togs. I watch dark hands swarm over that pale area, almost obscuring the flesh. Finally he shrugs them off with a coquettish no-no and buttons up his shirt. His chest has gotten rave reviews and the kid relaxes a little, asks if he could lay his head in someone’s lap to rest. Worse move yet.

I work my way out of the cell. Minutes later, one of the toughs from upstate lights a cigarette right in front of the door. Furious at this challenge, the guards close the cell. I am spared claustrophobia and such by being called to go downstairs to the transportation holding cells. As I enter the elevator, the cell door opens slightly from two inmates to come out. In the blackness I see a flash of pale, bare thighs on the bench, then the door closes again and the elevator takes me away. An older guy beside me in the elevator, a veteran with the kind of full sleeve tattoos you can only get “inside”, says, “If if weren’t for them tits, that’d be just plain homosexuality, brother.”