Cocktails in Attica by Sherman “O.T.” Powell
(1) In 1975, I was twenty-eight years old, and I weighed in at 120 pounds. I found myself on a bus, chained to a West Indian brother, headed upstate to prison.
(2) I had been busted for the sale of narcotics in the first, second, and third degree. I had been given “four to life” under the Rockefeller Plan.
(3) During that time, whether you sold a bag of dope, a bag of coke, or even your own medication, you were going to get a sentence, but then it was going to have “to life” tagged onto the back of it. So you might get “one-to-life,” “five-to-life,” “twenty-to-life,” etc. I knew that I was going to get some time one day because of the way I lived, but never in my wildest dreams did I think “life” was going to be at the end of my sentence.
(4) I had done a couple of stints at Rikers Island and various county jails, but I had made the big time now---Attica Penitentiary. I was walking around the prison yard, seeing bullet holes still in the walls where the National Guard had shot inmates during the 1971 riot.
(5) I was scared to death. I had heard about guys getting raped and stabbed, and I was just petrified. But as fate would have it, three of my old customers from the street that I used to sell dope happened to be there, and they must have seen the fear in my face.
(6) They said, “Sherman! Don’t worry about a thing! We’re going to look out for you, man, because you looked out for us when we was in the street.”
(7) I said, “Thank-you, Lord!”
(8) And so one of the guys said, “Sherman, when you go to the assignment board, tell them that you want to get your GED, and that you want to get into some kind of vocational program. You don’t want no work assignment, you want to go to school, because that’s the only thing they understand. That’s why they call it rehabilitation.”
(9) Sure enough, when I went to the board, I told them that I wanted to go to school. So they put me in typing.
(10) My friend was getting ready to leave---he was going home on parole---and he told the guards up front to make me the waterman. Being the waterman, I’d get up early in the morning and pass out the water to everybody, because you had to have hot water to start your day.
(11 ) So I’m thinking to myself, I got a pack-a-day cigarette habit, I gat a candy jar with little Snickers in them, but I’m only getting $20 a month from the state. So I got to come up with some type of a hustle to get me some cigarettes and candy. Right?
(12) When I was in Rikers, I worked at the bakery. And I remembered this guy showed me how to make hooch. We would get a big bucket and put a black plastic bag in the bucket, and we’d put yeast in there and several cans of concentrated grapefruit juice or orange juice. We would even put potatoes in there or grapes. I liked the grapefruit myself---it was much stronger. I like to put the grapefruits and the grapefruit juice in there, put a little sugar with it, tie that baby up, and let it sit for about six or seven days, and viola,! You’ll be in heaven.
(13) So I said, “Well this is what I got to do!”
(14) I had to make some connections, so I found friends of mine who knew a friend who knew a friend, who got in touch with the guy in the kitchen so I could get the yeast. Now, they sold the juice and sugar in the commissary, and every third day we had grapefruits for morning breakfast, and I’d get all the guys’ grapefruit.
(15) I started wheeling and dealing, putting stuff together. At first I was trying to figure out how I was going to distribute the wine. Then I figured out that everybody in the joint smokes or drinks coffee, so they have an old ten-ounce Folgers jar in their cell. I could put the wine in the coffee jars.
(16) But once I made it, it started bubbling and stuff, and it started stinking. So I had to figure out a way to stop the smell.
(17) In the commissary they had what they called Magic Shave. Now, Magic Shave was a paste you whipped up and put on your face (not only would it take the hair off you face, it would take the skin off too if you left it on too long). But it smelled like rotten eggs---just stunk like hell.”
(18) So whenever the guards would come past my cell, they would say, “Shorty, I don’t know how you put that stuff on your goddamn face! That stuff stinks!”
(19) But they didn’t know I was whipping this stuff up to keep them from smelling the wine. I got the wine wrapped up in a blanket under my bed. I’m nursing this wine like I’m a nurse in the infirmary. I’m taking care of this wine, right? Because this is my livelihood.
(20) The first batch was finally ready. Because I was the waterman, my cell was always open, so I collected everybody’s coffee jars, filled them up with hooch, and passed them back out. For every ten-ounce coffee jar, I got five packs of cigarettes. So my cigarette packs and candy were stacking up. I was eating Snickers like crazy, eating M&M’S like crazy. I was doing good, right?
(21) Mr. Ronny Worth and Mr. Frank Yonkerman, who were the guards, they had taken a liking to me because I was the smallest guy in the joint, but I was always in the face of someone who was many times taller than me, talking smack, you know?
(22) So they’d say, “Shorty, you got a set of balls on you! We’re glad we chose you to be the waterman.”
(23) Mr. Frank Yonkerman had this scar on his face, which reminded me of Al Capone.
(24) So I’d always go to him and say, “Mr. Capone—I mean, Mr. Frank!”
(25) He’d go, “Ha, ha, Shorty, you’re a little piece of crap. Where did you want to go?”
(26) I’d say, “I just want to go next door, mister; a friend of mine’s next door.”
(27) “You go on, Shorty!”
(28) Now, if anyone else asked, he’d tell them, “Screw you, I’ll lock you in!”
(29) “But you let Shorty go!”
(30) “Stop snitching! And lock your ass in your cell!”
(31) But I was all right with him. And so I’d take my wine and put some in my coat pocket and some in my back pocket, and go across the hall and sell it.
(32) On guy told me, “I don’t got no five packs. But I’ll give you a joint.”
(33) I said, “That’s cool.” So I gave him the wine, I got the joint. Now I’m really kicking! I got reefer, candy, cigarettes, I’m eating cookies, I’m really wheeling and dealing.
(34) But then Big Frank Yonkerman and Ronny Worth took a vacation. And some new guards came on, but they ain’t cool with me like Frank and Mr. Ronny were.
(35) So I was lying there one night, and my wine was cooking. I had a couple of guys in the back and a couple of guys in the front, and whenever the guards would come, they would say, “Pass the pen! Anybody got paper?” That was our signal that the guards were coming, and I would hook up the Magic Shave.
(36) But this particular night the guards scared the crap out them, and they didn’t say nothing. And the next thing I knew my cell door was being cracked, and the captain was there with about four guards.
(37) He said, “Shorty, you want to step out?”
(38) I said, “Man, it’s eleven-thirty at night. What is this all about?
(39) He said, “Shorty, you want to step out or would you like for us to help you out?”
(40) And he comes in the cell and goes under the bed and gets the bucket and pulls it from under the bed.
(41) In the prison rule book it says you can’t mess with a guy’s religious artifacts, so I had a big Bible and several Christian pamphlets on top of my wine.
(42) I said, “Man, you can’t be touching my religious artifacts!”
(43) He said, “Don’t worry, Shorty, we ain’t going to mess up your Bible and stuff.” He picked it all up and put it on the bed.
(44) Then he pulled the wine out and opened up the bag, and the fumes jumped up, and he said “Oh my God! How do you drink this crap? This will take wax off the floor!”
(45) I said, “What crap? It ain’t nothing but punch. I just put some grapefruit in there with some juice and some sugar. You know, the Fourth of July’s a couple of days away. I was going to give the fellas a little celebration with some punch.”
(46)The captain said, “Do I look like a goddamn fool to you? You forgot one ingredient, the yeast! Get your dumbass back in the cell! Write him up!”
(47) So they took my wine away and wrote me up. The next day I went to the adjustments committee.
(48) The deputy said, “You Sherman Powell?”
(49) I said, “Yes, sir.”
(50) He said, “You stupid or something?”
(51) “No, I’m not stupid.”
(52) “What’d you say?”
(53) “Yes, sir, I’m stupid.”
(54) He said, “Your name is Powell, not Gallo. What the hell you doing selling wine in my prison? You in here for selling dope, and you’re going to come to my prison and sell wine? What do you think you are doing? Are you OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MIND?!? Take his ass back downstairs and lock him up! Thirty days no rec, thirty days no commissary, thirty days no visits.”
(55) So I told my friend, “Look, go to my people and tell them to send me a block of yeast. I’m going to whip up another batch.”
(56) He said, “You’re crazy, man! You’re on key-lock!”
(57) I said, “That’s the best time to make it! They don’t think you got it, right?”
(58) But he said, “Look, man, if they bust you again, your ass is going to be shipped to Dannemora.”
(59) Now, Dannemora Clinton Penitentiary was the worst penitentiary in the state of New York. So I had no intention of going to no goddamn Dannemora.
(60) But still my greed overtook my common sense, and I wanted to make another batch because my supply of M&M’S and Snickers was down. And so my man went and got the yeast, and I made me another batch.
(61) By this time Ronny Worth had come back from vacation. And so I was sitting there, reading my books. I had gotten all the jars from the guys before they went to rec, and I had filled all the jars with the wine, so as they came in, I was passing out the jars and everybody was getting their wine, right? And I was collecting my cigarettes.
(62) So I’m sitting there, and all of a sudden my friend says, “Mr. Worth said he wants you to come to the front.”
(63) So I came out front, and Mr. Worth said, “Shorty, you done made some more of that goddamn wine, didn’t you?”
(64) And I looked at him, and I thought: Who the hell done snitched on me that quick? I didn’t see nobody.
(65) But he said, “Don’t lie! You want to know how I know? Open the damn door.”
(66) So I pulled the door open that led to the cells, and all you could hear was the black guys playing their boom boxes loud, singing Motown at the top of their lungs.
(67) And all the Spanish guys are beating on their lockers and desks:
Boom boom bop bop! Boom boom! Bob bop bop!
(68) And all the white boys got their guitars, singing country songs in their Southern drawls.
(69) So everybody was in their own world, right?
(70) And he said, “Shorty, I know that you done passed out that crap because it’s total chaos back there. It’s normally quiet as a church mouse. People be reading their Bible, studying, writing letters. Only when you pass out that bullshit is it like that in there! So you want to know who snitched on you? Your customers snitched on you!”
(71) And then he said, “Look, Shorty, you going to board in a couple of months. I don’t want to see you get in no trouble. Go right back in there, empty that crap out, get some pine cleaner, clean your cell out, and retire from being a bootlegger. You get my drift?”
(72) I said, “Yes, sir, I get your drift.” So sure enough, two months later I went to the boards, and they gave me a parole date and let me go.
(73) And if it wasn’t for Ronny Worth and Frank Yonkerman being all right with me, had they decided to bust me, I had a life sentence. I could have been there until the last eclipse.
(74) It dawned on me how stupid and childish I had been, doing that crap. And I made up my mind that there’s a time to be defiant, and there’s a time to be compliant. And when you’re in the penitentiary, be compliant!
About the author: Sherman “O.T.” Powell was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and has traveled extensively from coast to coast. He is a graduate at the advanced level of the MothSHOP Community Education Program, and his stories have appeared on The Moth Radio Hour*and The Best of the Moth CDseries. He was featured in a brief write-up in New York Magazine after a 2004 Moth appearance, and he is currently studying to become a substance abuse counselor and writing his autobiography.
(*The Moth is a radio program in which ordinary people tell their personal stories to a live audience.)
Source of essay:
Burns, Catherine, ed. The Moth. New York: Hyperion, 2013.