The Story of the Six-Man cell- Chunks (Part 5)

In the third set of bunks, Jamie's homeboy, Chunks, slept on the top-an arm's reach from me and Beau. Jamie was the definite alpa dog in their relationship-because he was more aggressive and had done a little more ugly living than Chunks-but there was a level of explosiveness under the surface that Jamie appreciated in his friend. Chunks is the consummate prankster and class clown- with the genetics of a pit bull. Beau said Chunk's retard strength comes from his mother's boobs " which were filled with nitroglycerin". Shane-O is crazy strong and Beau is that big guy with crazy cardio, but both of them can only talk about Chunk's and his strength like kids marvel at the circus freak. "He giggles like a maniac with 405 pounds on his chest," Shane-O said after they came in from watching Chunks bench press. Chunk's entire federal sentence has been spent in FCI Florence, so he'd only heard tales about the action on USP yards, but the wildness of it appealed to him- regardless how much he really wanted to live free and experience life apart from the criminal element. Between Shane-O's stories of the pen across the street, Jamie's reference to Victorville, CA and Beau's tales of Beaumont, Chunks got everything he wanted.

If I am a member of the herd, it's because I have found a way to live non-confrontationally, play D&D, and go unnoticed for the most part. The fellas crack jokes on me from time to time- Beau says I look like an ugly sock puppet version of an Uzbekistani goat herder.- but I know that they'd stick up for me and never let anyone take advantage of me unfairly. However, in the bunk below Chunks was a member of the herd who believed he was a real tough guy; he chose to be herdier because he said that the hardier were simple-minded morons. That's all good and fine, but unless one is willing to smash people's faces and back up those thoughts, it's always the wisest policy to keep them to oneself.

Elkins didn't think that was necessary and, so, found himself in a perpetually defensive state backing down. Even the herd found it impossible not to laugh at him behind our hands and snigger at his know it all dilemmas.