Scenes of Prison
24. Mean Mugging
W hen young men come to prison, you can forgive them for being a little nervous. Gone are the pistols they used to carry tucked snugly into their belts which offered them protection and gave them courage. In the prison, without their pistols, they often became painfully aware of just how skinny and young and vulnerable they really were.
Some young men I knew who worried about their vulnerability in the prison came to believe that all they really needed to bolster their courage was an intimidating image, so they made one up. Graham was a young man occupying one of our segregation rooms who believed this to be true. He believed he needed a new, intimidating image. I visited him the day he invented one.
Graham was energetic with an easy smile. He had many friends, and he was always ready for a conversation. He stood at his door looking out through the glass windows, and he stopped nearly everyone who passed by to chat. He stopped me, and he seemed to enjoy talking with me. I enjoyed his openness. He would answer questions, and he would talk about anything.
One day, I happened to pass by Graham’s room, and I noticed him standing by the door, straddling his toilet and facing the wall behind it. I wondered what he was looking at. The only thing behind his toilet was a piece of polished steel secured to the wall with heavy screws. It measured roughly six inches by eight inches and was reflective. These were installed in inmate rooms to serve as mirrors, so I decided that Graham must have been looking at himself. I looked more closely.
Graham was intently staring at his reflection and trying on different facial expressions. He also shifted his posture from time to time, holding poses and assessing what he saw.
“Graham, what are you doing?” I asked.
“Mean mugging,” he answered cheerfully without looking away from the mirror or stopping what he was doing.
“What on earth is mean mugging?” I asked.
He stopped what he was doing, stepped up to the door, and explained it to me. Graham needed an image, he said. He was barely out of his teens so he needed an image that would communicate to other inmates that he was no one to be messed with. He had to look tough and mean, so he was practicing a new image. It was called “mean mugging,” he said, and all his friends in the prison were doing it. Graham thought he was making good progress. I thought he looked pretty silly.
Part of mean mugging is the walk. It needed to be slow, full of self-confidence and swagger, and contemptuous of those around him. The gait he practiced was a slow walk, dragging each foot slowly past the other. Step, slide. Step, slide. The facial expression, the tilt of the head, and the walk were intended to say to the world: “This is one bad dude you’re lookin’ at here. This guy is tough and mean and dangerous. Do not mess with this person.” The goal of mean mugging was to be safe from exploitation and abuse by other inmates.
One of the daily events in the Disciplinary Segregation Unit is the exercise period. Inmates are escorted in restraints from their rooms to the small exercise cages outside, and they are locked into one of them for an hour. The yard holds six inmates at a time in separate cages, so typically, five inmates are in a position to watch movements as each inmate leaves his exercise cage and returns to his room and another inmate takes his place. This was the situation on an otherwise uneventful Monday morning when I escorted Graham to the yard.
We emerged from an outside door with five other inmates looking on. Graham was in full restraints with me following along behind him holding the end of his come-a-long chain. Immediately, Graham assumed his mean mug and began walking slowly to his exercise cage across the yard. Here was the “walk” he had practiced so diligently in his room. It was kind of a stroll and kind of a strut. Step, slide. Step, slide. He swayed slightly from one side to the other as he walked, and, of course, there was the expression on his face and the tilt of his head. Here was the mean mug he’d worked so hard to perfect for all to see. He was on stage, and he was putting on quite a performance. The other five inmates in their cages on the yard were watching.
For a couple of steps, I watched Graham slowly walk just ahead of me, and then temptation gripped me. Temptation can sometimes have an iron grasp that is hard to resist. I must admit, in a moment of weakness, I gave in to it.
I had seen his mean mug up close when he had demonstrated it to me at his door, so I adopted it now myself. My face adopted a sneer of contempt. I tilted my head to one side. I imitated the slow walk, swaying slightly back and forth, and I walked in perfect synchrony with his walk. I matched his stride, step for step. Step, slide. Step, slide. I was his perfect double, and I was having a lot of fun.
Here we were, Graham, young and skinny, mean and bad. Me, old and bald, skinny and ridiculous. The five inmates watching from their cages noticed us as we walked by and began to laugh.
We’d gone eight or nine steps when Graham suddenly stopped. I looked at him and I could see that he was looking at his reflection in the large windows of the lower day area that extended to the ground which were just to our right. He was also looking at me. My mean mug instantly disappeared. Apparently, Graham was anxious to see his mean mugging walk in the reflection of the glass, and he was appreciating what he saw until he noticed me following along behind him and imitating him.
Uh-oh. I was so busted.
I stood still and watched to see what he was going to do. Slowly, he turned to face me. I raised both hands from my sides in a gesture that asked, “What’s the problem?”
This gesture was not going to satisfy Graham. His lingering stare of disapproval burned into me, and I quickly admitted my guilt.
“Sorry,” I said.
It wasn’t enough.
“Okay, I’ll stop.”
That wasn’t enough, either.
“Okay, I won’t do it again. I’m sorry,” I said.
Graham slowly turned back around and resumed walking to his exercise cage, but some of his swagger had clearly been diminished.
I locked Graham into his exercise cage, and then I went inside and resumed my normal duties. Thirty minutes passed and I happened to be sitting in the pantry looking outside. I noticed that Graham was carrying on a lively conversation with the other inmates in nearby cages. They were all having a pretty good time, and as I watched, they began clowning around. They assumed odd postures and walked with an unfamiliar gait. They gestured strangely with their hands and arms. I could only guess what they were doing.
When the exercise hour was up, I went to the yard and escorted Graham back to his room. I was expecting to have my transgression brought to my attention, so I had rehearsed an apology, and I was ready to deliver it.
It wasn’t necessary. Graham was talkative and friendly, and he seemed to have forgotten the incident entirely. I was relieved and grateful, and the rest of the day passed without incident.
I was home in the evening, thinking about my day, and it occurred to me that the strange, clowning behavior that I had observed in the exercise cages when the inmates had been walking with a strange gait and making exaggerated gestures with their hands and arms might well have been these inmates imitating me. I smiled when I thought of it. It was just what I deserved.
Discussion
- Has temptation ever led you to do something silly?
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