My most memorable day in Wasco State Prison

It was the middle of another stiffling summer at Wasco State Prison in California and considering the circumstances I was in an outstanding fucking mood, today was the day that I had been anticipating all week, today something different was going to happen! I was at the time working in the dining hall in the mornings which definately has it's perks, you get all the food you want and plus it pays 15 cents an hour! But the greatest perk of all is that all the ingredients for Pruno are there for the taking....... FUCK YEAH. For all of you who are unaware what Pruno is, it's homemade wine and it is quite the delicacy it's like blowfish in Japan or something. The main problem with pruno is that the cops are always on the lookout for it and it's hard to hide because it stinks. Basically all you need is some type of fruit and some type of sugar combine the two in a trash bag, wait a few days and you'll be out on the yard pickin' fights in no time! The main advantage that inmates have over the staff is that they have to feed us because it says so in the constitution and on top of that it has to have a certain amount of nutrition and calories which on some levels sucks because they give you an apple at every goddamn meal but on the other hand 40 of them equals a couple gallons of wine. I'd been working in the kitchen for some time now we'd cook off a batch of wine every few days but eventually the bastard cops would find it, they were on to us. It takes alot of effort to make the stuff it's like a scavenger hunt, stealing a bunch of juice stealing a bunch of syrup, swiping apples and then on top of that you have to hide all the stuff and wait for a chance to mix it all up and get it to a hiding spot, its exhausting and then to have it taken away by some sadistic staff member acting like he just found Bin Laden and showing his buddies made me want to go to Medical and request a rape kit. All of us in the kitchen were ready to give up we hadn't put another batch together for a few weeks and the sobriety had weakend our souls. So one day after we had served breakfast and cleaned up I decided to go lay on one of the tables out in the dining room and try to nod off, I was on my back with my eyes closed and I opened them and stared at the ceiling.....and there it was. High up on the ceiling were heating ducts and....there was enough of a gap between the duct and the ceiling...to..to....stuff the wine, it was the only time I ever cried during my incarceration, I know how Abraham must have felt when god spoke to him in the desert. Like a maniac I ran to tell the guys my discovery, some of them were skeptical at first but when I reminded them that many theoretical physicists were wary of Einsteins' Theory of Relativity in 1905 they realized the stupidity of their doubts and we got down to business. I had it all figured out, we had tall carts that were used for transporting food around the facility all we had to do was lift one of the carts onto the table and then someone would have to climb up it while two other guys held it firm because it's on wheels then a third guy would hand the box of wine up to the guy on the cart who would stuff it into the gap so that it could ferment for a week. The next day we put "Operation Clever Hiding Spot" into action we hustled up all the orange juice, apples, and syrup (since it was pancake day) we could get our hands on, then we took turns keeping point while a couple of guys grated down the apples with an empty tuna can poked full of holes. All my life i've had people tell me how they wish they were as tall as me (i'm 6'3) "ooh you're lucky to be so tall" well let me tell you it isn't always that great because since I was the tallest I was the one who had to climb up on this rickety old cart because no one else could reach the vent. Also as a side note if you ever go to prison don't tell people that you know how to spell because word will spread like wildfire and you'll get asked a hundred times a day how to spell shit. So the plan goes off without a hitch we put two seperate batches up so now we can get drunk Saturday and then yup you guessed it Sunday too.....badass!! I'll have you know waiting for wine to "cook" sucks because inevitably every one starts to get wishful thinking "hey we should just drink it now" or "i'll bet it's already done we should just drink it now" but you have to just steel yourself and stay the course Rome wasn't built in a day after all plus if you drink it before it's done you'll just be sitting there sober with a bad case of blue balls. Finally the day had arrived, we were all at work licking our chops i'm sure the Correctional Officer on duty that day was trying to figure out why we were being so helpful and efficient as we served breakfast that morning. After our jobs were done we had to stay in kitchen and dining hall area until they cleared count around 11:00, as soon as the Officer went back into the office we struck out with the precision of a Green Beret A team, we got the cart up onto to table I climbed up with great speed and agility, I deftly grabbed one of the boxes handed it down to one of the homeboys, who promptly scurried into the Scullery with our miracle juice where another couple of guys were waiting prepared to strain the pruno. You can't just drink the wine straight you have to get a pillow case or in a pinch some hair nets to strain the stuff because it has chunks of apple in it and it'll make you sick if you swallow it. Finally...Finally the time had come everyone stood around the empty peanut butter bucket that we had strained the wine into with their cups out, like a bunch of goddamn jackals waiting for their ration, unless your in your cell and can risk taking your time you don't want to take any chances so you just pound the wine as fast as you can plus this tactic will help you get more drunk or as they say in the joint "Mo drunker." The main advantage about drinking in prison is that your not drinking everyday so you have absolutely no tolerance for alcohol so it doesn't take much to get good and hammered, and man after about 20 minutes we were not fit to drive at all. So of course the plan was to wait until the next day to drink the other batch but as you might guess since we're all in prison none of us are real good with "plans" or "common sense" so eveyone is campaigning to get the other box down and i'm the only one tall enough to get it so they start trying to convince me and i'm drunk as hell and really don't want to but I don't want all the other criminals makin' fun of me so I get my peer pressured ass up the cart and i'm reaching for the damn box on my tippy toes and i'm just barely pulling it off the vent and here comes one of the Lunch Lady hags walking through the door into the dining room and then she sees whats going on and starts yelling for the Officer sleeping in the office, in all the comotion the jackasses holding the cart back away in panic and the cart starts to roll off table i'm wasted and trying to balance while holding a giant box of alcohol, one wheel goes off the table, and I fall of the cart about 8 ft flat onto my back and I look up and a red wine geyser is coming at me in slow motion.... and boom it absolutely fucking hits me like a fire hydrant and splashes everywhere. Everyone is stunned and doesn't know what the hell to do....except for an 18 year old skinhead who was supposed to be holding the cart, he notices that there's still wine in the bottom of the bag and so he grabs it and runs into the scullery I follow close behind and we lap up as much wine as we can because the Officer in charge already hit the alarm so time is our enemy, the cops rush into the scullery and put us prone on our stomachs and they're handcuffing us and all, by now every cop in the prison is hearing the news over the radio, so theres like 50 cops standing around ground zero pointing up at the ceiling I think they were actually pretty impressed, I was in prison for 4 more years after that and was transfered to various other institutions and I would hear guys telling stories about the legendary Wasco pruno fiasco of 03'..... what a life.