Bunkytown
By: William, Dollar Bill
Tags: Prison Reform, Life Lessons, Memoir, Culture, Prison

Bunkytown

Living in 50 square feet with a fellow criminal

Photo by Xiaoyi from Pexels

Of the many indignities suffered by prisoners, living in a 50 square foot cell with a stranger, spending half your life locked up eating, sleeping, and performing obvious biological functions in each others’ company, just might head the list. Predictably, that experience was one of the most harrowing of my almost year-long stay at MCC federal prison.

My first experience locked up (at the Tombs in New York City) wasn’t a problem where adjusting to cellies was concerned. For my seven days stay in that jail, I was housed in a unit with 46 single cells, and thus missed the thrill of partnering in close quarters with a felon.

But soon enough (6 months later), my luck turned when I arrived to serve 311 days at the Metropolitan Correction Center, a federal prison in downtown New York City. MCC, one of the Federal Bureau of Prison’s worst facilities, features either dormitories or two-man cells — depending on in which unit you were housed.

Some prisoners preferred dormitories. But I, like the majority, preferred a two-man cell. And that’s exactly what I got.

Despite my white-collar crime, the institution to which I was designated bore no resemblance to the oft-rumored Club Fed. No tennis courts, backgammon tables, or the like. Just a lot of razor wire and almost no exposure to the great outdoors.

The center of my universe was 5 South, the unit in which I resided. Picture a six-legged insect. That insect’s body was the central area, in which inmates congregated around 4 televisions (two in English and two tuned to Spanish stations), all of which required a radio and headphones to access the audio.

That radio was almost every inmate’s first commissary purchase. For $40, you got what resembled an early walkman. Except ours boasted see-through plastic so nobody could hide contraband inside. As you can imagine, contraband was ubiquitous in prison (more about that later). So it certainly was not unreasonable for the BOP to sell transparent radios.

While the throwback contraption did the job it was designed to do, the audio wasn’t all that wonderful. And what the BOP charged $40 for, could be had on the street for less than half the price. As with most items on the commissary list, the price was grossly inflated. Not like we had a choice. So why not price-gouge an inmate?

But I digress. The legs of the insect were the tiers that held those two-man cells. There were six of those legs, each containing 8 fifty square foot cells (four on each side) and a private shower. There were no common bathroom facilities. As I mentioned, each cell had its own toilet and sinkette and was thus a self-contained unit (albeit sans shower). It was not uncommon for us to be “locked down” for days in a row if there was trouble in the prison, or simply a lack of staff to watch us. (Apparently, officers had a bad habit of calling in sick leaving the prison understaffed.)

There was also a small “gym” with some chinning bars, a stairmaster, and a 5th television for which you did not need headphones for whatever reason. The sound was turned on for guys working out, or inmates who simply wanted to watch television without the aid of a radio and headphones.

The fidelity of the sound was another matter entirely. The speakers, acoustics, and extraneous noise level made for some mighty harsh audio. I don’t think I ever watched tv in the gym. And in fact, I watched very little television at all. The noise level, programming choices (Cheaters, Ridiculousness, Springer, Basketball Wives) and intellectual repartee editorializing on the subject matter of whichever show, were all prohibitive.

When I first got my radio, it was out to the central area in anticipation of watching the 6:30 world network news. When an inmate switched the station to TMZ…and the other set stayed on forever-ESPN, I knew to forget about entertaining myself with the boob tube. My viewing choices and my fellow inmates’ bore little to no resemblance.

Moving on…within a few seconds of my virginal entrance into the unit, I was sent to Tier 12 and introduced to my first of 6 bunkees with whom I partnered during my stay.

From what I’d read on the internet (and I read a lot in the five and half years I waited to know my fate — more about that later), racial integration had not yet hit the prison system with respect to who ate with and who bunked with whom.

So it came as a mild shock when I was introduced to a 63-year-old cyber bank robber who was (drum roll) Afro-American. Benji was not entirely thrilled to see that his single had just become a two-man cell (his previous bunky had been sent to the SHU leaving him all alone in a two-man cell for a spell).

But it turned out that it wasn’t me he objected to. He was hoping to keep his single for a while and I broke his streak of luck. After talking to me for about 5 minutes, Benji turned friendly and actually, very helpful. He lent me a bowl, and some plasticware to eat with, and essentially held an impromptu orientation class to help me adjust.

After a few minutes, he showed me around the tier whereupon a few guys offered me food if I was hungry…and a water bottle…and generally welcomed me to the tier. It really didn’t seem all that bad, though I have to say that the cell itself was a bit grim.

There were no actual bars to contend with. Our living space had a heavy metal swinging door that opened outward. Each individual cell had to be opened and closed manually by an officer who carried a big key and walked around to all 48 cells to either lock or open them.

That door opened into a 4' x 4' area which included a baby sink and a full-size toilet with no cover, so it was easy to drop stuff in it by mistake. Many inmates fashioned cardboard covers specifically so that wouldn’t happen.

Behind the 4' x 4' area, the cell widened somewhat (maybe 6' wide and 8' deep) to accommodate two lockers, a mini desk, and bunk beds in the back of the cell. There was a window by the beds which depending on the north/south/east/west exposure, let varying amounts of light into the cell. That window was clear (not translucent), but had multiple bars to filter out light. All told, I calculated that there was about 36 square feet of floor space in which to maneuver in each cell.

The bunk beds themselves weren’t really designed as such. There was no ladder with which to ascend, and no vertical bar for the top bunk to keep inmates from rolling over in their sleep and crashing to the floor. That was an issue.

Older inmates were afforded a bottom bunk pass which automatically entitled them to the lower bunk. The idea was that older inmates wouldn’t recover from a fall as readily as their younger counterparts would. Why the prison didn’t have proper bunk beds to prevent injuries is a question you’d have to present to the authorities. Often there was not a lot of rhyme or reason as to what went on at MCC.

Even without a ladder, ascending and descending wasn’t really a problem. Virtually every partnered bunky grabbed a plastic chair from the central area for the cell. Thus, step 1 was onto the chair. Step 2 onto the mini desk. And step 3 a western roll into the bunk. To descend, simply reverse the order.

Despite my advancing years, I stayed on the top bunk with all 6 of my bunkees. Who liked a top versus bottom bunk reminded me of my cab-driving days when some guys worked nights exclusively while others would work only days. Me? I worked night shifts and slept in the top bunk. Those were my particular preferences.

The mattresses varied in length, width, and thickness. You’d think a US prison would have a standard mattress. But that wasn’t the case. Seemingly, no two mattresses were exactly alike. I use the word “mattress” loosely, as it was really just a pad. Some were more comfortable than others. Again, none were the same.

I settled for one that was only 5' 6" long (I’m 6') but of adequate thickness and width to accommodate me. It followed me wherever I went. The shortness was rectified by my piling up extra blankets to the height of the mattress to approximate having a full-length rig.

Night #1 in prison was a little rough. I’d lucked into a new shrunk-wrapped mattress with a pillow sewn inside. At first, I thought the configuration was meant to stay in the shrink wrap. But after trying to sleep with my feet in the air (propped up by the enclosed giant pillow) in a very cold and drafty cell — with no sweatshirt and a thin blanket, I knew I had to do something.

Having examined that mattress more closely, I realized that the enclosed pillow was not attached to the mattress and not designed to stay inside the wrapping.

Even though it’s against the rules to deface government property, I decided to take a chance. Benji had razor blades he’d extracted from one of the disposable razors they gave us to shave with. So I borrowed one and carefully made an incision in the shrink wrap to free the pillow. It was a good choice. By the next night, I had another blanket. And Benji and I had cut out a piece of cardboard to plug the vent which was creating all the wind chill. By night # 2, I was much more comfortable and managed to get some sleep.

Pillows were actually forbidden at MCC. Yes, I know. I just finished describing a mattress pillow combo given to me on my first night. That’s MCC for ya. No logic. Regardless, pretty much everybody had a pillow.

We had a crackhead tailor in the unit who for a few bucks (or mackerel packs), would make a pillow out of a t-shirt and some stuffing he’d find somewhere (like the pillow that was part of my sleeping configuration). Within two days, I had two pillows which I constantly hid in my locker whenever a higher-up officer came around to break balls.

Having a pillow could get you a “shot” (a ticket of sorts with varying degrees of severity). But I don’t recall anybody going to solitary confinement for having a pillow. There were worse offenses.

As mentioned, in the course of serving 311 days at MCC, I had no fewer than 6 different cellies. So how did that happen?

Well first, you have to bear in mind that placing strangers together, some of them violent felons, is a recipe for disaster. Physical confrontations between bunkees were not all that uncommon. Hence, the authorities had no problem accommodating the wishes of inmates who wanted to switch cells. In fact, they almost never said no.

All a prisoner had to do was write his name, reg number, and cell to where he was relocating on a piece of paper and submit it to the bubble officer, and he was good to go.

My first bunkee (Benji) might have been the best of the 6. (And I probably would have stayed with him until Benji left, had he not been sent to the hospital after my third week.) Benji was not a violent felon, bank robbery notwithstanding. Apparently, his girlfriend had somehow accessed a vital password with which the user could simply log onto a bank’s website and commandeer thousands of dollars with a keystroke or two. Benji couldn’t resist. And when he was apprehended, my first bunkee caught a 3-year sentence.

I’m not entirely sure about this, but I believe Benji was educated in a public school in Great Neck, Long Island. His mother might have worked for a rich family and lived on premises as part of that employment.

Regardless, Benji was not without intellect (compared to my next roommate). But he would argue a point endlessly and weaken that argument by using words like “egregarious” instead of “egregious,” and referring to the marine corps as the marine corpse.

And he had a deuce habit (synthetic marijuana) — which made him act strangely — but not threateningly so. I wouldn’t have minded all that much except the small was nasty — and there was always a chance we could both get busted for his use of contraband.

Often when officers were in doubt about a situation, both cellies would be hauled to the SHU until they figured out which end was up. The SHU was a place I did not want to experience. It’s the unit where rulebreakers and pussies are housed. Inmates stay in their cells 23 hours a day. And it’s really noisy as the worst of the worst is what populates most of the cells. You could be sent there if caught smoking K2.

Still, I paid all that no mind realizing that I could have done a lot worse than Benji. But I was curious about being roomed with a black man. And in a conversation with my counselor, I brought up what was essentially a non-issue just for my edification.

He claimed that MCC was a progressive institution that integrated the races with no issues associated therein. It was fine with me. Benji was clearly a winner. I could have ended up with a gangbanger — of which we had many.

But over time, I noticed that progressive policy evaporate. More and more, when white inmates came to the unit, they’d be paired with other white prisoners, and likewise with all the races and ethnicities. Maybe experience had taught the authorities not to “miscegenate.” Hard to say. In my case, only two of my six bunkees were white. And I don’t think their race had anything to do with how well we got along.

“Bathrooming” with Benji wasn’t really all that problematic. My orientation was quick and painless. To take a leak, you simply faced away from your celly. And if you had to take a dump during a lockdown time, the other celly would simply lie in his bunk and face the wall until you were finished. Such is life in the joint. We did all this without rigging a curtain — which I actually did with my subsequent cellies, after another inmate gave me a demonstration on how to accomplish that little bit of privacy.

It wasn’t long before I experienced just how boring life at MCC could be. Employment, I quickly realized, would provide both a physical and mental escape. The problem is you have to be medically cleared to work a job. All except suicide watch.

Sympathetic to my plight, Benji pointed me toward the bulletin board where there was a sign-up sheet for that suicide watch. Very fortuitous, I’d say, as I never would have met Jeffrey Epstein had I not become the Inmate Companion Coordinator (again, more about that later).

Within a week or two, I had a sweatshirt, and a radio, and was beginning to settle into MCC life with my bunkee when Benji’s diabetes began acting up in a major way. Benji was not a healthy 63 year-old, and one day he got carted off to the hospital, leaving me with my own room.

By me, this was a major boon. I’d managed to secure a few books and a magazine full of crossword puzzles. And for about a week, I hunkered down, barely leaving my cell except for food. I counted off each day and calculated the percentage of my sentence I had completed. Right from the first percent!

Initially, it was difficult to get to the library. But eventually, I got enough access that I figured maybe…must maybe…I could read through the entire sentence without interference from a celly. At first, the officers left me alone in anticipation of Benji’s return. But that only lasted for a week. Enter Dave, celly number 2.

Dave was somewhat younger (40), of a somewhat darker complexion, considerably less educated, and much more violent than Benji. He was one of those guys you actually want to be locked up.

Dave was a real live criminal. As a career drug dealer, he had shot a competitor in the stomach (for which he somehow only served 90 days). And more important, he had spent 90 days in the SHU (special housing unit) for beating up his previous bunky.

Despite the obvious harbingers of doom, Dave and I got along well at the outset. What I liked most about Dave was his generosity. He was the kind of guy who’d buy out the commissary and as a result, was constantly eating. And whenever he broke out some food, he was almost insistent on sharing.

Mostly, I declined his offerings as it was almost always junk I didn’t want to eat. But I liked the inclusive part of his personality. Dave and I also laughed hysterically together. We really did have some big fun — often until the wee hours while we were locked down. But Dave had his dysfunctional and dark side as well. And it wasn’t long before that stuff came to the fore.

It began one day when Benji returned from the hospital to room with somebody else, and stopped by to get his after-shitting spray, which he had left behind and was at that point in time on top of Dave’s locker.

I knew it belonged to Benji. So like a normal person, I let him take it. When Dave saw the spray was gone, he went ballistic. No amount of explaining that we both knew it was Benji’s, so why would Dave have a problem mattered. All Dave knew was somebody was in his shit and he did not like it. And I was an accessory to the crime by being there and allowing it to happen.

I know it sounds odd. But this is weird jail shit. It might have been the first time I experienced this bizarre phenomenon. But it certainly wasn’t the last. Bunky number 4 took it to seriously excessive extremes. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

There was another problem with Dave about which I could not get angry or blame him. He had sleep apnea and both snored and made strange forest animal noises at a horribly audible level. This, as you might imagine, is a big problem in prison. Many inmates complained of bunkees who snored intolerably.

For me, Dave’s snoring wasn’t a dealbreaker. But it was a problem. There were times I woke up during the night and had difficulty getting back to sleep as I lay listening to all the bizarre sounds Dave made while he slept.

And then there was stuff he could control — but didn’t choose to. Like his singing or rapping along with the radio. When I was a musician, I was fortunate enough to play with many incredibly talented black musicians. But in prison, it seemed that virtually every black man was not just tone deaf — but intent on performing along with his radio at ear-splitting levels. Dave was one of them.

His favorite tune/lyric was one that repeated over and over again “I make the pussy talk back…the pussy talk back.” I asked Dave how he’d like it if I read my book out loud — and that maybe he could sing along in his head just as easily as belting out the tune. His response was that he didn’t mind if I read out loud. Gasp! Hard to make an argument after that response.

Dave also liked to stay up until 3 AM mostly eating and singing along — and then sleep through the morning. We were having scheduling conflicts — as many other inmates did.

And like so many of the other inmates, Dave was incredibly loud and stupid. He’d go on benders shouting jokes at other guys in the tier, who would laugh hysterically at moronic quips that simply were not funny. And to watch a football game with Dave was just out of the question. He was one of those guys who shouted at the television and cheered at 100 decibels.

One inmate who viewed Dave in more or less the same light as I did, asked “ya know, Dave. They can’t hear you.” Dave looked at the guy as if he were crazy and went right on shouting at the top of his lungs. And even that wasn’t enough for me to take off for greener pastures. But then three dealbreakers finally did the trick.

The first centered around Dave’s insistence on using the toilet as a garbage disposal. I warned him that apple cores and banana peels shouldn’t be flushed. But he thought the plumbing could handle the abuse. It turned out that I was right. And one morning while I was taking a dump as he slept, the toilet backed up when I flushed it.

I really wanted to wake Dave and have him plunge the shit, as it was clearly his doing. Instead, I went and scored a plunger and began doing the job with a friend’s help, only to have Dave wake up and berate us for rousing him. I was not happy and basically, didn’t speak to him for a week.

A few weeks into our bunkeeship, I got a job in the kitchen. As was the custom, kitchen workers were given food when they came up from work. Food that was superior to what the general population was fed.

On this particular day, I’d been sent up early (a count issue) but told that when everybody else came back, the officer would include a plate for me as it wasn’t my fault the count was fucked up and I had to return to the unit for the 4:30 count.

The person who was responsible for delivering my food was an idiot trans hooker. And she just plain forgot. When we went around the unit trying to locate who had my food, I spied out of the corner of my eye a big gorilla who worked in the kitchen alongside me snickering like the cat who’d just eaten the canary. I knew it was he who’d vicked my food.

Andre, this 6' 5" 300 pound mass of muscle, was somebody Dave used to play ping pong with. And often, Dave would complain about what a baby, cheater, and sore loser Andre truly was. After giving up on locating my food, I went back to my cell and told the story to Dave. “No food, tonight, Dave. It seems that Andre stole my plate.”

So what happened an hour later? Andre came to the cell door (while Dave was out) to tell me he didn’t appreciate me slandering his name — and that in fact, he didn’t take my food. I apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again, rather than argue the point. He knew I had no proof and like most criminals would have argued the point ad nauseam in that knowledge.

When Dave returned, I told him “If I tell you shit about Andre, you can’t go back to him and get me in trouble. The fucking gorilla came to the cell all hot about the gossip. You’re gonna get me killed!”

I fully expected Dave to own up to his indiscretion and apologize to me just as I had to Andre. But that’s not how criminals roll. He turned the whole deal around and got all heated that I would accuse him of such a thing. I, of course, knew he was the only person I told this story to, and it was he who’d gone back and told Andre.

I shook my head and shut up. That day I’d heard from my lawyer that I might be doing some state time due to his slack representation, and I was really not in the mood to do anything but shoot myself. This headache (Dave and his gossiping) I could have really lived without! I simply chalked it up to prison life and decided it was time to move on from Dave. Reasoning or reconciling with him was out of the question.

The super dealbreaker came a few days later when during a conversation about our favorite movies, I mentioned “Mississippi Burning” as an excellent piece of period film making. To which Dave responded “Man! When me and my boys saw that movie, we went out and fucked up some white people.” And that was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. It really was time to find a new celly.

But finding a new partner isn’t all that simple. You either have to locate a guy who’s alone in a cell — and then convince him to take you in rather than keep his own room for as long as he can. Or you have to find another disgruntled prisoner to orchestrate a switch to which all parties are receptive. Obviously, this isn’t all that easy. And it took almost a month before I found a likely candidate.

Across the tier, lived two refined Pakistani inmates, both men of means who’d run afoul of the law. One had underreported his income (like me), and the other was a pharmacist who’d written some opiod script for a payoff to send his pre-k children to a fancy private school.

Khan liked me and often, I’d go hang out with him and Ali in their cell. Mahmoud, a geriatric Pakistani from another tier would come to eat with them at times and I’d find my jewish ass hanging with three Pakistani muslims. Being more spiritual than either jewish or prejudiced, none of this presented a problem. Mahmoud seemed like a civilized guy. And he was all alone in his cell, I discovered!

I approached Ali…who approached Mahmoud…and in a flash, with no announcement, I was out of Tier 12 — and in Tier 10 with Mahmoud. Even though I saw Dave constantly in the following months, I never said another word to him. He was extremely offended and talked a bunch of shit about me. But who cared what he said to a division of societal miscreants? I was away from him — which is what I desperately wanted.

While I was most happy to leave Dave behind, in some ways moving in with Mahmoud was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. In his own way, Mahmoud was even worse than Dave.

Cha Cha (his nickname) was a pot-bellied, diabetic 66 year-old man who hobbled around with a cane. His crime was food stamp fraud. Apparently, Mahmoud owned a store and was cashing in food stamps without requiring a purchase. In other words, say you were a food stamp recipient. You go to Mahmoud and hand him $50 in food stamps. He would then give you say $35 in cash and turn those $50 into the government which would then give him $50. Mahmoud got 3 years for this and a 1.5 million dollar restitution. So I guess he was prolific on the fraud front. But at least he hadn’t beat anybody up or shot a competitor in the stomach.

That was a plus. But Mahmoud acted like I was renting a space in his cell. He decided that the mini desk was entirely his — which I wouldn’t have minded if it didn’t make the ascent to the upper bunk so much more difficult. Still, that wasn’t a huge problem.

But Mahmoud was a fat slob who snored almost as audibly as Dave, and whose shit and farts were out of this world stinky. I never knew something could smell so bad. And it wasn’t a day before several guys walked up to me and asked why I’d moved in with Mahmoud as the word was out that the guy was impossible. He’d had several bunkees move out — which is why he was alone when I found him.

Mahmoud was an abusive bastard as well. He’d yell and scream if one of my sneakers was somewhere in his allotted space — which was pretty much most of the 50 square feet.

And after I went to the bathroom, he would spray this horrible disinfectant all over the toilet seat. And similarly, Mahmoud used the same toxic shit when cleaning the room. Any hint that the spray was doing us more harm than any bacteria could would meet with harsh criticism.

After about two weeks of rooming in this nightmare scenario, my ass broke out in horrible acne. For a while, I couldn’t figure out why. But after I left — and two weeks later my skin was fine — I knew it was that fucking spray. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Yet another downside to Mahmoud was his constant presence in the cell. Ideally, two bunkees would both work — and work different shifts. In that manner, each guy would have some alone time. But Mahmoud was too infirm to have a job. And because his English was so bad, watching television wasn’t an option. There was really nothing for him to do but wait until the day he went home.

Across the tier lived a college-educated guy who at first blush seemed like a Godsend. He’d written for a newspaper as his career on the outside, and was clearly educated. His roommate, a Kentucky cracker doing 15 years for dealing 37,000 opiod caps, was about to be transferred to another prison. Chris, the educated guy, asked me if I wanted to move in. It seemed like a no-brainer.

If for no other reason, the change meant the end of battling roaches and mice. MCC has major infestations of both. But for some reason, one side of 10 tier, where I would be moving, simply had no critters. With Dave, we had a few mice — and big ass roaches I used to bomb with peanut butter jars from my upper bunk. With Mahmoud, there were multiple mice. Not just one at a time. Whole families ran around late at night.

Chris was a mysterious character. He claimed that insider trading was his offense. But everybody saw through that ruse. Nobody serves 8 years for insider trading unless his name is Ivan Boesky. And nobody had ever heard of Chris. Plus, he’d served most of his bid at Devens, which is a known chomo mill (child molester prison).

Despite his education and refinement, Chris often acted like a lifer. Back on a violation, he was a 43-year-old man who’d spent 10 of those years locked up. And it showed.

The dude had this insane territoriality thing going on. Like if one of my items stretched a centimeter over my locker top and onto his, he’d go bat shit. If I dropped a tiny ort of food on the floor he would stare at it and rage about how “you must really want roaches and mice in here!”

Once an unused plastic spoon dropped out of my pocket from the upper bunk and down to the foot of his bunk. He went crazy. I took to calling him Gertrude after a while. He was such a fucking schoolmarm it was insane. And he was totally into comic books and superheroes. Dude was straight-up weird.

Probably worst of all, he could not abide being around when I took a crap, and would cop an attitude whenever I said “It’s time.” “Again!” he’d exclaim derisively. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Hold it for 4 months?

I’ll never understand inmates who copped an attitude about their bunkees having to take a dump. Even when Dave and I weren’t speaking but were still together, I relented when he had to take a crap and left the room for 20 minutes so he could do his thing in his own time. It’s just common courtesy.

After one of our very public dust-ups, I told Chris that was it. I was going to get another bunky. And that changed everything. “I don’t want you to leave. I just want you to be mindful…” Mindful of what? That you’re a complete fucking freak?

I think that Chris feared getting a gangbanger as a replacement. And from that moment on, he cleared out of the room for the entire morning and never exploded about anything ever again. I was never really comfortable rooming with him. But it got so we did fairly well together until his day of freedom arrived. And that’s when things got really interesting.

Unit 5 South where I lived had 96 beds (so to speak). But at any one time, only between 80 and 85 were occupied. Which meant that 10 or 15 inmates had their own room. And I noticed that certain prisoners were keeping those rooms to themselves. This couldn’t be a coincidence. There was something afoot.

Firmly entrenched in the prison culture…and working two jobs at what I viewed as criminally low wages…I decided to ask if I could keep my room after Chris left on the basis of my seniority and work ethic.

One night after returning from suicide watch, I asked my counselor (who was doubling as the bubble officer that night) if he could see fit to letting me keep my single. When he said “sure. We’ll put you last on the list to get a bunky,” I could hardly believe my ears. Could it really be that easy?

Two days before Chris was to leave, I doubled back to the counselor to confirm what he’d said and sure enough, the counselor changed his mind. “Can’t do it,” said he. Anticipating his change of heart, I persisted…”What if I give Looch (the gorilla inmate who presided over room assignments) kitchen food to keep my room? Would that work?”

The counselor shook his head and responded “Don’t do that,” indicating that Looch would take my food and give me a bunky anyway. He was just that kind of guy.

Still, I would not take no for an answer. “Ok! How much is it gonna cost for me to keep my room?” I went for broke shedding all pretense of it being a coincidence that some inmates were keeping their singles.

The counselor shook his head again: “Too many mouths to feed!” And there it was. Officers were getting paid off — but I wasn’t allowed in the club! “Try me!” I made my final offer. He said nothing and I walked off in defeat. Bottom line. I’d be getting another bunky.

Three days later, as I lay in my upper bunk reading “In Cold Blood,” in walked the bubble officer and the assistant warden.

“Mersey! You got a bottom bunk, right?” they asked. I knew this moment was coming and was prepared. “Yeah! But I’m working two jobs and was hoping to keep my own cell so I can both get my beauty sleep and operate at full efficiency.”

“No! Forget that! We got the perfect guy for you,” they promised. Now in prison, when this moment arrives, you always have some guy in reserve — ready to move in because let’s face it. The devil you know…and all that. Especially when it comes to felons you’re going to be locked down with almost 12 hours a day.

So I countered with “let me move in Rob across the hall.” Rob and I worked together in the kitchen. He’d served 26 of his 54 years behind bars and was an expert at navigating the system and coexisting with bunkees. Thus, an obvious choice.

“No! Forget that,” they dismissed the notion. “You’re gonna love this guy. He’s famous!”

“Famous,” I countered sarcastically. “You mean infamous. He is a felon!” That distinction eluded the duo and they continued “No! He’s really famous!”

Now I was getting interested. “What? Are you moving Michael Cohen in here?”

“Nope,” said the assistant warden. “But close! Paul Manafort!”

“Get the fuck outta here,” I exploded and actually high-fived the woman (assistant warden).”When’s he coming,” I continued.

“We’re hoping to move him (from the SHU) today!” And six hours later, I returned from the kitchen to meet my new roommate, Paulie Manaforte, a fellow tax-cheating scum bag.

After descending the four steps down into my tier, there I saw Paul surrounded by gangbangers firing questions at him from close range. Chris, a friendly but dangerous inmate was in his face: “Yo! You Trump’s boy!?!?” he half asked and half threatened.

Just as cool as he could be, Manafort answered “I’m from the streets…just like you.” I’m not sure if anybody believed him…but they were impressed by his composure under fire. If nothing else, Paul Manafort was an institutionalized inmate who would have no problem handling general population. The boys knew he’d stood his ground with the crew and not ratted on his “boy” Trump. That got him major props with the prisoners. Prison is full of undercover cooperators. Clearly, Manafort hadn’t been one of them.

In some ways, Manafort was a breath of fresh air. Obviously, he was more intelligent and educated than your average inmate at MCC. And he was civilized and had manners.

But notwithstanding his celebrity, Paul Manfort snored and farted like the common man. Which I found out the very first night he was my bunky. He also had the unique habit of getting up in the middle of the night and reading the bible with his personal reading light. A good sleep I did not get the first night with Paulie.

Still, hanging with Paul had its moments. American and NY Yankee history are both subjects about which Paul and I shared an interest. And we could both sing theme songs from 50’s sitcoms, Mr. Ed in particular.

But when it came to political discussion, I was careful not to become overly inquisitive, as I didn’t want him to think I was some sort of investigative reporter planted to milk him for information. What I can say is Paul’s assertion that any Trump collusion with the Russians is pure mythology was heartfelt, though I got the idea he’d told himself that bull shit so many times he could pass a lie detector test if asked.

And if there was any collusion, he certainly wouldn’t be indiscreet enough to tell a fucking felonious bunky. It would have been awesome if one night in his sleep, Paul whispered “there was collusion with the Russians. There was collusion with the Russians.” But of course, that didn’t happen.

Paulie knew just about everybody famous. And he had a couple of stories worth repeating. One day while watching a Yankee game with my bunky (Paul was a freak for the Yankees and watched every game he could), I observed that George Steinbrenner and Donald Trump struck me as similar men with almost identical personalities. Paul agreed but added “George was the kind of guy who’d hire somebody to tell you how great he was. Trump just tells you himself.”

One day, Paulie was sitting next to Yogi Berra at a Yankee old-timers day. When the scoreboard featured all the Yankee greats who had passed the previous year, Yogi turned to Manafort and said “I hope I never see my name on that list!” I guess that “when you see a fork in the road…take it” was no joke. Yogi had at least one more nobody had heard before.

Whether I would have gotten used to Manafort’s snoring became a moot point. It wasn’t but one day before friends of mine reported that while I was on suicide watch, a couple of guys from my old tier were kissing Manafort’s ass so egregiously as to induce nausea in the viewer. They were apparently courting his favor and hoping to induce Paulie to move into their tier.

My response was that he was a big boy and could do what he wanted. One more day passed and my self-appointed spies were saying that “the group” had been in the bubble talking to an officer, and the word was they were going to pay the CO as an inducement to move Manafort, using cashapp to accomplish their mission.

Celebrity is quite an aphrodisiac. The principal of this group was one of those landed aristocrats that had his own room. Suddenly, he could handle a roommate — if it was the likes of Paul Manafort.

Two days later, I came back from work to find I had a single again. Paulie didn’t even have the decency to tell me he was moving out. And…he took a pillow, blanket, and towel I’d given him. Not that I really gave a shit about that stuff. But in his position, I’d have left the items behind as a sign of respect.

Curious to see how he’d respond, I walked over to my old tier to find Paul. I knew his new bunky was in the warehouse and he’d be alone in his new cell.

“So Paulie! The honeymoon is over?” I joked. “I don’t know. They just moved me in here,” was his lame explanation.

“Paul! I know the boys have been courting you. You don’t have to bull shit me.” To that, Paul shook my hand and put his other on my shoulder in a political gesture I’m sure he’d used a thousand times before. We stayed friends after that. I didn’t truly understand why Paul had left and figured asking him why would elicit yet another falsehood. So I didn’t bother. I would soon find out.

Two days later, I was hanging out in my friend John’s cell when the CO who allegedly took the payoff came to the door for what reason I don’t remember. John let him have it. “Rich! We know you’re on the take!” It was a ballsy thing to say to a CO, accusing him of graft. Rich just flinched and ignored what John had said demonstrating unequivocally (at least in my mind) that the rumor was true.

Whatever! I’d gotten enough from Manafort to include him in a story I’d already been commissioned to write for the Daily Beast. The editor I knew at the site had already visited me in prison and was waiting for me to somehow forward the text.

I did write the piece, but became apprehensive and decided to ask the warden if it would be all right to send it off. I would even run it by him beforehand so he’d know I wasn’t dogging his prison in the article. The chief’s response was in the negative and emphatic enough that I just killed the whole project. Call me crazy, but I wasn’t in the mood to go to the SHU for a lousy $400.

In the meantime, Paulie’s exit once again left me with a single — which only lasted for two days. When the CO brought in a new guy, I countered with “let me move Chan in.” And he ok’d it.

Chan, bunky number 6 — and my last bunky at MCC — was some piece of work. I opted for the Chinaman because he was a college-educated computer nerd who could have a conversation about something other than which drug he’d dealt — or who he’d shot.

I was aware that Chan was the world’s most disgustingly noisy eater, but decided I could abide that idiosyncrasy as it would only be an occasional botheration. But I had another thing coming. Chan ate almost constantly, smacking his lips with such alacrity that it made me want to gag. Eventually, I would either dart from the cell or blast myself to kingdom come with my headphones, all to avoid the noise. And that was just the beginning of what was totally bizarre about this creature.

Born and raised in Bayside, Queens, Chan was a child genius who’d attended Stuyvesant High. He was also extremely awkward socially. And after moving into my cell, Michael confessed to being a 36-year-old virgin. His crime was cyber-stalking a girl who he admitted texting a message to the effect that he didn’t care if she called the police. He was going to come over and stick a gun up her ass.

That indiscretion got him a 37-month sentence in federal prison. The fact that he was completely non-violent and never would have done anything like that didn’t matter. He suffered a female judge who’d been stalked in her past — and had no sympathy for his shenanigans.

Chan was 6' 1", 217 pounds, and had tits that were bigger than my college sweetheart’s. A compulsive overeater, he’d ballooned to over 300 pounds at some point in his life. And at 217, his skin looked three sizes too big for his body. I simply could not look at him with his shirt off (which thankfully I rarely got to see) without feeling physically nauseated. It was that gross.

He also had a bad case of eczema and as a result, was constantly scratching. I’d wake up in the middle of the night hearing him scratching away compulsively.

Michael was autistic, obsessive-compulsive, and germophobic as well. He could sit for hours jotting down every name he could think of starting with the letter C in this incredibly tiny but legible handwriting.

One of the things that convinced me to make him my bunky was his claim to be out of the room doing laundry all morning. As the stereotype would have it, Chan became the house launderer. The dude could really fold a shirt like nobody’s business.

What he didn’t mention was that anytime he touched anything, Chan had to return to the cell to wash his hands. We had a very noisy cell door which made it virtually impossible to sleep in the morning.

So germophobic was Chan that he would drip soapy water on the faucet handles to avoid getting any microbes on his hands.

What with washing his hands literally 25 times a day…and dripping soapy water in a tiny sink, a puddle developed under the sink which he refused to mop up. In fact, he refused to clean anything in the room because he might get germs on his hands.

So while he was the ultimate germophobe, Chan was the dirtiest bunky I suffered by a country mile. I had to clean everything in the room. He absolutely refused.

When Chan wanted to eat a piece of fruit, he would lather it down for literally minutes before finally rinsing it off for consumption. Any suggestion that his health might be more in jeopardy from swallowing soap than the bacteria he was eliminating met with downright anger.

If I dropped a book mark from my upper bunk and asked Chan to hand it to me, he’d simply stare at the piece of paper in confusion, and I’d have to jump down and retrieve it myself.

But Chan had some wonderfully redeeming qualities. Like he seemed to enjoy staying in the room when I took a dump. “Ooo. Depth charge,” Chan might editorialize. And the smell of shit and farts might be “potent,” with “good hang time.” We’d make jokes about assaulting the bowl with the porcelain surrendering from the onslaught.

I can’t tell you how valuable it is to have a bunky with whom you feel comfortable shitting while he’s present. That alone made Chan a winner despite all the minuses. Plus, he didn’t snore at all. (Nor did Chris for that matter. He was like a cyborg. Dude didn’t snore, fart, burp. Nothing. He must have been an alien.)

The second day Chan moved in, the boys from Tier 12 accosted him to say they wanted Chan back in their tier. He should return post haste. That struck me as odd. What the fuck did those criminals want with a Chinese computer nerd. It turned out my intuition was correct.

Chan knew where all the skeletons were hidden. He knew who had illegal cell phones. He knew they’d paid off the CO to move Manafort. And they knew that the way they seduced Manafort away from me was to tell him I was a chomo.

When I heard that last piece of information, I knew I had to take action. Guys had been looking at me askance for a while. And now I understood why. The rumor was I was a child-molesting sex offender.

The aforementioned Looch had approached Chan and told him “you fucked up. You’re bunky is a chomo!” Chan reported this to me thus confirming my suspicions. I devised a plan of action.

I knew that either Looch or one of his homies had access to the internet via an illicit phone. There were at least 6 inmates with phones in 5 South. The lofty $3000 price tag didn’t dissuade those who wanted one.

A Daily News cop and court reporter had found my plea deal on the docket shortly after I negotiated that plea, and had run a full-page feature in the paper. The article described my charges in detail and would put to bed the notion that I was a sex offender if anybody Googled me. It also revealed my financials — which I’d rather the boys didn’t know. But I decided I’d rather have them aware of my money than think I was a chomo. I didn’t anticipate anybody would try to extort me. I’d been in the population for too long to go for that bull shit.

So I went up to Looch, looked him straight in the eye and said “my name is William Mersey. I want you to Google me and read my charges.” Looch gave me a threatening look and demanded “Why you asking me this bull shit?” challenging me to accuse him of what he’d done so he could then take the offensive just as Dave had when I confronted him about being a gossip.

But being a veteran of Dave’s horse shit, I knew better than to be honest and direct. So I answered “because you’re a man of influence around here. And I want you to know that what you’ve been hearing about me is not true.” Looch backed off a hair and asked “you mean the chomo shit?” “That is exactly what I mean. Check it out,” I declared and then walked away.

The next day, Looch’s homey approached me with a fist bump and said “Wassup, big pimpin’?” And that was the end of the chomo rumor. No more funky looks from fucked up felons.

Now that I understood why Paulie moved out, I went to his tier and told him “What you heard about me is bull shit! I am not a child molester.”

Once again, Paulie lied and told me he hadn’t heard anything like that. But one of his courters had been spreading the rumor far and wide. And I knew it. There was no way Paulie hadn’t been told or at least heard the gossip.

All I could think was “So this is the way Paulie rolls. He lied about the manner in which he left my cell. Now he’s lying about the rumor I was sure he’d heard. And I have no doubt he lied to the USDA about the President’s involvement with the Russians. And it took a bid in prison to feel I was sure of the truth.

Soon enough, after making his appearances in NY State court. Paul was unceremoniously removed from MCC early one morning to return to Laretto, where he would have served 5 more years is Covid hadn’t come to save his ass.

And so ends the saga of six bunkees. I kept Chan for the duration though there was a time or two I looked around for a replacement. Mercifully, my 311 days elapsed and I was out of MCC — and only way home. Or so I thought! Guess again. Incompetent bureaucrats had s surprise in store.

Here’s where I went next instead of home:

And here’s what it was like working suicide watch minding among others, JEFFREY EPSTEIN: