~

 

I wasn’t exactly excited for breakfast, but after about twenty-four hours of practically no food, I was starving. Breakfast packs were normally delivered to us in our cells the night before so we could eat before they unlocked us at 7am. I’d already been told they consisted of nothing more than tea bags, sugar sachets, unbranded porridge oats and a stingy amount of milk. I’d noticed the kettle on a small kitchen unit at the back of the cell. Near the toilet and sink. Nice.

There was meant to be one hot meal per day, usually dinner. Lunch was often a sad looking sandwich and more tea to be eaten in the cells. Once a week hot breakfast was provided, and luckily for me, it was one of those days.

It was the morning after my first night behind bars. I climbed down the ladder of the bunk to see Eddie bent over the small sink in the back corner. He was brushing his teeth, and behind him was the small metal toilet. The thought of pissing in front of him made me curl my lip in disgust, so I decided to wait.

When Eddie was finished, he turned towards me.

“Morning,” he nodded.

He was about an inch or so shorter than me, his dark hair cropped low. Like me, he kept a stubble on his jaw.

“Morning,” I muttered, brushing past him.

Eddie was standing by the bunk bed, pulling his t-shirt off his head and changing it for a long sleeve and a jumper over it. I’d seen some tattoos on his dark skin, but I hadn’t been able to make out if they were anything to take note of. Like any gang affiliations I wasn’t aware of.

The officers tended to room inmates from opposing gangs in completely different wings of the jail, but since they didn’t know I had any certain gang affiliation myself, I supposed they hadn’t cared. Not that it mattered. The only enemy the Simpson Snakes had were the Santiago Splinters.  

With my back towards Eddie, I took a piss and then freshened myself up. By the time I was ready to leave to get breakfast, Eddie was still sitting on his bed, waiting for me, it seemed.

He stood up when I headed towards the unlocked cell door.

“Really?” he called after me. “After I wasted my time waiting for you?”

Ignoring him, I followed the stream of people to the narrow eating area. There wasn’t enough seating for all the inmates, meaning most ate in their cells, which was the norm. The smell of food wasn’t exactly appetising, but it was enough to make my stomach spasm in desperation. When I finally got my plastic plate filled by the inmates who ran the kitchen, my hopes had finally been crushed. I couldn’t even name half the shit on my plate. And the other half looked just like that…shit.

I was about to return to my cell when I felt a pull on my elbow.

“Sit with us,” it was Eddie.

“Why?” I looked to the table he was gesturing to.

“I told you why last night,” he only said, already turning away.

I stood there for a moment, contemplating my options. Sit with Eddie and his ‘buddies’ or eat alone in my cell. I figured since most meals would be eaten in the cells where we slept and shat, eating out here would serve as a break. I convinced myself that was the reason, rather than what Eddie had said about being a loner in jail making me vulnerable.

I took a breath and followed.

Eddie and I weren’t the only ones on the table, and I recognised two of the men from being in my cell with Eddie the day before. It seemed everyone on this table got along, just about. This wasn’t exactly my plan, I didn’t want to make friends. I missed my brothers. I missed my reputation. Sure, some people may have heard of the Simpson Snakes, but we were lowkey. In here I was eating with members of gangs that had been functioning since before I was born.  

I pulled my cutlery out of my pocket and frowned at my plate as I figured out what to attempt first. The brown slop was the most disturbing.

“It’s porridge,” Eddie said, sitting directly opposite me. “They give it to us when they run out of the usual one. I heard they use brown sugar which is why it looks that colour.”

Brown sugar? Yeah right. I didn’t know the people cooking the food. It could have been anything in there.

“If you don’t want it, I’ll have it,” one of Eddie’s friends said.

It wasn’t really a question, and I wasn’t about to have my food taken from me by anyone. It was a quick way to show weakness, and I wasn’t weak. I used my spoon and put some of the ‘porridge’ into my mouth without hesitation. If I hesitated, I’d probably retch.

Turned out I was right. I had to swallow it down so fast to avoid tasting it as it passed over my tongue.

“This is the best,” Eddie was holding an unidentifiable baked object. “It’s like a breakfast bun.”

“A what?” I arched a brow.

“I don’t know what it’s actually meant to be,” he shrugged a shoulder. “But it tastes good. When you put some butter on it, it’s even better.”

I turned to my ‘breakfast bun’ as Eddie named it. It was still lukewarm when I picked it up. I took a bite of it to try and take away the taste of the porridge. It wasn’t bad. It just tasted of carbs, which I probably needed for energy more than anything.

Around the seating area, I could see some of the others swapping things from their plates. One particularly huge guy had a pile of the breakfast buns on his plate.

“What’s that about?” I turned to Eddie, nodding in the direction.

“Trading,” Eddie shrugged. “You can trade food for food, or food for other things. Like someone doing your cleaning duties for a day, or something like that.”

I nodded, looking down at my plate. I still hadn’t tried the scrambled egg looking thing, or the mysterious meat slice. The eggs were more off-white than yellow, and when I attempted to pick some up with my fork, the whole lump came up as if it was all glued together.

“You just gotta break it up with your fork,” Eddie had been watching me. “It tastes almost good. Especially if you add ketchup or brown sauce.”

I reluctantly followed his instructions and after a bite, I realised it was manageable. The meat slice on the other hand wasn’t. It tasted and smelt of nothing. Which was concerning, because it was meant to be something. The texture is what I couldn’t stand the most. Once I chewed a bit of grizzle in my mouth, I gave up.

“I’ll trade my eggs for your sausage,” Eddie said.

“Sausage?” I repeated with raised brows. “That is sausage?”

He nodded, getting ready to scoop his eggs onto my plate.

“Fine,” I agreed, making the trade.

That morning, I came away from breakfast with at least something in my stomach, and that was enough.