They acted as if this Max was some type of superhero or the toughest prisoner to see. As for me, I began to get myself ready.
I wasn’t going to show any fear and I would stand my ground. I had heard from Butch and J Dove that this Max would put down a demonstration whenever it was needed.
Lee and Crunch walked with me across the yard headed towards the back end of the prison. Lee stood 6’3” and Crunch 6’5”, and they looked as if they had been working out all their lives. As they walked across the yard with me being only 5’10”, I felt comfortable in the middle of my partners.
The yard was quiet and we could feel the sun shining on our faces along with the warm breeze blowing through our t-shirts. The prison walls surrounded us and the guards in the towers on the wall did their usual duties. We headed for the back wall and walked across the baseball field.
We noticed the inmates to our left at the education department looking at the way we walked in stride. They could tell something was up. Some knew we were going to check out Max and some waited with anticipation to see what would happen. One thing they all knew was that there was going to be a show.
Max saw us coming and some people might say he had been waiting, others say that it was just the way he looked. One thing we all knew was that there was going to be a stand off. There was no way Max was going to have the yard and get all the attention. It just wasn’t going to happen.
Lee and Crunch stopped and I took two extra steps so Max would know who he was dealing with. J Dove and Butch waited just in case things didn’t go the way we planned. You could see the bag sticking out of J Dove’s jacket and Butch, as usual, just looked on with that attitude of whatever.
Max and the rest of his crew walked towards us without a sign of fear. We did notice the way he got respect from the rest of his peers and how they followed his lead. I took another few steps forward and extended my hand, as if he would reach with his wing to shake. Instead, Max just made a honking noise, and then I knew what he was all about.
He was no more than the rest of us. Max was a hustler trying to look out for his family and keep the other geese at bay. Once we established that, I did like the rest of the cons. I fell in place and watched Max walk boldly up to me and take the bread out of my hand while I listened to the other cons say, “I told you he was cool.”
In my mind, I knew, although Max looked different, he was still a living being that we should always love and respect as we would have others do to us.
