Sports in Hell by Rick Reilly Read Free Book Online Page A

most dangerous of all. Eight teams of three inmates try to grab hold of a wild cow and milk it. First one to present a wet hand wins. “Them cows are worse than the bulls,” Injun stated. “They’ll kick you sideways. And they’ll come over and kick you just to get their friend free.”
    Pinball, in which eight prisoners stand inside eight plastic hula hoops lying on the ground. The idea is not to leave your hoop when the bull tries to separate you from your pancreas. The last guy standing in his ring wins.
    Wild Horse Race, in which inmates try to grab hold of a wild horse and ride him across a finish line. (The trick to controlling the horse? Bite his ear.)
    Guts ’n’ Glory, in which fifty inmates are in the ring when the bull is released. Tied between the bull’s horns is a poker chip worth $500. Good luck trying to snatch it.
    In short, it’s a very good day if you own the local splint concession.
    Why in the
hell
would somebody do any of this? Well, pride, for one thing. All their inmate buddies would be back at the prison watching them on closed-circuit TV, grading their falls on a scale of one (pussy) to ten (cheers from death row). “You can’t turn yellow in front of those guys,” said Q-Tip. “You’ll hear about it for a year.”
    And don’t forget the prize money. The year before, Tank won $200 in bull poker. What can you do with $200 in prison? Go to the commissary, where you can purchase such fine items as:
    Can of soup, large—52 cents
    Soup, small—19 cents
    Tin of tuna fish—23 cents
    Tin of sardines—27 cents
    Socks—75 cents
    CD player—$38
    Also, the winner gets a real silver buckle with gold inlay. Plus, you’re feted at the big steak-and-potato rodeo banquet and even your kids can come.
    And how does one find the courage to win the bull poker buckle?
    â€œI think about my bed,” Q-Tip says. “I just try to sit as still as I can and think about my bed.”
    â€œI just pray not to be scared,” said Heywood (Ironhead) Jones, thirty-three, of Slidell, Miss., in for second-degree murder. “One year I saw two guys run and I don’t want that to be me.”
    â€œThere ain’t no point runnin’ anyhow,” said Q-Tip. “’Cause the bull might veer at the last second and take the other guys out. You coulda won!”
    Injun stated that you want to sit with your back to the chute. “That way you don’t know he’s comin’.”
    Of course, that leaves you prey to mind games. “I might tell him wrong,” Q-Tip said. “I might go, ‘He’s runnin’ straight at you!’ Maybe he’ll flinch and that’ll make the bull go at him, see?”
    Personally I was shocked at such unethical behavior in an American prison.
    Of course, Angola is unlike any prison on Earth—how many prisons do you know with their own nine-hole golf course?—mostly because of its Puckish warden, Burl Cain, a pudgy red-cheeked imp with long white curly hair. He has the look of a teamster elf. When we met him, he was wearing a baseball cap that read:
Angola: A Gated Community
.
    Cain stirred folks up when he started giving inmates a proper burial, complete with horse-drawn hearse, band, and a solemn march to the prison graveyard. Critics howled that murderers didn’t deserve it. Cain howled back louder. “The man has done his time,” he said. “The sentence was for life, not death, too. I’m not gonna kick his body.”
    Cain does all kinds of odd things. He started a Returning Hearts Day in which any inmate can bring his kids onto the grounds and play with them for the whole day. He says there’s good in all of his men. The trick is to find it.
    â€œLike this fella that brought you them cookies,” he said, pointing at the deliciously gooey chocolate-chip morsel I’d just put in my mouth. “I call him Hop Sing.