Category: Settings

Cell 19C on Cell Block Carolina was the latter. It was a gymnasium-style cell, which in this case was literal — the room was built to be a gymnasium. It was a high-ceilinged chamber with a couple dozen men in it and its own built-in toilets and showers. The bunks was stacked three high, and there still ain’t always enough room for all the mofos they shove in there. Some niggas gotta lay they head down on the floor.
Tyrell’s bunk was on top of a three-bunk stack. There was a little shelf attached with some of his personal belongings on it. Tyrell had outfitted his bunk as well with a piece of plywood sticking out at one end — Tyrell was almost seven feet tall, so he ain’t fit in the bunk without some extra plywood to give it more length.

From Tyrell the Ex-Con

Buck lined up with the homeboys of 19C. He was the only white feller in the cell, on account of Warden got a noyed at Buck’s hillbilly bigness, so’s he put Buck in 19C with all the black Bloods. But Buck was in good as grins with the Bloods anyhow, and he got no hate in his heart fer black boys. He was too barrelly fer the black ones to mess with him regardless-like, so’s Buck be doing fine in 19C.

From Fists, Men and Muscles

Brentwood Projects, a ramshackle building right down the block from the projects he grew up in.
It was a shithole. The brick building was hodgepodgedly painted in yellow and white, and the grass outside was littered with syringes and shards of glass. It stank of cat piss throughout. The apartment he rented wasn’t much better than the rest of the building, but at least it been vacuumed recently and got a pine-scent freshness.
He went out for his shower when it was late enough. The whole floor shared one showering area, which wasn’t that bad — in some of these projects, the whole building shared one shower. There was only adult men on this floor, so the showers ain’t subdivided into areas for women and children, meaning there was plenty of room.
There was one sink, two toilets that was wide-open — no stalls — and a urinal trough. On the other side was four showerheads in a mildewy, dank corner. The air was soggy, and there was a puddle under one of the showerheads. It smelled like rain.

From Tyrell the Ex-Con

The buildings here didn’t have hot water in the apartments, just a shared shower on each floor. Despite that, the building was comfortable and warm, and it was as safe as possible in this neighborhood. Teddy liked it here.
The part he liked most of all was that there were no women in the building. The landlord owned another building next-door with showers built in to each apartment. That was where single women lived. Only men without families were allowed here. Most of the apartments were crammed full of workers sharing space.
The showerroom was small and cramped, and it stank like toilets. The bare cement walls and floor were chipped, scrawled-upon and graffitied with arcane symbols, threats and nicknames. Water dripped into a permanent puddle next to the bench where you could change your clothes. There weren’t any lockers or anything like that though, it was just a short narrow bench.
From Aroused by Ex-Cons

Cell 5M is an all-Bloods prison cell.

They was in the far corner of the cavernous thirty-man cell (with forty-two niggas in it), where some sheets bin strung up to give some privacy, right next to the bank of toilets, which was similarly set apart with walls of sheets.

From Tyrell the Mandingo

But in the shower, his whole cell — twenty niggas — got shoved in at once, and they be usually sharing with some random whiteboys. Everyone with a solid gang behind them be showering with that gang, so the whiteboys in with the Bloods was unclaimed.
It took Tyrell awhile to realize what that meant. He knew it, on a intellectual level — without no gang behind them, those whiteboys was fair game. You could extort them for cash, make them smuggle shit in for you, whatever you want.
And you could pound they bootyhole.
That was what Tyrell ain’t realize. Outside of the shower, that was a whole big chore — you gotta get the whiteboy of your choice alone somewhere and tear into him without making enough noise to get caught.
But guards ain’t never go in the shower if they can help it, and it be loud enough in there that they ain’t gunna hear no sob-a-lobbing. And since the rules was different in there, Tyrell ain’t even gotta hide it from his niggas — it don’t count in the shower, and they ain’t allowed to say boo about it outside of there. And they damn sure ain’t allowed to tell a soul about it once they leave prison.

From Tyrell the Mandingo

The barbershop was small and crowded, most of the chairs in the waiting room occupied and all the barbers with a customer. Funk played quietly off a radio, and when Tyrell and Dwayne walked in, some middle-aged nigga with a chunky belly was dancing like a mad fool. Others was clapping and cheering or huddled in a corner conversating about something important, judging from the serious-minded looks on they faces… Tyrell bin looking forward to visiting the adult barbershop for a long time, and it felt good to be treated like a adult. He bin did go down the kid’s barbershop, where the waiting room got toys instead of magazines about cigars and motorcycles, and the TVs played a kid’s sing-along show. There weren’t no TV here, just niggas flapping they gums about real talk.

From Tyrell the Mandingo

Descriptions

The homeless shelter smelled like unwashed ballsacks and foot powder in here, and he kept hearing murmurant men with throaty whispers amid phlegmy coughing and full-figured farts… The bathroom here got a wide trough, followed by a row of door-less stalls.

From Tyrell the Ex-Con

The locker room was so hot. All the sweat from the game had turned to slime, it seemed, and it took over the air in here. Jimmy just wanted to shower. Body heat and stank emanated from his teammates… Jimmy hung his head as he took off his clothes alone in a funereal locker room that smelled of departed feet. It felt cold in here. Maybe it was always that cold but was heated up by the rest of the team filling it up with their armpits and ball-sweat or maybe he just didn’t notice the cold when he was in a good mood. In any case, he was glad to go into the showers, where he could warm up and rinse off the salt crystals his evaporated sweat had left behind on his body.
He slow-footed into the shower alone, glad that Coach Marshall had gone — and he left through the back door, into the parking lot, not into his office, so he was gone gone. Jimmy had never showered here alone. The showers seemed huge, and the humidity from the others’ showers hung in the air. Somebody had left their bottle of body wash behind… Jimmy and his teammates shared showerheads cuz there were only four, and the water pressure dropped if more than two were in use. They were the big kind, plenty of room for three or four guys to take turns under the water. It was no big deal. Jimmy never even thought about sharing showerheads with them.

From The Alpha Jock & the Gropey Coach