Mind your business.

I was in prison for two years. 

It was nothing.

When I first got to prison, I was scared shitless. See I had heard all the horror stories, stories of men being raped and sodomized.

Had been told several times not to drop the soap. Still, don't understand why people think that is funny. 

I never found prison to a hard place to function. There are simple rules that you have to live by. Most of those are handed down by the Gang Related inmates I really should say convicts, there is a difference.

Follow those rules and the ones that are set down by the institution, and your stay will be easy.

Having a bad reputation really helps with your survival in prison.

I wasn't well-known on the street so, Fortunately for me, some idiot tried me within moments of walking into my dormitory. The explosive display of violence cemented my place in the predator category and not that of the prey. 

I came to find out though that I needn't have been as violent. The only men then I saw get violated in prison were not behaving like men. Yeah, I actually saw it happen my first night and that's really what this story is about I ramble sometimes. 

I had just arrived at the processing prison. This is where murders, rapist, pedophiles, and habitual drunk drivers, are treated equally.

 In the row with me was a white guy with a mouth full of gold.

The Sargent paused in front of him. 

"Boy, is them golds removable?" 

The cocky kid replies. 

"What you thank I'm broke boss? This that genuine gold." 

The Sargent laughed.

 "Are you affiliated?" 

The tall slim blonde made a diamond with his fingers and pronounced; "Solid"

I was surprised. 

Wasn't aware that the "Four Corner Hustlers" accepted white guys, however, I'm not a 4CH, so it wasn't my business. 

That's one of the first lessons you learn when you go to prison. 

Mind your business. 

Anyway, when the Sargent heard what the white guy said it sent him into a fit of laughter and the last words he said as he walked away were:

 "Let's see how that works out for you." 

I gave that conversation little thought. I was attempting to wrap my head around what was happening with me at the moment.

The diagnostic or placement prison rushed myself and other prisoners through physical and mental tests.

After several hours and a couple of speeches including one from a sergeant who kicked a quarter the entire time he spoke we were housed.

We were taken to in open dormitory. 

Gang symbols flashed as we the “fish” walked in. Those who were affiliated went off to talk to their “Cousins, Bloods, People, or Folks."

 I waited. 

 I saw my kind. 

Just wanted to unpack. 

They came to me.

In the form of one of my brothers nicknamed "Dirt".

The slim gold toothed white guy had made friends fast. 

He was engaged in a loud animated conversation.

I wasn’t trying to hear it but it was sprinkled with a lot of “My Nigga’s” myself and a few others were obviously bothered by it. 

The brother sent to screen me and assure that I really was a member of the organization noticed my discomfort. “Say folk, we let them handle they own scandal. Just be glad he anit claiming to be one of ours.”  

By lights out, my folks “Dirt” had introduced me too a couple other GD's and we had figured out where I fit into the hiarchy. 

Lights out brought a flurry of activity. 

The gay cons who had chosen their mates made their way to them. This happened whether that person was a willing participant or not. 

The slim white kid.

The slim white kid was still with the same two four corner hustlers. 

I heard them tell him “we’re going to rap in the shower the echo is better.” 

Yeah.

That didn’t sound right to me. 

Still, anit my business. 

However, the sounds of struggle coming from the shower motivated me to strap on my boots. 

Dirt came over to my bunk, “Gangster if you move we move. Just know brothers anit gonna be happy saving a white boy that don’t got nothing to do with nation business.” 

I could hear the kids pleas.

"Hey my nigga what are you doing?!” 

Hear the slaps, punches and his head slamming. Then came the grunts and screaming. “Bitch, since you been calling me your nigga act like I’m your nigga.” 

I untied my boots. 

I went to sleep.

 In the morning the same white guy was taken to medical. 

All of his teeth had been knocked out. I remember seeing one of his “friends” mailing those gold teeth home.

 Because of my gang status I was shipped quickly. Day one of my stay in my new home I beat a convict who called me pretty. Wound up on solitary. 

A few months into my sentence I was given a pathological liar for a cellmate. 

He claimed to be an up and coming rapper, to have mafia ties, made up one lie after another. 

My cellmate had a friend.

 To me it seemed like they took turns trying to out lie each other. 

I regret my part in this dudes downfall but it played out the way it played out. 

My celly's friend was standing in the mirror “rapping” badly.

 He used the N word liberally, despite being white, he also was disparaging to Southerners despite being in the south. 

I had been taking a shower when I overheard him. I told him “Aye don’t let that shit tumble out ya mouth no more boy!” 

I finished my shower. 

Walked to my bunk.

My cellmate and the offending would be rap star were sitting on my bed. 

I walked up just in time to hear him tell my celly. “If I saw that nigga Marco was on the street I’d have something done to his punk ass!” 

Well, I’m Marco and in prison you can not allow someone to call you a punk. 

So I slapped him.

 Then I slapped my cellmate.

 Told both of them to pack their stuff. 

The captain on duty called me out of the pod. “Coleman what the fuck is the problem?”  

I explained that the disrespectful youngsters could not live in the building with me. 

I suppose the white kid was really afraid. 

He requested protective custody. 

So my source in solitary told me the rest of the story. 

He came to Solitaire with the same attitude. 

Still telling lies. 

His cellmate in solitary had smuggled in some marijuana, he offered to smoke it with him.

Once they were high the predator says; “Man I forgot to tell you when I smoke I get horny.” 

See me personally if he had said something like that to me he would have worn an ass whooping immediately.

Not so much this kid the next thing I heard or saw he was a full-fledged “boy”

He should have stood up to someone. 

Me, or his rapist.

 Of course if he had just minded his own business, not tried to be someone he wasn’t he could have completed his time untampered with.  All he needed to do was mind his business and keep to himself.

The Mad Dragon

Oh, have I harmed you boy? Have I made you bleed?
Poor little fellow. Little human, what's your name?
I am not going to hurt you. Not anymore anyway.
What made you idiots try to rob me?
Do you know why you can't steal from a Dragon?
We are pretty much aware of everything around us. Me so much more than others of my species.
For me, it's like someone telling you, What's your name? It's like someone saying Tryee, I am going to punch you in the nose with my right hand starting now!
Dragon awareness is different than yours.
Tryee, I have been fully aware of everything since before I tore my way out of the shell.
I have had the sum total knowledge of my race since I emerged and looked at my brood mates.
Wait, you believe that nonsense about Professor McLeay genetically engineering us from a dinosaur, and Komodo and bird DNA?
Yeah, so how come nobody ever mentions the fire whenever they repeat that bullshit?
You're not slow enough to believe that.
I see it in your eyes.
You got roped into this robbery plot. Just like all the other humans on the planet, you're hungry.
I like you Tyree, and I am going to tell you a secret that no living human being knows. Let me see how to say it so you can grasp it? 
You're what they call a regressive right? You have distinctive racial markers that everyone else around you doesn't, correct? They have a genetic sameness that kind of melts them all together. You have features that no ones had in generations.
We are alike in that way.
Yours was an accident your regressive ethnic genes forcing their way to the surface.
Mine is much the same. Except that the first knew I would happen.
Have a seat.
I am going to tell you a story.
I just ate an entire marijuana farm and the goats that were grazing there so bear with me if I get off track.
You're good. Make yourself at home. Mi lair Su lair.
Oh, I slay myself! Does that make me a dragon slayer?
Okay, I'm going to stop laughing before I burn ya little ass on accident.
This is a fairly long story, and I am a little bit paranoid about my shit, part of the whole Dragon thing; you wouldn't understand, but I need you to come over here safely away from my treasure. Okay, are you comfy?  Why are you grimacing? Never mind.
Okay so about 12 million years ago my people ran like all of this.
Yeah, I mean the earth and the entire Solaris system.
Yeah, I mean all of that shit.
Some of the DRRRRAAAAAGAANN, of course, you can't say it, knucklehead, your vocal cords are too puny.
I have memories of when your ancestors first became “intelligent” I use that word politely.
Oh my bad, I know the claws are a little intimidating, especially with your people's blood still on them. Hey, you tried to rob me, and  ALL of you would have killed me in an instant.
No, I can't read your mind so much as pick-up really important stuff like that rocket launcher that you and your compadres thought would kill me.
Anyway, I know the secret.
The last living Dragon taught the Professor everything about genetic engineering and by using the last unhatched eggs of our kind and cross-referencing the holes in the helix with the Dinosaurs DNA.
Don't get me wrong I appreciate the resurrection but I won't ever be bigger than 6 -8 meters and I can remember what it feels like to fly amongst the stars but I never can. The raptor DNA made us more aggressive and more reproductive but it took away our greatness.
You can't understand what that is like for a Dragon.
We have the hoarding instinct when we claim something like our own, it’s more driving than I can make you know.
Just imagine every Dragon exits it’s egg knowing that it's smaller than it should be, weaker than it's potential and can no longer make the flight to Mercury or Venus.
So that when you are finally ready to start breeding at like 50 years old you're going to have to simulate the constant heat with your fire or drop your eggs into an active volcano. Of course, most of the volcano eggs don’t survive. Those poor parents all believing, maybe my eggs will get hot enough for long enough to be strong enough, to get us back to those brooding grounds.
That's why so many dragons burn their eggs up with their fire, the right amount of heat during incubation and the wings are stronger, the wingspan greater, tail longer and more powerful, claws sharper, harder, more diamond-like. To much heat and they go mad from killing their young. Become a danger.
We are forced to remember being Megalodons while being nurse sharks. To have the heart and soul of a timber wolf in a Teacup Yorkie’s body.
That's why we Dragons are generally pissed off because we remember what we were.
I promised to tell you a secret.
No those are secrets but not the big one.
See you already have seen dragons go mad seen them pillage and burn.
Man, the worst of them really burn Tyree.
I remember, and I don't mean race memories I saw this with my own eyes. Yeah, don't look directly at my eyes like that! What’s that about dude? Damn, that shit is creepy, come on!
Anyway, so this Dragon I know, well knew he's dead now so there's that.
His name was Thunder Clap. This lizard had the boom. Even when we were little and had really just started getting some control over our wings, and fire. He had potential. His flame was erratic. It's like a humans voice changing.  He and I and Gold Claw. Fuck that lizard is dead too! Man the good ones die young.
Where was I?
Yeah good old Thunder Clap.
Me? Listen, Tyree, you gave me your name and that was polite considering the fact that you and your little people, who are starting to attract flies, by the way, broke in my house.
You kind of owed me your name and I don't owe you shit.
Oh, I think that you are going to sit and listen to my story and like it.
Because a one minute blast from me is like standing under the space shuttle when it takes off that's why.
Thunder Clap.
We played and ate elk. Elk is freaking delicious by the way! Oh, it's even better with a pig, elk, and bacon, you better try it, Tyree.
So the trio of us had gotten two Elk and boar.
We challenged old TC to do the roasting. Mostly because he was experiencing some fire issues.
Not that day, that day Thunder Clap Belches out the hottest flame ever. Just burns the elk to shit his flame was so powerful.
I noticed his coloration changed.
Later on, old Thunder Clap gets a Mate both of them are really powerful dragons massive, smart really strong. They were a solid couple.
Her name was Black Shade she was the darkest Dragon I'd ever seen up close and in dragon.
Are you awake there Tyree stay with me I'm coming to point I swear?
So Thunder Clap keeps getting stronger and stronger and as any reasonable Dragon would he starts thinking about the ancestors brooding ground he knows he's not quite ready so he and  Black Shade, did I tell you how beautiful she was?  Man Tryee she was the single most beautiful creature I have ever seen.  And I remember everything that any of my people have ever seen.
So right they have this ingenious idea for where to place their clutch of eggs.
A nuclear power plant. The balls right?
Well, the radiation did a number on those eggs. I’m telling you.  A beautiful clutch of eggs too. Six, that's a real throwback batch I'm telling you.  Well, ole TC and his mate sense that their eggs are about to hatch. They go out to hunt. One of those eggs was just like me, aware of EVERYTHING that came before her.
Remember when I said that I was like you?
I’m a genetic throwback too.
Most of our kind have blocks in their memory.
They don’t recall the darkness,  they don’t know why we achieved our initial greatness, don’t understand that I and that surviving egg are necessary for the continuation of the species.
See that egg is my mate Night Shade.
Tyree stay awake! So here’s the wrap up because you’re dying.
So Tyree the reason that Thunder Clap became stronger that day was that he accidentally killed Gold Claw. That’s when he found out what I already knew. Whenever we kill another Dragon we absorb its power.  When Thunder Clap killed Gold Claw he became more powerful and the glimpses that he started receiving of our dark history drove him mad. When I put him and his mate down I was called a hero.  The power is thrilling.
I saved that egg but she ate her five siblings.
She and I are real Dragons Tree, oh fuck you’re dead.
Well I’ll finish anyway killing other Dragons increases our power and to a limited degree, the same applies for your pitiful species.
You and your friends are just the top off I need.
My cousin Diamond Wings needs saving he’s losing his mind. After Thunder Clap, I became the go-to for mad Dragons. I’m paid to take out those that snap. Soon I’ll be the most powerful Dragon in millennia.
A new day will dawn. Well, you were a fine listener Tree but I can’t have you soiling the furnishings. I promise I’ll eat you quickly.