It's Sunday today. Not just any Sunday though. It's chicken Sunday. That "special" day every two weeks we inmates are served a chicken leg at either the lunch or dinner meal. It's really the only meal with real, unprocessed meat we get and most inmates look forward to it. Some indigent inmates look forward to it because they can sell their chicken for two ramen noodles to other prisoners.
These prisoners will bring the extra chicken back to the unit from the chow hall to use in a cookup. It's a win-win for both sides. One gets noodles to trade for coffee shots (the new prison crack) while the other gets a protein for his cookup that is much less expensive than the overpriced meatsticks available on the commissary list.
Fifteen to twenty minutes before our unit is called to chow, prisoners begin gathering in anticipation. If the unit officer allows it many of us gather in the lobby of our unit, the cacophony of voices like the hum of bees from a recently disturbed hive. Unlike a hive of bees though, the banal conversations here have no meaning and serve only to wile away the time.
"Chow time!!", the unit officer announces loudly, setting off a semi-organized stampede for the door. Decorum mostly prevails as we move out like a herd of cattle for the walk/fast-walk to the chow hall. Those prisoners who have spent time in higher security levels, and who haven't become complacent to the inherent dangers of being caught in the middle of a crowd of prisoners, hang back for the rush to settle down before heading to chow.
Today I'm lucky. Another inmate wants to trade me his chicken for my almost equally coveted chocolate chip cookie. I jump at the opportunity, eager to make a chicken soup tonight; something special to eat while watching the season finale of one of my favorite tv shows, whose title is an ironic metaphor for the life of many Michigan prisoners: The Walking Dead.
