Chapter 6

Do you know the legal difference between an acting manager and just a regular manager? An acting manager isn’t responsible for the past boss’s messes. So, I technically answer to no one, and the buttons I press in whatever programs are purely internal company matters, part of the workflow. The worst that could happen if I screw something up? I get fired. Big deal. I already have a killer r?sum? for a recent graduate!

That’s what I thought – until one morning, stepping out of my building, I didn’t hear the usual bustle and suddenly got a shout: “Lie down, motherfucker! Police!” Next thing I knew, my face was pressed to the asphalt. What followed was a blur. I was detained on suspicion of committing a crime I didn’t commit. I hadn’t done anything wrong! Well, maybe a couple of times I’d taken a fall for someone who apparently was the real culprit–my former boss. They put me in a temporary holding cell, and three days later moved me to a proper detention center.

I spent a couple of days in quarantine, huddled in a corner, keeping low. Nobody bothered me with questions. Like me, all the other guys were in shock. Then they moved me into the main cell. For anyone walking into a new cell for the first time, there’s stress, fear, and bad premonitions. In reality, there’s nothing to fear.

– “Hey, Vasya, who’s the new guy?” a dude on the top bunk purred in his low-class drawl.

– “He looks sketchy, walked in all disrespectful!” came the reply from below.

– “Hi...” I stammered.

– “Hi! Don’t shake, we’re just joking!” a normal, human voice welcomed me. – “It’s boring here, you know? So, come on, tell us who you are.”

I wasn’t exactly unprepared for this conversation. I already knew I wasn’t the only GazMyas employee arrested – justice doesn’t work that way. For economic crimes, they always detain several people at once so everyone can testify against each other. Maybe my colleagues were already in the neighboring cells ... probably thinking I’m a passive homosexual (and with some reason). And they’re obliged to report that to the senior inmate right away – or they’d have major problems. Maybe the news had already reached the cell by the prison’s internal network: a fag is moving in. If not – just a matter of time. So it didn’t matter how I acted; my status in the criminal world was already preordained.

– “Look ... I should probably say this upfront. I’ve had homosexual experience. A youthful mistake.”

– “Seriously? You’re not joking? You’ve thought it through?”

– “Not joking.”

– “Really? I won’t ask again!”

– “Really.”

– “Well, good for you for admitting it! We’ll explain everything later. Everything will be fine, don’t worry. For now, set yourself up near the plumbing!”

And that’s how my new life as a bottom began. “Degraded” – that’s a more accurate translation of the word that matches my status in Russian prison slang. No tragedy, as long as you follow the rules. Basically, none of my cellmates cared whether I was bottom gay or about criminal code. They treated me like a rooster just so nobody would question them. Generally, you treat the bottom guys politely in prison, without too much roughness. Because a genuinely offended guy might get pushed too far and, in extreme cases, humiliate the offender just by hugging him, for example. That person would automatically join the caste of the offended bottoms. Yes, after that he could beat the bottom guy senseless, and probably would, but by then it’s too late. Ridiculous, of course! I still don’t understand why, for instance, it’s okay for a bottom to give a massage to another guy, but in all other situations, contact is forbidden.

On the positive side – marginals are usually housed with marginals, recidivists with recidivists, and people imprisoned for economic crimes with other business types. So our cell had decent people, no junkies or drunks. Most of my neighbors, like me, were “first-timers.” No one even tried to hit on me. I kept to myself as much as possible and did cleaning – the cult of cleanliness in that cell was taken to absurd levels. I’m an introvert, so isolation didn’t bother me, unlike the constant laundry and mopping. Of course, I didn’t wash other people’s socks and underwear for free. Our cell had wealthy inmates. They received regular parcels from the outside and could order food and necessities themselves. Paying me for chores was the only way for them to share with me.

More experienced inmates later told me that, according to prison codes, a bottom doesn’t have to sleep with anyone. The bottom guys choose their role. They are split into “working” and “non-working” – non-working guys don’t get fucked at all, just do the dirty work. Working bottoms split into those who only suck and those who take it in all holes. The latter are said to be the overwhelming majority.

I also learned that rules in actual colonies are very different. None of the old codes are really observed there. And those who act tough in the pre-trial detention center, trying to be the top dog, start cooperating with the administration and work alongside everyone once they’re in the colony. Yet the bottoms and their code of conduct are one of the few remnants of the so-called Prisoner-Thug Unity system (fuck it).

There are so many bottoms now that no one forces anyone anymore, except in rare cases. And, apparently, if an inmate gets a parcel, a line forms of those wanting to take advantage. So nowadays, guys become bottoms voluntarily, out of weakness or predisposition. And those with no one to warm them from the outside often take this step to ensure relatively comfortable living conditions in the camp. In short, most of the oddballs sell themselves for cigarettes, tea, food, and other perks of their own free will.