Many Rivers to Cross

6

6 E ight thousand inmates were incarcerated in the tall gray monoliths of the Orleans Parish Prison, a county jail complex in the shadow of Interstate 10 near Mid-City. By noon on Monday, the flood had reached the ree yard, and by early afternoon there were two feet ofbrown lake water in the Templeman III unit-T3-where Lucien "P]" Grant was locked in a holding cell with three other inmates he didn't care to know. The power had been dead for hours, the heat stifling, the air rank from floating islands of raw sewage. No one had been given drinking water or food since the guards had fed them oologna sandwiches on Sunday night, tossing them between the bars the way you feed baboons in a zoo. And now the guards and prison personnel had all disappeared, abandoning their posts and hiding out on the rooftops ofthe OPP buildings as the water surged higher inside the facilities. When it became clear that no one could stop the flooding on the bottom floor ofT3, inmates trapped in their cells began to panic and kick the bars. Somewhere down the cellblock an old drunk was pleading like a backwoods preacher. "We have sinned in this den of iniquity and Gawd has troubled the waters!" he intoned. "Gawd has troubled the waters! We throw ourselves at your mercy, 0 Lawd, sinners though we are." Someone yelled, "Shut that crazy motherfucker up!" "Set us free, 0 Lawd, 'fore we all drownded in this turrible place! Please, Gawd, open up these gates!" "Somebody shut ... that ... motherfucker ... up!" PJ Grant sat on the top bunk and stared at his cellmates lounging on the top bunk opposite him in the cramped quarters. The 39 40 younger one was a crackhead from the Lower Ninth Ward, popped for possession with intent to distribute, and the other dude was a badass head buster called U-Rite with a spider web tattoo covering one side of his neck, Chinese tats on his arms, and gold slugs for teeth. PJ knew U-Rite's reputation on the street. Word was he'd pulled the trigger on the late great rapper Soulja Slim. Everybody feared U-Rite. This stretch he'd been booked for shooting at a club owner in Treme over a woman, and he'd taken out his anger on the poor young Tulane student cowering on the bottom bunk. He was a white boy with a Yankee accent from New Jersey or somewhere like that, picked up Saturday night for pissing against a wall in the French Quarter. U-Rite had slapped the boy around a couple of times for looking at him the wrong way. And now the banger was sitting back on his bunk and sizing up PJ with a wicked gold-flashing smile, his thick legs hanging off the side in a pair of bright orange prison issue. They'd been in this cell together for a week and the tension between them was reaching a flashpoint. "What we gone do 'bout this situation, dawg?" he asked PJ.lt wasn't clear if he meant the flooding or the showdown that had become personal, one too many alpha males in the same cage. The old drunk kept hollering Lawd, do somethin' 'fore we all drownded and voices were echoing back and forth through the cellblock , mass hysteria brewing like the stench from the backed-up toilets . PJ had finally had enough. He dropped down off his bunk with a loud splash and gripped the bars of the celL "Say, bruh!" he yelled to the inmates sitting on tables out in the commons area. "The man's right. We all gonna get drownded up in here if y'all don't help us out." The men marooned on tables were from lockdown in St. Bernard Parish, the swampland and fishing villages south of New Orleans. They'd been deposited here yesterday by St. Bernard deputies for safekeeping from the hurricane, which they knew would deluge their parish first and far worse. Because the OPP cells were filled to capacity , the 350 St. Bernard convicts had been issued blankets and told to make do on the floor of the walkout area. "Yo, somebody bring them benches over here and start banging on these bars," PJ instructed them. "Find something you can swing and come swing itl Fucking COs have all run off. Ain...