New Orleans 1974

I was in Orleans Parrish Prison in 1974 for "possession of greenish brown vegetable, probably marijuana." It wasn't actually marijuana, it was bits of bugler tobacco they found in the bottom of my pocket. They just made s*** up to get people they didn't like off the street, and I had been definitely causing trouble on Bourbon Street. I was on a "tier" that consisted of a single gigantic room housing about 70 men. They consisted of! murderers, rapists, muggers , dope dealers ... and me. One part was beds, the other the day area with steel picnic style tables, a TV. The first night I discovered that I had crabs. So the next morning, I walked up to the bars naked except for a towel wrapped around my waist and waved the guard over and whispered to him the nature of my dilemma. He yelled out loudly "you have crabs?" loud enough so that everyone on the tier could hear. I looked around and everyone - had turned from what they were doing and stared at me. Later they brought me the shampoo, and there were no negative repercussions from the incident, with the exception of one guy who was in there for murder who whispered to me in private that if he caught crabs in there he was going to kill me. After a week I heard the guard announce "Ralph Crawford, roll out." My heart leapt. I gathered up all my belongings and walked up to the bars ready to be released. The guard looked me in the eye and said "m*********** you ain't never getting out of here." So I returned to my cot. There was a guy on the tier I only knew as pops and he ran an under the radar commissary. I bought a couple of packages of tobacco from him. After I had been there about 2 weeks, word got out that pops was getting out the next day and that someone was going to take over his commissary. There was going to be an "election" that night. I overheard someone talking about sharpening their shiv. I was in terror of going to bed that night. Later that afternoon, though, thankfully, I once again heard Ralph Crawford roll out, but this time I was released for real.