Five
____________
Razor Cuts
For public security and safety
precautions, return addresses on inmate mail were stamped over and blotted out
by hand in the mailroom. This was to help negate retribution against any
inmate’s friends, associates, or family members by other inmates. Mailroom
staff opened and searched all incoming mail for contraband then delivered it to
the appropriate housing units for distribution.
The handwriting of the prison’s
address and Renie’s name looked like his mother’s. She must have written right
after court. Feeling all of the pain inside that he thought he had left behind,
tears began to flow. Inmate Stone was relieved that his celly was not there and
that he was alone. He toughened up his heart and pulled the letter from the opened
envelope. The letter read:
Dear son,
I am so sorry this awful thing
has happened to you. Just trust God and pray all you can.
Your lawyer said he will
immediately appeal your case. He probably did this since I wrote this letter. I
hope so, anyway.
I’m sending this letter through
Next-Day-Mail. Tell me what day you get it, ok?
Your sister says hello.
Love, Mama
Control announced a yard call,
so Renie decided to go out on his last free weekday before starting his job the
next morning. After cell unlock, inmates lined up for yard release and were
searched. There are basically two kinds of searches, the unclothed body search,
commonly referred to as the strip search, and the clothed body search, called
the pat down, though it is not really only patting that is done. At the hallway
exit/entrance for the yard, inmates must pass through a metal detector that
screens for any large metal objects hidden on their person or concealed in a
body cavity.
Renie walked out onto the yard
feeling the fear he felt his first day of second grade. A bully had threatened
him during the summer vacation that he would, “Beat you up, kid, when school
starts again.” After being in a state of terror almost all summer, Renie
discovered that the bully in question was a foster kid and had moved away. “His
foster parents dumped him,” a girl had informed him. “He was nothin’ but
trouble.”
"Hey, punk!" Renie
heard a familiar voice. “Over here.”
“Billy Watkins.” Renie’s inner
fear and apprehensions dissipated gradually like waves on the ocean shore’s
sand.
Inmate Stone walked over to
where Billy sat with two other guys and sat with them on the grass.
“What be happenin’? These are
friends of mine,” Billy said, introducing everyone. “Renie’s a bit of a newbie,
so we got to teach him a bit about life behind the razor wire. Those counselor
peoples ain’t got all the answers.”
Billy’s friends, Tim and Steve,
laughed and pulled off Billy’s stocking cap.
“Whoa, what happened to you?” a
wide-eyed Renie questioned, looking at his friend’s blood crusted scalp hair.
“Oh,” Billy grabbed his hat and
placed it gently back on his wounded head, giving his buddy’s an evil eye
during the process. “It’s just a little warning, that’s all.”
Tim commented, “I bet your
counselor didn’t tell you about that, huh Renie?”
The boys laughed while Renie
struggled for words, “Uh, not really.”
More laughter resulted.
Billy interrupted the fun
everyone enjoyed on his behalf and informed Renie that his razor cut warning
resulted from a late payment for something he’d purchased from another inmate.
“I paid him today, so it’s all ok now. Ain’t no thing. That’s lesson number one
for ya.”
“A lot can happen in here in a
day or two,” gasped Renie.
“Life in the fast lane, baby,”
Steve replied. “My old man used to say that all the time, just before he’d
knock me around a bit. Stupid drunk.”
“So,” Tim added, “if you tell
someone you’ll pay ‘em when you get back to your cell, you better do it.”
The group laughed again.
“Hey,” Renie exclaimed, “That’s
my celly,” pointing across the yard. “He’s supposed to be at work.”
Steve grabbed Renie’s arm and
jerked it down quickly. “Lesson number two, don’t ever point, not ever. You’ll
be branded a snitch. They cut the tongues outta snitches here. I know one kid
it already happened to. He got beat up by his celly first, transferred to
another unit where he got stabbed a bunch of times after they cut out his
tongue.”
“Ok, ok, thanks for the
warning.”
“C’mon,” Billy stood, “Let’s go
meet this guy.”
Approaching casually, the four
boys observed another youth talking with Tony Richards. A fight erupted like a
volcano between the two. The yard’s alarm sirens sounded as Tony’s foe beat him
down to the ground next to Renie.
“You got this guy, Tony, you’re
poundin’ the life out of him,” cheered Renie.
Tony glanced up at his celly and
replied, “Yeah, it sure looks like it don’t it?”
Officers piled onto the yard.
They quickly subdued, restrained and escorted Tony and the other youth away.
Every youth in the area was searched and yard for the rest of the day was
cancelled.
As the group of disappointed
youths returned to the mainline inside Tim sarcastically commented, “This
happens all the time. Maybe we’d better hit the library from now on.”
Back at Renie’s unit, Tony was
being rolled up and escorted away in belly chains and leg irons, rattling as he
walked. “Dig my bling, homie,” Tony addressed his cellmate so that
everyone in the unit could hear.
“Inmate Stone,” someone called
from behind him.
Renie turned to see three
members of the IIS inside of the floor officer’s office. The Interview and
Investigation Squad, known by inmates simply as Stooges, waited to question the
youth. Renie reluctantly entered the office. He explained that he had just
arrived, knew Tony very little and that it was the first time he had ventured
out onto the yard.
“You have no idea what the fight
was about, Inmate Stone?”
“No, sir.”
“Ok, that’s it, you can go.”
Leaving the office, Renie could
feel the eyes of the unit peering at him from every angle. Displaying a cold
hard look, he glanced around dragging his fingers across his mouth like zipping
a zipper on pants. He hoped everyone would know he had offered nothing up to
the Stooges. Time would tell.
Inside his half empty cell,
Renie felt its loneliness crouching in upon him. He wondered if he could ask
T.J. Johnson about movin’ to the lower bunk if Tony didn’t come back, but after
thinking about it he decided that might be considered disrespect, so he
abandoned the idea.
I wish this day would end, he thought. At
least tomorrow at work the day will go by quicker, I hope.
Opening up his Bible for the
first time since he arrived, Renie decided to read something. Not sure where to
read, he remembered that his mama would read from the Psalms to him when he was
a little boy. He turned to the book of Psalms and thumbed through it. So
many Psalms, so much time, he laughed to himself.
He climbed up to his bunk and
began to quietly read from a Psalm, “I waited patiently for the Lord; And He
inclined to me, And heard my cry.”
I don’t know if I have the
patience to wait to be drug out of the miry clay in this horrible pit of a
prison, or not. Lord, help me. Renie
laid down for a short nap and began to dream…
Inmate Stone, Stone, a voice
shouted in the distance. Renie stood in a thick mist surrounded by some sort of
omnipresent glowing light. You have been pardoned and released, sounded the
voice again. You will stay where you are for now, free, but confined, forgiven,
but sentenced... alive from the dead.
Startled, Renie woke up and looked around his cell.
A dream. It was one of those dreams that are so real that it takes time to feel
free from them emotionally. Renie laid back down and simply stared at the blank
empty ceiling of his cell. God help me!
Next Chapter: T.G.I.F.
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