Locked-Up

  It was not long after the episode with the tennis shoes that I was transferred. I was sent to Ventress Correctional Facility. The prison system just had started substance abuse programs (SAP) and I was in the pilot program. The program lasted 8 weeks and involved a lot of 12-step based models.I excelled in the program so much that I was asked by my counselor to give a speech at graduation. I did not know it at the time that Gov. Guy Hunt would be present at the ceremony. The governor of the great state of Alabama! I prepared my speech and on graduation day gave it with much enthusiasm. The governor even came up to me and told me what a good job I had done and he hoped I would continue my plan after my release from prison.
  After graduation, I wrote the parole board requesting a parole reduction. Remember, I was sentenced to 8 years and the normal parole was 26 months. A few weeks later I received a hearing date for 13 months. They had cut my parole in half. Cool! I stayed at Ventress a couple more months then I was transferred to Montgomery Work Release. It is a program where you get a job, a real job, and the camp gets 25% of your money. By the time I made it to MWR I had only 30 days left before my parole hearing. The camp would not let me work in the free world . so, I became the camp's maintenance man. I got in real good with the Captain and when my hearing was a couple days away the Capt. asked if I was going to my hearing. I told him that I did not know it was allowed. He told me to call my parents and tell them to come get me on the day of my hearing and he would give me an 8 hour pass to attend my parole hearing. Sounds good to me. The day finally arrived, my parents picked me up, and off to downtown Montgomery we went. I walked in the parole hearing waiting room with my parents in tow. There were several people already there, I guess they were family members of other parolee hopefuls. It is very uncommon for an inmate to attend his own hearing and you could tell by the reaction I received from the clerk. She asked my name, I told her, she asked how was I related to David, I told her that I was David. Her eyes got big as quarters, she then hustled us out a door and asked us to wait in the hall at the back of the hearing room. I looked at Mom and Dad and we just shrugged our shoulders. "I assume that this does not happen very often." my Dad said. I guess not. About an hour later we were called in before a five panel hearing board. They asked me a bunch of questions, then spoke to my parents, then asked me to step forward.
  "You understand that we cannot tell you whether are not that you made parole." the chairman told me. "But, I think you will be pleased." Two weeks later I am back at Glencoe trying to find a legal way to quiet my Demon. This is important to remember. My first trip to prison only lasted a few months at the county jail. My second trip was reduced and I only served half of what I was supposed to serve. Have you ever heard of the Habitual Offender Act? Well, the next time I am not so lucky. I get hammered. You will not believe what happens next.   theblogmeister

The Big House

  No more county jails, for me. This was my second felony and off I went to Kilby Correctional Facility. It is where everyone first goes to get classified. Psychological profiles, aids testing, and a general physical. I was pretty healthy at the time but I had hurt my wrist in a scuffle at the county before being shipped to Kilby. I was put in the thunder dorm. It got that name because there were about 500 inmates in a metal building in the middle of summer. Air conditioning? Not a chance. It was a crazy place. I saw this white dude sitting on his rack (bed) when a huge black man came up to him and picked up his new tennis shoes and started to walk away with them in his hand saying, "Thanks, white boy." I thought , oh shit, surely he is not gonna let him get away with it. The white dude said nothing. About an hour later I heard a commotion going on in the latrine and the guards were blowing their whistle, which usually means there is a fight. I made my way back there and could not get through because of the crowd. Then the white dude that got his tennis shoes stolen came by me being escorted by a guard, handcuffed. I asked around and found out the white dude waited until he caught the black dude taking a piss at the latrine. The white boy took a mop wringer and hit that black dude in the back of the head, knocking him out. He then picked him up and laid him in the latrine, took his shoes, and walked off. He got ratted on and spent a few days in administrative segregation. When the white boy got out of admin seg, nobody, I mean NOBODY, would steal dust off his bed. That was prison life. If you showed any weakness they would pounce on you.
  While I was locked-up I got a reputation for being a crazy man. I had no drugs, not for a lack of supply, and had incredibly horrifying dreams, screaming out about demons and killings. No body would mess with me. It had been 7 years since I killed the colonel and it would only get worse. A lot worse. I was sitting on my rack and the hospital runner came to me and said I needed to be at the clinic. I went to the clinic and there was 2 guys sitting there. The door opened and a name was called and this black dude to my right went in. He came out about 15 minutes later and something was obviously wrong. He looked pretty shaken. I said, "Damn, dude, are you okay?"
  "Man, I ain't never fucked with them sissies. I don't do drugs."
  I said, "What did they yell you in there?"
  "Man, I tested positive for HIV." he said
   I was shocked. I did not know what to tell him. It wasn't but a couple more minutes and the police was taking him to the aids dorm. A few minutes later the door opened and they called the black guy that was sitting to my left into the clinic. After several minutes later, the other guy came out the clinic. I knew this dude was a sissy, I was in E-dorm with him/her when we first got to Kilby. "Well, I guess I'm going to Limestone."
  "Why is that?" I asked.
  "Cause I got the ninja, but I already knew it." Here comes the police to take him/her to the aids dorm.
  Okay, I am beginning to freak out. How the hell did I get that shit? My mind  was going a hundred miles an hour. How am I gonna tell my family" What am I gonna do? What seemed like an eternity the clinic door finally opened. I walked in, with my head in my hands asking the doc what I was gonna do. He said, "What do you mean? I just want to get an x-ray of your wrist."
  "WHAT? You mean I ain't got the aids?" He paused a minute, then started laughing.
  "No, no, no, you do not have HIV." I almost hugged him. I told him that he just scared the hell out of me, I was dying of aids for a few minutes. That was a nightmare of the waking kind. But, it is only just the beginning. Hell awaits.   theblogmeister