routinely waking up at 4 a.m. while the prison sleeps. it’s as if the concrete softens when foamed in silence.
filling my clear plastic tumbler with scalding water, scooping in dusty coffee, then watching it bloom through the water. like the emotion i feel when my girlfriend laughs at my jokes.
when my buddy Kenny (whose dementia makes him unsteady as hell) suddenly buckled at the knee, i caught him just inches off the floor. in front of witnesses.
when I called my elderly mother, i honestly thought my sister had answered – so strong, steady, and wrinkle-free, her voice.
the perfectly shaped handprints on the floor of Cliff’s cell. he’s ratcheted out so many push-ups in the same spot, his palmsweat has blackstained the gray cement.
remembering how respect washed across our prison chaplain’s face her first day, when she borrowed my Bible to locate a verse and discovered my underlines, highlights, and notes covering every single page.
when I saw white dust all over the navy blue apron draped across my chest during my haircut, i thought it was baby powder, not gray hair.
i am still grateful for the tingly feeling in my belly that signals a great poem idea, though it also means i need to shit.
i love how loopy time is. despite having been in prison seventeen years, freedom feels fresh as yesterday. at the same time it feels like prison is all i’ve ever known.
the euphoria triggered by late-afternoon light. it has a mystical, dreamlike quality. rocks spew water and walls crumble at a word in light like this. it reminds me: anything is possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. George Wilkerson lives on Death Row. He is an accomplished poet and writer, co-author of Crimson Letters, and author of his very own, recently published Interface. I love to hear from him. He has a unique style, all his own. The above poem was compiled from excerpts from his gratitude journal. As he puts it, he “wanted to look for things I loved about everyday life.” As always – I love it when George sends his writing our way. To read more of his work, visit katbrodie.com/georgewilkerson/.
Mr. Wilkerson can be contacted at: George T. Wilkerson #0900281 Central Prison P.O. Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131
I never knew my father. I have long since come to terms with that, but as a young child, it crushed me. I questioned why my dad would not want to be ‘my’ dad and eventually concluded he just didn’t love me. Years later, when my own daughter was born, I held her in the delivery room and made a promise to both of us that I would never fail her the way my father failed me – never cause her to question my love. I broke that promise spectacularly when she was only four years old. I went to jail and, later, prison with a life sentence.
My broken promise put my daughter in a highly vulnerable demographic. One in forty children in this country is affected by parental incarceration, the math works out to 2.6 million kids with at least one parent in a cage. This separation afflicts children with emotional and behavioral problems, low grades in school, high dropout rates, and a higher risk of incarceration. These effects scream the importance of incarcerated parents staying connected to their kids and their lives as much as possible. But how do you do that from here?
I discovered my answer while wasting away in county jail for two years. I spent most of the time sifting through the wreckage of my former life and weighing the damage my actions caused. One of the most tormenting pieces of debris was the lost connection to my daughter. In desperation, I did the only thing available – I wrote letters to her, pouring my heart out to the little girl left behind. There were tears as I expressed sorrow for not being the father I had promised and knowing she would suffer for my mistakes; there were smiles (even laughs) as I shared some of our good memories – endless Disney movies, ad-lib bedtime stories, and epic hide-and-seek games in our home, where the actual challenge was not finding the uncontrollable giggler hiding in front of the sofa.
As the letters piled up, a family member reached out offering to receive them and, when my daughter was older, give them to her if she ever asked about me. With great difficulty, I managed to stifle my excitement. I did, however, allow a glimmer of hope in my heart that we might one day reunite.
There are prison programs that assist incarcerated fathers with connecting to their kids – Fatherhood Accountability, One Day With God, etc. These are commendable programs worth taking advantage of, but they are mere drops in the bucket. It takes so much more to develop strong, loving relationships with our children. I found that writing letters helped me. Through letters our children get to know who we are. Through writing letters, we also get to process the separation as well. Some may hesitate for fear of sounding foolish, and I struggled with this at times. But I fought through with the belief that any emotion infused in a letter will be felt when it is read. What I wrote on those pages, the good and the bad, eventually made me real to my daughter, all of my tears and smiles made an impact.
I received my daughter’s first letter seventeen years into my sentence. The very first line – the first thing she wanted to say to me after so much time – “Hey, dad, I just finished your letters and would like for us to get to know each other… again.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Geoff is 21 years into a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The inspiration for his essay was the impact his letter writing had on reconnecting with his child. That came through so clearly in the essay as well as the accompanying letter. What also came across in his letter was his excitement at expanding his writing, which gets me excited. That is what WITS is all about, and I hope Geoff continues to share his writing here. Geoff can be contacted at:
Eighteen years ago I killed two men – Brett Harmon and Kevin McCann – during an altercation while tailgating at an NC State football game. I cannot restore their lives, but I can live each day in a way that honors Brett and Kevin, that honors the sorrow their loved ones endure each day, and that honors the burden my family has been forced to carry. By living with the values of compassion, honesty, integrity, and social responsibility, my life can serve to restore brokenness rather than cause it.
Surrounded by the gray concrete walls of a jail cell, I was lost in a pit of despair – despair from the guilt of taking two lives, from forever changing everything for at least three families, from thinking my life was nothing but a disaster. The despair left me struggling to find even a glimmer of hope. Ruinous thoughts swirled – ‘I have destroyed everything.’‘My life means nothing.’ ‘It would be better if I had never been born.’ Yet, that abyss was not my grave. The words of two mothers – mine and Brett’s – have served as my muse, lifting me out of the pit of despair and inspiring me to live with purpose.
My mother leaned forward, wanting only to wrap her arms around me, but the dingy, scratched Plexiglass made contact impossible. The day after I was arrested and charged with two counts of murder was a visitation day at the Wake County jail. I crumpled against the cubicle’s side, unable to look into her tear-teeming eyes. How could I have let her down so terribly when she had sacrificed so much? Her words broke through the desire to fade into non-existence. “Look at me. Timothy, look at me.” My chin trembled as my watery eyes were forced to meet her gaze. My mother’s words then cast a lifeline to my drowning soul. “I love you. I love you, and I will never give up on you.” When I thought I was too far gone to save, her love rescued me.
A number of people testified during the sentencing phase of my trial; the words of Brett’s mother have echoed in my head since the moment she spoke them. Brett was a Marine on the verge of leading his platoon to Iraq and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. His mother shared how proud she was of him, of the man he was becoming even more than his accomplishments. Then, she acknowledged one of her regrets. “I will never again answer the phone to hear his military staccato voice, saying, ‘Hello, Mother’.” Her imitation of his cadence and greeting demonstrated her deep and painful sorrow with utmost precision, piercing my heart to its core, revealing the anguish my actions caused Brett’s and Kevin’s mothers.
Only two things can compel a person to truly change – something incredibly good or horribly bad. The merging voices of my muse grants me both. My mother’s words remind me of the blessings still in my life – the love and support of my family, the prospect of another heart’s day alive, the opportunity to positively impact the people and world around me. Les Miserables author, Victor Hugo, declared, “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” In spite of myself, in spite of disastrous mistakes, my mother communicated love and value when I was on the brink. She imparted the belief that my life could still have value. The words of Brett’s mother remind me of what I took and therefore the steep consequences of compromising on life-values. Her words motivate me to maintain course on making positive choices guided by values instead of the selfish choices that shattered lives and dreams.
When guilt and shame stir up the roiling sea of despair, when this riptide sucks me under and pulls me away from the shore, spinning and twisting, turning and rolling me, over and over, until I cannot determine which way is up or down, my two-voiced muse reveals the glimmering hope of living with compassion and social responsibility. Their words dispel the disorientation and pull me to the surface. My muse reminds me to look beyond myself, beyond circumstances, and encourage others.
There are things men, especially men in prison, do not talk about. We do not talk about pain or loneliness. We do not talk about despair. We say we are fine, when we are anything but fine. We put on an outside mask of strength, because to display weakness brings vulnerability. When we are struggling with despair, we feel utterly alone, like nobody knows our pain, our loneliness, our hopelessness. Yet we are not as alone as we think. In fact, we are not alone at all. Many of us struggle with despair but never talk about it. A person struggling with despair needs to know they are not alone, that there is hope. Someone must start the conversation.
My muse gave me the courage to start that conversation, to face the vulnerability of admitting I know the depths of despair, the practice of putting on a mask all day, saying I am fine when I am dying on the inside. I know the performance of smiling and laughing around others, but ending the day by walking in my cell, shutting the door, sliding down the wall, and sitting on the concrete slab floor, arms around my knees, head on my forearms, drained of all energy from the performance of “fine, just fine.”
By sharing my struggle, others can know they are not alone or lost in despair. They do not have to hide their pain or put on a mask. There is hope. Their lives have value and purpose. I can be for them what my muse has been for me – a source of inspiration and motivation to rise from the depths of the circumstances of my creation and sail the shimmering sea of a life of purpose.
ABOUT THE WRITER. Timothy Johnson is new to WITS, and I am glad to say he also won First Place in our recent writing contest. I don’t judge the contests, but one of the judges commented that it wasn’t just the writing that had him place so highly – it was also his expression of accountability in the first sentence. The judge that said that lives in prison. WITS is a lot of things, but at its foundation is truth. Also at the foundation is allowing readers to find their own understanding through the written experiences of the writers. I’m grateful to Mr. Johnson for sharing this, and I hope we hear from him again.
Mr. Johnson can be contacted at: Timothy Johnson #0778428 Nash Correctional Institution P.O. Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131
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Hope inside prison is a rare thing. You can always tell which people have it and which don’t. The inmates who don’t possess this precious gift are aimless. They roam, trying to find the next meaningless activity to fill time. They have a void that needs filling and anything will do: drugs, sex, cards, fighting. They’ll do whatever it takes to not think about the circumstances of their life. I know this because I used to be that person. I never engaged in fighting or drug use so it was even easier for me to ignore what I was doing and justify my behavior as a product of me being so young. In truth, I was searching. I was hurting. I was guilty and ashamed. I was overwhelmed by the pain of a 48-year-sentence. I was disgusted by what I’d done to find myself in prison. Back then I didn’t have the skills I needed to verbalize this to anyone. Nor was I even aware that I had a problem. All I knew was what I knew, and in reality that was nothing. Until one day I encountered the other group of people.
The inmates who had hope were a different breed than I had seen. Something was strange about them, and I was drawn to them. They were alive. They carried themselves in a way I wanted to. Their heads were held high, and the guards spoke to them with respect. To me they looked like they had it together. I didn’t realize at the time that what they had was hope. It just seemed like they cared a little more about what they did.
It was at this time I began taking college classes and moved into the college wing inside the prison. I suddenly found myself surrounded – by hope. It filled the eyes of the ladies I lived with. They had dreams, plans, and purpose. It was infectious. They all had jobs and told me I needed one to. Nobody had ever told me I needed to get a job inside of prison. I thought all we did was play cards and sleep. I wanted what they had, so I got a job as a tutor. I was now working and going to class and spent my free time studying. I felt myself changing. It wasn’t an overnight process, but I knew I was experiencing a transformation. Maybe I really could be like these other inmates, these adults who seemed so successful.
Unfortunately, I still didn’t have a purpose in life. I didn’t know why I was doing all of these things. What was going to keep me going? In 2017, I graduated with an Associate’s Degree and became a certified optician. I even gave the valedictorian speech, and I got a job working for the Chaplain. Certainly I was now just as successful as those women I sought to be like.
Just as I thought my life was coming together, it came crashing down. I got into a fight, and my actions landed me in segregation. I wasn’t there long – just 10 days, but to me it was forever. As I walked back to the hole with hands cuffed behind me and head hung low, a guard said something to me.
“Aren’t you the girl who works for the Chaplain?” he asked me with condemnation in his voice. All of the shame and guilt I felt before came flooding back to me. It was like I was the preacher’s kid who got locked up. During my seg stay, those words played over and over again in my head. I had disappointed so many people. I prayed. It was all I knew how to do. I begged God for another chance. I asked Him to save me, and I thanked him – and I cried and cried and cried. Then I felt His love. It filled me up, and I knew that this was what it felt like to be Saved. I became a Christian in the lowest place I could find myself.
When I got out of isolation, the Chaplain showed me forgiveness and let me keep my job. I had to work hard to earn the respect back that I had built for years. I was determined now. I had found hope in that empty cell. I knew that no matter what, God would love me. I now had a goal post, something to hold on to no matter what happened. I was different, and people started to notice. I began self evaluations and examining why my crime happened. I began working on becoming whole. I purposed myself to help others. I wrote proposals for classes. I started working with the Prison Dog Program. I wanted to give my hope to everyone.
Then, in 2019, I lost my brother to an overdose. He was my best friend, but we had been estranged since I became incarcerated. I never had the chance to make amends with him and that still haunts me. I think about myself in that moment, and what I would’ve done if I didn’t have hope. But I did have it. I took that hope and organized a recovery summit for the prison. It was days of testimonies, powerpoints, and overdose awareness.
I hope I changed at least one woman’s life in that time. Two years ago, Virginia passed a bill for people who committed their crimes as juveniles. After serving 20 years they will be eligible for parole. I was seventeen when I committed the heinous crime that took my mother’s life. This new development, compounded with the hope I had, lit a fire inside me. I can see my future even more, and it is good. It is full of change, growth, and success. I hope I can use my life to change the lives of the people who hear my story. So I write. I write to impart hope to those who have none. I write to tell the stories I see. I write to share my muse with the world.
Mostly though, I hope…
ABOUT THE WRITER. If you’ve read a lot of WITS posts, you will know – this is the first post that has ever been shared here by a female. For that alone, I couldn’t be happier. If anyone has ever wondered, we rarely recieve any submissions from women, not because we do not support them. I couldn’t be happier about this being written by a female, but I am also thrilled to have one more strong voice on WITS with a different perspective than we have ever shared. I hope that we hear from Ashleigh again. She also came in second place in our spring writing contest with this essay. Ashleigh can be contacted at:
Ashleigh Dye #1454863 Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women 144 Prison Lane Troy, VA 22974
Unfortunately, I’ve been incarcerated the majority of my adulthood, in and out of correctional facilities since the tender age of seventeen; more so in, rather than out. Although considered a late bloomer when compared to some of my felonious fellow men, none-the-less, here I am, an equally welcomed recidivist.
As a young man, the revolving ‘ins and outs’ never affected me, or apparently I was too naive to realize the effects that were in fact taking place. So what if I lost my right to vote, own a gun or leave the country, I was a ‘street n-bomb’ and jail and prison were almost a certainty, sort of an occupational hazard that came with the lifestyle.
Never once did I realize the emotional and psychological toll the continual stints of confinement were taking. I’ve spent from two weeks in jail to thirteen years and nine months straight in prison, a total of five individual trips to prison, and I’m currently serving a 7-9 year sentence. Now I’m just learning the lesson I should’ve grasped decades ago.
The cumulative amount of time that I’ve spent chained, shackled, and caged surrounded by concrete and steel has completely desensitized me in regards to common human emotion. No, I’m not professing to be some deranged psychotic killer, but things that once meant something have lost tremendous, if not all, value to me.
Birthdays have become just another day, and holidays are the worst, most boring and slowest times of the year. I dread to see them, knowing the feelings they are bound to stir. “Bah-humbug’. These are only a fraction of the losses I’ve experienced.
I’ve lost friends and family who weren’t mentally ready or mature enough to ‘ride-a-bid’ with me, but I understand now, that is an earnest request. The commitment and dedication required to stand by someone incarcerated can be emotionally taxing, not to mention someone who is repeatedly returning.
I’ve also lost family and friends to old age, ill health, accidents and the same ‘street life’ that has stolen so much of my very own life. None of this having any exceeding affect, all just casualties along the way.
During one of my short stints home, ‘on the streets’, ‘free’, I managed to create a child. But, just like every other time, Daddy was hell bent on returning to the pen.
While in the county jail, with the mother of my child alone, needy and months into her pregnancy, I pledged to my mother all the things I planned to do right if only God gave me a chance. I swore to do right by my little girl.
Now, let me preface this next part by saying, I’m a bonafide ‘mama’s boy’ and proud of it. There’s nothing I love more than my mother and nothing I wouldn’t do for her, but I just couldn’t seem to ‘keep my behind’ out of prison.
While proclaiming my new found inspiration and reason for doing things the right way – my daughter – my mom said, “Well, son, why can’t you just do it for yourself? I understand you doing it for your daughter, but you need to do it for yourself… Stay free for yourself… Love yourself.”
The words struck a chord, not simply resonating, but finding root in my mind, heart, and spirit. It was only months later when I faced my greatest fear – I lost my mother while incarcerated. I received the news while in the ‘hole’ and on my father’s birthday. Adding insult to injury, I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral nor any closed viewing. Never given the chance to say, “goodbye”, or “I love you”, or “I’m sorry.”
No matter how callous I’ve become through the years of confinement, this pain managed to penetrate my core, my soul, my very being.
Where do I now draw my inspiration to endure my hardship of incarceration? From my daughter, my mother and her words, “Do it for yourself, son.”
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”
Romans 8:18
ABOUT THE WRITER. I’m happy to say Carter came in third place in our most recent writing contest. I don’t judge the contests, but when I saw his entry, I was pulling for him in my heart. He hasn’t written much for us, but what he has shared has touched me. If you would like to contact Carter, please reach out to me directly.
it is stale breath in chow lines crammed behind vikings who haven’t showered in months
or…racial divides like lawmakers fistfights over what to watch street outlaws vs love & hip hop MAGA vs #BLM acronyms of the violence we kill to view acronyms of the society we thought we once knew
in this zoo hallways twist in a maze leading past a monkey’s cage fronted by plexiglas that displays thieves = chimps rapists = orangutans killers = gorillas broken men who fall here only to be broken again
in a pool of blood from a shank’s puncture wound seeping out like the hope left in courtrooms
yet…it can be an awakening of the spirit and soul to encounter dickinson, hughes, angelou, emerson, and bukowski then to mimic them in my own gravely voice rubbed hoarse by decades of silent activism in my cell with a pen as a shovel digging me out of this hell
while staring at her face across the visitation table i repeat her question but more as a question to myself
i muse…before asking… what is prison really like?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Phillip Smith is an accomplished writer, across many genres. He is a student, an advocate, author of NC HB 697, editor of The Nash News, and we love to see him here. His accomplishments are extensive, and he has no intention of slowing down. I am grateful to be able to share his work.
Mr. Smith can be contacted at: Phillip Vance Smith, II #0643656 Nash Correctional Institution P.O. Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131
People are surprisingly hard to kill despite how fragile we are as human beings, and the fact that I was unfortunate enough to do so at the age of thirteen was horribly stunning. There were no bullets or knives. No bombs, or weapons employed of any kind. However, his blood is on my hands. The shame and the fault are mine. I’ll take them to my grave.
Willie Lee Lacey was a man who’d worn many hats in his short sixty-six years of life, lived many lives. At six years old he became a cattle rancher when his father told him to bring him a calf. It took little Willie all day, but with his brothers watching, he got it done – without a rope. He was a soldier in the U.S. Army in WWII, and fought overseas. “Not much different from living in the south as a black man,” he used to say. “Once you’ve seen your brother burned and hung as people from miles around party under his body, it’s all the same.” “Don’t ever volunteer!”
He was the father of six children who loved him, all by one woman who he abused. Not all of the hats he wore were pretty. He came home one day to find everyone and everything gone. A house, where once a home had stood. They never came back despite his efforts.
A part time Mr. Fix It and pimp, he once, as word had it, pulled a wooden plank from a six foot fence to beat a whore called ‘Classy May’. Brutal, tough and loved, Willie was also my grandpa.
He carried a huge folding buck knife, smoked a collection of pipes and rarely ever spoke. It was as if God had given him a sack full of words, and he was just about out of them.
His woman’s name was Beaulah Charle Moore, a five foot dynamo with all the sass and pop that the fates could fit into such a small space. She cooked everything from scratch. That was the Belzona, Mississippi, in her blood. She drove as if her name was Jeff Gorden just three points out of the lead, and had a name for all nine of her wigs! That woman could peel the bark from a man at twenty yards, just talking.
To see the rendering of people’s lives, their experiences, passions, defeats, their regrets, calls for a vision that I didn’t own as a thirteen year old. I also didn’t know that when people love you, they give you a part of their souls. I didn’t know what I had, to respect it, that I was standing on sacred ground. I was a simple kid who wanted to be somewhere and someone other than where and who I was, only to find that when I got there and put on those clothes, that it was cheaper to just be me. But who the hell was that – I? Foolish.
My grandparents lived 1½ blocks away from the beach in paradise – Pismo Beach, California – one of three black families within a thirty mile radius. It was as far away from Watts, California, or Compton, California, in every way and as on many levels, as it could be, only find a military base and you’ll find a black community. Close that base and we move on, like the Romany gypsies. But grandpa had anchored himself with a job in the city’s parks and recreation department. At sixty and with little education, it was far from ideal. However, after twenty-five years of service, he was forced to retire at the age of sixty-three, a legend in the area.
However deep the scars of life ran in the man, he seemed to have found a measure of peace, a way of shifting into a position that didn’t stress him to the point of snapping, with all but one of those searing brands – that being the murder of my mother, his daughter. I imagine that he saw my sister and I coming to live with him as a second bite into the apple of her life. A chance to rectify a measure of his pain, and close the wound by sacrificing for her children. A connection denied to the two of them in her lifetime. But hope blinds us to the fact that patches are but scars, and that new, only means that it’s new to us.
A murder in a family freezes people in a photograph of their pain. To toss away the photo and move on is to forget – to say that my love for you is too heavy. I must lay it down here so that I can survive. For some it’s doable, for other families… not so much.
I was just hitting my teens at the time, however, I had a full mustache like Carl Weathers, and I passed for much older if I didn’t smile. Once, while with my step-mom, the clerk asked me if it would be cash or credit?! I could buy beer, get into adult clubs – and adult trouble. About that time I also found I could charm (lie) the panties off an adult woman. Game over! You couldn’t tell me anything!
I’d stay gone for weeks. I hustled my way to an Interceptor 1100 motorcycle and could be found anywhere from the bay area to LA at thirteen years old. Fearless? No, too dumb to be afraid!
My G-pops would be out looking for me with tears in his heart, anger and confusion clouding his vision, embarrassed by my actions, yet trying.
I’d eventually slink home, and he’d put it on me something tough, trying to make me fear him more than I loved running the streets. My batteries spent, drained, out of love and respect, I’d take it. I had no other options, not in my mind at the time.
Okay – brass tacks, as they say. Women and girls have sway in the hearts and minds of men and boys. Facts! It’s how grown men find themselves dressed as princesses in wigs and full make-up, voguing like they are a star on AMC’s ‘Pose’. It’s how women find themselves giving their all to a man with zero ROI (return on investment). I was no longer at the wheel, but rather being driven physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually. Gone!
I came home that last time to find my grandpa had suffered a heart attack and a mild stroke. Bea also told me that all of his children were in town, and had been riding around looking for me, that my bags were packed and in the trunk of their car, and that currently they were all at the hospital, simply waiting on my return to hit the highway. My family was putting their foot down. Hard!
I showed up in the hospital room and Willie was sitting up smiling and laughing with all of his children, save mom. I hadn’t seen my aunts and uncles in years. They’d come together for the first time since my mother’s death to defend their father. But when they looked up and saw me, every face fell, my grandpa’s crumbling into tears as he pointed at me, stammering through his grief, “I tried to -”
“Just go!” they all yelled repeatedly at me. “You’re killing him DeLaine! You’re killing him!”
It was as if my mother had died all over again for him in that moment. If she had ever touched your life, you would know you could find her in my eyes. I’d ruined far more than a moment for them. Oddly, I never saw myself as a cause of so much pain, and I had never felt more alone, guilty, or so much shame in my young life.
Willie Lee Lacey would pass away eighty-three days later, asleep on the couch, at the age of sixty-six. We would never speak again. Every time someone spoke my name he’d cry. I was never able to apologize, or heal his heart.
It’s crazy the things you learn about yourself after the use for the information has seemingly passed. We all want and need to be loved, but to do so is to be trusted by another’s heart. It’s not the love you give that breaks your heart, it’s what you do with the love that you take – are given. It’s in that space that you make or break those you love, even unto yourself.
Now, I seek to invest in people through conversations that will last a lifetime, and I dedicate my pen to all of my mother’s people. I do this hoping I can give something I never recognized in my life, so that they will know it when they see it – hope. Give yourself a chance to win by not giving up now.
Always me… DeLaine Jones
ABOUT THE WRITER. What can I say? I LOVE DeLaine’s writing. There has not been one thing he has sent me that I have not used. He tells his stories in such a charming and honest fashion, I open his envelopes with confident expectation.
Mr. Jones has served over three decades for a crime he committed when he was seventeen years old, a juvenile. He can be contacted at:
DeLaine Jones #7623482 Snake River Correctional Institution 777 Stanton Blvd Ontario, Oregon 97914-8335
I felt alone today, by myself in a great big world, my mind and heart yearning for a familiar closeness that just wasn’t there.
I guess for the first time I faced the gravity of my reality. I am, in fact, alone, by myself, detached from the world at large – a barren island of sorts, surrounded by a sea of destitution and braving a storm of bereavement… all alone.
As do most, I too took for granted having a place of refuge amid adversity, finding truth in that bitter sentiment – ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until its gone’.
At one point in time, no matter where or what I faced, there was a place I could find solace and security, a harmonic vibration, a channel I could tune in that reassured comfort, confidence and completeness. It was a source of strength that superseded all anxiety, fortified fortitude and boosted morale.
My quiet place silenced the chaotic chatter, providing a sense of still, and the much needed presence of peace. A stronghold, shielding against every advancement of the adversary, the cornerstone of an unwavering foundation.
Loving arms, listening ears, and a well of wisdom that shone like a beacon of light; giving guidance along my journey. If I veered off course or found myself lost and astray, that same light beckoned, correcting any misdirection. It was a luminous love that calmed every raging water, gently guiding me home.
No matter the distance, if I called, she’d come. Despite the odds, she stood tall, head high and proud… that I was her son. My mothership has sailed, leaving me behind… alone… by myself… another prisoner of time.
ABOUT THE WRITER. This is the first piece I have posted by Carter Cooper. WITS writers are all special and unique, and when I get a submission from someone new who has that ‘something’ it reminds me, once again, why we are here. I saved this for Mother’s Day. I look forward to seeing more from Mr. Cooper. If you would like to contact him, please reach out to me directly.
There’s a song I remember from years ago – “Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone”. No truer words…
Before I got sick, I lost two of my best friends. One, I’ll call him ‘The Mouseketeer’, to gall bladder disease and the other to my own selfish, egocentric stupidity. That one comes into view every once in a while, keeping their perfect distance but close enough to throw me a lifeline if I need one.
So, when I got sick in March of 2020, I had all but given up. I was drowning in a sea of self-pity. I had let my health deteriorate to a point that the smallest medical problem became one that could end my 60 year run. I had almost 50 pounds of water weight, and fluid had accumulated in my body to the point that the slightest scratch or infection could kill me. I’d had bouts of cellulites for the previous 12 years.
I lost my great toe on my right foot due to staph infection, and I caught Covid 19 coming back from the hospital. It felt like I had a really bad case of the flu – runny nose, fever, night sweats, cough, upset stomach. I survived it though.
Four months later, I contracted it again. This time it was different. It stopped me, I couldn’t breathe. TDCJ had to life flight me to a hospital half a state away.
As I lay in my hospital bed, I encountered a nurse who explained to me that they were going to have to ‘tube me’ so I could breathe – my oxygen level was around 60-70%. I was drowning above water. She told me not to worry, that she would be there when I woke up.
Ten days later, when I regained consciousness she was there by my bedside, holding my hand. I was strapped to a hospital bed with IV tubes and monitors sticking in me and on me, but I noticed her eyes were full of tears.
“We didn’t think you were going to make it. I promised you I’d be here when you came to, so here I am.”
She even hugged me. She brought me ice water and juice for the next five days. I’ve run into these angels in white over the years. They are few and far between in here, but they exist.
While I was ‘out’, I dreamed of my dad, my friends and my family – bittersweet memories brought to life by my subconscious mind. This two-year, hard journey has brought me to this page. Hope.
Despair isn’t the opposite of hope, it’s the conviction that hope doesn’t exist, and that it will never return in the future. That’s where I was before.
I’ve since lost 52 pounds of fluid. My blood sugar is now between 90-120, never above 200. I’m in a wheelchair still because I can’t maintain my balance enough to walk – yet. But I will. And if a higher power wills it, I’ll get another opportunity to show the world that I’m a force of good and not bad.
ABOUT THE WRITER. John Green has been a frequent contributor to WITS, and he is also author of Life Between The Bars, a unique and heartwarming memoir described by Terry LeClerc, “This book is so good because each chapter is short, has a point, doesn’t whine. It’s an excellent book.”
John can be contacted at: John Green #671771 Jester III Unit 14-18 3 Jester Road Richmond, Texas 77406
A lot has changed since I first arrived on Texas’ nefarious death row. I’ve met a lot of guys over the years, and many seem like decent men. They even gave me a nickname – Louisiana. The name was more about keeping the peace than seeking a new identity. Texas folks, inmates and officers, have a difficult time pronouncing my last name, which was irritating me ‘cause I assumed they were doing it out of ignorance and not because they couldn’t pronounce a name they had never heard before.
Some tried to say it like ’ma’am’ followed by ‘ooouuu’ or other variations. Then there was one redneck officer who called me ‘Moe-Moe’. I ignored him and wouldn’t answer. The convict population within Texas’ death row saw this would become a future altercation, so they simply agreed to call me Louisiana since that’s the state I was from. I settled with it.
I wasn’t the only guy with a nickname. Everyone seemed to have one. There was a Spanish guy named Casper (the ghost). There was a guy named Soultrain. There was a Youngblood and other names like, Freaky Frank, Oso Bear, Juke-box, Icy Red, Cash, B-Down, South Park, Third Ward, Sunshine (which he quickly changed to Youngsta), and on and on the list went. There was even a Ms. Good Pussy. And then there was Mookie.
I was still fighting off depression at the time, though I had become a little more optimistic. My mother had written me a powerful, religion-laced letter, and though I didn’t follow her instructions for praying to Mother Mary, Saint Peter, Saint Paul or any of the other Catholic saintly crew, I did however reread the line she wrote saying, “Talked to the lawyers today, and they told me in five years the system will correct the mistake they made and bring you back home…”
Five years? Granted, I didn’t want to hear that, at the time it seemed like a life sentence, but it did give me something to focus on. I mean, that was still 1,725 days away, but at least I had a benchmark to look to. That’s what I needed to keep hope alive.
I was allowed to go to group recreation which was a huge stress reliever. Just to be able to play basketball with other guys, bodies banging against other bodies, having locker room talk about ex-lovers. We were able to watch TV, Family Matters or ESPN, or play chess or dominoes at the tables back then. Camaraderie. I miss it.
The first day I was allowed to join the others in group recreation, I was the last one to be escorted out. I immediately went through the process of matching guys with voices I had heard from my cell. Okay, that’s Casper. That’s J-Dubb. On and on it went. Guys came up to me and introduced themselves, but there was one guy that stood out. He was standing alone, arms folded, wrapped around himself. He was dark and handsome and stood a little over six foot tall. ‘That’s gotta be Mookie’, I thought. Everything I had assumed about him was wrong. I introduced myself, and our first meeting was very brief.
Days later I read about him in the newspaper. He had an upcoming execution date. Impregnated with the declaration my mother once made about my future, “Chucky will be a preacher one day,” I felt as if I was a shepherd and needed to tell my flock to follow me. I wrote Mookie a brief note, telling him to renounce his sin so he could enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You never know what kind of response you will get when you try to force your ideologies upon another, but I felt I had a duty to save this man’s soul.
He accepted my note, read it and told me he would get back with me later. Since his execution date was days away, he was allowed to spend commissary money on anything he wanted. He chose to buy everyone a pint of ice cream, which we all enjoyed and appreciated. Then he wrote me back, four pages, on yellow stationary. His handwriting was neat and artistic. He told me a parable.
The story was about a father and son. The son was asked to carry a pot full of water to a nearby town. What the boy didn’t know was that there was a hole in the pot, and by the time he arrived at his destination, all the water was lost. The boy was distraught, thinking he had let his father down, but his father told him not to blame himself. The two rewalked the path, and to the son’s amazement his father pointed out the beautiful flowers that grew along the side of the road where the water had been ‘wasted’.
Mookie went on to explain the story’s meaning. He taught me that I was in no position to judge any other, for I was not God. He taught me that every creation has its flaws, we all make mistakes. Some get public attention. Some don’t. Some people get caught. Some don’t. None of us are any better than the next. Mookie humbled me. He was executed/murdered days later.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Charles “Chucky” Mamou is a long-time writer for WITS. He has also been the subject of WITS’ in depth look at how cases are sometimes mishandled.
Over the years, we have shared here how evidence was clearly kept from the defense in a death penalty case, information was manipulated and truth put on the back burner. For example, among a number of questionable actions taken in Mamou’s case, the prosecution was aware that physical evidence was collected from the victim and not only knew, but had the evidence processed. Mamou had no idea that physical evidence existed and exists – until it was recently located by an advocate. Yet, Charles Mamou is waiting to be executed and out of appeals. If you or I were to have knowledge of physical evidence and have it tested, not sharing that information with the opposing party, that would be an issue for the Courts. Why is this not an issue? You can read more about Mamou’s case and sign a letter requesting an investigation – please add your name to his petition.
Charles Mamou can be contacted at: Charles Mamou #999333 Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53 3872 South FM 350 Livingston, TX 77351
