Category Archives: Views From The Inside

Juvenile Justice, Views From The Inside

The World?!

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“We are all that we’ve got!  If I don’t do for you, who else will?  The world?  They wouldn’t piss down your throat if your guts were on fire!” 

Those were words my normally silent maternal grandmother lived by.    I’ve oft sat in my cell and wondered at the cruelty – the experiences – she must have endured.  What had been done to that sweet southern girl to bring such a harsh reality?  And had those deeds matriculated into the truths that colored my thoughts and actions, the reality of my life thus far?  If you are what you eat – how about what you’re fed?

My grandmother didn’t give birth to my uncles Benni and Squeaky (Victor and Richard, respectfully), but she raised, loved, fed, nursed, and fought for them, just as she did her own.  They slept in the same beds, bathed in the same tubs, were hugged by the same arms, but I imagine it was tough for them.  Their birth mom was a heroin addict who couldn’t care for them but for her addiction.  Their father was the father of five of my grandmother’s eleven children.

Now, my Uncle Benni was slightly ‘swish’ in his gayness.  He was called ‘Benni’ after the classic Sir Elton John song, Bennie and the Jets.  Growing up, he was more apt to be found with his sisters doing each other’s hair rather than running with his brothers.  It was braids, barrettes, and clothes verses bats, balls and the hustle of the streets with brothers who clowned, taunted, jeered, and refused to show love.

“We are all that we’ve got!”

I always loved my Unc.  Yeah, he was gay, a bad thing from the way it was thrown in his face, but I didn’t know what that was.  All I knew was that he loved us and paid attention to us.  I remember once seeing the flash of anger in his eyes upon realizing we hadn’t been anywhere since the last time we saw him – five and a half months earlier.

He grabbed a newspaper and in a flurry of ironing, braiding, and cocoa butter, we were off on some adventure – the movies, a radio sponsored jam session in a far away park, the carnival, the swap meet.  Hot lines, jojo fries, cold cream sodas!

I was still just a short stack when my lil’ sister and I heard the knock at the front door at 2 a.m. one night.  We were still young enough to share a bed.  Then we heard the familiar voice that had us out of that bed in a flash!  Looking in the window, my Uncle Benni told us to open the door.  Seeing him through the window, we didn’t bother to turn on the lights in our excitement, and when we opened the door, there was snow on the ground and the air was sharp.   My grandmother sharply asked who we’d let in her house at that hour, and Unc answered to keep us out of trouble.

“It’s just Benni, Mommy, I lost my key,” he slurred by way of explanation.

We didn’t care that he was drunk.  He often came home that way. Benni’s lifestyle saw him in a lot of bars and gay clubs.  He was a performer.  He used to dress up like Diana Ross and sing in shows.  Us kids had found photos in the single bag that he kept in an upstairs closet as if it were his refusal to give up on a people who didn’t really want him around – not the gay version.

So, he lived his life mostly apart from us.  We had no idea where or how he lived, other than the shows, no idea who his friends or loves were.  We just knew he could vogue and dance his ass off.

“If we don’t do for each other, who else will?”

My sister and I took him by the hands and guided him up the stairs in the dark, where he changed into his floral muumuu and climbed into our bed.  Just as he’d shown up without warning, Unc often left in the same fashion, so we always wanted to keep him close.  The rank alcohol smell was a price we’d pay, willingly just to keep the magic of him near.

But when the two of us climbed into bed next to his already sleeping form, it was wet!  Was he so drunk he’d peed the bed?!  Finally, we turned on the lights in the room and were greeted by the horror of blood!  There were pools of it where he’d stood and sat, hand prints on walls and dressers where he’d braced himself.  Blood pooled around his still body and made the thin gown stick to his slender frame.

We tried to wake him, but he was far beyond our childish ability to help or revive him.  We didn’t know what it was to be gay, or why it was bad, but we’d seen people die before.  Uncle Benni was dying.

“The world!?  The world don’t give a damn about you.  They wouldn’t piss down your throat if your guts were on fire!”

It seems that two guys accosted him outside of a gay bar with large knives, thinking that intoxication and queer equaled soft, easy money.  They call it ‘rolling fags’.  They were wrong.  Benni still had a bloody bottle opener in his pocket and a blood soaked wad of cash, two hundred and eighty some odd dollars.   You see, he’d promised my sister and I that he’d take us to the carnival on the waterfront and didn’t want to let us down.

He came home from the hospital with bandages everywhere and more than three hundred stitches.  My grandmother had his brothers place him on a couch she’d made up for him in the living room.  She walked him to the bath when he needed, changed his bandages, and took care of him like he was who he was – her child. 

My other uncles were proud of him, and I noticed that their jokes included him after that.  Things had changed.  The rest of the family could see that there was more – a lot more – than being gay to the loved one lying on the couch all cut up.  It’s a shame he had to be cut open that bad for them to see what was inside, how special he was to us.

Victor ‘Benni’ Deloney would pass away in his sleep from pneumonia in a room full of family and friends, none of which ever knew him.  I got this time and never got the chance to say good-bye.  I have no idea just where his spirit is today, but I promise that he’s putting on one hell of a show.

I also have no idea why we, with all our flaws, sins and contradictions, are so quick to place conditions and labels on those we set out to love, as though who someone else is constitutes an attack on us.  My glory and my sins are my own.

I don’t think my uncle Benni was looking for agreement when he would stay away for so long, alone in the world.  I remember the force of his smile on that couch.  He loved his family who loved him back, at least on that day.  No, I think he stayed away looking for clan, kin, la familia.  He tramped home on that cold winter’s night so he could die among his people because we were all he had.  I was happy we could all be there for him.  If not us, then who?   I just hope we were enough, that he knew he was more than that for my sister and me. 

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Mr. Jones has never sent in anything I didn’t truly love, his talent evident in everything he writes. I hope he compiles all of his memories into a book one day – I would buy it. He paints pictures with his words, sharing his life like an open book. I always look forward to the next piece of mail with his name on it .

Mr. Jones has served 32 years for a crime he committed when he was seventeen years old, a juvenile. He can be contacted at:

DeLaine Jones #7623482
82911 Beach Access Road
Umatilla, OR 97882

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Views From The Inside

“Them”

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I first realized I was the enemy of society when I was a homeless child sleeping on the roofs of steaming laundromats and eating the abundant variety of food thrown in business dumpsters.  It was before grocery stores defeated the homeless by installing trash compactors we couldn’t access.

I was homeless by choice. I’d been offered the hospitality of 30-40 foster homes which I impolitely declined, running loose until the courts gave up and legally emancipated me at age 16.  It’s possible one of those foster homes I escaped from would’ve provided me with security, nurtured me, possibly even loved me, but I refused to gamble.  I despised authority, saw it as a disease that transmutated ordinary people into monsters.  Four decades later, rotting in a former slave state prison for a crime I did not commit, my opinion about authority hasn’t improved much.

Before I reached age 14, I had been assaulted three times by police officers, once so severely it took more than a week in the hospital to recover.  They hurt me not because of criminal acts, but ostensibly because I lacked respect.  Yet the truth is, my irreverence didn’t provoke them nearly as much as my disparity.  I belonged to a different tribe, and I was a powerless divergent unable to retaliate. The establishment has always victimized people without status or property; they were the proverbial ‘us’, and I was ‘them’ – enemies from the dawn of mankind.

When I grew up, I almost joined their number, not as a cop but as a patriot.  I never did get good at following rules though, and it wasn’t long before my military career ended.  Once again I was delegated to one of ‘them’, a disenfranchised human of no money or status, who lacked the hive worker skills necessary to acquire any.

I was a drifter, drove a clunker, and had long hair; each a crime in itself.  Like diverse strangers everywhere – racial minorities, homosexuals, the homeless – I became a target for police.  In a southern town where disparity was the ultimate sin, I was jailed. 

Attorney General, Janet Reno said, “Justice is available only to those who can afford lawyers.”  How right she was.  I would’ve fared so much better if I had been wealthy and guilty rather than poor and innocent.  Or I could’ve at least saved my life if I had capitulated to the politically ambitious prosecutor and accepted his five year easy conviction plea deal.  Instead I demanded a trial by my ‘peers’, and they sentenced me to die in a plantation penitentiary.

If I thought poverty and diversity made me less than human, I soon discovered there is absolutely nothing lower than a prisoner.  Even lab monkeys have more enforceable rights to humane treatment than prisoners.  We have less prestige than all the unarmed black men, homosexuals and homeless put together.

Just a few months before George Floyd was murdered and set off international protests, prison guards went into the cage above mine and beat a naked old man named Frank Digges to death.  There were, of course, no protests.  I’m betting you’ve never heard of him even though his murder and a gruesome photo of spinal fluid leaking down his face was published in a major newspaper, The Houston Chronicle.

Why haven’t you heard of Frank Digges and all the other prisoners tortured and murdered?  Because society at large doesn’t care, and the media knows it – and the perpetrators know it.  We’re the ultimate ‘them’, viewed much like the native Americans with valuable land, the plantation slaves, and the marginalized that society doesn’t even acknowledge as human.

Given human nature, it seems impossible concepts like social justice or its sibling, criminal justice, will ever truly exist.  Our tribal instinct is so strong that even small children cruelly attack a child who is different.  History is full of powerful groups committing atrocities against weaker groups.  One could argue that’s all history is.  Family, race, religion, nationality… we all belong to a tribe, and we’re all guilty of injustice to some degree, but the greater tragedy is how easily we rationalize our evil.

I will likely die in a cage for the crime of being ‘them’, but I still think social empathy and justice are possible. It won’t be accomplished by appealing to groups because groups naturally set themselves above and apart from outsiders.  But as individuals, I think we’re all capable of walking in other people’s shoes, inspired by someone’s story.  Stories allow us to see strangers as humans.  So I write, not just to have my story heard, but the stories and voices of thousand of prisoners, many of whom are functionally illiterate and have no voice of their own. 

ABOUT THE WRITER.  I love this piece. John Adams put into words our purpose in such an eloquent way, although it was not his intention. His writing is always honest, open and a true pleasure to work with and share. He is not only an amazing writer, he keeps me on my toes, always making me review the way I present topics. John Adams has served twenty-five years of a life sentence and maintains his innocence. He can be contacted at:

John Adams #768543
810 FM 2821
Huntsville, TX 77349

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Views From The Inside

My Shoes

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Born and raised one of three kids by a single mom in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I struggled with who I was and tried to fit in with everybody just to feel normal, telling myself things would get better in time. Growing up, we were on welfare, struggling to live off food stamps and waiting on the third of the month to come to get money off our Bridge card.  I had no father to turn to, or anyone to show me how to be a man.  I adapted, and became a part of the streets around me.

I would come home from school to no lights and no food in the house, boiling water just to take a bath.  I started to stay in the streets to escape the pain of growing up in poverty and avoid watching my mother struggle.  At night I would walk down the street pulling car doors to find a safe place to sleep, praying to God nobody came to the car.  I would go days without meals and instead of returning home to struggle, I would go into stores and steal candy bars to survive.  It eventually led to depression and wanting someone to notice me.  I became a follower and before I could stop the ball from going downhill, I was in juvenile detention, praying for a blessing and direction but never really knowing if God could hear me. 

I wanted more out of life and thought I had to be like everybody else to get it.  I kept getting in trouble so the state stepped in, removed me from my mother and sent me to a foster home.  As soon as I got inside the home I could tell my foster family had only taken me in for the money, and the first chance I got, I left.  A few days later I was back in juvenile.  

That was the first time I experienced depression.  Locked in my cell, I stared at the walls with nothing but a big window and a yoga mat to sleep on.  Months later, I was released to a white foster family.  I didn’t mind, but after a week I just felt like the odd person at the table and nobody tried to make me feel comfortable.  So I left.  When I was released I was on lifetime probation, so when I violated I was sent to boot camp. 

After completing the program, my life was on track when my P.O. came and tried to send me to a halfway house.  That was the first time I noticed the system was treating me differently than the white kids I hung with.  We were all on the same path and case, but I would get months and they would get days.  At seventeen years, I was sent to prison for one year and released.  I was so proud of myself for not drowning myself in weed or liquor. 

And then came prison. I was walking with two dudes, and one of them decided to take someone’s headphones.  I got charged with armed robbery, and at trial, I was found guilty of aiding and abetting, which basically means the same charge as the armed robbery.  My case, #319320, gave me fifteen to thirty years in MDOC. 

I couldn’t believe I was being punished with at least fifteen years of my life, not for being involved in the crime, but for being around when it happened.  In 2012 I came to prison not knowing what to expect, and praying everything would be okay.  When I took my first steps on the prison yard I realized it was going to be a hard fifteen years.  Everybody looked at me like they were lions and I was the prey.   I ended up getting into one fight after the other until somebody finally said to leave me alone, and I was sent to the hole for fighting – twenty three hour lockdown in a cell with nothing but brick walls, a toilet and sink.  I was kept there for six months for defending myself. 

It was there I first wondered if anyone would miss me if I killed myself.  I also decided I couldn’t let this system win.  I was going to do everything I could to show the world nobody’s perfect, and change is possible.  I started taking programs and reading business books, trying to learn something every day.  It has been nine years of pain and struggle, but I like the man I’ve become.  My goal is to now help people caught up in this system, people the world has given up on.   

ABOUT THE WRITER. Mr. Nero is new to writing for WITS, and what stood out most about his writing was its sincerity. His writing makes you feel like you know him, as he shares a glimpse of his life with readers. That is not easy to do. I look forward to hearing more about him. Tevin Nero can be contacted at:
Tevin Nero #792000
Alger Correctional Faccility
N6141 Industrial Park Drive
Munising, MI 49862

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Sentenced to Death, Terry Robinson, Views From The Inside

Coping With Conviction

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He stormed on to Death Row with his fists balled tight, a sneer on his face that was either a challenge or a deterrent.  His wavy hair was spinning, too well-kept to have just fought someone, so if he wasn’t in trouble, then he must be looking for it.  ‘Who the hell comes through the doors on Death Row inviting conflict with hardened killers?’ I thought.  Not me.  I arrived on Death Row the day before, and I was trying to go unnoticed.  He was trouble alright, with his tattooed neck and gangster lean as he slung his sack of property on the top bunk with a thud.  Young.  Unruly.  Someone to avoid.  My judgment of him was just getting started when, unexpectedly, he turned and offered me a cigarette.

That was how I first came to know Eric Queen, it was upon our arrival on Death Row.  Two young men trying to wrap our heads around the most terrifying thing to happen to a person.  At least, that’s what receiving the death penalty was for me.  Eric seemed too mad to give a damn, an anger that burned without direction.  I should’ve been just as mad since I was there without cause.  I’d taken a beating to my reputation at trial court with the lies and accusations.  Maybe I thought playing nice would earn me a reprieve, when the truth was, I could have used some of Eric’s anger.

We bonded over Newport cigarettes, shared adversity and the recent events that brought us to Death Row.  As the menthol smoke spewed from our lungs and dissipated into nothingness, so too did the intensity ease from Eric’s face.  What I once thought was an unruly, trouble-making thug was really a harmless-looking average guy.  Harmless with the potential to be lethal, like a steel trap that lies rusting idly away over time as long as nobody comes fucking with it.  His brown eyes gleamed with the curiosity of someone eager to learn.  His skin was the color of sunset at the end of a blistering day.  A man in his early twenties, his youthful facial features were likely to require proof of I.D., with a gap-tooth smile that he sported with such confidence it left him on the right side of handsome. 

He said he preferred to be called E-Boogie.  Funny.  He didn’t seem like the dancing type.  He bobbed when he walked, his arm like a pendulum swaying ridiculously side-to-side with each step, but that appeared to be the extent of his rhythm.  Still, it occurred to me that almost every black person on Death Row went by a nickname.  Bedrock.  Yard Dog.  Napalm.  Dreadz.  There was even an Insane.  I thought to get me one since the name ‘Terry’ was in no way as intimidating as Insane.  That was the night I became known as Eye-G and E-Boogie and I first shook hands. 

In the days and weeks to come, E-Boogie and I grew to know more about each other.  I considered my own story as boring as a silent film, but his was action-packed.  He told me about being a military brat, though I must say it sounded more like a confession. The packing up and leaving friends, always the new guy at school, the unstableness of it all.  I couldn’t pretend to know the struggles of life on the base, so I mostly listened.  Many of his tales lasted about as long as a punch line, then he was on to the next.  It was only when he reached his experiences with gangs that he spoke at length.  The only thing I knew about gangs was that I didn’t want to know about gangs but without it I could never fully come to know and understand E-Boogie.

Out of tolerating our differences, we found we had many things in common. We played basketball together every day, usually on the same team, but we both had a competitive spirit so rivalry was in the air.  Our love for music kept us up at night listening to rap songs and debating which hiphop artist was better.  Sometimes it was an all day affair at the poker table, cheating our asses off with hand signals only to walk away with a few pennies to show.  We liked the same movies, ate the same foods and drank about the same amount of prison hooch before staggering to our bunks and crashing for the night.  Every day spent with Eric was taxing yet we woke up and did it all over again as our shenanigans kept the adverse conditions of Death Row at bay and staved off the awaiting pain.

Our coping with conviction did not come without dissent from the other inmates. Some thought that our rowdiness violated their personal space.  It kind of did, but it wasn’t intentional.  Prison strips a person of almost every dignity, every liberty you could think of until all you have is an incredible sense of personal space.  It’s all bullshit when even our personal space belongs to the state, yet it’s the only thing left for us to claim in this world in order to say we’re still here.  No one understood that more than me.  Hell, I was holding on to something too.  While they were griping about personal space, I was fighting to keep my sanity.  Even E-Boogie and all his thug moodiness would not deliberately infringe on someone’s personal space.  Yeah… he was mad as hell at times, but I think it was more at himself.  His and my antics were simply that – antics to distract from the chaos of having a death sentence.  It was hard to accept the reality that my life as I knew it was over. 

Nothing good lasts forever.  That’s the motto of Death Row.  We’d gone a few months fending off the misery and picking each other’s spirits up.  Maybe we had no right to be enjoying ourselves while Death Row was grinding away at the minds of those around us.  Well, E-Boogie and I would both learn that the misery was infallible and friendships were bound to suffer.  It started one day with a dispute between he and I over something so petty I can’t remember.  The exchange got heated.  We both were talking shit.  Suddenly E-Boogie called me out to fight.  We argued over something so frivolous I believed he wasn’t serious.  I walked up to him, looked him in the eyes – and he punched me in the face.  I was so shocked, my breath caught in my chest and my heart sunk with betrayal.  Eric, the person I relied on the most, had violated my personal space.  The fight that ensued wasn’t much of a fight at all, rather a bunch of grappling to try and salvage our friendship.  Before the day was over, we were back in each other’s good graces… but something between us had changed.

Afterwards we explored other friendships while maintaining a strained connection.  We still got together and did all the things we enjoyed, but when it was over we’d go our separate ways.  Eric made friends with a few people whose company I did not care for.  Even from a distance, I could see his mood darkening to a point where I was overly concerned.  He started getting into fights, in fact, he and I would go another round.  It wasn’t anything our friendship couldn’t survive, but it wedged us further apart.  One day we watched Eric’s sister, Kanetra, play college basketball before the nation on TV.  After the game he went to his cell and closed the door, proud and isolated for two days. 

On a few occasions he and I got together and talked like old times.  I hadn’t realized how much I missed him.  At the time, I wasn’t doing all that great in coping with Death Row, but Eric seemed to be doing a lot worse.  I promised myself I would be there for him more, the way he was there for me.

Eric opted out of the annual basketball tournament, which left everybody on Death Row like… “What?”   He was a top player.  He upped everybody’s game.  The tournament wouldn’t be the same without him.  He did, however, coach that year.  I was chosen to play on his team and man – we butted heads all season.  I didn’t expect favoritism, I was too proud for that.  I earned my spot on the team.  In the end, we lost terribly in the elimination round, and I didn’t speak to Eric for over a week.  Now, I wish I had.

I was at the card table that day when the announcement came over the PA system. 

“Lockdown.  Lockdown.  All inmates report to your assigned cell.  Lockdown.  Report to your cells now.”

It was 5:00 p.m.  We hadn’t gone to dinner yet.  What the hell was going on?  We packed up the poker chips and headed to our rooms.  My biggest concern was winning my money back.  The chatter started behind the doors.  Speculation mostly.  A fight broke out downstairs.  A fight?   Downstairs?  E-Boogie was housed downstairs.  Money was now the furthest thing from my mind.  I knew in my heart it was Eric. The cell doors stayed closed throughout the night, and I went to bed wondering with whom Eric had a fight.

The next morning, I was standing in front of the mirror brushing my teeth when a guy popped up at the door. His face was rather long, his eyes dodgy, and he shifted from one heel to the other.  He said that he was just dropping by to check on me since he knew E-Boogie and I were close.

“What the hell you talkin’ ‘bout?  What happened to E-Boogie?” I asked.

“He hung himself, dawg.  E-Boogie is dead.” 

There were no tears to soothe the burning in my eyes as they were a river cascading down my heart.  I wanted to sling my toothbrush aside, run downstairs and save him, but my chance for that was gone.  I couldn’t remember the last words I said to him, and I couldn’t forget saying nothing.  I felt like I failed him for not being there for him like he was for me when I needed a friend the most.  The word about Eric spread like wild fire in a gasoline storm.  He was found hanging in a mop room closet and pronounced dead on the scene.  I realized Eric had been fighting after all; I just never guessed it was a fight with himself.  Maybe there wasn’t much I could have done about that, but I owed it to him to try.

Eric Queen perished on August 5, 2007.  He was 28.  He was a hothead at times, but he was generous and if he loved you, he made sure you knew it.  Eric made mistakes in his life, but I never heard him make excuses.  In fact, one time he said to me, “Life don’t bend over for nobody, Eye-G.  We just gotta roll with it.”

I’m still wondering where he got that from with his young ass.  Eric swore he was a philosopher, and at times he really was.  Dude was smart as hell.  He could figure out anything – he just chose to figure out the streets.  Can’t say I blame ‘im.  The streets are tempting; they’ve led a lot of good people down bad paths. Still, there is redeem-ability after the streets.  I wonder if Eric believed he could be redeemed.  We never talked particularly about the crime that led him to Death Row, so no speculation there.  But I know he had regrets in other areas of his life – we both did.  It was us sharing those stories and being vulnerable with one another where we became like brothers.  I just wish he knew his life was so much more than the evil that plagued him that day.  If nothing else, his redeeming quality was in all that he did for me.  I was spiraling into an unhealthy mental space when he walked through the doors that night.  Eric put aside his own burdens to get me through my worst of times.  I only wish I could’ve done the same for him… maybe through my writings I can still try.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Terry Robinson writes under the pen name ‘Chanton’, is a member of the Board of Directors of WITS, and heads up a book club on NC’s Death Row. When he first started writing for WITS, it was apparent he was a gifted writer, but he keeps striving for more – and he continues to achieve it.

Terry continues to work on his memoirs, as well as a book of fiction, and he can be contacted at:
Terry Robinson #0349019
Central Prison
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

He can also be contacted via textbehind.com

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Sentenced to Death, Views From The Inside

the dead man’s zone

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a hairy bear-of-a-man, my dad knew
only how to love and fight death
matches.  unless knocked unconscious
or it was broken up, somebody was doomed
to die.  simple as that.
to beg my mom not to leave, my dad
shoved a pistol into her lipsticked mouth.
she left him anyway, daring
to live – and, if possible,
he adored her even more for it.  Sometimes
violence is the only love one gets.  my dad

used to brag
                 about getting his top four front teeth
knocked out.  they’d been surgically replaced, twice –
courtesy of the U.S. Army.  first time, a boxing match.
second time was the story
he told, retold, and retold.  he’d tilt back his head, yawning
open his mouth to display the gunmetal rears
of those perfectly machined Army teeth.  “See?
I was arguing with my ex-wife and called her a bitch.
That damned fool shot up and kicked my teeth
down my throat.  I never called her a bitch again.
Not to her face,” he’d chuckle.  he’d show photos
of my mom’s brother, a taekwondo master.  in one
a three-foot-high stack of red bricks parted
left and right in neat waves, frozen mid-air
by the camera, my uncle’s brutal chop caught
cracking through the bottom brick.
sometimes love needs violence like that.  a heart attack

killed my dad during my murder trial.
i was relieved because he had sworn to God
to get us both shot to pieces by the police
right there in the courtroom if I got convicted –
and I wasn’t quite as eager to die
while attempting to escape my death
sentences, my two failed suicides aside.

ten years later my tiny Korean mom came to visit me
on death row.  i had to ask, “Mom, why
did you even marry my dad to begin with?
You two were so different, I just can’t understand it.”
she dropped her wrinkled gaze, as if weary or
embarrassed, then looked up with eyes ablaze.  i flinched
as she launched into a story.  “You father was so handsome!
Not like after he got fat.”  ((she pronounced “after”
as apter and “fat” as pat)) she bloated out her cheeks
to show “fat face” then slowly exhaled, making a scraping,
bubbling, throaty growl
to indicate visceral disgust.  it summarized her
feelings following their divorce.  then she went back
to being dreamy-eyed and tender.

“He came into bar with friend.  Me and my sister there. 
They so handsome in uniform.  You father was better looking.”
she lowered her voice at the end as if revealing her secret.
“It was disco bar.  He ask me to dance – Oh, my God,
he such bad dancer!  But cute.  You father, he dance
like this.  No matter song, he dance like this.”  she sprang up
in the cramped visitation booth to demonstrate
a big man, a big moment.  i ducked

to study her
through the six-inch-tall, two-foot-wide, waist-level window –
through the black iron bars and double-paned, grimy plexiglas
as graffiti-scratched as a nasty gas station bathroom stall,
through greasy handprints holding hands through the glass,
through crusty bodily fluids, through all this history
of lust, pain, anger and disgust, loneliness and madness and
beauty, all of which tried to distract me
from my origins, my heritage, my parents.  but I was, finally,
ready to see them as real people, not just symbols
of dysfunction.  and so I watched

my mom raise her delicate fists, spin them one-over-the-other
like Ali hitting a speed bag at heart-level, while two-stepping
back-and-forth, twisting slightly at the hip
on the back-step to toss a take-a-hike thumb over
her shoulder.  “You see?  Like this…  Like this…
All the song, like this…” she said giggling
and panting like she did forty years earlier
at nineteen.  she was breathless with adrenaline.
i had never seen her like this.  so animated. 
so alive.
i laughed too, because I saw how it must’ve been.

in the midst of all her teasing about my dad’s bad dancing
i spotted the operative phrase:  “all the songs.”
translation:  she stayed on the dance floor with him,
laughed and joked with him, tripped and fell head-first
in love with him.  it was simple, it was pure, it was even
atavistic, drawing on a primitive period when a violent
amount of eye-contact, body grinding, pantomime
and empathy’s grunting communicated everything.  when
each had to give the other their absolute undivided
attention or they’d miss something.  neither spoke
the other’s native language, but the tongue of raw humanity
transcended their cultural barriers.  they were smitten.

it was only twelve years, seven pregnancies, and five kids
later, once my dad’s schizophrenia began to speak, that
his violence turned divisive.  till then, my mom said,
“A lot of Korean, they hate American soldier.  Every time
we go out people cuss us, spit at me.  We fight
together.  But you father, he very proud,
very strong.  Always he want fight for me.   A lot
of people go hospital.”  she was virtually swooning
and had to sit back down.  i did not know this woman.

within weeks my parents married, having a traditional
Korean wedding, yet their honeymoon attitude was ruined
when the Army wouldn’t acknowledge it as binding:  it was time
for my dad to return to America but the Army stiff-armed
my mother.  when he tried to go AWOL she urged him
to just come back.  he promised and she promised
to wait for him.

the Demilitarized Zone was a strip of land that ran
like a ribbon the entire east-to-west length between
North and South Korea.  it represented the fragile
nature of peace between enemies who used to be family.
it was off-limits.                                           if either side
spotted anyone within that tense ribbon of land, they
might shoot without warning.  sometimes the North
took pot-shots at American soldiers, who helped the South
patrol it, on foot.  the terrain was jungle like, riddled
with landmines.  ((it described my parents’ post-divorce
dynamic exactly)) the DMZ was aptly nicknamed
the Dead Man’s Zone.  the only way to reach my mom
was for my dad to get re-assigned to the DMZ.
it took a year.

“He came back for me.  You father.  He came back for me. My family
say he wouldn’t.  Everybody say he wouldn’t, say he only want
one thing.  They make me give up
baby.  They say they kill baby if I don’t
give him up.  But you father come back.
He so upset when no baby there.  So upset.  But
he understand.”  she started to cry.  i didn’t know
what to say
so I said nothing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  George Wilkerson lives on Death Row. He is a talented writer with a unique style, and a solid commitment to his craft. He is an occasional contributor to WITS, a co-author of Crimson Letters, an eye-opening book released in 2020, and his writing can be found on several other platforms. We always enjoy hearing from him – simply put, I look forward to every submission he sends in, knowing he will never disappoint.

Mr. Wilkerson can be contacted at:
George T. Wilkerson #0900281
4285 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4285

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Views From The Inside

Kindergarten Logic

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Why do birds fly?  Why is there air?  Why is the sky blue?  Why is water wet?  These are all important questions.  It was 1993, and my son was five years old.  I was thirty-two and fielding questions all inquisitive five-year-olds ask.  When I was five I asked my dad why New Mexico was named New Mexico?  It wasn’t new and it wasn’t Mexico.  I’d seen pictures in a magazine, and I was interested.

“Dad, how far away is the sun?”

I knew this.  It was an easy one, right?  “About ninety-three million miles, Mike.  Why?”

“How far is Dallas?”

“About a hundred and ten miles, son.”

“So, how come I can see the sun, but I can’t see Dallas?  It’s closer, right?”

“Yes, Mike,” I answered.

He looked at me like my cat does when he looks in his food bowl, ‘There was food here a minute ago, where did it go?’

Life is weird like that.  Things that are seemingly far away are sometimes closer than you realize.  Don’t give up on them, they’re still there.  We live in a blue, green world, full of life, full of hope.  I can see it.  It’s just on the other side of the fence.

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
3 Jester Road
Richmond, Texas 77406

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Juvenile Justice, Views From The Inside

BOOM!

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My grandmother had a stroke while sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper.  She had mis-read an article about the escape of my crime partner.  In the article, my name was used to explain our high profile case.  Thinking I had escaped too, she had a stroke.  In her mind and experience, black men in conflict with white authority meant my death/murder.   1 + 1 = 2.  Facts!  She never spoke again.

Most believe change is like travel, taking you just as long to return from that wrong spot in life as it took you to get there.  They’re wrong.  Change is delivered within the heart of an explosion!   There’s a BOOM! of action.  It’s how mothers lift cars off their children, how addicts stiff arm drugs and how people find themselves back in school after the age of forty in pursuit of a degree.   It’s a BOOM!, not a slow process.

I was eleven years old the first time I was chosen to play on the junior neighborhood basketball team. Twelve to fifteen lowriders of people from four or five different Blood gangs and Piru hoods would gather in this or that park.  It wasn’t just a tournament, it was part car show, part cookout, part fashion show.  People would show up in their bright ‘hood colors, sporting both new and old R.I.P. shirts and hats.  The girls and women wore cut off shorts, lip gloss shining, hair freshly pressed, permed, and curled, with edges laid down like a senator before a lobbyist.   Boys and men with fresh cuts and cornrows, ice-white t-shirts and matching kicks that lived in a box most of the year.

Black and brown faces flashed brilliantly at me, setting complexions and spirits ablaze, sparkles of pride and  joy flashing in the eyes of everyone I met.   It was like an African village in my mind, and we were all family.  All love.  All good.  All ‘hood.  Nothing is ever ‘one thing’ to all people in life. 

After the weekend long tournament we were heading back home with my Uncle James and his wife Lisa.  Myself and two of my homeboy teammates were in the backseat of Unc’s ’72 Impala low rider.  Carl was bragging about his skills in a tournament we’d lost, no less.  Kilo was asleep in the corner. 

When the red and blue lights filled our car it froze my heart, as I recalled images I’d seen of police beatings, battering rams, black men being choked out, half clad black women being dragged from beds into streets, babies torn from arms and hearing screams that are colored red and blue to this day. 

I elbowed Kilo awake as my uncle swore in fustration and rage at what he knew was to come.

“Fuck!” he banged the wheel,  “Boys, put your hands on the roof, and don’t move until they get you out of the car, and don’t say shit!”  Fear led to anger, trying to get us home alive.

Aunty Lisa stuffed two grams of marijuana in her mouth, handing some butts to Unc, both placing their hands on the dash as the second squad car pulled up.  The officers spilled out to help circle our car, their hands on their guns, angry eyes and stoneset faces.  What did they see in our eyes?

One approached the window and Unc asked why he was stopped, demanding to know.  They pulled us out and we were hand-cuffed, facedown on the sidewalk, still warm from the setting sun.  “We smell marijuana.  Tear it up!”

“If you’re going to search us, call a female to search my wife!” my uncle demanded.  He’d been talking the entire time, drawing their attention.  

A cop dropped a knee on his head, splitting it open on the concrete, growling, “Shut the fuck up, bitch! I’m sick of your fuckin’ mouth!” 

Aunt Lisa cried out.  I looked back at the other kids, turning away from Carl’s tears so he wouldn’t see my own.  Kilo’s eyes were trying to eat up his face, shared fear bonding us for life. 

They kept searching  us and tearing up the car, but when they got to Aunty Lisa, Unc lost it.  The cop on his head pulled his gun and let off a shot into the grass next to my uncle James’ head.   That’s when Lisa lost it, Unc bucked, and the beating began, Josh Gibson-like swings that sent blood sailing through the night air like rubies dancing under the red and blue lights.

My uncle would need 87 stitches to close up his body and head.  He’d lose the hearing in his left ear, the sight in his left eye and his motor skills would be forever impaired.  He’d also lose his mind and memory in part.  He’ll forever need care, requiring someone to help his confusion and explain the situation to him daily. 

I was numb and fozen until the boom of the gun, until Unc’s life pooled on the sidewalk, until I saw one of his braids soaked in that life laying in the dirt. 

Aunty Lisa was the only one to notice I was having serious issues, in need of help.   “We’ve got to fight back!” she cried as she hugged me tight, her tears baptising me into a new light, a new attitude, my value – duty or honor maybe?

“We’ve got to fight back, because they’re never goin’ to stop swingin’ on us,” she cried, trying to set my young, battered mind and spirit for the war she knew would be my life.  A war she was sure I’d already lost.  It was in the way she held me.

To flip it, it didn’t take more than a fraction of a second for me to pull that trigger and change the world for countless others, people I’ll never meet.  They feel that fraction of a second every day.

Is there a ‘boom’ when the change is positive?  Or is it drowned out in the echoing reverb of so much negativity?  Does it count if it goes unheard?  And if not heard or recognized, did it happen at all?

Time is the only measuring rod, and change is the only thing to be measured.  It should be forever flowing, constantly cutting into the landscape of a life in ways both unforeseen and unpredictable, forcing us to feel everything or hide from it.  To lie.

My Aunt Lisa would be found naked on the side of the road in some bushes in the state of Arkansas.  I can only pray she knows that I’m still fighting back, because she was right – they’ll never stop swinging. I’ve changed.   Boom!

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Mr. Jones never ceases to amaze me. He has a wealth of personal experiences to share and his own unique way of communicating them. I always look forward to seeing what he sends in next, and I am so glad he is a part of our writing family.

Mr. Jones can be contacted at:
DeLaine Jones #7623482
777 Stanton Blvd.
Ontario, OR 97914

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Sentenced to Death, Views From The Inside

From Bosom To Bowels: a cry from Death Row

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Lord, why did you spare me
the night I lay shot and cried out to you?

All my transgressions I laid at your feet,
yet you turned not away from my spirit.

Now my troubles are imminent death
in the form of state sanctioned execution.

I have counted the faces of those gone down
in the chamber, their legacy left untold.

I, too, am slated for an unrighteous death,
Will anonymity mark my grave?

Am I forgotten, Lord, or just forsaken
and no longer worthy of your care?

I am deemed lowly and unfit
by those who call on your name.

There was a time when your mark laid heavily on me
and I was overwhelmed by your grace.

Now you give favor to my closest friends
and made me a victim of their deceit.

Even my thoughts are shackled and confined
to a chasm erected from anguish.

I have searched for your comfort in every way
and turned up only disaster and dread.

Do broken spirits make it into heaven?
Does my tongue spew curses of thee or sing praise?

Is repentance best served as a dying declaration
and faithfulness a daily chore?

Is there a path to eternity from Death Row,
a place set on misery and darkness?

And still, God, I trust in you,
hear my prayer when the morning comes.

Reject me not before I am called to your judgment
but find mercy in my shortcomings.

From bosom to bowels you have shielded me
when I was close to death.

From your will I strayed to worldly desires
and was left with my shame to bear.

My anger is of my own doing
my faithlessness was my doom.

I am trodden under the heels of my enemies
but in you, Lord, I am redeemed.

You have given me the way to enter your kingdom,
your glory is my salvation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Terry Robinson writes under the pen name ‘Chanton’, is a member of the Board of Directors of WITS, and heads up a book club on NC’s Death Row. He is an author who has found purpose not only in his love of writing, but also in lending his voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. Because he is an innocent man on death row, his gift of expressing himself and his experiences through the written word is invaluable in raising awareness of issues within the criminal justice system. The ease with which he was put on Death Row for over two decades, in contrast to the struggle to undo an injustice is what his life examplifies and he shares that experience with grace and eloquence like no other could.

Terry continues to work on his memoirs, as well as a book of fiction, and he can be contacted at:
Terry Robinson #0349019
Central Prison
4285 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4285



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Views From The Inside

When We Were Kings!

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Remember when we were kings,
long before heroin watered its malicious ego
with our tears,
when we stood tall against the shadows of our
demons,
long before our will and pride were conquered
by fear?
There was so much more to you than flesh and blood.
I have lost more than just a friend,
a son has lost a father,
a mother has lost her child,
the world lost a light that will never shine again.
You were stolen from us far too soon
to roam among the giants in a time out of
place.
From where you are, can you see my tears
stain this page,
can you hear my silent wish to take your
place?
I never got the chance to say I’m sorry
or mend the friendship I allowed to be
broken.
It’s finally setting in that you’re really gone
and there’s too much left unspoken.
It’s not enough to say I love and
miss you.
You were funny, kind, smart, giving,
we take for granted the ‘morrows we may
never have
and lose sight of the privilege of living.
Another life has become poison’s trophy,
though some day we’ll all know death’s sting.
Till my turn, you’re immortalized in my tears –
and in the memories of When We Were
Kings!
Rest in peace,
                my friend…

ABOUT THE WRITER. James Bonds seems to know all too well the devastation of addiction, as is reflected in his writing. He wrote in a letter that accompanied this submission, “If you know an addict, love them now – while you still have a chance.” Mr. Bonds can be contacted at:
James Bonds #19111-033 1-unit
Federal Correctional Complex USP-1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521

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Views From The Inside

Influence

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Coming from the Southwest side of Detroit, opportunities were very poor, the bad ones outnumbering the good ones almost ten to one, with little likelihood of being successful or legit.  I lost three relatives to gun-violence in one summer alone.  Most of the friends I grew up with are either dead, on drugs, or in jail. 

I’m older now.  I spend most of my time studying and manifesting connections that support self-help and development.  My agenda now is to make a difference.  I understand what happened to us, and where we went wrong and what it takes to avoid a place like ‘this’, where the system is broken and built to further break you.  Contrary to rehabilitating, it encourages criminality. 

I once heard, “If you want to hide something from a negro, put it in a book…”  Is there truth to this?  I had to pick up a book or two to see what I had been missing all those years, things I didn’t understand that I let slide by without answers.  One thing I learned is that the things a child sees, hears, and experiences throughout childhood, will most likely have a profound effect on that kid once they reach adulthood.  The first traumatic memory I have is of me as a five year old standing in the middle of a stairwell watching my dad as he lay on our living room floor in a pool of his own blood due to gun violence.  Later, at the age of ten I watched a young man shoot and kill his uncle in broad daylight. 

Whether it was gun-violence I saw, domestic violence, sexual abuse or the drug infestation that overwhelmed my environment, it neither begins nor ends with ‘me’.  This is an environmental disease that infects the minds and spirits of children in general – not just mine.  Negative influence is a highly contagious virus and is able to transmute anything pure into poison. 

Knowing the things I know today, makes it my responsibility to help the kids, the most vulnerable to the negativity and the ones who will grow to pass the illness from one individual to the next.  It is my responsibility to help them make better decisions and provide them with solutions that discourage violence and trauma, and encourage love and longevity. 

My son just turned thirteen years old.  After being absent in his life for ten years, one of the first things he spoke to me about was needing help surviving his future.  I needed guidance and help as a kid and now – they need me.  They need us.

ABOUT THE WRITER. Mr. Johnson is a welcome new member of our writing family. His piece reflects a reality that we hear about all too often, but one he hopes to impact through his writing. Mr. Johnson can be contacted at:

John Johnson #631054
Baraga Correctional Facility
13924 Wadaga Road
Baraga, MI 49908

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