We shared this book with one of our writers recently and he found it very helpful. In the month of December, 2020, we will be choosing a random WITS writer to recieve a copy. So – just send in an essay or poem that gets posted before December is over, and you could be randomly chosen. Let us know how you like it! We might give it away again.
Please share with your writer friends. Submission is considered permission to edit and post.
WITS, P.O. Box 70092, Henrico, VA 23255
As a Boy Scout grasping the basics of wilderness survival and hiking through buzzing, mosquito-infested forests while life as I knew it faded behind, I first had to grapple with transience and the pain and fear interwoven with impermanence. Everything I carried served a practical function, and after being rolled up, tucked, folded, stacked and packed, it altogether occupied six cubic feet, or so my canvas rucksack advertised.
An object’s value was the sum of its utility minus its volume and mass, measured in cubic inches and ounces. The less I had, the freer I felt. My sense of liberty kindled when I was limited to basic necessities, my creativity sparked to life by the demands of simple survival. One of my handiest items was twine, a fat spool of the sturdy kind for starting fires, building snares, catching fish, dangling food from a tree branch, wrapping tourniquets, and generally for binding. Many things find a higher purpose when bound.
Now I camp in a cell with the square footage of a tent. According to prison policy, I should be able to fold tuck, roll, stack and pack all my belongings into three boxy, flimsy, white plastic shopping bags about the size of brown paper grocery bags, all amounting to a total of six cubic feet.
Books qualify as personal property, no more than ten. It takes ten books to adequately study my faith, but it also takes ten law books to adequately work on my legal appeals and get my body off death row. That’s 2.5 cubic feet of mental and spiritual acuity for me.
I own one cubic foot of hygiene items, luxuries to prevent odors, rashes and to preserve dignity, to soothe my itchy need to feel neat and clean. Two more cubic feet are crammed with my creativity – paper, pens, poetry, essays, drawings, notebooks full of ideas.
That leaves half a cubic foot for commissary food and sentimentality. I own a large brown envelope packed with tattered pages scrawled on by my dad before he died and crappy-but-cute kindergarten drawings by my nieces who swear I’m the world’s best uncle even though I was already here when they were born. I also have a two-inch stack of photos of my brothers and me when we were little boys, of our parents prior to their divorce, of people I’ve never met and places I’ve never been but that are important to my friends or family and therefore important to me.
That’s how I fill and maintain my six feet of cubic space, carved from a hard place. Technically, then, my commissary food is actually considered contraband and could be confiscated. To keep anything new is to discard something old.
I keep my life packed up in bags that tear easily, which is fine by me. In the end my real treasures – my faith, my memory, my love and my creativity – they all inhabit the infinite space inside my soul, incorruptible, ethereal, eternal… and free to bloom.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. George Wilkerson lives on Death Row. He is a talented writer and occasional contributor to WITS. Mr. Wilkerson is also a co-author of Crimson Letters, an eye-opening book released in 2020, sharing the voices of those living on North Carolina’s Death Row.
Mr. Wilkerson can be contacted at:
George T. Wilkerson #0900281
4285 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4285
There are all kinds of reasons to want a pen friend from the free world, some wholesome and some not so wholesome. Obviously it’s nice to receive mail now and then. It’s cool to be included. Most guys receive mail, and it sucks when everyone except you… okay, ALMOST everyone… gets word from people that care.
Mail also let’s people know where you are on the proverbial ‘totem pole’. If you don’t get mail, you most assuredly don’t get money to go to store and don’t get visits. This is also true for phone use. People that don’t get mail rarely use the phone.
I once built a parole package for a friend, and in return he had his fiancé purchase me a profile online in the hope of correspondence. For the most part people write and we are friends for a short time before life’s requirements pull them away.
This is a letter I got from Stephanie, a really cool motorcycle-loving cowgirl – she has her own bike. We wrote back and forth for about four months…
Hi Jeremy,
I read your e-book, ‘The Monster Factory’, and I was touched by your honesty and will to survive. It brought tears to my eyes and disgust about the people who run such an awful place and the people who are imprisoned.
I sent you some money to help you through your struggles. Please stay strong!
Happy Holidays,
Stephanie
I enjoy hearing from and reading about my pen pals’ ups and downs. It’s a vicarious way of living myself, of getting to know people and hearing about activities I can’t experience for myself. Sometimes these activities are big things, sometimes small, sometimes happy, often sad. But it’s REAL life, not prison life, and valuable to me because my pen pal has chosen me to share it with.
Every now and then I make a friend that continues to write over a lengthy period of time. Often my correspondence with them provides strength and hope, but every now and then I get a negative reply – made even more sad to me because it’s justified and true. And it hurts.
This letter is from… I’ll just call her P. She was curious and funny. We wrote back and forth for just a few months.
Jeremy,
I broke down and read that report. I don’t understand how you could go along with someone who said that he was going to set fire to a night club when he had no control what his ex-wife was going to do.
Setting fire to a business was stupid. You’re an idiot for going along with ‘your friend’. So what if your buddy was fighting over his kid, did he threaten you or twist your arm, saying you have to do this or this is going to happen to you?
There were other ways to get back at her. Did you know there were three fireman that got hurt that day??
Kevin W. Kulow, 32 years old, died because of you guys.
One captain sustained critical respiratory injuries, he was hospitalized.
Another team captain had sustained serious burns to his face, knees and hand.
Kevin Kulow was a rookie, seven months on the job, seven months! He was 32 years old.
Fuck! All I can say to you guys is, you’re all f&%$ing stupid idiots. You got what you three deserved.
I hope you ROT IN HELL for all your actions, all three of you!!
DO NOT WRITE TO ME AGAIN. I DON’T WRITE TO PEOPLE WHO KILL FIREMEN OR POLICE MEN!!!
P.
Don’t judge her letter, she has family that are employed as first responders. Without P. and Stephanie, and without being able to hear from people in the free world, I would quickly become only aware of this world…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeremy Robinson is author of Monstor Factory and also a frequent contributor to WITS and part of our writing family, his work is always heartfelt and honest.
Mr. Robinson lives in a Texas prison and can be contacted at:
Jeremy Robinson #1313930
Michael Unit
2664 FM 2054
Tennessee Colony, TX 75886
I went to trial not because I was innocent but because in my adolescent mind I assumed a jury of my peers would go easier on me than a judge.
I was sixteen years old on December 12, 1995. Me and another guy were out getting high. We were walking down a street in a gang infested neighborhood, and we saw some people that were clearly not from the area. I took part in an unplanned and uncoordinated robbery.
After the jury found me guilty, they recommended thirty years for the three robberies, fifteen years for kidnapping, fifteen years for assault with non-serious bodily injury and five to fifteen years on attempted robbery and armed criminal action. Prior to my trial, the state offered me a plea bargain of a soft life sentence, the equivalent of thirty years.
At my sentencing hearing on February 28, 1997, it was left up to the judge to run my sentences either concurrently, thirty years, or consecutively, 241 years.
“You made your choice, you will live with your choice, and you will die with your choice because, Bobby Bostic, you will die in the Department of Corrections. Do you understand that? Your mandatory date to go in front of the parole board will be the year 2201. Nobody in this courtroom will be alive in the year 2201.”
In February, 2018, the Judge who said those words and sentenced me to die in prison came forward and tried to help me get out of prison. She now says the sentence was too harsh. She regrets it.
My adult co-defendant was given thirty years – 211 years less than I was – and he would have been home now, but he died in prison in 2018 at the age of forty, may he rest in peace.
I’m very sorry for the crimes I committed. I changed my life despite being sentenced to die in prison. I’ve taken over fifty rehabilitation classes through the Department of Corrections and outside entities. I have self-published five books and written ten more. I have an Associates of Science degree and have a few classes left to get my Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work. None of that means anything to the State of Missouri. What matters to the state is that I die in prison for a crime I committed at sixteen years old where no one was seriously hurt.
I feel myself growing old. My bones ache from the steel bunks and concrete floors. Nieces and nephews that weren’t born when I was on the street have kids taller than me now. I’ve watched them grow up in the prison visiting room. I was sixteen – all I want is one second chance. It’s all I would need…
ABOUT THE WRITER. Bobby Bostic was sentenced to die in prison for a crime commited when he was 16 years old. His co-defendant and the leader of the two was an adult and received thirty years. At sixteen years old, in a crime where no one was seriously injured – Bostic was given essentially – a death sentence. Mr. Bostic spends his time writing books and educating himself. If you would like to show your belief that his sentence is unjust, you can sign his petition here.
You can contact Mr. Bostic at:
Bobby Bostic #526795
Jefferson City Correctional Center
8200 No More Victims Road
Jefferson City, MO 65101
Suicides, assaults, perpetuated acts of nonsense, exonerations, relationships severed and put back together – I thought I’d experienced all there was on Death Row. I’ve seen mild, treatable medical conditions fester and decline, often turning fatal due to inadequate healthcare. And I’ve seen the dismal look in a man’s eyes, helpless and void, moments away from being executed – yet even after twenty years, nothing could’ve prepared me for today.
For over six months now, due to global restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, all weekly in-person Death Row visitation has been suspended. As an alternative, online video visitation was implemented, which was a welcome remedy to the growing concerns of our loved ones for our well-being. For men decades removed from society, video visits ignited Death Row with an ever burning anticipation to view our family in the comforts of their homes as opposed to a concrete booth with reinforced glass and steel bars. Appointments were made faster than a sweepstakes giveaway and everyone that returned from a visit had a tale to tell, some recounted with exuberant smiles, some with heavy hearts.
In the following weeks, as per safety regulations, the site for Death Row video visits was moved to another area in the prison. Many of us know the new location as the ‘Death Watch’. It’s where capital punishment is performed. Few men here have suffered the Death Watch prior to having their scheduled executions vacated, one in particular describing the most dreadful night ever with a broken voice to match. More often, the men who’d been hauled off to the Death Watch would not return. It was a wasteland that was now being assigned familial merit and a path on which I would walk.
Friday, September 18, 2020, at 9:03 a.m., a call blared over the P/A system, one that came expectedly as I had awaited the sound since the night before. It would be my first video visit with my family, whom I hadn’t seen in months. The anticipation of it all elevated my mood beyond the reach of my daily struggles. I hopped into the standard Death Row uniform, one meant to evoke guilt – a hot red jumper that draws heavy around the shoulders in a color scheme that clashes with one’s dignity. With nothing left to do but settle my eagerness, I strapped on my face mask and headed on my way.
I joined the company of two other inmates, also with scheduled visits, as they shuffled slightly on their heels, anxious to be off. One guy, like myself, was a first-timer; I surmised he was equally as nervous. The other inmate had attended video visits prior and schooled me on what was to come.
With the arrival of the escorting officer, we set out on our trip from the Death Row facility down to an area usually reserved for visitation, nothing to heighten the excitement along the way, yet nothing to diminish it. We then discontinued the familiar route and veered down a flight of stairs, a control station identical to the one above at the bottom. We crossed the lobby to a sliding glass door that held beyond its threshold something menacing – the very path condemned men had journeyed before as they faced a despicable end.
The door cranked open with a woeful whine, like a symphony of restless souls. I followed the group as they seemingly proceeded with no ills for our whereabouts. What looked to be a short distance to the other end of the hallway became a faraway stretch of land, my steps laden with the realization that, for some, this was their final walk.
Rows of windows, made murky and distorted to deny one last peaceful look at nature, lined the passageway. Here, nothing would be offered to soothe the spirit of the wretched, though in a failed act of humanity, sedatives would be used to ease their pain. At the midway point was a sally port with its inner workings obscured as it sprang into view like a childhood boogeyman, chasing away my sense of security. I needn’t inquire of anyone to know this was the Death Watch. It appeared nothing like the horror I’d dreamed of, yet it incited the same despair. I was standing in the final resting place of a friend of mine named Joe who was executed in ’03 by lethal injection. Longing for his company, I whispered to myself and hoped he could hear me.
We made our way to a waiting area, each taking up a station as the first of us was ushered away to begin his scheduled visit. It would be some twenty minutes later before he returned, talkative and rather giddy as the next guy hurried off in his place. I sat and thought of all the laws passed over the years that would’ve prevented some executions, like the Mental Retardation bill that would’ve saved a man named Perry, or the Racial Justice act for another guy, Insane. One law that was enacted excluded defendants under eighteen years of age from being eligible to receive the death penalty, an amendment that would’ve kept two other men, Hassan and J-Rock, alive today.
The second inmate emerged with a smile so bright I soaked up a bit of his joy. I was sure that I’d seen the worst of the Death Watch. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I stepped around the corner to what I thought would be a cozy, makeshift cubicle with a monitor on which the faces of my loved ones awaited. Instead, I happened onto an arching hallway with blinding lights at the far-end and a metal tank made obvious by the gear-wheel bolted to the door. I was told it was the crank that released the gasses into the chamber during executions. Beside the Death Tank was the viewing area, where the deaths have actually been watched by those who would champion vengeance while holding others to a different standard. I cringed at the thought of such an immoral practice and the historical transgressions. I’ve often wondered if my friends felt alone when they were executed – part of me now prays that they did.
After visitation, I passed by the infamous Death Chamber once more and peered into the darkened sarcophagus. I had hoped to get a feel for my friend, Joe, but all I got was a question of fate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Terry Robinson often writes under the pen name ‘Chanton’, and this year he and others co-authored Crimson Letters, Voices From Death Row. He continues to work on his memoirs, as well as a book of fiction. Terry Robinson has always maintained his innocence, and hopes to one day prove that and walk free. Mr. Robinson can be contacted at:
Terry Robinson #0349019
Central Prison
4285 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4285
I need you to know
I can’t see past tomorrow,
That I’ve been surviving these last five years
On nothing but blood and tears,
That I’m withering under the weight
Of me.
I need you to know
The more I fight my yoke
The more it chokes me,
The more of my burden I share
The harder it becomes to bear,
But my pen rebels – Stop!
I need you to know
I am dying,
That this is the midnight hour
Of a squandered life
And I’m struggling for recognition
Of my struggle.
That these crudely woven words
Are my last desperate attempt
At preserving a tiny piece
Of what could have been.
I need you to know
That I’m sorry.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Robert McCracken is a gifted poet, with the ability to paint a picture and stir emotion with so few words. I’m always excited to recieve his work, and have a few more pieces I hope to post soon. I hope he someday puts his collection together in book form.
Robert can be reached at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Robert McCracken LG8344
Sci-Greene
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
The holidays are right around the corner. Plans have started, options being considered, gift lists are being made.
Describe for readers what your favorite holiday looks like behind bars. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a winter holiday or Christmas. It can be a spring holiday. It can be any holiday you want. You might want to compare it to a holiday long gone, or one never had but dreamed of or observed from afar. It can be a description of what it looks like from your vantage point, start to finish. It can be a combination of past and present. It can be ways you’ve found to create a taste of what it means to you.
That’s the theme of this writing contest: What Does Your Favorite Holiday Look Like From There?
I say it all the time – be vulnerable. That may mean writing about your own insecurities.
Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate.
We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit. Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less.
Submissions can be handwritten.
As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.
PRIZES:
First Place: $75
Second Place: $50
Third Place: $25
DEADLINE: November 30, 2020. Decisions will be posted on or before December 31, 2020.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Walk In Those Shoes
Writing Contest Entry
P.O. Box 70092
Henrico, Virginia 23255
As always – I’m excited to see what comes in!
Dear Sugar Baby,
Sometimes the lines get blurred, and I don’t know which of us is saving the other. I have no idea what you’ve been through, where you’ve been, or where you are going, but when I met you, I knew it was my job to do the best I could for you. What you don’t know is, while I’m teaching you the skills to succeed, you are doing the same for me.
Thank you for having the patience to teach me patience and for never complaining, even though we all have bad days. Thank you for showing me that regardless of our flaws we can love and be loved. I’ve been known to put my life on the edge, self destruction the product of my decisions, but I cannot allow that while your precious life is in my hands.
You’ve never cared about my past, what I look like or what I have. You just look at me with those beautiful green eyes, your tail waggin’, simply happy with the moments we share together in our 6’ x 9’ home.
Thank you for training me Sugar Baby. I’ll miss you.
Josh
I am one of many trainers, and Sugar Baby is one of many dogs. The Colorado Prison Trained K-9 Companion Program has given many individuals the opportunity to see the change they can create. Just like us, some of these dogs have been hurt, abandoned, and lack the knowledge they need to succeed. Also like us, some of them are on their last chance. We invest ourselves, 24 hours a day, to provide them with the socialization skills, obedience training and love they need.
To take a scared, hurt, or distrustful being and teach them to become a fun, loving and playful part of someone’s family, sometimes in weeks, shows us what we are capable of. The dogs we get to care for are amazing and they teach us how amazing we are along the way. If they can turn out so wonderful, then we can too.
You can find out more about our program at www.coloradocelldogs.com
ABOUT THE WRITER. Mr. Kenyon is currently living behind bars, but as Sugar Baby would tell you, he is capable of positively impacting the world. Without question – there should be more programs like this. Joshua Kenyon can be contacted at:
Joshua Kenyon #150069
21000 Hwy 350 E
Model, CO 81059
I’ve never thought of myself as extra ordinary. Like many born into a family of poverty, I desired more than I’d been shown in my life.
In my family the acme of success was my uncle who’d been hired by the state as a janitor in my grade school. The job came with benefits, union wages, and security. He helped two of his brothers get jobs as well – one of the rare times I’d seen the slow moving man smile.
When people discover I’ve been in prison more than thirty-two years on a ninety year non-homicide sentence – I was seventeen years old at the time – they assume I made some bad decisions. I point out people’s moves in life can only be judged by their options at the time, and their eyes climb their foreheads in shock, as if to say, “Surely, you had better options than to shoot someone!”
On a rare occasion, I’ll see a head tilt to the side, a body’s way of reflecting the brain’s strenuous attempt to see an issue, the world, me? from a different angle.
Sadly, if there is one thing visible in me, it’s my anger. Most people who live in a cage as long as I have come to a place where, for the sake of sanity, a balance has to be struck that allows reason. I’ve always rejected it, that tipping point between the retention of hope, the most valuable of things seen and unseen, on one side and the slow carving off of pieces of myself as I sit on the opposite scale.
Some give chunks of their souls away in an attempt to boost the economy. The more you have, the more you spend, right, hoping it may come back around… Call it karma, or simply planting different seeds in the hope of just a little rain, the effort and sacrifice no less noble because of its desperation or timing. Outside of either, few will lay so much of themselves on the alter for another.
Some toss pieces of self on the fiery blaze of their rage, seeking to stave off the icy bleakness of reality through violence, drugs, and homosexuality, anything to dodge being deprived of human touch and love, the ever thirsty phantoms of hope.
So, my little cousin paroled today with tears in his eyes and a very detailed business plan that I helped him with. I’ve studied for more than fifteen years now, connecting dots of knowledge to create plans that I may never touch myself. I pray I have done all I can to teach him how to do the same for himself. We fought three times before I had his attention, each blow given and received costing me another piece of myself.
I sent him back to a family of poverty, the same one that once set my options before me, but this kid had all the hope that I could give in his pocket. Don’t worry. I’ll find more somewhere… After all, what are any of us worth without it?
ABOUT THE WRITER. When a gifted writer submits their work to WITS, it is the fuel that keeps this going. Writing that shares the human heart is what we look for, which is exactly what Mr. Jones shared with us. Mr. Jones has served 32 years for a crime he committed when he was seventeen years old. He can be contacted at:
DeLaine Jones #7623482
777 Stanton Blvd.
Ontario, OR 97914
I am change in progress, striving not so much to be rid of my adverse circumstances, but to die a better person than I lived, and the last twenty years have taught me a lot. It wasn’t long ago I faced my greatest fear and stepped onto the set of a live production of Reginald Rose’s ‘Twelve Angry Men’ to perform before a swell of doubtful prison administrators. Just this year, I made a goal to start a college fund for grandchildren I’ve yet to meet. And probably the most life-changing thing I’ve done is fully accept myself and taken accountability for the wrongs I’ve done in my life.
My wrongs aren’t what landed me on Death Row though. A verdict doesn’t change the truth. I wasn’t in the Pizza Inn the night its manager got shot and killed, and for over two decades I’ve wondered why my cousin would testify I told him I did. I knew he must have a good reason. Fear, maybe, is one thing I came up with, fear of what the system might do to him if he told the truth, whatever that might be. Since my trial, I have learned his dreadlocks were at the scene of the crime. The jury never heard that. Maybe I wouldn’t be here if they had. Maybe he thought we’d have to trade places if he told whatever he really knows. At least that’s what I told myself for twenty years.
That was before I saw what he told an investigator who sought him out in an attempt to help me. Jesse Hill made it clear he was only interested in keeping me right here.
Far from helping me, my cousin implicated another member of my family as a possible accomplice to the crime, and time and again brought my mother into the conversation, “His momma know he did it. She know how that boy is.” “My aunt did this.” “My aunt should have gave it to you,” when asked his middle name. “Why does my aunt keep doing this shit.” “She need to talk to her son. He done what he did and bragged about it.”
Hill blamed the bad blood between us on me choosing to confess to him – but the truth is, I never did that, because the truth is – I had nothing to confess. I never saw Jesse Hill that night, and I never confessed to him that night. Jesse Hill and Ronald Bullock both know that. Truth doesn’t change.
For all Hill’s fierce condemnation of me, it was a bizarre contradiction when he wanted it on record that his feelings had been hurt. “That’s my family, it hurt me even to go in there. I ain’t see you wrote that down.” I guess he didn’t see the irony in what he was saying.
As much as my cousin wanted to be portrayed as hurt by our familial bonds and clamored for sympathy, his defamation of my character was limitless, his agenda clear. “I know he did it.”
When I was a kid, I looked up to my cousin. I looked up to him when I was a man too, and for over twenty years, I wondered ‘why?’ I still don’t know ‘why’, but it cleared up a lot when my cousin told the interviewer, “I regret even knowin’ ‘em.”
It used to be that the most meaningful word I knew was ‘family’. The term denoted loyalty, safety, honor and trust. It was the highest respect one could pay another. But when a person you once admired says they regret knowing you… what’s left to say? We aren’t family – just people who share an insignificant past. Jesse Hill contends his version of the events on May 16, 1999, are true. I maintain he is a liar. Those who really know who I am – know the truth. And my truth says a lot more about Jesse Hill than he could ever say about me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Terry Robinson often writes under the pen name ‘Chanton’, and this year he co-authored Crimson Letters, Voices From Death Row. He continues to work on his memoirs, as well as a book of fiction. Terry Robinson has always maintained his innocence, and hopes to one day prove that and walk free. Mr. Robinson can be contacted at:
Terry Robinson #0349019
Central Prison
4285 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4285
NOTE TO READER. Please contact kimberleycarter@verizon.net if you saw Terry Robinson in Wilson, NC, any time of the day or night on May 16, 1999 – or his accusers, who claimed Robinson was with them for most of the day and night. What may seem irrelevant – is often the most helpful.
Details of this case will be shared at https://walkinthoseshoes.com/category/terry-robinson/
