“Fuck your religion!” yelled an irate Polo, attempting to defend his stance in a one-sided debate with another inmate, Bob Cook, a professed Christian, though he never read the Bible. Not once. He never attempted to read it either. He possessed an NIV version that sat quietly on top of his rusted cell’s table, collecting dust. “All He was, was the original MGM magician – no better than David Copperfield!”
Polo was a celebrated and outspoken atheist and verbally strong-armed the one-sided debate about religion. Of course, Bob wouldn’t have anyone disrespecting his faith, his Jesus, whom he felt was God’s son, although he never totally understood the ‘how’ aspects within his beliefs. Bob was a typical, middle-aged, white Southerner with traditional Texan pride. He was short and round in stature, built in the mold of Barney Rubble from the Flintstones with hair as white as cotton and alopecia taking over the center of his head. He was a goodhearted guy and my neighbor for about three years. When you are held within the close quarters of Texas Death Row, in solitary cells 24 hours a day, you learn a lot about your neighbors. You get a better understanding of who they are.
I knew Bob well, perhaps better than anyone on the planet. He had a genuinely cuddly personality, always attentive to the needs of others more than his own. He was not one to argue and would often display dumbness when others were attempting to explain something asinine, just so the talker could get whatever it was they wanted to say off their chest.
He didn’t have much and lived on about 20 bucks a month. To put things in perspective, he didn’t have shit, but what he had – anyone who wanted it, could have. That was one of his flaws – he was too kind and an easy target to be taken advantage of. He was guilty of the crime that landed him on death row, though it could be contested that his crime did not fit the criteria for a death sentence. Nonetheless, he was riddled with remorse, often saying, “I’m going to hell.”
When I asked him why, he said the chaplain told him that the Bible said, “Thou shall not kill.” Texas death row chaplains carry no sway with me ever since one told me that my being executed was God’s will. I calmly told him, “Bullshit.”
I then took out my Bible and read several scriptures to Bob, leaning on my studies from when I was enrolled in theology classes. One reason why he never read the Bible was because he couldn’t. He was illiterate. I read to him about forgiveness, faith and salvation, which he appreciated, and in time he gained hope that he might have a chance to get to heaven.
Of course, ‘perfection’ has never been a Christian strong suit, Rome wasn’t built in a day and some dogs refuse to let go of old tricks. So when Bob had enough of Polo’s Christian diatribes, he declared “May Jesus Christ forgive me now for what I’m about to say. Fuck you, Polo!” and with that, he walked away from his cell’s door, steaming mad, and went to sit on his bunk.
Polo began to laugh at Bob’s parting cussing. His handsome and smooth caramel colored facial skin was shining like polished armor due to his overuse of commissary bought baby oil that he used daily. He liked the smell that reminded him of when he was a baby and being smothered with the loving hugs of his mother as he was held between her tender arms and her comfy bosom. He was thirty-two, and had been incarcerated more than he had been in the free world. He was arrested at the age of 15, held in the county jail until he was 17, and then sent to death row. He would be executed/murdered before the USSC’s decision to ban all executions of juvenile offenders. Like most youngsters who grew up around environmental dogma, he was rough around the edges, not cordial and trusted no one. He spoke in waves which often confused the listener as well as himself to some degree, because his ideologies were a perplexing mixed bag of black power, black militant-ism, Malcolm X-ism, Islamic beliefs that he adopted from others, and the scratch your head in utter disbelief performances he often acted out as he mimicked Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert show character with the line, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s Fat Albert!”
I often psychoanalyze people, trying to understand why they do the things they do. Polo, perhaps, still felt as if he was fifteen-years-old and living in a thirty-two-year-old body. Maturity never found an outlet within his mind in which to become liberated. His actions and attitude were a reflection of the way he thought – childlike. What else could you expect?
Polo stood alone in the middle of the section’s day room. No one stood at their cell’s door that he could argue with. Since arriving in the Polunsky Unit in 2000, group recreation, work programs, televisions, and any form of physical contact have been banned from the all-male branch of Texas Death Row. So he began the redundant activity that we all do when we find ourselves alone in the day room with no one to talk to – walking in circles. Consciously or unconsciously we lower our heads as if in shame and count in our minds the steps we take to make a full circle. One… two… three… four… five… It actually takes seventeen strides to complete a full circle in the dayroom. I watched Polo from a distance as I sat in my cell, counting along with him. It would be the last time I was to see Polo in the flesh – alive.
Texas death row inmates are housed in a building called Twelve Building. It’s encased inside electrical razor wired fencing. On some mornings you can see the dead carcass of a stray cat or dog that didn’t get the memo about not touching the fence. Did these creatures not see one of the several bright yellow postings that warn, ‘Electrical Shocking Fence. DO NOT TOUCH’? Mayhap the animals were illiterate too.
There are six pods within Twelve Building, each lettered either A, B, C, D, E or F. Within each pod are six sections, also lettered A, B, C, D, E or F. Each of the six sections can hold fourteen cells for fourteen inmates. Each man is alone, twenty four hours a day.
Inmates communicate by yelling loudly at the guy they are trying to have a civil conversation with. Though in a normal setting, yelling to obtain a civil conversation is indeed madness in nature. Ninety percent of the cells leak when it rains, some more than others. Black mold has run amuck within every cell on death row. The building was cheaply designed and constructed, and the infrastructure is weak and crumbling. Fighting spiders, mosquitoes and other critters is a daily chore.
The failures of the infrastructure are so timely and repetitive that one can’t help but assume there is a conspiracy going on, because nothing works as it should here. Every year during the summer, the water is going to get cut off for a day or two straight. There won’t be fresh water to drink, no water to shower with and no water to flush the accumulated shit and piss that will idly stew. And let me tell you, once the sun’s rays bake this concrete building’s back wall, the structure becomes an oven, causing any religion you thought you had to get temporarily thrown out the window due to the foul odor. If anyone asks us if we are comfortable or okay at that point – they are often greeted with the same aggravated, “Muther fucker, what do you think?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Charles “Chucky” Mamou is living on Death Row in Texas. His last appeal has been denied and he maintains his innocence.
He can be contacted at:
Charles Mamou #999333
Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351
