Excerpt 1 – Time Served

“I hate this place! Nothing works here! The medications don’t work! I’ve been here for seven years!”-Bellvue Mental Patient

Once again, the stage was set for a new adventure. I was certainly ready to move on and away from Deep Meadow. After spending one year in one prison an inmate can request a transfer to another one, possibly closer to home. Depending on the level of your custody and the nature of your crime, you may even be able to get transferred to a road camp. The number one place on my wish list was White Post. This is where my cousin Tony and good friend Lee were. If you were an inmate from Northern Virginia, Maryland or D.C., then White Post was the place you wanted to be because there would be hardly anyone that wasn’t from the area. In this position of being with your people, it’s considered easy time.

I remember a conversation that I had in the county jail; it was with some stranger on the very first night that I was arrested. He was telling me about the boot camp program that Virginia offered to first time non-violent felons. He said, “You are a good candidate and will most likely get it, but you will probably have to be locked up for about three months or so waiting for all of the paperwork to go through before you get to the camp.” He talked about it like that was a good thing, you know, like I was lucky or something. I was like, “Three months? Are you kidding me? I can’t be locked up for another three fucking months! That ain’t happening.” When the day finally arrived for me to pack up my belongings again, I had served well over three years. Funny how life works out sometimes, huh?

The months and days didn’t matter anymore, only the years. At first I kept track of every day that I served. Even had calendars with the days crossed out, like in the movies- I still have them. Yet, as I was nearing the last leg of my journey, I found it hard to remember what day of the week it was much less the number of months spent behind bars. Thank God for football season and visiting days, because without them I would’ve never been able to figure out if it was Sunday or Monday. Tuesdays felt the same as a Saturdays except for the TV shows. My weeks had turned into nothing except one long, drawn out day with a few hours of sleep in between. Something had to change.

On the day of my departure from Deep Meadow I awoke and showered, said my goodbyes, and was ready to go when they came for me. Of course they didn’t tell me where I was headed until I got on the bus. I was hoping it was Camp 7. In fact I was praying it was Camp 7. Getting out of Deep Meadow was good news enough but if I could slip into Camp 7 that would just be creamy chocolate icing on the cake. When the CO started up the van, I popped the question. “CO? Where am I headed?” Alas, it was Camp 7…White Post…Tony. As my brain processed the information, you would have thought that I was getting released or something, because I was so damn happy.

While I wasn’t going home, I was definitely moving closer to it. The trip through the backwoods of Virginia that winter was extra beautiful. The trees still had leftover snow and icicles on them, and from time-to-time a white-tailed deer or two would sprint out into the road. That was the first sign of wildlife I had seen in over two years. Damn, that was the first time I had even rode in a vehicle in over twenty months. The things people on the outside take for granted. Making believe the whole time that I was on a cross-country drive and not on a trip between prisons, my appreciation swelled and it was a wonderful ride…well, you know, aside from the handcuffs and leg irons.

White Post is located outside of Front Royal, Virginia. It was one of the older prisons in the state and looks to have been built long, long before I started my life of crime. It is nothing at all like where I had just been — a small two-story building that houses no more than one hundred and thirty people, where Deep Meadow housed over 1,000 prisoners — makes for a drastic difference. There was nothing around the compound at White Post except wide-open land. Actually, to be clear, there was nothing but cows and wide-open land. There were cows everywhere. Another difference between Deep Meadow and White Post is geographical location. Deep Meadow is situated near Richmond. White Post was in… well, White Post. Ninety-five percent of the prison guards in Deep Meadow are black (which made things a little easier for me), where one hundred percent of the prison guards at White Post were white. Not just any kind of white folk, but redneck white folk. I figured that White Post was the state’s way of getting even for all of the Mike’s and Larry’s of the prison world. I didn’t care too much about how bad the place looked though because I knew that somewhere behind those walls were Tony and Lee. That was all I concerned myself with.

The guards, for the most part seemed cool, although there were times when the yokel-isms started to slip out. I would deal with the race related stuff later. All I wanted to do was to see Tony and Lee. I walked through the gates and sat down with the assistant warden, who was a lot more personable than expected, and from what I could tell this was a pretty laid back environment where everyone knew each other. There was not a lot of friction. Even the white boys had it good. I remember thinking from the moment I stepped out of the van, “I am going home from here.” After about ten-minutes of talking to the warden, I was shown to my bunk. There was a north side dorm and a south side dorm, a foyer that could lead either out of the front gate or into the cafeteria, which separated them both. I was placed in the north wing, which many said was the boring side. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted in the south wing where Lee and Tony were. They actually slept next to each other. By the way, this sleeping arrangement drove Tony crazy. We joked them both about that all the time. Lee used to call Tony “Cousin Tony” simply because of Lee’s relationship with me. Tony hated that. At any rate, things would be cool on my side even though I didn’t really know anyone.

I dropped my stuff off at my bed and went to look for Tony and Lee. Camp 7 was not full of Richmond and Tidewater prisoners, so I knew that my stuff was okay sitting out in the open. Actually, there was hardly anyone around at all. I saw a few people here and there, but surely not over one hundred people. Then I remembered that this is road camp. Everyone is out working on the road. I wandered over to the south dorm inquiring of Lee and Tony. It was around one in the afternoon when I approached Lee’s bed. Naturally, he was still asleep. Abruptly, I shook him and he gave me a look like I was from Mars. The last time he saw me I was carrying a lot of weight. Slim and trim, he didn’t recognize me at all. Once he cleaned out the cobwebs and realized who was standing before him, we went through the “What’s up nigga?” thing, laughed about my weight loss, and talked about home. He was my co-defendant and, next to my cousin Tony, he was the closest cohort I had in the pen. We were really glad to see each other. We had even written one another a couple of times over the years, but that got old fairly fast. Writing letters to other inmates while you are locked up is huge a pain in the ass. First you must mail the letter home, then have someone there open it up and place it in another envelope, and then (and only then!) mail it to the other institution. Needless to say, we didn’t write to each other much.

Sitting there talking to him felt like old times. I even ran into Fax, who I hadn’t seen in years. I asked Lee where Tony was and he said, “Out on the road.” I inquired about why he himself wasn’t out there too, and he said that his custody level kept him in the house. Lee didn’t care one iota about that, as he was never one for manual labor.

Tony was a pop-lockin’, moon walkin’, spinning around on his head and back, break dancing motherfucker. He was also a man of few words. When he did speak, it was in a low and deliberate tone. I can remember when our eyes met as he entered the room dirty and disheveled from a hard day. A thin smile appeared on his face as our arms came up to embrace each other. It was a classic Tony smile accompanied by a slight shaking of his head that said, “It’s about time you got here.” We had not seen one another since 1988. It was now December of 1994. We didn’t say it, but it was obvious to anyone who cared to look, that we missed one another greatly. Having a huge family and what seems to be hundreds of cousins, Tony and I were the most alike. That probably had a lot to do with why we were both standing together in the basement of a prison. That first night we sat and talked for hours, eating dinner and shooting pool. He took me around to meet all of his friends, and it was as if we silently told each other that we would not be separated again. At least that is the way I felt. Thinking back on it, I’m sure he felt the same.

He was well respected around the camp and made it clear to everyone that I was his family, his blood, and they could all pretty much count on having to battle the both of us if they had a problem with either one of us. One time a dude came and hollered at me when he had a beef on the court with Tony. Apologizing to me like I was Stringer Bell and Tony was Avon Barksdale. “Look Marc, you know me and Tony had a few words on the court this afternoon? I just want you to know that me and you still cool…right?”

From just a few days spent together, I could see a big change in Tony. His “I don’t care” attitude seemed to have vanished, appearing so calm and collected; a stark contrast to the hot head he once was. What at first I thought was the six years of doing time that had worked on him, I later learned the positive influence he portrayed was Islam. Converting a few years back, Tony was finding his peace in the Koran.

I was in awe of his new expression. I came to White Post looking for the guy that was robber – a total legend in our circles for stealing a school bus and dump truck – and what I found was drastically different. This was someone who had long since accepted his fate and state of being, and turned that all into a fresh outlook on life and his future. Tony had used his time inside to get his head straight. He received his GED and even had some college credits. He was definitely back on track with both feet soon to be firmly planted in freedom.

He never forced his beliefs and practices on me, nor did he try to convince me to convert to Islam at all. Just coming from a place where the so-called Muslims tried everything under the sun to pull you over to their side, I really respected Tony for his understanding of this new faith. “The white man is the devil” or “Shakespeare wrote the Bible.” I have heard every reason to convert from the extremists. When doubt clouded my mind all I had to do was think of my grandmother and the confusion would subside leaving me with enough clarity to be my own person. Tony knew that there was no way I would convert. His beliefs were just that, his beliefs. He was the exact opposite of a lot of the Muslims I encountered during my imprisonment, which made me believe that his conversion was indeed a legitimate one. When he asked me to fast with him for Ramadan, my acceptance wasn’t an attempt to alter my religious beliefs, but instead a bond of brotherhood. Even as I sat by and watched several “devout” Muslims break their fast, I continued to keep mine. Making it through the month of hunger and thirst, I felt better for it because I didn’t let my cousin down while also gaining a much-needed sense of accomplishment for myself.

Tony was also a workout fanatic. He was slim but extremely defined. “Bony Tony” is what we used to call him when we were growing up. I made the mistake of telling him that I wanted to get on a workout plan. I’m still not so sure why I did that. Man, he almost killed me in the gym. He was all go and no quit when it came to working out. I couldn’t even sit down from being so unbearably sore some nights. The only time we didn’t work out was when he had a visit, and I remember praying often that someone would show up to see his ass.

The next eight months at White Post were probably the best time I had during my entire lock-up. We all had been looking forward to the summer intramural basketball league. It was an organized league that included a draft, scorekeepers, refs and everything. Tony decided he wanted to be a player/coach, and he chose me as his number one draft pick. A lot of people thought that he was stupid for doing that, but I proved them wrong. My game is good, back then especially, but I firmly believe that his decision to choose me was not a sign of any sort of basketball knowledge. It was a gesture of love and a symbol of his loyalty to our family and to me. I will never forget that.

Tony died in the year 2000, a little over two weeks after my mother passed. Staring at his body lying on a cold steel mortuary table at the Fauquier County Hospital, I noticed that his mouth was slightly open, his left eye faintly swollen, and one of his shoes was missing. They were black high-tops and, standing there next to him, I kept picturing the missing one tumbling across some stranger’s yard like a fumbled football bouncing over the fifty-yard line.

I’ve heard people say that it helps the grieving process to touch the body. I didn’t touch him, I never do. I didn’t even touch my mother.

Anyway… his chest was a little distorted, I’m guessing from the impact, and there were dried grass stains on his pants. Other than that he looked almost like he could’ve been sleeping. But he wasn’t sleeping; instead he was killed in a motorcycle accident three months before he was to be married. Running from the police on a bike that knew he didn’t fucking need, he stood no chance of surviving the crash considering the rate of speed that he was traveling. From what I have been told, the bike basically disintegrated beneath him. Out in a blaze of glory so to speak? Or perhaps, burning out instead of fading away? Maybe these are just quips to rectify someone’s existence, or (more plausibly) to help those still here feel some solace in how terrible it all really was.

My cousin Barry and I spoke at his funeral. It was just a few simple reminisces of the times we all shared. Barry was always the comedian and he went the light hearted route, bringing a smile to tear-stained faces. I went another direction and tearfully, I did my best to make everyone there understand how much I loved him, and how we felt about each other. I wanted everyone to know how I felt standing there staring at his coffin. I didn’t want them to smile or chuckle. I wanted them to hurt. I wanted them to ache. I wanted them to feel the sinking and rumbling about in the pit of my stomach. Hurting so damn much in his absence, I just hope my point was made.

I had intended to stand up and read “XX”, a poem from The Collected Poetry of W.H. Auden, commonly referred to as “Funeral Blues” and made popular by the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

However, it seemed ludicrous to use someone else’s words to explain how I was feeling about someone so close to me. So out of love for Tony, I wrote my own poem. Out of respect for his life, his children and his memory, I read them to the congregation.

The Good Ol’ Days

Though your heart is no longer beating

No more twinkle in your eye

Your voice, your laugh, your strength and heart

In me they will forever reside

We thought we’d live forever

We lived like we would never die

But now you’ve gone and left me here

And this is why I cry

I’m not going to say you’re in a better place

Even though I know that you are

You have a new home now; I wish I were there

In a place far above the stars

I will not question why you are gone

Who am I to have such a right?

Your number came up and God took you home

On that fateful Thursday night

Your life, your stay seems far too brief

They say God moves in mysterious ways

I won’t tarnish this moment with undue grief

I’ll just remember the Good Ol’ Days

He was family. Man, he was close family. He was a friend. He was a twenty-nine year old super dad who left behind three young children to grow up unable to fully comprehend how great their loss really is. His fiancé gave me a gold chain right after he died. It is the same chain that he used to wear around his neck. I never take it off. In fact the only time it comes off is when it is going into the jewelry cleaner or I am going into the county jail. I’m probably slightly biased because prison forged our timeless bond. He was the brother that I never had. The talks of our youth about guns and drugs turned into conversations about children and family. We had grown up. We had become men.