MyTimeToBlog
The elderly of the prison system have always been my encyclopedia when navigating life inside. Funny, now I'm the one the young men approached for wisdom. In all truth, this wasn't a badge of honor, but more so the reality of my being incarcerated for far too long. Now they call me Unc (short for uncle).
I'm a 49 year old that sat alone each morning at a stainless steel table. My books and college assignments littered the table as I sipped lemon tea from my coffee cup. The world news was always on the TV in the early hours, and I'm at peace discovering what the day would bring. I built this structure for me to avoid falling short of my goal: getting free. Everybody knew this was all I am now, and they gave me a wide berth when reading my books.
Truly, this came from decades of building up my reputation. My years as a teenager roaming supermax prisons created a mystique for a New Yorker in a Virginia system. Meaning, I had more fights than I cared to rehash, but those stories of old followed me like a plague.
Violence, that has constantly been the calling card for warding off foolishness. Do I appreciate it? Yes, and no. Yes, because fear keeps the crazies from approaching me with nonsense. Now, the flip side of that coin was the new guys trying to navigate prison life. This was where my life became bombarded by questions on how I survived for 27 years without joining a gang, or being extorted for being an out-of-state incarcerated man.
I showered one day and my name came up in the dayroom. This was about how I been on Wallen Ridge State Prison 3 times. Now, Wallen Ridge is a supermax prison with its own violent reputation. Most of the youth boast that they could contend with life in a supermax, but then someone would always knock them down with stories about the madness up there. This was where I'm being spoken on, because I'm the quiet book reader that has a calm about him...but the curtain comes down as to why. That in itself gets me stepped to more than five times per week.
Unc, that is what a 23-year-old called me one day. I peered up from my books and I eyed him, critical. An apology followed for disturbing me, then a question came: "I heard you were nearly killed on Wallen Ridge, is it true?" Automatically, I'm eyeing the usual culprits who divulged my personal life to strangers and thinking about pulling up on them privately and giving them a piece of my mind. Even as I think that, this kid sat waiting. I offered him a horror story that I survived, which intrigued him, and now he wanted more. Sometimes I feed them this hell I endured, but sometimes I stopped and grabbed my book and began reading again.
You see, most of the youth in prison today think what I revealed was some kind of fictionalized story that could be compared to series like Oz, Wentworth or Mayor of Kingstown. This was when they desired to dissect my stories and search for holes, and also gather other elders who would come over and either shoot down my stories or corroborate what I revealed. Now this became a shooting match on who had it harder in prison; the whole time, this kid isn't seeing my life as hell, more so a good movie he didn't have to pay for. This was why I had to learn who to open up to about my life inside.
Now I'm a man who works out to keep my body in shape. This also proved to be problematic, because when you see the man and learned the stories, more people are curious. I'm being called Unc again, and they're asking if they can work out with me. I used to allow them access to exercising with me, but they're never consistent, and other times they want stories of the past, rather than an actual workout. So I dragged them through a grueling routine just to get them off my back instead of being swallowed up in a never-ending cycle of tell me another story.
As I crafted a path of success, I became a published author and journalist in prison. This gets the men talking, especially when others brag about my novels. You get fans, and I loved it. I would get them to check out my blog, purchase my novels and have their family follow me online. Great, yes, we did support each other, but it also had them coming in droves, asking me to help them write a book, or they had an idea about a book I should write. Normally, I fed into it, because I'm a man who adores writing, but again, "Unc, I need your help." This would be while I'm on a phone call, or in the shower, or napping after a long day.
The truth is, with great power comes great responsibility. I took heed of this and became a peer mentor. I'm a seasoned incarcerated man who has done more than most inside a cell and I wish to instill in them what they could do with their lives. This opened many doors with some of the men, but it's the negative ones that tired me mentally. You always had a bad apple in the batch, and I'm doing my all to help them, but they didn't care if I'm an Unc or not. Prison just beat them down.
There was this kid who had murdered more men than I could believe...but you saw it in him. Sadly, when you take a life, you had that miserable gift of recognizing it in others. So, as he went into a story about his violent past, he brought me up in a group setting, making me his sounding board for understanding his madness. I didn't, and when the session ended, I pulled him aside and told him this:
"What we did placed us in a cage. Don't allow that mindset to continue moving you forward. I sought help and so can you. My best advice is to find what caused you to lash out like that, then work on fixing the problem. I did, and I know you can as well. Matter of fact, I got a book by Wilbert Rideau. He took the lives of two people and spent 40 years in prison and became a man who changed the world from his cell. I'll get it to you if you want?"
This kid panned up and smiled at me, saying, "Unc, I'll read it. But if it's crap, we're going to have problems."
We didn't. I'm Unc now, and with great power comes great responsibility.