JUST WANT TO SCREAM

Prison sucks! That is a fact that 100% of the incarcerated populace in America would agree with. This became apparently true when I sat in on an interactive journal program where we had intakes participating in a small classroom at Nottoway Correction Center in Virginia. They opened up about their lives, and I just cringed.

Our job as peer mentors is to motivate the men, assisting them in becoming more than their worst. Well, I had a notion on how to proceed, but that was dashed away when I learned that the seven men (intakes) in attendance were on their second--and shockingly fourth bid. On top of that, their stories were heart-wrenching.

We had a kid around 21 years of age who had a plan when he departed from the prison system after 3 years. Well, that crashed and burned when his mother passed away on his second day home. He had nowhere to go, except his baby mama who cheated on him. It didn't end well for him, because he was back and now calling himself Problem Child. His idea now was to go back out into society with no plan, since he felt the plan he had hadn't worked the first time.

The next kid, 31 years of age, grew up a drug dealer. He had a two-parent home, but he chose the streets. His skill set was pushing narcotics in his community. He laughed when he said he failed at being a drug dealer, but that was all he knew. On top of that, he had 3 children and didn't know what to do when he heads home in 9 months.

Another kid in his early 20s made it home after a couple of years incarcerated, but returned to prison in 30 days. He shared that he was on Wallen Ridge for his last bid with men who had 100s of years to do, and that it f**ed him up mentally. So much so that he went out into the world and couldn't cope--and now he was trying to figure out who he was in the interactive journal program that lasted for five weeks.

These stories stuck with me as I tried to grasp what I could do to help them. I felt that, being in my position, I should have an answer...But I didn't. So, I took it to my comrades and shared the news of what I was seeing return to prison for a second time. We had a discussion on how the system didn't do enough, and that the men had to step up and be accountable for their choices. The same story we all knew over and over. I departed from them mentally exhausted, because none of this existence made sense...but before I could make it to my cell, someone turned the volume up on a news report about a prison murder.

Aubrey McKay was killed by correction officers in Wallen Ridge State Prison. The local news in Virginia showed the story of his passing and they had a witness who was there, next door, watching the madness unfold as Mr. McKay died right before him. This news had the guys in my housing unit rehashing their own experiences of violence and death...I reflected on a brother who had a heart attack at Sussex One State Prison in the mid-2000s, and perished because of incompetent staff members. All our tragic stories made me sad, because death is final.

My bunk called to me, and I climbed in it. I balled up under my sheets as my celly blasted his TV and kept the overhead light on. I slithered under the sheets and stuffed my ears with music as I drifted in and out of sleep, only to be awakened by my celly, who wanted me to watch another new report, this time about a drug bust in Chesterfield; this was where his head was as I just turned over and closed off my thoughts, wondering what the hell was I around?

I'm 50 years old this year. Fifty! Me. In a place that no longer fit what I am: an educated man who empathized with those who couldn't figure out how to become more than their surroundings. I read all the time, exploring my existence through memoirs of former felons who found success in a cell. That's me attempting to mimic their choices by adapting them to my walk inside these concrete halls of shame.

When I exited the cell, Rob, an elder who had spent 52 years inside a cell, cursed about how cold the unit was. He then asked me to type him an email for a sick friend. I did, and it was about his friend battling health issues and that Rob would pray for him. I signed off and stood, getting a thank you from Rob as I noticed another elder high, out of his mind, in a drug-induced nod, a few feet from us. Nobody helped the elder junkie, because he did that crap every day. Me, I told him to get in his cell--and he decided to smack my hands away as I tried helping him.

Prison is just that, a prison. One where you're either becoming your best or not. I sat at a stainless-steel table with my stack of books each morning, fighting for my freedom by proving to myself that I'm not the worst of this madness. I helped those in need, but when I'm at my perch, all I'm seeing are young and old man quitting on their lives, and the ones who did fight, they became fed up with their limited success. I didn't feed into it, because I'm not them and they're not me. So I opened a book and read a passage from it and swallowed my pain down and refused to scream as I noticed another young man sag his jeans, showing his backside as he shouted out, "Gang gang," calling on one of his homies who tattooed Real One on his forehead.

Scream. Sometimes. All the time, but it didn't change s**t.