MyTimeToBlog
It's Wednesday and I'm eager to get my in-grounds job done. My crew and I were informed that our boss would be arriving around 8:30 AM. I shared with my crew that I would head back into my housing unit and grab my PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), and wait for the booth officer to call me out when our boss arrived. They said cool, then I went my merry way.
I'm in the day room, at an unoccupied table, reading Hill Harper's "The Conversation." My mind was elsewhere, hoping that I could discover a remedy for my sciatic nerve issues. I've dealt with it for nearly three weeks and counting. As I was dwelling on whether to do the stretches my mother sent me for my sciatica, the booth officer yelled out, "Commissary is coming. Lockdown."
Everybody vanished from the day room, myself included. I grabbed my net bag, turned on First Take on ESPN, and checked out Steven A. Smith ranting about sports. My cell's door clanked open, and I moseyed on out, hearing my cell's number being called for commissary.
My commissary bag was at the center table with an older woman who constantly talked down to us. I remained polite, not daring to bring on her wrath of a verbal beatdown. Surprisingly, she was professional, even apologizing for not having my stamps and soap. I inwardly grumbled, due to the fact that I would have to wait an additional two weeks to order more soap (commissary slips went in before receiving the bag I had at the table, so you had to wait another week to place an order for soap).
When I retreated to my cell, I heard Buck calling for me to go to work. He's a friend who always purchases my cheesecakes and loves my positive outlook on life. He helped get my cell's door opened, then I made a mad dash outside.
When you're called for work, I always rushed. I never wanted them (my crew) to think that I'm being lazy...even with sciatica. In the stairwell, I ran into Micky J; a coworker of mine who shared that we had some hard work in store for us. I paid it no mind, assuming that we were going to be outside through institutional count.
When we hit the walkway outside of N & O Building, I found my crew with our boss and his maintenance supervisor. They were working on a hole in the pavement that needed refilling with cement.
I never--and I mean this--done cement work. There were five men on my crew and four maintenance workers. I didn't ask if they knew about cement work. All I was told to do was pick up 80-pound bags of cement mix and deposit it into a cement mixer.
My sciatic nerve went crazy the moment I bent over. Peewee saw this, as did my crew, so we figured out what I could and couldn't do immediately. What that was me tearing open the cement mix bag, and Peewee and I lifting it up onto his shoulder together. There were two pallets loaded with 80-pound bags, and 94-pound bags. We did ten sets of eight bags per mix. A total of 8,000 pounds of cement.
Mind you, we also had to shovel rocks into the mix. This grueling beat you down job, had me spent. We had bottled water, but that was used to wash out our mouths with the cement mix. We had no respirator to breathe through; I had my celly--after the morning's institutional count--find me a face mask. He did, but by that point, I had a spoonful of cement mix in my mouth. Yuck.
Lunchtime arrived, but we couldn't depart, because of the quick-drying cement needing to be poured over and over. We did get three more men to help, and they had their own way of doing things. I quickly killed that nonsense and had them follow myself and Peewee's lead. They did, and that was when I approached my boss.
My clothes and boots were marred in cement. They were wet. My protective eyewear was splattered with drying cement. Even my socks were soaked from trying to wash away the cement that dried on my boots. My boss took one look at me and let me go to the laundry to exchange my clothes for new ones.
When I stumbled back with my new clothes, the maintenance supervisor said I could leave. I grinned and headed into the small hut that held our trays: baked chicken, a dinner roll, carrots that were overcooked, wild rice with chicken and pretzels for dessert. I grabbed my tray and hurried back to my housing unit.
Inside, I stripped down to my boxers on the tier, not wishing to bring any more cement into my world. The clothes were discarded, and I grabbed my shower bag. Water, hot, steaming and welcoming washed away the grime. Cement was in my nostrils, and ear canals. The Dove bar I lavender my body with cleansed the day away. I stood, leaning on the shower wall, happy to have survived that craziness.
The wild part was later that day, at dinner, when I heard some of the men screwed with the trays. They stole the chicken from them, and Micky J was pissed. He had an inclination on who did it but wasn't sure. That made me wonder who would've done something so trifling as to take food from us when we slaved for hours on end.
All I knew was that my sciatic nerve kicked my tail, but not enough to break me down, because I planned on working out the next day. The work was grueling, yes, but also let me know that if I could bust my tail for .45 cents an hour (our hourly pay rate), I could also do the same for my body...for free.
Yeah, I worked for slave wages. It sucked, but until I'm free of my confinement, that's the life I'm living. I would love more money, but right now, the only thing I'm seeing was a $72.00 monthly check for being privileged enough to go outside and work--hell no, I'm kidding, they slaved my butt.
I'm now thinking about the fact that I poured 8,000 pounds of cement. I didn't get a thank you. Nor did I get any sort of gratitude from the maintenance supervisor when I saw him the following day. He ignored me as I strolled past him. That's what I received for my 45-cent effort--a lack of acknowledgment. Welcome to prison, it freaking sucks.