PREDATOR

I know the only man to ever have a single man status on Wallen Ridge State Prison (one of the two supermax prisons in Virginia). The Predator acquired this due to the numerous sexual assaults on other men. A man harming other men in such a violent way disgusts me.

The Predator and I have been around one another for nearly two decades. I first met him when we were in Bravo 6, on Wallen Ridge State Prison. He was a large, country brother who came off laid back. He easily made a large number of friends. He worked out all the time. Talked about sports and sex, the norms of prison life. Nobody had seen any of the signs of him being a predator until one strange day.

You see, on Wallen Ridge, the showers were at the back of the day room. We had a towel-sized curtain that shielded our nudity, unless you walked close to the shower stalls. Well, one day, I was showering, my back to the day room. The Predator and a mutual friend were near the showers, chatting. Out of nowhere, our mutual friend said, "Hey, Tut, the Predator is talking about your ass." I dried off and stepped to him, and he just laughed it off as a joke. But the seed was firmly planted.

I ended up getting transferred off of Wallen Ridge after that incident. I'm at Nottoway Correction Center, running into men who did time with me on Wallen Ridge. We have this unspoken brotherhood because of all the insanity we endured up there (do your research on the early 2000s on Wallen Ridge). Even so, we're always reminiscing about our time up there, sharing tales of horror. One that grabbed me was that the Predator had HIV and was sexually assaulting men. That freaked me out, because I started seeing it before I escaped Wallen Ridge.

We had someone gay up there who had HIV. Everybody knew about him, and as they did, they gave him a wide berth. Except for the Predator. They ended up starting a relationship. That had the entire prison looking at them, because the HIV status was known to all: the administration and the incarcerated population. So, hearing what the Predator was doing to the men broke me.

I've been scared more than once in prison. Some men made names for themselves by being predators. These men destroyed a lot of people's lives...almost mine as well. Those memories still trigger me, because one man who worked out with me daily pushed that madness at me. I didn't know what to do but be aggressive back, and it worked. Still, I didn't know what I would have done if he pushed me harder. That comes to mind as I think about those being in fear.

The Predator didn't see it as anything but weak and easy to sexualize. I learned more and more of this as I ran back into him again on my third trip back to Wallen Ridge. We met, in all places, the Honor Unit. He was still big, but more open with his perversion; every conversation was about sex, boys (gay lovers), and who had a nice butt. I chastised him. I told him what the hell was wrong with him? He laughed and I just stepped away.

The day he was finally transferred off of Wallen Ridge, I remember the sergeant pulled the Predator aside and said this: "You have this one shot. Take it, and don't come back up here." He patted his shoulder, then sauntered off. They shipped the Predator to Keen Mountain.

The story goes that when the Predator got up there, a high-ranking officer from Wallen Ridge saw him and had him placed under a single cell status. His reputation followed him from that facility to Sussex Two State Prison. There, he tried to sexually assault someone, and a group of men beat him down.

You would think that a man with this kind of reputation would get the treatment he needed? He hasn't, and what's wild is that I ran into one of his victims. This guy was a friend I've known for years, and it hurts me to share that he has HIV and has to live with that for the rest of his life. The Predator hasn't changed as he transferred back from South Carolina to Nottoway in Virginia.

Not even a week ago, he shared with me that he was hit with a PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) from South Carolina. He gave this disturbing story about a gay man wanting him, going as far as to pay for him to move into the cell. I'm hearing this and thinking that after 20-plus years, nothing has changed except that he has more grays on his head. The Predator needs help.

I think about this as he eyed these young men on the boulevard. How is it that with a history of sexual assaults, the Predator hasn't been placed somewhere isolating, getting the treatment he so needs? I'll say this, and believe me: in the early 2000s, if you were an incarcerated man with a sex crime, the COs would put those men in cells with men like the Predator. That's part of the problem; the other is that the system failed the Predator.

I sat in the chow hall today, eating Pop-Tarts, when the Predator and another one of his cohorts joined me. They small-talked to me about Sunday football, then turned to a twisted story of the boy the Predator desired. It got so wild that I excused myself, saying that they were messed up mentally. They laughed.

I'm around these kinds of monsters. They thrive in here, and the treatment escapes them because they don't want it. Twenty-plus years, and it's still business as usual for the Predator. Sad.