STUCK

The early hours arrived, and I realized we were on lockdown again. Great. I lay awake for a few hours, trying to figure out what caused this nonsense to happen again. I gave up and started catching last night's NBA scores on ESPN. While I smiled, seeing my Knicks won, my world shifted.

Multiple voices announced themselves upon entering the day room. My celly Red hopped up and peered through the tray slot. "We're getting shook down again." I started cursing, because the last time they ransacked our cell, finding nothing...well, they did find something: Red's G-Shock watch was stolen by one of the officers.

We placed on our corner store jewelry and waited for them to come. While we waited, the day room erupted in applause. They found a cellphone in these young kids' cell. I still remained on my bunk, watching the highlights of yesterday's games.

Our cell door opened, and we were ordered out. I'm ordered to raise my hands and be patted down. After, we're marched downstairs and ordered to stand side by side, hands at our sides. A K-9 trotted around us, sniffing for drugs. Once done, we looked like fools as the COs made remarks to one another about their jobs, oblivious of us.

Someone ordered us to march outside, into the early morning cold. We're in shorts, T-shirts, sandals and sneakers. We complained to each other about how they didn't share that we would be going to the gymnasium, which was at the opposite end of the facility. Great.

Inside the gymnasium, we found the rest of our housing unit's men. They were sitting on plastic chairs, talking amongst themselves. A few of them were working out with the weights. I joined them but stopped when I learned we would be trapped in our cells for a week; I didn't feel like sweating and then cleaning up the most assured mess those COs would make of my personal belongings. So I sauntered around the gymnasium...for a few hours.

I ended up using the bathroom, then a friend of mine told me we would be taking a urine analysis when we returned to the housing unit. Great. I started drinking water because I didn't want to get caught up for not being able to urinate; you had a two-hour window to fill up the cup, or it's a refusal charge, which was an automatic 100 series charge (a 100 series charge was the most severe). So I sipped and sipped and sipped.

We ended up going back to our housing unit around 12 PM. There were piles of trash everywhere when we reached N and O Building's entrance. There were also COs chatting away as we marched past them. Inside the building, we found confiscated TVs, fans, mattresses, and pillows. I made it into our housing unit, where more of our belongings were scattered around the day room's floor. I peeked into a couple of the cells, and that crap pissed me off.

Imagine a hurricane in a shed and what it would do to everything inside of it. That's what I strolled into as I glared at my belongings. Red snapped, screaming for a complaint form. Me, I just cried inwardly. These were the moments when I despised my life. I had no control over any of what they did, so...so I picked up the pieces.

It took us an hour to get things in order. The food trays came. We had the Ramadan feast. I heard the Muslims in the unit yelling for emergency grievances. They weren't allowed to celebrate the ending of their fast in prayer with their community.

The mood was negative for all of us. So, to switch that, I asked Red if he wanted some taffy. He did, so I made us a batch of strawberry taffy. I gave him half of what I made, then climbed onto my bunk.

I grabbed my tablet and played an album. It was Tory Lanez's "Peterson" album. His music was the soundtrack for uplifting my mood. I laid back, and started watching Evil Dead 2. I shoveled a few of the pieces of taffy into my mouth and just disappeared from this madness.

Red tapped my bunk, getting my attention. He wanted to talk, and I joined in. We started speaking about his cough. One that he had for nearly three days. He worried that the dust in the cell was messing with his lungs. I told him to holler at the nurse who brought his medication later that night.

I plugged my ears with my music and turned on my side. The afternoon light from the window kept me from falling asleep, but I closed my eyes anyway. I started thinking about my work.

That dragged me out of my funk. I picked up my pen and pad, writing letters to new foundations that advocated for the incarcerated. I needed to occupy my mind with more than my circumstances. It helped. Then, I turned my tablet's screen on and thought of content for my TikTok account. That was hard because I had to dig deep into my thoughts as to what I wanted to share with my followers. A few hours in, I accomplished my task.

Even so, this was day one of my week-long battle. I chuckled. I had to because today wouldn't be the day I quit on myself. Besides, I'm listening to a multimillionaire making ballads about his struggles of mass incarceration. He turned pain into something epic for his fans, and if I'm as great of a writer as I think I am, I would too.

Nothing would stop me but me. Thanks, Tory Lanez, for the motivation. I hope my writing does the same for others. No doubt it would.