THAT CLOSE

Wallen Ridge State Prison has a mystique that comes from the violence that is widespread behind its walls of concrete. The hard-edged offenders made it their playground, and that's where I was housed during my twenties. A young man who could do burpees like a Navy Seal trainer, and fought harder than one way back when.

The job I held at that time was in the kitchen. You had a 3 AM wakeup, then departure around 3:30 AM. We walked in single-file lines, quiet, as the correction officers (COs) marched us into the spacious open room with no windows. We stood before these buckets that held our clothing, then we stripped naked and searched. Once done, we're handed a dingy white uniform and sent on our way into the kitchen.

Inside, there were no windows either. You saw the dark sky when you headed inside, and the fading sun when you exited around 6 PM. The kitchen had stainless steel workstations for serving food through horizontal slots for the population. There were no chairs for sitting, which you rarely did; they would fire you if they found you sitting during work hours. Two industrial dishwashers were on both sides of the massive kitchen. One for C and D buildings, and the other for A and B. The cook's station had giant caldron-sized bowls for cooking for the 1000-plus population. The bake area contained an enormous stainless steel table for rolling out biscuits, bread, and buns. The supervisors were in an elevated office that had plexiglass windows that offered a panoramic view of the entire kitchen...except the walk-in freezers and dry storage rooms. There was even a security room that held all the utensils that were signed out by the kitchen worker--and he could never lose them, because they were latched to the workstation like that thin chain a grandmother had for her glasses.

That environment was a madhouse for the incarcerated. One time, the salad bar returned from staff side dining, and the offenders scrambled to steal the remaining salad for a meal. Well, a fight broke out. One where it was only seen by the offenders. The loser had the entire right side of his face bruised up. His idea was to avoid the CO, but eventually he was found and sent to segregation--and the attacker stood in a lineup with his coworkers, getting their knuckles checked for bruising. Once found, he too headed to segregation.

Fights occurred all the time in the kitchen. One day, a young kid, black, muscular, ended up fighting this older guy over some nonsense. The fight was broken up, and they went their separate ways. Well, the kid approached me, inquiring what he should do next. I shared this: "Both of you aren't scared, so step to him and speak on whether the issues are squashed, or does he still want to fight. Don't walk around the kitchen, leaving something like that left unchecked. I saw that crap end bad, especially with all these can lids (a family-size can opened with a can opener, turned a folded lid into a serrated knife to slice one's throat)."

That evening, I'm working out with the large hot boxes. Think of two refrigerators on wheels that could hold cold and hot trays on opposing sides. Well, we pushed them close together and did dips from them. While I was, the guy the kid fought joined me. We did sets of ten dips, sit-ups and push-ups on cardboard boxes we discarded in the trash carts. Once done, we sat and waited until it was time to leave for our housing unit.

The next day, the guy, whose I learned name was James, cooked breakfast for me and my crew. We did this while the supervisors were getting the morning meals in order. To get food cooked was like trying to steal diamonds from a jewelry store while cameras were on you. This was why we all had to work together. Meaning, we all had an individual job: making the toast. Getting into the dry storage to get the whole grain cereal. Someone would get the milk. Another would cook the eggs in the skillet. All of this just to eat a meal that reminded you of home. You even had to watch the office while you ate, so that you wouldn't get caught.

Well, James and I ate, then began learning about one another. He was three years into his life sentence. Both of us were miserable about the reality of growing old on Wallen Ridge. Especially when we were getting paid. 35 cents an hour for four days out of the week. As we ate, we grew closer and closer.

That is how it goes: you spend large amounts of time with strangers learning aspects of one's life, just to chew up time while you work back-breaking hours for pennies.

At night, we made plans to eat, and that too took us sneaking into freezers to make burgers with lettuce and tomatoes. We ate, but also did our workouts. That was the prison motto: always keep yourself in shape... even after 10 plus hours on your feet.

We closed in on our final day of working. We managed to get through our shift uneventfully. Nobody fought. Nobody was fired for stealing or napping on the job. Me, I'm just stuffing my mouth, because the weekend in the cell I would be eating Ramen noodles with lukewarm sink water. So a toasted sandwich was a high commodity on my menu before awaiting the weekend to end and return to work.

Well, at the close of our shift, James and I sat alone, talking in the chow hall, "You know my celly was wrong about you."

"What do you mean by that?" I wondered.

"Lil' C said you were going to jump me."

I was taken by surprise by that. "You mean the fight with you and Tim (the kid)?"

"Yeah."

"James, I told Tim to speak with you and see if it was over, nothing more, nothing less. My word."

"I believe you."

That's when it hit me, he worked out with me to get close and.... "So wait, what would you have done if you thought I was going to jump you?"

James reached into his work pants and removed a folded can lid. "I would've cut your throat." His eyes unflinching.

That's prison in a nutshell, and I never forgot that moment, ever, because I was that close to...