God’s Gunner’s, Booty Bandits, & Bad Boys
By R25288 ( c ) 2006
Chapter Two
The Journey Begins
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
Psalm 23 A Psalm of David.
I am in the darkness before dawn. The shackle is cutting into my left ankle. I am shackled to a stranger, who I met only moments ago. On this bus, I am traveling from the Pinellas, Florida, County Jail to prison. A transition from glorious freedom and choice, to no freedom, and usually no choice.
It is Tuesday, October 16th, 2001, and my body is being transported to the State of Florida. Soon, I will get my number, show my number, state my number, memorize my number, wear my number, and become a number. I am number R25288. There is no dot.com in my number. There is no computer to a virtual reality. My new reality is a number. Number R25288. A number has no emotions or feelings. I have become a dehumanized number.
I am alone. This is not a dream, but a nightmare. A scary, long nightmare, that gets worse and scarier. I am cold and frozen in my fear. I can not wake up, and the nightmare of my life is in control. My eyes water, and a tear drops. I feel the lump in my throat, and I swallow.
The bus hums east, along Interstate 4. The criminals around me talk and laugh. Most have no fear. They have been on this bus before. I was sitting in the front of the bus. The blacks were in the back of the bus. Racism still lives. I am too scared to turn around, and do a head count, but I guesstimated we numbered around thirty. I do not ever want to ride this bus again. I overhear the career criminals say that we are going to “CFRC”-the Central Florida Reception Center. I don’t expect cocktails on our arrival. For obvious security reasons, this was my first trip without an itinary.
I try to remember the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” I shall not want? Oh, but Lord, I do want. I want to go home. I want to play with my cat, FIPS. I want my MTV. I want my HBO. I want to continue to care for my Mom. I want to drive my own car, and not be driven on this bus. I want to go home. I want control of my life back. I don’t belong here. Why have you forsaken me to a five year prison sentence?
I can see through the cage in front of me, through the bus headlights, “Orlando”. I missed seeing the number of miles to it. Let’s see, Clearwater to Orlando should be about one hundred and twenty, or one hundred and fifty miles. We have passed Tampa, so maybe one hundred miles or less to go. “Think”, I tell myself, what comes after, “I shall not want”?
We are slowing down. Why? Fear! Oh, just a toll booth. We must be close to Orlando. I do not remember sleeping. Probably just my body’s defense mechanism still maintaining some control.
Behind me, I hear a black man answer another. Says he plans to get some booty once he gets to his camp (prison). Well, he ain’t getting mine! I had heard that guys who gamble in prison, and can’t pay their debts, have to become punks, and do sexual favors, to clear their debt. Sexual slavery. Might be the incentive, and time, to just quit gambling. Just a thought.
I wonder why prisons are called “camps”? I have been to summer camps. Somehow, I don’t think this will be like that. I would ask someone, but I don’t want to appear too stupid. I still have to learn their language. Some prisoners are called “ducks”. They are those who are new to the system, a rookie, a novice, a virgin. Someone who can be taken advantage of. Well, not me, dawg. That’s another one, “dawg”. Why do they call each other “dawgs”? I got it, maybe because dogs would be predators of ducks. That’s probably it. I wonder if everyone thinks this stuff through?
Anyway, I’m fifty one years old, a college graduate, bald, a former stockbroker, and I don’t want to be thought of as a duck. So, I guess I’ll become a dawg. In prisons, there are no inmate unions, or cooperative win-win scenarios. There are no open ended questions. There are no fill in the blanks. There are no C, D, or E choices. It is only A or B. Dawg or duck. You choose.
Why do they end sentences with a verb? “What your name be?” “Who that be?” “What time it is?” When I was first hit with, “What your name be?” I replied, “You mean what is my name?” And the response was, “Yeah, what your name be?” I just call it prison-speak. It has no racial boundaries. Ending most sentences with a verb is just the samantics of prisons in Florida. Maybe, the entire country. So, I’m learning their language, my dawg.
Spelling, of course, is another animal. I once had a Haitian cellmate in the “box” (disciplinary confinement) who spelled dawg as “Dow”. I don’t think the Dow Jones Industrial Average would want to be referred to as the Dawg Jones. A bear and a bull are enough animals for them. However dawg or Dow is spelled, it is still pronounced dawg, or dog, with a long g sound.
My Haitian cellmate also washed his clothes in the toilet. That too, is another story for another time. Prison is the art of improvise, and compromise.
Think, what comes after, “I shall not want”? I remember, “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.” Well, the sun was coming up, as the bus carried us into the Central Florida Reception Center. That’s government-speak for a prison in Orlando.
I had never been shackled to another human being before. He sat next to the window, and I sat in the isle seat, on the left side of the bus, with the driver in front of us. There was a cage between the driver and us. It held two black men. The older of the two apparently had said he was going to “buck it”. Prison-speak, as in to refuse, deny, cause trouble, about going to Orlando. There was no trouble.
Dan was the name of the guy who sat next to me. He spoke very little on the trip. I figured he was as scared as I was. He was white, forty-ish, and had recieved an eight year sentence. I thought a five year sentence was bad. I now realized I had something to be thankful for. Maybe that was my drink of still water, because now, the waters were going to get very choppy. I didn’t see any saviour’s hand to keep me afloat from the drowning waters that were about to engulf me.
