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Samuel
When you are lockedup all you have is time;
Time to:
Think,
Ponder,
Regret,
Plan,
Wish,
Hope, and
Dream.
I thought about what I could have done differently, the night when the police came to our house. I pondered what would have happened if I hadn’t taken the plea deal. I regretted I didn’t go to court and fight for my life. I planned my future outside of these concrete walls and metal bars. I wished I had another chance to prove my innocence. I hoped the days, years and hours would pass quickly so I could be home again. I dreamed of walking out the gates of this prison and never looking back. I had lost all hope that someone would figure out they had the wrong man behind bars for those murders. I knew I couldn’t keep hoping to be rescued. I had to settle into my reality. My reality was I was serving hard time for a crime I had no knowledge of.
* * *
I don’t rememberif I enjoyed being outside when I was free, but now that I am serving time, I look forward to feeling the sun warming my face or the wind blowing against my skin. Playing a game of basketball made me feel free, normal. In the course of a game, I could temporarily forget I was incarcerated. Until the alarm in the yard went off and all the inmates would have to freeze in place until the sirens stopped. Then I would remember. I was locked up.
I had picked up a basketball game with some guys from another floor. We talked a lot of shit, but it was all in fun. I came down from a lay-up and saw both of the dudes I’d knocked out, standing on the court staring me down. I passed the ball to one of the guys on the team just in case they were feeling like doing something. I was prepared to handle them the same way I’d handled them before. Just as I was making my way to them, someone came behind me and punched me in my side, twice. What I didn’t realize is I was not punched, I’d been stabbed. The pain didn’t register at first because when I felt the first prick, I turned around to swing on the person that hit me. I caught him on the jaw right after he stuck me the second time. The guards made it over to me just as the pain was starting to register. My assailant was down, but I started swinging wildly daring someone else to walk up on me. The guards had to use a taser to get me down so they could get me to the infirmary.
I woke up in a nice soft bed in the infirmary. Luckily for me, the shank that was used was short and caused shallow wounds. It hurt, but I would live.
“Aye, Lil G, this how you gone spend your time in here?”
I slowly turned and saw one of the inmate workers standing over me. I immediately recognized him. Not only had I seen him on TV when he was arrested, but everyone knew he was one of the inmates who ran the prison. Everyone respected him from the gang leaders to the prison guards.
“What?” I asked with a little bite to my voice.
“You hard of hearing, Lil G?”
He was getting on my nerves and had only spoken a couple words.
“No, I can hear just fine.”
“So, it’s your listening you have a problem with?”
“Who said I had a problem?”
“You obviously have a problem if you're laying up in here after being stuck.”
“Man, look, I was minding my own bus…You know what, nevermind. I’m cool.”
“No, what you are is disrespectful. When your elders are speaking to you, the least you can do is make eye contact like a man.”
This muthafuc…
I remember seeing him on TV when he was arrested after being on the run for several years. He was accused of killing a police officer during a protest in the eighties. He claimed his innocence, but he was convicted of murder, although he didn’t pull the trigger.
I looked up into his dark almost black eyes that were below thick bushy eyebrows and right above a long slender nose.
“That’s better. You are telling me you don’t have any idea why you got stuck?”
