Prison Story — Living la vida Los
“Dub, you ain’t handling your business…” Los says to me, as I have to peek from under my hat while I was trying to take a nap between trucks being received for the day’s schedule. I have been working in the Commissary Warehouse doing manual labor for one and half month; as I decided to leave the Education department as all the students who wanted to finish their General Education Degree had received it during my tenure — 6 students in total. They didn’t want me to leave, but since I had been there over 6 months, the Officer overseeing the department thanked me for my dedication and released me.
I decided to switch up my bid as I am now on the down side of my period of incarceration here. As of today, Halloween and I have about 8 months left here in Petersburg. My routine was getting stale and going from working 5 hours a day, 4 days a week to 8 hours, 5 days a week has changed my schedule to have less off time and hopefully less boredom. Upon my arrival, I was assigned to be the Supply Room Clerk with Los, and we shared a back room full of office supplies, two old desks, spider webs, and outdated food products. Today, Los and I had been discussing relationships and how Prison affects them after we both had sessions with the Psychology department in the last week. I don’t really nurture the romantic side of my relationship because it doesn’t exist while in Prison. Los, having seen me with her in a previous interaction during a visit, feels I’m being selfish in how I am handling my absence from her, but I digress and choose not to continue the conversation, leading to him just now saying I’m not handling my business with a shaking of his head like he is disgusted with me.
“Since you don’t want to respect my decision not to talk about it, what are you trying to imply?” I ask him, pulling my hat up over my face to make eye contact with him.
“Dub, you can’t just pretend you don’t care. We were together before you came in. Obviously, you have something! Why aren’t you trying to maintain your relationship?”
A look of surprise and anger shoot across my face. “You should know better than the people out there in the streets, especially because you and Melissa ain’t having the best of relationships yourself.”
“Dub, every visit is a date…” he says as I start laughing interrupting him. He pauses for me so he can continue. “…You have to make it romantic.”
“Oh, yea? I don’t think trying to get your girl into the bathroom is considered romance.”
“Shit yea it is! We are in Prison; you take any little thing you can get…. Plus that isn’t the only time to do things though.”
I squint my eyes to process his information and still come up lost as to what he was trying to say. He leans forward and thinks how he can better explain.
“You are in pretty good shape. You ever thought about taking a scenic run?” He asked.
Still perplexed, I think I am starting to understand what he was saying, so I responded. “Ya’ll get it on in the woods? Nah, I don’t think she’d go for that one man.”
He slams his hand on the table. “No Dub, the hotel on the other side.”
I take my feet off the table and sits to process what he was saying. Being in the woods alone would get you a level 2 write-up and thrown in the SHU for 2 months, plus make you go behind the fence with a security upgrade. Leaving the premises completely by meeting up at a hotel is a level one shot for escape, and you get 5 years added to your sentence and sent to a place like California or Duluth, Minnesota — but definitely another time zone.
“Are you crazy?!? Yeah, I want to see her alone, but I ain’t tripling the time I am already losing in here for a little time to be alone. She’d kill me for even suggesting it. Not to mention the risk/reward factor is too high and definitely not in my favor.” I told him.
“See Dub; you would rather be with her “alone” or with other people while you are locked up?” He responded.
“No, I ain’t saying that. I’m saying I can’t control what she does and doesn’t do, I CAN control myself, and how much longer I have left in this shit hole.” I am literally pointing to rat droppings in the back of the office that had appeared over night that I just noticed behind him.
Los leans back and pulls a magazine out of his work bag. “Dub, she’s my girl, she’s mine, and I will risk it.”
I pulled my hat back over my eyes and kicked my feet up on the desk to try to return to taking a nap. “It is what it is, in five years it won’t matter anyway.” “That’s easy for you to say — I got 7 left.” “Don’t make it 12 then and be back behind a fence; you definitely won’t get the interaction you have right now. She sees you weekly.” As I got no rebuttal from him, I peeked back out to see him staring at me and then he responded. “Your girl is pretty, man! Don’t you think dozens of guys are trying to talk to her — if you know about it or not? Don’t fall for the lies women tell.” I shrug my shoulders and laugh. “She’s one of my best friends man, plus one hour in a hotel every blue moon won’t always satisfy those other hours. I understand the scope of Prison and what it does to people and relationships.” “So you don’t love her?” He said raising his eyebrows in curiosity. I stood to face him! “I’m not solipsistic.” “What the hell is that Dub?” he retorts with his hands up angrily. “It means to be willfully unaware of how your behavior affects the people you care about.” He contorted his mouth and proclaimed, “Well, why don’t you just say that instead of using big words.” I lean back and let out a sigh. “One — I wanted to make sure you were listening. Two — The word ‘solipsistic’ was faster than the explanation of what it was. There shouldn’t be any qualms about that.” He raised his hands above his head again.
I shrug and say “Sorry, I meant it shouldn’t be any problems.”
Los and I have been friends for about a month and a half together in this room at work. He arrived in June, and we lived on the 4th floor opposite each other. Besides the occasional head nod, no words were spoken until I walked into the room in mid-September as his co-worker. We instantly became cordial between the moderate age difference — him being 30 and me 32, and him being from the western part of the state and me from the southeast part. Carlos is the only bi-racial child of his family never really fit in. He began selling drugs as a teenager and playing football in High school. He met his girlfriend, Melissa, as a senior and they been off/on ever since. It’s his second prison bid, but his first federal. He did 18 months (the same amount I forecasted at doing), and they broke up and got back together after he got out. They had a child a few years later and because he didn’t have any work experience, and was tired of working menial jobs, got into selling drugs again on the side and was hit with a 16 years sentence in Federal prison — for heroin and a gun — starting in Butner, North Carolina. After 7 years, he just made it back 30 minutes from her, a few months ago. He’s been a little stand-offish at the thought of me leaving in 8 months or sooner because we started working out together and hanging out. He is a loner and spends most of his time by himself. I didn’t understand why he was jeopardizing seeing his girlfriend and 6 years old son for risky filings. He probably wouldn’t do the whole 16 years, but running through the woods for some action would likely solidify the outcome.
“Well you need to think about it Dub, it’s all I got until I get out. I’ll let you know about it tomorrow. Maybe you would want the route.” He said with a grin.
I look at him stone-faced and throw my hands up.
“She gotta have herself some Los man; we hadn’t been together in 7 years. We started turning into friends and not even talking. Now it’s on 2–3 days a week.” He followed up.
“Two to three days a week?!? Holy shit man, the law of averages isn’t on ya’ll side. You know someone had already said something to somebody to get some snitch points.” I told him.
Los stretches and reaches into his drawer for some instant coffee to get ready for his sprint later on.
“Dub, I’m riding this and her out until the wheels fell off. Any way you looked at it. I’ll be back in a camp in 18 months, and we will figure out something else.” He finished as he poured some coffee into his mug and heads off to get some hot water.
I shook my head as he laughed his way out the door, thinking to myself “wow 2 to 3 days a week… that could probably make this time more tolerable…” I quickly dismissed it, and sat down to calculate my time until I am free of this place and waited until work was over.
After work, I head back to the unit for a nap before dinner and my evening workout. Los is in the bathroom as the count is finished and I am dressed to hit the weight pile after I eat.
“See you later, Dub.” He said with an exaggerated grin. I slapped him on the back as I head down to the chow hall for the mystery meat of the day. I worked out for about an hour but call it early due to the lingering pain in my right shoulder, from straining on an overhead military press of 255 pounds back in September — that I forced myself to complete that, unfortunately, resulted in a painful ligament partial tear. I sat in the shower stretching my arms, chest, and back when shouts of “recall” come from the speakers and other inmates in and outside the bathroom. I quickly towel off to prepare for the count, and upon stepping out into the hall, I saw everyone is in the cells… but Los. “Oh, Shit…” I thought to myself as someone came up the stairs saying, “they caught someone in the woods.” We all sat quietly waiting for the count to be completed. Once completed, they took his picture from the book of inmates and took it outside to confirm who they were looking for. Dogs and officers ran into the woods after they took his pillowcase to give to the dogs for them to smell. A few minutes later, Los was exiting the woods handcuffed behind his back shaking his head as he was staring up at my windows on our floor as I shook my head back to him. Unfortunately, as he was lead into the back of the van, his luck had just run out.
Originally published at www.visualstories.net on August 25, 2017.
