Deaths brought sorrow.
Births brought hope to a new generation.
Then Roosevelt Smith happened.
“Look man, I’m just out here trying to mind my business. I ain’t with none of that shit you’re talking about. Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me alone.”
“The youngblood got some heart, fellas.” A round of laughter. “Leaving you alone would make me sad, and you don’t want me sad, do you?”
At one in the afternoon the prisoners from D-block and B-block were out on the yard for recreation time. B-block housed two classes of inmates, death row and those serving nothing less than thirty years. D-block housed inmates serving fifteen years or less. About fifty percent of the men out here were old heads and the other were young dudes with the youngest being twenty-one with a life sentence.
When I first stepped into the maximum prison I received a odd praise from most of the inmates. It saddened me that I knew most of the men I passed on the way to my cell the day I arrived. By the end of the night word had spread that I was there and even the warden came down to see for himself that I was actually here.
Only a handful of people knew about my reasoning for my stay, and it clearly wasn’t for sleepovers and to make new friends.
Raising up from the weight bench, I grabbed my towel and looked across the yard were Roosevelt and his clan of followers were surrounding one of the new young boys. Growing up you heard stories of men in prison and their sudden interest in the same sex after being locked down for so long. I also knew that not all men went that direction, but most had. What sickened me the most was the abuse and open brutality done to new inmates. Just because I put fear in a man’s heart outside of these walls, I knew I bled like the next and never had that much pride to think I was invisible.
In the eight months total that I’ve been here I’ve been tried by several brave hearted men and gangs. A total of ten occurrences. Men who I helped fund their grandmother’s medical bills and help stay out of jail because of back child support. Dudes that were homeless and sleeping under bridges and pushing stolen grocery carts. Those same men I helped shanked and jumped me.
Sadly, several of those men aren’t living today.
There have been times when I laid in a puddle of my own blood thinking my time had come. Body numb from the multiple stab wounds. Chest in excruciating pain. Right when I used my last bit of energy to look my killer in the eye, someone who I helped came as my saving grace. Defending me and slaughtering those who used an army to defend one man.
Eventually the fights stopped. Turns out those men who defended me were dudes from my old neighborhood who witnessed my transition from a quiet boy to a grown man. In here my rank out in the streets meant nothing until I had to prove that I was still that same ruthless man no matter the color of my jumpsuit. The few who thought they got away with sending me to the hospital for weeks at a time, they learned their lesson once I got back on the yard.
I figured I’d have to show my hand and prove my strength, just not at the expense of getting three blood transfusions. Nevertheless, I rained down fire with my hands how I loved. Army or no army, I defended myself until the bodies dropped and dropped and dropped.
My motto has always been “Any man or woman that wronged me, wronged his own soul.” Those that hated me were the same. They loved death so I brought it to them.
Speculation of the sudden death of the warden traveled around the prison like a wildfire. No one knew who was to blame for the twenty-three stab wounds to his body. He never made it home. Never made a street over outside the prison. His wife had become a widower and his children were fatherless.
The young kid who stood toe to toe with Roosevelt had to be at least twenty-five. Warren Jenkins from Miami Dade. A good kid that wanted to help his brother out one time by helping him traffic drugs. I knew all about the kid and all the rest of the inmates in here.
“Roosevelt.” I stood stretching. A hush came over the yard.
“I’m just having some fun with the fresh meat.” Roosevelt chuckled nervously.
Like me, Roosevelt was also on B-block and my next door cell neighbor. I remember when he saw me shackled and handcuffed being escorted to my cell. It had been a while since I laughed so hard watching him piss himself once he recognized who I was.
Standing, I looked over at the dingy old man. “Didn’t he say that he wanted to be left alone?” I wiped my face free of sweat waiting for his answer.
Roosevelt and a few others had sick perverted wicked ways and I hated to see innocent kids like Warren get forced into some bullshit. If it wasn’t the inmates, then it was the guards. That shit disturbed my fucking soul seeing other men prey on other men.
“Warren, go on about your business. Roosevelt won’t bother you anymore.
Isn’t that right, Roosevelt?” I tilted my head waiting for his answer.
Roosevelt’s forehead coated with sweat. “You keep protecting all this ass leaving nothing for me. Starting to make me think that you want me for yourself.” He joked nervously while his little peons laughed with him.
All eyes turned to me because they knew I didn’t get down like that or played those types of games. Even the guards looked hesitant and worried.
Technically, I had nothing to lose.
Nodding with a smirk on my face I sat back down on the bench. “Tell me, Roosevelt, how are you sleeping at night? Any strange voices or noises keeping you up?” Watching the blood drain from his face made me laugh.
When I ran my background check on Roosevelt he hadn’t been diagnosed with the mental disease. It wasn’t until he got locked up about a year ago and had a mental episode that they diagnosed him. His sister, Mrs. Perkins, knew all about it and never said anything. She was the one who signed him out of the mental institution earlier this year and allowed him to live with her and JD.
Why would she allow him to stay there knowing that he had a mental illness? I knew about him living there before he went to prison, but I thought nothing of it. It’s like the more I unfolded information, the more I realized that I failed in keeping JD safe. I dropped the ball with him.
After a few seconds the chatter on the yard and everything prior was forgotten. Bringing up how Roosevelt slept was only to rub in the fact that for the last eight months I’d been making him suffer a slow death. Those who hear voices, several different voices, they don’t like to go down memory lane especially when it comes to abuse.
Every night, by memory, I rehashed Roosevelt’s childhood in a low voice that only he and I could hear. The cell on the right side of me was empty so it was just us. Over and over I told the story of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, grandfather, and family friends. Instead of breaking generational curses and getting some mental help, he willingly decided to continue the cycle that I was adamant to put an end to.
Me retelling those stories, recalling his case file line by line tormented him. Triggered the voices and whatever else affected him. Sometimes he cried. Sometimes he screamed. Sometimes he banged his head against the cement wall. I began to break him down even more by speaking of his mother. That really triggered him to lose his shit. I’m surprised he wasn’t placed in the psych ward.
Money pays for a lot of things to go unnoticed or ignored around here.
After yard time we went in for dinner and I sat and watched Roosevelt the entire time. Warren was sitting on the other side of the lunchroom with another kid that had come in about a week ago. From the pieces of conversation, I heard from Roosevelt’s table I knew he and his perverted friends planned on messing with the boys later on when it was time to shower.