WARNING: The following (lengthy) report of events will probably only serve to increase your seething frustration with unjust government bureaucracies, specifically, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (a misnomer if there ever was one.)Six months after I was supposed to leave for a rehab program and more than a year after I originally received my parole answer, I am finally at the unit where the program takes place. This entire week has been nuts so far because of the trip and all the unknowns through the process.
At 1 a.m. Monday morning I was wakened and told to pack my stuff. I was on transit. No one could tell me where I was going, just that i was leaving. I could be going straight home, to an evaluation and back to Venus, or to a four-month rehab program. Or I could be going anywhere because TDC does whatever they want. I quickly got a nervous, sick feeling in my stomach and was constantly drinking water to keep dry mouth at bay. I hate dealing with unknowns like this.
I packed my stuff into three plastic mesh onion bags - one that would go with me filled with hygiene products, books, and legal paperwork; the second to be picked up by my family filled with old letters and card games I can't take with me; the third filled with the rest of my property that didn't fir into the first bag to be sent to me in a few weeks via TDC truck mail.
Around 4:00 a.m. the cell doors were opened for breakfast and West came out to talk for the last couple of hours before I left. We kept trying to figure out what was going on and where I might be going. No progress was made.
As we talked, people kept coming to the table and wishing me luck, some that had never said a word to me before. When we went to breakfast, I saw a few friends and asked them to pass on the news of my departure to guys in other parts of the unit.
The call came at 6:30 a.m. for me to grab my mattress, pillow, and clothes and to head for the chain room. The chain room is where all incoming and outgoing inmates are processed into or out of the unit, exchanging TDC clothes for MTC (the private company that runs the unit that I am leaving) clothes. "Chain" is prison for "transit" due to the chains of handcuffs we are put into for each trip.
While in the chain room my friends Omar and OJ dropped by. It was probably wishful thinking that told me I was simply going to an evaluation to decide whether I would be put in the rehab program. Since professionals in the past have told me that I am the lowest risk for re-offending that they have ever seen, I figured that it would be quickly determined that the rehab program was unnecessary and I would be sent back to Venus until a parole address was approved. With this process in my head, I told Omar and OJ that I would be back in a couple of weeks. When the mailroom lady stopped by and asked if she needed to find a new Elvis for the talent show (see blog entry Friday, December 3, 2010), I told her the same thing.
At 8 a.m. all of us on chain were shackled individually - hands to waist and feet together - and corralled onto a small bus that looked like it belonged to an assisted living center. Three hours later we reached our first drop off in Huntsville, then hit the second near noon. I wasn't scheduled to get off until we reached the Huntsville unit in "downtown" at 1:30 p.m.
The Huntsville unit, also called the Walls, was one of the first prisons in the state, going back to the mid-19th century. This is where every execution takes place and the red brick walls have many stories to tell. The corner of the unit where I came in contains the crumbling state prison rodeo stadium where it is said that inmates would attempt to pluck $100 bills form the horns of a bull. The rodeo is lone since defunct and I overheard the officers say that the winning bid to tear down the stadium was just over $40,000. Despite the nation's progress toward newer prison operations, the Walls' outdated form of incarcerations lives on in Texas.
After arriving at the Walls I had to wait outside in a cage (a common theme of the trip - I felt like a head of cattle) until being ushered past the industrial buildings of the unit and into a converted gym. The industrial building was built in 1949 and was dedicated to the governor at that time, Shivers. The gym's side walls had closed in like a trash compactor and the floor had a series of six cages where inmates were being stripped, inventoried, and sorted. This process took a couple of hours with lots of standing around waiting. After being sorted, I was given a cell assignment on the sixth floor of an old-school cell block overlooking the gym floor.
The cell already had one occupant, a German who had been there 33 days. That doesn't sound very long until you realize that this cell was the smallest I've encountered yet - just six feet by nine feet - and had most of the space taken up by the sink, toilet, bunk beds and property we carries. The walls were covered with scribblings of departure dates (the Walls was also where everyone was released until a change last year), Scripture and artwork. The art varied form portraits of family or Christ to sexual images and gang symbols. It felt like the most cramped and unclean place I had seen yet. I was grateful to know that this was only an overnight stay.
Dinner at the Walls came at 8 p.m. and we walked through a courtyard where we could see where executions take place. I was told that two executions were held a few weeks ago - probably one of the Jasper "truck draggers" - and the bodies were wheeled out as guys walked past on their to dinner. Creepy.
After dinner I read a few pages before going to sleep. I only had one hour of sleep before being wakened for chain that morning, and I was exhausted physically and emotionally. Unfortunately, I was wakened at 10 p.m. to begin the departure process, which was the same process done earlier that day, only backwards and we a had two-hour break for breakfast around 2 a.m. From the cages inside, we headed to the cages outside to wait for our transportation to arrive. At this point I still did not know my final destination and was still hoping to do a short trip then back to Venus before going home.
While waiting in the cages outside, rain began to fall around us. We were protected from above by a corrugated tin roof, but collecting rainwater on the ground threatened to soak our property, so I was forced to hold mu bag of books and such off the ground. This same storm hit Venus as we were leaving the day before and I would see it again getting off the bus at my current unit.
My bus arrived at 6 a.m., two hours after I came out to the cage. I headed to Hightower, the unit in Dayton where I spent a month over two years ago. My heart sank. No evaluations are done at Hightower, just the rehab program. If I start the program as soon as i arrive there, I will get out in April or May with only a month or two before discharging my entire sentence.
I was upset that I wasn't picked up last May as scheduled and more upset that my lawyer and nearly every other official involved in my case had told me that I would only be incarcerated for two or three years at most. If I had been picked up for the program on time I would have been home with family and friends now for the holidays. Instead I'll be sharing the holidays with me, myself and I over a tray of poorly cooked prison food. I may still have a chance at trying to the administration that I don't need the program, but that chance is very slim.
We arrived at Hightower in the rain and had to wait in another cage outside. I kept my back to the wind and held my property close to my chest so the driving rain didn't get to it. Hours later, our stuff was inventoried, the guard told us to carry our property into the rain and to strip to be searched. All my effort was for naught as my legal paperwork, letters and books got soaked. I was angry and in disbelief, but far too sleep-deprived to do anything. Once we entered the unit we were made to wait in yet another outdoor cage to see the warden, classification and. I was given a job as a nighttime janitor, the same job I had last time I was here.
When I got to my cell around 12:30 p.m., I unpacked everything and laid it our on my bunk to dry. It wasn't until after 3 p.m. that I received dry clothes and a mattress (no pillows here). About five hours in wet clothes. After dinner at 4:30, I crashed out. I'd had only four hours sleep in the last 58 hours, so I was knocked out quickly.
This has been a long and crazy week so far, but I'm one step closer to coming home. Too bad I'm nearly 300 miles form home and back to the authoritative arms of TDC. I just hope this time flies by and I'm home before I know it.
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