To Free the Truth

An old lady with blue hair and a polka dotted smock greeted me at the front entrance to Skyview. A pungent mixture of Mentholatum and cigarette smoke assaulted my olfactory glands as she took my vitals and asked a few questions. The next thing I knew, I was locked in my new home–a 10 square foot concrete box with a drain in the center to piss in. I was given a blue blanket about 4 x2 feet to cover my naked body, nothing else was allowed. I assumed the fetal position, covered myself as best I could, and cried myself to sleep.

A few days later, I was given prison garb and shoes, then escorted to a room with a team of 5 mental health workers. They questioned me extensively and whispered to each other. I played the part of the warped lunatic, going into great detail about the voices I was hearing and what they were telling me. Several hours later, I was taken to a new cell with a bunk and mattress, toilet, and a window. I was allowed to keep the clothing I wore, nothing else.

I cursed Scratch. Where were the T.V.’s and reclining bunks? Sure there were nurses, but not a one under 60 or easy on the eyes! Yes, there was air conditioning, but try living in 50 degree weather in a concrete box–naked! It was nothing like the ‘hotel’ Scratch described.  The following day I went before the treatment team again and came clear. I am a faker. It was all a lie. I’m as sane as any of you…probably more so. Why did I lie? I was scared of being in prison, worried about being raped, and tired of the heat on Garza West.

Thank you for being honest, they said.

I’d be going back to my unit of assignment in about a week… The next day I was called back in to see the treatment team. I was at first confused then angry when they informed me that I would be admitted to the unit. Diagnosis: Adaptation Disorder. Huh?! I thought they meant to keep me in that cold cage with no property, so I vigorously protested, “I’m not crazy, I swear! Please send me back to my unit! Please!”

They calmed me down and explained that I’d be moved upstairs and could have my property, recreate with other patients in a dayroom with a T.V., even go outside, and possibly attend education as well as work–if I desired. I asked them why they’d keep me here if I wasn’t insane. They felt compassion for me, they said. I was a 16 year old that looked 13 and they wanted to teach me about prison life before throwing me back to the wolves.

I was moved upstairs that night into a relatively large cell (still no T.V. or reclining bunk!) and allowed to go to the dayroom. There were about 30 inmates in there of various ages and races watching T.V., playing table games, and intermingling. Some of them were obviously CooCoo for Cocoa Puffs… One guy was staring at the ceiling with drool pouring down his chin. I laughed when someone ran up to him and screamed in his ear, “Don’t look into the light, Carolanne! Don’t look into the light!” Johnny Rosales, who couldn’t speak a single sentence unless it rhymed, was listening to an old black man beg for a shot of coffee. “Come on, Johnny, I’m yo friieeend!” As if on cue, Johnny stomped and spat, “You want to be my friend?! Then, let me stick it in!!” I quickly realized I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Not all the inmates there were psychotic. I met Shane Handcock a couple of days after I arrived. He was several months older than me but had also been inside since he was 15 and was doing a capital life sentence for a crime his friends committed. The law of parties got him, too. He was incredibly small even for 16. While he was extremely intelligent and at times quite vocal, he was an introvert and mostly reserved. He later confided in me, telling me of being raped on Clemens Unit by “the blacks” which was why he cut himself and landed on Skyview. We talked a lot and became best friends, always competing with each other in chess and in the classroom in the education building.

My focus on Skyview was two fold–get bigger and stronger in preparation for my eventual placement in a “real farm” and get educated for my return to freedom someday. By January of 1997, I was Valedictorian of my GED class. And by the Spring of that year, I completed a plumbing vocation. I begged and pleaded with the school administrator to put me in more classes but she stated that I had taken everything they could offer me due to my lengthy sentence. I’d have to wait to be transferred to take more classes. I was a 6 foot, 150 lb wiry kid when I first arrived on Skyview. After 11 months of working out 5 days a week, stuffing my face at my job in the kitchen, and playing lots of basketball in the gym, I was 186 lbs of muscle and had grown an inch or two. I kept telling Shane, who worked in the kitchen with me and was my workout partner yet didn’t seem to get bigger, that I was ready for a real farm. He only shook his head saying he’d stick it out as long as they’d let him. I didn’t want to abandon him. I assured him that I’d ride it out with him, but in July of 1997, I was discharged from Skyview. I got caught fighting a pedophile who laughed about raping teen girls. By then, I thought I was ready to deal with the pressure of prison. I was tired of being treated like I shit myself by the doctors, and I wanted to prove to everyone, including myself, that I could make it out there. I was soon transferred to the Connally Unit in Kennedy, Texas.