Here's an excerpt from Lock Up Diaries by Glenn Langohr... You can buy all of my books on Amazon in print, kindle or audio.
I
watched from the cell door and saw the brass come into the building.
There was a dark black man over
50 years old who looked like he was the Warden, another black man
with lighter skin who looked like
he was the head counselor, known as the CCII, and a round table of
three other lower level Prison
Administrators.
They all went into an office under the building’s gun tower. Heart
stripped me out for security. I knew the drill and dropped the white
state boxer shorts and
lifted
my testicles, then turned, then squatted and coughed, then lifted
each foot and waited for the metal
detector wand. Heart waved it by my butt cheeks and said, “I have
to handcuff you but I’ll do it with
your hands in front of you.” I walked down the stairs and saw the
usual suspects behind cell doors
watching.
L’il Bird was always perched.
The
office was a 14' by 14' room. There was a 6' by 3' wood table that my
criminal history was spread
out on. The brass was already positioned by rank. At the end of the
table the Warden sported a name
plate – Jackson. Next to him was the CCII, Allen. On
the other side of the table the three lower ranking prison guards.
Heart stood behind me waiting
for
me to be seated at the end of the table where the brass could study
me like an insect.
Everyone
stared at the warden waiting for him to start. He had his head bent
down while he scrutinized
the papers in my file. His big black bald wrinkled head finally
looked up at me. He studied me
through bifocals for far too long, then said, “Benny Johnson…Sit
down.”
I
sat with my handcuffed hands resting on the table in front of me
staring at the Warden, and waited…and
waited…I broke the staring contest and looked at CCII Allen’s
face. A little nicer, some smile
lines, some laugh lines, compassionate eyes… Warden Jackson said,
“What are you doing here?”
I
stared back at the warden wondering if I could create any smile
lines…”I’m looking for Club Med.
I must have made the wrong turn.”
The
warden’s forehead creased in anger and it pulled his bifocals
higher up his bulbous nose. I
looked
at CCII Allen. He was trying not to laugh but his eyes were crinkled. I
had to assume the warden meant, how did I get out of the last prison
and make it to his so I said, “I
didn’t make the arrangements, you’re going to have to talk to the
travel agent.”
The
warden still didn’t look like he liked my answers. His voice
growing more irritated as he said,
“This
file says you are an inch away from an indeterminate SHU.” That
meant for the rest of my prison
sentence
I’d do my time in the isolated Pelican Bay SHU. I stayed quiet
though my soul raged; I don’t
have
a single tattoo and have never claimed a gang! Yes, I have been
involved in violence in prison but
how
else do you survive?
The
warden began with the questions…”What’s your AKA, what do they
call you?”
“Benny
Johnson.”
“What
gangs are you affiliated with?”
“Which
ever ones you house me with, or put me in a cell with.”
The
warden was getting pissed. The bifocals were straining higher. The
wrinkles in the forehead
deepened.
In an angrier voice he asked, “What neighborhood do you run with?”
“I
run solo, but sometimes circle the YMCA.”
The
warden shouted at me, “Where are you from?”
I
felt the anger rising in my soul like fire. This man just wanted to
write down that I was a gang member
or shot caller and put that in my file to discard me like trash, all
with these questions to label me.
I didn’t bother telling him I’m from my momma, and said, “I
don’t have a tattoo, I’ve never
claimed
a gang, I’m just a drug addict who struggles with impulse control
and finances…” I shut my anger
off by ending with, “But I’m saved by the blood of Jesus.”
The
warden seemed to calm down and in a softer tone said, “You’ve got
four counts of battery on
police
officers, and a pile of violence in prison.”
He
had it wrong, or at least the perspective. The sheriffs in Orange
County jumped me in the county jail
after I was a witness to police brutality and interviewed on the
news.
As
far as the in prison violence, it is a predatory environ and if you
don’t lead you either get pressured
or led. I wasn’t going to try to explain myself. Nobody listened
anyway.
The
warden said, “I’m clearing you for yard but at this prison we
shoot people like you. I’m
going to post a memo for all the gun tower guards to keep an eye on
you with a hair trigger.”
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