Taking My Soul to the Laundromat - Chapter 1: The Belly (Book Preview)

"How do you know where I'm at, when you haven't been where I've been; understand where I'm coming from?"

-B. Real

They led everyone who had been sentenced to the back where the county vans awaited to transfer us from the courthouse to the county jail. Greg Harden waved as he stood next to the door of his car. I saw him in the courtroom sitting with a couple of football players who had been charged with setting a fire in their dorm rooms. I wasn’t certain if he had stayed around for my sentencing, but apparently he had. It was ironic that the individual who had foreseen my difficulties at The University of Michigan was there to witness me during my low point. I’m certain he had been to the courts a few times working with the young men in the athletic department. I doubt if he ever expected to see one of his engineering students here.

“See you back here soon,” he said.

I nodded my head up and down, raised my handcuffed arms and mustered up the energy between my tears to utter the words “definitely” in response. He would be the last person from the University I would see for the foreseeable future. I vowed to fulfill the promise to return, no matter what it took.

We left the court and drove through campus to get to the county lockup. Everything seemed at such peace. Classes were starting the next week. You could feel the excitement in the air as the students prepared to start another year. While the other guys in the van gawked at the young ladies, I put my head down in the van whenever we approached anyone that I recognized. For me, this school year would be drastically different from that of my classmates. It was during this ride that I truly began to understand how much I would miss the normalcy of college life.

Our group was taken to the county jail to await transfer to our primary facility. At this point, I was officially a prisoner of the State of Michigan; I was state property. Some of the people that were in the county jail when we were first arrested three months earlier were still there. Most were surprised when I told them the sentence. They expected, as the police sergeant had recommended, that we’d receive a one-year county jail sentence. They tried to explain that the sentence was probably better for me.

“County time is harder time to do than prison time,” an older guy told me. “The county is so enclosed that days drag on. In prison, you have more to do, so time moves faster. They have recreation. Some of the camps have cable and video games. It’s not too bad. Two and a half years, huh? You’ll do about half and go to the center, unless you can get to boot camp.”

Spoken like a true jailer. I listened but the reality was that I truly did not want to be anywhere – prison, the county, Ann Arbor lockup – anything. Anywhere that took away my freedom was the wrong place for me. Unfortunately, at this point it was too late to turn back the hands of time.

This was where I began my sentence, 2-1/2 to 10 years. Maybe I was delusional or didn’t understand. Maybe my family didn’t want me to be scared so they truly did not give me the information. Maybe they were unaware too. Whatever the reason, I had no expectation when we went into the court that morning that I would not be returning home with my family. At worst, I thought I would be going to a diversionary program for first time offenders.

“How old are you?” another one of the inmates asked.

“Just turned 20,” I responded.

“Okay, well you won’t be going to Jackson. They only send cats who are over 21 there. You’ll be going to Ionia Riverside. It’s still a max facility. But they will quarantine you from the crazy folks because you are a short timer. State can’t have you being cracked over the head by a lifer.”

By now, I had learned to listen to everything with a grain of salt. Most of the information that I had heard to this point was inaccurate. I figured that I would sit back and wait until my transfer date to learn the real deal.

After a few days, I caught on that on some mornings all of the phones in the buildings would be turned off. The old-heads taught me that they did it because people were being transferred to another facility. They didn’t want people to call home and potentially set up an escape plan. I spent the next few days waiting for the phones to be cut off for my departure.

One evening, about ten days later, one of the officer’s came by and called me into his office.

“White, time for you to pack up,” the officer informed me. “You are going to Ionia in the morning.”

“Okay,” I responded.

“Stay out of trouble there. Don’t let the knuckleheads get you down. Go ahead and call home if you need.” It was about ten minutes before lights out. In the two weeks since my sentencing, my parents had visited four times. The officer and I had a few conversations, as he did with most of the young guys there, about our paths and futures. He knew it would be important for me to let my mother know what was going on so she would not be worried when I did not call in the morning. He was bending the rules by letting me call, but it would not be the last time I would be shown compassion.

I informed my mother that I would be on the move in the morning. When I arrived at Ionia Riverside, I would call and give her a status report. As I returned to my cell to pack for the rideout, the reality of going to prison finally set in. I thought I had prepared mentally, but I was wrong. The notification was it. There was no pardon coming from the governor. My judge wasn’t going to change her mind. Nobody was coming to save me from this fate. At that point, I balled up on my plastic mattress and cried like a baby. The release valve was opened and all of my fears of failure came out. I cried myself to sleep and woke up to begin my journey to the state penitentiary.

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They woke me up at 8:15am the next morning for the beginning of our trip to Ionia. We were first taken to a holding area. There were seven young men, myself included. I had come in contact with each of them during my two weeks in the county jail. The officer led us from the holding cell in shackles to the awaiting county van for transport.
       In addition to my co-defendant Danny and I, there were two young guys named Worm and JJ who had caught drug cases in Ann Arbor. Steve, who was from neighboring Ypsilanti, also had a drug case. There was James who was either famous or infamous, depending on your vantage point, for doing the first carjacking in Ann Arbor. Then there was a guy named Jim who was the lone White guy. He had killed someone while drunk driving and was doing three years for vehicular homicide. 

Jim was as scared as I. We had become close in the two weeks in the county jail. In hindsight, there could have been a case study done on the six people in this van. Including me, the six Black guys were there from crimes of opportunity while the white guy committed a crime of poor judgment.  It would have been interesting to do an in depth examination of what led each guy to reach this point.

Here we were; seven young guys on the van to Ionia Riverside Facility. Without the defined parameters, the department of corrections sticker on the sign of the van, the orange jumpsuits and the armed guard, the scene would have resembled any group of guys on a road trip. Nobody looked like criminals. Would Washtenaw County be safer with these guys securely tucked away? Apparently so.

We had a two-hour ride in front of us. The first hour on the van was quiet. Steve finally broke the silence.

“Anybody been down before,” he asked, “besides juvenile hall.” Everyone shook their heads.

“I don’t know, but I’m scared than a muthafu***,” JJ responded.

“Me, too,” Worm joined in.

“Y’all ni**as going to boot camp. You’ll be back on the streets in six months. F**k you talking about,” James laughed pointing at JJ and Worm.

“So,” JJ laughed back. “I just want to go home.”

“I feel you,” Danny chimed in.

“What’s it going to be like at Ionia,” I asked.

“Well, Ionia is where they send the crazy muthafu***s,” James explained. “It’s a max facility, but we’ll be in quarantine at Riverside. It is separated. But don’t sleep, you do run across cats in general population all the time.”

“How long do you stay there,” I asked.

“Until they find a bed for you at your joint,” Steve answered. “I think all of us will be a Level 1, so either ITF (Ionia Temporary Facility) or STF (St. Louis Temporary Facility) about three hours from here past Saginaw.”

“Man, I thought you were talking about St. Louis, Missouri for a second,” Danny laughed.

“I think I’m a Level 2,” James corrected with a smirk that clearly concealed his fear.

“The officer said we will be in quarantine about a month or less then they will transfer us out,” Jim answered.

“Man, what did you do?” Danny asked Jim. I think I was the only guy in the van who knew the details of Jim’s case.

“Drunk driving, vehicular homicide,” he responded. “I still have to go to for the civil trial and to deal with the bankruptcy.”

“Why you have to file bankruptcy,” JJ asked.

“Because of the civil trial. They are trying to take everything,” Jim explained.

“But, what are you going to do for money,” I asked thinking in the back of my mind what the value of the life was worth.

“Well, the bankruptcy will stay on my record for seven years on my credit report, but I’ll be here for three of them,” he explained.

“Three years for killing somebody, that some bulls***,” Danny whispered under his breath to me. We obviously were thinking the same thing about Jim’s sentence. But, we couldn’t blame Jim for the sentence. That was the court’s choice.

“Welcome to the fam,” JJ shouted. “You down with the brothers, now.”

For me, the discussion with these young men was changing my preconceived notions about the individuality of the people we collectively call criminals. More importantly, it was helping to shape the relationships I would develop during my incarceration.

Our transport finally arrived at Ionia for us to begin the next phase of our lives. The officer chained us together and led us into the building where we were told to strip and shower. Next, the guard showed us how accurate the portrayal of prison life in American Me was.

“Tilt your head forward,” he started, “now, run your fingers through your hair.” Everyone complied with the request.

“Turn your head to the side. Pull your ear forward. Other side.” The officers looked inside everyone’s ears. “Hold you head back. Open your mouth wide. Stick your tongue up, stick it out. Pull out your lower lip. Now the upper.” My embarrassment increased.

“Extend your hands out in front of you. Spread your fingers. Now, turn them over. Bring your hands up. Spread your legs wide. Now lift your penis. Now, lift your testicles. Now, turn around. Lift your right foot. Wiggle your toes. Now, your left foot.”

“Man, this is some crazy sh*t,” I thought to myself.

“Bend over. Now, squat. Spread your butt cheeks and cough,” he ended. The officers finished inspecting our belongings. We were given a set of prison-issued underwear and blues, which resembled a navy blue “Dickies” outfit and black steel-toed boots. The words “Property of the State of Michigan” were stamped across the back. Words could not describe the humiliation that I felt that day.

I wasn’t alone. Jim had turned beet red. They lead us to the processing center where we were issued our state prison numbers or as they are commonly referred to, our second social security number. My assigned number was 233098A. The officer explained the number.

“Your number is unique to you,” he started. “This is how you will be tracked. The letter after the number is your suffix. It tells us how many times you have been here. If you come back, you’ll have a B, then a C, so on and so forth. Michigan doesn’t have a three strikes program, so you can go as high as you want, I’ve seen up to a G.”

I gasped. “How in the hell do you come to this place seven times?” I whispered to Danny.

“You can, however, be sentenced as a habitual offender. If you are, whatever sentence you receive is automatically doubled. That’s for new crimes. If you violate parole, it’s still under the same suffix. But, our state has a new law. If you commit a crime while on parole, you do your max then start your new sentence.”

In my case, it meant that if I committed a crime while on parole, I would have to complete the 10 year maximum then after that sentence was completed, begin whatever sentence the judge handed down for the new crime.

“Those aren’t the ones to watch out for,” James explained. “If someone has a really old number, like starting with a one, it means they’ve been down a long time.”

“Tag all of your possessions with this number. Everyone here is a criminal,” the officer warned and laughed.

While everyone had arguably made their own choices that led to this point I could not help but to think of how closely all of this resembled slavery. We were property, like the millions of my ancestors traded back and forth. It is impossible to not link the socioeconomic aftereffects of slavery that has led to so many young men to become incarcerated. The generational effects of slavery have remained well after Blacks were emancipated.

The six Black men in the group were a microcosm of the disproportionate number of young Black males being removed from society. If not being directly killed off, we are taken out of society via incarceration. Our rights as humans are stripped away. The oft-mentioned term, endangered species, does not overstate the plight of many young African-American males.
        The uncertainty that lied ahead truly scared me. I felt impotent without the ability to control even the smallest details of my life. The best that I could do was follow directions and not make waves. 

The officer took us through our intake process; however, it would be a few days before we were fully classified. I knew that Danny and I could not be in the same place. Although we had a cordial relationship, the general rules called that if someone had a “spons” in their file, it had to be accommodated. A spons was someone who was either a co-defendant or could not be housed in the same facility with another inmate, generally because of a previous altercation at another prison.

They finally took me, Jim, Steve, Worm and JJ to the facility’s gymnasium where most of the individuals with shorter sentences were housed. Danny and James went to another hallway, where guys with longer sentences were quarantined. Within the gym, there were about 80 bunk beds lined around the perimeter of the gym. In the middle was the basketball court. Every afternoon, they would roll a basketball out and let us have a little recreation. They held a monthly 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Teams from general population and quarantine were allowed to participate. At the end of the tournament, which my team won twice, there would be a full-court all-star game. I picked up the nickname Webb (after Chris Webber) and my bunkmate came to be known as Nique (after Dominique Wilkins) because of our styles of play.
      Over the next few days, we were given a range of tests. We Went through psychological examinations, academic testing and medical testing. There was also a dental examination. The two African-American women in charge of the dental office were known for chastising the young men who came through quarantine. It wasn't mean spirited in any way but out of love.  They had seen many young brothers come and go and felt responsible for letting them know that they were capable of so much more. For many guys, it probably was the first time hearing this message. Naturally, once I revealed my background they laid into me. 

“Boy, are you crazy?” the assistant asked.

“So you were in school?” the dentist asked.

“Yes ma’am,” I answered. The assistant proceeded to playfully slap me on the side of the head.

“That’s for your mother,” she said. The conversation made my heart ache a little. These women were not telling me anything that I did not know. But at that moment, the caring and love these women showed for me provided strength and let me know that, regardless of where I was, people still cared.

After about a week in the gym they gave us our paperwork and the results of our blood tests. The word was that if someone was moved without word it meant that they had tested positive for HIV and had to go to a separate housing unit. Needless to say I was relieved that I did not get moved. The paperwork also included information on our transfer facility along with “date papers.” The document factored in time off for good behavior or “good time” and provided my earliest possible release date, which was September 1, 1995.

Your early release date was given up front so we knew where we stood. Every prisoner kept hopes that they would go home early, either via boot camp, appeal, or overcrowding. The prison grapevine told tall tales of guys who got out earlier than their date. The other rumor was that the state was starting a new “day for day” policy in November. The policy would give an individual a day of good time for every day served. Two Novembers would come and go with no change in the policy. Through all the hopes and borderline delusions, the only thing you realistically could do was lose time for poor behavior.

While the prisoners are sometimes delusional, by the same token, the public is oftentimes confused by the manner in which the sentences are reported. My sentence was 2-½ to 10 years. I was supposed to do 2-½ years minus good time and any time served. In my case that was exactly 2 years and four days. The final six months could be spent in a halfway house and then followed by two years of parole. However, the media oftentimes reports sentences as “up to ten years.” So in my case the public would potentially go into an uproar because the perception is that I would have served eighteen months of a ten-year sentence.

The people who did the maximum, which for me would be ten years, were the ones with whom society should truly be concerned. It signified a person that had done little to be released early and probably lost all of their good time, as well as their regular time due to poor behavior. They would be released back into society without parole or structured supervision. I learned quickly to stay away from these people.

I ended up staying at Ionia for over three months, which was about 2-3 times longer than usual. My facility, St. Louis Temporary Facility (STF) was overbooked and they needed a bed to open prior to taking any new people. In the meantime, I saw a lot of people within the gymnasium come and go to other facilities. A few of the people from the Riverside Facility remained at Ionia, being transferred to general population. These were individuals who had double digit sentences.

After a few weeks, I became an old vet. It didn’t take long to be able to put the faces with the names or the stories in the newspapers. In this facility, they were simply people and not the monsters that they had been described as. Regardless, this was my home and these were my neighbors, until I finally received the call to pack up for St. Louis.

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During my stay in quarantine, a few of the guys in the gym were selected to go to boot camp instead of remaining in prison for their full sentence. My lawyer had led me to believe that once I pled “no contest” they would get me into the boot camp program. Boot camp was what it sounded like. They work you hard and many dropped out, which I couldn’t understand. If someone gave me a chance to shorten my sentence, I’d be willing to stand on my head the entire time for such an opportunity.

The purpose was to teach discipline. I figured since I already had some discipline, I would naturally be able to get into and pass the program. After the three months of boot camp, you could go home under state supervision. People did not pick boot camp; they were selected depending on their sentence and the nature of their crime. The boot camp director was an African-American female whose reputation preceded her. She wore a uniform similar to that of a police sergeant and looked like she could flip you over and put you in a headlock without breaking a sweat. If you could close your eyes and imagine a boot camp director, without seeing her, she would be it. This was a fair skinned woman with short hair standing maybe about five foot-six or seven. She was neither fat nor muscular; she was just solid. When it was all set and done, she was the person to talk to about getting into the boot camp program.

Eventually, I would have the opportunity to make my request in person. This was after I essentially stalked and wrote her on a weekly basis. She came to talk to me at work while I was in working in the laundry room.

“I looked at your case and talked to some people,” she started. “You cannot go. I tried but you are ineligible due to the nature of your offense.”
     I knew that it would be tough to get in with a violent crime. My hope was that the circumstances of me case and my background would help. There were already certain requirements that the state did not ask me to fulfill. Generally, everyone in prison is given a laundry list of items that need to be accomplished prior to eventually getting released. This part of the rehabilitation process. These include anger management classes, NA/AA meetings, GRE and other educational classes. Unlike most others, I had none of these requirements. My only requirement was vocational and/or career training, which many facilities did not offer. I figured that the people within the facility were actually looking at me as a person beyond just a number. They knew that it was not in my character, I was not a criminal. I hoped that they recognized I was not a typical inmate, so I was hoping that would help me get a break. Unfortunately, due to the rigid guideline, this would not happen. 

“I think you should go back to the judge,” she recommended. “You can get her permission or get your charge reduced. The time is within the guidelines. A sentence under three years is eligible, so work on the actual charge not the time.”

There was no reason why I couldn’t have gotten a lesser charge, even with the same sentence. It was not about the guidelines. I met guys there with the same charge without my positive background but were doing six months. They came from Wayne County, which is the African-American community. It once again taught me a valuable lesson about how the system worked, including the impact of the catchall system that we currently use. It was then that I began to understand how the system truly works and how people could get railroaded.

I looked at the deals and sentences that African-Americans were getting, not just Black vs. white, but within the communities from which they came. White guys appeared to not only receive more leniencies but more cooperation from the start in making prison a final alternative. Within predominantly African-American communities, where there are more African-American judges, the sentences were on par with sentences handed to offenders in predominantly White communities. The sentences that African-Americans received in their own communities are generally less than those in other communities. This apparently bothers some.

Detroit, for example used to have Recorder’s Court, which was designed to serve its citizens. Recorder’s Court was eventually merged into the larger court. While the justification was operational, many believed that the powers-that-be felt that the judges were being too lenient. In reality, the sentences were on par with sentences being handed down to sentences in non-African-American communities. People were getting a fairer shot in Recorders Court.

It begs the question of what exactly constitutes a jury of one’s peers. That withstanding, at the end of the day, here we were. This was my last, final opportunity for immediate freedom and it was essentially gone. So the truth was that I had 24, at this point 23, more months remaining, minus six months in a community residential center. There was no way around it. If I were going to boot camp it surely would have happened by now. With her finally saying no, that was it. It was now just a matter of time before my bed opened up. I had to do my time. I was still frustrated because the system did not provide for outliers. Because everything was set in stone, they could not look at people as individuals. Again, the reality of my fate set in.

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After the long wait, they finally transferred me to St. Louis. Danny had left for Ionia Temporary Facility about a month before I did. I was excited to finally be leaving. They told a tale of a grand place with video games where you could purchase your own television. Ignoring all of that, I was just eager to get out of the quarantine area.

When I arrived, it was nothing close to what everyone had promised. There was still barbed wire and the plastic mattresses. There were no video games. The sleeping area was set up almost in a row of cubicles, with about four beds to a unit. Each area was sectioned off to provide a bit of privacy. But, we were not stuck in a gym 24 hours a day, so being able to walk around and smell the fresh air was good. In the end, it still was not freedom.

The reality was that this was not home but my parents and even my friends could visit once in a while. It seemed to at least be livable. St. Louis was a little different. It was a Level 1. There were five levels, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. A secure Level 1 facility houses prisoners who are more easily managed within the network (even though they may have committed violent crimes). Level 5 prisons house offenders who pose maximum management problems, are a maximum security risk, or both, according to the State of Michigan. The levels were based on your release date along with the nature of the crime and your general behavior while incarcerated. It was based on a point system.

An individual who had murdered someone and done 30 years and was about to go home, could be housed in the Level 1 facility. The segregation had been eliminated. I had to learn to be careful and stay on my p’s and q’s. As time went on, I met a few people with old number and A suffixes. While I was careful, I would find the oldheads offered much wisdom, not only on prison but on life in general.

My first cubicle mate, Bill was incarcerated for manslaughter. He had served fifteen years and had four more to go. He told me that he did it because his mother told him to.

“Yeah, the guy raped my sister and nobody would do anything about it, so my mother told me to man up.”

“Man, this sucks though,” I said, referring to the prison and being away from the family.

“Why you say that?” he asked. I honestly couldn’t answer the question. Everything I had been taught led me to believe that prison was a bad, horrible place.

I learned quickly, however, that everyone did not share this feeling. In his eyes, seeing his settings as bad could make the time more difficult. However, in order for me to stay on a positive path, my view could not change. I could not afford to become institutionalized as I longed to re-enter society and start over.

At St. Louis, I began to connect with people for the first time. As a result, my newfound “friends” began to teach me how to survive in prison. My father grew up in the projects and had learned about death and incarceration from his friends and family. However, knowing about prison and knowing how to survive in prison are two different things. He told me never to take a free handout from anyone because in return they would try to make me their “bitch.”

Although his advice sounded straight from a movie, I definitely heeded it, even to this day.

Bill taught me about the more subtle aspects of surviving prison. For example, he taught me to be prepared for “moods.” He said that moods could hit you at any point in this place.

“You could be walking the yard after receiving a letter from your lady, in the greatest of spirits, and out of nowhere a down point or mood will hit you,” Bill explained. “You can be watching television and all of a sudden the mood will come over you. Eighteen months is not a long time, but it will seem like an eternity if you do not manage your moods.” He went on to say that the moods might even be tougher for me because of the things that I had lost. I soon recognized, however, that the ability to deal with these moments, regardless of the origin, depended on the individual. My memories of hanging in the student union may not have more of an impact than the next guy’s memories of hanging on the corner. Essentially, these moments occur because you are working to find normalcy and are disappointed when you cannot. The reality is that incarceration is not normal. To this day, I find that these moods do not solely apply to the prison system. Finding peace in life is about managing the moments when you are overcome with disappointment or fear.

Bill took me under his wing because he saw my need; he was trying to help me maintain my psyche. My personal challenge was to get acquainted to life in prison without becoming institutionalized. I did not hide out in my cubicle hoping to avoid being stabbed. Nobody tried to take my lunch. For all intents and purposes, it was regular life, only it occurred behind a fifteen-foot high barbed wire fence. Bill warned, however, that it was very possible that I would be transferred to a prison camp.

“How much time you have, again,” he asked one morning at breakfast.

“2-½ years.”

“I don’t know youngan, you may go to a camp, since you’re low risk according to your guidelines.”

“Well, isn’t that good.”

“Hell no,” the other guy eating with us yelled.

Bill jumped in, “Camps are the lowest security but they have the least privileges. Here, you got a security clearance to go out on work crew. Get that freedom every day. With your case, you won’t get a gate clearance to go on work crew at camp. And they make over $5.00/day, twice as much as everyone else.”

“You’ll know soon though. And dig this; they are all in the Upper Peninsula. The closest one to Detroit is Brighton, about 45 minutes, but no one gets classified there. You can transfer there. But believe this, if you go to camp it will be way up north in the cold. There is one, Ojibway that is fourteen hours from Detroit. Four miles from the Wisconsin border. It snows so much that they have to tie ropes between buildings to guide the way because the snow gets so high. Oh, and they have bears, young blood,” Bill’s buddy explained.

“Relax, it won’t be that bad,” Bill interjected, attempting to calm my nerves a bit. “You’re still a short timer. The distance is the hardest part. You know how your family and friends were planning to visit every weekend. It’s a little tougher when you’re half a day away. But, you’ll make it, whatever happens.”

Clearly, I did not want to go to camp. I was settling in and making friends at St. Louis. But even more disconcerting was the potential inability to see my family and friends on a regular basis. The choice was not mine to make. I would be sent to camp at the discretion of the system.

The bad news came the next week. The officer came by my cubicle at lights out to tell me to pack my stuff. I was off to Jackson Parole Camp. I was being processed to go to Camp Ojibway from there.
        I said goodbye to Bill and departed for Jackson State Penitentiary the next morning. We stayed there over the weekend and departed for Ojibway. Along the way, we made a couple of stops at facilities to drop off and pick up transferring inmates. The people from Ojibway met us at the bridge to take us through the Upper Peninsula, making stops along the way. We rode another seven hours through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan until we arrived at what would be my home for the next twenty months.