An intimate first person non-fiction storytelling experience about incarceration in the United States.
Turkey Patty Night Scott Strothers
Forward By Christopher
Prison food is notorious for being inedible. One of the great scams perpetrated on the public are prison menus. They read like an a la cart offering of pleasantries: cheeseburger with tater tots; spaghetti with garlic bread and salad; breakfast burritos, juice and milk; turkey patty with ketchup, green beans, and fries. In actuality, the food purchased is of the lowest quality, least inexpensive, sourced
October 2021, “Sullivan, are you ready to get out of the ghetto?” My boss says to me after having just hung up the phone. I laugh confused. He goes on to say, “You’re moving to Hale” although I had never requested this partcular move or dorm.
I leave commissary, which is my assigned job here at Ohio Reformatory for Women, and pack my belongings and haul it across the yard. It’s about a block or so, pushing a small flatbed cart that had to have been made back in 1960 with everything I own piled onto it. Thinking this has to be a mistake, and I’m going to be moving right back.
No mistake was made.
When you’re a mother, fear is the job description.
As a mother you learn about fear in ways like never before. You’re always afraid–always. About everything from the kids falling out of bed, getting hit by a car, kidnappers, to the weather. There is nothing that can’t hurt our kids. But the last thing that would cross your mind is the fear of you hurting your children. Never in a million years did I think that I’d be the one to break their hearts. The same hearts that I worked so hard to protect. To make a mistake, one bad decision, that landed me in prison for 17 years. Those 17 years take me away from the most critical times in their lives, when they will and have needed me the most.
Forward
I’ve heard guys say that incarceration is a young man’s game. I’ve never liked that saying because it implies that prison is somehow a game. The loss of your freedom, life and liberty could never be a game. Those that look at it that way spend a lifetime returning again and again to prison.
Doing time is hard and there’s constant struggle, but it’s not impossible. Each of us has our own difficulties, and it’s how we choose to view things. There’s wisdom here, and it exists in the words, deeds, and actions of the older crowd. Therefore listen.
Christopher
Continue reading “Prison To Me (&) The Month Of May by T. Brozell Sr.”
Forward
By Christopher
This is the first fictional work Lettersfromchristopher has ever posted and until it’s arrival into my hands I never really thought about it. About what you ask? About the fact that no one, not a single soul since I created this blog over 3 years ago, chose to take me up on submitting a fictional work. It’s not that those that are