Prison Issues.

All My Fault

A Short Story by Aaron Collins, D30738 P.O. Box 29, Represa, CA 95671

YOU ARE UNDER ARREST... You have the right to remain silent.. .Counsel, how does your client plead?... Jury, have you reached a verdict?.. Yes, your Honor... We, the jury, find the defendant ... Guilty... Of violating Penal Code #187, Subdivision A, in the first degree... I hereby sentence you to Life in prison without the possibility of parole...

It was a day I'll never forget. A day that a courtroom full of strangers snatched my freedom. The skies were a gloomy gray and Mother Nature cried for me, letting all of Los Angeles know that she was grieving. It was almost noon; my stomach told me. It growled demanding something; anything. I'd only picked at my breakfast that morning. I had no appetite except for the sour taste of my dirty fingernails, the irresistible snack enjoyed by nervous inmates. The big day had finally come. The day that twelve strangers would determine my innocence or guilt. This time when two officers escorted me into the courtroom shackled up, its atmosphere seemed disturbed and everyone's personality was out of the ordinary. The cute court stenographer who always smiled at me, didn't. The judge would usually ask how I was doing, but he said nothing. Even my attorneys acted funny. They had attitudes caused by, I thought, fatigue and stress. And for the first time ever, the victim's family who always sat in the front now with teary eyes, wore smiles. Happy Lotto winning smiles, smiles supported by joyful tears. The same kind of smile the DA flaunted all around the courtroom.

The jury entered and scrambled to their seats. None of them looked at me. None coughed, sneezed or whispered personal comments to one another. Their facial expressions were evasively brutal: That's when I knew that day would be the beginning of the end of my freedom for the rest of my life. I sighed and mumbled personal obscenities under my breath.

Everyone knew I was guilty and that the verdict would return-GUILTY. It did. I was standing when it was announced. I didn't want to stand, but the bailiff insisted. Simultaneously, me and the clerk read off the verdict. "We, the jury, find the defendant Andre Moore- GUILTY." I froze. My insides felt like loose yolk, and my body felt like an eggshell on the verge of cracking. Even though I knew it was going to happen, I was shocked. My breathing became erratic. I looked at the court stenographer and she smiled. The jury acknowledged my presence and the judge finally spoke, sentencing me to spend the rest of my natural life in prison. God? The first thought came to my mind was God, the punk, the buster, and the almighty joke. I called on Him and he didn't answer. Then I knew He wasn't real because if He was, He wouldn't have let them rape me of my freedom. Yeah, if He was real, He could have brought His ass down from Heaven and testified on my behalf. He did neither, so I cursed his existence. On my way out, I paused to stare at everything and everyone. I took one last long look at ... freedom. Because I knew it would be the last time this close to it. Outside, I took a long deep breath when the County Jail came into view, I exhaled. My attitude changed, I began to think and feel different. In my eyes, no one could be trusted. Damn! I wish my family was there to support me. I needed them to understand and care. I was hurt. Sorry.

Mad.

A week later, I was transferred to a maximum security prison and placed in a single man cell. It was very cold, damp and musty. There were no windows and the walls were made of concrete. Amateur and professional drawings were displayed everywhere. Some were sexual, others were meaningless. The three walls were gray. The same color gray that set the mood for the day of my conviction. Something told me that Mother Nature was there, too, in the fully furnished cell. A small bed, a combination toilet/sink, a shelf, a desk, me and steel bars. The first time they closed that steel cage door on me, it creaked, making a 'we got your ass forever' sound. The sound was long and eerie, kinda comical but very agitating. I began to feel ridiculed and cut off from everything because my freedom was in another man's hands. I hallucinated and laughed out loud for no reason. I ran over to them damn steel bars and gripped them as tight as I could. My knuckles pulsated, a single tear fell and I descended slowly to the cold cell's floor. The feeble light above me appeared hazy. I couldn't hold on to my bravery and hardcore role any longer.

All of a sudden, a caravan of tears fell, each containing a variety of pain and remorse. I was crying. Crying, I cried myself into a short nap. No, it was more like a daze. I was young again, innocent, and full of positive energy. I was playing in the park ... I was riding my bike ... I was playing doctor with the girl next door... Then I grew up fast, taking on the form and image of a ruthless gangbanger. I wore all my pants at the hump of my ass. I wore shirts two sizes larger. I wore dark glasses and a blue bandanna hung out of my back pocket. And in my waistband was a homeboy I could always count on. His name was 'Nina,' slang for nine-millimeter and when he got mad, he'd spit thirteen solid hard pieces of lead at your ass non-stop, and all I had to do was aim his mouth in your direction and tickle his belly.

For a whole year, the cracks in the walls, the noisy drips from the sink, the sound of the flushing toilets, and occasional spider and roach were the only friends and family I had. The cell had taken its toll on me. I played games. Games you create when solitude and loneliness sets in. One game, my new one, I'd tear pages from the bible the prison chaplain gave me, make them into airplanes, and fly them into the toilet from the front of the cell. After God dogged me, I just knew he wasn't expecting me to read His so called word. My favorite game was where I'd flick the light switch on and off until I got tired or it wouldn't shine anymore. And none of the games had names. They were just..... games. When I went to sleep and tried to have peaceful dreams, some sexual, I'd be reminded of my crime. Immediately a nightmare would interrupt it, starting with the day I took a life and ending with that damn steel cage door closing on me, mocking me.

I took a life. I can't say it was an innocent life because he chose to live violently like me. I stole a human being's seventeenth birthday for the life he portrayed. He was some black woman's son like me, and I killed him. Deliberately. On purpose. I had to do it or be kicked off the set. I had to prove that I was down. I had to show everybody that I was hardcore and not a punk. I had to prove that I was serious about crippin' and willing to die for the neighborhood. And I did. It was evening...Friday. The day began to grow dim and darkness was on his way. The homeboys and homegirls hung out in front of a vacant house drinking, smoking weed and selling crack. We listened to rap music from a big radio and off to the side, swaying to the sound of the music, was me. A joint in one hand, a bottle in the other and Nina in my waistband. I was in my own world. Just me, Nina, music and the feeling of intoxication. Something made me look up into the face of my enemy. My color was blue and he didn't wear blue. He looked at me and made a gang sign. I replied, saying, "Fuck all Bloods, punk!" "Fuck you and your dead homeboys," he yelled back. "Ah cuz," one of my homeboys yelled, "kill that fool!" I reached for Nina. My enemy didn't see that I had a gun to talk all that bullshit and disrespect my homeboys. He challenged my dedication to my 'hood and for that reason alone, he had to pay. Just as Nina came into sight, he turned to run. I aimed Nina at the back of his head, frowned, and pulled the trigger one time. He took two steps, tripped over his feet and hit the concrete with a solid thud. I watched as blood hit his entire face. I turned around to get my homeboys' approval but they were gone, everyone was gone. The yard was no longer filled with the sound of music and my good intoxicating feeling had left, too.

I did hear something. It was the sound of the police siren theme song growing louder and louder. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. I was drawn by the sight of a person lying in a pool of blood . . . dead. Just as I was about to run, the police yelled, "Drop the gun . . Step away from it and lie flat on your stomach with both arms and fingers extended to where I can see 'em!" I complied. I laid not more than four feet from the body. A river of blood began to flow in my direction. It paused momentarily when it reached my gun. Then it appeared again, still coming in my direction, only to nestle in the web of my outstretched fingers.

Now that my eyes are open, I can't believe I was willing to die for a color and the name of a street. Loved by few, hated by many was my slogan. I cared about nothing but my 'hood, and if it wasn't blue, it wasn't true. That's all I knew and wanted to know because I was blind and stupid.

I was a follower, not a leader. I listened to the advice of my homeboy who didn't give a damn about me. I followed his suggestion without following my own. It was he who made the decision for me. It was he who encouraged me to take the life of a human being. And it was he who took an oath, sat on the witness stand and explained to the whole courtroom how I took a life.

When I think about it, I could have made my own decision and chosen my own fate, but now I'm sitting in a cold concrete steel cell, thinking about what would I do if I could do it all over again. Three years have passed and not once have I received a letter from my so-called homeboys. I did hear that two were killed, one became a member of our enemy gang and my so-called homeboy who testified against me has a child from my girlfriend.

I must love prison. I must like to be told what to do and when to do it. I must love it in here because if I didn't, I would have made my own decisions, chosen my own fate, and kept my ass at home and out of trouble. I can't blame nobody but myself.

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