I’m reading from chapter 4 of my book, Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term.

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Chapter Four: 1990-1992 / Months 37-57

Contractors complete the remodel of B cellblock and I join the 600 prisoners who were confined with me in A cellblock for our relocation. It’s not far from the old housing block to the new one, just across the polished corridor. I climb the zigzagging metal staircase to the top unit, B-3 carrying all of my possessions. I have sneakers, t-shirts, sweats, khakis and toiletries bundled up and tied inside my blankets and sheets that I carry over my shoulder, like a hobo. The move lifts my spirits. It’s a fresh start in a clean, new environment. Although I’m still in the same prison, the remodel replaces the hundred-year-old decaying building with modern plumbing, working lights, and air conditioning. The remodeled B cellblock brings an upgraded quality of life, much better than I’ve known for several years, and I’m learning to appreciate these incremental improvements.

In place of the old-style cages, the new housing unit features a different design. Solid steel doors enclose rooms, side-by-side, along the outer walls of the building. Community areas include an open rectangular area the size of a basketball court that prisoners call “the flats,” located in the center, and a second-tier, mezzanine level. I smell freshly painted walls, but with costs and utility in mind, the builders left the bare concrete floors unfinished. Six single-stall showers at the far end of the unit offer an illusion of privacy. An annoying fire alarm blasts repeatedly, suggesting that contractors still haven’t finished their work. Even so, I already like B cellblock better, which is good because I expect to remain here for several more years.

Prison counselors may have additional duties but, from a prisoner’s point of view, their scope of responsibility is limited primarily to assigning work details, approving visiting lists, and assigning living quarters. I don’t expect any counseling on how to cope with the inevitability of living for multiple decades in prison. I have to adjust on my own, and from the counselor’s list, I see that my next adjustment will take place in cell 616, on the top tier.  I’m assigned to share that cell with a man in his late 30s who goes by the nickname Windward. The proper term is “room” rather than cell, as it has the steel door instead of bars. But since we’re locked in, it’s still a cell to me.

Windward is a native of Georgia and his speech has that slow southern twang, peppered with lots of “y’all’s,” that I’ve become familiar with over the past two years. Windward likes to say he is American by birth but Southern by the grace of God. He takes pride in his appearance, wearing his hair in a mullet–long in the back, feathered on top, and cut short above the ears–with long, sloping sideburns that he calls the “Georgia slant.” His mustache curves down around his mouth, and he has a habit of twirling the long ends with his fingers when he talks.

Windward served a previous prison term for drug trafficking in a Georgia State prison. With that criminal conviction on his record he couldn’t find a job, so he reverted to smuggling drugs. The Coast Guard intercepted his boat–which was loaded with 300 kilograms of cocaine–as he cruised through a channel somewhere in the Caribbean known as the Windward Passage. He pleaded guilty to an importation charge and his judge imposed a 20-year term. The name Windward became his handle. I won’t mind sharing the cell with him, as he’s not dangerous, and he’s entertaining with his tall tales about thousands of female conquests.

Coordinating a schedule in our two-man room is easier than it was in the larger cell I previously shared with five men in A cellblock. I continue to work in the factory business office, attend school, volunteer on suicide watch whenever possible, and exercise. Windward’s schedule is more relaxed. He’s a unit orderly and he works the night shift, sweeping and mopping the floors while all other prisoners in the block are locked in their cells. Except for lockdown periods, Windward and I don’t crowd each other in the tightly confined space of our closet-sized room. I have time alone to think, which is how I like it. But not everyone feels the same way.

Whenever violence erupts in the penitentiary the warden orders a lockdown and the claustrophobia drives Windward stir-crazy. Sometimes the lockdowns last for a day, sometimes for weeks. Although I miss the yard, I relieve stress with pushups or running in place when I’m not working on my independent studies. We don’t have enough space for both of us to be on the floor at the same time, so while I read on my rack Windward paces four steps toward the door, peers out the window, turns, paces four steps toward the bunk, turns, and repeats this pattern over and over.

“Can’t you relax?” I ask him.

“I hate being cooped up in here.” Windward snaps as he continues to pace.

“You know what you need? A goal. Some self-direction, something to work toward, to fill your time.”

“What I need is a woman, a fifth of Jack Daniels, and an ounce of good weed.”

“That’s what you want,” I point out, “not what you need.  There’s a difference.”

“Damn straight, and I know what I want,” he tells me.  “I want a woman, some good booze, and an ounce of good weed.”

“It’s better to focus on something to work toward, something they can’t take away or stop.”  I’m no longer a novice at serving time, but I haven’t yet learned how to restrain myself from dispensing unsolicited advice.

“Not again with all that dime-store psychobabble bullshit,” Windward waves his hand at me, swatting away my suggestion as he would an annoying fly. “I told you once and I’m tellin’ you one more time.  All that schoolin’ ain’t fixin’ to help you none. A convict once, Michael, a convict forever.”

“That’s giving up.”

“That’s reality, Son. Ain’t nothin’ matter here but time. Y’all can read all the books you want, but in the end ain’t nothin’ gonna matter. I done been there. You ain’t tellin’ me nothin’ I don’t know.”

Windward expresses only two possibilities for his future. Either he will seduce and marry a rich woman, or he will earn a living with drugs again after release. He thinks I’m fooling myself with my aspirations of joining society. He’s convinced that a prison record extinguishes all possibility for a legitimate life. It’s like an echo, this recurring message of hopelessness, reverberating throughout the penitentiary. I refuse to buy it, refuse to accept that I can’t create new opportunities and new directions for my life.  Every day I renew my commitment to work toward something better. I’m planting seeds, knowing that those seeds will take many years before they take root and blossom.  When they do, however, they’ll provide for a better life than I’ve known and a better life than what others tell me I can expect.

I prefer not to have contraband in the cell, but I don’t live here alone.  The best I can do is get a promise from Windward that if guards find his stash during a shakedown, he’ll take the heat. Still, I’m not deceived about the value of such promises and I worry. He assures me that he’ll never keep home-brewed wine in the cell, or drugs, but I know he conceals a plastic shank inside a hole he hollowed in his mattress that he insists is necessary for protection. I have different perceptions on how to protect myself: I stay out of people’s way and I mind my own business. I can control my decisions, but I can’t tell anyone else how to live and I won’t go sniveling to the counselor with a request to move because I don’t like what Windward keeps in the cell. I have to roll with the realities of living inside a high-security prison.

“Rolling with it,” however, is stressful because of the personal commitments I’ve made. I constantly visualize how I’ll return to the outside world, and I’m not convinced that society as a whole would agree with my prosecutor’s statement that 300 years of good deeds would not suffice to atone for my two years of trafficking in cocaine. Redemption may be as elusive as the Fountain of Youth, but I’m determined to minimize my exposure to problems that can block my efforts to find it.

I’m familiar with executive clemency, a power vested in the presidency by the Constitution. With the stroke of a pen, a president can commute a federal prison term. It’s rare, as presidents build legacies by signing international treaties, or pursuing world peace, not by releasing prisoners. Still, striving to build a record that proves worthy of consideration for clemency gives me a purpose, something to work toward.

“What’re you gonna do, walk on egg shells through your whole sentence?” Windward taunts, laughing at my aspirations. “Don’t you get it? No one cares what you do or what happens in here.”

“Maybe not. But what do I have to lose by trying? Even if the president doesn’t commute my sentence, if I earn real credentials, don’t you think I’ll have a better shot at success when I do get out?”

“It’s just no way to serve time. You’ll see.”

Windward is right. It’s the reason I never think of myself as serving time. I’m in a hole, a pit that is deep and dark, and I’m doing what I can to build a ladder that will allow me to climb out. I don’t know how long it’s going to take but I know that every rung I ascend to will make a difference in my future.

That’s why I pay close attention to Mark as I sit in those Mercer University classes. He’s in his mid-30s with an athletic build that is suited to his chosen sport of tennis; I never see him working out on the weight pile where I exercise every morning. He doesn’t have tattoos and he’s one of the few prisoners in here who keeps a clean-shaven face.

Mark may sit at the small desks in the same classrooms with other prisoners and me, but his vocabulary, eloquence, and knowledge distinguish him. It doesn’t matter what course we’re studying, whether it’s literature, history, or economics, Mark articulates his thoughts with confidence. It’s obvious our studies at Mercer are not his first university experience.

“In what ways does Jane Austen use irony in Pride and Prejudice?” Professor Higgins asks the class, but only Mark has answers. I don’t even know what “irony” means.

“Who can help us understand the connection between the Treaty of Versailles and World War II?” Dr. Davis, our professor of history asks, looking for a class discussion. Mark is the only student capable of discussing the treaty’s influence on the morale of the German people and the subsequent rise to power of Adolf Hitler.

“How does the economic system of Marxism differ from capitalism?” While the other prisoners and I shift in our seats and stare blankly at Dr. Watkins, our economics professor, Mark’s hand shoots up. He offers an elaborate contrast between the theories of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, emphasizing the essential influences private property, competition, and free markets have had on advancing Western civilization, particularly that of the United States.

I want to express myself like Mark, intelligently, and with a style that shows I’m a man who understands the world and how it works. Knowing that I can learn from him, I introduce myself after class one day.

“You must’ve gone to college before,” I observe.

“No, only in prison. Been taking classes here and there for the past seven years,” Mark answers.

“Seven years? And you haven’t graduated?”

“I hardly ever finish. A year hasn’t passed when I haven’t been hauled off to the hole for something or other. Sometimes I just drop the classes, bored with it all.”

“Don’t you want to earn a degree?” Seeing an obviously bright guy with such little ambition puzzles me.

“It’s not that I don’t want one. I just get caught up with the day-to-day living. Can’t do much about it when I catch a shot for a dirty urine or get caught with a mug of pruno.”

“Why don’t you quit using drugs?”

“You sound like my ol’ lady,” he laughs.

“Yeah, I don’t get that,” I tell him.  “It seems to me that someone as smart as you would understand the importance of having a college degree.”

“If I get it, fine. If not, it doesn’t make much difference.”

“How is it that when you’re in class you sound like a lawyer, but out here you sound like you don’t care about anything?”

“When in Rome, do as the Romans,” he laughs. “Truth is, I don’t care. But in class I get tired of all those professors coming in here thinking we’re all worthless.”

“That’s not how they see us. Most of us probably aren’t as advanced as the students they teach on campus.”

“I like letting ’em know I speak their language.”

“I’ve noticed. Someday I hope to know as much as you.”

“None of it’s new. This stuff was drilled into me night after night at the dinner table growing up. Got turned off of education when the parents beat me over the head with it, telling me how crucial school was to my future. Fuck it. Started getting high instead, rockin’ out with Led Zeppelin and Hendrix and the Stones.”

“I wish I knew so much that I could simply turn my educational level on and off at will. It takes everything I have just to keep up with the class.” I explain to Mark that I consider an education essential to my future and describe how I’ve structured my time inside to avoid the obstacles that block so many others.

“Doesn’t that get old?” he asks.

“What?”

“All that goody-two-shoes bullshit, the rigidity, that structure.  I mean, Dude, we’ve got enough people telling us how to live in here. I can’t see how you’d want to put those kinds of demands on your time. I mean, let’s be real. You’ve got enough time.  It wouldn’t hurt nothin’ to let up a little.”

“Yeah, I don’t see it that way. I’ve got an opportunity to earn a degree right now. Who knows whether I’ll have it tomorrow?  I’ve got to seize the moment, then create something from it.”

“Big deal. Let’s say you finish all your classes and get your degree. What’s next? You’ve still got more than 20 years to go.”

“One step at a time. With a degree, I know I’ll be able to open new opportunities. Maybe I can go to law school. I’ll find something and I know the degree will help, especially if I can learn how to express myself as well as you. How did you build such an extensive vocabulary?”

Mark laughs. “You mean my ‘grown up talk?’ All you need to know in here is ‘motherfucker.’ Learn how to use that word as an adjective, noun, and verb.  Drop as many motherfuckers as you can into every sentence, drop it into the middle of words, and you’ll fit right in. Like I fuckin’ said, when in Rome, fuck everyone else.  Do as the motherfuckin’ Romans.”  He laughs.

“I’m not trying to fit in here. This isn’t my life and it’ll never be my life. I’m serious. How did you develop such an impressive vocabulary?”

“I don’t know. How did you learn the word window?”

“Really, I’m serious.”

“I’m serious too. I learned the language that was spoken in my house. When I write home or to people outside, I communicate one way.  When I’m in here I use the language of the pen.”

From my pocket I pull a stack of index cards I carry with me. On one side I’ve written a word that I came across in a book, on the other side, the definition, the part of speech, and an example of the word in a sentence. “This is how I train myself to learn new words,” I tell him.  “It’s a strategy I picked up after reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Whenever I’m waiting in line or whenever I have down time, I work through the flash cards. Test me.” I toss Mark the stack.

“You’re kidding. Man, you’re fuckin’ obsessed, intense!” He starts shuffling through the cards, looking at the words. “Immutable?”

“Immutable.” I spell it. “Not capable of being moved or changed.”

“Okay, that’s pretty close. How about truculent?”

“Mean, a bad attitude, a truculent person is one who always wants to fight or battle.”

“A lot of that in here. I don’t even know this one. Tenebrous.”

“Dark and gloomy.”

“See, your vocabulary’s good, just as good as mine.” He passes the stack back to me. “Just keep reading.”

“It’s not the same. I’m learning the words and I’m able to use them in writing when I concentrate, but they don’t come to me easily, or roll off my tongue naturally when I’m trying to express myself. That’s what I want to learn.”

“Well you need to reach out, to communicate with more people. All work and no play makes for a dull guy. You can’t just live as a hermit in here. There’s a word for you, hermitage.”

“I already know how to speak the language of this place. I’m trying to transcend this place, to leave here without everyone I meet knowing that I’ve spent my whole life in prison.”

Mark considers me for a second, then he offers a suggestion.  “I’ve got a friend you should write. He’s a professor. My sister’s always trying to straighten out my life and she introduced me to him.”

“You’re kidding! You have a friend who’s a professor?” I can’t believe this good fortune Mark offers so casually. I’ve been living in prison for three years, but books and learning have transported me out of here, at least in my mind. A university campus is like a mythical setting to me. Although I’ve been studying, accumulating credits, and building my transcript, I can’t imagine a more personal connection to the university than communicating with an actual professor.

“He’s from Chicago, but for now he’s in Chapel Hill, at the University of North Carolina. We write every week.”

“Is your sister a professor?”

“She’s not a professor, but she’s affiliated with the university. Bruce, my friend, heads the program she’s with, some kind of renewal center for educators. Do you want to write him?”

“Do I! This is the best news I’ve had since I’ve come in. I’ll write him tonight.”

“Fine. Give me the letter tomorrow and I’ll send it off with an introduction.”

The next morning I give Mark the lengthy letter I want him to pass along to Dr. R. Bruce McPherson. It describes who I am, what I’m doing in prison, and how hard I’m working to educate myself. I try to express how grateful I’d be to learn from him through correspondence.