Ink on paper
11 X 8.5 inches
SOLD
Created in Charles Bass Correctional Complex
Signed copy of One Man Left, short story, included
One Man Left
I had an eye opening and difficult night tonight. Tonight our entire pod was searched. They walked us out to the gym; strip searched us completely naked, and tore through our rooms while we waited to be let back into our pod. My cellmate noticed that I was hesitant to hang up the phone when the swat team came in (I was talking to my mother). The
guard apparently looked a bit angry, and I told him, “I stood up and was getting off, but no one was going to make me hang up on
my mother.” So I told my Mom I loved her and would call tomorrow.
We were searched by 30 swat team members. I returned and it looked like a house after being robbed. In our existence, it was our house, our apartment; the one place that was somewhat ours. This one place of ours can be violated any day at any time. That is a sobering reality. It is difficult to be reduced to four shelves, a sink, bed, and toilet, but even worse to realize that even that is completely out of your control. I have one true sanctuary; my mind. As private as I am, I’m in a position where I have to strip naked in front of four white men. I don’t even like to use public restrooms. This reality is not one I ever want to live.
One officer used an inmate’s restroom. The water was turned off (so no contraband could be flushed before we left) so the man returned to his toilet being used and not flushed. The herd of officers that ripped our rooms up, stepped on letters, pictures, sheets, and even the prayer rug of my cellmate who was Muslim, will walk in tomorrow and ask Shine to shine their boots; the same exact boots that trampled our homes 12 hours earlier. Shine (the compound shoe shine man) will do it with a smile.. a mixture of joy and perhaps rage that he is no longer in touch with. He is a man that has worked this plantation for over thirty years, and would possibly have nowhere to go if the doors were flung open and he was allowed to leave. He has the option to not shine their boots, but the consequence would be getting thrown in the hole for refusal to work. If I never knew what the author meant when he said, “Makes me Wanna Holler,” I do now.
...It is now nearly a year later and the previous experience is somewhere between fresh and slightly faded. There is reason for joy today, and the reason is that one man left. I’ve seen a number of inmates released over my years, and I generally feel the same things. I feel a lot of joy, a glimpse of hope, and a smidgen of envy. Today one man left. The entire prison knew him as Shine.
He lived in the first cell in my unit, right by the kitchen and the front door. The six square feet outside of his one man cell took on the feel of a front porch somewhere on the outskirts of some town, maybe somewhere in Alabama, or perhaps on the Mississippi delta, maybe even in a small town in Tennessee. There was plenty of joking, and a nightly argument that never seemed to end with blows thrown no matter how close they seemed. You could almost guarantee a good old southern cussing from Shine, and he spared neither inmate nor officer. He did seem to on some level love us all.
Old Shine: he spent the last 31 years in prison, and today he left. Today those gates were finally flung open. Today one man left. I knew I was witnessing something special when I saw him hug a captain, two officers, and two members of that same swat team that so violated us nearly a year before. One man definitely left.. It takes quite a man to leave this place with that kind of dignity, and beyond that show love to his oppressors.
At that time I didn’t see a badge or a stripe; I saw honest mutual respect. He did 31 years. He shined shoes for plenty of them, but today one man left. I’m hollering for a different reason today. There is no need for even a smidgen of envy. Today it’s all joy. Today it’s all hope.
I’ll go to bed in the same place that I did last night, but Shine made his mark here. The light hit me at least. For the first time in over 31 years Shine will go to bed without a five digit number attached to the end of his name. I had to pause and tell you about the day one man left.
Written in Charles Bass Correctional Complex
