by Bobby Love
Before I left, my superiors at the hospital all congratulated me on my transfer.
“Good for you, Miller,” my boss said, clapping me on the back. “I’m really proud of you. You earned this.”
As I packed my few possessions from the dorm, Big Mike came by to say he’d heard I was being transferred.
“Don’t forget what I told you,” he said. “Keep doing what you’re doing. This move is proof that you’re going to come up for parole sooner rather than later.”
“I hope so, man,” I said with conviction. And then, “And thanks for everything.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “But you did all the work.”
I thought about what Big Mike said while I was on the bus heading toward Asheboro. I had done all the work. I had spent the last four years working alongside doctors and nurses, helping to take care of patients. I had helped a prisoner learn to walk again after being paralyzed from a gunshot wound, and that felt amazing. Doing good work, I realized, was truly satisfying. In the beginning, I was just signing up for things like Big Mike advised, to make it clear that I was doing the right things to make parole. But some major things changed along the way. For one, I stopped avoiding church and started listening to the inspiring words the preacher shared. Those sermons lifted my spirits. And then there was the work itself. I liked having a job to go to every day. I liked the rhythm of my workday. And slowly but surely, I started daydreaming about living and working outside those prison walls.
I started to think, If I can work every day in here for a dollar a day, I can work on the outside for a real salary and have a regular life. So I made a conscious effort to stop talking and listening to the inmates whose only language was crime. Those guys were young, with very little education, and hadn’t learned anything about life other than what they had discovered in the streets. And I wasn’t any different. At first. But my mindset had changed. I realized I was capable of learning and executing new skills in a professional setting. I read books and magazines about successful Black men and imagined myself in their place. I started to see myself with a wife and a family and being an important businessman. Maybe for the first time in my life, I saw that Walter Curtis Miller had the potential to be a real somebody in the world. Basically, I was growing up and I liked who I was becoming.
One of the first things I did when I got to Asheboro was call Jean and let her know that I had been moved and that I was much closer to home. She was happy to hear the news and promised to come visit. Asheboro was a world of difference from what I’d just left. We were allowed to go in and out of our dormitory without supervision. We could play basketball whenever we wanted to, and there was even a tennis court. Even the food was better than it had been at Central Prison. What I appreciated most of all, though, was the freedom. There were far fewer restrictions on your movements. But you had to earn those freedoms, I soon figured out.
For the first three months I was in Asheboro, I enjoyed the slower pace of life. I played cards, played basketball, and otherwise tried to lay low and keep out of trouble. I wanted to see how things worked, so I asked questions and observed. I noticed that some of the guys were allowed to actually leave the facility and go into town. They could go shopping or to the movies or meet up with old friends.
“How do you get that privilege?” I asked one of the other inmates on the basketball court one day.
“You have to get an Honor Grade,” he told me. “If you earn the Honor Grade rank, you get more privileges.” Apparently I hadn’t earned that privilege, as I was soon to find out.
“Why didn’t I get the Honor Grade?” I asked my new counselor, a stern-looking middle-aged Black man who didn’t like to smile. His name was Mr. Grady.
He leaned over his desk and said, “Miller, what have you done since you’ve been here?”
“What do you mean what have I done?” I repeated back. “It’s only been three months. I’m just trying to get situated. I’ve been staying out of trouble.”
“Miller, you haven’t done nothing but sit at that table playing them cards and playing basketball, and you think we’re just going to give you an Honor Grade?”
Big Mike’s words flashed through my mind. I realized that I hadn’t been following his advice. It didn’t matter that I had a good record coming from Central. I had to start over here at Asheboro to prove I deserved more privileges. I shook my head as I realized I wasn’t going to get anything for free.
“No, sir,” I responded to Mr. Grady.
“Well, then, if you want to make Honor Grade, I suggest you find a way to prove it,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I said and left his office.
Within two weeks I’d discovered the perfect way to prove to the administration that I was worthy of an Honor Grade. I signed up for a cooking class that they were offering to the inmates. Felix, the old cook who ran the prison kitchen, was teaching the class. He was a civilian who had been working at the prison for years. Most of the guys loved Felix because he had a great sense of humor. He told us that by the end of his five-week class, we’d be able to make a seven-course gourmet meal for our girlfriends and wives.
The thing was, before we got to the cooking lessons, we had to work in the kitchen. They put me on pots and pans, and I scrubbed pots for five hours a day. Then we would sit down for our lesson around a table in the cafeteria. Felix didn’t exactly teach us how to make a gourmet meal, but he did teach us how to follow a recipe and then how to double and triple that recipe if we had to feed five hundred hungry inmates. He taught us how to make fried chicken, gravy, and macaroni and cheese.
“There are a lot of different ways to make macaroni and cheese,” Felix said. “Some people grate the cheese and then they throw that on the macaroni,” he explained. “Fancy people make a sauce with butter and flour and cheese,” he told us. “But here at the prison, we got to use what we have here. And what we have here is canned cheese.”
I hated that canned cheese, and I hated the macaroni and cheese we made with it, but I enjoyed Felix’s lessons and learned a lot. And the next time I was up for Honor Grade, I got it. But I never got to enjoy it, because for reasons I still don’t understand, I was transferred away from Asheboro, farther away from my family to a facility three hours away in Asheville, North Carolina.
The experience at Asheville was shocking to me. For the first time in my prison experience, I was at a facility with more white prisoners than Black. Fights between the races broke out almost every day. I’d never seen anything like it. Thankfully I didn’t have to stay there long, but for the better part of a year, I continued to get transferred around North Carolina until I ended up back in Raleigh, back at Central Prison, right where I started. Only this time I was down the hill in the minimum security facility instead of maximum. It had been a tumultuous year, moving all around, my family often not knowing where I was, so I was happy to be back in a familiar place, even if it was far from home. I prayed I wouldn’t get moved again. The only good thing that happened during that year is that I built up my reputation as a good cook, and everyone seemed to know it. When I returned to Raleigh, I was immediately assigned to work in the canteen.
That made me happy. But I was only there for two weeks before I was called into the office and told that I was being given a new job assignment.
“Why?” I asked, retracing my steps in the kitchen. I’d done nothing but follow orders from the two white guys who I cooked with.
Captain Moore, the man in charge, sighed and said, “Look, Miller, you didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t worry about it. We’re going to send you up the hill to work in the office. You’ll like it. It’s easy work.”
I wanted to argue because I liked working in the kitchen, but what was the point? I knew once a decision was made, it was made.
I didn’t find out until later that night when we were eating dinner why I was transferred.
“I know what happened,” a guy named Rick who washed dishes told me. “Derek, the dude that cuts him
self, told Captain Moore if they didn’t get rid of you, he was going to start cutting himself again.”
“What?” I sputtered. I knew Derek was a crazy low-down dog serving a life sentence. He’d called me a nigger to my face and didn’t care about anything or anybody. At 250 pounds and six feet three inches, he was someone most guys were afraid of. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I didn’t want to make him my enemy either.
“Yeah, he was probably intimated by you,” Rick said. “ ’Cause everybody was talking about you being a good cook and all. They said you make the best fried chicken.”
My chicken was good, but it wasn’t worth getting on Derek’s bad side. So I reported for duty at the office the next day and found that the work was pretty easy, just like Captain Moore had said.
For the most part I was an office assistant. I was pretty much doing the same work I’d done at the Pentagon: filing papers, running errands, even going off the premises to purchase supplies for people. In the mornings, it was also my job to pick up the newspapers from the front gate and bring them to the office for everybody to read. If nobody needed me, I had a little room I sat in with a television, where I’d keep the coffee pot full and watch whatever shows I liked. My day would be over by 3:30, and then I was free.
I was on a good ride at this time in my life. I was eligible to leave the prison grounds once every six weeks with a sponsor and get a taste of regular life. I got to go to a concert. I got to go shopping to buy myself some regular clothes, and I even signed up to take some college courses. Shaw University, a historically Black institution in Raleigh, had a program where inmates could enroll and study toward a degree. I already had a prison radio show that I started with the help of some volunteers from the college, and now I was going to officially start studying communications when the new semester began the following fall. One of my fellow inmates even introduced me to a lady, and we often made plans to rendezvous when I was on leave. Yes, I was in my mid-twenties, and yes, I was officially inmate number 0283128, but I was living an honest life and I could finally see what a future for myself could look like on the outside.
* * *
That summer—the summer of 1977—I made my way to the gate to pick up the newspapers for the office but there were no newspapers waiting for me. This wasn’t the first time it had happened. When I got up to the office, I told one of my supervisors that the papers hadn’t been delivered. He was one of the civilians who worked at the office and he was always the first person who wanted his paper. His name was Mr. Avery.
“That’s strange,” Mr. Avery said. “But don’t bother with them anymore.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean it’s always something. Don’t bother bringing up those papers anymore until we figure out why they can’t get here consistently. I’ll look into it.”
“Yes, sir,” I said and went about my day.
The next morning, before I headed to up to the office, the guard at the gate called me.
“Hey, Miller, come get these newspapers to take up to the office!”
I turned toward the gate and yelled back, “They told me not to bring the papers up there anymore!”
And then I went on my way. I had a regular day at the office, but when I got back to my dormitory that afternoon, I was informed that I had been written up.
Once again, I found myself in Captain Moore’s office.
“Miller, you disobeyed a direct order,” Captain Moore said.
“For what?” I said, not even bothering to hide my confusion.
“The guard by the gate said he told you to take the newspapers up to the office but you disobeyed.”
“I wasn’t disobeying,” I began to explain. “Mr. Avery up in the office told me not to bring the newspapers up to the office anymore until he figured out why they were always missing. I was just doing what I was told.”
Captain Moore shook his head like I should have known better. “Miller, Mr. Avery is a civilian. The guard outranks him. Your job is to follow the orders of the men who guard and protect this facility. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. And then I knew what was coming next.
Every time a prisoner got written up, they got a hearing where it was decided what kind of punishment they would receive. My punishment was that I was going to be removed from my cushy office job. And instead I was sent to work in the kitchen!
I don’t know who was making those decisions, but being sent back to the kitchen didn’t feel like a punishment at all. All I had to do was keep my head down and stay out of trouble. And luckily, Derek had been moved to another job, so I didn’t have to worry about him anymore.
I worked in the kitchen for nearly a month before I allowed myself to let my guard down. During that month I felt I had proven myself to my superiors by staying out of trouble and doing all of the extras I could manage. In addition to my radio show, I was still going to all of the Christian church activities that were offered. I hadn’t had to bother God with any problems for a while because things were going so well, but when I got written up for the newspapers, I returned to Him asking for help.
“God, I need you to keep me from doing dumb stuff and to keep me straight, with no write-ups, so I won’t have any setbacks.” That became my constant prayer. Even when things seemed to be okay, being in prison always meant living in fear. You never knew when something bad could happen that you had no control over. Another prisoner could pick a fight, or a guard having a bad day might decide to take it out on you. I tried to stay focused on my routine: working in the kitchen, watching TV during my free time, and making the tapes for my radio show on the weekends. I also made sure to stay away from any inmates who were doing drugs or any other illegal activities that would ruin my chances for parole.
“Miller, you got written up again,” a guard said to me early one afternoon when I was finishing up my shift in the kitchen. “Report to Moore’s office in thirty minutes.”
“What?” I said, turning toward the guard. “What for?”
The guard shrugged and simply repeated that I was to be in the captain’s office in thirty minutes.
I said “Okay,” but inside I was fuming. Why did this keep happening? As I finished putting away my cooking utensils, I went over everything that had happened in the previous twenty-four hours. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what I had done wrong but couldn’t come up with anything that made sense. Rather than trying to guess, I took myself to face the music.
“Come in!” Captain Moore bellowed as I knocked on his door.
I entered the office and took a seat in what was now a familiar chair.
Captain Moore didn’t beat around the bush. “Hozart wrote you up, Miller.”
“For what?” I said, trying to remember the last time I’d seen the guard named Hozart, whom we all hated because of his attitude. He always wanted to make sure we knew he had power over us and liked to humiliate us whenever possible.
“Did you say something to Hozart this morning?” the captain asked.
“I didn’t even see Hozart this morning,” I replied.
“Well, he says he was walking across the yard this morning and he heard you call out ‘Hozart is a punk ass!’ ”
Now, deep inside I would have loved to say that to Hozart’s face, but I never would have been stupid enough to yell that out in the early morning hours across the entire yard.
“I didn’t say anything to anybody,” I said. “I was in my room and then I went to the kitchen.”
Captain Moore sighed. “Well, you know how this goes, Miller. You’ll have a hearing and we’ll see what happens.”
I couldn’t believe it. This would be my second hearing in a relatively short amount of time. I felt like I was in high school again with two strikes against me. Only this time, the punishment would mean being sent back to maximum security prison and my chance for parole disappearing into thin air.
I gritted my teeth and thanked Captain Moore. Then I prayed that ju
stice would be served at my hearing.
Of course it wasn’t. The prison system always takes the word of a guard over a prisoner. Hozart himself was at the hearing, and he reiterated his accusation that I had shouted that he was “a punk ass.”
“Why would Mr. Miller say that?” Captain Moore asked.
“I don’t know why he would say that.” Hozart shrugged, looking angry. “I just know it was him. I recognized his voice.”
“I did not say that,” I said, when it was my turn to talk. “I would never do that.”
“See, I recognize his voice there,” Hozart said again. “I know it was him.”
Captain Moore rolled his eyes like he was having a hard time believing what Hozart said, but he still took the guard’s word over mine.
“Miller, you’re going to be moved out of the kitchen and onto the road crew,” Captain Moore told me the next day. And he reminded me, although I already knew, that if I didn’t shape up, I’d be going back up the hill to maximum security.
The road crew meant spending the entire day cleaning up North Carolina’s roads. Picking up garbage, pulling weeds, and doing any other demeaning task given to you. It was the worst work assignment and everyone knew it.
As soon as Captain Moore demoted me, I went to see my counselor, Marcie. She liked me and had been the one advocating for me to try the college program. She was working to get me into a job-training program as well. Marcie had already seen the report and knew what I had been accused of and the punishment I’d been given.
“Can’t you do something so I don’t have to do road crew?” I begged Marcie as I sat in her office.
“Listen, Miller,” she said, “my hands are tied. I can’t get you reassigned right now, but I promise you if you do your best and stay out of trouble, I’ll see what I can do to get you out of there. But in the meantime, they’ve taken away all of your Honor Grade privileges.”
