by Damon West
Many times, the fights were not fair. Sometimes, they would come at me more than one at a time. Sometimes, I had notice. Often, it was spontaneous. When I had to leave my cell to prepare for chow or rec, I feared those dreaded words. “West, I wanna look at you in the shower!”
Still, I fought every time, because Mr. Jackson drilled that into me.
And the only rule in prison fighting—that you can’t beat a man while he is down on the ground—was, at times, suspended. This place was like Lord of the Flies. It was as if a bunch of sixth-graders got together from time to time to pick on the new kid. I was not totally innocent. Quick to run my mouth, I probably invited more pain than necessary. In my defense, I never wanted them to know how scared I was. The more I talked big, the smaller I felt inside. But, I knew it was wrong. I knew it was not the behavior of a coffee bean.
My spirituality was in real trouble. Although I prayed a lot (more than ever), I felt hopeless, like the carrot. In reality, after only weeks, I was becoming the egg.
Confused, depressed, sad, and full of fears and self-pity, I began considering suicide. It was the best way for everyone—my parents, my victims, myself. If I could find the courage to kill myself all the pain would cease.
Looking for some help, I went to the chapel one Saturday, to Catholic mass. There, I ran into this little saint of a woman. An angel. She was not really an angel, as she was a mortal just like anyone else. Her name was Ms. Doucet. Ms. D was in her eighties, stood about five feet tall, walked with a cane, and always spoke in the softest voice in that noisy, distracting place. She had big glasses, and it always looked as if her eyes were closed while she spoke to you. However, those eyes saw everything. That Saturday, she saw something in my face she did not like and called me into her office.
Desperately wanting someone to talk to and feeling the motherly love so many felt from Ms. D, I unloaded on her. Through tears, I confessed to her that I did not think I could go on any longer, that I could not do this for the rest of my life. She asked specific questions about sexual assault. Thankfully, I could honestly answer her that none of that had happened to me. I was not the carrot. Not yet. But I’d only been in maximum security prison for six weeks.
“Damon,” she said softly, becoming the first person to use my first name since I had been in prison, “you cannot give in to this feeling of despair. Your mother gave you the best advice when she told you to get on God’s back. You’re going to have to have faith that He will get you through this.”
“But, Ms. D, I fear I’m losing my faith,” I admitted.
I told her that when I first arrived there, a little Aryan guy told me God wasn’t in prison, and that I remembered thinking that wasn’t possible. Now I wasn’t so sure. “How could God create a place so completely hopeless and brutal?”
“Baby, God is everywhere in here,” she said. “His presence is even visible in you. Your questions of faith are completely natural, so don’t feel ashamed for having them. What you’re going through now will make you stronger for some other journey God has planned for you. There’s something special about you, Damon. You have a glow about you.”
She said I needed to go and pray for the strength to continue this journey. She promised God would give me what I needed. He always does. “Oh, and one more thing. If you’re going to pray, don’t worry. But if you’re going to worry, don’t pray. You cannot have it both ways. You either trust God or you trust yourself. Choose wisely,” she said, with a big smile.
Through my tears, I thanked her for saving me that day. She gave me a rosary and a new Bible. The rosary was something I’d been wanting since TDCJ threw mine away when I entered into prison. I thanked God also for His little angel in Ms. D. Then, I went back to my own private hell. G-Pod. My home.
That weekend, a peaceful calm came over me. I have struggled to articulate it, but I know it derived from the decision to fully surrender to the idea that God would protect me if I trusted in Him completely. This was not an easy thing for a control freak like me to do, but my ways had failed me at every turn.
I remembered something I once heard. “If it is to be, it is up to me!” Twenty letters, ten words, and one big exclamation point. By far the most powerful, yet most simple sentence in the English language. God can do great things for us, but we have free will, which we must exercise to move from decision to action. It would become my rallying cry.
Upon awakening Monday morning, I prayed to God for the strength to carry out my bold plan. I trusted my safety completely to Him. One way or another, my prison experience was going to change that day.
Looking in the mirror, I repeated that empowering sentence: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” When the cell doors rolled, I didn’t need to put on my thick-faced mask to give the impression of confidence. There was a new bounce in my step, and I walked tall as I headed to the rec yard. It was time to enact my bold plan.
The rec yard on 7 Building, where all the life sentence people lived, looks like any other on the unit. They’re all constructed the same way, like a giant cookie cutter was used in the design. This one, however, was extremely segregated. Mr. Jackson told me, and rightly so, that prison is first and foremost all about race. So far, the old man had been spot on.
If you’re looking at the rec yard from the entry door of 7 Building, as if the door were home plate, you will see a guard tower, hundreds of feet away, in center field, overseeing everything. We always laughed about this because the guards who went up there, armed with their tear gas guns, invariably slept through their entire shifts. Rarely would they intercede in the happenings of rec. If you got into a fight or a riot on the rec yard, you could not expect any speedy assistance from the guards. Rec was truly a place where civilization ceased and the primal instincts of the penitentiary took over.
Keeping with the baseball analogy, if you looked down the first base line, you would see a water fountain, two urinals, and a toilet. The toilet was for those who found themselves in an emergency. Not a good place to be, as there was no toilet paper available, nor any cover from people watching you. The latter you get used to, as everything in prison is done in front of dozens of people. Although the truly shy and bashful have a terrible time with this, they rarely went to rec because the strip search by female guards before entering the rec yard usually kept them on the pods. The no-toilet-paper thing was an entirely different issue.
Moving along the perimeter fence into right field, you found a volleyball court in the far distance. This was the whites’ domain, where they and a few Hispanics controlled the activity. This was also the only area where there was grass. In the spring and summer months, rows of white guys would be lying down as if they were at the beach. Everyone called it “Wood Beach,” because many whites referred to themselves as “Woods.” This derived from the Woody Woodpecker they all had tattooed on their necks or body. Beach volleyball was something I enjoyed playing in my youth, but not so much in here. Not then, at least.
Moving around the outfield, toward left field, you’d run into the handball court. There were two courts, side by side. The handball court had a 30-foot concrete perimeter wall with lines painted on it. Often, there’d be massive amounts of bird poop on the wall because the birds hung out there all day waiting for inmates to feed them, which they did. Handball was another area of the rec yard where the races could mix, although when playing doubles, you were expected to partner up with your own race. I did see whites and Hispanics play together often.
Coming down the third base line, into home, you saw a weight stack. This was for all the races to use, but your workout partner needed to be the same race as you. There were some pretty massive guys on the weight stack. Imagine your “job” was to lift weights every day. This is the way so many attacked the weights.
The pitcher’s mound was represented by the basketball court. It was a full-court cement court with faded painted lines and plenty of spots that looked like blood
stains. This was a non-white area, controlled solely by the blacks. From time to time, you would see a white guy, or a Hispanic guy stumble out there and shoot around. This was acceptable if it was a slow day at rec, and no blacks wanted to play. I never saw whites playing in any of the games.
“If it is to be, it is up to me,” I said to myself as I walked to the basketball courts that Monday morning in late February of 2010. My bold plan was that I was going to earn some respect on that basketball court. Since I was already fighting many of these guys from the black gangs, we were familiar with each other.
Basketball
What they weren’t familiar with was my athletic ability and my cultural background. Growing up in Port Arthur, I was often one of the only white guys in pickup basketball games. My background and upbringing were an advantage I had over many of the whites who came into prison and were shocked at being a minority. I was always one of the few white kids playing sports on the west side of Port Arthur growing up. This was like being at home.
Only here, some of the guys playing were armed and filled with racial hatred that is so inherent in the system. This was going to be an existential experience for me, one way or another.
The game being played was a slaughter. This was fortunate for me because it gave me a solid indication which side of the court the winning basket would be scored. I made my way over to that goal on my right, towards “first base,” to enact the first step of my plan.
In order to get on this court, I was going to have to exploit the only avenue possible since no one was going to scoop up the goofy white guy. I could probably expect to get into a fight for even trying to play. I was, after all, going against the status quo. But they had a flaw in their system, which I was going to test.
After the games ended, men would “shoot for captains.” This meant that the first two guys to make shots from the free-throw line would be team captains. Each man would pick four guys and a five-on-five, full-court game would ensue. Pretty standard street basketball stuff.
I needed to get that basketball in my hands if I wanted to shoot for captains. Therefore, when that final shot went through the hoop, I would be there waiting on it.
I attracted considerable attention. Remember, everyone in prison is always watching; it’s what inmates do. Thankfully, I was unmolested hanging out by the goal. I had butterflies in my stomach when that final basket went through the net. In a flash, I was on all fours, falling on the ball, like a fumble drill in football.
When I got up, my heart was pounding wildly. Every black guy on the rec yard reacted to my act of defiance, and immediately ran to the basketball court. They circled around me, screaming.
“Give us the ball, white boy!” one of them yelled.
“Ho ass white boy, don’t you know we’re gonna punish you?” another screamed.
One guy reached in for the ball. I jerked away hard. It was time to say something. In the toughest voice I could manage I said, “I’m shooting for teams. I’m playing basketball today!”
This didn’t go over well. At all.
They were incredulous.
One guy got in my face and screamed, “We gonna kill you, white boy!”
The biggest guy out there, “J-Blood,” a Blood, from Houston, pushed that guy aside and got in my face. My knees felt like Jell-O. I knew he was about to hit me, and my hands were holding onto the basketball for dear life, so I was not going to be able to defend the blow. This was going to be ugly.
The punch never came. Instead, he said, “Get up on that line and shoot that shot, white boy. I hope you make it.”
The sea of angry men parted, leaving me a path to the free-throw line. Walking up to that line felt like walking on a 45-degree incline. My legs never felt so heavy. Fear was flooding my body. I needed to get some control of this, and fast. The free-throw line came up too soon, mocking me with its availability.
I looked around, trying to calm myself. The entire rec yard was on pause, watching this idiot white guy commit suicide.
Suicide was a pretty apt analogy. If I missed this shot, these guys would make me wish I were dead. I hadn’t only disrespected the basketball court; I had disrespected an entire race. It would spread through the prison like wildfire. Movement for me would be minimal, and potentially dangerous.
Even if I made the shot, there was no telling how much pain was going to come my way. No one wanted me out there. There were no referees, guards, fouls, or rules. You could punch, kick, scratch, bite, elbow, whatever. Anything goes, and it was in the name of sports, so it rarely deteriorated into a fight. When I dreamed up this crazy idea in my head, I always made the shot and they honored it by letting me pick a team. For the first time, I considered they may not honor my shot. I still had yet to make it, but what if? What then?
No sense in worrying now. I was fully committed.
If it is to be, it is up to me, I repeated in my head. Standing at that free-throw line, I reminded God that I was on His shoulders, that I needed Him on this shot. So with the basketball feeling like a medicine ball, I dribbled twice and let ’er rip.
Nothing but net. I made it. I was a team captain.
In the quiet that engulfed the court, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Still, I didn’t celebrate. That would have been disastrously premature.
The next guy shooting, J-Blood, made his shot to be a captain. He walked over to me, standing uncomfortably close. My eyes never left his and, with no basketball in my hands, I was ready to defend myself this time. After a few seconds of sizing me up, he said, “Your pick, white boy.”
They were going to honor my shot. Good. I didn’t have a Plan B.
We each picked our four teammates. There wasn’t much enthusiasm shown by the guys I picked. No one wanted to be on my team. No one even wanted me out there. No matter. A game demanded to be played. This game, however, was unlike all the others I had participated in my entire life, though not for the obvious environmental and danger aspects. No, this game was different because from the minute it began, I quickly realized it was not five-on-five, like normal basketball.
This was nine against one. My own teammates joined in on physically abusing me. I knew how rough prison basketball can be. This was taking it to a whole new level. After being tripped going full speed down court, I decided to move at a more cautious pace and keep my head on a swivel. I was punched, elbowed, and pushed. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a defenseless piñata, and I gave back as much as I could. But when you’re getting it from all sides, it’s impossible to respond to all attacks.
They didn’t pass me the ball the entire game. Once it ended and my team lost, I was laughed off the court. The laughing and name calling might have hurt worse than the physical beating. Reminding myself that I had survived, I walked away with my head held high and a smile on my face. That had to be what Mr. Jackson was talking about when he said to remain positive no matter what they did to me.
Tuesday morning, I repeated the same mantra in front of my dulled mirror. “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Hitting the rec yard with a black eye and a busted lip, I looked like I had been hit by a truck. I kind of felt like it, too. Knowing that I was only hurt, I braced myself for another day of pain in my quest for respect.
As I strolled past the weight stack, urinals, water fountain, and toilet toward the basketball court it got quiet. Then the laughter began, all at once. Whites and Hispanics from the weight stack and handball courts joined in on the ridicule. Everyone was laughing at me now. It was humiliating. I reminded myself that God was with me and walked onto the court.
“Hey, white boy, thought you had enough yesterday!” someone shouted. “Go sit down before we really hurt you.”
“I thought you boys were playing basketball today,” I replied, defiantly and loud enough so the whole rec yard could hear.
This turned every head. One of the Aryan guys screamed across the rec yard
for the blacks to “punish” me. He was wasting his breath. Punishment was my destiny.
The biggest guy out there, J-Blood, roared, “You’re damn right we’re playing today! You’re on my team, White Boy. This is gonna be fun.”
Tuesday was way more brutal. They were more than just angry with me. This was personal. Guys were picking me on their team’s every game. Each game was the same, lots of punishment but no chances to even touch the ball unless I got a rebound.
I stuck with it on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, coming out each morning with the same prayer and the same ritual. The laughter subsided, but the punishment did not. A few times I thought I was going to get into an all-out fight when I hit back, but they never went there. I honestly think they were having too much fun beating up on me. The whites called me names on the pod. I had fought most of them already, so their words were just for show.
On Saturday morning, I was beginning to think my bold idea was pretty foolish, yet I couldn’t back down. To do so would be to admit defeat, and all that I’d sacrificed over the long, rough week would be for naught. Repeating my prayer and my mantra, I went out to the basketball court from hell.
Saturdays in prison are the most well-attended on the rec yard. Everyone comes out. Seven Building held hundreds of people and you could count on about half of them being on the yard if the weekend weather was nice. That Saturday was gorgeous.
The place was packed. The basketball court, in particular, was packed. I wondered for a second if I was going to be able to play. It was unfounded concern, as they all started pointing when they saw me. I was picked first. Again. But, not because I was the best player.
