The Change Agent

by Damon West

  I did. I told her that, long ago, I had quit looking at prison as a punishment and started looking at it as an opportunity. In here, I made the most of my opportunity the state of Texas gave me. I told her I learned there was plenty of rehabilitation in prison, but you had to want it, and I wanted as much as I could get.

  My recovery program was in place because I hit rock bottom and I didn’t want to live in institutions the rest of my life. I want more, I said. I wanted help. I told her I knew about the FI-5 parole option, which had a six month in-prison treatment program, followed by eighteen months of after-care in the free world. I admitted I had no clue when they were going to let me go, but when they did, could they please send me to this program?

  “Will you please give me all the tools available so that I may be the most useful person possible?” I asked.

  “The program you are referring to is one of our toughest, Mr. West. Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Give me some help. Give me one chance to get this right. If I screw it up, y’all have me for the rest of my life.”

  “Yes, we do. You’ll be on parole until you’re ninety-seven years old. Until 2073.”

  “I’m acutely aware of the time left on my sentence.” I had one last question. “Can my parents schedule a meeting with my lead voter?”

  This was a tip I had picked up along the way. Always ask for a meeting.

  “They can certainly try. In about ten days, your file will be in Huntsville, in front of Lynn Ruzicka. She’ll be your lead voter.”

  As she started to close my file, she paused and asked, “Mr. West, if you could be anything in life, tell me what that would be in just one word?”

  Without hesitation, I said, “Useful! I just want to be useful.”

  She smiled and concluded my interview. “Good luck.”

  Sitting in my cubicle writing this, I’m feeling a wide range of emotions. Trying to manage my expectations, I remind myself that even though being granted parole on my first try is extremely unlikely for a guy with a life sentence, anything is possible. Many miracles have been worked in my life already.

  I’ve done all I can do, done the best with everything on my little line. The parole vote was not on my line.

  CHAPTER 22

  The Nightmare Is Over

  Prison Diary

  Friday, May 1, 2015

  It has been almost six weeks since my parole interview. A drop in the bucket compared to nearly seven years’ worth of weeks. Regardless, it has been difficult not to obsess over my impending fate being decided on any given day.

  YESTERDAY, MY PARENTS WERE GRANTED their meeting with the lead voter, Ms. Lynn Ruzicka. It was not an in-person meeting like we had hoped for; rather, it was a phone interview. This did not instill confidence in me. My parents were more optimistic, thinking it was a positive sign they were granted a meeting at all. My father also had the wherewithal to send Ms. Ruzicka a copy of the article he wrote after my conviction. That article was so powerful, nothing could be lost by sending it. Moreover, it gave the whole story of my downfall, especially the addiction part, the details of which the prosecution tried to keep out at my trial.

  Knowing what time their interview was, I allowed a full, stressful hour of waiting before I called home. When they answered, I knew something was wrong. My mom said that the interview had lasted around five minutes, definitely below my expectations. I asked them to replay it for me, from the beginning.

  My dad said Ms. Ruzicka had read his article and was extremely moved. He truly believed it hit home and gave her some insight into the addiction issues in my case, as well as the “outrageousness” of my sentence. I wanted to believe this was all true.

  “She basically asked us if we had any questions for her,” my mom chimed in. “I had so many questions written down and asked most of them. She was extremely cordial and answered everything I asked.”

  “Were you able to tell her I wanted drug treatment, the FI-5 parole option?” I asked.

  “Absolutely, baby. When I told her, she said, ‘Interesting.’ She was very noncommittal, Damon. We did the absolute best we could.”

  Trying to mask the disappointment in my voice, I told my parents how thankful I was for all they did and continued to do, and that I loved them. The last thing I needed to do was put them through more anxiety than I already had. After I hung up the phone, I went back to work at the chapel. I had a wonderful job, where I could meditate and pray. No matter how bad things might have seemed, I had it pretty good.

  Fridays were when I called home to see what my folks were doing for the weekend and found out when they were coming to visit. This call normally took place around 4, when I get back to my pod from work. Around 1:30 today, one of the chaplains received a call from a family friend, telling me I needed to call home ASAP. Upon receiving this news, I immediately was worried. Calls in the chapel are never good.

  The chaplain who took the call calmed me down. He could see the emotion and fear written on my face. We prayed together. That seemed to help. As soon as count cleared, I shot out of the chapel like a rocket and got to my dorm as fast as I could. I stepped into T-Pod and grabbed the first phone available.

  “Mom! What’s wrong? What’s happened?” I asked frantically.

  Very calmly, she said, “I need to talk to you.” A few hours prior to my call, she went to the parole website to see if there was any decision made on my case. “They made a decision.”

  This wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Now, however, there was a new fear. A pit in my stomach was growing. I immediately began apologizing to my mom for not making parole and told her we would try harder next year. That it was a long shot on the first try.

  There was a silence that made me wonder if we were disconnected, which happened sometimes. Then she spoke. “Damon, you didn’t get denied. They granted your parole. The nightmare is over. Baby, you’re coming home.”

  I was in stunned disbelief. I pleaded, “Mom, please tell me you’re not playing with me.”

  “I would never do that to you. They voted last night to give you the FI-5 program you requested. It’s a miracle, baby. Prayer works.”

  Seven years of pain and hopelessness came pouring out of my eyes in the form of old tears. It was pointless to even attempt to stop the flow. She could hear me crying through the phone. In fact, guys in the day room could hear and see me crying like a baby. Once I regained my composure, I realized the enormous mistake I had just made. Crying like that in front of the pod could only invite trouble, as so many predators watched for weakness and signs of distress. With all the discipline learned over nearly a decade in a maximum-security prison, I turned the spigot off and dried my face.

  I told my mom I was blown away, overwhelmed with joy, and it was difficult to speak.

  I needed to get out of the pod and back to the chapel. I told her I would call her back later. “I love you, Mom.” I hung up the phone and ran out of the pod. I didn’t want to stick around after my stupid display of emotion.

  At the chapel, I found the chaplain who took the call. I ran in his office and hugged him tightly, and the tears began flowing again. I told him and a few other chapel inmates about my parole vote. We all cried and prayed. After that, it was time for damage control. I enlisted their advice about how to handle things.

  When you make parole in a maximum-security prison, it behooves you to guard that information closely. Once news you are going home hits the population, it is like a beacon that calls out to anyone who may have a beef with you. It also brings out the men who are never going home or are always in trouble, who would love nothing more than to take your freedom away from you. Any disciplinary action you receive after making parole immediately revokes your ticket home. This means you cannot get into a fight, even if you are attacked. In TDCJ, there is no such thing as a legal fight. The on
ly chance you have if confronted is to lie down on the ground, curl up into a ball and start screaming while another man beats you. While this may sound like a no-brainer, it is difficult to allow an assault to be inflicted upon you like that. It’s also an effective way to get hurt or killed.

  The few inmates in the chapel I trusted, the chaplain I trusted, but the other people who saw me crying on the pod, I did not. To compensate for my emotional lapse of judgment, we came up with a story that my grandmother died, which was factually true since both of my grandmothers were dead. Hopefully, we wouldn’t need to enter into our conspiracy and use the lie, but it was available in our immediate inventory. Once I was fully relieved of all the overwhelming joy of going home, I made my journey back to T-Pod, with a thick face.

  Immediately upon entering the pod, I made my way to my cubicle and grabbed my shower stuff, as I always did. I knew it was not a good sign when I saw three white guys walking toward my bunk, blocking my exit.

  “West, congratulations on making parole,” one of them said.

  “Parole? Man, I wish. They still haven’t voted yet,” I lied, with an affable laugh.

  “Man, no need to lie to us,” he said. “We already know. Someone saw you crying on the phone earlier. He called his mom and asked her to look you up online. FI-5. Congrats, bro. You made it. That bus will be here to get you in two weeks.”

  Dropping my emotional guard had cost me big on this one. My emotions betrayed me. Now the word was out about my parole. I asked, “Who all knows?”

  “Everyone,” he said. “Just be you, man. Watch your back and limit the number of places you go. The chow hall is off limits. How much food you got in your locker?”

  Every inmate knows how much food is in his locker. Without looking, I told them, “I think I can make it two weeks.”

  “Good. You start running out, say something. We got your back.” They all shook my hand and left my bunk. Moved by their kindness and concern, I went to the showers and got back to my bunk as quickly as I could.

  Here I sit, trying to digest the news I received today. I am going home.

  “I am going home,” I said aloud to make sure it’s true. I needed to go downstairs and call my parents again, but the day room looked menacing from up here, full of land mines. Navigating this place would be difficult, but I would do it. The guy was correct about the two weeks it would take for the bus to pick me up and transport me to a different prison. This would be a minimum-security facility with a drug treatment center where I would spend the last six months before my release in November.

  November.

  I will be home for Thanksgiving. Truly a miracle.

  The rec yard and the chow hall were two places I would never go again. Work should be safe. Transit to and from work was the only place I would be exposed. At least in transit I could outrun a potential combatant, because combat was no longer an option. I could do this.

  Check that. We could do this. I would be traveling on God’s back.

  CHAPTER 23

  On-Chain

  Prison Diary

  Thursday, May 14, 2015

  It’s been a long two weeks since I found out I made parole. With limited movement on my part, my daily routine has been reduced to going to work all day, returning home to shower, and then heading straight to my bunk. Sensing danger, I have not seen the chow hall or the rec yard since. My food was rationed out to two packs of peanuts, two bowls of oatmeal, four packs of mackerel, and a whey protein shake each day. Currently, I have enough food for two more days. I won’t need it.

  THE GUARD PASSING OUT MAIL a while ago, a guy I grew up with in Port Arthur, came by my bunk with a red mesh bag. He had a big smile on his face when he said, “West, you’re on-chain.”

  “On-chain” was the term used for inmates in transit. It could be for anything like a trip to the prison hospital in Galveston, a bench warrant or, as in this case, parole. The wait was over. I was leaving the Stiles Unit forever and heading to my parole program. I made it.

  “Where am I going, do you know?” I asked.

  “It says, ‘KY,’ which is the Kyle Unit. You familiar with it?” he asked me.

  “I only know that it is in Kyle, Texas, and that it ain’t here,” I said with tears in my eyes. He handed me my bag and told me to start packing up my cell. He or another guard would be back soon to inventory it. The bus would arrive early in the morning to get me.

  Normally, I was a man of many words. Then, however, I found myself at a loss. So much had happened to me, both good and bad, on this unit. My prayers had been answered and I was being delivered from this hell.

  Thank you, God, for loving me and sparing me. Thank you for carrying me through this place.

  Guys had been coming to say their goodbyes and asking if they could have my appliances. Pretty standard stuff when someone makes parole. If I were being released from prison, I would gladly give away my things. Where I was going, though, I would need everything I had. I would be grateful to get away from most of those guys, although two of them I would miss very much. Once the crowd around my bunk cleared, I went to find Winston and Tommy.

  They were together watching television like two old guys at a VFW hall or an Elks Lodge. They always made me smile because they were always smiling, common with men who were at peace with God.

  “Well, old men, I just got my bus ticket,” I told them as I held up my inventory sheet.

  They both jumped up out of their seats, beside themselves with joy. While this made me feel good, it also made me feel a little guilty, as neither of these guys would ever go home. They were going to die in prison. No matter, they were happy for me. How selfless is that?

  “Now, West, don’t you dare throw your Bible away like all those idiots that leave here.” Tommy was referring to the guys whose last act when leaving prison was to throw their Bibles into a recycling bin in Huntsville. “You stick with Christ because He got you this far. I know He’s not done with you yet. Winston, what did I tell you this afternoon?”

  “You called it, Tommy,” Winston said, laughing. “You said West was on-chain tonight.”

  “I’m seriously going to miss y’all. Over the years, you two have been like beacons of light on a dark ocean. I’ll never forget y’all, and I’ll absolutely stay in touch once I get out.”

  Each said a few words and gave me full-on hugs, like a father would give a son who was leaving home. It made me think of my own father and the hug we shared when I first got to prison. How great it would be to hug my father outside prison walls soon.

  “West, you and I have talked about my case…” Winston said.

  We had. Several times. There was a private investigator out there who knew the truth, he said. She had interviewed the witness who lied to both the police and the jury. He reminded me that that PI never appeared at his trial. He’d kept waiting for her to show, but she never did.

  “Please find her for me, West. Find her and ask her to tell the truth.” He handed me a piece of paper folded up with a name on it.

  Looking into his eyes, I said, “I promise you, Mr. Winston, I will find this private investigator for you. You have my word.”

  I meant it, too. I would find her.

  After that, I called my parents and told them the good news. They had also been on pins and needles because of the fragility of my existence the past two weeks. My father breathed an audible sigh of relief. I promised to phone them when I got to the Kyle Unit.

  It was time to pack up my things, including this diary. This would be my last entry from the Stiles Unit, but I’d continue writing until I walked out of TDCJ a free man in November. I looked around this place, wondering how in the hell I had survived it. How had I made it through maximum-security prison and actually become a better man?

  The answer was easy: On God’s back.

  CHAPTER 24

  The Carro
t and the Stick

  Prison Diary

  Wednesday, August 19, 2015

  The Kyle Unit is definitely not like maximum-security prison, but it’s still a prison. After a little more than ninety days here, I’m forced to recognize some uncomfortable truths about the effects of maximum-security prison on me.

  Life at this FI-5 facility has been like living in the final stages of a sociological experiment.

  SURVIVAL, ESPECIALLY MENTAL SURVIVAL, comes in whatever form you can find it. Mentally escaping has always been a necessity for my sanity. On the Stiles Unit, I would listen to classical music on most nights while I read. Not only did it help me drown out the deafening noise of the pod, but it also allowed me to relax, to chill. It was not uncommon to look down into the day room from my cell, headphones on, listening to classical music, and witness brutal fights and other insane human behavior. While my eyes were registering the events and carnage, my ears heard the soft violins, cellos, and pianos of some of the world’s greatest composers.

  Life on the Kyle Unit had been a unique experience in many ways. No longer living in maximum-security prison, I, along with every man in there, had had to make a serious course correction in dealing with day-to-day life. This was less of a drug treatment program and more of a behavior modification program. Its purpose, I had determined, was to detox us from prison and the abnormal thinking one must do to survive in such a place. It was the classic carrot (everyone here had an exit date) and stick (if you violated a serious enough rule, you’d lose your parole and go back to real prison) approach. For the most part, it worked.