B53) Highlight from year five in prison Part 2

The prison hospital is at Florence Central Unit. Florence Central Unit is referred to by the inmate population as "the walls”. The reason for the reference "the walls" , it was the walls around the prison. It's one of those old fashion looking prisons from the turn of the century. I think the prison was built in 1901 (A picture of Central Unit is posted for your viewing pleasure). The walls are twenty five feet up then twenty five feet down. Central Unit, this unit was just across the street from North Unit, which is the yard I spend the last three and a half years of my sentence at.

I’m sitting in the foyer of central medical. I'm waiting for something. I don't recall if I was waiting on the doctor or the xray technician. It didn't matter. I was waiting. I was aching. Each time I move and felt pain I have a flashback, a nightmarish mental film clip about the incident.

The smell was foreign to me and it was distinct. It had an overpowering subtly about it. It was the kind of odor that burdens you. The longer I sat there, the worse it smelled. I can’t imagine having to work anywhere near the vicinity of this retched odor. I was able to determine the smell was coming from beyond the doors on the other side of the foyer. I watched those doors open and close a few times. Each time they opened a wall of smell came charging out and it blanketed the entire foyer.

"What is that disgusting smell”?

I found myself looking for distractions as I sat there patiently. Throbbingly. It felt like my whole body was throbbing after being pummeled by that fucking mental patient and his sock full of batteries. I decided to get up and walk around in an effort to distract myself from the pain and that retched odor.

While standing at a window I see death row,  or rather the building it was in. Death row was once here at Central Unit. It was right across the courtyard from where I stood. I could also see the chimney stack that vented the poison gas from the murder chamber. It was sobering sight. Arizona no longer use the gas chamber for their murders. Now they murder people via lethal injection.

“Thou shall not kill”, It’s one of their commandments (Christian's). What a fabulous and grand example of their hypocrisy.

In my estimation, nobody likes to kill like a Christian. The bible belt states put more people to death than all the other states combined. It’s a Christian charge to justice, execution style.

“Thou shall not kill”. It doesn’t say “if” or “but”. There’s literally no wiggle room in those words:

“Thou shall not kill” Period. The End

Your principals only mean something if you stick to them when it's inconvenient.

Hypocrites!

The door opened again. This time I saw someone I recognized inside that room. One of my former neighbors (cubical next to mine). I think his name was Fred. I remember Fred telling me he had health issues. Then one day he was gone. He didn't even roll up his own belongings. The guards packed his belongings after he left. People come and go from this place all the time.

I decided to get up and go talk to Fred. My morbid sense of curiosity needed to be assuaged. I was going to find out what was going on in that room.

As it turns out, the room behind the doors was the prison hospice. "Yikes". Not a place I want to be. I don’t know if they actually called it a hospice but every one in that room looked close to death. They were all knocking on Death's door. A few of the dying were dying of AIDS. Others dying from liver failure from Hep C., Fred was dying of liver failure. One of the consequences of IV drug use.

I still find it inconceivable someone would pull a balloon of heroin from their rectum. Then put the thit stained heroin into a syringe and inject it in their veins. Talk about a contaminated field.

Fred did not look well. He didn’t recognize me. He was walking with dead eyes. He looked like the walking dead. He was moving. He had a pulse but when you looked him in the eyes it was like looking into the eyes of a shark. Cold Black Dead Eyes. This was worse than the Thorazine shuffle. This was the dead man’s shuffle. It’s a ghastly sight.

The smell. It was the smell of death mixed with the smell of rotting flesh, puss filled sores, snot, spittle, vomit, urine, feces and more. Combine that vomitous concoction with the typical hospital smells and you get the fragrant picture I'm trying to draw for you. Pretty fucking disgusting. 

Fred didn't recognize me. I found this disturbing. It was only weeks ago he moved off the yard. We were neighbors for a couple of months. We had conversations every day. And he didn't recognize me. Everything about this place was disturbing.

It was obvious this room was not meant to hold patients. It looked more like a storage room than the wing of a hospital. The patients/inmates lay on bunks close to the ground. They were more like cots. They were not in hospital beds. There were maybe eight to ten patients. One looked more gruesome that the next.

It looked like the kind of room that if anyone looked at you funny you slammed them with a hundred mics of Thorazine. Give them the real Thorazine shuffle.

The Smell of death hung in the air. It forced me backwards. I started backing up. I needed to move. To get out of there.

They were dying from disease. They were dying from broken lives. They were dying They were dying from neglect. They were dying. No one to care about these people. They fucked up. They ended up in prison, and now this. A slow death. Painful. Protracted. They were unwanted and unneeded by anyone for anything. I can’t imagine a worse death then to die in that room. To linger on deaths door in a place like this. That may not be cruel and unusual or it may be? I wouldn’t want to die in there.

When I got back to the yard I had a Florence police detective waiting for me. I was taken to the yard office and had a brief discussion with the detective. He asked only one question:

“Do you want to press charges”?

"What", I asked.

“I know exactly what happened. I don’t really need your statement. All I need to know is would you like to press charges”?

“No” I replied.

“I live here. That’s not really an option. But thanks for asking”

He paused, just staring at me.

“Are you sure”?

"Yes"

He dismissed me. I went back to my cubical. I needed rest and I needed to find out what the situation was for me on the yard.

Noony came to see me as soon as I got to my cubical. Noony was a friend. He was former Mexican Mafia. "Former" being the operative word. Years ago Noony grew tired of the politics of prison life. He resigned his commission. Now he was an independent. Noony was the most feared man on the yard. He and big Joe were old friends. They were friends from the street and from prison. I met noony through big Joe.

Noony wanted to see me. He wanted to find out how I was doing and he had a message for me.

“There’s not a Mexican on this yard that will raise a hand to you ever again".

Wow I thought. That’s a kind gesture. I put my hand out to shake noony’s hand as a way to say thanks.

I said to Noony “Thank you, but isn’t that unnecessary.------------- is it”? I had no idea what the fallout would be because of what happened last night.

Noony said, “I want you alive so we can work together when we get out”

“Yes. You bet. Back to business when we get out”

I had no action plan for going back to trafficking after prison. I cannot deny there was some value in having people on the yard under the impression I was going back to my former career after prison. If it helps making my time in prison easier then I consider that a little white lie.

Noony and big Joe were two people believing our friendship would pave the path for our future business relationship (marijuana business) in our post prison lives.

The attack last night was going to have many unintended consequences. I began to wonder about them. I could feel the unintended consequences in a high speed pursuit of me as I sat there on my bunk.