By Oloth Insyxiengmay
Spring 2019 Kaplan Award Winner
These rooms are eerily becoming too familiar. Cold, soulless, no windows, no presence of life or form. Just four barren concrete walls accompanied by a steel sink and toilet contraption. Like the men whom these walls contain in times past and present, the room feels empty. As I enter with a constructed nervous appearance, my smile slowly dissipates as the others look back at me with the same emptiness felt in the room. Everyone seems to be dealing with results, results that have forced them to rethink the decisions that brought them here, here in a room where no one wants or expects to be, to a destination of uncertainty.
Weeks ago, maybe months, many in this room had to stand up and face the music as they say. The music is what all are coming to grips with. Everyone is curious about the condemnation of the other. Among many uncertainties, many questions are asked. The grilling ensues. Out of safety, out of security, out of concern, out of self, questions, like darts, are thrown at one another. It begins with eye contact that nobody wants to make and a head nod. Everyone is gauged from head to toe. Name, where you from, and most importantly, what brings you to this room where no one wants to be? Answers are vague. Some things have to stay in the dark. For that reason, hugs and handshakes are hesitant and rare. Information is gathered, plans are made, expectations are formed. Physically we are prepared, emotionally the confidence is only a matter of appearance. Everyone is hiding something in this room of many uncertainties, where no one wants to be.
After a eerie short burst of excitement, the settling in begins. Acceptance commences. The guardsmen walk in. Off a clipboard, names are called. For the first time probably, despite the tireless hours sitting in that room together, we learn about each others real identity. Not a facade of who we pretend to be. Previously, we were just street names and simple initials. Now the truth comes out and that which was maybe hidden, is revealed.
The staging proceeds when chains that were hanging from the guardsmen waist are shaken out to secure us. The thought that these very chains are going to secure us, shakes out the toughness in all the men in the room.
One by one, like cattle to be branded and shipped, we are shackled at hands and feet. Clink clink clack. Clink clink clack. Steel chains are ran around the waist which meets at a loop attached to handcuffs that secure the hands together. Clink clack. Kneel. Face the cold wall. “Don’t look back!” Another set of steel chains attached to cuffs are secured around ankles. The disdain of the guardsmen is evident in how tight the cuffs are secured around my ankles and arms. “Get up!” the guardsmen orders. Although noncompliance could have harsh consequences, following orders is challenging with all the weight of these chains, all the weight of bad decisions, all the weight of uncertainty that is loading me down. Yet I get up not because I necessarily want to, but because I have to, because there is a force that is pushing me. Now that I am a ward of the state, I have to follow orders and comply. The weight, the weight is heavy.
When everyone is shackled and secured, again from that clipboard the guardsmen calls off our names. “Here!” “here!” “Yep!” – like school kids we are treated as this process of roll call goes on.
Despite being shackled and bound to ourselves by hands and feet, we are yet attached and bound to one another with more chains. The weight is even heavier. Not only am I carrying my own burden of uncertainty, I am carry the burden of 22 other men that are bound to me. Once we were strangers, now our destiny is bound – better yet, chained together – to a place of hardening uncertainties. It is quite humbling.
In sequence, step by step, carefully we proceed out of that room, leaving it as empty as we found it. Guardsmen in front, guardsmen in back, as we follow in a single file line to board the armored cage on wheels. Cautiously and carefully we drag our feet forward. Not too slow, not too fast. Don’t want to trip or fall out of line, and cause a commotion or disturbance. Can’t afford any missteps. Don’t want no eyes or attention on me at this point. I am tough, I am certain. I am not frail or weak. Can’t show it. Head down, chin up to show confidence despite the heaviness in my head and heart. This is a hard walk, one of the hardest walks of my life. Despite the courage I’m projecting, the pain of the cuffs rubbing into the thin skin around my ankles hurts, all this really hurts. But I continue to remind myself I must stay strong, because the pain that awaits me might hurt worse.
As we board the bus and fill the seats, row by row, two by two, my feelings sink as I plump into the seat. My whole life flashes before me. Only 15 years of existence, now here I am heading to a place where I will not be freed. Reality hits. No longer does this body belong to me. No longer will I have freedom to choose. Or have options. I am definitely scared. My nervousness causes me to ask a lot of questions of the others. “What is it like?” “What should I expect?” Questions related to the uncertainty of the unknown come up. I am so nervous I don’t even realize I am asking the same questions over and over worded differently. My legs can’t stop shaking and my palms are sweating.
As the bus embarks, the smell of exhaust fumes is unforgettable. My head hurts. My head hurts from the combination of nauseous gas and the heaviness I carry. Onward we go to a place I will not come back from. Landmark after landmark, memories of what my life used to be and what it could have been pass me by. Tacoma Dome. Narrows Bridge. I close my eyes to try not see the life I am leaving behind, the life I have to bury. My head repeatedly bounces off the back of the seat in front of me. When I am forced to open my eyes, with nothing but Northwest greenery speeding by me at 60 mile per hour, I encounter scant reflections of myself looking back at me from the window. The sun and shadows are set up just right. It is just me, yet it is a sad and frightening sight.
Two and half hours later we finally arrive at the intake and processing center for new prisoners entering the Department of Corrections at Shelton. The compound is quite a sight to behold. It is a warehouse in every manner. It is not a place that holds material products for consumerism and capitalism. It holds and store bodies, bodies with a life and spirit just like mine and the other 22 men arriving with me. Watchtowers with armed guardsmen line the facility. Parameters are secured by layer upon layer of high fences and barbwires. 22 arrive to join the 1000 plus other men already here to be tagged and processed.
The refreshing cool air that hits me as I cautiously step off the bus belies the harsh reality of my life at the moment. As I drag my scarred ankles and heavy heart and hurting head into the building, my eyes and my mind dart all over place as I try to take it all in.
Upon entering the intake building, just like a factory for processing goods, stations are strategically placed. Down the assembly line I go. I first find myself at a station where physical exams happen to check a person fitness for incarceration. As strange as that sounds, a person actually has to be “fit” for incarceration. Unfortunately, they deem me “fit” enough for incarceration. Afterwards, there is a station to classify a person. Name, ethnicity, DOB, where you were born, county of conviction, etc. – as if they don’t know these things already.
At the clothing station, where prison garb is distributed, I have the hardest time. Availability trumps fit. My shoe size 7, pants 28, shirts small – yet I was given a size 8 shoe, size 32 pants, and large shirts and told to make them fit. I was directed to be content. Although there was a sense of relief to finally relinquish the oversized orange jumpsuit that was thrown on me when my journey began at the Pierce County Jail, the feeling quickly disappears upon the realization that there was no changing room. The requirement was that I strip out of the orange jumpsuit in front of a hundred or so other men. I was naked. Never in my life have I felt so exposed and vulnerable. It was definitely humiliating. Not only could I hear the stares and jeers, but I felt them. “You’re only 16!?” “You’re only 16!?” I felt myself shrink into myself. As fast as I could, I put on my prison issued garb, without worrying about how it fit. I just didn’t want to be exposed any longer then was necessary.
So glad was I when my name was called to be transported by two guardsmen to my cell in a separate building on the compound. As I was escorted in handcuffs down that long hollow hallway, the guardsmen asked “How old are you man!?” It was probably evident from my lanky composure and the breakout of pimples on my face, that I was young, too young to be in prison. “You are only 16 – 16!?” He laughed heavy from the bottom of the stomach which shaped his body type. “What the hell are you doing in prison!?” I don’t know either. I can’t seem to wrap my mind around it either. I didn’t have an answer. I just laughed with him not knowing what I was actually laughing about.
The heavy metal door slid to a rattling close behind me. I am alone finally – but I really didn’t want to be alone? Loneliness in here is frightening. Along with a solitary bunk where I can finally rest by myself, there is that steel toilet and sink contraption thing again. I walk the length of the 8 feet that spans the cell to the window. This narrow slit is how I see the world now. This my limited perspective. I exist within a being that’s full of my emotions and memories, but I don’t own this body – it belongs to the state now. No agency. My life from now on will be determined for me. How I sleep, eat, and maybe die. I knew I would die a certain death, but not a slow premeditated death like this one. Of so many uncertainties, certainly not like this.
In exchange for my name, that is attached to the history of my mother and her ancestors, I was given a number. This number is what I will amount to from now on. The familiarity of rooms like this will never wear off. The six numbers I will never forget. 735875, 735875. They will forever be tattooed on my mind. I close my eyes over the tears that have finally cressed over from inside. This is it. This is where it all ends. My life, my story. The room gets dark, the music and melody fades out …