For a kid like him, running the back alleys, gulleys, packed dirt trails, and railroad tracks aroun’ that grid, life was so free that even pain didn’t cost much. And trouble ain’t seem so bad.
There was plenty of it, too. Coming of age, he ran the gamut. Fist fights on the ball courts and gravel lots. Dice games in abandoned garages and under carports. Sneaking girls in his grandparents’ back door. Front yard brawls, family friends and old folks yellin’ for them to, “Break it up and get your tails home!” Guns. Crack rock.
As he came up in it, he seized every opportunity. Religious about his respect. No qualms. Blasted on all enemies, from another hood or the next street over. More times than he could count. Couldn’t even tell you how many he actually hit.
For the most part, he was good wit’ it. A long way from when he used to sleep curled up with a Bible. There was sump’n rewardin’ about squeezin’ the trigger. Making off with stolen goods. A fat blunt or a phat ass. His bad deeds never froze him in the moment—just later, when he had to face their sad, red, crying eyes. When confronted by his own conscience after dark, in the quiet of his thoughts. Or when forced to offer up an explanation.
Guilty as charged, he thinks to hisself as he lies there on his narrow prison cot. Somewhere in the back o’ his mind, he always knew prison or death awaited him. Far from cringing, he embraced those probabilities as nothin’ so much as gangsta shit. His issue. As far back as he can remember. The black sheep. Probably woulda chosen death, at some points along the way, even by his own hands. But he lives. Survived it all, and for what? The penitentiary?
Yeah, he knew what would come. Just didn’t know it would feel like this.
July 11, a few weeks short of his 19th birthday, he left the streets. First-degree murder. Now sentenced to life imprisonment. He knows he gotta do something. Sure that he’ll figure it out. Eventually.
Till then, he’ll be thinkin’. And holdin’ his shit down.
Lil Chris wakes up. It’s deathly still in the dorm—only the fans are hummin’. All the lights are out, except for the dim blue lights that illuminate key spots in the livin’ area: the toilets and showers, the TV and game rooms, the telephone and microwave station. All a lil bit brighter than the low-lit sleepin’ area.
Outside of snorin’ and the occasional fart, er’body quiet. Lil Chris turns his head at the sound of jinglin’ keys. It’s Sergeant Havoc makin’ her rounds.
For the first time, he really peeps her out. She’s maybe five-six, small waistline—maybe 120 pounds. Legs like a stallion. Nice apple bottom. Extravagantly manicured nails and ghetto-fabulous hair. A walk like a fashion model. She passes right in front o’ him. She keeps her eyes trained ahead, fakin’ like she don’t see him checkin’ her out, his head spinnin’. Damn!
Where is that notepad at? Lil Chris rolls over to grab his pen and paper. He begins to write the first thing that comes to his mind, then scratches it out.
He reaches for his pack of tobacco and rolls a cigarette. Lights it and takes a drag.
He starts to write again as he blows smoke.
Long and strong
Take a pull…
Nicotine enter my brain. Full…
I’m a mask
Prosecution heavy, mind on my task.
Contemplatin’
To hell with the past, hear me?!
I’ma make the world take heed,
Recognize, player it’s Lil Chris
Keyed on a masterplan
Penitentiary got me thinkin’!
Ranking every goal
While gettin’ swole.
I’ma orchestrator.
Stay wit’ my mind on my biz
Makin’ sure niggas know
What time it is …
CHAPTER TWO
Metamorphosis
Transmutation. My principle of transition.
Jewel scarab;
Egyptian dung beetle …
Transcended from humble beginnings.
A lowly living bred majestic mature.
I was born under the sign of the twin—
Mistress Cleo prophesied my rise
In a hip-hop magazine.
Anubis Wepwawet,
Open up my way.
It’s the dawn of my comin’ forth by day.
HE WATCHES.
Fifteen or so of them walk through the door. They seem to get younger and younger every trip. Even the most generous estimate of how many of them will ever leave this place alive is one or two. Three, tops.
Still, he watches.
Studying them is an art. A little something he’s picked up along the way. Rise can push his boxes off the welded metal pushcarts used to transport footlockers along the concrete floor, in a dormitory of 64 men and a C.O., and within 30 minutes he’ll have assessed every one of them’s makeup. He’ll know who’s dangerous and who’s soft, who’s got sense and who can’t think, who’s playin’ games and who wants to be left alone. And, most importantly, which of these fools he’s willing to allow inside his zone.
Of the group of A.U.’s he’s watching at this moment, a couple are repeat offenders—they’ll go down the walk and blend right on back in. The worst of these will keep the homies they haven’t seen in two or three years up all night. Jabbering about how they were out there doin’ it! Thuggin’ it up. While those that never left hold grudges against them for throwing away the one thing that all of them crave the most—another chance.
The rest of these fresh fish are the disoriented. The upstanding citizen who slipped, crossed the line, and got caught up. The big-timers who thought the world was theirs. The drug addicts who forgot about the world. Worst of all, the children of the ghetto. Few of them even had a clue. All of them think that they’ll be home in three to five, but the truth is now they’ve been added to the count. Eighty-five-percent of them are predicted to die here in the joint.
“So, last night was most of y’all’s first night in a prison cot, huh? If you were like me, you didn’t sleep much. I bet you I can tell you what your first waking thought was this morning.” Rise surveys the room, makes occasional eye contact. “Yeah, I know what you were thinking: Damn…
“By now, you have been poked, turned, pinched, questioned, instructed, laid in, rolled out, shaved down, and locked up. It’s all part of the process. You’ve been lodged into the system. I’m sure the sheer reality hasn’t even hit most you yet. You’re in shock and you don’t even know it. You haven’t had time to think about it, have you? Too many other things to take in, right?”
Rise walks among their chairs. A slow, steady gait, almost a strut. Not that he has anything to strut about. His disposition is one of awareness. Here, lately, no situation can overwhelm him. He’s got time under his belt. He’s in tune with this environment. Still, he chooses his next words carefully.
“This particular session is called Orientation. The administration has set it up so that you can be—well, I’ll say, so we can basically give you all a rundown on what you’ve gotten yourselves into.” He’s trying to reach them. “You are sitting in the Louisiana State Prison, at Angola. My name is Oschuwon R. Hamilton. Most of the brothers here know me as Rise. If any of you need to get at me, that’s who you ask for: Rise. Now, we are go’n try to move through our respective spiels and it would be wise of you to pay attention. There are a sum of choices you’ll need to make. You need to make a conscious decision on how you are go’n walk this joint. There are a lot of pitfalls.
“Most of you, for whatever reason, will go down the walk and get with your homeboys. I know, I know. You ain’t scared.” Rise looks at the clean-shaven 16-year-old in the back row. “But don’t be surprised if your homies are the main ones to try to play you. You need to focus on establishing your own individuality. Set your own feet. Validate yourself. Mostly, it’s not what you do that these cats respect. It’s what you don’t.”
Rise walks back up to the podium and looks over the room one more time. “I’ll be back a little later to talk to you ab
out education. For now though, we have a number of people here to help break down what’s go’n be your Angola experience.”
Rise signals for Reverend Andrews to come up and speak. A tall, slim, somewhat funny-built man around 50, Reverend Andrews is one of the more prominent preachers among a considerable number of inmate ministers that walk the compound. He stands in, shakes Rise’s hand, and gives him an embrace, shoulder to shoulder.
Rise heads for the back of the room, his attention already turned away from what’s going on up front. Living in his head, again. Prison’ll do that to you. One never gets the chance to recover from the many isolated tragedies that riddle the life of the prisoner. So they walk, striving to stay engaged. Soul-jahs with open wounds determined to hold their position on the board. Not so much ignoring, but rather absorbing. Learning to live with the pain. Always thinking five moves ahead. Always moving forward. Always progressive. Always feeling that even in the midst of a crowd, one is always alone.
The cell was dark. In the distance Rise can hear the jingling of keys and echoes of laughter. How can they be happy? How can joy exist in a world that has brought him so much pain?
He’s a go-getter, though. All his life he has had to fight opposition. But those agents were always on the outside. Out there where Rise could see them. Where he could attack ’em. But now they’re settin’ it off inside of him. His instincts are sharp, his defenses are up. Who are they? Where is the heat comin’ from? He can’t simply identify his target and swing it out. But the presence is there. He can feel it. All he can do is lie there and suffer.
And then there is this bird. A sparrow…
“Man, you see that lil dude in the back row? Kid, that’s a pretty lil ole dude, ain’t he. Ain’t it, man? … Rise!” A foppish convict, leaning over the serving counter Rise has blindly withdrawn to.
“Huh?” Rise stirs absently.
“Rise!”
“What?”
“You don’t hear me?”
“What, Puff?! What you want?!” Rise finally focuses. Irritated.
“I’m talkin’ bout that lil boy in the ba—”
“What? What about him?” Rise zeros in with mounting menace.
“No, I was just sayin’—”
“Sayin’ what?” Rise gives the room a quick once over from the vantage of the counter, to see who’s seeing. “Say. Come ’round here right quick, Puff.”
Puff follows Rise around the counter and back into the shed’s food preparation room.
“Right over here, man. C’mere,” Rise says in a calm, nonchalant voice.
As soon as Puff comes within an arm’s reach, Rise steps into his shirt and back-hands him. Bows him in his left rib and hems him in against one of the refrigeration units. Puff’s breathing gets hoarse, ragged. Eyes bucked wide open. Oh, now he understands. Yeah, he got sense now.
“Don’t ever come at me like that. You know not to bring that to me.”
“Man—” It looks almost as if there is a shadow of a frown on Puff’s face. Rise moves his grip up from his shirt to his neck. He squeezes. Puff squirms. Gags, tryin’ to get a breath. He tries to push Rise off, but to no avail. Puff’s pulse pushes insistently under Rise’s thumb.
“What,” Rise growls. “You got a problem with something I said? Huh? What?”
Rise leans in and gets right into Puff’s ear to keep the disturbance contained as he delivers his next statement, vaguely aware of someone or another addressing the gathering of A.U.s from the podium out front.
“I know you ain’t forgot I was the one you hid up under a while back, when you decided you wanted to change your life? I was the one that backed the wolves up off you when your ex-ole man wasn’t tryna hear that, too—wasn’t I? And, now, you go’n come to me like you tryna turn somethin’ out? Wreck someone else’s life? And you already know I don’t respect that foolishness. Now, I would be down bad if I was to give that lil brother a black diamond and tell him to handle his business, wouldn’t I?”
“But, Rise, I—”
“Hold that down and step off.” Rise shoves Puff toward the door. He stumbles over a footstool on his way out. “Go get yo’self together, boy.”
As Rise’s breathing subsides, they call for him over the P.A. system to return to the floor, and he addresses the group.
“The second-century stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote this book, Meditations. He wrote about fire, the heaping of trash, and the flame’s appropriating qualities. He compared all of this to the will of man in the face of opposition. I have my own analogy, very much influenced by his. I’ve come to think of God as a blacksmith. We are the metal. The fires of the furnace are the trials of life. The blacksmith’s hammer has two heads, tribulation and triumph. With this hammer, the Creator delivers blows of elation, disappointment, grief, joy, depression, dejection, fulfillment, and sorrow.”
Rise assumes they’re not following him. Still, he presses on with his point. “The things we go through in life are what shapes us to become the people we are. The good and the bad are the faces of perspective. Behind these two faces, life changes as life changes us. At the other end of the smelting process, once we are lifted from the fire and molded by the blows of the hammer, only then are we ready to be placed in the water. The water of the spirit. And, no, spirit isn’t an institutional religion. It is a concentrated search for an understanding and knowledge of self, conducted inside whatever guidelines and discipline your spirit identifies as truth. Now, you may not understand any of what I’m saying. But, along the way, you will. I want you to laugh when it bites. And by all means, holla at me. For now, though, I’ll holla at y’all. That’s all we have for today.”
As the A.U.s stand and file out of the visiting shed, the A Building, Rise walks over to the youngster that was in the back row. The kid stands about five-ten. He’s reddish brown, heavyset, and slew-footed, with long braids. His mug is authentic.
Rise steps to him. “Say, big boy, what they call you?”
“My name Lil Chris, nigga. What, you know me from somewhere?”
Vicious attitude. Gotta love that. Rise immediately recognizes this kid’s potential. He’s a soul-jah. Rise is impressed, but it only takes him a split second to give Lil Chris a stonegrilled nod. “Nah, lil brotha, I don’t know you. You just remind me of someone I grew up with. Maybe I’ll see you around. Peace out.”
Lil Chris stares at Rise for a moment. As if he’s tryna figure something out. He just turns and walks off. Not a misunderstanding. Not a making of acquaintance. It’s kinda like they just sized each other up.
Rise watches as Lil Chris moves out and swings the corner.
Damn, we in the joint, lil brother, Rise thinks. He picks up his things, stops to speak to a few people on his way out the door, then steps out into the sunshine on his way to the dorm.
He passes the cellblocks where all the hardheads at, mobbed out on the yard. He’s got a couple of close ones he knows he needs to reach. He stops at the fence to holla at them before pushing out.
This is his world, for now. He passes by a couple of free folk on the walk. Including Sergeant Vernelic with her fine you-know-what-I’m-sayin’. He’s going to have to get at her a little later. On the D.L.
This is his world. He passes by the law library and makes a mental note to stop through there later on to check out this Fifth Circuit case that just came down. As the gym comes into view, he reminds himself to hold to his commitment to stay in shape. Gotta sneak a workout in some kind of way. Prison is the wrong place to get sick.
This is his world. Here comes Major Mercury moving up the walk. Rise speaks, but the officer just passes on by. Must have problems or some shit. What’s the problem? Rise is the one in jail.
This is his world.
After making it through all the security gates and checkpoints, and waiting for the keyman to open the door, Rise finally walks into the dorm. He heads to the desk to see if he has mail.
No mail.
Damn.
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When he gets to his cot, he sits down. Before he kicks his shoes off or gets his shower things together, or anything else, he grabs a pen and paper to scribble out a few lines.
A quick 16.
A hot one
To the dome. My only brother
By my mother and my father; true love
A hot gun
released. Strikes the floor.
Rings still.
Blood pourin’
God, tell me this ain’t real.
Ancient life leavin’ young bones
Soul departure.
Journey home.
God called for him
Look!
Trigger my journey over. How can I ever forget about
all this livin’ that we planned for
With you, I buried everything I stood for
Dead End. Anna Street Clic. I’m givin’ it up.
I’m no longer thuggin’ it up.
I’m thuggin’ it out.
See, ’cause now I know what strugglin’ ’bout.
Hard labor.
I ain’t trippin’. Momma raised a
Young go-getter
Taught me from my days as a tadpole
Son, you play now, you starve later
Me as a man-child
Reared in a single-parent household.
Driven.
I was locked up in a cell
When I heard about my brother passin’ over
It was my thirst for life that brought me over
And pulled me through.
It was at this point I began to change
God, I thank you for the tribulation.
Metamorphosis.
CHAPTER THREE
I open up the door to today
Lookin’ for tomorrow,
Only to find yesterday.
What can I do broke?
–L.P.
SLEEP RELEASES RISE IN A sudden instant. As if all at once, his dreams clip closed and awareness clicks in.
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