by Bobby Love
“What? They can’t do that!” I said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” I then tried to tell Marcie my side of the story. When I was done, she sighed.
“Look, Miller,” she started. “You’ll have a new hearing in ninety days. At that time, as long as you’ve stayed clean, we can revisit your situation.”
“Ninety days?” I said aloud but didn’t expect a response.
“I’m sure it will pass quickly,” Marcie said.
For her it might, I thought. But not for me.
Working on the road gang meant being at the front gate at 7:30 in the morning, then being driven out to a depot on the highway, where we were given a burlap potato bag and a stick with a nail in it to pick up trash. Dirty trucks meant for hauling hay would drop us off on some desolate area of the highway where we’d spend the day working and avoiding the garbage thrown at us by our fellow citizens.
I wanted to take Marcie at her word and assume that if I picked up trash like a good little soldier, then things would go back to the way they were. But those last few months made me feel like it didn’t matter what I did. Something or someone would find a way to drag me back under. I tried to play sick after the first few days on the road crew, but the guards took my temperature and sent me on my way. Once a week I would go bother Marcie and ask her if she could get me off the roads, and every week she would tell me that she was working on it. But nothing changed except the weather.
Fall came creeping in and it started getting cold in Raleigh. The prison officials gave us warm coats to wear, but by the time the afternoon sun hit, those coats felt oppressive. I began bringing a bag to put my coat in so I wouldn’t have to carry it or wear it on the way back. One morning, just to see, instead of wearing my coat, I put it in my bag and walked onto the bus with it like that. Nobody seemed to notice. Nobody seemed to care. Nobody asked what I had in my bag.
Cheryl as a newborn in 1963.
Cheryl at age two, ready to take on the world.
Bobby, at right, age one, with his sister Jean (standing) and a cousin.
Bobby, age three, on the right again, with two cousins.
Cheryl, age fourteen, talking on the phone, probably to one of her besties, Carla or Deena.
Bobby’s eighth-grade school photo from Gillespie Park Junior High School.
Bobby with an Afro, age fifteen, at Morrison Training School (for juveniles) when his older brother Raymond and sister Jean visited, along with two nephews.
Cheryl graduating from Columbia High School in Decatur, Georgia, in 1981. She needed a small break from Brooklyn.
Bobby and Cheryl were a beautiful young couple, with eyes only for each other. Cheryl was pregnant with their first child here.
The Loves love dressing to impress. Especially at church. This was Easter Sunday in 1985.
Bobby happily greeting his wife . . .
. . . and the two of them grinning broadly afterwards.
Cheryl was really excited that some of her best girlfriends could attend her wedding celebration in the community room at the Pink Houses, where she grew up. Among the group is Cheryl’s beloved godmother, Katherine (directly behind her), and two godsisters, Anna (far right) and Muriel (third from left).
Bobby played it cool at the wedding with his groomsmen. But he was thrilled.
Cheryl’s father gives her away. She was happy that he approved of the union.
After the wedding, the Loves were ready to begin the next phase of their life together.
Their first child—a daughter, Jasmine—was just a few weeks old here.
Then came Jessica. Here is Cheryl with Jasmine, age five, and Jessica, age three.
Sisters Jasmine and Jessica have always been close. Oh, how they begged for a little brother!
The Love family was four strong for a while.
The girls were Bobby and Cheryl’s entire world.
Bobby was so proud to be able to take the girls to Disney World and fulfill every kid’s dream.
News of two more babies was a surprise but a blessing. Bobby and Cheryl enjoyed celebrating their expanding family.
Jordan and Justin’s arrival finally gave their big sisters what they had been asking for. And Bobby was more excited to have sons than he anticipated.
Finally, their family of six was complete.
Jordan and Justin, at eleven years old, really enjoyed the beach and were doted on by the whole family.
And the girls are doing well. Cheryl was so proud when Jasmine graduated from junior high school.
The Loves.
chapter six
Escape
* * *
Every morning when I woke up, the same refrain played in my mind. “I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.” To say that I was teetering on the edge of desperation would be an accurate statement.
But that bag gave me hope. That bag sparked something in my brain. That bag opened up a window of possibility. That bag was an opportunity. Nobody checked what was in my bag when I got on the bus every morning, so that meant I could potentially put other things in that bag. Things I might need outside the prison walls. Things I might need to escape.
And that’s all it took for my mind to start calculating. I began to pay attention to everything with a whole new mindset. I was looking for flaws in the system. Now, instead of always saying “I hate it here,” I had a new refrain: “I can get out of here.” I had done it before, I could do it again. Of course, this time the stakes were higher. This wasn’t a juvenile facility like the Morrison Training School. But I didn’t care. I knew if I got caught I’d be sent back to maximum security, and I still didn’t care. The way things were going for me, I could get sent back there anyway. All it would take was one more write-up. As I looked at it, going back to maximum security because I tried to reclaim my freedom was better than going back because a disgruntled guard or a revengeful inmate had it in for me.
So I began to formulate a plan.
Everything had to be perfectly executed. I knew I needed at least a hundred dollars saved up before I left. We were paid five dollars a week for working on the road, so I stopped buying things in the canteen and saved my paltry little salary. I also started playing in the evening poker games. If I won a little money, I’d get right up and leave.
“Man, aren’t you going to give us a chance to win our money back?” the guys would ask me. And I’d say “no” without hesitation. I knew if I stuck around, I might be tempted to play another hand and lose everything.
Little by little, I also started emptying out my locker. I didn’t want them to find any old letters from friends or family members with phone numbers and addresses that might lead them to me. I destroyed anything with personal information on it. When I walked out of this place, I didn’t want to leave behind a single scrap of evidence that I’d ever been there.
As I went over my plan, I considered the stories I’d heard about other inmates who’d tried to escape and how they’d failed. There was the one Black guy who made it back to his home state of Pennsylvania. At some point he went to apply for a driver’s license. He used his real name, and two days later they busted him and brought him back to North Carolina. Another inmate, a white guy, escaped off the road camp. He got all the way up to New York City but didn’t know where to go or what to do. The cops started questioning him since he seemed so out of place, as a white guy hanging around at the bus terminal. The cops took his picture and ran it through the system. Somebody identified him and he was sent back to prison.
So those were two things I knew I couldn’t do once I got out: use my real name or get my picture taken. I didn’t know what name I was going to use, but I wasn’t worried about it either. I hadn’t used my given name, Walter, for my entire life. I was Buddy, Curtis, Curt, Cotton Foot, or Miller, depending on whom you asked. I knew I would have no problem saying goodbye to Walter Miller.
Even though I was confident that I could escape, I couldn’t bring my stress level down. Time seemed to pass like cold molasses, and
every day felt like a week as I waited for the best opportunity to leave. I didn’t tell anybody what I was attempting to do, but I felt uneasy all the time, like any minute someone would say, “I know what you’re planning.” I had to keep telling myself, “Be cool. Don’t blow it.”
A week before Halloween, Marcie, my counselor, called me to her office as soon as I came in from work one evening. She asked me how it was going.
“Things could be better,” I admitted.
“That sounds about right,” she said and then went on to tell me that she’d been given a report about my job performance. “You’re not doing a good job, Miller,” she started. “Your attitude sucks, you’re slow getting to the bus in the mornings, and you’re not picking up much trash. This has to change. You have to do better.”
As Marcie was talking, my mind drifted off and I saw myself handcuffed, being dragged back to maximum security. I shook the image out of my mind and realized Marcie was waiting for me to say something.
“Marcie, I don’t want to be out there, but you’re right, I can do better.” That’s what I said out loud, but in my mind, I told myself that it was time to go.
It only took me a few more days to finish collecting a hundred dollars. And my locker was wiped clean. I was ready. Now it was just a waiting game of looking out for the right day.
That day came early in November of 1977. My nephew’s birthday was on November 8, two days after mine, so I simply made up my mind to make his birthday my special day too.
The night before, I couldn’t sleep. I was restless and uneasy. As I was lying there in my bed, I prayed that I hadn’t missed any signs telling me not to go. I whispered to God, “It’s not too late if you want to tell me not to do this.” I fell asleep waiting for His answer.
The next morning I woke up knowing that that day was the day. I waited for everyone to go to breakfast, and then I snuck into the shower area to get dressed where nobody would see me put on two layers of clothes. I put my street clothes on first and then put my prison uniform over them. I had to roll up the legs of my jeans so they wouldn’t show under my pants legs. I grabbed my plastic grocery bag where I’d been carrying my prison coat and stuffed it full with my brown leather coat and my one pair of leather shoes I’d bought on one of my shopping trips in the city.
Once I was ready, I heard the intercom announcement blare, “Attention! Attention! All the inmates working on the road crew, come to the front gate!” I went right out and just stood by the gate until 7:30, when the guard called my name. I hopped on the bus and headed for an empty seat a couple of rows from the back. As usual, except for the driver, there were no other prison personnel on the bus. My heart was pounding in my chest, but I played it cool. This was just another day of road crew. When the bus started to pull away from the prison, I felt my spirits soar in anticipation.
Only about fifteen minutes passed until we approached the street where I planned to jump off the bus. I scanned the area and saw no other cars on the street. The bus approached an intersection with a stop sign and came to a halt. “This is it,” I said to myself. The driver slowly accelerated into the intersection, getting ready to make a right turn, and I began to move. I quietly got out of my seat, staying low so as not to attract the driver’s attention. And then as soon as the bus started turning, I pushed open the back door of the bus and jumped out. I landed on my feet and sprinted toward the woods, the shrill sound of the bus alarm ringing in my ears.
I knew the driver was probably yelling at the other thirty inmates on the bus to close the door. He was probably agonizing over what to do. But I knew protocol dictated that he was to continue to the depot and report what I had done. He’d already lost one inmate; he couldn’t afford to lose any more. That meant I had approximately thirty minutes of head start. Even then, he would have to call in the escape, and the guards would have to mobilize back at the prison and then send a team out to find me. It wasn’t a lot of time, but I wasn’t going to think about getting caught. I was only thinking about getting free.
As soon as I hit the woods, where nobody could see me, I started peeling off my top layer of prison clothing—the shirt, the pants, my prison sneakers. I just left it all there in the dirt, like shedding the skin of someone I used to be. I slid my feet into my own shoes, put on my leather coat, and exited out the other side of the woods. Just like Clark Kent in a phone booth. In the blink of an eye, I went from convict to civilian.
Of course, I wasn’t Clark Kent calm on the inside. The clock was ticking, and I had no idea where I was going. I just kept heading in the opposite direction from where the bus had gone. I had been in the city of Raleigh several times, but I didn’t really know how to get there on foot. I just kept walking and running until the rural road led me to a neighborhood with actual sidewalks. My plan was simply to find somebody and ask where the Greyhound station was, but I didn’t see anybody on the streets. I figured it was too early for folks to be out, so I just kept walking. I was walking fast, but not too fast. I just wanted to look like anybody else walking to work or maybe to the bus stop.
When I eventually saw a white man on the street, I asked him for directions to the bus station. He looked at me funny and told me the bus station was a long way from there. He said to keep walking in the direction I was going. Then about thirty minutes later, I came to what looked like a Black neighborhood and I breathed a sigh of relief. I went up to the first brother I saw and asked him about the bus station. This brother gave me directions, but like the white man before him, he said it was still a good distance away. I didn’t care. I just kept walking. When there was no traffic around, I’d pick up my pace and run. For over three hours I walked and ran, until at last I saw signs that said the downtown area was just ahead.
When I finally spotted the bus station, I wiped the sweat off my face, tucked my shirt in, and made sure I didn’t look suspicious before crossing the street and heading toward the building. I thought I was playing it cool, but this older Black man came over to me before I made it to the bus station. He reminded me of one of the elders from my mother’s church. “Are you okay, son?” he asked me out of the blue. “Do you need some help?”
“Yes, sir, I could use some help,” I said without hesitating. “Could you spare a few dollars?”
The man looked me over and said, “I hope you ain’t in no trouble.”
I didn’t want to lie, so I didn’t say anything. I just held his gaze and he must have seen something because he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his wallet. Then he handed me thirty dollars. “You look like you need this more than I do,” he said.
“Thank you, man,” I said, getting ready to tell him how much I appreciated it, but he just walked away. I don’t know what that man saw in me, but I was so grateful. I didn’t know how long the hundred dollars shoved in my pocket was going to last me.
With that extra thirty, I could buy my ticket and keep the hundred I’d saved for whatever awaited me in New York. I hustled over to the depot, but right before I pulled open the door, I stopped. What if they had cameras in the station? Or what if the police came with my picture and asked if anybody had seen me? I had to rethink this. I moved away from the door and stood off to the side of the building. Before I could lose my courage, I stopped a young brother on the street and asked him to buy me a one-way ticket to New York City. He agreed, so I gave him a twenty-dollar bill and told him I’d wait for him across the street.
The whole time I waited, I wondered if he was going to come back out and actually give me my ticket. I started to beat myself up for my stupidity. This dude could be half a mile away with my money, I thought. But then I saw him, and he waved as he jogged over to where I was standing.
“Here you go, man,” he said, handing me the ticket and my change.
“Thanks, man,” I said. I was so grateful that he had come back, I told him to keep the change.
“Thanks,” he said. “And have a nice trip.”
Things were looking good, but I s
till wasn’t out of danger. I went back over to the station and found the area where the buses loaded up. I checked the sign and saw I had about twenty minutes to wait. I didn’t want to join the line of people waiting for the bus, so I hung back and tried not to let my fears get the best of me. I started singing some of my favorite songs to myself to help me settle my nerves. Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” came to mind and I sang that song over and over again.
Right on schedule, the bus began boarding. When they announced the last call for New York, I slunk forward and got on the bus. I found a seat toward the back and prayed that we could get out of the state without incident. My heart was still beating furiously in my chest, the sound echoing in my ears. I was so close to being free, but I was so scared that I wouldn’t make it to the finish line. I didn’t dare fall asleep or even close my eyes because I had to stay alert. At every stop I was waiting for a cop to board the bus and haul me back to prison.
When we finally left the state of North Carolina and crossed over into Virginia, I felt like I had crossed a major barrier, and I started to relax just a little bit.