#149 June 29th in prison (retro)

June 29th…in prison

I mentioned to you guys how I kept journals while I was in prison. Today I want to share an entry I wrote on June 29th, while at Dan River Prison Work Farm, in Yanceyville, North Carolina.

Before I do, my thanks again to emails from readers who have asked about my free prison encouragement certificates, as well as asking about details of my prison book. I am also grateful for a couple of emails from people who had been following my blogs for some time, and just now wanted to send me a gift. My deepest thanks for that.

Now, what I am about to share with you is an actual transcript from my journal. The only thing I may change is this is the full name of anybody I mentioned, because I don’t want to put them out there like that. I will share the entry, then come back and comment on it. Remember folks, this was written while I was in prison:

10:06pm Friday Night: Kinda warm as I sit here on my bunk. I was watching “Home Alone” (II or III, I don’t know) but lost interest over the 9pm count. I’m waiting for the “Hearts of Space” show at 11pm, my favorite (radio) show on new age music.

I’m broke, but got a dollar from Horne (bakerman from Sanford) and earned a quarter from Steele, a guy I knew at Tyrrell (prison work farm). What I’m trying to do I sell some paper, at 75 cents each a pack of 100 can bring me $75.00. Even if I sold the paper, it can go for 20 cents each. If I can just get the ball rolling, I’d do well. It’s slowly coming together; I don’t want to be too open. I like discretionary tactics, since it keeps my business in my hand. It may, however, be necessary, since I may not get anything this week.

I spend a lot of time (though not nearly as much as I’d like) talking to God about the “what ifs”. I dream so much to be that guy that people can trust, because I can find answers to their problems. What would I do if I had $70,000,000? Would I use some of it to help people rebuild their lives? I’d sure like to.

Keivon is a friend of mine from Tyrrell, who has dreams. I’ve noticed he likes listening to me, I kinda got that ability with people. I think it’s Jesus showing through me, so people like being around me. One guy at Pasquotank told me, “it’s kinda hard feeling down when I’m around you”. When we trust God, it’s the same way. But we can’t help dragging out our negatives. I’m no different, although I’m really trying to change that.

A few days ago I took a nap and woke up feeling miserable spiritually. It took an effort to get out of that negative sphere. It proves that I’ve got to be alert and ready to fight off satan, because he won’t relent. Nor will I. I’ve got too much out there to fight for. (people) are counting on me, my family needs me. I’ve got to come out of this a champion, I just GOT to.

This is my chance to be a hero, a light in a dark world. I’ve got to be that light God made me out to be. I have no idea how this will turn out, in specific detail, but there has to be a 100% turnaround for me. Something’s got to turn this funeral into a joyous celebration. I’ve been standing in the Word, and I am up to day 62 on my calendar.

I’ve written down every day over the past 2 months to declare my faith. The last thing I wrote was “I can do all things throught Jesus, who gives me strength”. I’ve yet to figure what to write now, I can’t possibly be out of ideas. Psalms 20:7 is good, I’ll use it.

It reminds me not to trust man (whole heartedly) or the strength of man, rather God. It’s important to remember that, since we can lie. What good is our word, since we can’t back it up? Rudolph is a perfect example. For 2 months he has given his word to pay me for the paper and writing of his letters. To be honest, I never believed him. Any man who has to come up with an excuse every other day simply cannot be trusted. But I’ve been patient wit him, helping him when by every right I should have dropped him like a hot rock. Today he wakes me up wanting me to write a letter for him, and promised $11.00.

Yeah, right.

But I’m not going to chase him to do a free job, especially since he’s not given me 1 cent toward anything. He has a (prison) job, he could have given me something. But all I hear is excuses. He probably got upset that I “forgot” to help him with that letter, but that’s tough. I can play games too. But how much of this incident represents our relationship to God?

God has been incredibly patient with us, when we tell God our intentions to Him, like tithing. We give our word, but don’t fulfill it. God has every right to drop us, but He doesn’t. I don’t profess Jesus nearly like I should; Jesus can easily deny me in front of God. By all rights He’d be in the right, but He’s patient. I’m extremely glad for that. But if They are this way to me, I’ll have to be that way with people like Rudolph. Who knows, maybe he’ll surprise me with money….

I think the Clippers have a better chance to win the NBA Championship, but stranger things have happened.

I’d gladly take increase via poems. I can use the extra money, and it’ll show him that I’m not relying on his lies. He’ll see that if I’m beating him at his hustle of paper, he’ll have to give me not only my due, but overdue, else risk me not needing him at all, even to waiving his debt just to be done with him. Deceptively clever, if I can pull it out.

This is what I wrote on that day, just a fraction of tons of things I wrote in my journal during my time in prison. You can get an idea what was in my head at the time I wrote it, both my hopes and my problems.

Just to fill you in on some gaps, this was written after I left the day room after being bored with the movie on the television. Dan River is a communal dorm, meaning each section has a large room with like 40 or more bunks, this is the living and sleeping area for the inmates. But every dorm also has a large dayroom, where inmates can watch television, play cards and things like that. I had just moved from the day room to my bunk to write my journal, which is what you just read. I was at the time waiting for a radio show called, “Hearts of Space” which was a very relaxing program of new age music, I could almost fall asleep on that kinda music.

My financial status at that time was obvious…I was broke, and it played a hard part in how I was able to hang in there. But I had a few venues to try to hustle up a few dollars. One was selling designer paper. Some prisons will allow you to receive some, and as an inmate this was like 500 steps higher than state paper. So, it was also more valued, and thus could make a few coins if one sold it. I also wrote poems on those papers and tried to sell it to inmates. I even made a few quarters by helping guys write letters.

Now, let me make this clear, I didn’t impose that on anybody. I didn’t walk up to a guy and say, “hey, I’ll write a letter for you for some money”. I was always approached for that, because I stood out. It’s like I wrote in my first “Grades of Honor” book, I stood out because I “looked” like I went to college. That was because I did.

So often times a guy would approach me and ask me to write a letter to his girlfriend, or his mom, or even a grievance, because I “looked” like somebody who knew something. And while I never asked for anything, most guys honored the work by giving me a couple of coins. But some guys did not, and would lead you on, playing a game on you and your kindness.

In any hustle you do, discretion has to be used. Granted most officers don’t really care, but it’s not like you can do it right under their nose. I think guards understand the stress inmates go through, so they allow it within reason.

You also see that I do spend a lot of time thinking about God, and where I fit in all this stuff. Sometimes I sit on my bunk and wonder what I would do if God blessed me with stuff. Would I be stuck up about it, or would I honestly try to help people? At the time I was writing that journal, I had made several friends there, two being Steele and Keivon. Sometimes you come across guys that your heart kinda goes out to, because we all are inmates, and sometimes things just don’t go right for you. I have met a lot of guys in prison that, if I had the resources, I would do what I could to help them.

I wonder if that makes me a sucker….

I also commented on how sometimes you have to be ready to fight spiritually the second you wake up. It’s strange how sometimes you can try to rest, but the war begins the moment you open your eyes. It’s like all the forces of negativity are at your doorstep, and ready to cut you in half. It’s times like this that you have to be ready to fight against that, to find a reason to hang in there, to find a reason to have faith.

It reminds me of a juvenile I knew while I was in county jail. He had a cell right beside mine, and I really enjoyed talking with him, it was like I could leave all my problems and forget about it and focus on positive things, encouraging him as he did me. He was a friend at a time I really, really needed one. One day I was waiting for the dinner trays to come and he had just woke up from a nap. I could hear him stirring in his cell and then he went to the trap door and called angrily for the “trays”. I could tell he woke up in a bad mood, not something I have heard him do before.

Immediately I went to my bag of canteen snacks and took out I think a honey bun and called over to him, and slipped him a snack through the holes in the wall (you’d have to know more about that to understand how I did that). He got the snack and he thanked me for it, and I could tell he was a little embarrassed, but that was just how he woke up.

Sometimes when you are burdened, you have to guard yourself the second you wake up, because if not, you may wake up with a full force of negativity in your face. You can see in my journal my hopes of doing something good, in trying to change the situation from a negative one to a positive one. That is very hard for anyone sitting in a prison to even dream about, because we are taught that inmates and ex felons are worthless garbage and have no value. You cannot know how hard I fought against that my entire incarceration, but I had to find some hope to hold on to. I could not believe that my life was worthless.

You will also notice that I was talking about a project I was doing. I was on day 62 on a calendar I was doing. What I decided to do awhile back was to make a calendar, and each day to write something either positive or scriptural in that block of the day. I had hoped that by doing that, it could keep me focused on the positive and encourage my faith in myself, but more importantly, in God. I still have that calendar with me, even today, and it is filled with all kinds of messages I wrote in it every day up until my last days in prison.

You also notice that my incarceration was not without trials, as I mentioned a guy that was clearly taking advantage of my kindness. Prison is full of guys that try to manipulate others to favors with no intention of paying. One of those guys was who I was talking about at Dan River. Because I knew how to write, and had nice designer paper, and could write poems, several guys asked me to help them write something nice for a loved one. Sometimes I would give them something free, other times if they would insist on a fee. Every inmate knows that you gotta pay a guy for his hustle (or at least you should).

I know that is almost in direct contrast with what I was saying about trusting God, but in prison sometimes there is an ebb and flow of how you feel spiritually, when you are surrounded by negativity all day. It does not help when you have inmates who like to take advantage of others, like the guy I mentioned. I had actually helped him by writing letters for him, and even using some of my paper to do it, and he kept promising me that he’d pay me back, but never did.

In fact, he tried to sell another guy a tablet of I think it was rainbow writing paper that I SOLD HIM. Well, sold is not the term, because the joker never PAID me for it. So now he’s trying to sell it to somebody else, and haven’t even paid me for it. You meet some really shady characters in prison, and if you are not careful, they can distort your faith in other people. I would have hated to come out of prison thinking that everybody is out for self, because that is what some inmates honestly believe.

Anyway, that is just a fraction of what I wrote while in prison. The idea in that was to get you to see deep inside of me, what I believed, what I saw and how I felt about prison. These are the kinda things I try to bring out in my “Grades of Honor” books, to try to get you inside my head and heart, not just tell you what happened, but why.

Oh well, that’s enough for now, feel free to email me at derf4000 (at) embarqmail (dot) com.