Derrick, 45

Derrick, 45

Meet Derrick..

“I know I can’t do it alone because I’m new to this spiritual journey. But I can visualize myself entering back into society, sharing my testimony in church, standing at the podium on stage in front of a crowd of believers.”

Derrick, 45

Incarcerated: 28 years

Housed: Hughes Unit, Texas

At a young age, around eight years old, I witnessed my mom shoot and kill her boyfriend for being abusive while we struggled with poverty living in the projects. That incident opened up some dark places in my life. I grew up running with a gang committing jackings, drive-bys, shoot-outs, and murder. I was actually in and out of juveniles, state schools, and even foster homes. I was beyond broken. I was deemed the worst of the worst. I knew how it felt when the adults in my neighborhood often told me that I wouldn’t live to see 13 or 14-year-olds, which led up to my incarceration.

I was banging and creating havoc in my own city over a color I didn’t even possess ownership of. When I came to prison back in 1995, I was so naive and lost in the sauce. I wanted to show boys I was good with my hands by fighting and wouldn’t back down from anybody. My mentality caught disciplinary cases repeatedly and was confined in administrative segregation for staff assaults and inmate assaults. I would not listen to the ol’ school convicts telling me I need to sign up for the law library and fight my murder case and try to give my 50-year sentence back. I was numb to the fact that it hadn’t been digested yet. I lost my first child while incarcerated and not being able to attend their funeral because my behavior forbade it; now that torture! That’s when I truly understood the definition of suffering, depression, loneliness, and suicide.

I’ve been in prison for 28 years and have nothing to show for it. I have no G.E.D. No trade. I haven’t attended programs to better my situation even though I haven’t accomplished anything propitious. At least I can say that I’ve surrendered my life to God. I got tired of being the problem. I got tired of being self-destructive. Instead, I chose God to take control of my life. I am tired of all the bitterness and darkness in my heart. I got tired of being labeled as that gang member tatted up. I want to be labeled as a child of God. None of the homies ever took the time to introduce me to Christ. None of them are going to lead me up to heaven, either. I’ve been doing the devil’s work all my life. I think it’s only fair to serve the lord now because I want peace in my heart. I pray that God provides me with a lady friend to come into my life. I promise I will serve him faithfully. I know I can’t do it alone because I’m new to this spiritual journey. But I can visualize myself entering back into society, sharing my testimony in church, standing at the podium on stage in front of a crowd of believers. This is a glimpse of my testimony. I hope you can relate to it. 

James, 51

James, 51

Meet James..

“Growing up too young, my life was defined by fixing items that most of society considered trash. This became my therapy, filled my pockets, and quickly became my favorite hobby.”

James, 51

Incarcerated: 21 years

Housed: Stateville Correctional Center, Joliet, Illinois.

Today, I can wear growing up poor as a badge of honor, though I didn’t always feel this way. My parents were the too-busy type, allowing me to be a free-range latchkey kid happily. This enabled me to meet people from all walks of life. Our family of seven had a lovely home in Hoffman nestled between the affluent homes in South Barrington and Inverness, Illinois. In grammar school, we needed to help our parents keep the light and water on. My two brothers and I did this with many newspaper routes. Once I was done rolling up the papers, I would go garbage picking while they delivered them. The pickings were good in Barrington and Inverness, and the benefits of giving trash a second chance were better.

I was a resourceful WHY-WHY-WHY kid who saw all my neighbors as a network of knowledge that raised my profit margin. My neighbors taught me how to problem-solve and about diagnostics, what a drip of solder on contact will do, and glue under a screw is cheap. I learned what a $14 fuse, a new switch, or a power cord can do, or simply a little cleaning. If I couldn’t fix it, I researched the repair. I was selling my friends and neighbors fixed TVs, video equipment, curling irons, blow dryers, radios, stereos, toys, and vacuums. Most of all, I liked fixing bikes, power tools, and yard equipment. After all our hard work, the power in our house still got cut off occasionally. I noticed being handy attracts older friends. In junior high, one of my neighbors, Yaakob, loved my WHY-WHY-HOW questions. After answering all my questions, he dropped me twenty dollars in cash. I had a blast helping him with side jobs customizing limos and van upholstery. He would hold a coffee and cigarette in hand while racing me, cutting foam and material for the seats and winning. I loved hearing about his homeland of Turkey. Although, I wanted their cultural dinner leftovers more than money.

Skateboarding past my neighbor Wendel’s home one day, I gained another mentor by helping him hang a punching bag. He told me how loud my skateboard was on the sidewalk next to his window and that my girlfriend’s car was loud dropping me off at midnight. I would drop by to hit the heavy bag and weight lift and help him with home projects. While discussing planning a family and his career, it didn’t take long for my 14-year-old arm to outdo his 24-year-old machinist arm.

I got many invites, having my garbage-picked dirtbikes and having my own money. Having my booze and weed certainly helped, too. Volunteering to help a high schooler fix his truck got me invited on their camping trip. The older ladies were a tough crowd! They all picked on me until Todd told everyone I was his mechanic who fixed his truck; I enjoyed conversations with older people, even today. I received many life lessons on this trip. A guy, Dave, sat next to me on the picnic table, telling me how embarrassing it was for his Dad to hit and kill a pedestrian while driving home drunk. He went through all the emotions as I put myself in their shoes. My eyes were opened to the reality of our actions. He was telling me how unfair the system was not allowing him to interact with the victim’s family. Someone declares from the next campsite over, “HEY-HEY, I remember you!” starting over at me; my gut sank further when he yelled over,” I was in sixth grade when you were in first!” This got everyone’s attention from all four campsites. Laughing now, he yells, “We were playing tether ball while you were sitting on the curb with David’s sister Kim french kissing, fingers tangled in each other’s hair.” Everyone burst into laughter, including the tough crowd of ladies. I didn’t receive a single jeer being dragged to the lake by a group of female mentors who wanted to give me a swimming lesson.

When I went to high school, I kept in touch with some of them, although I kept all the memories and life lessons. As a hyper high schooler, age didn’t matter; it was all about daily celebrations of life. I happily jumped in between many uplifting groups of friends, keeping the vibes positive, staying busy, learning, helping, and fixing trash because the rewards were more significant. I loved fixing anything with an engine. It was easy to replace it with a bigger engine and make it stop faster. When my parents divorced, my Dad was stingy with his money, so I helped by renting a garage bay from my mom. While in high school, I opened a mechanic shop with all the tools I had accumulated. Cash was good, with my many legit side hustles and one organic one that wasn’t. Many would guess when I grew up, I would’ve become a mechanic, appliance repair man, or garbage man; however, I loved remodeling more and restoring homes to better form and function. I built room additions and custom homes bigger than I would ever want to live in.

I once added a bunch of classrooms and a gymnasium to the school. I built a vast medical center in Tucson, Arizona. Nonetheless, restoring and depositing the checks were more rewarding at the end of the day. I enjoyed fixing basements, kitchens, and bathrooms, adding entertainment centers, bunk bed shelves, custom closet cabinetry, libraries, studies, home offices, and wet bars, and many customers were happy to pay me. Working in oversized homes, I learned first-hand why garbage picking was so good in a disposable society that loves filling garbage bags and landfills. My excellent customers would pay me to remove construction debris like cabinets, wood scraps, appliances, granite vanity toppers, expensive faucets, and other trash; I would then recycle or sell them. If their generosity wasn’t enough, they would ask me if they could fill my construction dumpster with a broken mower, vacuum, electronics, and some of my other favorite trash to fix and sell. Some of the stuff I didn’t even need to fix. Growing up too young, my life was defined by repairing items that most society considered trash. This became my therapy, filled my pockets, and quickly became my favorite hobby. However, today, I’m rotting away in the Stateville Prison Dump in Illinois, hoping to be recycled or fix my situation by showing the courts the value of the truth of my wrongful conviction.

Jay, 67

Jay, 67

Meet Jay..

“The memory of that moment hung like a distant dream, infinitely beyond reach.”

Jay, 67

Incarcerated: 42 years

Housed: Laurel Highlands, Pennsylvania

Rising from the structure was enough dust and brick to rename Magnolia Street, the narrow strip of sidewalk the house sat on. But it was home, according to Daddy, and “then some,” an expression that had meant very little to me until his sudden passing. That morning had fallen like a hapless cloud, offering no pity for the sorrow that had edged Mama’s voice. “Wake up, Child,” she urged, pressing lightly against my bedroom door. “Your father passed away last night,” she managed behind a weary pause. “Doctor claimed it was a stroke,” her last word descending like pebbles in deep and muted water. It must have been her mahogany frame tilted awkwardly against the door that signaled all was not well, the mention of Daddy without his presence adding to my dilemma. Lowering her hazel eyes, she continued to the room of my sisters, Helena and Phyllis. I pictured their sleep-laden faces searching for an explanation but finding discarded dreams instead. For it wouldn’t be so much the news Mama delivered as it would be the implications etched on her worn and tired face. You knew these things at nine years old, like knowing how many raindrops it takes to fill a bottle cap. Such things as only curiosity and idle minutes were best at interpreting. Exiting the bathroom, I brushed a hand gently beneath Phyllis’s chin, whose brown pupils held me like two upturned pennies. “Ready?” Helena patiently announced. Phyllis raised a chubby knee, never doubting the outstretched arms awaiting her. The trust between Phyllis and her sister was a palpable thing undeterred by age or time. Silence, like a lone spectator, hovered in my room. In its embrace, I paused for the dry belch of the hall radiator and Mama’s tread in the kitchen, but both had somehow slipped by and now seemed irretrievable. Mama’s coffee, potent and beckoning, filled the hall. Marking the last of my sisters’ footsteps down the back stairs. Slowly and reluctantly, I began towards Daddy’s room. His giant four-poster stood there as if Daddy’s whereabouts lay hidden in the quiet spirals of its cranberry spread. The scent of freshener, sandalwood, and musk lingered, leaving his recliner and several portraits in stunned disarray. With weighted steps, I turned and descended the back stairs, leaping from the last awaiting ledge onto the kitchen floor. Mama, who stood over a pot of oatmeal, appeared too occupied to dispense her usual warning for my foolishness. In contrast, her sad eyes seemed lost in the swirl of cinnamon holding her gaze within the pot. “Aunt Soapy will be over shortly,” Mama finally commented, pulling her gaze from the last red circle. I peered through the breakfast room at the rest of the house before quizzing her. “Does that mean no school?” Fleetingly, her distant eyes swept the wall beyond me. “With all the visiting I’m planning with your daddy’s relatives, the school must wait.” Instinctively, I returned my gaze to our dining room, which had two years ago welcomed Phyllis into the world. Six months later, Mama and Daddy had pounded its linoleum surface, doing what they had called the Philly Dog. The memory of that moment hung like a distant dream, infinitely beyond reach. Our living room, from my view of it, seemed to hide its sorrow. Peeking at its entrance sat Daddy’s baby grand as if trapped between another world and the partial sunlight streaming through the window beyond it.  Hushed also was the squeal of yielding floorboards, the cry of stubborn hinges, and the belching of arrogant pipes to speak what my family could not. “I want you children to behave while I’m gone.” Mama’s voice cut haltingly through my thoughts. “Helena can help with the dishes,” she continued. Helena raised a dutiful head from the last of Mama’s oatmeal in front of her. In the highchair beside her, Phyllis raised both hands and screamed in her best adolescent rendition, “Sugar! Sugar!” to which Mama responded by circling the table and planting two soft kisses on her oatmeal-smeared cheeks. Mama started up the back stairs as Helena, and I cleared the table. When she did, the front doorbell rang, unleashing me in all my eager foolishness to answer it. Upon releasing its lock, a stout and more extensive version of Mama stood at its entrance. Aunt Soapy and Mama were almost the exact images of one another, the difference being only in Soapy’s girth and piercing brown eyes. “Where’s your mama, child?” Soapy greeted me, placing a soft hand on my head and then entering the living room. “Upstairs,” I volunteered, keeping stride behind her shifting flanks. “Have you had your breakfast yet?” “Yes, ma’am,” I half uttered, wondering if she knew of Daddy’s whereabouts. As was her custom, Soapy shouted a giant “Lord have mercy” before placing two resounding kisses on the foreheads of Phyllis and Helena, a ritual I’d been exempt from ever since my seventh birthday. Soapy disappeared momentarily up the front staircase, then returned with Mama, now wearing a Sunday dress completed with a matching handbag. Ordinarily, I’d notice how smart Mama looked donning such outfits. But it was a weekday, rendering the Sunday dress incomplete without the aroma of fried eggs and Mahalia Jackson pouring from the living room stereo. “You children behave yourselves,” Mama admonished again as she and Aunt Soapy drifted to the front door. The lone echo of Mama’s admonishment followed her into the sunlight while I prayed silently Daddy would return with her. It was Aunt Soapy’s habit to read her morning scripture, which she’d customarily pursued within her North Philly row home. This morning, she settled for Mama’s highback and the giant King James we kept in the living room. Consequently, I wondered what connections she shared with the Almighty that morning. Particularly after playfully taunting Helena and hearing Soapy inquire about what I was “up to” at that moment. A quick glance at her chestnut eyes revealed they hadn’t moved an inch from the open book before them. The monopoly game Helena and I had begun slowly consumed what was left of the morning. Meanwhile, Phyllis became bored and started sampling with her tongue the tiny greenhouses we discarded beside her lap. That afternoon arrived like the tail end of a lost summer, rendering faces that should have been elsewhere in the hours that endured them. And despite the subtle chatter of gossiping relatives, the digesting of ham sandwiches and coffee, the house still hadn’t uttered one iota.

It was suppertime when Mama finally returned home, the house long empty of the visitors that had filled its awkward silence. The fact that Daddy had not returned with her left me, Phyllis, and Helena, at odds with the lumbering shadows that had accompanied her. Mama and Aunt Soapy had walked no further than the dining room when Mama’s stricken cry pierced the ears of me and my sisters. She staggered momentarily, but Soapy, with a strong and tender arm, guided her firmly to one of the chairs encircling the dining room table. My sisters and I had never heard Mama cry before, and in that moment, the house grew as silent as I had ever recalled or ever shall. I guess it was Mama’s outward grief that prompted what came next because we all encircled her and began to cry, too. Phyllis must’ve been bawling the loudest while sitting in my arms. This, I believe, assuaged Mama’s grief momentarily because she took hold of Phyllis and gently rocked her until her crying subsided.  It wasn’t until later that evening my sisters and I realized Daddy would never return home. Whether this was decided by the peaceful walls of the living room or the quiet trailing of crimson carpet along the hallway, we knew it, like all things that came to a short but tangible end. It must’ve been several weeks later when those telltale sounds returned; the obnoxious squeal of floorboards, the rude clanking of pipes, and last but not least, the belching of the upstairs radiator. I mention telltale because despite Mama’s somber preoccupation those days, a smile would periodically light her face and even an occasional taste for strawberry ice cream, which was her favorite.

Nevertheless, I think it did us all good to hear those sounds return, for they spoke of many things that had been hard for us to utter and “then some”

 

Khiem, 41

Khiem, 41

Meet Khiem..

Food is the most important tool to connect me to my feelings and memories and to help me with my loneliness.”

Khiem, 41

Incarcerated: 11 years

Housed: San Quentin

Today I made something which I call an egg ball, a version of the traditional food which I really love to eat, especially when it is raining outside. I would stay in the house enjoying a steamed rice bowl with this egg ball. The original version is called “Mắm chưng” in Vietnamese. It is made with dried fish, egg, black mushroom, and pork. In prison I don’t have those, so I modified it with egg powder and called it egg ball. This is good for two people with steam rice and soy sauce or sriracha hot sauce. To the cooks, please go to a Vietnamese restaurant and ask for “Mắm chưng” and try it at least once 🙂

 

Ingredients

5 strips black fungus (dried wood ear mushroom)

7 oz. bean vermicelli

4 eggs

1 chili flavor instant ramen seasoning packet

1 tsp fish sauce

1 3.5-oz. tin mackerel or sardines packed in oil

2 Tbsp prepared bacon bits

2 Tbsp fried shallot

1-2 Tbsp dried shrimp (dragonfly brand 3.5 oz preferred)

1 ¼”-thick slice of hard cheese, crumbled

Steamed rice, soy sauce and sriracha, for serving

 

Instructions 

Place the black fungus and bean vermicelli in separate bowls and cover each with warm water. Let sit for at least 5 minutes.Rinse the black fungus with clean water, pat dry and mince. 

Place the vermicelli in a strainer.

Set a heat-proof bowl inside a large saucepan or stockpot. Add at least two inches of water to the pan, but don’t fill it to more than ½ inch below the lip of the bowl. Remove the bowl, cover the pan, and bring the water to a boil over high heat.

In the meantime, place the strained vermicelli in a heatproof bowl. Crack the eggs into the bowl, add the ramen seasoning and fish sauce, and lightly beat with a fork to break up the eggs. Add the mackerel or sardines and mix well – the mixture should appear muddy.

Add the black fungus, bacon bits, fried shallot, dried shrimp and cheese into the egg mixture and stir to combine. 

Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat to low and carefully set the bowl in the pan. Cover the pan and let steam for 30 to 45 minutes. The longer the eggs steam, the harder they get. Serve over steamed rice and seasoned with soy sauce and sriracha.

Stuffed Pepper Variations: No eggs are needed – instead, cut the tops off of two large bell peppers and remove the seeds and membrane. Save the tops of the peppers. Follow the recipe as above up until straining the vermicelli. In a bowl, mix all of the ingredients (minus the eggs) together. Divide the mixture evenly between the two peppers and place the tops back on. Proceed with steaming the peppers by placing them in the bowl set inside the pan and cook, covered, for 30 to 45 minutes.

 

Troy, 57

Troy, 57

Meet Troy..

I have been clean and sober since October 26, 1999, and serving others is a massive part of my recovery.”

Troy, 57

Incarcerated: 26 years

Housed:Valley State Prison, Chowchilla, California

My favorite memories here are of the young men I have mentored and tutored and helped them earn their G.E.D. Many have been released and are out of gangs. They have landed their first real jobs, most enrolled in community colleges, and some have earned university scholarships. They proudly sent me copies of their first paychecks, library cards, college enrollment papers, and parole early parole discharge papers. Several parents have tearfully thanked me over the telephone. As rewarding as it is to help young men in prison, transform their lives, and break the cycle, I would much rather go into schools, juvenile detention facilities, etc., to prevent as many men as possible from ever coming to prison. I have learned that the young men I have helped are good people who wanted to do better; they just needed someone to show them how that looked or make them aware of their worth and potential. My life has been filled with many blessings and miracles, and I must pay them forward. As an addict, I committed lots of property crimes, which harmed so many people, left communities in fear, funded neighborhood terrorists, and took so much from cities, counties, the state of California, and the taxpayers. I now give back and make amends in every way I can. I have been clean and sober since October 26, 1999, and serving others is a massive part of my recovery. I will never harm another person. And to everyone I have harmed in any way, I am so genuinely sorry and remorseful!

 

Receive more inspiring stories and news from incarcerated people around the world.