Doing Time

Written by Bruce Thibodeaux, his daily events of his incarceration. I hope the world is as captivated by him and his writings as I am- co- author Stephanie Durr Tullos....

Something inside my head screams "Wake Up Now"! My eyes immediately fly open, and I sit up in y rack. I don't know what to call this , some sort of sixth sense or intuition. I am not sure. But whatever this inner voice is, I have learned , over the years to listen to it and take heed to it's calling. Instantly, my hyper alert senses are on overdrive. The first thing I notice as I look around the dorm's bed area, and let me be clear, the bed area is huge. Like a mini warehouse of racks , or single person beds, spaced out 2 feet apart. There are 4 rows of beds. 17 beds in a single row, making it 68 beds in all. That's how many inmates are in each dorm. There are 4 dorms per building.

Anyway, I look around the bed area, and notice only a very few inmates are still awake. It must be around 2 am. Everyone is asleep. Tucked deep in there racks (beds), but there is one inmate fully dressed and wearing his hoodie up over his head. Creeping through the racks and I immediately see in his hand a state issued belt with 2 combination locks locked to the belt hanging from his hand at about a 2 foot length... This, I know, is a very dangerous weapon used amongst some inmates. It is used like a mace of mid evil ages , used to beat someone with.

I see the guy stop in front of a certain bed, on the same row as me, about 6 racks down from mine, standing over the guy that is sleeping in that bed. And then... all hell breaks loose. He starts swinging the belt with the locks attached to it at the sleeping guy's head. With such a deadly, vicious force. Hitting him over and over and over...the guy that was sleeping is now screaming in terror for dear life. If you have never heard the screams of a guy being beaten half to death with locks on a belt, I can assure you that it is not a pleasant sound. I see blood flying from this guy's face and head and now every sleeping inmate in the dorm is now fully awake. Everyone stunned into silence and staring at what is happening. The guard who is posted in the front of the dorm is now running toward the assault screaming,"STOP FIGHTING"! As if it's a 2 way fist brawl. The guy with the locks finally stops and steps back away from his work, and walks off like nothing happened. The guard already hit the panic beeper he keeps on his person at all times. This sends an alert to all other officers on the entire compound who will in turn respond immediately. These officers will be flooding the dorm in a matter of seconds. I just sit here in my bed thinking how crazy my life is. How dangerous this life is. How that could be anyone of us in here. You never really know the mind set of these guys we live amongst. We are surrounded by real life killers, gang bangers, rapists, hard core drug dealers, child molesters. Every frame of mind is different. You just never know what might be on anyone's mind at any given moment. You can look at a guy and he may think you are looking at him in a way he doesn't like, and 2 weeks later he's beating you with locks in your sleep.. It is crazy. But it is the place where I live.... Lived here for 11 years. I feel as if I may have forgotten the way of the world. The outside world which seems only like a children's fantasy book now...

The guards rush into the dorm like I knew they would. They hem up the guy who had the locks, escorting him out of the dorm in a headlock. When the guards get him to a secluded area that has a blind spot from the cameras, like one of the many LT offices, they will whip his ass, and make him regret the day he was born. But no one will see that happen, no inmate anyway. But trust me when I say it WILL happen. A few minutes later the infirmary orderly rushes into the dorm with a gurney. They load the guy up who is bleeding profusely all over the place, and rush him out to the infirmary. It only takes about 15 minutes for everyone to start climbing back into their racks to resume sleep. Like nothing has happened. It is over. And only the dorm orderlies are left awake to mop the blood up and change the bed linen out that got blood on it.

I lay back in my rack myself. I grab my tablet out my locker to message my wonderful and loving girlfriend, Stephanie. I explain to her of what just occurred. I tell her everything that goes on in y life, and after sending the message, I turn over and go back to sleep myself... it is just another ordinary day "doing time"...nothing unusual....just another day in the brick jungle....