Griffin looked me in the eye before walking outside and said, “C’mon man, do some pushups with me.”

It was late morning and the energy in the pod was starting to come alive. The CO just opened the door to the rec yard and the brightness poured through it from outside, beckoning me. I stepped across the threshold to feel the warmth of the sun through the chain-link rec yard roof, and, although I could hear the breeze, I couldn’t feel it through the 30-foot tall cinderblock rec yard walls.

Griffin also seemed to be enjoying the weather for a moment while he waited for me to join him.

“I don’t know if I can keep up with you,” I said.

“Huh? Can you do ten?” he asked with a single raised eyebrow.

“Probably.”

“You’ll do just fine then. C’mon. We start with one.”

Griffin made his way toward the far wall of the rec yard. When he got to the edge he dropped down to do a single pushup before standing up again. I did the same. We then began to walk back toward the door of the rec yard at a leisurely pace.

“I sure do miss them extra breakfast trays,” said Griffin, almost to himself.

“How’d you get extra breakfast trays?” I asked. I was playing dumb. I already knew the answer, I just wanted to see if his and Prairie’s stories lined up.

“Huh?” he said. “Prairie would give me hers.”

We were back at the rec yard door and dropped down to do two more pushups before making our leisurely return the far wall. He looked at me sideways while we walked. I don’t think he wanted to elaborate on the breakfast tray situation, but he also didn’t want me to think he was gay, so he continued. “She came up to me the day she entered the pod and asked for my protection. Said she’d give me her breakfast tray every day to pay for it. That’s all.”

Far wall again. Three pushups.

“Did you ever have to stand up for her?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said curtly. “Easiest money I ever made.”

Back to the door. Four pushups.

Other inmates were trickling outside — some sitting in the sun, some sitting in the shade, others hanging out by the pull-up bar. Silence this time between Griffin and I for the walk back.

Far wall. Five.

“There was this one time,” he began to say, almost hesitant.

Door. Six.

“One night a few weeks ago there was a big commotion up on the top tier,” Griffin said. “Some people were standing in their cell doors pointing at the shower in the corner up there. I heard someone yell, ‘what the fuck!’ And then Prairie’s naked ass ran out of the shower and back into her cell. I was sittin’ downstairs watchin’ TV and when I looked up I could see she didn’t have a towel on or nothin.”

Wall. Seven. I was starting to shake with the effort.

“But after she got back to her cell, the people on the top tier kept pointing at the shower and shouting, ‘come on out, we know you’re in there!’ And a few minutes later, Scout came running out of the same shower, with a towel wrapped around his ass. He tried to play it all cool, but he was caught, dead.”

Door. Griffin finished his eighth pushup when I started to stall on seven. “C’mon! Push!” he shouted. I was barely able to do eight.

“Prairie locked herself down for the rest of the night,” Griffin continued, “so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her until the next morning. She brought me her breakfast tray, as usual, and I asked her if everything was alright. Asked her if she needed me to do something about the night before. But she said no. She said it was consensual.”

Wall. Except I didn’t have the power to do nine pushups. Griffin completed his nine and then squatted down in front of me and put his hands under my shoulders to give me a spot the rest of the way up. “Finish all the reps,” he said. “Keep your back straight.”

On the walk back to the door this time I noticed Scout walk outside and join some of the others who were sitting in the sun. I wondered how he felt about being the subject of such a story. Did he feel ashamed or embarrassed? Proud? Indifferent?

Door. Ten. Seven on my own power, three with Griffin’s assistance.

“That was the hardest ten pushups I’ve ever done in my life,” I said.

“Huh? Hey, good job though,” said Griffin. “You did it.”

The next person to walk out onto the rec yard was Cornwhistle. It had been days since I talked to him. The last I heard, he was “sick” after talking to his lawyer.

“Hey man, what’s up?” I greeted him.

“Oh, you know, just comin’ out here to enjoy some sunshine I guess,” he said.

Griffin interjected, “Huh? What are you doing?” He shot me an angry look. “We ain’t done yet, come on.”

“We did ten,” I said defensively.

“Yea, we did ten up. Now we do ten down. Let’s go.”

“Shit. Alright.”

Griffin and I continued walking back and forth across the rec yard, doing pushups at each end. Ten again, then nine, then eight, and so forth, all the way down to one. My arms felt like jello by the end of it.

“How many you think we did?” asked Griffin. “50? 60?”

“A hundred and ten,” I said.

“Huh? No way it’s that much. It’s like 60.”

“No, it’s 110,” I said. “There’s a formula, n squared plus n over 2.”

“What the fuck.” he said. “Aight then. I’m gonna hit the shower.”

In the corner of the rec yard a steel pull-up bar was bolted to the walls. Cornwhistle was underneath of it holding on.

I asked him, “you gonna do a pull-up?”

“I’m fuckin’ trying ok!” he said without moving.

Eventually he hopped up and started pulling, kicking his legs in front of him with the effort. He just barely got his chin above the bar before letting go and returning to the ground.

“Fuck that was hard,” he said. “Aight then. I’m gonna hit the shower.”

Wait, don’t go! There’s More to Read!!

Premium subscribers gain access to my personal thoughts, reflections, and commentary below and at the end of every chapter. If you are not yet signed up, you can claim one premium post for free to see if you like it. Once you sign up, you gain access to all of the paywalls since Chapter 1. You can read paywalls for previous chapters on the website.

Thanks for subscribing to Banter Behind Bars. Feedback is always appreciated, just leave a comment or reply to this email. If you liked this story, you probably know someone else who’d like it too, so please spread the word.

For premium subscribers, my personal commentary on this story continues below.

Read more

“One pack of American Spirits please,” I said.

The gas station attendant turned around to scan the shelf full of tobacco behind him.

“Yellow,” I clarified.

The man pulled the pack down from the shelf and slid it across the counter.

“Seven fifty nine,” he said.

I paid the man and pocketed the pack. Excellent. Now I just have to get back to my cell before lockdown, I thought as I made my way toward the convenience store exit. I was full of anticipation for that first drag.

“TRAYS!” came the shout from somewhere, followed by the rhythmic popping sound that was getting louder and louder until POP went the door to my cell.

My hand reached down instinctively to my pocket — Empty.

Damn, another dream.

I didn’t really notice the cravings throughout the day, but the dreams persisted. It was the same every time — a pack of cigarettes was in my hand, but I never got the chance to light one before I woke up. It had been over a month since I’d had a cigarette and probably decades since a pack was $7.59.

“TRAYS!” the shout came again.

I slid on my blue fabric state-provided shoes and walked down the metal staircase from the top tier to take my serving of fruit loops off to the quietest table I could find. Despite the fact that breakfast was the quietest meal of the day, there was always at least a little bit of chatter.

“Fruit loops for eggs,” a guy named Terry called out as he walked around between tables with his tray. “I got fruit loops for eggs.”

He’d try to make eye contact with the newest people in the pod. “Fruit loops for eggs?” he’d raise an eyebrow. Each day it seemed like the deal he offered was worse than the last, but in the end it seemed like he’d always find someone to take him up on it.

“Nobody gonna take you up on that, Fat Terry,” said Griffin. “Sit it on down.”

But Cornwhistle proved Griffin wrong. “Eh, I gotchu Terry. Over here,” he called out.

“There’s always one!” boomed Terry as he walked over to Cornwhistle with some new excitement in his step. His big hand reached down to grab the two hard boiled eggs from Cornwhistle’s tray at the same time as Cornwhistle was scooping the fruit loops off of Terry’s tray with his spoon.

There’s always one, what? I thought. One sucker?

“You don’t know if you don’t ask,” Terry remarked defensively toward Griffin as he returned to his seat.

“I guess you right then,” said Griffin.

Breakfast continued until — one by one — people would finish eating, return their trays to the tray cart, and then head back to their cells to go back to bed. This was the only time of day that the pod was mostly quiet — the time of day that I enjoyed the most. It was then that I noticed Prairie was looking at me from the card table across the pod. Sitting on the table in front of her was a full bag of coffee, and I remembered that she owed me a cup.

I carried my empty cup over to her table, and she scooped two spoonfuls of freeze-dried coffee into my cup as a greeting.

“Two scoops?” I asked. “I only gave you one the other day.”

“Two for one is how we do it in here,” she said.

“Oh ok,” I wasn’t going to argue. “Hey, I noticed you’re always up in the morning, but you don’t eat breakfast. What’s up with that?”

“I give my breakfast tray to Griffin every day,” she answered.

I tried to figure out why in my head. Does he buy her food? Does he threaten her and just take it?

She could read the quizzical look on my face, and so she elaborated.

“Griffin’s a big motherfucker,” she said. “I, personally, am not that hungry in the mornings, but big motherfuckers are. So one of the things I do whenever I go into a new pod, is find the big motherfucker and offer him my breakfast trays in exchange for his protection. He doesn’t have to be my friend or hang out with me or anything like that. But if someone wants to bully me, he’s got my back.”

“Ok ok, makes sense,” I said. “Guess I have to get my weight up then if I want a double breakfast for myself. Hey, where’s Cornwhistle? Did he go back to bed?”

“He’s sick,” was Prairie’s reply.

“Sick? He seemed perfectly healthy to me when he wanted those extra fruit loops.”

“Fruit loops are comfort food. Easier to stomach than those plain hard boiled eggs,” Prairie said. “He’s not sick sick, he’s just depressed. I think he got some bad news from his lawyer.”

“Oh damn,” I said. “I guess we’ll play cards some other time then.”

After a short walk to put the extra coffee away and heat up a cup for myself, I returned to Prairie’s table. She was watching the Crocodile Hunter on Animal Planet with no audio.

“I wish I had a radio so I could hear all the crikeys,” she said. The tv audio was broadcast on an AM radio frequency and could be listened to with a radio and headphones. It cost a bit of money to purchase a radio from commissary though. Now that I knew she couldn’t afford a radio, I felt a little bad taking that extra cup of coffee from her.

“What are you in for?” I asked.

“My fifth fuckin’ DUI,” she said. “This one’s a felony, so I got 3 years for it. Plus I have to do a rehab program at the state penitentiary. I’m hopin’ they send me there soon so I can get the hell out of here.”

I was a little shocked. “Five DUIs!?” I said, “you didn’t put a cab driver on speed dial after the fourth one?”

“I don’t give a fuck,” she said. “This is how I live. I drink and I steal. And sometimes I drive drunk. The judge won’t let me legally change my name, so I have to put Charles down on my job applications. Every time I walk into an interview, they look at me and go ‘Uh, Charles?’ and I have to explain to them that I’m trans. It’s embarrassing! Why can’t I just put Prairie down on my job applications and walk in like a woman? I even hired a lawyer to petition the court for a name change, but the judge said that with my record he didn’t want to create,” she made little air quotes with her hands, “confusion in the courts.”

“Fuck him!” she continued. “So I can’t get a job, I’ll just take what I want then.”

“Sounds like some bullshit,” I said.

At that moment the pod door opened and in walked one of the sergeants on duty.

“Tweet tweet!” someone whistled from somewhere. “They in here!”

Prairie got up from her seat and approached the sergeant. I sipped my coffee and enjoyed some silent Crocodile Hunter until she returned.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Damn! You’re awful nosy today,” she said.

“My bad, just makin’ conversation.”

“Well I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t have a cellie right now. That means that on any given day they can put someone in there with me. For me, it’s hard being paired up with a random stranger. I was just asking the sergeant if they were doing any movement today and he said no, so I’m good for another day at least.”

“You ask him that every day?” I asked

“Yea,” she said. “That’s why I get up in the mornings, so I can catch him making his rounds when everyone else is sleeping. Yesterday he told me I can choose a cellie from in here if I wanted to. I was gonna ask Cornwhistle but, like I said, he’s sick.”

She paused for a moment.

“What about you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I said. “You want me to be your cellie?”

“I mean, you seem safe enough. You’re clean. You keep to yourself. You don’t get involved in any of that bullshit in here. It ain’t like I’m asking you to go out with me.”

I thought for a moment and didn’t see anything wrong with it.

So I said, “yea whatever. I don’t care.”

“Ok!” she said excitedly. She jumped out of her seat again to catch the sergeant just as he was about to leave the pod. I couldn’t hear them talking, but she pointed at me. The sergeant gave me an inquiring look and I shot him a nod and a thumbs up. Then he left and Prairie sat back down.

“That’s a relief,” she said. “Next time there’s movement he said he’ll put you in my cell. Might be tomorrow or the day after.”

I wasn’t quite sure what I had gotten myself into, but the next morning when I woke up to get my breakfast tray, Prairie was gone. Shipped off to prison in the middle of the night.

Wait, don’t go! There’s More to Read!!

Premium subscribers gain access to my personal thoughts, reflections, and commentary below and at the end of every chapter. If you are not yet signed up, you can claim one premium post for free to see if you like it. Once you sign up, you gain access to all of the paywalls since Chapter 1. You can read paywalls for previous chapters on the website.

Thanks for subscribing to Banter Behind Bars. Feedback is always appreciated, just leave a comment or reply to this email. If you liked this story, you probably know someone else who’d like it too, so please spread the word.

For premium subscribers, my personal commentary on this story continues below.

Read more

“Eh yo. You play spades?” he asked me.

I couldn’t tell if he had a chubby face or if it was just the stubble on his neck that made it look that way.

An effeminate voice rang out from across the pod before I could answer, “I wanna play hearts, Cornwhistle, not spades!”

“Shut the fuck up, Prairie!” a third voice answered, a bit muffled from behind a closed cell door.

“You shut the fuck up!” Prairie shot back.

A lady with wavy blonde hair hurried toward the table where the chubby-faced guy was sitting. She saw the bag of freeze dried coffee tucked into my waistband and stopped short.

“Oh shit, you got coffee. Let me get a shot,” she said. “I’ve got two bags comin’ tomorrow, I’ll get you back.”

“Yo, chill,” Chubbyface said to Prairie. “Dude just got hit with four years and you’re over here tryin’ to scare the shit out of him.”

“Sorry,” Prairie said. She looked me in the eye and said, “I’m a woman who still has a penis so they won’t put me in a women’s pod. You’re all caught up now, so how about that shot of coffee?”

I let the question hang on the air for a moment before letting out an uncertain, “uhh… alright.”

Prairie fist pumped a “yes!” and then started running back to her cell. “I need to get my cup!”

Taking the opportunity to finish my walk to the microwave, I put my cup inside, set the timer for two minutes, and turned back to the table.

“How’d you know I got four years?” I asked Chubbyface.

He pulled a newspaper off of one of the chairs next to him and slapped it on the table. “You made the front page, dawg.”

I glanced down and saw my mugshot next to the headline.

Driver in Fatal Accident Sentenced to 3 Years and 11 Months.”

“I wish they’d put me in the newspaper,” Chubbyface continued. “Eh, at least you got a good mugshot. Looks like you got a good haircut and a nice tan goin. I look like a goddamn drunk raccoon in mine. Those motherfuckers took my picture while I was still talkin’.”

“You don’t stop talking for long, do you?” I said while trying to read the article.

Not a moment later, Prairie returned with a cup in hand. “We’re playing hearts right?” she asked.

“Yo, shut the fuck up for a minute. Dude’s trying to read the newspaper,” said Chubbyface.

“Ooh,” said Prairie. “Did you tell him he has a nice mugshot?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” said Chubbyface. “Eh, where’s your boy? We need a fourth for cards.”

“He’s coming,” Prairie said. “I told him I got us some coffee.” She slid her empty cup toward me.

The microwave beeped to announce that I would never get an opportunity to read the newspaper. I got up, retrieved my cup of hot water, set it on the table next to Prairie’s cup, and put a spoonful of the little brown coffee cubes into each.

Prairie snatched her cup back with a, “thanks!” and ran off to fill it with water.

It was just me and Chubbyface again. I asked him, “so if they put you in the newspaper, what would it say?”

“Oh man,” he started. “I’m glad you asked. They’d do it up big, ‘Cornwhistle, Greatest Drug Dealer of All Time, Cut Down in His Prime’ is what the headline would be.” He made a sweeping motion with his hands above his hand. “You ever seen Cheech and Chong? It was like that, but instead of an ice cream truck I was sellin’ dope out of a meat truck. I’d drive over to Port City cuz the dope’s cheaper over there. I’d pretty much trade a whole truckload of meat for the dope, then drive it back here and sell it for a premium. My boss didn’t care how I sold the meat, as long as he got his cut. I’d give him the money for the meat and keep the rest. Easy peasy!

“But then one day I was driving down route 17 through town and the fuckin’ DEA pulled out of the woods in front of me. I didn’t even know there was woods right there! I tried to back up, but another big black SUV had me boxed in. I was cooked. Fuckin snitches must’ve told on me. But yo, I thought, ‘It don’t matter. They ain’t gonna find the dope on me today.’ All I had was a little eight ball on me and I had it tied to my nut sack. Cops’ll pat you down, but they ain’t gonna touch your nut sack... ain’t that right Prairie,” he said with a cheeky little aside as Prairie sat back down with her cup of coffee.

“Shut the fuck up,” she snapped.

Chubbyface continued, “they said they had a warrant for my arrest, so they brought me here. I tried to act cool, but to be honest, I was sweatin’ bullets the whole ride in the back seat of that cruiser. I prayed that that motherfucker with the sunglasses wasn’t working in booking that day. Anybody else working in booking might not strip search you, but if that motherfucker’s workin, you can count on gettin’ strip searched. Welp. Sure enough, that motherfucker with the sunglasses was workin’.

“Eh,” he went on, “you thought he was fat right? Dude ain’t so fat that he can’t jump right through that window in the dry cell and tackle your ass then and there. I hardly had my pants off before I was face down on the tile floor with a knee in the back of my neck. I let him have it too, called him all sorts of names...”

Chubbyface then proceeded to paint the most artistic picture one can imagine with a palette full of all the banned words.

“How much time did you get?” I asked him after he was finished.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I talk to my lawyer tomorrow. I got a PD. I’m hopin’ for a good plea deal.”

“What’s your name?” came my next question.

“Charlie Cornwhistle. My friends call me CC.”

“Your name is really Cornwhistle?”

“Yep. And eh, I heard all the jokes. Go ahead, let me have it. I don’t give a fuck. That’s just who I am. Charlie Motherfuckin’ Cornwhistle.”

Prairie interjected, “can we play hearts now?”

Wait, don’t go! There’s More to Read!!

Premium subscribers gain access to my personal thoughts, reflections, and commentary below and at the end of every chapter. If you are not yet signed up, you can claim one premium post for free to see if you like it. Once you sign up, you gain access to all of the paywalls since Chapter 1. You can read paywalls for previous chapters on the website.

Thanks for subscribing to Banter Behind Bars. Feedback is always appreciated, just leave a comment or reply to this email. If you liked this story, you probably know someone else who’d like it too, so please spread the word.

For premium subscribers, my personal commentary on this story continues below.

Read more

The DA’s voice continued to echo in my head until a question came from a different voice. A softer voice.

“How much time did you get?”

I turned my head without unhunching my shoulders to face the young lady on the bench next to me.

“I don’t know. Two years and eleven months. Or maybe three years and eleven months. The judge’s numbers didn’t add up.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She wanted to tell me that she only got eight months, but the thought didn’t reach her lips.

“He said ‘two years and eleven months for involuntary manslaughter plus twelve months for reckless driving’, and then he said, ‘for a total of two years and eleven months.’ What does that mean?”

She was leaning forward - hands on her knees - to get a better look at me.

LIKE A FLAMING BRICK IN A BUCKET OF GASOLINE, the DA’s words continued to echo. Our community is a small one. And some events are like pebbles dropped into a pond. They cause ripples that extend to all the edges. But this event was more LIKE A FLAMING BRICK IN A BUCKET OF GASOLINE!

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“How much time did you get?” I asked.

“Time served.”

An inquiring voice called out into the room, “Barnes?”

Barnes? I thought. Lauren Barnes? The daughter of my kindergarten teacher? The girl who wrecked her car at 25 over the limit? The girl whose boyfriend died? Wasn’t she high on drugs or something?

“WESTWOOD!” boomed a different voice. “Get away from her! In here,” he pointed to an open door.

LIKE A FLAMING BRICK IN A BUCKET OF GASOLINE

I nearly jumped to my feet. I was already breaking the rules but I didn’t even know what they were. I followed the officer’s command and heard “I’ll write you,” from a soft voice in the distance behind me.

My feet carried me through the door and into an eight by ten cinderblock room with a large square cutout on one side. The door slammed closed behind me — no handle on this side of it.

“Shirt,” the officer’s hand appeared a moment later, palm upwards, through the cutout.

I unbuttoned the $80 shirt while the officer waited impatiently. It was probably the most expensive shirt I owned, but it was a bit too small now and the armpits were starting to yellow. I bought it — along with the rest of my suit — before I graduated college so that I’d look nice for job interviews.

“Where’s my jacket?” I asked the officer. He held up a clear plastic trash bag that contained my jacket, tie, belt, and shoelaces. I was forced to hand those over earlier when I walked out of the courtroom and into the holding cell at the courthouse.

“Shirt,” the officer commanded again, hand beckoning. I couldn’t see his eyes behind his blue tinted sunglasses, but I could tell from his expressionless face that he didn’t like answering questions.

I handed over the shirt.

He opened the collar and ran it between his thumb and forefinger. He pulled out the two plastic stays and looked at them one by one before he beamed his flashlight into the slots that once held them. Satisfied with the collar, he pulled each sleeve through his fist and then began carefully inspecting the cuffs.

“Pants,” he said while he continued to inspect the shirt.

At least it’s not too cold in here, I thought.

The procedure continued until I was standing naked with my bare feet on the concrete floor, acutely aware that despite the lack of cold I felt much smaller than normal. I was nervous and tense. And embarrassed.

“Arms up,” came the next command.

I complied.

“Open your mouth... Under your tongue,”

I complied.

“Lift your sack.”

I complied.

“Turn around... Bottoms of your feet.”

I complied.

“Squat... I SAID SQUAT, NOT BEND OVER...”

I eventually complied.

“NOW COUGH!”

It was hard to believe the officer seemed so thoroughly pissed off at having so thoroughly violated me.

After I coughed, he threw a laundry bag onto the floor beside me. Inside was a plain white t-shirt and dark green scrubs with big letters on the back that said “PROPERTY OF THE STATE”.

“Put that on.”

LIKE A FLAMING BRICK IN A BUCKET OF GASOLINE

Will I ever forget these words?

Wait, don’t go! There’s More to Read!!

Premium subscribers gain access to my personal thoughts, reflections, and commentary below and at the end of every chapter. If you are not yet signed up, you can claim one premium post for free to see if you like it. Once you sign up, you gain access to all of the paywalls since Chapter 1. You can read paywalls for previous chapters on the website.

Thanks for subscribing to Banter Behind Bars. Feedback is always appreciated, just leave a comment or reply to this email. If you liked this story, you probably know someone else who’d like it too, so please spread the word.

For premium subscribers, my personal commentary on this story continues below.

Read more

“Why is Granola so expensive?” a stranger in the grocery store…

Read more

3 days after freedom

“What do you want from the grocery store?” Celia asked.

All I could do was frown and shrug. Most of the meals I’d eaten in the last 4 years had been prepared for me. And the ones I…

Read more

Still 3 years and 6 months until freedom

A part of my daily routine since the start of my incarceration was to call Celia in the evenings. I was sitting in my bunk writing a letter to her, but I hadn’…

Read more

3 years and 6 months until freedom

“5b, 6 top!” shouted the Sergeant through the plexiglass booth before he pressed the button to unlock the door.

The day I had been waiting for was finally here. I was…

Read more

We weren’t in disciplinary segregation, but it sure felt like it. Locked in our cells for 23 hours a day. In the 24th hour the …

Read more

“Stock up on soups before you go so you won’t be hungry in receiving. Oh and body wash! They only sell bars of soap down the ro…

Read more

Read more

Read more

Just a wake-up now!

Every morning Mark would tell me the number of days until Tuesday. And when Tuesday would arrive and we’d fi…

Read more

"I've been meaning to ask — when you were in prison, how did you shave?" my old lady1, Annie, asked while we were enjoying a campfire .

And the answer to that question depends on whether you’re in jail…

Read more

Read more

Read more

Get on down the road man, you don’t wanna do your time here.

I had just been sentenced to 3 years for a felony plus 12 months for a misdemeanor. It was day 1 in jail for us both, but we were at very d…

Read more

Hey man, you want a 8 ball?

He held out his hand and inside were 4 or 5 marble-sized, white balls. He had cut the fingertips off of some latex gloves, filled them with something, and offered one to me.

Read more

LOCKDOWN! LOCKDOWN IN THE FACILITY!

The phrase cracks over the loudspeaker with urgency. Never a request. Always a command. Stop what you’re doing and go to your cell. Nothing else matters. Leave the …

Read more