As I set looking out of the window shackled down to my feet. The only thoughts going thru my head, was this my last time seeing downtown St. Louis? A voice ranged-out in my head, Naw, fool, you're coming back, you're going to win your appeal. After that I set staring out of the window, my mind was racing. My ride to Fulton Diagnostic Center was about two hours. Back in 1995 the state of Missouri only had one diagnostic center, for those guy sentences to the D.O.C. This wasn't my first ride to Fulton. About five years prior, my uncle had taken this same ride. Being that my grandma couldn't drive, my mother drove her to Fulton to visit him. Things were different now, I was in Fulton Diagnostic Center, and my mother was the visiting concerned parent.

My stay in Fulton was all about the D.O.C. evaluation process. As soon as I got off of that Grey Goose, the evaluation started. It was like twenty-five dudes in a line against the wall, they removed the shackles, and told us to strip down to our birthday suits. The Correctional Officer gave each one of us a brown paper bag and stated Those of you, that want to send your clothes and shoes home, put them in the bag, those of you who want to donate their clothes, throw them in this cart. I choose to send my things home. That was eighteen years ago, my family is still waiting on my stuff... Anyway, we were called ten at a time to be sprayed with bug spray, ten men in the shower, ten minutes to shower, afterward we were given blue jumpsuits, no underwear. After all of that, we were placed in a big cold room, until everybody was done. While waiting I started rappin' with this old head that been thru this situation a lot.

Somewhere in our conversation, I told him how much time I had, the old head said, Damn, youngster, they going to put you in Housing Unit Two, and you will be here for about four months because it's only two camps you can go to, that's Potosi or The Walls. I have heard stories about both of these camps. Potosi is the camp that houses all of the inmates that's on death row in Missouri and The Walls is one of the United States' oldest prisons, and it's also known as the "Bloody 48", you have to be about your work at The Wall because it's all about drama.

Let me take this opportunity to tell you all about my personality is very cool, I can get along with anybody, I like to play, and just have fun, but on the other hand I love quiet time by myself, so sometimes it may seem that I can be standoffish, and when I'm that mode, I can get gangster. I can tell you having this type of personality has caused me to be in a lot of trouble.

Well, anyway, I finish processing and was placed in the housing unit, that the old head told me about, so I can say the old head was kicking facts. But what he forgot to tell me, was that it was so crowded, that newcomers had to sleep on cots until a bed came open in a cell.

For like a week I slept on the cot, then I realized if I just always be away from my cot, even when it was lights out the caseworker would find me a cell fast. It's safe to say my plan worked. I got moved in the cell with my homie from the streets, his name was Outlaw, Law and I was good cellies, like I said before my mama made sure I had money on my books, so we were eating and smoking good every week. Over the course of a few months, a lot of that guys that was in city jail with me, started showing up in Fulton, and we were kick-it catching up on old times. It wasn't long before fights started poppin' off. The first two fights was pretty remarkable, because of the way they ended, the walkman of our wing was running a store, that's where he sale food and smokes for one & a 1/2 back. If you get a bag of chips from him and the chips cost 1.25, you have to give him the chips back and something worth 65 cents. The walkman just happen to be from Kansas City Mo., and this little cat name T-Man, from St. Louis went and got something from the walkman store, so when the day came for us to go to the store, we went and everybody gets back, the walkman went to T-Man, like let me get what you owe me, T-Man blow the man down, I ain't giving you "shit", get it like Tyson got his. The walkman didn't argue with T-Man, he just walked off. T-Man really thought he was hard at that moment, but later that day, while we were walking to chow, T-Man was busy running his mouth, the walkman walked right up, and hit T-Man so hard T-Man fell to the ground and was flopping around like a fish out of water. First lesson, don't get nobody shit if you ain't plan on paying it back.

The second fight, I wish wouldn't happen because I end up being cool with George X, my partner Big Jack, 6'5 300lb blood, from the Webbe Project, St. Louis, gangster to the core. When I was gang-banging I was a Crip, gangster to the core, now Big Jack is older than me, he's a very good friend of my Uncle Dave, let me let you all in on a secret about Big Jack, is known in St. Louis as a knock-out artist, only if George X would've known this, it could've saved him some pain. But George X was a Crip from Kansas City, and he didn't know that Blood & Crip from St. Louis, get along in prison. I know it's crazy but that the way it is, anyway George X kept making eye contact with Big Jack, and Jack told George X to fall back, but I guess George X wanted to prove that he is hard. I had told Jack, Man don't waste your time trippin' with dude, Jack said to me Trav - he got once more time to look at me crazy. That one more time came the next day at breakfast, George X came down the stair looking at Big Jack, before George X knew what happen he was getting up off the floor asking what happen. Someone shouted you got knocked-out. I felt bad for George X because he got hit with a haymaker. Second lesson, when someone tell you to fall back, do it. :)

I cracked jokes and made fun of those two incidents for my whole stay in Fulton. While at Fulton you're only allowed to use the phone once a month, and I was saving my call for my birthday, March 19, is my birthday, on March 18, I got wrote-up and sent to the hole, for tampering with a locking device. I fail to close my cell door and they sent me to the hole, I was mad as hell. My anger grew to a crazy level once I thought about not being able to call home for my eighteenth birthday. Never in a million years, I could've dreamed I would be locked down in a prison cell alone on my eighteenth birthday, that was real. I only stayed on confinement for ten days, then I was moved right back to the same house, but I was put in a different wing. About five days after returning from the hole, I was called to pack my stuff, I was being shipped out to Potosi Correctional Center.

TO BE CONTINUED