"There was a hollowness in the pit of his stomach, which he told himself was simply a fear of going back to the world on the outside." --Neil Gaiman, 'American Gods' (10th Ann. Edition)

November 2, 2024

Dear Readers,

Howdy! I hope things with all of you are going well.
As usual, it's been a while and I have a lot of news for you. This may be my last posting, and I wanted all of you to know what has happened.
As I previously let you know, I have been put in for a transfer. On Friday, August 23rd, I saw my case manager as I was leaving the Chow Hall after lunch, and decided to ask if he had heard anything. He told me that he did have news for me, but hadn't seen me to let me know. He said I had been "designated," and that I should get my stuff together as I would be leaving soon! Yikes! He wouldn't tell me where I had been designated (staff policy), but he did say it was to Texas, which is what I wanted.
Then, at work on Monday, the 26th, a staff member came up to me and told me that I needed to go to R&D (Receiving and Discharge)! That meant I was being packed out! I had hoped that I would have another week to get myself together, both physically and mentally, but no such luck. I went back to the unit and packed all my stuff and took it to R&D, where I had 3 boxes packed. At the time, I was happy with the staff member at R&D 'cause he let me take some extra stuff, but my feelings have since changed, which I'll explain later. The guy in R&D also wouldn't tell me where I was going, but did tell me it was one of the three places that I told him I wanted to go, and I saw that he put "FTW" on the boxes, so I knew I was going to Ft. Worth—not my first choice, but it was my second.
Once you're packed out, that means you're leaving soon, and since it was Monday, and the bus goes on Wednesday, that meant I was headed out in just a couple days!
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, every single time I'd been transferred it had been from the Hole (except for the move from Butner 1 to Butner 2, which doesn't really count since it was right next door), so this would be my first time in all these years to go through a normal transfer.
That Wednesday morning, they got us up at 3 AM (ugh!). We went through being out-processed and then walked out to the bus (there were 6 to 8 of us being transferred). When we got to the bus, it was filled with guys from FDC-Tallahassee who were going to the camp in Pensacola, FL, a couple of hours east of Marianna, which was our first stop. We dropped off the guys going to the camp, then headed back west and stopped at the Santa Rosa County Jail, and then headed back west—passing the exit to Marianna sometime around noon (why the fuck did we have to get up at 3-freakin' AM when we passed Marianna over nine hours later?!!), and finally got to the transfer center at FDC-Tallahassee, where we were let out.
As I may have mentioned the last time I went through Tallahassee, I was only there overnight and left early the next morning, so I was hoping this would be the case again. No such luck. Instead of locking us in our cells (which would have let us know we were leaving in the morning), they didn't lock us in after all. Damn!
Tallahassee was a complete shithole! There were beds for about 78 guys in our unit, with only two TVs (one controlled by the blacks and the other was Spanish), three tables with four seats each and very few complete books (many of them were torn up). They would unlock the doors at 6:30 AM, Mon-Fri, then lock us down from 8-10 AM so the orderlies could "clean," then unlock us again. As I recall, we were locked down at night around 9 PM (or was it even earlier?). On Aug. 31st we were locked down during the day, which I believe was due to a staff shortage.
I was put in a cell with a "Christian" hater asshole, who was homophobic. Wonderful. They didn't give us any shower shoes, so I had to use the one pair of shower shoes that he had, and we only had one chair, which was "his." Even though I had the bottom bunk and sure as hell wasn't giving it up.
On Tues., September 3rd, they added one more table to sit at—which was filled by the blacks, and the next day they added one more TV which was also commandeered by the blacks. There was about an equal number of blacks and whites (with another third being latin), and one of the white guys tried to talk to the blacks about letting the white guys control the new TV, but of course that went nowhere.
Also, when you're transferred, the prison you leave provides one week's worth of medications, and then the new prison is supposed to renew your prescriptions after that. Now, I have a chronic illness, which requires me to take medications every day, plus I get psyche meds (one of which helps me sleep). I ran out of those meds after a week, on Tues., the 3rd. I had talked to one of the medical staff who brought around meds for those who were on "pill line," and he told me that they wouldn't refill your medications until you saw a doctor there, which could take several weeks. I heard about one guy who was out of his medications for 2 1/2 weeks before they refilled them! Oh, hell no!
On Thurs., September 5th, I called Pam and practically begged her to call the Warden and complain about my being out of medications, which—shockingly—she actually did. I got them the next day—Friday—from the same staff member who told me I couldn't get them before seeing a doctor. Prison staff will not do anything for you unless someone calls from outside—they HATE that! The fact that staff at Tallahassee are withholding medications from inmates is completely illegal, but they're getting away with it.
My piece-of-shit "Christian" cellie also left that Thurs. the 5th, and took the shower shoes which I was using and gave "his" chair away to someone else! Some "Christian"! What an asshole!
So, here I am, still in horrible Tallahassee, only an hour or so from Marianna, and wondering why the hell I can't get out of Florida!
Finally, on Mon., September 9th, those of us headed to Oklahoma City and Texas were woken up at 3 AM and taken to R&D to be out-processed. We then got on a bus to be driven to Jacksonville, Florida—on the other side of the state—to meet the plane. Now, there is an airport at Tallahassee, so why the hell couldn't the plane meet us there instead of having us drive for hours to Jacksonville? And before you mention inmates from Georgia, a bus came to Tallahassee to pick up inmates going to the prison in Jesup, Georgia, so that's not it.
I'm going to stop and back up a bit. When I left south Florida in 2005, the plane went to Miami and we got on the plane there. In recent years, they've cut back on where the planes land by a lot, and are using buses much more. I'm told that now a bus drives from the detention center in Miami, stops at the prison complex in Coleman, Florida (about mid-state), and then drives up to the detention center in Tallahassee and leaves them there for awhile to then drive them to Jacksonville to get on the plane.
Now, when we finally got on the plane, I was seated next to a guy from one of the prisons in Coleman who got on the bus and was driven to Tallahassee. The first stop the plane made after leaving Jacksonville was at the airport in Tampa, Florida, where we met a bus from the nearest prison—Coleman. So, this guy sitting next to me was picked up by a bus at Coleman, driven several hours to Tallahassee where he sat for a couple of weeks, then was driven several hours to Jacksonville, where he then got on a plane which landed in Tampa to pick inmates from Coleman—only a short distance from Tampa. This is how the BOP works. We then took off from Tampa and flew to the central transfer center in Oklahoma City.
If you recall, I was put in the same unit twice last year when I went through OKC, which was OK (no pun intended). This time I was put in a different unit, 3B. Compared to the other unit, this one was AWFUL! The bookcart was practically empty, and there were no chairs in my cell. I called it the "Unit of Misfit Toys." It just seemed much crappier.
I may have been in a higher security unit before, and now put in a lower security unit (at least for the most part), but I did hear there were some guys going to USPs in my current unit. One good thing was that there weren't "black" and "white" phones—anyone could use whichever phone was open next.