Ervin Roland Bey writes about witnessing moral and mental degradation of life within prison.
TW: suicides, violence, death
Above is the scan of Ervin’s work. Below is a retyped version with minor edits.
THE REPEATED CLANGING of steel striking steel continuously down the endless halls as cell doors slam shut. “One may say, I’ve really done it this time”. One after another after another, sending in souls like bars on a mausoleum. The hallowed echoes still insufficient to drown out the incessant screaming of the residents as neighbors yell at each other and ? from the fourth tier holler to those on base. The five levels of endless cells to my left are the same on my right. Unlike the halls and the cells, there is one thing I can see the end of: my future. I’m in prison.
Welcome to my first day of 30 and beyond in quarantine, which can be called “solitary confinement” as well. When looking at these three words, they appear to be the same.
Solitary – existing or living alone; Isolation.
Confinement- to keep within bound; restrict; to imprison
Quarantine – A condition, period of time or place in which one suspected of carrying an infectious agent is kept in confinement.
It appears that I have checked all the boxes. Quarantine is where you are sent once you have received your prison sentence and within 30 days or so they find a prison to send you to, but within this time you will go through a series of tests. For instance:
“Number 214747, report to Health Care Services,” the voice boomed over the intercom. I am no longer a name with an identity. I am a number. A number who joins the hundreds of other terrified faces sitting in Health Care Services waiting for the results. The good, the bad, and the disturbing. Over time, the inmates will not refer to Health Care Services by name, but by “Death Care” because you will see people report but never seen again and you will say to yourself, “maybe they rode out to their placement”, but only to find out later they are no longer among the living and have been dead for months. Aids or COVID, positive or negative, only two faces emerge afterwards. Relief or devastation. A person’s prison sentence is nothing compared to the 24 hours you are waiting on your results. Is death to come soon by virus death to come later by time of sentencing?
Nelson Mandela in 1975 sent a letter to his wife. It states in part, “You may find that the cell is an ideal place to learn to know yourself.” Well, this statement will truly be put to the test within the next 24 hours.
On my second day, one of the men who received positive results for AIDS from “Death Care” Services decided to test his ability to fly from the third tier. Or maybe he just wanted to test the durability of the concrete waiting below. Either way, a soaring body kissing pavement is not the way I wanted to wake up for breakfast. “Suicide at Breakfast Time” sounds like a movie or book to be read; and sadly enough, someone somewhere will receive an Oscar for their performance.
A week later, another man forgot he wasn’t born with wings and took a nose dive from the fourth gallery, as if expecting a pool to manifest beneath him. His departure was spurred on by news of his girlfriend leaving him because of his two year prison sentence. As the Madhouse talked about the incident, one said, “I could have done that time butt naked upside down, despite Miss Universe leaving me.”
Just over seventy two hours later, a man was brutally stabbed by two others on his way to breakfast. Everyone walked by the sprawled, bleeding man as though he were nothing more than a puddle of water. When I approached and attempted to bend down and lend assistance, an “old school” guy behind me grabbed my shoulder and pushed me forward. “Eyes forward and keep moving. You ain’t seen shit,” he advised.
All I could say was “But he-“ and old school in his response said: “He’ll be stretched out next to YOU if you don’t keep moving.” This place is turning us into monsters, and it appears that no one cares. Under the circumstances, I learned very swiftly to mind my own business and stay invisible as often as possible regardless of my desire to help others. Am I losing my humanity? Or do I help and stand by my fellow inmates knowing that I may be next for getting into someone else business. There’s an old saying, “if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything”… but in this reality, you need to stand by the one person that is on you I.D. (you), because unlike some people, most don’t have honor or know what brotherhood is.
In “Memoirs of a Revolutionist” by Vera Figner, she states: “I knocked on the door, and asked them to call the inspector. ‘What do you want?’ said he angrily, opening the little window in the door. ‘It is unjust to punish one when two were talking,’ said I. ‘Take me to the punitive cell also’” (pg 206). This was brought on because she was talking to a friend by tapping on the wall, which was against the rules, therefore she refused to let her friend suffer alone. Unity, but then on page 207 it states: “’They’re taking Vera to the punitive cell!’ and scores of hands began to beat madly on the doors and voices shouted, ‘Take us too!’”. This part of the reading brought tears to my eyes, because for one, this was the last page of the information, but most of all was the friendship, the ideal of family and unity they displayed which is something that is missing from a lot of the inmates in the Madhouse and they showed this in Solitary Confinement or Quarantine, whichever word you choose to use.
For thirty days I questioned whether I was in prison or an asylum. Whether I was in hell or purgatory.
Over the next several years, I learned that words like honor and integrity were foreign languages to most people in this generation, which made me a social pariah because I tried maintaining those core values. I learned that some people are quick to brand someone with a false label simply because it’s juicy gossip. And those claiming to be your brothers! Well, those are usually the first to stab you in the back, literally and figuratively.
Well, these are just Tales from the Crypts “Surviving the Madhouse; and so it continues…
COVID Prison Archive 
Leave a comment