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| Tutankhamon Waterman, serving four life sentences in a Virginia prison, has written over 30 books and novels. https://www.facebook.com/TheDRSoulCollective |
Wake-up call is an ungodly 3 AM. A static cry of an underpaid Correction Office arrives in your cell via intercom. It's loud and your bunkmate grumbles if you don't answer fast, because the CO will continue to call for your response. You say that you're awake, then the daily grind begins.
A march through numerous secured gates ends in a dank corridor where inmates sit on the floor. A few try to grab minutes of sleep, going so far as to lie on the grimy floor. You're shuffled one by one into a closet-sized cell, stripping out of your state blues. It's cold and disgusting, because inches away is a pissed stained toilet that reeks of bowel movements. You stand on your shoes in order not to have urine on your bare feet. You're also stripped of your manhood as the CO's eyes study you for contraband: spread your cheeks and cough.
You are now clothed in oversized, once-white, now yellow-stained uniforms, sagging, due to the elastic waistband being worn out from hundreds of washes. You hoist your waistline up, heading into the kitchen to search out and manufacture a trash bag into a belt.
The kitchen is overseen by lazy supervisors who sleep in the office while ill-trained inmates run the asylum. Hands have to be washed upon entrance because hygiene is mandatory...but supervisors don't give you your orientation; they assume you'll just read the signs over all the wash stations to wash your hands.
Twenty-five inmates work in a kitchen the size of a football field. Stations include the cook area, veggie prep, the bakery, the dish room, line workers, sanitation, chow hall workers, pots and pans and staff side dining. A kitchen job (as most prison jobs) requires no skill set. Since this is true, high turnover rates occur often, due to men who don't know how to work together, nor communicate what should be done. That's why most new workers come into the kitchen to eat, steal and do zero work. For some, stealing food for profit is a way of life for those who think stuffing their briefs with snacks seems smarter than working all day for pennies. They always get caught and vacancies become a detriment for those who continue to work the shift.
When someone is fired, do you think someone strolls in as a replacement seconds after he's gone? No, it takes weeks for a position to be filled. So a sanitation worker, who just dumped trash and cleaned a bathroom that no truck driver would use, comes to the line and serves food; his hands covered in plastic gloves that rip easily.
Those who have a passion for kitchen work control their world with zeal. You call them Bangers. A title synonymous with hard work. When you receive the stamp of being a Banger, this means wherever you work, you mastered your job. You can handle it alone and the supervisors trust you enough because you earned it--and that's where you get one gigantic perk: The freedom of food. The prison populace eats from a set menu that has zero flavor, due too many inmates having food allergies. So because of that, everything is bland...but not for a kitchen worker who can chef up a meal that by prison standards receives a Michelin star.
When you're tired, you hide, stealing minutes of sleep. You hide in carts that transport food to housing units while others watch out for you, taking turns in cramped quarters that would make a chiropractor rich. When your shift ends, you're spent. You're leaning on somebody's shoulder as you lumber back to the housing unit. Once inside, you gotta fight for a shower, because disrespectful inmates that didn't work will occupy them. You sit and wait, and if the unit goes on on lockdown for whatever reason, you'll be in your cell smelling like a trash dumpster, forced to wash up in a sink until your cell is open.
When you sign up for kitchen work, you give up your life; working on your freedom, education, and even your mental health is pushed to the side. You come in early and leave late. That's why most inmates after a year or so quit--they want more of a life and the kitchen doesn't allow anything but work and a few hours of sleep. You make 27 cents an hour, working 40-plus hours in a four-day span. Monthly checks average $43.20. The sad part is that inmates fight for jobs in the kitchen, because they need the money.
You now understand this reality, and even as you do, you take the job. This is your life now. The long hours. Lazy coworkers. All that comes as a kitchen worker you accept.
Why? You're in prison, not the free world, and these are your options. Better get to bed. That 3 AM wake up call will be coming soon.
#PrisonLabor
#SecondChanceMonth
#EndLWOP
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