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Category: My Story

Posted
April 5, 2017
Category
addiction, My Story, On My Block
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The truth about spice

I awoke to a shrill and piercing wail, half panicked, half orgasmic. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

I sat up in my bunk and glanced at my watch. It was 5 a.m. The commotion was in the back corner of the dorm. A crowd of inmates was gathered around a young black man whose body was locked in a half-crouch, knees slightly bent, fists clenched, as if he were about to ski the K-12. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

One of the bystanders urged him to snap out of it. Someone forced their way through the crowd and dashed him in the face with a cup of water. When that didn’t work, he was slapped. His distress only increased. The guard frowned through the Plexiglas window of the booth.

Sleep faded and recognition dawned as I watched it all unfold. He wasn’t being attacked or having a meltdown. He was only gooking. No, gooking is not the gerund form of a dated slur, it’s the umbrella term that covers a myriad of strange behavior that goes hand in hand with the drug spice.

If someone is crawling around on the floor, flopping like a fish, mumbling incoherently, seizing, vomiting, or locked up screaming “Oh my God!” over and over, chances are they’re gooking out on spice.

I consider myself a chemical connoisseur. I’ve never met a drug I didn’t like. I started out pinching weed from my dad’s stash, then moved on to blotter acid by the eighth grade. Crack, ecstasy, pills… I doted on each with unconditional love. And whether on this or that side of the razor wire made no difference. I shot cocaine for the first time at age 21 on a prison rec yard with an acoustic guitar in my lap to shield both needle and arm from the gun tower. The first time I snorted heroin was in a prison bathroom. My love affair with dope is well documented. I love it so much that I’m doing 30 years in prison for it.

That being said, spice scares the hell out of me. Ever since it burst on the scene, I’ve watched my fellow inmates have their nervous system attacked, their kidneys fail, their brain function diminish. I’ve watched them hyperventilate and drool and faceplant into the concrete. A potent batch of that shit will have the ambulance in and out of here all day.

But that’s not even the scariest part. The most concerning consequence of the spice epidemic from where I sit is the deadening of hearts. I’m no neuroscientist but I’d be willing to bet that spice suffocates whatever chemical in the brain is responsible for empathy. In a place where kindness and humanity are already scarce to begin with, the last thing we need is a substance to snuff out what little light remains. But spice isn’t just a prison problem, its popularity is exploding everywhere because it doesn’t show up on standard track urinalyses. I’ve just been able to study its disastrous effects day after day in the condensed ecosystem of my prison dorm.

Take it from a dope aficionado: This is no drug. This is a lethal, man-made, brain-eating chemical masquerading as a drug. Big difference.

You know those movies like I Am Legend and World War Z where a contagion creates a sub-human, zombified race that multiplies exponentially? They had it half right. Only the viral spore isn’t from some toxic waste spill or globetrotting bacteria. It’s Yellow Jacket, it’s Red Dragon, it’s the millennial chemical called spice. Smoke up.

Posted
January 22, 2017
Category
character sketch, Criminal Justice Reform, kindness, life philosophy, My Story
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1 Response

A shining example

white-house-paintingBlame it on George Orwell. He once said that itโ€™s impossible to enjoy the writings of someone with whom you take political issue. For this and other reasons, I decided to steer clear of politics in 2017. I even made it a New Yearโ€™s resolution. I consider my novels to be letters to the world and want these posts to read the same way. I thought this year I would include more humor, more story, more music. But like many Americans, Iโ€™m already backsliding on my resolutions, three weeks in.

For this I blame another George: Stephanopoulos. Last weekend I watched him stroll around the White House with President Obama for a final interview, and as the outgoing Commander-in-Chief answered each question with the same poise and equanimity that have been the hallmarks of his tenure in the Oval Office, I knew I had one more political post to write.

I campaigned for President Obama in prison visitation parks in the Deep South. I spent much of 2008 convincing mothers and fathers of lifers that the Supreme Court justices and lower appellate court judges that he would potentially appoint could one day mean freedom for their sons. Or at least provide hope. He did not disappoint. Eight years later he leaves the job as the biggest criminal justice reformer in the history of the White House.

He was also the most gifted orator. Certainly, of my generation. Over and over I watched him run circles around his opponents in presidential debates (horses and bayonets, anyone?). He did it with humor too. Remember the press dinner in the lingering aftermath of the birther allegations? He had the band strike up โ€œBorn in the USAโ€ and came out pumping his fist like Springsteen. His State of the Union speeches were honest and engaging. His presidential addressesโ€”especially after tragedies such as Sandy Hook, the Boston Marathon bombings, and the Dallas police murdersโ€”conveyed hope and healing to a heartbroken nation.

But it wasnโ€™t just words. It was action too. Despite being hamstrung for three-quarters of his time in office by a partisan Congress that needed him to fail, he still managed to tame a gluttonous Wall Street, rescue American icons Ford and Chevy from the brink of extinction, steer us out of an economic crisis that cost the world 40 percent of its wealth, and commute the disparate sentences of hundreds of war-on-drugs prisoners.

Oh yeah, he also got Osama Bin Laden.

However, his legacy will not and should not be tied solely to this historic hit on Americaโ€™s most notorious enemy. But rather to the kindness, tolerance, and humanity he displayed over the last eight years. Just how kind was he? Well, I wrote him a letter and he wrote me back. Think about that. Amid all the global tension, intelligence briefings, and thousands of voices clamoring to be heard, the leader of the free world took the time to respond to a prisoner.

Critics will point to the ACA as a failure. Maybe. Millions of Americans who are now insured would probably disagree. I have no voice in this debate. As a prisoner, my health care expenses are limited to the five-dollar copay Iโ€™m charged each time I visit the clinic. I do believe that no idea is born fully formed and eventually, some future administration, possibly the new one, will iron out the kinks in Obamacare, repackage it, and present it to the American people as a glowing success.

Critics will also point to race relations as a failure. On this I vehemently disagree. Because of President Obama, the issue of race is no longer the elephant in the room. Itโ€™s a hot button issue. A water cooler issue. And people from all walks of life are expressing their opinions. If there is ever to be a united America, it has to start with an open line of dialogue. His polarizing presence in the White House alone has nudged us into having these uncomfortable conversations.

But the main reason I admire our 44th president has nothing to do with diplomacy or policy or statecraft. During one of the darkest periods of my life, as I tried to claw my way out of the immense hole I had dug for myself, President Obama was a shining example of what leadership looks like, what self-mastery looks like, what manhood looks like.

I found this quote from Michelle Obama scrawled in the journal I used while writing my second novel, With Arms Unbound. Itโ€™s from the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. โ€œEven in the toughest moments, when weโ€™re all sweating it, when all hope seems lost, Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. He just keeps getting up and moving forwardย .ย .ย . with patience and wisdom and courage and grace.โ€

I hope that one day, when I leave the world of prison behind, my future wife will hold me in similar regard.

I know this election season has been vitriolic and divisive. Despite our new presidentโ€™s numerous faux pas, head-scratcher cabinet appointments, and thin-skinned cringe-worthy tweets, I do not wish him failure. To wish him failure is to wish America failure. At minimum, Iโ€™m hoping jobs continue to grow under his stewardship. His entrepreneurial chops could well prove to be a huge asset for the country. But no matter how prolific Donald Trumpโ€™s triumphs, Barack Obama will be a hard act to follow.

Since this has to end somewhere, Iโ€™m thinking a good place would be where the journey began: on a Tuesday night in November 2008, Grant Park, Chicago. After an historic landslide victory over John McCain, a younger, less gray president-elect put the following question regarding change to the spirited crowd of thousands: โ€œWhen are we going to realize that WE are the ones weโ€™ve been waiting for?โ€

Eight years, three novels, and a couple of miracles later, I can point to that speech as a major turning point in my own journey. Thanks for the inspiration, Mr.ย President. I canโ€™t speak for the rest of the nation, but in my little corner of captivity, you will be missed.

Posted
December 11, 2016
Category
My Story, On My Block, writing
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Blunt force trauma

Doggy doorI got punched in the face the other night. Long story. It didn’t knock me down, but I was out on my feet. Hurt my pride more than anything. Thankfully, in the parallel universe of prison, standing up for one’s self supersedes wins and losses and after spending so many years in a cage, I’ve at least got the standing up part down pat.

But in the groggy aftermath of the fight, as I lay in my bunk with a vicious headache and a wet rag attempting to staunch the blood flow, it occurred to me that I had probably suffered yet another concussion.

I’m paranoid about my brain. I’ve been that way since I started writing books. Any minor lapse of memory is immediately suspected as a precursor for dementia. I mourn the brain cells I once squandered sucking on crack pipes and water bongs and I even meditate in the neuroplastical hope of rejuvenating gray matter. I’d take three broken legs over another concussion at this stage.

Headshots, like felony arrests, have been a recurring theme over the first couple of semesters of my life. When I was five years old I had to be stitched up after running full-speed into a wall in our apartment. Then there were seven years of head-on collisions in Pop Warner football, then juvenile hall lumps, prison yard lumps, a metal bar stool across the head in my mid-30s… but the most memorable concussion of my crash test dummy life was the car wreck that preceded the above photograph. That’s not Frankenstein up there, that’s me. And those are 70 staples in my head.

Luckily there were no other cars involved. The roads were slick, my tires were bald, and my Pathfinder hydroplaned, flipped, and crashed through a fence, smacking an oak tree. The metal roof collapsed on my head.

I awoke two days later in the ICU of Sacred Heart hospital. The neurosurgeon told my mom that I could be deaf, blind, slow, or paralyzed post-surgery, but that my brain was swelling and if he didn’t operate immediately, I would die.

That was 14 years ago and much has happened since: heartbreaks, hair loss, addiction, a lengthy prison sentence, and yes, more concussions. But in the midst of all this dreariness, something transformative has also occurred… books! And with these books, discipline, honor, maturity. I think even the most skeptical reader would concede that a brain-damaged, crackhead, ADHD, high school dropout summoning the concentration to write full length novels longhand is pretty unusual, if not miraculous. Sometimes I wonder if that near-fatal head injury back in 2002 caused some undeveloped part of my brain to light up and assist me in becoming a normal, fully functioning human being.

My third novel, On the Shoulders of Giants, is now available on Amazon. If you read it, you’ll find a character with a scar very similar to my own. This was done not only in adherence to the author’s axiom write what you know, but also as a tribute to my lifelong toxic love affair with blunt force trauma and banging my head against things.

 

Posted
August 12, 2016
Category
Dozier, My Story, racism, writing
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Letter to President Obama

Earlier this week, I sent a letter to President Obama, along with my first two novels, Consider the Dragonfly and With Arms Unbound. It will most likely be intercepted by the Secret Service and tossed in some warehouse with thousands of other unopened packages but you never know… We live in a world of infinite possibilities, right? The letter I wrote to him to accompany those books is below. I wanted to share it with you…

* * *

Dear President Obama,

Hello. Although I know the odds of this ever reaching your desk are long, it is still an honor to be writing to you. Very cool. I’m an incarcerated author. I write under the pseudonym Malcolm Ivey. I’ve been in prison for almost 12 years of a 30-year Federal prison sentence. I robbed two gas stations with a gun I stole from a neighbor. I didn’t hurt anyone. I’ve never even fired a gun. My plan was to rob and get high until I was cornered and then turn the pistol on myself. I couldn’t even get that right. Embarrassing to admit that to a man who’s reached the level of success that you have, but in my defense I was an unconscious, strung-out, pitiful thing out there. As the saying goes, “I didn’t get arrested, I got rescued.”

I’ve been a drug abuser for most of my life, both in and outside of prison (you’d be amazed at how accessible drugs are in America’s gated communities). Eight years ago, with age 40 rapidly approaching and nothing to show for my life except a criminal record that dates back to the seventh grade, I got it in my head that writing a book would somehow validate me. I’m not sure about validation, but I know it saved my life. My first two novels are enclosed. I’m aware that your schedule is pretty jammed right now, but I’m hoping that you will have some downtime after January, once the fate and weight of the free world no longer rests on your shoulders. Consider the Dragonfly is the story of a bullied teen who finds himself in the school-to-prison pipeline. With Arms Unbound deals with domestic violence and the horrors of crystal meth. My third novel will be out this fall. It’s called On the Shoulders of Giants. If the title sounds familiar it’s because I lifted it from one of your speeches. I know the word “lifted” may imply theft, but this was more of a tribute to you than a return to my criminal past. You even make a cameo. This book focuses on race, the infamous Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, and the redemptive power of writing. I think it’s my best.

In a way, your historic run to the White House was a catalyst for many of the changes that I’ve made in my own life. In your acceptance speech at Grant Park you asked America, “When are we going to realize that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for?” Those words resonated with me, as I’m sure they did with many people around the world. Over the last eight years, I have evolved on this prison bunk as a writer and a man, just as you have evolved in the Oval Office as Commander in Chief. And although my contributions to humanity pale in comparison to what you’ve done for prisoners, the environment, the auto industry, the uninsured, the LGBT community, and future generations of Americans, I’m still doing everything I can from where I am. Just wanted you to know.

Thanks for the inspiration.

[9/4/16 update]

Check out what I received in the mail yesterday… Does this make us pen pals? So honored.

Posted
July 15, 2016
Category
life philosophy, My Story, On My Block
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The opinionated voice in my head

I don’t know about you, but my brain came equipped with a paranoid and self-conscious backseat driver who is constantly bumping his gums about every catastrophic and humiliating potentiality that is mathematically possible in a given situation.

This is probably part of the reason why I continued getting high long after the party was over – silencing the inner noise, separating self from brain chatter. Although sometimes this backfired and the dope was like giving the voice in my head a bullhorn.

But this isn’t another of my anti-drug rants. I don’t even consider myself anti-drug. I just can’t use them. For me, drugs come with the curious side effect of landing in the back of police cars. In fact, I’m currently 11 years into a 30-year sentence for actions resulting from my voracious, insatiable appetite for mind-altering substances. But again, this is not about the drugs. This is about the voice.

If you’re thinking “Malcolm is a psycho, he’s got a voice in his head,” that would be the same voice I’m referring to. We’ve all got it. This highly opinionated, ultra-sensitive, threat-assessing, judgment-casting inner narrator who edits the inflow of the world through the senses with various degrees of inflection. Mine happened to be squawking this morning. I’ll explain…

I’ve been wanting to try yoga for a while, ever since I read Bo Lozoff’s We’re All Doing Time. I’ve been incarcerated for most of my life and I grew up hanging from the pull-up and dip bars on rec yards across the state of Florida. These sorts of exercises are a given, as routine as chow and count. There’s a reason why your crackhead nephew gets arrested skinny enough to hide behind a pine tree, and gets out with pecs like Lou Ferrigno. We get buff in here. It’s part of the prison experience.

Yoga has a different draw: flexibility, supple internal organs, reduced stress, increased energy, focus, concentration, peace of mind. At 42 years old, these things seem more important to me now than having massive biceps. So this morning I woke up, brushed my teeth, slammed a bottle of water, and settled into the Corpse pose in the space beside my bunk.

Almost immediately, the voice piped up: “You look weird, man.” I ignored it and climbed to my feet to attempt the Sun Salutation. The voice was silent for a moment, but by the time I reached Downward Dog, it was back with a nervous vengeance: “Dude, what the hell? People are staring. They’re gonna think you’re soft or gay or crazy.” The voice was right. Yoga postures aren’t exactly the most prison-friendly exercises. The last thing I wanted was some rapist checking me out while I attempted the Plough.

I couldn’t help it. I opened an eye and surveyed the dorm. The guy across the aisle was zoned out on psych meds, another had toothpaste slathered over his face, the old man behind me was in a heated debate with an invisible opponent. No one was paying any attention to what I was doing.

I had to laugh at myself. Why was I sweating appearances when I live in a crazy house? Probably because my paranoid backseat driver convinced me yet again that my reputation, manhood, and very existence depended on it.

Here’s hoping your voice is more laid-back than mine.

Posted
June 15, 2016
Category
character sketch, kindness, My Story, On My Block
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Simplicity of kindness

I’ve been in a slump lately. I think it’s some kind of writer’s postpartum. Now that On the Shoulders of Giants is complete and in the editing phase, I don’t know what to do with myself. Without a working project, I feel adrift. Anchorless. And my old diversions only leave me hollow and unfulfilled.

So I was already grumpy when I sat down with the blind man this morning, but the USA Today Sports Weekly doesn’t come in Braille and I gave him my word. (Dude is a die-hard Braves fan. He listens to their games every night on AM radio. He’s also a baseball historian. Pretty amazing, really. Born blind and can still see the game in vivid detail. I never knew the difference between a sinker and a slider until he broke it down for me.)

I’m usually in awe of the blind man. Just the sound of his stick tapping the concrete will make me smile. He’s a good guy with good energy. Both are rarities in here. But today I wasn’t feeling it. I was wrapped up in my own problems: No book to consume me, no woman to love me, no rec yard, no mail, and a release date that is still thousands of days away. Me and my problems. Me me me.

But something happened as I began rattling off batting averages, OBPs, and ERAs to this guy who’s been in prison since 1986 and blind since birth. When I glanced up from the magazine and saw his unseeing eyes darting right and left, processing the information I was relaying, relishing it, I realized I was no longer annoyed. My heart was suddenly wide open, my troubles were forgotten, and in that moment, I was happy.

Why do I always forget this simple truth until it sneaks up on me? Nothing feels better than kindness. I need to practice it more often.

Posted
May 22, 2016
Category
My Story, writing
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Magical number 9

I’ve always had a thing for the number 9. When I was a kid, there was a local graffiti artist who used to tag it all over South Miami. I remember riding in the back of our family car and seeing it spray-painted on bus stops and the sides of businesses. Once I was conditioned to look for it, the number began popping up everywhere. Highlighted on taxicabs, gas station price signs, and math homework assignments.

When I was 18 (1+8=9), I came to prison and discovered Coast to Coast with Art Bell on AM radio. One of his guests was a numerologist who spent an entire segment on the number 9, pointing out its unique properties, relating it to the Mayans and ancient mathematicians. It was like he was talking about a childhood friend.

My life is full of 9’s. My mom had me when she was 27 (2+7=9). Her mom had her when she was 18 (1+8=9). When the universe blesses me with a love interest and I find out her birthday, my mind instantly begins its calculations (“7/5/1984: 7+5+1+9+8+4=34 and 3+4=7. Damn. Almost. If only she’d been born in September.”). When my nieces and nephews turn 9, they get a long, rambling card pointing out the magic of the age and encouraging them to make the most of it. Many of the cell numbers and dates that appear in Consider the Dragonfly and With Arms Unbound are nods to 9. There’s a full-blown tribute to the number via the character Scarlett McGhee in On the Shoulders of Giants.

So, of course, 2016 was destined to be a gigantic year (2+0+1+6=9) and after a sluggish start, it is now surpassing expectations. My third novel is in the pipeline, the Miami Dolphins drafted Laremy Tunsil, With Arms Unbound received Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest magazine, and a recent Supreme Court ruling may reduce my release date from 2032 (don’t bother, it’s 7) to 2025 (2+0+2+5=9) and it’s only May!

Good old 9. What’s your favorite number?

Posted
May 15, 2016
Category
My Story, On My Block, prison reform, writing
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The universe has a sense of humor

Besides my books, the crowning achievement of my middle-age years is the fact that I haven’t received a disciplinary report (DR) since 2009. A major feat, considering that my prison history is littered with rule infractions — contraband, fighting, multiple positive drug urinalyses, disrespect. I’ve probably been to the hole 50 times (my last stay was for more than eight months). I’ve lost all my gain time, been sprayed with gas, roughed up, cased up, stripped, shipped, and — most painfully — had my visitation privileges yanked. It’s been a long journey.

And even when I started focusing on changing my thought patterns and behaviors, even when I committed to reinventing myself, there was still no guarantee that I could remain DR-free. The wrong guard in the wrong mood on the wrong day could result in a 30-day trip to the hole. There’s no such thing as innocence here. Every inmate is guilty “based on an officer’s statement.” This is not some injustice I’m lamenting. This is just part of the prison experience. This is life.

So it was a minor miracle that I made it seven years without incident. Unfortunately, that streak came to an end last month.

There’s this new rule designating the showers “off limits” from 7:45 to 8 p.m. for everyone except transgender inmates. Whether enacted from genuine kindness or some future lawsuit paranoia, I’m not sure. But even if it is a heavy-handed reaction to what’s going on out there in the real world, it’s probably a good rule. I mean, if it stops even one person from being assaulted or gives them a few minutes of peace and security in this hostile and violent place, it’s a good rule, right?

The reason I violated it is simple: I forgot. As I said, the rule is brand new and anyway, there were no transgender inmates living in the dorm. So at 7:55, fully soaped and mentally entrenched in the epilogue of my latest novel, I was confronted by a guard and informed that I was being written a DR for entering the shower during the transgender-specified time frame. How did he know I didn’t identify as transgender? Training? Expert analysis? He had a lip full of tobacco and a Confederate flag tat. I’m pretty sure he’s no expert on the subject.

But that’s not the story. Neither is the story my historic run of years coming to an end. The interesting thing about all of this is that the DR raised my custody level, which changed my housing level, which means I am now in a new dorm. My neighbors went from those with release dates within the next 15 to 20 years to mostly lifers. There’s an amputee to my left doing a mandatory 40, a blind man to my right who’s been in since 1986, and the dude across the aisle is fresh off death row. Ironic because the book I just finished writing includes an amputee, a blind man, and a death row subplot. Either the universe has a sense of humor, or its satellites are delayed. Where were these guys while I was researching On the Shoulders of Giants?

Over the next few months, I want to tell you about some of the faces and the stories on my block.

Posted
May 9, 2015
Category
My Story
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‘Maximum Maternal Velocity’

When I was a little kid, it was a big deal to tie a rope to the seat of a friend’s bike and get pulled around on a skateboard through the potholed back streets of South Miami. Wipeouts were inevitable. I remember coming home with bloody knees and my mom crying as she picked the gravel from my wounds and cleaned them with peroxide. She would beg me not to do it again. Of course, I didn’t listen. I was back at it before the scabs even formed.

When I started skipping school in the seventh grade, she tried everything to get me to stop — threats, punishments, even bribery. I blew her off. She had to work 12-hour days to support our family and I knew she couldn’t be in two places at once. She wept when I landed in juvie for the first time. She told me I wasn’t a bad kid, I was a good kid who sometimes did bad things. Her position never changed, even though I would return again and again.

When I graduated to the adult system at 18, she pleaded with the judge to give me another chance. She told him I was worth saving. Despite her pleas, I was sentenced to nine years in the department of corrections. Over the next decade, she spent most of her weekends on the interstate, headed to one prison or another to visit me. She’d sometimes drive hundreds of miles, only to be informed at the gate that I was in disciplinary confinement and she couldn’t see me. I repeatedly let her down, took her for granted, and manipulated her for money to pay my dope debts (yes, there is dope in prison).

When I was finally released, guess who was waiting in the parking lot, hopping up and down like the next contestant on The Price is Right? She gave me a place to live, bought me job interview clothes, even gave me her old car. And all I did was continue to unravel. The skinned knees of my reckless youth that once made her cry were now ICU visits: punctured lungs, broken ribs, head trauma, brain surgery. As my appetite for chemicals grew voracious, so too did my desperation to get more. Until my brief experiment with freedom came to a screeching halt and I was arrested for armed robbery.

If it was humiliating for Mom, as a county government employee, to have her crackhead son’s face plastered all over the news, she never showed it. She came to every court date, kept telling me that God had a plan for me, kept telling me I wasn’t a bad kid. I was a good kid who sometimes did bad things (even though I was 30 by then). She kept believing in me when everyone else — understandably — washed their hands. I think when my mom looked at me, she didn’t see my rap sheet or my numerous failures and weaknesses, or the 31-year Federal prison sentence I’d just received. She saw her baby.

In Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild, she writes that her mother loved her with “maximum maternal velocity.” I know that feeling. My mom is the Rocky Balboa of mothers. She’s Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree. Most addicts wear down their families and push them away. My mom wore ME down with her unconditional love. Every word in every book I’ve written is typed by her. I get all the credit, but there is no Malcolm Ivey without her. The coolest thing about this writing journey isn’t the new friends (whom I love), or the good reviews (which I appreciate). It’s the thought of my amazing mom handing one of my books to a neighbor, or an old friend, or a former co-worker and saying, “My son wrote this.”

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

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