Twenty nine

Twenty nine is a rough place, I been on twenty nine for 7 years now. I used to be on 17 but I got in a scrape with some of the boys over there, things happened all fucked up, now I'm on twenty nine. The only way you leave twenty nine is feet first. Jimmy, the guy next door has been on twenty nine for 13 years. He says they should put a sign over the door that says abandon all hope ye who enter here, like in the book by Dante. Jimmy loaned me all of his books over the last 7 years. When he leaves twenty nine I guess I'll get them. Jimmy got them when Tim left twenty nine feet first. There ain't a lot to do on twenty nine, just watch the clock and see the last minutes of your life tick by agonizingly slow. The worst part has got to be the watching and waiting. Every day you wake up to sit down. Wake up at six in the morning and sit in your cell until they bring breakfast. After breakfast the shower comes to your cell. Then you sit till lunch. You aren't allowed to be in your bunk during the day. Lunch and supper are  always the same shit,  just a different presentation. If you have hamburgers for lunch count on tacos for supper.1

It's a long way off  twenty nine, and they make it longer and harder than it has to be. They come and get you in the middle of the night and put you on twenty nine B. If twenty nine is bad then twenty nine B is horrible. They got this place they call the dry room cause they can turn all of the water off from the tower if you do some fucked up shit or something. Some of the hacks just turn it off  to fuck with you. It's supposed to be to keep you from drowning yourself or flooding the tier. Like any mother fucker would do some shit like that before their last walk. While you are on B you can hear them running the drills, hear the calls of  'Dead man walking' echo down the corridor. Steel and concrete echo pretty well. That's the worst part of twenty nine A or B, the noise. Nothing but concrete and steel opening and closing all day and all night. The electric motors that open and close the doors got a real nasty hum too. You can hear the last hack that walks the tier leave off the block cause every door he goes through slams and clanks. As each door clanks he calls the tier 'Lock down on one, lock down on two, lock down on three...' until he reaches twelve. The only thing good about twenty nine is you know it will end, that it can't go on forever. 2

Every man leaves twenty nine, feet first. Jimmy's been here the longest, he's watched twenty five people leave twenty nine feet first. Waiting your turn, waiting till they come for you, waiting to die. Some folks don't, they take matters in their own hands. Jimmy took matters in his own hands last year. Forty two stitches fixed him up, its amazing how hard they work to save a man only to kill him. The blood ran under the door when he did it, nobody said anything. The hacks found him nearly dead and managed to get him to the infirmary soon enough. Too bad. 3

They send you here cause they think that death is hard, that its tough on you. Dying's easy, you just lay down and give up, it's living that's hard. You have to actually work to live. 4

What do I know about work? I know a lot more than you think. We're not so different, me and you. I'm no more of a monster than the bank man, the pawn shop owner, the electric company executives, finance companies, landlords, mortgage companies and all the rest of the robbers and murderers who wrap their green fists around your neck and choke the life out of you. Gradually, slowly, but not before they have taken everything you have that's worth anything. All your youth, all your patience, all your decency until there is nothing left but a shell that shows up for dinner every now and again; and, when they have emptied you out, they hold you up as a success. They show how good you were because you missed every little league game, every dance recital, Christmas dinner, and family reunion for the good of the robber barons exchequer. An example to live by, so that others will turn out their soul voluntarily, so they don't have to beat it out of them. 5

We live here by degrees, how you kill a guy and why determines the degree. If you shoot him cause he fucked your wife, and you caught them in the act, that's second degree. A crime in the heat of passion. But if you take that same guy out to the swamps and chain him up, leave him there with nothing but a ten pound bag of dog food to eat, and swamp water to drink. Let him stay there till dog food looks good, starve him to death, and leave him to bloat in the sun, then it's first degree murder committed with thought and malice. If you get the right jury then it might even be a death penalty case because of extreme cruelty. 6

So what is the greater evil? Putting a gun in someone's  face and pulling the trigger? Or is it slowly squeezing, beating, and choking a man's soul from his body? One mortgage payment, one divorce, one eviction, one suicide at a time until he loses his soul. Capital murder. 7