Chronicles from Parchman #21: Welcome to Death Row
L. Patri gives us a cinematic introduction to his first day at Mississippi State Penitentiary.
This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years.
From a bird’s-eye view:
A van enters the prison ground at Parchman in the Mississippi Delta. The sun is setting, giving off its last rays of light. The sky takes on a golden-reddish orange shade and it must be close to 6 pm. The scene cuts to a flash of a man in the back of the transport van in chains and shackles, then returns to the bird’s-eye view.
The driver pulls up to the entrance security gate and stops. He rolls down his window as two guardsmen exit the small security booth. A heavyset middle-aged man of dark complexion standing around 5 feet 8 inches tall with a graying beard is carrying a clipboard as a younger female, in her early thirties, of light caramel tone complexion, is carrying a rounded mirror attached to a pole. The man walks up to the driver’s side window.
Checkpoint guard: Hey Evans, how’s it going? See y’all made it back.
Evans: Yeah, no problem, Smitty. Banks got a little shaky early on though. We got a prisoner from down south.
Banks, who is around 5 feet 10 inches, gives a short curt smile and Smitty looks over Evans’s shoulder through the window to see the young black man in a red uniform.
Smitty: You got the paperwork on him?
Evans: Yeah. Right here. Here you go.
They exchange paperwork, as the female guard walks around the van with the mirror.
The scene cuts inside the van:
A black man sits in the back with waist chains on his wrists attached to handcuffs. The image is difficult to see through the tin security mesh.
The scene cuts to a bird’s-eye view:
The female guard holds the mirror under the van carriage. The mirror catches the fading skyline of red, blue and orange coloring, cars, vans, trucks and semi trucks passing along the nearby highway and glimpses of the K9 security van that is following the van holding the prisoner. The mirror shows the driver of the security van, a white male with a full reddish, gray beard, heavyset, appearing to be in his 40s and the passenger, a black female slightly older, wearing dark sunglasses, her braided hair showing streaks of grey. As the checkpoint guard continues around the van’s carriage, the mirror catches sight of the trees standing not far away with birds flying low amongst them calling back and forth to each other as they land in the treetops to roost for the night.
The scene cuts to the bird’s-eye view:
Banks and Smitty complete the paperwork exchange.
Banks: You looking good, Yolanda, when ya gonna go out with me huh?
Evans: Soon as you get out yo momma’s house.
All four guards start laughing. The two vans move forward, gaining speed along the curved roads inside Parchman. Their voices are heard as the van proceeds.
Banks: Man one of these days, I’m getting some of that.
Evans: Yea sure, soon as you have enough money to keep her looking good and pay those bills.
Abandoned and dilapidated houses and the K9 dog training camp are on the right. Long shadows cast across open spaces. Three administrative brick buildings are on the left where prison inmates in green-and-white striped pants are carrying boxes and being followed by prison guards in blue uniforms. Trees going down the sides of the building in a line give off a ghostly appearance.
The scene cuts to the prisoner:
His upper body shakes.
Scene cuts to bird’s-eye view:
Going around a second curve, barely slowing down, the vans take a right turn toward an old small wooden unit sitting to the left.
The scene flashes back to the prisoner:
In chains, he has a flashback of the shotgun houses he knew as a kid growing up. He could open the front door and see clear out the back door when it was open.
The scene cuts to a bird’s eye view:
An oak tree sits almost in the center of the yard, and the building is surrounded by a wooden fence. A small brick prison fire department building with a red-painted truck has a ladder atop it yards away, and a new prison church with a 10-foot gleaming white cross stands out front at the road curbside. The vans speed past a larger unit further along that’s made of tin metal, with an assortment of personal cars, vans, and trucks belonging to MDOC employees in the parking lot. A strap iron, welding and maintenance shop is across from the parking lot. A man-made pond filled with dark green, slimy water surrounded by a grassy field has a few dozen white and brown colored birds squawking and swimming about in the water and the grass. The vans stop at a four-way intersection, pausing for maybe five or four heartbeats, with Evans looking left and right before racing forward.
The scene cuts inside the van:
Sunlight gleams off the handcuffs and chains attached to the hands of the prisoner. He holds them up and twists his wrists to adjust the uncomfortable way they bite into his flesh. His arms are slender. The chains’ rattles cause Banks to startle and swivel his head around, then turn in his seat to watch what the prisoner is doing.
Scene cuts to bird’s-eye view:
The van passes a unit sitting on the corner to the left, then races in the direction of three other units in a row on the same side. A metal siding warehouse sits on the right with a larger unit, the color of concrete grey, sitting about sixty feet behind that. The vans pass the second unit that is halfway between the third and the first unit, where prisoners in black-and-white and green-and-white striped pants walk about, some sitting, others playing basketball on the dusty dirt court. After passing the third unit made of brick, the vans stop at a three-way intersection, pausing for several heartbeats. Evans looks right then left as vehicles go by, before turning right and speeding for almost a quarter mile. The vans turn right, passing a parking area filled with employee vehicles. Reaching Unit 32 administration building, the transport van veers to the right side of the building and stops at a closed gate. The gate opens, and the transport van enters as the security van remains on the outside.
As the gate closes behind the van, Evans shuts off the engine and the van is enclosed between two locked gates. Two female guards exit the security guard station on the van’s left. A heavyset middle-aged lady of a light Creole brown skin tone carries a clipboard, her eyeglasses hanging in front of her attached to a string around her neck. A slender much younger lady with cornrow braids with blue, black, white, and green beads, with a banana complexion and green eyes carries a long pole attached to a mirror. The guard with the clipboard walks up to the driver’s window.
Wilson: Hi Banksy boy. How are you doing, Evans? What y’all got?
She grabs her glasses and affixes them on her face.
Banks: Transporting one death inmate named J. Patri to C Bldg, Unit 32.
He hands her a piece of paper and she reads it.
Scene cuts inside van:
She looks through the driver’s window and stares at the man sitting in the middle of the seat. He stares back at her.
Scene cuts to bird’s-eye view.
The younger guard with the pole-mirror walks around the van, sticking the mirror under its carriage and reflecting a brick warehouse building off to the right where prisoners push laundry and food carts to and fro. The sky seems to be only inches from making contact with the building’s roof.
Scene cuts outside the van:
The mirror catches glimpses of the man in chains with a clean-shaven face and bald head, and then glimpses of the female guard’s face. Smiling, he turns his head to watch her. She appears to be shaken.
Scene cuts to bird’s-eye view:
She finishes her security check and stands beside Officer Wilson.
Scene cuts inside the van:
Officer Banks reaches to take hold of Officer Evans’s service weapon. He exits the van to follow the lady guards into the checkpoint station. Waning light begins to play off the chain-link wire fencing, creating flashing sparks of light. Prisoners talk back and forth loudly across the compound, easily heard through the van’s open window.
Scene cuts inside the van:
J. Patri moves to try and settle himself more comfortably in the seat.
Evans: What do you think you are doing, prisoner?
Scene cuts to bird’s-eye view:
The security transportation van parks on the outside of the gate, and Officer Banks exits the guard’s booth, minus the service weapons. He looks to his right, and the male and female K9 officers exit their van, walk through the enclosed area’s smaller gate, and relieve themselves of their weapons. Once they are done and back inside the security van, both gates begin to swing open with a grinding sound as though they’re an old man struggling to rise from his chair after having sat for so long.
Officer Evans starts up the van, and the vans drive through. They pass loading docks where prisoners dressed in stripes (some green-and-white and some black-and-white) load and unload trays and carts. They pass a building on the right that has a huge E above it, and next to it is another building labelled with a huge D. They stop at the third building’s gate until it opens, then drive up close to the building’s entrance awning with a huge white C painted in the center. Officer Evans shuts off the engine, grabs some papers, and they exit the van. Officer Banks opens the side panel door of the van and ushers the prisoner out.
Scene cuts to close-up of the van:
J. Patri steps down from the van without any belongings. He stands around 6 feet, 2 inches, and is muscular through the all red one-piece uniform. The wind seems to rock his frame side to side as though cradling a baby in its invisible arms. The warmth of sunlight’s last rays eases the swaying of the shadow. He stands still for a moment, then turns his head first to the left and observes prisoners dressed in red-and-white stripes being placed in handcuffs and escorted from the yard area towards D building. Their talking is loud and jumbled together in his ears so that he can’t make out exact words. He looks up into the sky and squints to lessen the evening’s glare. Turning in a circle, he notices that his shadow seems to move of its own accord, as if trying to make its escape.
Evans: OK, that’s enough staring, inmate, let’s move it.
Evans has one pant leg tucked into a scuffed up dirty right boot.
J. Patri: Yessa boss, I’s coming.
He shuffle-steps forward. The chain around his waist cuffs his hands close to his body, limiting him to small movements. The chains on his ankles scrape across the concrete, sounding like he’s dragging a ten-pound steel ball and chain.
L. Patri is of Black and Natchez Indian descent, and he is the father of one daughter and a grandfather of five grandchildren. He was born on the river in Natchez, Mississippi, and for the past three decades, he has been challenging his wrongful conviction of capital murder. He writes in multiple and hybrid genres, including thought pieces, journalism, short fiction, letters, and memoir. His memoir The Image They Had Painted was published in 2026.
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