Chronicles from Parchman #5: There Are More

Incarcerated writer L. Patri remembers his first days on Parchman's death row.

This is the fifth installment in the “Chronicles from Parchman” series, a monthly column by the talented and prolific writer, L. Patri, who has been incarcerated on Parchman’s Death Row for over thirty years.

Photo by Tom Wilson on Unsplash

Deep breath...

Eyes closed...

Mind clear...  

Can you see my goodness behind their smoke screen?

Of Mississippi (Natchez Mississippi, in particular), you must first understand that I knew absolutely nothing about how the legal system works, even though I've been inside it most of my lifetime. In 1994 when I was put on trial, a death sentence was something I knew nothing about. I came to death row March 14, 1994, and when I was sentenced, I believed the next month was going to be the month they murdered me. My first day on death row I had nothing when they put me in the cell at Unit 32-C Bldg. I had no one to tell me anything. The guards said nothing. They didn’t even give me bed linen or clothing that first day. Everything was this bright yellow, except the floor and bars, which were gray. A tray slot was cut into the door, and it opened electronically from the guard in the tower pushing a button. The bed was solid concrete, painted yellow, and was hollowed out underneath to put my belongings in, like clothing, books, etc. There was a concrete seat welded to the wall next to the bed, maybe a foot wide, and it had a concrete writing table about the size of a checkerboard. All of these were maybe three and a half feet tall. The window was a square, maybe four by four inches, with a meshed screen and a knob where I could open and close it. When I looked out, there was nothing to see but razor wire fence. I had never been in a jail cell like this. The stainless steel toilet and face wash basin was all one piece, with a hole bored into it for the toilet paper to fit. A small vent was above the door but it was so caked with filth, I didn’t imagine it worked. Not that I cared, you understand. Hell. What’s filth to a dead man.

When I made it to Parchman, they had taken my free-world clothes and given me a one-piece red jumpsuit. I was able to keep my socks and shoes. That was everything I owned and that’s all I had when they placed me in a front cell. No inmate was in the other front cell next to me, but two were across the way where if I squatted at the door and looked through the tray slot, I could see those two state inmates. After being unrestrained, I asked for something to lay on the bed, a mattress, sheets, and for toilet tissue. They looked at me like I was stupid and walked away to go inside the guard tower. When they did look my way, I yelled at them again for these things and pointed my finger at them, making a gun sign. I pulled the trigger. Then I stood there, turned around to look at the empty, bright ass room. People around me were not talking, and if they were, I didn’t hear them. I mean, it was so goddamn quiet there.

Because they put me on the tier with the state inmates, I thought there was no one on death row. I believed they were all executed because they had to be, as I only had thirty days before my execution. So I thought everyone else had only thirty days, too, which meant they were all dead. But then Breeze from Jackson, Mississippi, started raising hell because I had no bedding, linens, and clothing. I didn’t even know there was someone on the next tier. I couldn’t see him but we were both in the front cells, but I heard him very clearly. At the time, he scared me more than the guards. This guy’s voice was fucking deep and he was talking straight crazy shit to these guards. Guards didn’t treat him the way they had just snubbed me, so I’m like, “who is this motherfucker?” Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t been afraid of people for a long ass time, but even though this guy was helping me, he actually scared me, too, because I should have been raising hell with him, you know, but all I did was just sit there at the door, mouth shut. This shit was unreal and he sounded like he was right inside the cell next to me. 

Because of Breeze I got bed linen, toiletries, and an extra jumpsuit. I was given a mattress and a pillow. Two days later, I had them remove the mattress as it was bulky and lumpy from use by some other inmate. The concrete slab wasn’t all that bad with the two sheets between it and me. There wasn’t a need for warmer bedding as they had the heat on, which I found out once I cleaned all the toothpaste and paper gunk covering the vent.

Thursday that following week, March 19, 1994, a guard making his rounds for the morning shift change stopped and asked “you want day room call?” and I said “Yes.” This was eight a.m. By nine a.m., he came back to my cell and placed handcuffs on my wrists after I turned around. He called my cell number, #28, and the guard in the watchtower pushed a button and the door opened. I stepped out, not sure which way to go, as I had no idea where this day room was. “Follow me,” said the guard, so I did, and he led me out the door of the tier I was on and onto the tier where Breeze was housed. I looked over toward his cell but I didn’t see anyone. About four steps onto the zone was a staircase that led to a tier above this one. Bars, gray floors, and yellow walls were all I was seeing, but as I turned to go up the second flight of stairs, I heard voices. After stepping off the last step onto the tier, a door was a foot to my left. I walked through it. 

I saw all these men in red jumpsuits and you can’t begin to imagine the relief of just seeing THAT. Hell. I was still scared to death of being killed the following month but in that moment, I felt relief. And it wasn’t just four or three of them, either. There were about fourteen men inside this first room, which was just an open space of fifty to forty square feet. The room had four black steel tables spread out, one closer to the door I would have to walk through to enter. Men were just walking around, some playing card games, dominoes, Black guys and white guys alike. Thinking I was to go in this day room, I waited for the guard to open the door, but he kept walking another eight or seven feet to the next room. I was left standing. I was dumbstruck that there were that many guys on death row. The guard called my name, and I walked to where he stood. He opened the door with a key, and I walked in. He shuttered and locked the door, and I was still in handcuffs, behind my back. I looked up to just as many men in this room as there were in the first room and it hit me how I just fucked up. Here I was in a room full of murderers, the worst killers in Mississippi, and I had my hands handcuffed behind my goddamn back. Shit. Someone can fuck me up or kill me, and I wouldn’t be able to do shit.

The jail I was in in Natchez, Mississippi, had also given us day room call, and so I forgot myself. There, they didn’t have to handcuff me. They just opened the cell doors, and day room is where your feet landed when you first stepped out of your cell. Not this shit. These were not solid doors to the rooms, just bars, so as I was standing there with my back to the guard as he removed the handcuffs, and I began rubbing my wrists. I hate wearing chains. 

There were fifteen guys in this room, and Breeze was one of them. But I didn't make any move to go his way or walk away from the bars yet. I let my eyes roam around the room and I saw these men are pretty much doing the same games as in the other room. To my surprise, no one was paying any attention to me. It was like “Okay, a new guy,” you know, as they went back to what they were doing before I came inside. Eventually, I ventured out and watched four guys playing spades, and they had money on the table. Then I walked to the last table where Breeze was standing; he had to be this really tall guy, kind of muscular, as in my head he fit the voice I kept hearing. 

I stopped next to him, offered my name, and he said his was Breeze, so I thanked him for what he did for me the first night here, as his most definitely was the voice. I asked him how long I get to stay on rec call, and he said one hour. I told him where I came from, and he said he was from Jackson. In prison, you don’t just meet someone and start asking blunt, personal questions, but again, seeing all these guys wearing red, too, it was my day to be a silly motherfucker, I guess, because then I said “How come y’all ain’t dead?” No shit. That was literally dumb, and I began to stumble over my words and tell him that they were going to kill me next month, April, on the 16th. 

Fucking dude just started laughing, but I’m not catching the joke, you understand, because he had to know that’s some serious shit I just told him. I was not dumb enough to get mad though, because I’ve heard this dude snap out, and I was not ready for that shit. But after laughing at me, he called three others over to where we stood and told them what I told him. I guess this was some running-joke shit they were playing on me, because this shit wasn’t funny! And that’s when one of them told me, “Ain’t nobody gonna kill ya, playa, they pull that shit on everybody they sentence to death.” I found out these three were only three or two years into being on death row, and they didn’t seem worried at all. We all began talking and asking questions. I learned one guy came from Hazelhurst, Mississippi, another from Tennessee, and the third from Indianola, Mississippi. They told me there was a law library that I had to sign up to go to every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for three or two hours, and I could learn the laws. 

By this time, my hour was up. There were four guards now, and they began handcuffing certain men first, escorting them back to the top tier, and then more to some tier on the other side of the guard tower. I went near the bars as a group of four men turned left and began to file past me on the other side of the bars. I noticed a slender guy who could pass for Indian walking and talking with a fat guy who needed two pairs of handcuffs to put his hands behind his back. He was really jolly, too, and laughed out loud like he needed to be heard or seen. Behind the fat guy were two Black guys. One was medium build, brown skin, maybe five-eleven. The other was very dark skinned, maybe 200 pounds. I had moved away from the bars by now because now that I was no longer worried about the state murdering me, my goddamn feet began itching. Yeah, ain’t that some shit. Here I am around all these accused, convicted murderers and I get goddamn itchy feet. 

So I moved over to my left and leaned up against the wall, away from everyone. Watching, listening. As the guards were now placing handcuffs of Breeze, Krugger, and Slick, I nodded a farewell in their direction. The guards told me to stand to the side and wait to be taken out last. They opened the day room door, and this time all of the men exited out in single file and I thought, Damn. There are more.

I watched these men being led away dressed all in red, these final stop signs of life. The same guard that brought me to rec call came back, handcuffed me, and escorted me to my cell the same way he brought me. But this time, I was seeing and hearing shit with new ears and eyes. All of these so-called dead men walking, laughing, playing. When the guard un-cuffed me, I stepped back into the empty walls, cut-out window, concrete bed, stainless steel toilet and sink. I didn’t have any clue how to fight for my life or freedom. But now, I knew that I may be alive long enough to fight. I was now one of many living in the land of the dead.

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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.