EXCERPTS - Unit 29: Writing from Parchman Prison
Written by Christopher Smith and Darosky Ford
Excerpted from - Unit 29: Writing from Parchman Prison. Writings from Mississippi Inmates Housed at Mississippi State Penitentiary
Editor’s Note: Louis Bourgeois, Executive Director or Mississippi Prison Writers Initiative contacted me months ago about a project they had nurtured in notorious Unit 29, where 30 prisoners live in perhaps the most closed off prison unit in the country in Parchman Prison in Mississippi, an infamous facility in the Delta known for brutality, civil rights violations and punishments. I knew the prison well, having visited the prison when my brother and I rode over there as boys with my Aunt Sue, the postmistress in nearby Drew delivered the mail to the prison. I couldn’t’ say no.
Phone: (662) 816-8058
FINAL EXIT
I was transferred away from a zone, unit 29-G building A zone, where I had all the trouble on Jan. 12, 2023 to A building B zone. I thought this to be a relief only to be notified that my mother passed the next day. She passed on Jan. 6, 2023.
I took the news okay for a week, probably because I got some meth to hide behind, but on about the 21st or 22st I was sent to unit 42, on suicide watch, because I cut my forearm, almost to the artery.
I was in a cell with only a sink/toilet with a suicide blanket, and a paper gown. For the first week, I could not eat and hold it down and the nurses would not give me shit for my nerves or stomach until I started giving them hell. After two weeks, two days before my mom’s B-Day, Feb. 11th, I was sent back to my cell in A building, cell 64, even though I told them I was still wanting to kill myself. Today is Feb. 13th so I made it through, but am still wanting to die. I HATE LIFE!
……..
I am back to eating again and being away from all the bullshit where I was, does help me. The solid door also gives some peace. Now all I do is write and read books. I have NO ONE LEFT!
As prisoners, I’m sure we all think about being free one day, surely those who have a life sentence. Most have loved ones to go home to.
In my outlook of life, for the last, going on 14 years and Freedom, it don’t mean much to me because I don’t have shit to be free for. No one is alive for me to get out for.
See, if I had something worth being given freedom for, I would not be speaking this way, I would be glad to live on for freedom. But at this point in my life all I want is to not see the next day.
To be free you must have something to want to be free for. Freedom is only to enjoy with someone, which I don’t have.
To those, if I have to tell, if you have people to be free for cherish it and always let them know how much you wish you were there for them and love them, because that is freedom in itself. Or was for me. DON’T FUCK UP YOUR LIFE!
…….
I want to figure something out, because I really don’t understand why these gang members believe they are so bad, but when you give them their chance, they won’t act on what they say.
I do understand they hate me just as I hate them, so why don’t they just do as I do. I don’t deal with them nor get in there business so why don’t they just stay out mine as well. I realize that I am the inferior here in prison but that does not mean they run me.
They hate I won’t cower down to them, nor live as they live, without morals. I refuse to live as they do, prey on those who stand alone because they are greater in number. Fuck the guards even fear them, that’s why they get away with everything. They just don’t see I want to die because that is the only true freedom I see.
Feces Throwers of MSP Unit 29 Lockdown
In Unit 29 lockdown they call it
A shit shake or getting hit with the draco.
I always heard about the shit shake,
But never saw it in action with my own eyes.
It is something that I really didn’t want to see,
Just imagining how repulsive that could be.
The WORD/was/there was a convict named Twin
Who was the king of the shit shakes?
He would put it in a VO5 Shampoo bottle and
Squirt it through the cell bars on whoever he argued with.
I happened to see Twin,
He was dark skinned, and more than six feet tall.
I saw him throw a bag of shit bigger than a basketball.
Twin had an argument with a guy one day.
The guy told Twin, “I throw shit too if that’s how you want to play.”
They argued for a long period
Of time before anything actually happened.
The guy shot shit on Twin from a VO5 shampoo bottle.
They commenced to throwing and
Shooting shit on each other full throttle.
They were arguing back and forth.
I said to myself, “the officers will be in here soon.”
As the officers were taking Twin to the shower
I saw him lick shit off his chest and
Say, “nigga I’m a real baboon.”
Twin was the king of arguments and strife.
I never saw a person come up with
So much shit in all my life.
Twin threatened to throw shit on the warden.
The warden said, “with you I’m definitely not going to play.”
Twin was packed up and
Shipped off of the compound the next day.
Christopher Smith and Darosky Ford are prisoners at Parchman Prison in Sunflower County, Mississippi near Drew, Mississippi. This piece is one of thirty in the book published by Vox Press https://voxpress.org/vox-books.html.
