The audiobook version of Falling has just been released on Amazon and Audible.   Over the next month or so I will be sharing with you some of my favorites stories from Falling to enjoy while you exercise on the treadmill or take your daily walk. InMinimum: After Parole Will I Fear a Person Wearing a Badge?

Minimum: Big Buck Offers True Corrections

The Department of Corrections uses discipline before problem-solving. I spoke to a few of the officers who tried to offer problem-solving advise, only to be burned by both inmates and staff. Most of the officers kept themselves, finished their shift and got the hell out of there. 

The exception was Big Buck, our Maintenance Crew Boss. He was the first one in my experience to ask questions to our crew about how we plan to make it on the outside. 

“Who has a place to live? Who doesn’t have a substance abuse problem? “How much money have you saved from your prison account? Go back to your unit and think about it.” Back on our units, we began talking to each other. We began to think again. 

Miss Clever was released from The Hole after six months for making distributing, and consuming Pruno, homemade prison booze. If a woman was lucky enough to be released from The Hole, she returned to the general population emaciated, and tamed. I had to know what went on back there. Word had gotten around that I was writing. Miss Clever agreed to an interview.

“I was back there long enough to lose about fifteen pounds. Even my eyesight got weird. My ears echoed of months. I heard strange noises from the vent, I hallucinated. Some women swear they hear music or experience hot and cold phenomenon in the room, it’s called Seg-sickness.”

“I remember seeing you across the yard, in a dog kennel. You were waving and calling out our names. We were forbidden to answer. I felt sick inside. It was cruel and unusual punishment for both of us.”

G Unit was the discipline unit and housed the roughest women in the prison. Whether you are a from the Country Club or skid row, it is where everyone begins their prison time. It was where this volleyball mom met Celly, the Alpha of the prison, and my new cellmate. 

I had heard about her since my first days in the Intake Unit. I expected her to be hard-hearted and distant but, from the moment she entered the cell, she said hello with a sweet smile and a tattoo near her eye. As she settled onto her bunk. She began singing in soft beautiful voice. I wasn’t afraid.

“I like that little tattoo by your eye, it looks like a teardrop,” I said. She stopped singing immediately and peeked her head over the edge of the bunk, grinning. 

“You’re really green. You don’t know what that means, do you? I shook my head. “It means you have been to prison or you were ordered to do a hit, and you succeeded. I can mean you were raped.” She withdrew and didn’t offer an explanation for her tattoo. 

I the days that followed, one on one, late into the night, she told me the details of who she was. She was the step-daughter of a dominant Los Angles gang chief. She told her story in a soft voice that didn’t match the razors of her world.

G Unit was the discipline unit and housed the roughest women in the prison. Whether you are a from the Country Club or skid row, it is where everyone begins their prison time. It was where this volleyball mom met Celly, the Alpha of the prison, and my new cellmate. 

I had heard about her since my first days in the Intake Unit. I expected her to be hard-hearted and distant but, from the moment she entered the cell, she said hello with a sweet smile and a tattoo near her eye. As she settled onto her bunk. She began singing in soft beautiful voice. I wasn’t afraid.

“I like that little tattoo by your eye, it looks like a teardrop,” I said. She stopped singing immediately and peeked her head over the edge of the bunk, grinning. 

“You’re really green. You don’t know what that means, do you? I shook my head. “It means you have been to prison or you were ordered to do a hit, and you succeeded. I can mean you were raped.” She withdrew and didn’t offer an explanation for her tattoo. 

I the days that followed, one on one, late into the night, she told me the details of who she was. She was the step-daughter of a dominant Los Angles gang chief. She told her story in a soft voice that didn’t match the razors of her world.

G Unit was the discipline unit and housed the roughest women in the prison. Whether you are a from the Country Club or skid row, it is where everyone begins their prison time. It was where this volleyball mom met Celly, the Alpha of the prison, and my new cellmate. 

I had heard about her since my first days in the Intake Unit. I expected her to be hard-hearted and distant but, from the moment she entered the cell, she said hello with a sweet smile and a tattoo near her eye. As she settled onto her bunk. She began singing in soft beautiful voice. I wasn’t afraid.

“I like that little tattoo by your eye, it looks like a teardrop,” I said. She stopped singing immediately and peeked her head over the edge of the bunk, grinning. 

“You’re really green. You don’t know what that means, do you? I shook my head. “It means you have been to prison or you were ordered to do a hit, and you succeeded. I can mean you were raped.” She withdrew and didn’t offer an explanation for her tattoo. 

I the days that followed, one on one, late into the night, she told me the details of who she was. She was the step-daughter of a dominant Los Angles gang chief. She told her story in a soft voice that didn’t match the razors of her world.

Minimum: Big Buck Offers True Corrections

Minimum: Big Buck Offers True Corrections