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?

In the tender early days of parole, I rode the buses of Portland, Oregon, looking for a job. On every employment application was the question: Have you ever been convicted of a felony?

I rode buses for days. Each morning as I crossed the Burnside Bridge, I would see women I met in prison, rolling up a tarp, a cardboard box. One day I saw The Enforcer. Once a mighty Viking Warrior, now lost on a corner.

The women looked better when they were in prison.

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.

Release: The Brutal Truth

Release: The Brutal Truth