Previously: After what seemed like months, I woke up and heard birds for the first time since the storm began. The sky was brighter too. At first I thought I was dreaming. I got up off my cot on the balcony and looked out. Below, as far as I could see, military trucks had lined up, blowing their horns. Wonk, Wonk. That’s when I told KK, “This must be our ball call, our final day!” But once again, I misjudged.
They took some people away, moved some people to the Convention Center and we asked when would they come back and get us.
They said, “Don’t worry. It all ain’t gonna happen in one day time.”
I knew that and knew it wasn’t gonna happen overnight. But I wished it could have.
After that, I asked the National Guard a lot of questions.
“How many people they rescue?” He said “Over 500 people, worse than yall.” Some stuck on the roof of they house, he said. Some floating in they cars. Some floating in the water.
How many bodies they seen? He said, “Over 200 bodies,” not counting all the ones he didn’t see.
He asked me, “What make y’all stay?”
I told him, “Before Katrina hit, I told a lot of people ‘Don’t worry. It ain’t gonna happen. Don’t believe the newsman.’”
He also wanted to know what we all have done to survive this. I told him we did all we could, me and my friends Calio and KK, going out and getting food and water.
Funny thing was, he asked me have I ever been in the military. I told him no, but I know how to survive because I experienced so much in prison. He asked, “What you mean about prison?”
It felt good to open up with him. I told him there be a lot of riots go off in prison. It might don’t be your friends or people you associate with—inmate go against guards, Mexicans against Mexicans or against white or black. It can go all kind of ways.
What I learned about the riots in prison was like if somebody get hurt or catch a seizure from getting upset, I know not to touch your blood, but I also know how to hold you up till the nurse come.
Sometimes they have a hunger strike in prison. Like at dinner, someone says the food tastes bad. Then others say it tastes bad. And soon everyone says it tastes bad.
A riot breaks out. They start banging on the plates and shouting obscenities about the cook.
Say one of your people is in line and someone cut in, that can start another kind of riot where y’all gotta be fighting. That looks small to you, that one little thing, but it ain’t. Maybe someone had a bad talk with his family or girlfriend on the phone and they just snap out and stir it up, like “You gonna let him cut you in line?” And everyone get into it.
Or maybe we playing basketball and it’s our time on the court, but another group tries to take the court. Or someone bump you on the court. That can set off a riot. Groups against groups.
I took some of the negative things, but I learn how to survive.
In prison you learn so much, like when we don’t have no power, you make a bonfire with a bread wrapper wrapped in toilet paper, then you set a pot over the fire with a sock holding the pot.
You have an iron for the unit and you can to put a brown bag over your cheese sandwich and iron it to grill it.
The only electric thing you have in your cell is a ceiling light. You can get some long wire and make you a stinger—you gotta know how to do it or you get electrocuted—you run the wire from the light to the iron handle of a mop bucket, and then tape it down and if everything set up right, you can use that to bubble the water up after five or fifteen minutes.
You can put beans in a plastic bag and cook them in the hot water or cook hot dogs or oatmeal or boil an egg or spaghetti.
The guard and I got talking so much, I forgot about the commotion going on all around us.
To be continued . . .
