THE DREAM

    For years I woke up, drenched in sweat, from the same fucked up dream. I'm 5 years old and I was standing in my grandmother's living room, in the dark looking at this thanksgiving pumpkin cutout that was taped to the screen of her floor model TV. I stood there for what seemed like hours looking at this fucking cutout as if it was a new episode of the Cosby show. All I can hear in the background is my dad and the rest of my mom's family yelling and crying about 10 feet away in the dining room. Still staring at this stupid pumpkin, I could hear my grandmother over everyone else. The phone rings, its him…. Crazy as it may sound. Although I was not on the phone I could hear my grandmother as well as him also, I heard every response. "I'm sorry BJ, I loved her". My grandmother responded as loud as she could. "No you didn't you black son of a bitch, you killed her". "I'm just going to kill myself BJ I'm so sorry". "You need to kill yourself, you need to jump off of a bridge you son of a bitch", from this point I always wake up abruptly after hearing three gunshots. When I awake I'm soak and wet from sweating. I've had this dream at least once a month since her death. Believe it or not, that night really happened. I remember me and my dad going over to my grandmother's house. As we got out of the car, before we got to the door, he turned and looked at me and said" you won't be seeing your mom any more". That was all the therapy I got. Talk about learning to deal with shit yourself. Anyway, we walked in and I went and stood in the living room as my dad went into the dining room with my grandmother and aunts. My mom's killer really called. Now did I really hear his voice? Or was that part of the dream? Hell, I don't know I was just a fucking kid. Lucky I remember that. Now like I said I had that dream all the way into my adulthood. And I remember when the dream stopped.
    I had been in prison about 6 or 7 years. I was no model inmate. I had anger issues, on top of the fact I was a light skinned nigga so I had to prove myself, or at least I thought I did. Don't believe the hype, prison is nothing like people or movies make it out to be, the closest thing I've seen to it is the HBO sitcom, OZ. so because of my behavior, I moved around several prisons. But because I always knew he was in prison, everywhere I went I looked for him. But Texas has over 140 prisons, talk about needle in a haystack. But towards the end of my time in prison….. Well shit happens. I arrived at this one prison, and for the first time I don't look for him. Maybe I gave up. Maybe I was ready to let it go. Hell who knows, but I made no attempt to see if he was at the same prison. Out of the blue I get a letter from my brother telling me that the guy died. He knows not when, where, or how, just that he died. Well of course all kinds of red flags went up. Well, because I went to an urban school in the hood. After graduation, half of the graduating class went off to college, and the other half went to prison. One of my old classmates worked as secretary in the laundry. Which means he had access to every inmate at the prison? I gave him the name and approximate age of this person. He returned the next day to tell me that he was in another building located on the prison. I would never in my wildest dreams ever imagine that I would have the opportunity to face my mom's killer. You could not imagine all of the things that went through my head. From about the age of 12 or 13 I told myself that I had forgiven him. Maybe I just told myself that growing up in order to keep my sanity, maybe I really had forgiven him. All I know is that I did nothing for a whole week after getting that information. I would lay in my bed day after day. Until I woke up about 5am one morning, drenched in sweat. I had not had that dream in months. Now I realized I had not forgiven him, never was. And something had to be done. Watch OZ, that shit is real. Funny thing about prison. It is a world within itself. It has laws, and leaders, a government, and flooded with drugs. Smaller version of America. Corruption runs rapid within the prison walls. So one day I got this connection so that this officer would let me pose as if I worked in the kitchen chow hall serving food. I did this so that I could see every inmate that passed through to eat that way I would catch him…… hold up let me back up. Because I need you to be where I was at mentally throughout this whole thing. Earlier that day I packed all of my property and placed it under my bed. I placed a single picture of my mom in my shirt pocket. All of this was done because I'll admit I had every intention in the world of killing the man that shot my mom in cold blood in the parking lot and then ran over her with the truck like she wasn't shit. I knew once I killed him, that I was going to lock up; they would probably give me life. But fuck it, a life for a life. I paid all the money I had, but I was able to stand behind this serving line with this big ass knife in my sock and I wasn't nervous or anything. It had to be done, it would be.
    If you've never experienced prison, the kitchen chow hall holds about 150 inmates. Imagine all of these animals hungry as hell so this was not a quiet place, always loud as hell. This makes me believe in GOD. Over the years I forgot his face and what he looked like, hell it was 20 something years ago. So I had no idea how I would spot him. One of the ways the prison controlled the inmates from eating more than once was using a roster. Every inmate that comes through the line has to give the officer hi housing number, which was all I had no this "son of a bitch". Inmates walked in by groups of 20 or 30 at a time. I was about 40 feet from the officer with the roster. But when this one inmate walks in, alone, for the strangest reason, the whole chow hall got quiet. Just quiet enough for me to hear this inmate give the officer his housing number. It was him. And just then, in a sudden flash, it all came back to me. Now I remembered what he looked like, it all came back. As he got closer I realized that he actually looked the same just much older, glasses, salt and pepper hair. But the same none the less. As he passed me to sit down, I spoke just to hear his voice. I watched as he went to sit down. I then nodded at the officer to inform him that I was about to do what I had to do. I then jumped over the counter and went over to the table where he sat with two white guys. As I sat across from him, I asked his name. He confirmed his name. I then took the single picture out of my pocket and I slid it across the table and asked him if he knew this lady. Through his glasses he looked at the picture, then at me through the top of the glasses, then back at the picture. Then with a long sigh, he asked "so. Which one are you?" I told him. And proceeded to ask questions. Well because I did not appreciate the other two guys just sitting there being nosey, because they had clearly finished their food. So I snapped at them and it scared the killer which created a scene. Funny how things happen, at that exact moment another inmate walked through the door and yelled out "old man Scott, the folks looking for you". He then called for the other guards outside to notify them that he was here. Apparently they had somehow gotten word that he and I were on the same prison, so all of that day they had been searching. So as he jumps up in fear for his life, he squeezed through the tables and wall to make his way back to the door, in the safety of the prison guards. My chance was gone. So I jumped back over the counter and made my way to the back of the kitchen. Went out the back door and made my way back to my cell. 2 days later they transferred him to another prison. A week after that he died, supposedly of natural causes. (They say). But that's another story. Trust me prison inmates and guards have a government. Shit happens. I have yet to have that dream to this day. It's been over 10 years. Life




                                                                        -jboogie