On The Inside

It was dark and dejected. The walls were plastered with concrete and steel that sent cold shivers uncomfortably down my spine. It was no place I wanted to be, but it would not break me. My biology teacher, Mr. Evans, had signed me up for this “field trip” after he broke up my second fight of the semester. I resented him as his words flashed in my mind, pummeling my psyche, “You’re not some dumb kid Derek, you’re better than this”. Secretly I didn’t believe him but that didn’t matter. The floor began to tremble as a 6’3” man marched his way in front of me and the other future inmates. He was the warden. There was a certain arrogance in my attitude, I’m unbreakable I thought. Words spit out of the giants mouth as the veins on his neck bulged. Some of my weaker classmates began tearing up. His diction was coarse and powerful. It would strike terror in an ordinary heart but I had no ordinary heart. Mine was strong, mine was tough. The warden finished his verbal assault as several inmates came out to talk to us about somehow changing our ways with their tales of wrong doing. One was a tall Hispanic man who had killed someone while driving on LSD. “I was forced to face the family” he said with a clear and present shake in his voice. “I’ll never forget the look in his wife’s eyes. It wasn’t a look of sadness or resentment, not one of anger either, but one of loss” a tear streamed down his hardened face. “Not the loss of a loved one, but a loss of purpose; her face was expressionless and white, some nights I won’t sleep, wondering if she even had the ability to cry anymore.” I was startled by this story, not because it was frightening, I had heard worse, but because I felt my tough innards begin to crumble, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel invincible. I shook myself out of this emotional droop. Nothing can break you, nothing can break you, nothing can break you, I repeated this mantra to myself over and over as a form of reassurance I would not crack. The other men proceeded to stand in front of our still salvageable minds and explained their sentences, I didn’t listen, I couldn’t. The last man finished his final word and was escorted back to his cell, as he was forced out of the room he screamed some last bit of advice but my ears were still ringing from the first story and I couldn’t hear him. “Stand up. Follow me.” I heard these words only because they were stabbed into my ears by the brute. We stood up and began to walk down a large hallway following the large feral man. After hours of trudging we finally reached the massive vault door that opened to reveal the treasure of corrupted minds and inner city kids that weren’t clever enough to escape the law. They were loud and obnoxious, the forgotten men weren’t used to visitors here. Disappointed mothers began showing up less and less often, deadbeat fathers never showed up at all, wives and girlfriends grew tired of waiting and moved on. You could hear the feeling of loneliness in their rude yells and unimaginative uses of profanity, it was often the only thing holding their tears back. It was as if we were walking into the Roman Colosseum and were about to kill one another for their entertainment. The only one not cheering was the tall Hispanic man, it was as if his guilt chained him more than the steel ball around his ankle. The misguided cries for help grew louder as we got closer and closer to the Gates of Hell, until finally the flaming doors closed behind us, and it grew quite, criminally quite. All that was audible was the sharp buzz of the fluorescent light overhead. The warden led us back down the hall which seemed darker than it had before and took a left about midway down. This new sub-hallway led to the demons mess hall where we were to endure a vile meal as if the disgusting taste and mouth texture alone would prevent us from breaking the law. I tried to stomach the meal as several of my classmates began gagging. It seemed we had nearly reached the end of our “tour” as one of the larger officers began to give us our last lecture in the canteen. “I’ve had a hard life.” I chuckled mid-sentence, like this guy even knew what a hard life was, I thought. You could see by the angered expression on his face that he had heard my mild laugh. He started towards me. I wasn’t scared, I’d fought guys his size before. I drew in a deep breath preparing to yell as he came closer. “It was 16 years ago next month.” This remark caught me off guard, like the violent and unexpected turn of a racetrack, my tires slid out from under me as I flew from the road into a deep state of confusion. I let the hateful air softly out of my lungs. “I was a kid on the streets, an absent dad and a mother that never even bothered to give me a name.” A deep swallow was heard in the dead silent room. “I had to raise him. I had to provide for him, hold his hand when we crossed the street, put Band-Aids on his cuts and scraps. We needed money… A minimum wage job wasn’t enough.” Already I knew I had made a mistake as I felt his story begin to shake my deepest layer. “I got mixed up with some bad people, made enemies with some bad people.” His eyes began to tear up. “My brother and I were sitting on our broken porch the day after I mugged a dealer… WE NEEDED THE MONEY. I NEEDED IT FOR HIM.” His quite reserved words turned to violent shrieks. “I went inside to grab him long overdue food that his stomach had long since needed.” His tears came out as if the Niagara River fed into the back of his skull. “I heard six shots and the screech of car tires dissolving on the asphalt. I ran to the door hoping it wasn’t my brother that the lead projectiles were aimed at.” He was having noticeable difficulty swallowing… I flung open the door… There in a pool of blood was my little brother… lifeless… because of me…”His tremble grew stronger. “I died that day.” His words echoed through me and tears began streaming down what I once thought was a tough face. I was broken. The officer saw this rare spectacle and stormed out of the room as if he was dissatisfied by my reaction. I wanted to apologize but I couldn’t, words weren’t being formed in my head. The crowed that had witnessed the display of strong weakness was speechless as well. The now feeble warden stood before us again and instructed us to follow him, but this time in a small tone I didn’t think possible out of a man that size. We walked down the main hallway, with a solemn tone in the thump of our feet, towards where we began this journey. As we got to the front I looked back to see the dark fires of hell expanding to engulf the entire building. Everything seemed quiet, as if every inmate and worker had heard the broken man’s story. “Thank you for coming, I hope you learned something” said the warden in his usual massive tone.  I saw my mom and little brother sitting in the lobby waiting for me; I ran to them tears still in my eyes, giving both of them a tight hug. “I’m sorry” I repeated the phrase over and over again as if somehow saying it a multitude of times would repay the mistakes and mistreatment I had dealt out. As we drove away from the steel and concrete building I looked back on the inferno, my Divine Comedy had come to an end.