It Could Always Be Worse

One day I arrived at work at the usual time. The chef was showing someone around the kitchen. He was a young black guy around my age, He was a little taller and a little thicker than me but had a friendly disposition.

He didn’t strike me as a criminal, more like someone I would work with on the outside.

“And this is Matt, he’s one of the cooks here in the kitchen.”

He looked at me with an awkward smile, I could tell by his eyes he was scared to be here like me.

I gave him a smile and a nod.

“This is Tony, he’s going to be working here with us.”

We shook hands, “Nice to meet you,” I said.

We spent most of the day working in silence like usual. Although we didn’t talk it was nice to have another inmate around.

I checked the prep list for the day and got to work. After setting up my station with the usual supplies, knife, cutting board, and a few bowls and pans, I started peeling potatoes.

We went through a lot of potatoes, it was basically a daily job. I hate peeling potatoes so I did it first thing just to get it out of the way.

I put two pans next to each other, one to collect the peels and one with water to keep the peeled potatoes from oxidizing. The old metal potato peeler looked like it had been in the kitchen longer than I’ve been alive. The blade was dull, making the process that much more annoying.

Tony got to work cutting onions, I was happy about that, cutting onions was the only task I hated more than peeling potatoes.

The chef finished shaping four giant logs of meatloaf, covered them with foil, and threw the pans in the oven.

“You guys know what to do, if he has any questions let him know what to do,” motioning to Tony.

I gave him a nod and went back to the potatoes.

“I have some things to take care of, I’ll be back in 30 minutes or so. If this timer goes off check the meatloaf and take it out if it’s done.”

I nodded again and the chef left the kitchen.

The door leading out of the kitchen swung both ways to make transferring food easier. As the door slowly swung back and forth and came to a stop I looked over at Tony.

He was looking back at me.

I was hesitant anytime someone in here was looking at me. Everyone is always keeping an eye out, and sizing each other up, just in case something went down.

Tony didn’t seem like he wanted any trouble, he seemed just as nervous and anxious as me.

“What are you in for?” I asked. He hesitated for a second. “Capital murder.”

I had never heard of that.

“What does that mean?” “They say I killed a police officer.”

I tried to pay it cool but when he said that my eyes got wide and my face showed my surprise.

“I didn’t do it, I wasn’t even involved in any crime. I was just in the area. Since I was the first black guy they say they took me in.”

“Did you have a lawyer?” “I couldn’t afford one, that gave me a public defender but he didn’t even know my name. He had so many cases he barely said anything to the judge.” “How long you got?”

He looked down, paused for a second, then shook his head.

“They’re trying to give me the death penalty.”

My mind went blank, I didn’t know what to say. He was clearly upset and understandably so.

“You can appeal it right?” “Yeah and I will, but I’m gonna have another sorry ass public defender.”

I could tell by his voice he didn’t have much hope, but like me knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The system doesn’t care, it grinds people up and spits them out.

Once you get behind those bars you’re not human anymore, at least not in their eyes.

We went back to working in silence. This is another time I wished I was better at talking and comforting people, but I had no idea what to say. Everything I thought of seemed dumb and unhelpful.

The chef returned and we pushed out all the food for lunch. We cleaned up without saying too much else and then it was back to our cells. I couldn’t get Tony out of my head.

My sympathy for him was great but I knew it wouldn’t do him any good.

I asked Carlos about it.

“Do you know anyone who was executed?”

He gave me a weird look, to be fair, the question did come out of nowhere.

“Yeah, one guy.” “Did you meet him in here?”

He paused for a second, he always took a second to answer but this time he seemed like he was really struggling to talk.

“No, he was one of my crew from the outside. He’s the one who got revenge for my brother.” “That’s why he got the death penalty, for killing someone?”

Another long silence. “It was a drive-by, he was aiming for one guy…”

He paused for a second.

“Some kids playing outside the next house over…”

He looked down.

“Three little girls got shot, two of them died.”

Again I sat there unsure what to say, what could I say?

“That’s the worst part of this life. Those of us who chose this life know what we’re signing up for. those kids had their whole lives ahead of them.”

He turned his head and looked away, he would never let me see it but I could tell he was starting to cry.

“That’s what haunts me the most, I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about those little girls”

I started to think about my own life, how mad I was when I got screwed over and ended up in here. How worried I was about what this would do to my life.

But at least I still had my life.

Thanks for reading, here are the other parts of the story.