“No, sir.”
“At this time the court finds the defendant understands the charges and the consequences of his plea of guilty. I have observed the defendant during this proceeding. He does not appear to be under the influence of any substance that might affect his judgment or actions in any manner. The court finds that the offer of the plea of guilty to count one of the indictment has a factual basis, and is free of any coercive influence of any kind, is voluntarily made with full knowledge of the charge against him and the consequence of his plea.
“I further find that the defendant is competent to understand these proceedings and to enter a knowing plea of guilty. I find that there has been no promises of any kind made to him by anyone except as incorporated in the plea agreement as set out here in open court.
“It is hereby ordered that the plea of guilty of the defendant to count one of the indictment is accepted and entered. Mr. Davis, you are hereby adjudged guilty of count one of the indictment.”
?
In the fall I pleaded guilty to the incident at Harlem Nights with the soldier. For that I received another three years. But I’d get to serve my two sentences concurrently. There would be no going back to Fulton County. Ever. But I was going somewhere. The detention facility in Lovejoy was for inmates awaiting outcomes of their cases, and my cases were now resolved. It was time for me to go to federal prison.
At my sentencing my lawyer requested I be sent somewhere on the West Coast, away from the distractions of home as I kept working toward rehabilitating myself. Specifically he’d asked that I be sent to FCI Taft in California or FCI Sheridan in Oregon, two minimum-security facilities that offered residential drug and alcohol programs.
I’d now been sober for a year and I already knew I would never drink lean or use any type of drugs again. I’d always been a strong-minded person and I’d made up my mind. Some people can put those substances in their body and be totally fine. More power to them. I don’t judge anyone who does. I’m just not one of those people. I’d finally realized that. It wasn’t only that I’d learned my limits; I really had no desire to go back. I had no cravings. It was the opposite. I now associated drugs with my lowest moments, with prison, with all the time I’d cost myself and others. I didn’t know what else I could learn at one of these drug treatment programs, but going to a minimum-security facility sounded good to me.
The judge had been receptive to my lawyer’s request but unfortunately my destination wasn’t his call to make. That decision belonged to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. And the Bureau of Prisons had other plans for me.
I was given no heads-up of the transfer ahead of time. It was the middle of the night when they came to my cell in Lovejoy and told me it was time to go.
Me and a few other inmates were bused to a secluded airstrip nearby where an airplane awaited us. Surrounding the plane were US Marshals, all of whom were carrying shotguns or rifles. We were lined up and patted down. Then, cuffed, shackled, and chained at the belly, I boarded the plane, where several dozen inmates were already on board from a prior stop.
A slave ship of the skies.
Hours later the plane touched down at FTC Oklahoma City, a holdover facility where all federal inmates stop before their final destination. After the intake process I was immediately sent to solitary confinement.
My second night there I was shaken out of my bed by a rumble. Earthquake. It was my first and it scared the hell out of me, even more than getting caught in a tornado during that flight to Houston in ’09. It was like this prison had grown itself a pair of legs and started jumping all over the place.
Two weeks later I was on a bus, staring out the window into an endless stream of countryside. I was headed five hours north, to the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth County, Kansas.
But this would be another pit stop. I now knew my final destination, the USP in Terre Haute, but there had been an outbreak of tuberculosis there and the place was on lockdown. I’d spend a month and a half in Kansas before the quarantine was lifted. Then, two months after I’d first left Georgia, I arrived at my new home in Bumblefuck, Indiana.
The United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute was not like the federal facilities I’d just come from in Lovejoy, Leavenworth, or Oklahoma City. And it was nothing like county jail. A maximum-security federal penitentiary is different. There’s a certain level of violence in any correctional facility but here it was intrinsic. It lived in the concrete walls. In the steel doors. It was always hanging in the air.
I was surrounded by lifers and men on death row. The Aryan Brotherhood, MS-13, Crips, Bloods, mob bosses, terrorists. This was where the Oklahoma City bomber got the lethal injection. A few months after I got there I saw on the news that they were sending the Boston Marathon Bomber here to await his death. They call it Guantánamo North. I knew I’d fucked up but I didn’t belong here. It reminded me of when they had me a few doors down from Brian Nichols in Fulton County. This has to be a mistake.
But I’m a man wherever you land me. Regardless of where that is or who is in front of me, there’s a standard that I hold myself to and a certain level of respect I expect to be treated with. When I first got to the USP there was a whole bunch of hoopla about my arrival, because for somebody doing life, having a celebrity in general population is exciting. It’s something to write home about. So I had to make it clear I wasn’t there for any dick-riding groupie shit or to be a part of the world they had going on here. I was here to do my time, protect myself, and then leave.
That ain’t even on some tough-guy shit. Hell, I was scared too. When people talk about prison you often hear them talk about wolves and sheep. To survive you’ve got to be a wolf. But here it was all wolves. Tough guys were getting killed here every day. You could be Gucci. You could be Al Capone. It didn’t matter because they’d kill your ass the same. This was a place full of men with nothing to lose. There were nights I lay in bed and I could hear the sound of someone sharpening shanks. I prayed those knives weren’t meant for me.
XXIV
* * *
EL CHAPO’S ESCAPE
Prison is time. I tried to use the time to better myself. I kept up with the exercise, taking part in the workout classes they offered along with my own daily routine. I lost nearly eighty pounds in total. Keyshia was putting money on my books so I was able to work the cafeteria staff and eat a little better than the slop they were serving in there.