Text by Tony Vick Illustration by Walker Gawande
I feel like I am in a made-for-TV movie on my chain bus ride to prison. They call it a chain bus because all the riders are handcuffed and leg-ironed, connected by two chains which are pulled up around the waist with another locking the whole contraption together.
There is just enough chain to bring my hands to my mouth if I bend over slightly – not ideal for eating or wiping my ass. When all 30 or so of us move about, it sounds like a bad symphony of cymbals clacking together.
Just me and the two prison bus drivers are white. I’m terrified, my guts are shaking like a vibrator pounding against my insides. But everyone aside from me is relaxed, chatting, as if they’re old friends catching up at a party.
“Man, this prison sucks. I was here in the 80s, they ain’t got no hustle going on,” one rider says. “Yeah, but they’ve got lots of female guards,” another commented. Yells of “hell yeah!” follow.
None of this chat is directed at me. In fact, no one has uttered a word to me except the bus drivers who did so when they were chaining me up. I get up the nerve to ask my seat partner a question: “So, you’ve been to this prison we’re driving to before?”
Without looking at me, he stands up and screams out:
That comment causes a chorus of laughter like I’ve only heard in a comedy club. Even the bus drivers have a chuckle. I feel the blood rush to my face and the heat hit my cheeks. I’m going to hell.
Text by Tony Vick Illustration by Walker Gawande