Wake of the Storm - The Mason Storm Series Book One

Silent Bob - (01/24/17)

I live among doctors, lawyers, politicians, mobsters, killers and drug lords, all of them strange in their own way, but by far, the strangest person I have ever met was a man named Silent Bob. My name is Gregory C. Brown and I am in federal prison for crimes I never committed.

So it's a Monday night, mid-summer and everyone is out on the yard, 'cliqued-up' in their own groups, or as they are called in prison 'cars'. The White Boys are on one side, with the Paisas, Latin Kings, Sureños and other Spanish gangs next to them. The Bloods and Crips are scattered through out and the Wiseguys are at their back two tables. Everyone is out. The bus with 'fresh blood' is due to arrive any minute.

When it does, everyone crowds the fence. Some with comments, some with warning looks, everyone with curiosity. The new inmates shuffle off the bus with chains around the ankles and cuffs around the wrists. They stand against the bus, waiting for the officers to give the small freedom of unlocking the restraints, and wait to be herded through the ten-foot barbed wire fence, into General Population.

By the time they are all inside, everyone knows who goes where. The newbies walk to their cars, in their heads preparing to answer an array of questions: What's your name? Why are you here? Where did you transfer from? and, Did you tell on anyone?

So the White Boys have moved back to our part of the yard and we are waiting for them to walk over. This Monday, there are six new recruits. There were actually about ten whites who got off the bus, but four of them were Child Molesters and their people quickly grabbed them and told them to stay away from us. We would deal with them later.

So a guy walks up to the middle of our group and he doesn't respond to any of the questions. He just looks at everyone and shrugs. Of course one of these idiots with the same IQ as his shoe size says something stupid, but the guy still doesn't respond, but instead walks over and lays the guy right out. One punch! Right in the middle of the face. At 250 pounds I am one of the bigger guys in our group, and everyone looks over to me. I am as stunned as they are.

The guy sees everyone look over at me and walks over, like he doesn't have a care in the World. He reaches out and shakes my hand and then mimes asking for something to write with. I nod over to Mean Mug-–everyone has nicknames in prison–-and he grabs a golf pencil from his bag of legal work and White Chocolate hands him a betting slip with NBA and College Hoops on one side and is blank on the other side.

He writes: My name is Robert Glass. Everyone calls me Silent Bob.

At that same moment, the sirens go off and over the intercom we are told to lay face down on the ground; first in English and then in Spanish. "Attention! All inmates lay face down on the ground! I repeat, All inmates lay face down on the ground! We will fire live rounds!"

Silent Bob and I were separated. Hours later we would learn that some rival gang member, who killed someone's sister, made it to the compound and when he came through the gate and showed his tattoos to one of the MS13 gang members they stabbed him numerous times with sharpened tooth brushes and broken pieces of plastic garbage cans.

A week later, after we came off lockdown, I saw Silent Bob sitting by himself in the middle of the soccer field. He had his own pencil and paper by then. We spent the next hour talking. Well I talked, he wrote.

Long story short, six months earlier, Silent Bob decided he wasn't going to utter a word for an entire year. Some other guys transferred from another prison with him and verified he hadn't spoken one word in the six months.

Can you imagine this? How long can you go without talking?

Gregory C. Brown is the author of The Mason Storm Series and just recently released Book One, Wake of the Storm. He is also the creator of Stories from Behind the Wall with weekly installments found at https://gregorycbrownbooks.com/stories-from-behind-the-wall/