The Journey to Freedom: Path to WW3

Chapter LIV

America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

George w. bush

Its Monday morning and my mom drives me to the Irving police station. Once there I see the police officer that made me write the confession. He laughs and tells me that he didn't think that I was going to come back.

"Honestly, I thought that you were going back to that third world country you came from." He says.

I laugh and tell him that the third world country that he speaks of is America. He laughs and tells me that I wished. I tell him that he just insulted America and technically that was treason. He comes at me and grabs me by the arm and tells me that I got a pair of balls on me. I tell him that they would be quite enjoyable to his wife and daughter if I had the chance with them. He takes me to the back and puts me in a holding cell. I sit there for about an hour and then finally someone comes to get me. I get taken to a van and am told to sit down. We drive for about a half-hour and once the van stops, I'm told to get out.

I get off the van and am taken inside the juvenile detention center. They take the handcuffs off and they hand me over to someone inside that takes in the new people. The guy tells me to take off my shoes and socks. He starts to fingerprint me and takes my picture and then tells me to get inside a holding cell. The cell was close to about 60 degrees. I fall asleep and then I hear the door open again and they put in a 10-year-old black boy. I ask him what he was in for. He tells me that he took a knife to school because he was going to stab a kid for picking on him. I tell him I knew what that felt like. "I didn't take a knife to school but I beat up the guy that bullied me for a whole year." I say to him.

After a few hours, I am given my new uniform for Juvi hall. Once there are about 20 kids with me, they take us upstairs and to a section where they put us all in separate rooms. At dinner time they tell us to get out of our rooms and line up for dinner time. I can smell the food, it smells good but I have no idea what it was. When they sit us down, they give us a plate of spaghetti, cornbread, a cookie, and some milk.

"At least they try to feed us good food in here," I tell myself.

A kid looks at me and asks me if I always talk to myself and tell him from time to time I do that. He calls me crazy. I just shrug it off and eat my food, once we are done eating, we line up against the wall and then are taken back to our sections. They turn off the lights at 9 pm and I immediately start to get stomach pains. I can feel my bones starting to hurt and get a huge migraine. I moan in pain but I already knew that no one was coming to get me. I tough it out and pass out from the pain. The next morning I get up and for some reason, I feel like the room is smaller. Maybe it was the fever or I don't know, maybe they were playing tricks on me. I ignore it and fold my bed covers and put them nice and neat at the head of my bed. I put on my shirt and notice that it was smaller. I was confused. I put on my pants and notice that they were smaller also, it looked like I was high watering. I felt like if I was Steve Urkel with his pants all the way up and his leg pants were damn near to his shins.

"You had a growth spurt didn't you?" Josh asks.

I nod and smile. "I grew 6 inches in a month. I was 5'10" by the time I was out. But before I left, I grew for the next four weeks." I tell him.

The first week I was there, it was pretty standard, eat, watch TV, sleep and meet my probation officer. He told me that he was assigned to me and that he was going to try to help me to get out. He brought me to a psychiatrist the first week. He gave me a psychiatric evaluation that day and also gave me 3 tests. Math, science and reading. They were pretty easy and then never saw the psychiatrist until my court date. I had visitations twice a week. My mom, my sisters, my grandparents and my uncle would visit me. My dad visited me the last week but let me finish telling you what happened first.