The Fear of 13

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This programme contains some strong language

and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

Time.

This is the strangest one.

Do you know that the worst part

and yet the best part of being

in solitary confinement is

time can be a blisteringly fast

thing,

where in the blink of an eye,

you can look, and ten years

are gone from your life.

But the next week is agony.

It's like you

look at your wristwatch

and instead of there being a face,

there's a calendar and it flips.

But then,

if you look out the window,

it takes all day for that

sun to go down.

HE INHALES:

I always wanted to tell

somebody that.

We got into the prison

about 11.00am.

They took all the other

prisoners off this bus

and then four men came on.

They lined up against this red brick

wall...

.. and here comes Lieutenant Borner.

He walked right up to me,

right up to my face - he was

like very quiet, like...

"There's no speaking in my prison.

"Dead men do not speak in my prison,

especially. Do you understand me?"

Just like that, same tone of voice.

Nothing raised, nothing threatening.

And that Lord quietness... I did,

I went to answer. I was like, "B... "

Backhanded me right in the mouth.

It like stung like you

wouldn't believe.

DOOR SLAMS:

And then I was thrown into this

world where there's no sunlight

and it's deadly silent.

You see, the Pennsylvania prison

system was developed by the Quakers.

The doors were cut low, so you had

to stoop and bow to go into them...

.. and while you were in the cell,

you were meant not to communicate.

It was part of your punishment.

And it was eerie,

because of almost 140 men at

the time in B Block, no-one spoke.

You'd hear them cough or urinate

and flush the toilet

but there was no real sound.

And that was the worst for me,

especially the first

couple of months.

You still can hear your mother

crying at the trial.

You can still smell the aftershave

on the witnesses, man -

I mean, like it's just every little

detail's just eating your life,

because you've just been put here.

The door was just still ringing

in your ears cos of the slam

and you're just left there,

and you're like...

HE INHALES SHARPLY

And yet, like, you don't

come to your door

and talk to a neighbour,

cos if you broke the speaking rule,

you were struck or

beaten by the guards.

In level five,

you were allowed to exercise

in these dog-kennel like cages,

19 feet long, ten feet wide.

You got an hour to

exercise by yourself,

cos you were a death-row prisoner.

But the guards, being pricks -

if you had a problem with another

guy, and they knew you were enemies,

they'd put you in a cage

together, knowing that

as soon as they'd walked off a few

steps,

you two were going to go at it.

And if that didn't work,

they simply picked out two big guys,

and put them in together.

And they had some fun.

Usually it was a white guy

with a black guy,

Spanish guy with a black guy,

Spanish guy with a white guy.

Gladiatoring, they called it.

SHOWER STARTS:

The shower was the most

vulnerable time.

If you were going to get somebody,

that's the place to get them.

You got access to them, there's no

handcuffs, and they're naked.

SHOWER RUNS:

I had only been there a few days

and I walked into the shower

and just as I turned the corner,

there was a Puerto Rican boy

and he had sharpened

a pork chop bone

and then stabbed this man

in the back of the liver with it and

the guy started flopping, and then

they just cut all the water off

and just beat all six of us senseless

and drug us back out of the shower.

And then they served food.

Like they got everything cleaned up

and began serving lunch

and it went on as a routine day.

CANTEEN CHATTER:

And two guys were arguing,

cos one guy didn't get enough

bread on his tray and I'm like -

this is crazy!

You're so whacked out of your mind

that you're going to

call down to that guard, "Hey, man! I

only got one slice of bread on my tray,"

when a human being just died!

I lived in silence.

For two whole years.

The first two years.

And that's when the drugs were

discovered in the choir room.

And everything changed.

These prisoners from the choir

were locked up with us

in empty cells on death row.

And because none of them were going

to tell where the drugs came from,

they were going to ship all of them

to individual different prisons.

To the other eight members of the

choir, it really didn't matter.

But two of the men had a bond that

was special. Wesley and Butch.

Wesley was this fair-skinned,

green-eyed beautiful black guy

who just exuded this eloquence

and sweetness about him.

Everyone liked him.

And he had a voice

that was gravelly and wondrous.

He had met Butch when they were

children in the church

in West Philadelphia,

where Butch was a foster child.

Obviously, Wesley was gay and

they formed this bond that seemed

to like be invulnerable.

And then, Butch began stealing

and getting in trouble

and he was arrested and thrown

into county prison in Philadelphia

and Wesley went nuts without him.

He was the only thing in his life

that protected him

from the scorn of his parents,

the bullies in the neighbourhood,

the people who knew

he was weak without Butch.

So he began committing

deliberate crimes

and getting arrested

so that he could be with Butch

and they found out prison was

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