The Master Plan by Chris Wilson & Bret Witter & Wes Moore

Author:Chris Wilson & Bret Witter & Wes Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

Tier Four

“I CAN’T MOVE you to tier four,” Mr. Mee told me. I wasn’t surprised. Prison had rules, and they don’t change the rules for the likes of me. “But I think we’ve come up with something better.”

Instead of promoting our group to fourth tier, the administration gave us our own tier. We had our own dayroom, with a kitchen, and we had all-day open-cell privileges with no guards on patrol. That meant, inside the locked metal doors at the end of our tier, we policed ourselves. We were still subject to midnight count, afternoon count, and inspections, but by that point, inspections were easy. The COs knew Steve and me so well, they wouldn’t even toss our rooms.

They’d look around to see if anyone was watching, then nod toward our televisions. “Turn on the game.” They might sit five minutes, chatting, before moving on.

Even better than the freedom of movement, though, Study Buddy and I were allowed to choose the inmates who would share the tier with us.

That’s trust. The administration was not only willing to try something new for us, they invested in our judgment. I guess they had been watching. They could see the change in us—the remorse—and they rewarded it, finally, just when I needed it.

The men we chose were all serving hard times for hard crimes. Brian Carter, my Spanish-language study partner, was an accessory to murder. So was Juan, one of my weight-lifting partners.

Bingo had committed a notorious crime. For gang initiation, he and another wannabe lured a rival’s little sister to a garbage-strewn lot and stabbed her. She didn’t die, so they kept stabbing her. When she still wouldn’t die, they picked up a broken toilet and smashed her skull. She was fifteen.

I heard his first years at Patuxent were bad. Nobody talked to him. He was slashed by other inmates, but nobody stood up for him, not even COs. They hated him inside, until Steve took him in. Bingo was Cambodian, and he was smart. He found his place as a tutor, and he found his remorse. He was getting out. He got only twenty years. I don’t know how. Maybe he rolled on the other kid.

Getting Tooky to move over was a big deal. He’d been in his cell for fifteen years. He had a fish tank and potted plants. He’d painted the walls. He brought his fish with him, of course, but it’s still hard, moving out of your home. He didn’t want to do it, because comfort is the hardest commodity to acquire in prison. But he did it for us. He knew how much we looked up to him.

Tooky was serving life on murder. His friend Geronimo was a skin-beef. When I found out, I couldn’t believe it. Geronimo seemed so peaceful. I couldn’t see a violent predator in him. Finally, I asked him about it.

Geronimo looked away. “It’s true,” he said. “I was young. I was with my girl in a car. We were kissing and rubbing, you know, and I got excited.

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