My name is Larry Donnell Gibbs, prison number 2066645. You don’t know me, but my friends call me Qawi. I’m from Memphis, Tennessee, but here I am in Texas, in prison. This is a short story on how I got here.
A few years ago while I was at work I got a phone call that changed my life forever. My wife and seven-year-old daughter were killed in a car accident after a drunk driver ran the light and hit them head on. Their death left me a shell of the person I used to be.
To say I was hurting would be an understatement. I was destroyed, left empty, a shell for weeks. I walked around looking for an escape. Seven times I found it, but every time I was nearly free someone seemed to always be around to stop me. After seven attempts, I got behind the wheel and put Tennessee in the rearview. I didn’t know where I was heading; I just wanted to get away. At that time, any place was better than home. Mentally I was dead, death had created a chain of events that I wasn’t capable of stopping, which eventually led me here where I now sit for a crime I didn’t do. But here I sit, where I vowed to never return. Guilty until proven innocent. But even in here I continued looking for an escape, any way to rid myself of the pain and memories I was being forced to carry. But even in here I wasn’t allowed freedom. Eventually, I was deemed mentally insane and locked away inside a room inside a room, a prison inside a prison, with nothing – no clothing, no property – just me and the walls.
It was then that I decided that if I was gonna be forced to live, I would do so on my own terms. Wherefore I pulled myself together enough to be released. From that day forward I worked, stayed active day and night, in hopes of keeping my mind from wading back on all I’ve lost. The goal was to forget, for it was too painful to remember. For months it seemed as if all was well. Then one day, while I was at work, officers on shift abandoned their duty post leaving me on a cell block where I wasn’t supposed to be left alone. But there I was, alone. What happened? Well, I was stabbed over nine times. Death had returned, offering me the freedom that I had once so desperately craved. It was then that I realized that I didn’t want to die. At that moment, an inmate came out of nowhere and stopped the assault, allowing me time to try and stop the bleeding. I wasn’t able to, but I didn’t give up. However, neither did my attackers. They came after me again to finish what they started, but again the same inmate from before stopped them. Why? I don’t know why, but if I had to guess, I’d say sympathy.
I was allowed to live after I had tried so damn hard not to. Why? Something else I didn’t know nor understand. But I vowed that day that I would do my best to try and restore what was left of my life. Thereafter the assault, nearly an hour later, officers returned to their post to find me covered in blood. Upon seeing the amount on the floor and me, they quickly called for medical and back-up. Eventually I was rushed to the hospital. There I found out my HGB red blood cell count had dropped from 12.3 to 4.1. I realized then that had the officers stayed gone any longer, I would’ve bled out. When I returned to the unit I was locked up in solitary until I could be transferred to another prison. Turns out the two guys that beat me with knives were Crip gang members looking for a way off the prison unit they were currently on. Why? Well, they’d snitched on some of their so-called brothers and needed a way off the unit before they were killed. Well, they got moved and I got stitches. Lucky that was all I got. Well, for the moment it was. What do I mean? Well, after the assault, I filed a complaint against the officers in which I informed them that I would take it to court. I explained in my complaint that the assault could have been avoided. But it wasn’t avoided, it left me with anemia, even after over fourteen blood transfusions and countless iron infusions – to the point I refused to take any more.
Call me crazy, it’s okay, many do. But I’m to the point where what’s gon’-be gon’-be. Am I giving up? No. But neither was death. What do I mean? Well, after I filed the complaint, officers started retaliating against me, resulting in unnecessary and excessive uses of force during which I was gassed and beaten, then left for dead inside my cell. Second shift officers found me there unconscious and, yet again, I was rushed back to hospital. When I woke, I was unable to move. I was told (to sum it all up) I had traumatic hematoma of the head from the beating, which led to a breakthrough seizure that resulted in post-seizure paralysis, leaving me in a wheelchair.
What happened to the officers? Well, they got fired, but not for what they did to me. How is that? Well, they never reported it. They simply went home after they assaulted me. They got fired weeks later after they beat another inmate. Like me, they left him in a cell too. But unlike me, he died. I’m told his family has filed a civil action suit, so I did too. Wish there was a good ending to the story, but there’s not. In fact, there’s more, but that’s for another time. As of now, I’m on my own lonely road to recovery; not just physically, but because death took so much from me, mentally too. It ain’t easy, but since the death of my family, nothing has been.
These seven years of hardship have revealed a passion for writing that I didn’t know resonated within me. Wherefore I’ve written two books, one which is being published.
Until next time,
Qawi Lig
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