Jack McKraken - Livin the Dream

Livin the Dream

LIVIN THE DREAM

BY

FORMER CORRECTIONS OFFICER

J A C K M C K R A K E N

Antelope Hill Publishing

Copyright 2021 Jack McKraken

First printing 2021.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, besides select portions for quotation, without the consent of its author.

Cover art by sswifty

Edited by Coach Finstock

Formatted by Margaret Bauer

The author can be contacted at

jack_mckraken@activist.com

Instagram @mckraken.books

The publisher can be contacted at

Antelopehillpublishing.com

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-953730-47-3
EPUB ISBN-13: 978-1-953730-48-0

This book is dedicated to Billy, Sean, Michael, Chris, Jimmy, Vinny, Rob, Chris, Sean, Randy, Andy, and Nick. Youre alpha.

And to the hundreds of Corrections Officers across the nation who commit suicide every year. You may have taken your own lives, but we know who guided your hand. You are not forgotten.

C ONTENTS

Introduction

A few words from author to reader

B

ang! I had barely woken up, and already I was being assaulted by sounds of chaos from down the corridor. A quick glance revealed a worst-case scenario: just feet away from my desk were two Corrections Officers and a Sergeant manhandling a six-foot-five inmate who had no intention of cutting them any slack. I knew the convict.

Gang member.

Rapist.

Their shouts and screams echoed down the concrete halls, filling my ears with the all-too-familiar symphony of struggle. I listened closely, but the cacophony was too wild to capture. So I settled for what snippets I could make out amidst the confusion. Stop resisting. Racist-ass. Kill your family!

I rose from my desk and hustled to assist in any way I could. My post that day was the infirmary, a place that was usually a cakewalk, but today was breaking the mold from the start. The writhing bodies of my co-workers struggled to restrain the inmate. Both sides struck each other wildly in fury, and while the officers settled for body-holds and applying pressure to subdue the criminal, the criminal had no such reservations of his own. He punched and kicked and snapped with pearly fangs into any flesh available. He was bleeding from the eye, evidence of an earlier struggle I hadn't seen. At that moment, he was an animal, and the officers were his prey.

As I approached the brawl, the Sergeant held out his hand and told me to stop.

Open the pen! he said. Instantly, I knew what he wanted.

Not far from where they stood was a small, secure observation room used for medical purposes. We called it the pen. In times of desperation, it was used to store an unruly convict until he cooled off. I grabbed hold of my jingling key-ring, fiddled with the lock, and swung the heavy door wide open. The officers didn't waste any time.

In one tremendous push, the trio of disheveled warriors used every ounce of their strength to manhandle the convulsing convict into the pen's maw. Each step was a struggle, their black boots stomping across gleaming tile in defiance of the convict's rage. The moment the inmate's body cleared the entrance to the pen, the officers gave a great heave, and I slammed the door shut and locked it instantly with a click.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The convict slammed his open palms onto the surface of the door and the riot glass, leaving behind handprints of blood. He was cursing up a storm, and while he may have been physically contained, his rage was as free as a bird. The officers stepped back and caught their breath, tending to their disheveled uniforms.

What the hell happened? I asked, clipping the keys back onto my belt and looking at the Sergeant for insight.

He's high, said the Sergeant. Doped up on Fentanyl. He didn't want to take a piss test, and all of a sudden exploded. Said he was going to kill himself or us. Whichever came first.

Fuck, I whispered. What now?

He can't stay in there as-is. He threatened to kill himself, so now we have to strip him down and give him a bed and suicide smock, slippers, all that shit. But we need backup.

You mean we're going back in there? I asked, despite knowing the answer.

Yep, the Sergeant deadpanned as he unclipped his radio and barked a few short verbal commands. Within minutes, the elevator that served our area opened with a distinct beep. Out ran six other officers and the watch commander, a Lieutenant, each one eager to join the fray.

I glanced at the con trapped inside the pen. He had heard the elevator beep and the drumbeat of boots rounding the corner. Most men would have stood down at the sound of serious reinforcements. But this one? He merely smiled.

Radu! Listen buddy, we gotta come in and strip you down. You know how the process works. We've done this be

Hey fuck you, man! Radu responded, slamming his fists on the riot glass and sending blood and spittle all over the pen. I'mma fuckin kill yo faggot ass! I know y'all play these fuckboi games. Y'all need ten niggas to fuck wit one.

The Lieutenant looked to the Sergeant, and the Sergeant looked to us.

Okay boys, we're going in, he said, folding his arms, face red and sweaty. We got the camera?

There were silence and some embarrassment. During the commotion, no one in the response team brought the most critical piece of equipmentthe camcorder. In Corrections, designating someone to be the cameraman during a use-of-force or any other potentially violent interaction with a belligerent inmate was standard procedure. This incident was no different.

One of the responders, a thin, bespectacled officer in his late fifties by the name of Boney, volunteered to go back and retrieve it. And so we waited. And waited. The convict used the time to taunt his enemies through the glass. He cursed their families and mocked their appearances. He cast his doubts on our collective sexual orientation, and as he screamed and wailed and slammed his fists on the walls and windows, the heat that emanated from his pitch-black flesh and animalistic snarling caused the glass to fog with condensation. There was a battle about to unfold, but only one side would be allowed to treat it as such.

Finally, Boney returned with the camcorder. He and a few others started fiddling with the settings as best they could but struggled to turn the damn thing on. The convict found this a source of great hilarity. When one officer finally had enough, he gave the camera to the next man, and so oneach failing nonetheless. Finally, a younger officer gave it a try. Within moments he was able to identify the problem: there was no SD card inserted. There was a collective groan, and the Sergeant, knowing this was his operation, grew redder by the minute. The Watch Commander merely held his head in humiliation.

You dumb! Y'all niggas is dumb! crowed Radu.

The officers, myself included, were growing angrier. In a normal world, we would open the door and let this piece of filth have it. But in the upside-down world of State Corrections, we were hamstrung by policy. We were neutered of true authority. We were held back out of fear of legal retaliation. Worst of all: The inmate knew it, and he used that knowledge well.

As we waited, we took our verbal lashings from the convict, embarrassment setting in. But before morale suffered any more damage, Boney finally returned. In his hands was the essential SD card. He gave it to the younger officer, who deftly inserted it and began filming the pen.