The beast of Texas

"The Beast of Texas" An Essay Based on True Events By: Timothy D.V. Bazrowx 
 Most people think that a beast is some form of animal, and I guess that can cover numerous aspects of animality although some beast's are not animals at all, but they are beasts all the same. This essay is just that; it covers a comprehensive look at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system, or TDCJ, hereafter stated for this conglomeration of festering continuum. This is a look at the atrocious mental torture, and physical abuse that the taxpayers of Texas have either been blinded by the surplus of excuses these officials throw out there, like so much fodder, or they just do not care about the state sanctioned slavery they endorse in the interest of justice. Looking at a system like this from the other side of the razor ribbon is one thing; you see what officials, and the PR Reps. want you to see, but I will walk you thru the real atrocities that I have first-hand knowledge of, and have lived thru myself. This will be a look at Texas Prisons from 1981-2017, or as much of a look as I can give you in this short essay, for I have been tied up with this system that long, and still am. This is a comprehensive look at what is, "The Beast of Texas." The year is 1980, I turned 24 yrs. old, and was living in Houston, Texas. I found myself wrangling with the justice system. I was a field rep. for an oilfield company, and an ex-Army veteran, but nothing I had every done would prepare me for the Texas Legal System. I like so many others believed in the Red, White and Blue, and that you were innocent until proven guilty. I was so full of naivety that when the reality hit me of my plight, it was like a shot between the eyes. The first time I had ever faced a serious charge in my life, I was chewed up and spit out, and then drug kicking and screaming all the way down to good ole Huntsville, Texas. I was given a 40 year sentence, 1981 rolled around, I was still in such an overcrowded Houston jail, that the only place I could sleep on was a dayroom table. There was standing room only at the chow hall; when fights broke out, you just moved over, and kept eating. They were so overcrowded in, then TDC (Texas Dept. of Corr.) that county jails were handcuffing inmates to the fences and leaving them until prison guards could get them inside. I ended up spending 9 months in this overcrowded hoosegow, facing an even more overcrowded prison system. One very early morning in June of 1981, I was called for the TDC chain... It was happening, my worst nightmare, or so I thought. We were taken thru property; gave what wasn't stolen by inmate workers at the jail, and told to send what wasn't allowed in prison home, or have it destroyed. We were Id', stripped, made to do the waddle-dance, that's a naked man being told to do things so lubricious, and embarrassing that I won't even attempt to describe it. One thing for sure, nobody is laughing. We are chained in pairs, and led out into the Sallyport where a Blue Bird bus is waiting with gray suited prison guards that would soon become a part of my life. I remember how quiet the pre-dawn hours were; I remember seeing cops with drawn pistols, and some with shotguns just waiting now for an action that would warrant a bullet being thrown into your brain. I was a convicted felon, and like the thousands of men and women before me that faced the same fate, I was going to prison no goodbyes' to my wife, whom was coming to see me this day at a visit, no seeing anybody; I was prison bound in a very crowded bus... handcuffed to a stranger. Getting to prison finally, and off-loaded, the abuse started immediately. The yelling and instructions... so many instructions. From the time we got off the bus, and unhandcuffed, we spent naked as a jaybird. We were made to do the naked waddle-man dance (a dance that they love here in this system.) We were taken to a shower, hair was sheared off, then you were sprayed with something that smelled like camphor oil. It was sprayed in nether regions, under arms, in your butt crack; I mean every-where, and this stuff felt like it was burning your manhood off, then to top off all of that you were given dingy white clothes and told you would have to stay that way for three days before a shower. We were taken to the store (Commissary,) allowed to purchase some things like smokes, coffee, and writing materials, and that would have to hold me, unknown to me at this time for a couple of months. I went to a two man cell that had 5 men in it. I slept on the floor sideways, with my feet under the wall-mounted bunks. There were inmates on the catwalk in front of the cells also. Time creeped on. I found old books to read, wrote letters, smoked cigs, and sweated my arse off. There was nothing else to do except look out the bars, and then thru barred windows. I was on the move 17 days later to the second half of diagnostics; the ride about ten minutes, and off-loaded again at now the Goree Unit. Here I would be interviewed, talked shit to, and dehumanized by guards. I was subjected as was everybody to this same mess we had went thru at the other unit. Naked most of the time, dancing around, going thru all these changes as I was slowly absorbed into the beast. I no longer had a name, I had a number, and it is 321172. There were no visits. I barely received mail, my life was gone, sadistic guards that mentally brow-beat you, and in some cases physically beat you, and tried to break your spirit. You were cussed and gave instructions like you had no brain, and couldn't think for yourself. This prison was just as crowded,but they had better control of how many men they received, so there were only two of us in this cell. I spent another 21 days there. This unit would be my last unit of a diagnostic type, now I was going to be assigned to, "MY," unit. I was assigned to Central Unit. This is in Sugarland, Texas and ironically the town I was born in. Central Unit, an old sugarcane plantation had morphed into now a prison farm. There were approx 20-25 prisons now in Texas, and it had growing pains; the overcrowding was awful. I was now absorbed into my new home, razor-ribboned-fences, gun towers, and screaming, cussing guards along with inmates, were what I'd be associated with for the next forty years. I was assigned a dorm. I would have no bed for the next four months; I thought they were trying to get me killed, all I saw was blacks in this dorm. To my relief it was mixed. The B.T. (Building Tender,) a young black dude, all muscled up, would assign me to a lockermate, because likewise, along with no bunks there were also not enough lockers for the dorm was set up for no more than approx 55 inmates, but there were close to, or over one hundred per dorm. We had jail mattresses that were allowed to be placed on the ground, or floor after rack-time. I had to sleep this way almost four months before a bunk could be had. Then I would be assigned to a tent to live in, but I'm getting ahead of myself. If overcrowding wasn't bad enough the back of the dorms had the common restroom with a urinal, and a few sinks along with the toilets. There was absolutely no privacy what-so-ever. If you had to go, you had to do so in front of everybody. What makes this even worse was the fact the single 25 inch TV was sitting on top of the pipechase where the toilets were. This area was also being used for a dayroom, and 3 or 4 benches were sitting in front of the toilets facing them, and inmates would watch TV facing you within eight feet of where you had to do your business. Of course men tried to go only during the commercials, or after rack-time. The bad thing here too besides that, was the side area of the restroom was where eight bunks were, and we had to stack our mattresses on this same pipechase top, behind the TV, so a person really had to put their privacy standards all the way aside, if you had to go, you did so no matter if there was a football game on or not. Of course you also had to endure the derisively sour-castic remarks also, but it was something that you endured. After the first day of settling in, I was then assigned to what was called a, "Hoe Squad," the squad I was in was 5-Hoe. This is the, "Drive-Ups," or new men just arriving. The very first day I went to work, I was so wore out from being shipped around the state in these prison buses. This was not like the county-jail, I had been in for 9 months; all this talk about, "The Big-House," or "Crossbar Hotel," or any of the other colorful names convicts come up with was now a reality. Although a reality this was a surreal world. The first night on the unit a man committed suicide at the front of the dorm where the actual dayroom was supposed to be. He sat at a table, and slit his wrists, and sat at this table, placed his head down like he was sleeping ahd died as he bled to death. This is when it really hits you, you're in another world, and things have forever changed in your life, your wife's life, and families lives, and you're on your own. The doors start slamming open, and closed about 3 AM onward. Breakfast served, big eight foot doors; bars of steel on rollers slide back with a loud echoing bang... all the way back... Slam! All the way closed... Slam! All the way open again... Slam! These B.T.'s are responsible for all of this racket, and this will go on until they turn out the field force. Beds are picked up, they can't be put back now until 10:30PM. My first day I didn't know what to expect. As they call the squads by number I'm wide eyed, and full of adrenaline, while I watch, and wait for my squad to be called. Slam! ...each dorm all 6 or 7 of them, one at a time slam open, then close their door, then another follows suit. This seems to be a game these B.T.'s like, by trying to see whom outslams the other. I watch these men going out before me, they are called, the door slams open, and they run as fast as they can down the stairs and thru the gauntlet of field bosses to their squads and line up. This is a big production, there's a couple hundred of us before it's all said and done. I find out the reasons everybody is running to their squads. When my squad is called, not only was there field bosses, there were also inmates that lined up also on either side to offer their abuse, verbally, and physically also, and the field bosses were gauntlet style, if you weren't fast enough you received a serious kick with spur ladened cowboy-boots, and if that wasn't bad enough some had a 3 ft. by 3 inch by ¼ inch thick piece of leather strap, with a wooden handle like a, "Billyclub," so that they could hold it, and they swung this heavy strap at backs, asses, or backs of legs as you ran past. You learned to be fast... that strap hurt! The first hot August day I went in the Soybean fields, with my squad, was almost my last. We lined up, and they would count us, they are always counting, it is the general rule. We paired it up, and walked by the Aggie-wagon. These aggies are huge garden hoes, they are supersized... Texas-size hoes; they have for the most part homemade handles, from semi-straight sapling trees, or limbs. The bark is on them, the aggies are dull as can be. We throw these heavy hoes over our shoulder, and walk out the gate in the early morning sun, which is just peeking above the treeline. The bosses all have on their pistols, and aviator sunglasses like on, "Cool-Hand-Luke," the movie. I'm already wondering what I'd gotten myself into. We then get to a soybean field, the plants are almost up to my chest; we are to go into crowded rows, and strike weeds. We start this in a line, and I already know I'm in trouble, for although I knew that I was in good shape, I had also laid up for nine months, and as the morning progressed, the heat and humidity climbed, and there just wasn't any air moving. I made it to the first water break. We had a water-wagon filled with tepid water; I was able to smoke a cig, then went back to work. This handle of this aggie was already ripping the hide from the bottoms of my hands. I wasn't going to say anything, nobody else was complaining, and I figured my hands would toughen up. As early afternoon came, I found I just couldn't keep up, and I was catching hell from my field boss. Finally he asked if I was going to lay it down on him, and I said, "Yes." He called out to the water-wagon... "Got me an 'Ole-Thang,' here boy, that's gonna lay it down on me." I saw a short bald-headed mexican with a blue bandanna on his head... jump off the wagon, and run thru these tall soybean plants, and I could barely see his bald head coming towards me, and I heard him saying, "You ain't layin' it down on, 'My Bossman! I'll tell ya that!" I'm not sure what's happening, but when this inmate comes into my row, I see he has a 2ft. piece of pipe, then it dawns on me that this is one of the so called, "Head-Cutters," or "Inmate Enforcers," so to speak. As he comes running up I raise my aggie to protect myself, and warn him, "One more step punk, and I'll kill you." He stops, and I mean it. I'll chop his head in two with this aggie, and he see's this in my eyes. I hear a voice above me, "Boy drop that aggie, or I'll blow your 'F'-ing brains out all over my soybeans here!" I look up, he has his pistol drawn, I look around; the High-Rider is pulling his rifle, and the Field-Captain is heading our way, and as I see this the inmate starts to step towards me... I raise the aggie and now the Captain rides up. "Put down that weapon boy, don't you see that there pistol drawn on you? 'He will kill you boy.'" I told him I wasn't dropping anything till that inmate drops his, and goes back to the water-wagon. The inmate makes a move towards me, while he thinks I'm distracted I raise my aggie more... there's a shot, and a big chunk of dirt flies up close to my feet. "The next shot's thru your head, now drop your weapon!" My field boss says. I hold my ground. The head-cutter has hit the ground face down in the dirt, as is the rest of the squad now. The Capt. say, "Look son, there's no reason to die today... drop that aggie." I tell him, "What do I have to live for, then tell him to shoot." My heart ain't in it though, and I drop my aggie, and they get things back in order. I stayed out the rest of the day; I worked at what speed I could muster, was barraged with disparaging, and derogatory remarks the rest of the day, that had offensive hand-gestures accompanying them to stress their points, and this was from my field boss. The inmates just took it in stride... this was just another day in prison to them. I stayed out in these field squads for approx four months. My hands were so tore up by aggies, and these homemade handles, that they bled profusely. The hide was tore off the complete palms of my hands, and even between my fingers. When I came in each day after showers, I had to go to an all but non-existent medical dept. A room set aside with an inmate helper that would put something called, "Tough-Skin," on my hands, that burnt so bad it brought tears to my eyes. That stuff was only designed for a simple blister, or two, not hands that were bloody raw, and looked like hamburger meat. This went on each day, my hands healed a little each night, but would be tore up, and bloody the next day. My clothes each day reflected this abuse, with bloodstains across the fronts of my shirts and pants. To add insult to injury we would hit the maze fields with, "Johnson-Grass," taller than I was with blades of grass wider than one inch, this would get between my already bloody-slick hands, and slice my hands open even more like a razor blade. Even my field boss would try at least to show a little bit of humanization, by throwing me a few band-aids down, but they were a lost cause, my hands stained each aggie handle I got each day a mahogany reddish brown, and I felt this was all I could look forward to, for the rest of my life. Each day pistols were drawn on me. I looked down a barrel of one field bosses gun or another. I've had their horses bite me on my shoulder, worked in snake infested canals up to my waist in water cutting weeds off the banks; I've broken concrete blocks with homemade hammers, bent over at the waist all day, not allowed to sit, no safety equipment. A hammer handle made with a transmission spline, and the work went on. I started college to get out of the fields, and to try to get an understanding of what these, "Smart-Folks," had done to me during trial. I couldn't even hold the pens and pencils to write with, because the first half of the day was spent in the fields, so I just listened the best I could, and I was able to make the grades needed to stay in school. I got a job finally, and although it was easier than the fields, and the verbal brow beatings a lot less, I still had a deep-seated hatred for those in gray that had called my Mom, Sisters and Wife every derogatory name in English, and Spanish that they could think of as well as described every underhanded sexual act they would perform with each. My hours were long, I worked 7 days a week, 12-16 hours a day; went to my tent I now lived in, and slept, then to college in the afternoon. Then I went to the cannery again to spend the night around hot steam pipes, pots and cans. This was my life amongst nighttime counts, and being awaken to go to the major's office to get our latest copy of a Ruiz v. Estelle ruling. An inmate had finally gotten a judge to listen, and these atrocities were coming to light, changes were in the air, reforms being handled by the Fed's, and the State of Texas as well as TDC officials hated it. Overcrowding was a big issue, but bigger than that now was the good-ole-boys, saw benefits that were masked by courts and the powers that be. Billions of dollars could be had, contracts with TDC were sought, and fought over like a litter of piglets looking for a Sow's teat. Prisons started being built; TDC became TDCJ-ID, fancy name, same people. The prisons grew to 30...50...75, to its now 100 plus prisons. Private prisons jumped on board now that we were as inmates required to have humane, or should I say more humane treatment as long as the courts were watching, we had to have 65 sq. ft. of living space each. TDC got around that issue giving us 60 sq. ft. of living space with 2½ sq. ft. in the dayroom to share with others and to share in the restroom space, this is now 35 sq. ft. for when the courts deemed things done TDC made the cubicles smaller. Although this wasn't right the courts called this a, "Good Faith," effort, and that's all TDCJ needed now that they found this, "Good-Faith," effort thing was a way around the courts, almost every ruling from William Wayne Justice, was over shadowed with close, but not equal compliance, this good faith effort was all we got. I was transferred to one of these brand new units in 1982. It was called Wallace Pack II Unit. Named after a warden that tried to murder an inmate, but in return was killed himself, thus the naming of not one, but two units after him, memorializing his name for his civic contributions to mankind; I would find out many years down the road, that these units had arsenic laden water wells, and I drank water from them for years, being at Pack I and Pack II, each for years at a time, and now I have had five kidney failures in part from the damage arsenic has caused as my own fallibility. I continued on. I was the first to graduate from Blinn College at Pack II, from when it opened. The prison system continued to grow; I was divorced, faced family members dying, being killed, ran over, and a trailhouse fire at Christmas of 1983, that killed my only brother, his wife and all three kids. There was no form of compassion from officials, I even went off on a warden for derogatory remarks he made concerning my family and it took five officers to take me down. In the fields, the Arkansas-Hayrides, and abuse continued. An Arkansas-Hayride, being where they handcuffed an inmate to the saddlehorn of these biting horses, and they make you run along the side of the horse until you're drug all the while this horse tried to bite you, and stomp you. The abuses were still going on just more hidden now. The Special Masters, that the courts set up always called first before they came to a unit, giving officials a courteous heads up, that they were coming, thus warning them on the cool to cool it. I was now a Ruiz compliance witness on our Law Library, and since I was doing my own legal work, and using indigent supplies now it was beneficial to me in lots of ways. I finally came up for parole, only to have the parole interviewer have my case changed to aggravated, and he set me off after 3 days, and now I came up in Sept. 1995. He had no authorization to set me off, till then, nor mess with my records. This was now 1984, and this was an eleven year set-off. I took them to court, and won an EnBanc decision 19 months later making TDCJ correct the records... of course there would be a price exacted from that, for the parole panels retaliated, and we fought till my release in 1993. After graduating, keeping a clear record, staying alive thru riots, stabbings and after mishaps that go along with living in overcrowded prisons, you become hard hearted. You see where bloody inmates have been dragged down the hallways going to medical; you can see the skid marks of their bodies in blood. You walk thru goon squads of black-clad dressed SORT teams, with full riot gear, sticks and shields, and all you wonder about is what they are having for breakfast. Life goes on, you're in a world that is kept hidden from prying eyes of the public, this is prison. I was transferred to the Wynne Unit, to attend four year college. I continued to work as slave labor... this state so loves, and the system continued to grow. This system had taken on a life of its own. A new unit would open up, and give a couple hundred of the unhirable community patrons a job, now off welfare, and working, but at a cost of an avg. of 2,500 men and women pulled off the streets of potential taxpayer income to give these that job. This system's one sided, 30,000 employees statewide, versus 150,000 men, and women in prison. More than that tied up with probation, parole, or some type of court sanctioned requirements. County jails still full, and busting at the seams, and DA's along with Judges kept the Blue Bird buses full and running around the clock, for this Beast never sleeps. This system is so big now, and the people of Texas has made this a prime form of business. Men and women nowhere near qualified for the jobs, and titles they have reap the rewards of very skilled inmates like myself, for in the world I contract out for an avg. of $110, or better an hour repairing obsolete equipment nobody any longer know how to do, as well as commercial maint. This beast devours the very public it is designed to protect, and the residual effects of a privatized slavery system, but not wishing to entirely do away with slavery all together opted like all other states at the time the 13th. amendment came into being, the continuance of slavery thru the state penal system. It was then up to each state to provide for its own slave complex, and to do this the judicial system was the avenue for replenishing of state slaves. This is what we are, we are still verbally as well as physically abused by sadistic guards, (In the name of justice of course.) The legal system is designed to take the poor, the down troddened the homeless, and mentally disadvantaged off the streets, so the rich, and well-to-do, don't have to be bothered with us cluttering up society. The fact there are lots of men and women that fall into this category means the Beast will continue to get fat, we will continue to lose the public to this beast, for it's out of control. There are 30,000 questionable DNA cases, my case being one of them, that says this system only cares about feeding the beast. This state cares not about what is fair and just. This I know because I have lived thru this horror for more than 30 years of my life. I have worked for free all this time, I have zero social security retirement benefits built, or a 401K, all because I couldn't afford a decent defense, yet this state continues to benefit from my, and others job skills. I am 60 years old now, I came here at 24, and I have watched men and women live and die away from their families... alone, then spit out, and thrown away by the beast. This system and those that run it find new ways to siphon off taxpayers dollars, we continue to slave without any monetary compensation for our skills; be abused by men and women that should be in here themselves, and not in a uniform of authority. The penal system is now too big; it demands too much to keep up this growth. It devours the very public that grew it from the dormant monster it was, and it does not care whom it devours, whom it abuses. This is a world unseen by common folk; a world of mystery, and screen plays for others, and movie credits, but for us in the belly of the beast, it is an atrocious never ending nightmare of screams in the night, count times, and death, for even as I write this I see the flashing lights on the wall of a public meat-wagon (ambulance), that is taking another soul to it's resting place, a paupers grave on Peckerwood Hill, another victim to the Beast of Texas. 
 By: Timothy D.V. Bazrowx