These Weren’t Any Candy-A$$ Girls !!
This is Part III of my series on the affects of Hurricane Katrina striking Louisiana and a large portion of the Gulf states twenty years ago this week. Almost everyone, when you mention Katrina, gets images of a flooded city, people stranded on rooftops or wading slowly through toxic waters, savage acts or even tales of individual heroism and bravery.
Very few people think of the plight of either the prisoners of Angola or OPP or any of the smaller parish jails, about where they went and how long it took them to get help, but especially, what happened to the female prisoners. In this series, I tell you about it. If this is your first encounter with my writing here, please go back and read Part I and Part II to fully understand what was going on.
“The first really impactful item that sent shivers down our spines was when word began to filter up to us of frightening events in New Orleans – prisoners were abandoned in their cells, left to the steadily rising waters when their guards abandoned them and fled their posts. The reports were horrendous. Already off-balance with our own conditions, our only thought was “Could we be next?”
Bill Kissinger from Part 1 of this series.
Conditions were in chaos in the gym….
So, when I left Part II, I had finished creating the initial database and was preparing to get started on assigning beds and creating a roster for the officers. Those plans, however, had to be put on hold when an officer called me to come up front and told me they needed help unloading a truck. When I arrived and the officer unlocked the door for me to pass through I saw not one, but three big-bed pickup trucks parked and idling, their bulging loads concealed beneath tied down tarps.
Pulling the tarps to the side I discovered cases of fancy, high-end soaps, some with hotel logos on them; cases of extravagant body washes and lotions, cases of baby powder, even cases of little, tiny bottles of perfumes and colognes. The next trucks revealed cases of toothbrushes and toothpaste, feminine razors, cases of casino playing cards with the casino’s name emblazoned across them, and to my utter embarrassment – female undergarments and sanitary napkins. Now, please, bear in mind that I had been locked up for 36 years at this point!
So you could at least understand my embarrassment at handling such items. After quickly “inventorying” the items, I started to unload the first truck. I was only slightly surprised when the free man told me, “Kissinger, hold up…set a couple of those cases – of everything – off to the side. For me.” Hmmmpphhhh. This particular free man had a reputation of pilferage on a regular and giant scale, and virtually everyone knew it. What was gonna’ be the takeaway here – would I be in a trap or would I be in a perfect situation? If I refused or if I went along? If I did or if I didn’t? What was gonna’ be the victimhood breakdown here?
Throwing caution to the wind here, I set two stacks to the side – one of one case of each commodity and one of two cases of each.
If he went down, I’d go down. However, I knew that if I went down, I’d go down alone. In prison NOBODY likes a snitch, so ya’ gotta’ be careful – snitch on a convict and all the convicts hate you, snitch on a free man and all the free people hate you. There just isn’t a middle road to walk down.
He told me to take all the stuff we had set aside for him and load it into his truck and I did. Job completed, I took the cases set aside for me and shot straight back into the office and stashed it for later. Now, let’s be clear here – I did NOT take any female undergarments or sanitary napkins or anything like that. I COULD have and could have made money with it. Shocking to think, but there is a black-market for that stuff in Angola.
What I concentrated on (for myself and friends) mostly were the casino playing cards, soaps, body washes, lotions and powder. We had no clue when we’d be allowed to return to Camp F, and these would come in very handy over what turned out to be a year.
The patrol came to pick me up around 8:30-9:00 at night, and I always carried a pillow-case back to the gym with me. The driver would shake me down and seeing that it was all harmless, let me carry it with me.
The next day the officer and I, along with several female officers, set up an assembly line operation and distributed a “care bag” to every single female in the camp. They were overjoyed to receive these small comforts – little reminders of a world they had left behind and that was now beyond their reach. They could now apply a little makeup and take care of their hygiene and feel human again, even if only for a while,
While they were beginning to feel human again, we were still trying to gain our footing and get our balance back. Strange, but I went to sleep that night feeling that I had done some good in this world we live in.
The next day brought even more surprises, and this time I would be personally impacted, and impacted in a way that would last for several years.
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