Officer Flowers

Author: Wallaby

*Editor’s note: This is a first-person account of Georgia State Prison at Reidsville in the 1990s, submitted to Tell My Story and published in the writer’s own words. The incidents it describes — men flinging feces, others scarred by boiling baby oil, a federal court reduced to levying fines — were not aberrations of individual character. They were the predictable product of a state that warehoused seriously mentally ill people in 23-hour-a-day lockdown with no treatment, no programming, and no path out. A man released from a Cuban psychiatric institution did not belong in a Georgia isolation cell; the State of Georgia put him there and offered nothing but a concrete box. What follows is hard to read. It is meant to be. The conditions that produced these scenes did not end in the 1990s — Georgia Prisoners’ Speak continues to document untreated mental illness, isolation, and neglect inside the Georgia Department of Corrections today. — Georgia Prisoners’ Speak*

“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.” ~ Seneca

In 1994 my cell sat right in the middle of the second range, of a three range cell block labeled C-2. Fifty two open front bar cells total, on three long ranges. Built of concrete made with river rocks in the 1930’s in the bottom land sands of Reidsville Georgia. Georgia State Prison (GSP) was located in the middle of nowhere about 64 miles north of Savannah. Time Life Magazine called it the “Alcatraz Of The Piney Woods” in a article published in the 1940’s. A hot and barren pine land forest, infested with bugs and spiders of tarantula size proportions. In the chow halls you couldn’t eat without a fly landing in your mouth, or breathing black gnats up your nose.

Officer Flowers was an intelligent young black man in his early thirties who had recently gotten out of the US Army while stationed at Ft. Stewart in Savannah. Thinking he might want a career in “corrections” he had quickly gotten a job with the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC).

With a name like Flowers he’d already caught hell since childhood I’m sure, and the ridicule he experienced from convicts at Reidsville was no less. In the cell on one side of me was a big black guy who never talked to anyone. He avoided any attempts when I, or anyone else, had tried to have a conversation with him. We remained locked down in our cells 24-7 except for one hour out for exercise time in the 10′ X 20′ dog pens, and a 15 minute shower three times per week. He liked to stay to himself and do his time that way, and that was fine with me. Rumor from the guys on the yard was that he was a notorious “shit-slinger.” That he kept a Bugler tobacco can filled with a mix of fermenting feces and soured milk for such an occasion.

For reasons why unknown, my silent cell neighbor and officer Flowers had had heated words together the day before when Flowers had let him out of his cell to take a shower. All I do know, is that the next day when officer Flowers came to work he was “shit-down.” Having caught Flowers unawares, he’d flung the can of fermenting milk & feces right into officer Flowers face! Flowers, came walking backwards by my cell, looking just like he was doing a Michael Jackson’s Moon Walk impersonation, while spitting soured shit left & right out his mouth! God, what an awful smell! I’ve got a strong stomach, but it had me gagging as well.

I’ll give him credit though, after the “shit-slinger” was removed from his cell by other officers and taken to the hole, Flowers took a shower, changed his uniform and finished out his shift. You can imagine all the hell and ridicule he received after that. Flowers was a good officer, but didn’t last long after that one incident. “Cowardice is the dread of what will happen.” ~ Epictetus.

After transferring to Georgia State Prison in Reidsville in 1994, the prison in the 1990’s was notoriously bad for those who threw boiling hot baby oil on people. So much so, that baby oil was stopped being sold on the prison store while I was there. At GSP I’d met at least two people with their chest scarred pink from 3rd degree burns where they had been burnt with boiling baby oil. Towards the late 1990’s the situation was so out of hand with both the “shit-slingers” and baby oil tossers that the federal court had started freezing the accounts of those convicted and fining them between $8,000.00 and $12,000.00. That cut down a lot on the problem but it didn’t matter at all to the seriously mentally ill cases like “Cuba.”

“Cuba” was another matter altogether! Released from a Cuban mental institution during the Mariel Boat Lift starting in April 1980, Cuba was a 6′ 4″ scare-crow thin figure of a man. Just by the look in Cuba’s eyes you could tell he was crazy as hell and should be avoided if at all possible. Other than a friendly nod of my head and a respectful hello in passing, was the only conversations we ever had while doing time in lockdown at GSP. Cuba had a sick fascination and obsession with feces and couldn’t live in the regular prison population. At any given opportunity he would fling feces on people that he had had a disagreement with, or just didn’t like. Which was pretty much near everybody that had been unfortunate enough to have to live around him for any length of time. “Man conquers the world by conquering himself.” ~ Zeno.

While locked in a three man shower with him, three individual showers, Cuba had tried to sling a cup of shit, up and over the expanded metal grating on top, and over onto the guy in the shower next to him. Glad it wasn’t me… Out on the exercise yard across from me, I witnessed Cuba sling a bag of feces mixed with soured milk against the metal fence which, scattered all over his intended victim who locked in the dog pen next to him.

I was once put into an empty lockdown cell that was vacant because it’s occupant had gone to the Augusta State Medical Prison (ASMP) for an appointment. The only thing left in the cell was a tall green Malox bottle sitting in the corner on the floor under the sink. Thinking it might have cleaning soap or disinfectant inside I opened it up… To my gagging horror it contained soured shit. The officer later told me that it had been Cuba in that cell who had gone to ASMP.

Robert R., aka Big Bird, was a white guy I knew at GSP who was also a feces slinger. He said that when he’d told his mother in visitation that he’d slung a cup of shit into an officers face, that his mother had slap him out of his chair. And rightly so…