{"id":511,"date":"1994-05-30T08:50:23","date_gmt":"1994-05-30T15:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/?p=511"},"modified":"2020-07-09T09:55:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T16:55:09","slug":"passing-thoughts-on-death-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/1994\/05\/30\/passing-thoughts-on-death-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Passing Thoughts On Death Row"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jeffrey Carl<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Westmoreland News, May 30 1994<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Working at the Westmoreland News in 1994 was the best summer job I ever had. I worked for peanuts and had a two hour drive each way from Richmond, but I got to do it all at a small county newspaper where I was a reporter, feature writer, copy editor, layout editor and photographer (because there was nobody else to do those things). Best of all the paper’s editor, Lynn Norris, gave me the freedom to write whatever I wanted – way more journalistic and comedic freedom than anyone should rightly give a know-it-all 21-year-old writing for a weekly in the deeply rural Northern Neck of Virginia. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dennis W. Stockton writes a newsletter.  It comes out about every month, give or take.  It is called \u201cPassin\u2019 Thoughts.\u201d  Dennis writes about whatever comes to mind or happens in his life, like a public diary.  He has written about everything from killing ants to running for governor of Virginia to replacing Rush Limbaugh to the history and usage of toilet paper.  Dennis writes on a Panasonic typewriter, sitting alone in his room.  Actually, it\u2019s a cell. Dennis W. Stockton is on Death Row. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The masthead of \u201cPassin\u2019 Thoughts\u201d bears a parody of the New York Times\u2019s motto, reading \u201cAll the news fit to print … and some that ain\u2019t.\u201d  It says, \u201cCOMPILED FROM DEATH ROW!\u201d in all-capital letters and is copyrighted to \u201cDennis Walden Stockton, #134466, Powhatan Correctional Center, State Farm, Virginia 23160.\u201d  Interspersed between stories there are quotations from sources like John Steinbeck, Leon Uris, the New Testament, and, of course, Dennis Stockton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether an O. Henry writing his short stories from a jail cell or a frightened young inmate writing his family, a prisoner needs a medium for self-expression.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, as quoted in \u201cPassing Thoughts\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dennis Stockton\u2019s newsletter is often quite funny.  Stockton and his occasional guest writers take on numerous subjects – it\u2019s something of a writer\u2019s dream, all that space to write and nobody to tell you what to write about.  His humor is a gift-wrapped box, and inside the box holds bitterness, frustration, and madness.  Stockton staunchly maintains that he is innocent, and occasionally invokes Christ to give him the strength to withstand his unfair imprisonment.  The status of his court appeals is kept track of in special updates in \u201cPassin\u2019 Thoughts,\u201d in between stories about his experiences and his plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you elect me as your governor I\u2019ll put a stop to all this fraud and waste …\u00a0 I know how to cut the cost of operating prisions in half and will do it as soon as I move in the governor\u2019s mansion … I know you\u2019ve heard them other candidates say over the years how it cost $25,000 per inmate to keep people in prisons … I\u2019ll turn all the prisoners loose and pay them $12,500 a year to stay out of jail.\u00a0 Just like that I\u2019ve cut prison budgets in half.\u00a0 If any double-cross me and commit a crime I\u2019ll shoot those and get them out of their and our misery…\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Dennis Stockton, \u201cPassin\u2019 Thoughts\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is strangely, ironically funny, coming from a man waiting to be killed by the state.  And sometimes you\u2019re never quite sure what to take seriously and what to recognize as a joke.  All these topics, the ambitious (like Stockton\u2019s gubernatorial candidacy plans) and the mundane (congratulating Dale Earnhardt on his NASCAR Winston Cup win) are handled in Stockton\u2019s fascinating writing style.  Stockton takes the quirks of slang speech – the \u201chafta\u201ds and the \u201cit \u2018uz\u201ds – and puts them in print, just like they sound.  It makes engaging and easy reading, and makes you feel like Stockton is sitting there beside you – behind an iron wall of bars – and talking to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI use to be one of those that used handkerchiefs for nose-blowin\u2019.\u00a0 Like many, I had a habit of blowin\u2019 my nose into a handkerchief and foldin\u2019 it up carefully and then shovin\u2019 it into my back pocket and walkin\u2019 around with a pocket full of sneeze.\u00a0 That was before I learned handkerchiefs were suppose to be kept clean so\u2019s you\u2019d have one handy when you ran into a beautiful lady in tears and could diplomatically pull it out and offer it to the distressed one so she could dry her tears and blow her purty little nose in it.\u00a0 Then, if she returned the handkerchief, you could walk around with a pocket full or her carefully wrapped sneeze, but prob\u2019ly wouldn\u2019t mind for by then you\u2019ve done got a date with the purty little thing you were such a comfort to.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Dennis Stockton, \u201cPassin\u2019 Thoughts\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stream-of-consciousness writing of the newsletter is also broken up by photocopies of letters written by Stockton to the prison warden, complaining that his television has not been returned since it was broken by guards in the last \u201clockdown for a shakedown\u201d or decrying the infrequent showers allowed to the men on his cell block.  It\u2019s a little like reading the mutant offspring of Andy Rooney\u2019s columns and Alexander Solzhenitsyn\u2019s \u201cThe Gulag Archipelago\u201d: the funny stories about life are contrasted with an obsession with the tiniest elements of life: the television set, the toilet paper, the shower, the bugs on the wall.  There is not much to do on Death Row.  And Stockton tells you in vivid detail what it\u2019s like to do a whole lot of not much: the tiny details of existence that are no more than annoyances to people on the \u201coutside\u201d are maddeningly major events to a prisoner.  Stockton talks for pages about killing the ants in his cell – he not only kills them, but counts them, and marks when he kills flies on his calendar.  Time passes slowly there, and the smallest images become important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe same ain\u2019t so for ribbons.\u00a0 I got 28 1\/2 pages outta my last ribbon.\u00a0 27 of them were double-spaced kind while the other 1 1\/2 were single-spaced … like this\u2019n.\u00a0 Before startin\u2019 this issue I put ribbon #12 in that I\u2019ve used so far, since gettin\u2019 this machine in late August.\u00a0 They charge me $4.35 for each ribbon in the Canteen …\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Dennis Stockton, \u201cPassin\u2019 Thoughts\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Postcards from the edge.  Notes from the underground.  Confessions of the condemned.  Voices from beyond.  Straight outta Compton.  Federal Express from hell.  Pick your name for these testimonials.  Here they are called, simply, \u201cPrisoners\u2019 Warnings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stockton\u2019s notes above, and the following letters are prisoners\u2019 warnings to young people of the area.  The letters are accompanied by a letter from the organizers of this project.  The introductory letter says the prisoners\u2019 warnings are \u201cwritten by reformed inmates who are willing to share the hard life of prison survival,\u201d according to Lethia A. Johnson and the Reverends C. Long and F. Brooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA life where it doesn\u2019t matter that your days are spent in a cell with only enough room to sit, stand and sleep.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese young people are now labeled as numbers.\u00a0 They have searhed their souls and are willing to share the price they had to pay for the mistakes they made.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir hopes and prayers are that young people would read their story andthink twice before commiting a criminal act.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese writers are involved in community projects and are trying to find themselves in Christ, although they sometimes fail due to the lack of faith, leaderhsip and guidance.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lethia Johnson notes that Siloam\u2019s pastor Reverend Long and his wife Margaret are working together with young men gathered by Keith Jones, Roger Brooks and Myron Johnson, the church\u2019s deacons, and New Jerusalem\u2019s Pastor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe theme of their first meeting, which might be considered suitable for the entire project, is You Are Your Brother\u2019s Keeper.  <\/em>I am asking the community to join in and help us preserve our next generation,\u201d Johnson adds, and the letter ends neatly with the names of Johnson, the Rev. Long, and the Rev. Brooks.  The letter is sparsely punctuated and is typed in all-capital letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph R. \u201cPoncho\u201d Brown writes that as of March 21, he was feeling \u201cfine and very blessed, growing stronger with the Lord ever day.\u201d  His letter is pure evangelical testimony\u2013 an account of faith and how it is often the only thing left for some when all the other things have fallen apart.  It is easy to forget sometimes that prisoners have families, too, and that time does not stand still for them while a sentence is being served.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more apparent to me now – more than ever – that my calling is to touch as many young lives as possible.  When my sons came, my youngest (nine years old) asked me why I was in here.  I don\u2019t know just why he\u2019s questioning me about, but Iwas very honest with him.  I will not rest until I know that their lives have bypassed the life I\u2019ve been living for the last 12 years.  School is the key right now for them, and they enjoy it very much…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top of the letter is signed, \u201cCarlton Ford #156984.\u201d  The handwritten letters on the page are tidy, looping whorls, like Thomas Jefferson\u2019s.  The words are crammed together on the page, like the terse writing of someone who has something to say and doesn\u2019t know if they\u2019ll get a chance to say it unless they can write it fast enough.  It tells a story about a life that has gone wrong, about a boy who started out \u201cstraight\u201d but became a product of an environment where hope had packed its bags, left, and forgotten about them.  It talks about living in a world of crime that is like some incomprehensible, faraway parallel universe to some, and the deadly everyday world to others.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll I wanted was to do was just make my grandmother the happiest grandparent in the world.\u00a0 I remember promising to her that I would never drink liquor, beer, or take drugs, but most importantly I promised to her that I would never go to jail and leave her alone.\u00a0 In return, she gave me a strict curfew, rules and regulations, attention and affection, but most importantly she gave me unconditional love … I gave her good grades in school, discipline, respect, and was on my way to becoming that young man that I promised her I would be\u2026 But some thing drastically changed in me, and I didn\u2019t even see it coming.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the seventh grade, I moved to live with my mother in a project unit in Alexandria.\u00a0 The children my age seemed like little adults to me, and I felt as though I had nothing in common with them or the envirnment, where crime, drugs and sex seemed to be the major focus.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had to somehow achieving ghetto mentality.\u00a0 Peer pressure is addivctivefor a mind tatdoes\u2019t know how to us its reflectfulness or be toughtful in decison making.\u00a0 I got inolved in all types of crime: stealing cars, breaking into houses became a routine type of thing for me.\u00a0 All we did was shoot basketball and get high in daylight; at night, we traveled the streets looking to commit some larceny.\u00a0 i dropped out of school impregnated a girl and had a few brushes with the law, but the worst was about to come.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat night, four of us had stolen a car, and a police car started chasing us.\u00a0 We hit the wall.\u00a0 All of them died except for me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor my part, the judge sentenced me to six months in a boys\u2019 home.\u00a0 Upon my release, I immediately got back into my old scene, peddling drugs, burglaries, and anything else that would put money in my pockets.\u00a0 I was ducking and dodging like that all the way to this present incarceration.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve gone down for four and one-half years on this charge, but more importantly, I have done a lot of thinking.\u00a0 Never in all my life have I ever done such deep-rooted reflecting on my past and future.\u00a0 Where did I go wrong?\u00a0 How did I go wrong?\u00a0 What happened to that little boy who wanted to grow up and make his grandmother proud?\u00a0 Surely he is still within me somewhere.\u00a0 I\u2019m still going to make her happy, God rest her soul…\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you say about these letters and writings from reformed prisoners?  They are like sermons from fallen angels, ghostly messages on the important things in life from those who have lost their lives in the \u201creal world.\u201d  But, aside from repentance, what are these testimonials really about<\/em>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dennis Stockton\u2019s writings are funny and bleak and riveting and disorienting.  But most of all – they show what life is like, waiting to die.  They show what is there waiting for you at the end of the universe: nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Nothing to do but kill flies and count them on the calendar.  Nothing to talk about but the petty torments inflicted in imprisonment.  Nothing to think about but the tiniest details of your life, or to make up grandiose stories about the world outside to live through the actions of others.  Dennis Stockton writes indirectly about what stares at you when you are sitting, waiting for the end: nothing.  And the cold stare of boredom – the empty eye-sockets of nothingness- are worse than the curse of fear, or the sting of pain, or even the icy gaze of evil.  There may be another world waiting for Dennis Stockton, but for right now there is nothing to do but wait and – to make something happen, if only in imagination – to tell stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI died last night.\u00a0 It was sometime after I went to bed.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure of the exact time, and since I was dead I couldn\u2019t open my eyes and look.\u00a0 But sometime after 11 o\u2019clock I went to bed.\u00a0 My bed is in a cell for I\u2019m (or was) a prisoner.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c… But the way it turned out is I suppose what\u2019s in the dark recesses of everyone\u2019s mind about what being dead is like.\u00a0 There\u2019s only one thing for a dead person to see and you don\u2019t need eyes to see it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know whether to tell you I\u2019m sad or glad that I died.\u00a0 At least I\u2019m no longer in prison for something I didn\u2019t do …<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the best points of being dead is that I\u2019m free from worry, persecution and ridicule along with all the little things that made my last 13-plus years on earth the low points.\u00a0 The high points also include I know now – that God is real and that when I was baptized on 3\/1\/1991 He did indeed do all the things His book taught me He would.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI miss all (too many to count) the friends I came to know after I was baptized.\u00a0 If I could say one thing only to them it\u2019d be, \u2018Stay the course and never doubt God\u2019s promises in the least.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wish I could write these lines and send them to everyone on earth, but I can\u2019t for the dead these days can\u2019t talk to the living.\u00a0 For the fact I\u2019ve learned since dying is that the dead, like me,\u00a0 know nothing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Dennis Stockton, \u201cA Short Story\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeffrey Carl Working at the Westmoreland News in 1994 was the best summer job I ever had. I worked for peanuts and had a two hour drive each way from Richmond, but I got to do it all at a small county newspaper where I was a reporter, feature writer, copy editor, layout editor … Continue reading Passing Thoughts On Death Row<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,20],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reporting","category-the-westmoreland-news","tag-westmoreland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":513,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions\/513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}