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When somebody tells you that you're going to serve life in prison with a minimum of fifteen years, you kind of begin to look around for the punchline. Because, you know, there's got to be a joke in there—somewhere. Growing up and not listening to my mother, drinking, drugging, having sex, doing crimes, where it landed me was Bethford Hills Correctional Facility at the age of twenty with a broken-hearted mother who never got over me being in prison and a five-year-old son. You know, trying to survive in an environment like that is really, really depressing. There is definitely a lot of heartbreak. And the best times for me, the highlight of my days would be when my mother and my son would come to visit. And we would be happy for a while and we would do the family thing. And then when it was over with, we would part and I would return to this, like, crazy sort of loneliness that prison is.  

And after a few years, and just when things could really get no worse for me inside, it was my birthday and I wanted to hear somebody say happy birthday and I called home. And I found out that my mother, who I often refer to as the love of my life, was ill. And it became evident, really fast, that her illnesses were terminal. And I think that day, I really began to die a little bit with her. I fought, I begged, I pleaded, I cried, trying to convince them that they should let me go and see her at least for what we call in prison the deathbed visit. And she wasn't sick enough, and then they said she wasn't in the right place, and she probably had longer to live than I thought.  

And this fight went on for about two months and finally the superintendent of the facility that I was in came to see me one evening. And I was just so sick and tired I said to her, "Look, if my mother dies without me seeing her, there will be no wall in this entire facility that's going to be able to contain me." So now, maybe about two weeks later, the day finally comes, and they're calling me over the loudspeaker and, everybody on the floor that I live with was just kind of patting me on the back because it was like another fight conquered. And I go downstairs and they put the chains and the shackles on me because this is how prisoners have to be transported when they're going outside the prison. And because this was a small prison, there was, there's only like two gates for an exit and an entrance. And, finally, I'm all shackled and we're getting ready to have the van come in to pick me up and both of the gates malfunction. Now, I don't know if maybe it was an omen or something, I don't know. But these sort of gates operate electronically and you can't really manually open these gigantic gates.  

But they have these little doors on the side that you can open manually. So now I'm already in shackles and stuff, and the sergeant is saying, "You know, Rocky, your family been calling here all day, and the chaplain been calling all day," and finally he just walks me. And he holds my arm and I'm walking like this all the way to the front gate. And he walks me through a little short part of the facility. And then you have to go through the gates and finally when I get to the front gate, and, I get in the van and he's telling me, "Rocky, with everybody that done call here today for you, you might not get where you're going, but you have got to get out of here today." So, I kind of have butterflies in my stomach for the trip and. 

My mom didn't actually know who I was until I was like standing up over her and she screamed and she cried and she looked over because they had removed the shackles that were on my arm but I still had the leg irons on, and I was like, "Mom, you know, don't worry about it, they're just little bracelets that they put on your legs." And I kind of sat down and slid my feet under the bed. And I talked to her and I told her I loved her. I did her nails and stuff, and I was thinking in my head and stuff. You know, I really wanted to say goodbye to her, I wanted to utilize that time, but how do you say goodbye to your mother in ninety minutes? Now ninety minutes is longer than most people usually get, usually you only get about twenty minutes. So, I was thinking that I had been given a gift but it still was bittersweet because you just can't say goodbye that long. It just wasn't enough for me and when I went back, I just left with the feeling like I was never going to see her alive again.  

So about two weeks later, again to the day, they called me over the loudspeaker again and I had to report to the chaplain's office. And I found out that they had rushed my mom to the hospital. And, you know, this is what would be the last week of, of her life and she was asking for me and I knew I had to come up with something. I knew it wouldn't be a visit, because they wasn't going to be that nice. So, I just thought of everything that I would have wanted to say if I had the opportunity. We never have the opportunity to say everything, so I went back to my cell and I wrote it all down. And we had a tape recorder at my job and I went back the next morning and I made a tape of everything that I wanted to say. And it was in essence saying goodbye. You know, that she could go now, that I would be OK and things like that. And then when the chaplain came in she asked me, "Rocky, is there anything I can do?" 

And I said, "Yes. Please take this tape to my mother." And I was willing to give up my Walkman and she said no and she was supposed to go the next day. She was supposed to be there at one o'clock, but something was wrong with the car, something was wrong with her husband, something was wrong with the dog and something was just wrong with everything. And finally, she had gotten there about six hours later, about seven o'clock and they let her go in. And she put the headphones on my mom's ears because you know she was relatively incoherent so she didn't realize that there was actually something on her ears. And she presses play and she hears, my mother must hear my voice and the nurses start running in 'cause the machines start going crazy. Here come the doctors and they want to know if anything is wrong and she just kind of stops them and says she thinks her daughter is here. And you know, that was just a gift that I was able to give to her now.  

The next day at 5:30 I get another call to go to the lieutenant's office. And I go downstairs in this building and there's nobody in the hallway and I'm looking like, ''This is incredible,'' and I'm walking and it feels like "The Green Mile" because I know when I get to the end of the corridor this man is going to tell me that my mother had died. And that's exactly what happened then. I had done twelve and a half years by then and nothing, nothing could compare to the hurt and pain that I felt that day.  

Well, so now I know that I have two and a half years left to my parole board. I go to my parole board and they deny me. And I'm like, ''OK.'' And together with a typewriter and the jailhouse lawyers' manual and the support of my best friend right here in the world, Denise, I'm telling you, I went back to the board. I fought, and they denied me again. And then I went back to the board and I had the paper in my hand for like twenty minutes before I realized that they were letting me go home.  

And, you know, by then I had done seventeen years and it never broke me. But the period of time of watching my mother be sick and losing her, that broke me. And my yearn for freedom just was propelled by my need to walk out the gate that Monday morning that I left a little over a year ago, and just to be able to look up and say, "Damn, I really, I really made it, I finally made it."