Down on Parchman Farm:
Reflecting on My Teenage Prison Sentence

ward williams 

HOT IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. I might have moved up North now but I’ll never forget how we coordinated our efforts to lower the bus windows so each of us could catch a breeze in the stagnant Delta air. It was near the end of our junior year, when the homework began to dry up and a few final exams stood between us and our summer plans. Being the studious type, I was already set for exemption from all of my tests due to my high semester averages. So I had little to worry about on this late spring day when my class, the junior class of Indianola Academy, set off for a tour of our local maximum security prison.

            Back then, what I knew about this particular prison was that it was a menacing structure we had to pass if we were taking the back way to Memphis. I never gave much thought to it. I knew it wasn’t a place anyone on my bus ever thought they’d end up, let alone myself. 

            By the time I was in high school, I had been to numerous zoos; exhibits on Napoleon, the Titanic, and the Palaces of St. Petersburg; Civil War battlegrounds; mansions in Natchez; even once to the Frito Lay factory in Jackson where we got to sample corn chips from the conveyor belt. With a track record like that, why wouldn’t I love field trips? 

This would all change in Parchman, Mississippi.

Located approximately 40 miles north of our school was the Mississippi State Penitentiary in the town of Parchman. “Parchman Farm,” as it was historically called, consisted of 20,000 acres of land which were further broken down into fifteen work camps. This model mimicked pre-Civil War plantation work camps and because it was a prison and not exactly a democracy, this model remained intact even 100 years after the war was over. Not until the 1970s were the black and white inmates integrated and the work camp models disintegrated. This came about after four inmates sued and won in the federal court case Gates v. Collier. The inmates claimed that even in prison being chained to one another and forced to pick cotton for 18 hours each day was a violation of their civil rights. 

            Needless to say, Parchman was not a friendly place. Tales abounded of what happened there. There were horrible accounts from within its gates – beatings and electric chairs and a gas chamber. But being that it was a prison, one couldn’t be sure what was actually true. There were no reporters there to state the facts. Maggie Wade from WLBT in Jackson wasn’t there to say, “T-Bone Thomas claimed he did not indeed shank Mr. Hambone Bennett in the shower in a futile attempt to steal his prison bitch. Mr. Bennett and his bitch were unavailable for comment.” 

            I guess this is the problem with any prison. While one may consider life within the confines of a prison to be anarchy, it isn’t exactly. There is a system to how things work and Parchman was no exception. Parchman had, and still does, a reputation for being essentially the last place on the planet anyone would ever want to end up. Research reveals you may have a worse stay at places like San Quentin, Sing Sing, Rikers Island or Angola in Louisiana, but, in my somewhat limited experience, once you’re in maximum-security prison, many of the distinguishing factors become moot. 

So, there we were: a bus full of 30 white, upper-middle class teenagers set out to tour Parchman. Many of our older siblings had taken the same field trip, as it was once a mandatory one. I remember my sister telling my parents how horrible it was, but those details were hazy and therefore unimportant. It had been eight years since she had taken the trip after all. 

            Weeks prior, our government teacher, a fun lady named Mrs. Baird who was more interested in being our friend than a strict teacher, asked us if we wanted to go. Of course we did. Corn chips from a conveyor belt while wearing a shower cap?  Prison? What could go wrong? 

After getting there and before we were seated, a woman, approximately five feet tall, silenced us with her surprisingly loud trajectory.

            “Do y’all know Shirley Thomas?” she shouted.

            Startled, my entire class stopped and looked at one another.

            “I SAID, do y’all know Shirley Thomas!” she shouted again, this time forcing us to step back into rows of metal folding chairs.

            There was an uncomfortably long pause as she became impatient, “I’m gonna ask you one more time. DO Y’ALL KNOW SHIRLEY THOMAS?!!” she demanded.

            Not knowing what to say, a few of us managed to mumble a, “No Ma’am.” under our breaths.

            “Well, I know Shirley Thomas. And she’s a BITCH.” She lowered her voice and placed a gravely emphasis on the word “bitch” that only a lifetime’s worth of smoking full-flavored Dorals could produce.

            This woman with the frosted white hair let that statement linger for a second. She clearly knew you could command the attention of a room full of 15-year-old kids with profanity.

            Then her lips curled up in each corner and her eyes became small slits as she grinned, satisfied, “I’m Shirley Thomas.” Then she belted out a hearty laugh and gurgled as if she was hearing her own joke for the first time. 

            I can’t speak for the rest of the class, but that was the moment my stomach first churned that day.

            She was dressed, despite the 100-degree temperatures outside, in a blue and red nylon tracksuit featuring the Colonel Reb, the University of Mississippi’s mascot, embroidered on the chest. 

            After her own laughter from her opening performance died down, she looked over us as we sat in silence on our metal folding chairs, wide-eyed and confused at the same time.            

            “Not a lot of people get to come to Parchman. Not a lot of people get to leave.” she proclaimed still being quite theatrical – which at this point, I thought was beginning to come across as a little condescending. 

            “Welcome to Parchman,” she said. Then she went into a rehearsed horror tale of statistics about what a terrible place it was. This wasn’t just prison but the baddest goddamn prison on the planet as far as Shirley Thomas was concerned. Behind these bars sat murderers, rapists, sodomizers, child molesters and Democrats. 

            Through her diatribe she began to describe how one becomes a different person in prison. People are forced to adapt. People are forced to change. Well, yeah, I thought. Then she leaned over and through that same droll smile, she said, “And I mean really change.”

            “You over there! Stand up, boy. What’s your name?” she barked at my friend Ben. 

            Ben stood up, lanky and still awkward from growing a foot in two years. “Ben,” he quietly but calmly responded.

            “Not in here, it ain’t.” she said. “Your name is Regina? Nah. Lucille? Nah, Regina,” she settled. “You’re just the kind of boy they look for over in there,” gesturing to the gates we had yet to even breach. “Tall, slim, quiet. Mmmhmmm. Boy, you wouldn’t last a second.” 

            Everyone, including myself, shifted uncomfortably in our seats. More baffling than her arbitrary choice of female names which were completely unrelated to the name “Ben” was her face as she eyed Ben top to bottom. I began to think Shirley Thomas was actually an inmate herself.

            After Ben took his seat, Shirley wrapped up her little speech. I started to wonder if we had been confused with the appointment after ours with a school for juvenile delinquents. However, as Shirley pointed out, no one was safe, “Just a few drinks of Old Charter or whatever whiskey you kids are drinking these days and if you get behind the wheel of your 4x4 truck and hit and kill someone, I’m gonna be here to welcome you to your new home.”

            We were encouraged by Shirley to look around the room once the talk was over and before the actual foot tour began. She went out of her way to gesture to a glass case in the back corner which held most of the shanks she took up in her time as a guard as well as some really unsettling apparatuses that even an inquisitive student like myself didn’t care to learn anything else about. 

            The room was full of old black and white photographs with captions. Many of the pictures were of chain gangs. There were also a few autographed pictures of different movie stars like Tom Hanks, Gene Hackman, and George Clooney (several movies had been set at Parchman). Once we were finished rifling through the “Welcome Center,” Shirley introduced us to a prison guard who’d take us on the rest of our tour.

            We left the building where we had been sitting with Shirley and walked out onto the prison grounds. The grounds themselves were nice. There were huge pecan trees and old buildings leading up to the main gate. Once through the gate, we could see the prison was comprised of several buildings. At first, I was confused. I didn’t know why some were closer and more secure than others and why others were distant black dots on the horizon. The guard explained: the closer the building to the front gate, the safer it was to outsiders. He then began pointing out different clusters of buildings which sat in birds’ nests of razor wire. They were each under the watchful eyes of four towers. In the watchtowers, we were assured there were snipers who sat there all day waiting to kill an escapee. Our "tour guide" proudly pointed out who was being held in each set of buildings: two serial killers in that one, the school shooter in that one, etc. Despite our rocky start and the gruesome subject matter, it was not unlike walking in a zoo – or one of those drive through safaris. He could have been pointing out rare tropical birds in an aviary.

            Our pleasant walk ended when we were led into a depressing cinder block building painted white. The white, I suppose, was intended to make it airier. This was where we’d have our first encounter with an inmate. His name was “Ace” and he was enormous. We sat at picnic tables in the windowless room accompanied by three prison guards. Ace had quite a long speech prepared. I recall sitting in the sweltering room for what felt like hours. For the first ten minutes of his speech, Ace held a baseball bat by its throat in his right hand. He would gently and rhythmically lift and drop the bat into his left hand as he spoke.  He told us his story – how he ended up in prison. He told us how on his first day, he walked to his cell and other inmates were “hootin’ and hollerin’” at him. And then, lifting the bat above his head with both hands, he slammed it onto the table between my friends Dave and Melanie. The bat narrowly missed both of their elbows which were propped on the table so they could each fan themselves with sheets of paper in the heat. As the sound echoed throughout the tiny room, he looked up wildly, kind of like Jack Nicholson in The Shining and informed us, “That’s when my real fight to stay alive began.”

            Scared out of our minds at the time, I look back and think, “Fight to stay alive” is such a big statement. It could mean anything from a struggle to pay credit card bills or child support to grappling with a shark or a handbag thief. But we didn’t have those points of reference. So, for the next 45 minutes, Ace elucidated by telling us what it meant to stay alive in Parchman. We learned about gangs. We learned about a barter system where a stick of beef jerky could mean you might sleep that night AND wake up the next morning. We learned how inmates on death row daily tossed human waste at guards. We learned all about the biggest event of the year, the prison rodeo. Ace seemed particularly enthusiastic when describing the prison rodeo cheerleaders – a group of 15 or so men who eventually began to believe they were women and stood alongside the bull-riders cheering them on with original chants. They even performed difficult stunts such as triple-tiered pyramids. I was endlessly amused by this and for a moment wanted to ask Ace if we could see them perform but given the way the tour was going, I decided to keep that to myself. Ace went on to explain how the most favorable job in the entire prison was to work in the kitchen of the cafeteria. He vividly explained what little care the kitchen workers exercised when preparing meals for the other inmates – often including surprises ranging anywhere from rodents to press-on acrylic nails, from a cheerleader, I imagined. Finally, Ace explained to us in very graphic detail what it was like to be prison raped. 

            I can’t speak for the rest of my class but after an hour of Ace’s speech, I was feeling weak. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the poop talk, maybe it was the rape, but I was in dire need of air – even if it was the same air dangerous convicted murderers were breathing not very far away.

            Once done in the small cinder-blocked building, Ace left and we were escorted by the guards to the chapel. No one said much. The chapel itself was not air-conditioned and cheaply constructed with wood paneling lining the interior walls and flimsy pews that creaked and bowed under the weight of some of my heavier classmates. 

            Once seated, a smiling man named Darius greeted us. Darius, like Ace, was a “lifer.” He was much smaller than Ace and was happy to report to us that he’d be on such good behavior during his sentence, he was allowed to go wherever he wanted (I presumed as long as it was behind the gate). Through his toothy grin he made some comment about what a piece of work Ace was and that Ace was really just a big ole puppy once you got to know him. He was also happy to report to us that in his stay at Parchman, he had found his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He wanted us to know the Lord put a big smile on his face despite the fact he’d die on Parchman Farm one day, never once walking a step outside of those walls again. He wanted to tell us through song because not only did he find Jesus Christ but, Lord Jesus help us all, the Lord awakened in him a talented gift – the gift of music. And with that, he broke into “Amazing Grace.”

            Darius was off key. My expectations weren’t high so I thought it was kind of endearing. Looking around though, the tour was taking a toll on my classmates. 

            Pale-faced, my friend Dave turned to me in the church and murmured, “I’m going to puke.”

            “Are you serious?” I whispered.

            His cheeks puffed out and I could hear a muffled gag.

            “That saaaaaved aaaa wreeeeetch liiiiiiiiiike MEEEEEEEEEE!” Darius belted through the humid air.

            “Oh no,” I said, realizing he was serious. “Go! Go! There’s a bathroom in the back!”

            Dave covered his mouth with both hands and darted for the back of the room while Darius sang. Dave ran like an inmate trying to escape from a maximum-security prison. Shortly before he got to the main door, he flung open the door to a bathroom. Through the weak insulation, we listened as Dave wretched and heaved through three verses of “Amazing Grace.” Darius proved to not only be tone deaf but perhaps a little deaf in general. He didn’t break stride or pause throughout his performance while Dave threw up loudly in the bathroom. 

            Almost simultaneously, the vomiting and singing stopped. Darius talked some more about Jesus and Dave returned to his seat next to me after having washed his face with cool water. 

            “Do you think anyone could hear me?” he asked.

            I nodded. “Yes. I think they could.”

            A couple of hours after we were admitted, Darius finished his sermon and my classmates and I were released from the maximum-security prison. We were queasy, weak and traumatized. I’ve read that when people experience a highly traumatic event, they develop a sort of camaraderie with one another. That’s the theory behind fraternity pledging and platoons – go through a difficult experience and emerge on the other side of the fence closer, bonded strongly to one another. I imagine this same thing happens to victims of circumstance: a plane crashes and you and 25 others narrowly escape death. Bam. Friends for life. This seemed to be a combination of both theories as we all nearly hugged one another at the mere thought of returning home.

            When we emerged from the gate, there was Shirley Thomas, smiling. What a bitch. 

            “How’d you like that?” she said, grinning.

            No one said anything. We stood with our arms crossed. Dave sat on a bench in the shade near a tree. 

            “What do you say we get some food?” she offered up proudly. “We have some prisoners here at the Farm who really know how to cook – that is – once they gain our trust.”

            Shirley led us into an old narrow train station that had been converted to a museum and gift shop. Inside, there was air-conditioning and a short order grill. We got a complimentary meal with our tour. Today, “Sloppy Joes” were on the menu. They were served on plastic yellow trays with partitions to prevent the beans from touching the bun so it wouldn’t get soggy. No one ate. I moved my beans around with a spoon in curiosity – secretly hoping to find a cheerleader’s nail.

            Shortly after, Shirley waved goodbye to us as we boarded the bus back to school, a place we all dearly missed. 

            “I hope I don’t ever see y’all here again!!” she said, pleased with her cleverness, as we drove away.

            A few of us lifted a hand to wave back. The bus turned right onto the highway which was lined with signs that read, “No stopping. Federal Penitentiary. Law Enforced.” As if on cue, Dave vomited again – all over the seat in front of him and Layne Spivey, our reigning valedictorian, who was seated next to him.

            She gasped and craned her neck upward and we all sat in uncomfortable silence.

            Dave looked down, embarrassed, then at Layne and muttered, “My bad.”

            From there, we continued 40 miles down the road in the heat, windows down to air out of the smell of vomit. We were on our way back to school. And we all hoped our next field trip would involve potato chips and a conveyor belt.