concreteechoes

[concreteechoes]

The Deuces

The Deuces

Pavlov was really onto something. The brain is a creature of habit, an obedient machine trained by repetition, responding without question, without hesitation. In prison, conditioning is survival.

Here, they call them "Deuces." I don’t know where the term comes from, and honestly, I don’t care. All I know is that when an officer hits that body alarm—when the wail of panic cuts through the stagnant air—every single person in here reacts.

It doesn’t matter why it goes off. A fight. A stabbing. A body seizing up from too much fentanyl. It could be anything. But the moment the deuces hit, the energy shifts. A current of tension snaps through the block, invisible but undeniable, like the second before a lightning strike.

First, the body reacts. Get down. Get back. Move. No one has to tell us; we already know. We’ve done it a thousand times. It’s muscle memory now—like dogs salivating at the sound of a bell. We drop, we freeze, we wait. Some guys mutter curses under their breath. Others just close their eyes, already resigned. Because we know what’s coming.

Then, the real hit—the one inside your head.

See, prison is about rhythm. The mind clings to patterns, desperate for predictability. Wake up. Count time. Chow. Rec. Count time again. Maybe a letter from the outside. Maybe not. But it's something. A framework to hold onto, to keep from spiraling into the abyss of too much nothing.

Then the deuces go off, and it all crumbles.

That sound isn’t just noise; it’s a fucking omen. It means lockdown. It means hours—maybe days—trapped in a cell no bigger than a gas station bathroom, the walls creeping in, your own thoughts turning against you. It means silence thick enough to choke on, except for the occasional screams echoing down the tier, someone banging on a door, the guards stomping past, their radios crackling with bad news.

The first 48 hours are the worst. That’s when your brain fights back, still reaching for a routine that no longer exists. You feel it in your gut, that hollow, twisting thing that makes you want to scream or punch the walls just to remind yourself you’re real.

The deuces do that.

They shatter whatever fragile sense of normal you’ve managed to build in this place.

They make sure you never get comfortable.

For people on the outside, a phone ringing at 2:45 a.m. is dread. It’s bad news before you even pick up. A movie soundtrack builds tension with a low, crawling hum before the killer strikes. That’s the deuces for us. But worse. So much worse.

Even now, as I sit here, writing this, my ears are tuned to the air, waiting. Always waiting. The tension never leaves. It’s like a water balloon swelling under a faucet—expanding, stretching, until it just can't hold anymore. That split second before it bursts? That’s what it feels like.

Every second of every day.

Waiting for the deuces.

[concreteechoes]

THE ROPE SWING

THE ROPE SWING

I'm dead.

I don't know how long I've been dead, because time is different in the afterlife. The first time I found my way back to see my family, years passed, but the second time only a few months went by. The feeling was exactly the same to me though, like I said, time is different. Right now, as I work my way back to check on the people I miss, I have zero idea how long I've been dead for.

I am dead nevertheless. This is how.

Dying at 13 wasn't the way I thought it would end when I enjoyed a summer day down by the lazy river that wove around our small town, but unfortunately it happened just like that. We don't get to pick the day and time, all we can do is enjoy the days and moments as they come, until they come no longer.

My friends and I rode our bikes to the river at the edge of town almost everyday during our summer break from school. No rain equals river. That day the sun hung high in the summer sky so the three of us followed the trail that began at the conclusion of a dead-end road, to a spot along the river with a rope swing attached to an overhanging tree branch. The rope swung between two cliff edges and out over the brown river water.

That spot is exactly where I spent the last hours of my life.

The day cruised by, as all my days off of school did, and as we prepared to leave the river for the day, curiosity set in and we wondered if all three of us could fit on the rope at the same time for one final swing of the day.

We decided we could. We decided it would be fun. We decided to try.

I grabbed the rope, wrapped it around my left arm, and my right leg to secure myself, allowing my friends to hold on. I leaned back, shoved off with my left foot, and off we went.

Little did I know at the time that I only had minutes to live.

Our speed picked up as gravity took over, and we arced way out over the riverbank to the top of the swing. To the release point. My friends let go and floated away from me, seemingly suspended in the air for a moment before falling to the water below laughing and giggling. Their eyes big as cue balls on a pool table as they, ever so briefly, paused in mid-air like someone stopped the tape before starting it back up again on fast forward.

I was smiling ear to ear and laughing with my head tilted back as the pendulum began its swing back. Momentum regained its footing and shot me back to my starting point.

I let go. Nothing happened. I felt confusion first. Then pain. In that order. My left arm was caught in the rope.

After I let go, my fall exerted enough pressure that the rope never unraveled, but instead tightened around my forearm and bicep. Getting slightly offline on my way back, as I struggled to break free of the vice grip on my arm, I headed directly at the rocky outcropping of the cliff.

Not good. Again my speed picked up. Extra-not good.

Panic set in as I swung my way toward what would be my last few moments of consciousness. I fought to free the rope from my arm, but no luck, my body weight pulled down with more pressure than I was able to relieve. I went crashing into the unforgiving rocks.

Rocks are undefeated versus humans.

Having been knocked unconscious by the impact, my passing was peaceful. I have no memory of it. There was only the impact. Then nothing. Only the end.

That is where I am now, at the end, or maybe it's the beginning. Maybe it's neither, or both. Those reading this will want to know about the afterlife. Is Heaven real? Is Hell? What about God? Satan? Purgatory? Virgins? Cherubs? Are we all just energy moving from existence to existence? Do our lives have meaning?

The answer to all of those questions is YES. And NO. If you believe then it's real to you, right? Isn't that enough?

The truth is that I don't have the truth, or maybe I can't comprehend it, maybe you can't either, maybe no one can. All I do have is my story. Now you have it too.

[concreteechoes]

To the gentleman sitting on the corner

back down lost and found running both feet off the ground running game living off your insane dirty dealin in the alley where youre coppin someones misery feeling your selfish contempt i sensed the vacuum of your values as they wipe out your being you need a heads up why dont you lay down your low down dealin heads up tough lovin smackdown is what youre needin youre readin it correct you need a heads up

[concreteechoes]

rabble.

Worn from use, abuse. The bookbindings of society. Tattered and torn, the once loved now exist as the overlooked. The unwanted.

Cross the street or step over an outstretched stiff leg. Lost souls with lost soles. Both shoes and man. The undesirable.

Car doors locked, windows up. Button mashin’ the radio. Stare straight ahead. Pretend. Ignore it. Ignorance.

[concreteechoes]

Drift

Drifting off to sleep, skin to skin, left

leg over left leg, an arm draped across

my chest

Our breathing navigates the space twixt

consciousness and un, I sleep

knowingly

Sometime after the calendar flip, you

drift to the left coast, twelve inches

equals 3000 miles, long distance

relationship

Wake

Roll

Reach

I am the tablespoon, the outer nesting doll

Back to sleep

knowingly

[concreteechoes]

We DESERVE to struggle

As was snail mailed to me from Chris.

[concreteechoes]

to the gentleman sitting on the corner

back down lost and found running both feet off the ground running game living off your insane dirty dealin in the alley where youre coppin someones misery feeling your selfish contempt i sensed the vacuum of your values as they wipe out your being you need a heads up why dont you lay down your low down dealin heads up tough lovin smackdown is what youre needin youre readin it correct you need a heads up

[concreteechoes]

We Are the Chairs

The dayroom in the prison unit fills with chairs every morning after the doors unlock.

Click…click…click

The block is so quiet at 6am that you can hear the first cell unlock from over 30 yards away. once the doors are open guys head downstairs to place “their” chairs in “their” spots on the floor.

Personalizing the chairs is a bit of a prison pastime.

Anything to ensure other inmates recognize it as “yours”

In a place that works hard to strip you of your individuality, personalizing your chairs and having a consistent place to put it gives you a small slice of identity.

We are just like the chairs. Dented, broken, scratched, beat-up. We are as internally deformed as the chairs are externally. We love our chairs. They are an extension of us.

We take time and effort taping socks to the four legs, making sure the chairs don’t make noise when we move them. Affixing pictures to the backs, and putting blankets in the seats. Anything to create an illusion of creature comforts for ourselves.

The knicks and scratches remind me of my own regrets and bad decisions.

Sometimes I wonder who else sat in this chair before me. What were their regrets.

How many other recalcitrants sat in this very spot, watching this very same TV to drown out the noise of their own guilty conscience.

I didn’t own this chair first. I won’t own it last. But right now. Today. This chair and the small square of off-white industrial tile that I place it on belong to me.