My First Year in Prison - Chapter 22 (Patreon)

Chapter 22: The testimony

“Inmate 328, Tyler Braxton, please come take the stand.”

I was nervous, my armpits were sweating. I did not know the room would be so full of people. Some journalists, some other inmates who were supposed to testify after me or who have just testified, like Ralph, and some closed-ones, families.

Austin, Ryan and Janice were there.

An old black man was leading the session. He was not a judge but an auditor. At least, that was what I understood. Because it was not a trial but a public hearing, I did not have a lawyer, we were all testifying as witnesses. The prison was represented though, a fierce woman, in her forties, wearing a fancy grey woman-suit and very high heels. Her name was Jenny Kooper, with a K. Later on, I learned that she became a hot-shot lawyer for a big pharmaceutical group.

A real bitch, if you want my opinion.

Every time an inmate would budge from the official version (a terrible series of events only caused by a lunatic convict), she would come at him aggressively, disqualifying his testimony or bringing evidence to show that Kim was mentally unstable. The warden was sitting next to her, his right leg shaking under the table, showing obvious signs of stress.

I cannot count the instances where that evil woman repeated: “What happened on December 12th was an awful but unexpected tragedy and only the prison’s smooth action had allowed to avoid more casualties.”

Every time I wanted to scream at her. The prison’s smooth action! Who was she kidding? Apparently, enough people…

Anyway, I stood up and walked to the stand. I still had no idea of what I was going to say. I had woken up in Kurtis’ arms that day. We were both naked but we did not have sex. Our relationship had passed that point, we could spend time with each other without fucking.

I think that he loved me. I was still reluctant to commit to anything. I was not sure where my heart was at and I did not want to make any empty promises. But apparently, Kurtis did not need them. He was patient and was semi-expected for me to forget him once I would be out.

There were less than two weeks left before my release.

“Mister Braxton, do you understand that anything you will say on this stand will be said under oath and any lie or misconstruction of the truth might lead to prosecution?” The severe auditor asked me.

I swallowed my saliva. I glanced at Ryan and Austin, they seemed worried. They were both wearing a suit, quite unusual for them. They looked sharp though.

“I do, Sir.”

“Mister Braxton, can you confirm you were present in the cafeteria on December 12thduring lunch time?” It was a short woman, sitting at the right of the main auditor who was speaking. She was conducting most of the interviews for Ralph and the other inmates who had talked before me.

Ralph’s interview had been short. He pretended that the trauma had made him forget about everything from that day. He confirmed that, as shown on the surveillance video, a fight between the inmates broke down and one of convicts took a gun from a guard before shooting. There was not much else to say.

“Busty Girl”, his girlfriend, was in the room, wearing an impressive cleavage. You can say what you want about that woman, but she was dedicated to be herself, no matter how dire the circumstances were!

From where I was now sitting, I saw another woman. She was more discreet, she looked almost afraid. My heart skipped a bit. Mindy was there, still wearing her wedding ring. Her eyes were teary but she was not crying.

“Mister Braxton?” The short woman repeated.

“Sorry. I… Yes, I confirm that I was there in the cafeteria. I… We were coming back from Xander’s wedding ceremony.”

“You are referring to Xander Dantons, one of the victims, right?”

“Right, madam.”

Mindy looked at me. Damn, that was difficult to do this with her staring at me.

“You were assisting to the wedding ceremony. I imagine you and Inmate Dantons were close?”

My voice was shaking a little when I answered:

“We were. He was my cellmate and…” I looked at Ralph. “We had become friends. Xander was a great person.”

“He was still convicted of a serious crime and sentenced to prison.” The woman representing the prison’s interests, Jenny Kooper, said.

I thought her remark was misplaced but I did not say anything. I did not even know whether I was allowed to speak or not.

“Mister Braxton, the argument in the cafeteria seemed to originate from Mister Ray Kennedy’s comments towards Mister Will Torres. What was it about?”

That was exactly the kind of questions that Ralph eluded, claiming not to know or not to remember anything.

“I think that Ray was angry that some of the inmates might have brought drugs inside the facility. He thought that Will had proposed some to his son, Trevor.” I answered, trying to hide my nervousness.

“Right.” The auditor commented. He knew all of that already.

“Several inmates started to argue, you were one of them. Why?” The short woman asked.

“It is hard to say… The atmosphere got heated.” I looked at the warden, he was smiling at me. Asshole.

I thought it was maybe the right time to say that the guards were refusing to take action, causing the tension to escalate. I can still see the bald face of Falcon standing by, letting things unfold before his eyes to not confront Romano and his crew.

I was not that brave though, at least, not yet. Austin, Ryan, Kurtis, Ralph, all of them had advised me not to make waves, not to compromise my own freedom.

The interview kept on going. I refrained myself from any out-of-the-box comment until one tense exchange with Jenny Kooper shifted the whole course of the day.

“Among those who started fighting afterwards, we can find all of the inmates who ended up dead. Romano, Dantons…”

She started listing people but I cut her off:

“Xander Dantons did not take part in any fight.”

“Mister Braxton, we have the footage.” She claimed.

“So, you know that he was trying to calm things down! Precisely, he was trying to stop the fight from happening!”

We heard a sob in the room. Shit. It was Mindy, but she was smiling at me. I was probably the first one to put my neck up, even just a little, to stand up for Xander. It was barely nothing really, but I could see that it had moved her.

An old man who looked just like her, probably her dad, was helping her standing up to leave the room. I could see that he was trying to convince her to go outside. She seemed very affected by what was going on.

That was when I noticed it. Or maybe she purposely showed it to me. I am not sure. All I know is that she was carrying a very clear baby bump, she must have been around four or five months pregnant.

It was like my world was suddenly turned upside down. Mindy eventually sat back down but everything had changed. The whole room was looking at her, now. The pregnant widow.

Everything clicked in my brain. That was the news that Xander wanted to tell us when we got back to the cafeteria, right before the shooting. That was the news she must have whispered to him after they had exchanged their vows. Mindy was already expecting Xander’s baby when they got married.

“Mister Braxton, that will be all.” The main auditor said.

What? Already? The auditor seemed in a hurry. A dozen of inmates were supposed to testify that day. But I was not finished! Nothing had been dealt with!

“I have some more things I wanted to share.” I said, surprising even myself.

I glanced at Ryan and saw a look on his face which was saying: “What the fuck are you doing?” Hell, I was doing what was right. Austin did not seem so surprised, he even imperceptibly nodded at me.

“Things to share related to the event of December 12th?” The short woman asked.

“Yes.” I marked a short pause, thinking of where I wanted to go with this. “I mean, I consider that the information I have to share are intrinsically related to the event of December 12th.”

The warden was no longer smiling. At least, I had won that.

“Please, do tell.” The auditor said, slightly annoyed and looking at his watch.

The journalists seemed quite bored so far, barely filming or taking notes, but their interest was piqued now. Jenny Kooper, with her stupid K, was scrambling, going through her numerous files on her desk. She was looking for mine, no doubt.

“I do not think the prison system and the guards inside the facility have done everything in their power to avoid this mass shooting from occurring.” I stated.

A complete silence ensued. The auditor scanned me and said calmly:

“Please, elaborate.”

“For starters, Kim used a gun who was belonging to a guard. A young guard who I believe, should not have been authorized to wear a gun inside the facility.”

Kooper made a weird noise, between a laugh and a gasp.

“Inmate 328.” She said, cutting me off. “You do realize that the gun carried by Guard Foster had been approved and is fully up to California’s state prison rules. Guard Foster had received a comprehensive training and was perfectly authorized to hold this weapon. Every safety measure had been followed, all done by the book. I do not really see how the opinion of an inmate would matter here.”

“Maybe because I almost died that day! Because of that gun! And seven other people did lose their lives!” I snapped back.

Kooper was about to respond but the auditor talked first.

“Miss Kooper, we will let you comment and interrogate Mister Braxton in time. I would like to hear a bit more from him first.”

“Of course, Sir.” She said, while sitting back down.

The warden whispered something in her ear as she was still going through her files.

I jumped on the opportunity to speak up:

“The gun is only one thing! The guards purposely let the fight escalate!”

“Why would they do such a thing?” A man at the left of the auditor asked, he had not spoken until now.

Fuck. Explaining this was the big part. The one that could really get me in trouble. I looked at Mindy. Only at her. I had to speak up.

“Guard Falcon and Warden Deen are notoriously involved in Romano’s traffics and drug deals, they had let him run the prison. They covered him up, and let him harass, fight, threaten, and rape other inmates, in particular, Kim. He snapped that day after months of being raped almost daily by Romano.”

There was an audible gasp in the room. I got chills. What had I done? I heard some clicking. The journalists and their cameras. Now, I got everyone’s attention.

“Those are very serious accusations, Mister Braxton.” The auditor said, concerned.

“Outrageous!” The warden yelled. “Baseless allegations from a deranged inmate! What the hell is this? How can we let those people spill their lies on such a platform?”

Jenny Kooper made him a sign to calm down. She intervened:

“Maybe we could ask Mister Braxton his evidence regarding the warden’s involvement in Mister Romano’s drug deals. All I heard was this was (she made quotation marks with her fingers) notorious… I’m curious how.”

Shit. The evidence. Of course, I got none.

“I….”

“Or were those just hear-says?” Kooper asked me, getting closer to the stand. She was legitimately scary.

“Everybody knew it in the prison…”

She nodded her head in a smirk. She had made her point.

“Well… Talk about undeniable evidence! Everybody knew it! That’s convenient. And yet, you’re the only one to mention this.”

Some of the people in the audience laughed.

The short woman intervened in a more neutral tone:

“Mister Braxton, do you have any concrete examples of what you are stating here? How did you get this information about Guard, who was it, Falcon? And the warden being involved with the illegal activities of some of the inmates?”

I felt so stupid at that point. I looked at Ryan and Austin again, and I should not have, they both seemed mortified. Janice was biting her nails.

“I don’t have any actual evidence, that’s true. There was no way for me to check if what I have been told by other inmates was real but...”

Jenny Kooper clapped her hands and was smiling now. She cut me off again:

“And that was it for Mister Braxton’s show! Can we move on before that poor boy commits perjury and lengthens his sentence for a couple more years? Really, this is in his best interest to shut up.”

“Listen, I don’t know what the warden was up to outside of the prison, right, but I knew what he was doing inside! And I saw, first hand, that he was treating Romano, but also some other inmates, differently.”

“Mister Braxton, if you do not have any concrete example of what you are saying, please, do not make us waste our time.” The auditor said in a sigh.

“I have examples!”

“Who were those inmates treated differently, then. In what way?”

“Me!” I yelled, totally losing my nerves.

“Are you here to complain because the prison administration was not nice enough with you, Inmate?” Kooper asked sarcastically.

“Not at all. I’m not saying he has treated me worse than the others. I’m saying I have been treated differently. Actually…” I took a deep breath and waited for more silence in the room. “I was treated better than other inmates because I let him fuck me.”

Another loud gasp, and at this point, the clicking of the cameras were unstoppable. People started to shout in the court room and the auditors’ faces had shifted. That would definitely be a moment they would remember in their career: an inmate was claiming that he had been fucked by the warden, sitting a few feet away from them.

I saw Janice in the crowd, she looked like she had been hit by the car, and trust me, I know what it does to be hit by a car!

“This is unacceptable!” The warden barked, out of himself.

The auditor stood up to obtain silence. My heart was racing so fast, I thought that it was going to jump out of my chest. I could not believe that I was actually doing it, but there was no going back now. My hands were heavily shaking.

After a few minutes of chaos and only once the calm had returned, the auditor asked:

“Are you stating, under oath, that you had sex with the warden Deen, inmate?”

“I am.”

Fuck. Did I just take ten more years of prison?

“How did that happen?”

“I was called into his office and… Well, I was escorted to his office by Guard Falcon, and then, the warden asked me to perform a fellatio on him.”

“Just like that?” The short woman said, astonished. The warden was fully red and mumbling insults under his beard.

“I mean, first, he asked me to suck on his feet but then…”

“I am formally asking to stop this interrogation immediately.” Kooper barked, walking to the auditors. “This is recorded live! Journalists are here, we cannot let this man spread abject lies and remain silent. Inmate 328 has evidently a vendetta against warden Deen but this is not the object of the hearing! Besides, we have numerous reasons to believe this man is a pathological liar.”

The main auditor looked at his colleagues.

“It is true that this hearing is not related to this. Mister Braxton, I suggest you lodge an official complaint if you want to press charges against the warden Deen, otherwise, I am not too sure how this relates to the event of December 12th.”

“I… I don’t want to press charges; I just want to say the truth. The prison was not treating the inmates fairly. Some were refused early release because they refused this sick blackmail… I…”

Under the pressure, I lost my words.

“If Mister Braxton insists on talking, let’s talk. Inmate 328, can you tell us the reason you got arrested?” Kooper asked.

She was back to being her collected self, and it was even more terrifying.

“I don’t see what this has to do with anything…” I replied.

“Just answer the question, Mister Braxton.”

“Embezzlement, and drug trafficking.”

I said, still ashamed of myself.

“But you were not only sentenced to prison, if my information is correct, you also lost your licence to practice? You were a therapist, right?”

“I was.”

“Could you tell us about the reasons you lost your license? And let me remind you once again, you are under oath.”

I looked at Ryan, defeated.

“I had sex with one of my patients.” I said, on the verge of breaking down.

“That’s right. You are gay, correct?”

“I am.”

“And you are claiming that the warden has made you participate in sexual acts, inside the prison.”

“I’m not claiming anything, that’s true.”

“So, your official testimony is that you only had sex with the warden in prison, because he forced you to.”

I hesitated. Was I forced? Was he the only one? I took too long to andwer. She had me:

“Sir, have you had sex with another person while you were locked up in the facility?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. She knew.

“I…”

“Just answer the question, Mister Braxton.”

“I did.”

The floor was disappearing under my feet. From this point on, I knew that I had lost any ounce of credibility I may have had entering this room. I was the guy who got convicted for having sex with his patient, who was fucking inmates in prison and who was now claiming the warden had also had sex with him…

“Mister Braxton, we have dozens of surveillance footage showing you sharing rather intimate moments with Inmate Kurtis Jensen. Are you denying this?”

I looked towards Austin. I should not have. He looked disgusted.

“I do not deny this. I have started a relationship with him.”

“Knowing this is against the regulations and rules of the prison?”

“Yes…”

And right there, maybe two more years were added to my sentence. She was breaking me.

“But that’s not it. Kurtis Jensen is not the only one Mister Braxton had sex with right inside the prison. The list is long, starting with Will Torres… Tyler Braxton here is actually the reason there was even a fight in the cafeteria that day! It was not about the drugs. Ray Kennedy was blaming him for having sex with a member of the opposite gang!”

The whole room was staring at me. I was shaking, sweating. Maybe I was about to faint, at least, it I lost consciousness, this would stop!

“No…”

“You did not have sex with Will Torres?”

“I did but this is not why…”

“If you want to know what type of character Tyler Braxton really is, just check Google! Pretty simple. Nine years ago, the same man who slept with his own patient, who had sex with other inmates while he was locked up, and who is now claiming, without the beginning of an evidence, that everyone in the prison has asked sexual favours from him… That same man had sex with his Law professor and even shared pictures of his prowess online!”

“You cannot say that!” Austin shouted. “That’s not fair!”

Oh God, Austin was crying. He was fuming and started to run towards Kooper.

“No!” I begged him.

He was out of himself and was only stopped by a policeman. Since the shooting, this kind of scenes were giving me anxiety attacks. Austin had to be taken away from the court. I was feeling worse than ever.

“Mister Braxton, allow me to give you a piece of advice. Before putting ridiculous allegations in the air, born in your sick and perverted mind and which will only get you an access straight to life in prison, next time, just think about the consequences.”

What was I trying to prove? What was I trying to say? I was stunned, finished. My whole shameful and perverted life, every worse thing that I have done in the past ten years had been listed for the entire world to listen and I had not made any point, not helped anything. I had tanked myself just like Ralph had warned me it may happen.

I stood up, trembling.

The main auditor tried to talk to me again but I could barely hear him. My mind was a blank. I was having a panic attack. I almost fainted on my bench next to Ralph.

I truly thought my life was over.

I was wrong though.

Because, my dear reader. This story, is one where the good guys won and the bad guys end up in prison!

“Mister Foster, please take the stand.”

The young guard, or rather former guard, walked to sit where I was only a few minutes before. Foster looked at me with his piercing blue eyes. I had not seen him in the room but he was there, the whole time, in a corner. And now, he had decided to speak up.

“Mister Foster, do you understand that anything you will say on this stand will be under oath and any lie or misconstruction of the truth might lead to prosecution?” The auditor asked him.

“I do.”

“Mister Foster, can you confirm you were present in the cafeteria on December 12thduring lunch time?”

“I was. And I have some statements to make.”

“Go ahead.” The auditor said, clearly worried another incident might happen.

“Is it possible for me to make my statement and respond to any question afterwards? I would feel much more comfortable that way.”

Foster had several pieces of paper in his hands which were slightly shaking but his voice was firm, clear.

“Please do, but you have only a few minutes.”

“Thank you, Sir.” He started to read his papers and his voice soothed my anxiety. He did not take only a few minutes, Foster talked for nearly 20 minutes straight.

“I was hired to work in California State Prison a year ago. Quickly, I understood that the methods there had nothing to do with what we were taught in school. (…)

I have witnessed countless of instances where inmates were abused by the staff, and by Guard Falcon and Warden Deen in particular. (…)

My regret is immense for not speaking sooner as my inaction has cost seven lives. Seven human lives. Sure, those people have been convicted and deserved their sentence, but prison should give people a sense of what is wrong and what is right and it only blurs the lines further when the administration encourages corruption, humiliation and all sorts of abuse. (…)

In the strongest terms, I want to say that I fully concur with Tyler Braxton’s testimony. Warden Deen, helped by his right-hand, Guard Falcon, had put a system in place based on unfair treatment, harassment and abuse. (…)

From the moment the inmates are being brought in the facility, the guards are encouraged, I, personally, have been encouraged, to humiliate them. (…)

It starts with the initial check at the arrival in the prison. Falcon quickly told me that it was ok, and that I should, play with the inmates, mock them, humiliate them. When Tyler Braxton got in the prison, he was sexually assaulted as Falcon unnecessarily proceed to finger his anus violently. (…)

Warden Deen had made his policy to refuse to address any recommendation letter for early release for any inmate who would not take his dick in the ass, sorry for my language, Sir, those were his words. (…)”

The auditors wanted concrete examples and evidence: Foster had come prepared. He had dozens of them and as his account continued, the entire audience listened. The warden was crying now. Kooper was dead silent. The journalists were eating this testimony up.

I cried too.

And let me tell you, that was not pretty. It was not the beautiful single tear sliding down my cheek like in one of those movies. I was a full mess.

I cannot remember any other instance in my life where I have cried that much. I was more or less falling from the bench on the Court’s floor, shaking uncontrollably and bawling my eyes out. Ralph had to hold me. Somehow, at one point, Ryan was behind me and was holding me too.

“Everything is gonna be okay, Ty”. Ryan whispered to me. He truly was my comfort zone. My rock. My ally since the moment I was born.

I was feeling so many emotions at the same time, it was difficult to pinpoint what exactly was going on in my brain.

Was it that I had heard, told by someone else, the list of the abuse that I had, as well as most of the inmates, gone through? We had been sexually assaulted, manipulated, humiliated. But maybe, because I had messed up in my life before, in a way, I had let it happen, as if it was ok, as if I deserved it.

I did not. We deserved our sentence, at least most of us did, but not the abuse.

Funny enough, I did not break down as Kooper was confronting me, telling the whole world how untrustworthy I was, how much of a sexual pervert I was, how much of an awful person I was, but I broke down when Foster corrected the lies, when he confirmed my truth. The truth.

The atmosphere in the Court room was impossible to describe at that point. The warden had been escorted out, some other people had come in. The press was hysterical. A boring hearing had turned into a show with all the perfect ingredients: a sex scandal, the downfall of an authority figure, the shocking revelations.

My testimony had been messy, unclear, badly presented but Foster had been perfect with the way he had gone about it. I was immensely grateful that he had managed to say what I could not. Kooper looked defeated. That bitch!

What would happen now? They could not ignore Foster’s testimony. Crying on my brother’s shoulder, I hoped so bad for this afternoon to have an impact, to worth something.

They did not ignore Foster’s testimony, nor mine for that matter.

As hard it was to believe at first, we had effectively turned the tables.

The California Sate conducted an enquiry on the prison’s administration, an actual one. It did not take more than a couple of days to prove everything that I had said was right, and more. The camera footage combined with our testimonies were quite telling. Ralph was heard in private too; he finally said the truth.

Thankfully, that did not prevent him from getting his early release, on the contrary!

Since the day after the hearing, a lawyer had been accompanying us at every step of the way. A great guy, handsome as well! A young hot shot, barely older than me, a black guy, broad shoulders, well dressed, his name was Benjamin Parker. It helped us before he became notorious.

Parker had seen the hearing on the television and had made it his mission to help us, partly because he was genuinely concerned for us, partly because he wanted to make this case his claim to fame. I did not mind his motives as long as I could finally have a competent legal counsel by my side.

He made sure that we would provide useful and relevant testimonies, he encouraged us to specify in detail the different abuse we had been subject to, and he managed to negotiate a deal with the administration’s new top executive. Warden Deen and Guard Falcon were long gone.

For once in my damn life, I had made the right decision. Telling my truth. My affair with my patient or with my professor nine years before were not making the headlines, Deen was making them, and a nation-wide conversation on the prison system was now ongoing.

Sadly, that conversation did not go very far. Fighting for the rights of inmates was still an uphill battle when they were so many other pressing issues to tackle for the “good guys”. But at least, and at our level, we had made a change, Falcon was soon to be convicted and this was in itself a sufficient reason to celebrate.

As planned, I would be released a few days later with Ralph, but a few other inmates which had been refused early release on unfair motives were also authorized to get out. Justice!

Among them, there was a particular inmate I was rooting for. We got the news as were hanging out with Kurtis and Ralph in my cell. Guard Davis, who had survived the purge, came with an official paper in his hand and a huge smile on his face.

“Jensen, I think that’s for you.” He said, handing the piece of paper.

Kurtis read the document and almost immediately broke down in my arms.

“I’m free, Ty.” He simply stated.

I kissed him on the lips. First time we did that in public. It just felt so natural.

“You deserve that, Kurtis.”

“You did that, Ty. You got me out of here.”

I had never felt prouder. We would leave the prison together.

But wait… What did that mean for us? He kissed me again.