Prison Narratives: ‘Hard Childhood’ by Seriehel Belton

VOX Press‘ book, Prison Narratives, features personal stories written by prisoners at Parchman Farm. Here is the first story from the book by Serihel Bolton. The book can be bought here.

Seriehel Belton was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi on December 27, 1978. He grew up in extreme poverty in the rural countryside of south Mississippi. He dropped out of school in the 6th grade. He is currently serving a thirty year sentence for cocaine distribution.

Hard Childhood

I’d grown accustomed to the hardships that life sent my way in my young life. The only thing that ever seemed to change, were the days of the week and the dates on the calendar, but even with those changes the hardships never seemed to relent.

With the summer of ’86 finely tuned and strongly in effect, our small family would always hope for better days. All the while, we wondered in our hearts if it was even possible for us to have a better life. Being that it was summer and school was out, my mother still worked at the local convalescence home. She faced the same daily struggles that she had long before.

My sister would always stay at our grandmother’s house, being that she was the only girl and the youngest of the family. My grandmother’s house was the ideal place for her to be. All of us wished that our living conditions could be, and someday would be, like hers.Her house was a cozy, average sized house made of brick. It was located close to the center of town and in a
nice, quiet neighborhood with friendly neighbors and beautifully landscaped lawns.

We’d usually visit grandmother’s house on various weekends, and it was always a highlight for us. We knew we’d have a breakfast served to us promptly in the morning. That was definitely not the norm for us.Before we ate breakfast our grandmother tell us to go wash our hands. We’d come to the table to say Grace, and our plates would be there already. She would fill each one equally with bacon and eggs, biscuits and jelly, and a helping of oatmeal to round it off.

It was almost unbelievable how excited we were at even the thought of such a good meal. We’d quickly empty our plates and ask for more, which would send Grandma back to the kitchen where she’d be scraping and raking the boilers, pots and pans until everything was completely gone. Sometimes she’d say that we ate like starved horses, but little did she know how close to the
truth she was. We wouldn’t get a good, hot meal like that again until our next visit to her house, and we were starved.

After breakfast we’d watch the newest cartoons that came on her cable T.V., which was another plus for visiting Grandma’s house. At our house we only had the basic channels with no cable. Our old box television set would fry so hard until we’d have to wrestle with the station endlessly, trying to get the picture to show. Without that, most of the time we could hear the T.V.
show, but we couldn’t see it. By the time we got it to clear up a little, the show would be off, or close to being off. Grandma’s house had an abundance of luxuries for us to be excited about.

After the cartoons were over, we’d be let out to play. Grandma would say, “Stay in the yard and stay away from that road!” We’d play kick-ball with the neighbors’ kids, and then we’d foot-race a lot, but those kids didn’t like playing with us, because they said that we’d play too rough with them. We’d play endlessly, despite the sweltering summer heat which never bothered us much, but to our grandma it was a constant concern. She would check on us as we played in the yard, always reminding us not to get too hot. We’d respond to her concerns by saying, “Yes ma’am, we’re okay.” Her pleas went in one ear and out the other immediately, and our playing would continue until we’d take a break for water. We knew that she’d have several pitchers of different flavors of Kool-Aid waiting for us to drink.

To me and my two brothers, this was how the children on T.V. lived. We weren’t use to anything like this at home. Back there at our shack we hardly had running water, much less anything like Kool-Aid to drink. After our break, we’d get right back to our play.We weren’t use to playing with real toys and up-to-date gadgets. All our toys were home-made from sticks, bricks, rocks, and old bicycle rims and parts.

Our grandma would then call us in for lunch, which at her house was always ready at 12 p.m. sharp. She’d call us in and instruct us in the same routine of washing our hands before coming to the table to say Grace before we ate. That was never a problem for us, because we were so excited to receive another hot, full-course meal. After supper we’d go back outside to sit on the front porch, watching the cars drive by. Back home, we lived so far out in the woods we didn’t see any cars at all. We didn’t have a car of our own, so watching them go by grandma’s house was quite amusing for a small family that didn’t have anything.

We were happy to get a good warm bath without having to heat the water on the stove in pots and pans, and then tote them to the bathroom. That was our daily routine at home. Clean clothes were another luxury.Grandma’s house was surely the closest thing to Heaven for us. Nothing was better than being with her at her house.

It was late afternoon when we all had a bath. After that, we’d no longer be allowed outside, under no- circumstances. Dinner would be on the horizon and served exactly at 5 p.m. We knew the routine- wash our hands and say Grace.My brothers and I knew that dinner was the sign that our day in paradise was almost over. Shortly we’d be back in the dreadful clutches of what we called home.As time rolled by, my brothers and I would know soon that our mother would be arriving from work with my aunt or whoever else would be able to give her a ride. Most of the time it would be my aunt, who drove her to grandma’s house to pick us up. Grandma would go to the door when she pulled up, calling out, “Ya’ll mom done made it to pick ya’ll up.” Our hearts would sink from the thought of what was to come. Back we’d go to the old and cold dim shack that was our home.

We’d file out the front door, faces sad and heads hung low, hugging Grandma good bye. We’d pile into my aunt’s car where she and my mom would be waiting for us. We’d sit in the back of my aunt’s 1986 steel-gray Taurus. My aunt would make us all put on our seatbelts. Of course we weren’t use to riding in a nice vehicle, much less fastening our seatbelts. That was something
that people did on T.V. and in the movies. We had never owned a car.

We’d all wave bye to Grandma as we drove away, and we would continue to wave until we couldn’t see her anymore. Our aunt’s new car would quickly move to the nearest intersection, and we’d all become silent as we gradually left the city and headed toward the rural county of Hazelhurst. Soon we’d be turning down a rocky road that led to our rock-filled drive way. We knew we were surely at home as we came closer and closer to our beat-up and color-faded shack. Finally we came to a stop before it.

“We’re here,” said my older brother, Russell. My mother got out first, and we’d all file out of the back seat, one by one, closing the car door behind us. She’d quickly pull away, in a hurry to reach her next destination.

The door to our shack was secured with a string, and my mother had to untie it before we could go inside to our dreadful house. We were welcomed by the pungent and unpleasant odor of old, rotten, wet and mildewed wood that came from the rainwater that entered through the walls and roof. Our adventure to Grandma’s house was over, and we were home again.

It was our routine to scramble and find the kitchen matches, so we could light our kerosene lamps that we used for light. We had three of them, one in the kitchen, one in the front room as you entered the door, and one that we’d rotate from the bathroom to the room that all of us slept in. Because it rained through the walls and windows, we couldn’t use electricity, which we couldn’t afford anyway.

That’s the reason my mother had the electricity turned off, and when we children ask why, she explained to us that she didn’t want any of us to get electrocuted by the morning rain. In some parts of the house, we looked up and could see holes as big as plates from where the roof had sunk in, and we could see gaping holes in the bathroom and kitchen walls.

We’d put cardboard over them as covers, but insects and other critters would somehow find their way through our cardboard barricades. We’d always see big lizards running up the walls, along with the rats, but for us, that was the usual and quite common.For our family, life offered no guarantees and definitely no promises. It was about surviving one day to the next. This way of life had become so common for us that it was the only thing we expected. We figured that if we could simply manage to have enough to eat each day, then that was a good day for us.

My mother received food stamps from the W.I.C. program, which was a government program that gave low income families free cheese, bread, powdered eggs and milk at the beginning of each month, and for us, that was more exciting than Christmas, because we knew at least we’d have something to eat. The food didn’t last for very long, but my mother would teach us not to eat it all in one sitting. However, what she said would often fall on deaf ears. We were so happy to receive the W.I.C. food that we would eat all that we could, and that would make my mother angry sometimes. She didn’t understand that we weren’t use to having that much food. We felt we were starving, and we always hoped and wished for a good meal.

She’d tell us that our food issue had to last us through the month, but we being kids didn’t know the value of anything. All we knew is that we were hungry. We were only use to eating some homemade food that we made for ourselves, like mustard sandwiches, syrup sandwiches, mayonnaise sandwiches, and sometimes just straight bread-on-bread sandwiches. The problem with sandwiches was that the rats would get to the bread and eat holes out of it and the ends off of it, but we couldn’t throw the bread away, because that was all we had. So we’d break off all the parts that the rats ate, and we’d eat the rest.

Our food supply was further challenged by our lack of a refrigerator. When my mother would get her food stamps and go grocery shopping, the meats she bought would be taken to my grandmother’s house to be stored there. Even so, by the middle of the month, everything would be gone and we’d be right back to square one.

The summer of ’86 was ending, and the start of school was approaching, and the thought of what I had to face weighed heavily on my mind. I had not the things I needed—backpack, shoes, clothes, or even a new haircut. I felt that I wouldn’t have many friends, if any at all, so I focused on what I’d do. I really wanted to find a way to quit school, because I didn’t have what I needed to fit in, and I knew that the other kids would make fun of me and talk about me. My shoes were old and busted around the sides. My clothes were ill-fitting, and anyone could see that they were hand-me-downs, which they were.

The only reason that I did want to go to school was that I knew I’d get a chance to eat a good lunch and breakfast, but with all the kids making fun of me, and talking about me, I didn’t know if it would be worth it. The food was the only thing about school that was appealing to me, and it’s sad to me that I could only think about having a good meal. But that’s exactly how it was in 1986 for me and my family.

Story courtesy of Louis Bourgeois, VOX Press