A story without details.

In 1998 Deathrow was moved from Ellis Unit.

In 1997, March, my partner through 4 years laid his clogs aside after a dramatic 30 years of life and a very undramatic demise. Heart attack in his sleep. He never woke up again.

Next month my Dad told me he had terminal cancer and wouldn’t live the summer over. Instead of staying by his side I fled. It was all too much for me.

Sunday I went into town and emptied all the cash machines for all I possibly could. Way over the limit of what was on my card. It was possible then. Huge overdraft. The next morning I went to a Travel agent and booked a flight to Houston, Texas- another overdraft. 12 noon I was sitting on a plane to Chicago. There was very little security at that time, only a metal detector. I had a backpack with me, a small nylon sloppy one. This went as luggage. I had packed all my family silver into the backpack as I wanted to be prepared should I run out of funds which I was pretty sure I would.

At that time I was prone to panic attacks and here I was cooped up on an airplane together with hundreds of other passengers. It was a boring, long drawn-out flight so I was glad when, late at night we finally landed at Chicago Airport. From here it was a domestic night flight to Houston in an old twin motor airplane. We landed very bumpily in Houston, the worst landing the stewardess had ever experienced she said. It was warm, hot actually and there were very few people about. I managed to get a cab and asked the driver to drive me to the cheapest hotel in Houston. He did. I think the time was about midnight.

It was a cheap hotel- a bed and a shower- that was it for about $20. I slept well and checked out next day. I found the Greyhound Busstation and booked a ride to Huntsville, a two hour drive out of Houston. I waited at the busstation sitting on the footpath outside with some local hustlers offering me dope-but I wasn’t going to do anything illegal while I was in the States- no way, so I declined. Just sat smoking and waiting.

When in Huntsville I had to find another cheap hotel which I did after walking for ages in the heat. An Indian ran the motel and I got a good room beside the carpark .

Now, the purpose of my trip. For several months I had corresponded with an inmate in Ellis Unit. I had ‘met’ him through Amnesty. Now I was going to visit him. It took me more than a week and several telephone calls to the prison to get permission to visit him. Ellis secure unit is the strictest prison facility in the States with more than 2000 inmates, more precisely 2492 (as of 2011) spread over several buildings.

The inmates work in the fields picking cotton by hand among other work duties. This is how it was back in 1997.I don’t now about today.

I had to take a cab the 20 miles to the unit- a Saturday morning- for a two hour visit. I was at the end of my funds and I had sold my silverware in Huntsville for a fair price- enough to pay for my motel room and some food, so I was planning on leaving town after the visit. There were armed guards at the Unit of course and several high security wire fences before you got into the visiting area which was in a yard outside the buildings. I had to hand in my handbag and purse and was only allowed to bring $2 with me for a ginger beer.

The visit went as well as you can expect when you are visiting someone who has been incarcerated for 18 years and has not had a visit in years. He wasn’t serving on Death Row though.

I made it back to Houston and on to Chicago a few days later where I took a flight back home.

My Father, at 76, died in his sleep two weeks later without having suffered any pain.