Duche’ Saga
Duche Bradley SAGA
“Eight words that changed my life forever”
I remember the eight words he asked me, they would initiate a change in my life forever. He was holding a pocket sized Gideon Bible, and after he handed it to me, I casually flipped through its pages, having no clue, and no intentions on what to read. I never would have imagined this small, undersized man, with no hair and too much belly was in response to my mother’s prayer just 8 hours earlier.
I had traveled from Pennsylvania to 171st and Amsterdam in Harlem New York. Then I got a flight from Newark, NJ to Atlanta, GA. This could be any business trip, but I’m not involved in just any type of business. I have cocaine saran wrapped around my legs and torso, and I’m concealing it under a blue pinstriped Italian double breasted suit. When my flight lands, I meet with my colleagues, exchange merchandise for money and proceed to the next city. I repeat this protocol, as I make frequent stops up the east coast. I’m excited today, because I’m headed to meet my friends in college, where we will party all night and make my last transaction.
At 11pm, I have a 9mm pointed at my head, and a state patrol officer has me “hog tied” face down on Interstate 85. My pockets were emptied, a stack of cash was retrieved, car impounded, and I’m on my way to prison once again. I get one phone call, it’s not to my father, never met him. It’s not to my step-dad, haven’t talked with him in over a year, it’s to my mother, the one person who has loved me unconditionally all my life. It’s 1am, and I hear in her voice the concern any mother has when her son calls in the middle of the night. “Mom, I got arrested again, I don’t want you to worry about me, I will call again when I can, I love you.” I learn later that after the call, my mother calls out audibly, “God, if you exist, please help my boy!”
By 2am, I’m in an elevator, headed to the 5th floor of the prison. When cell block doors open and close, they generate a “BUZZZZZ” noise that vibrates in your bones. You never forget it once you’ve experienced it, and tonight there is also a man screaming in the cell next to where I am placed. As I walk into my cell, I look through the window in his steel door. I see a mattress laid on the floor and an older black man laid on a hard cold metal frame, yelling like he was being terrorized by his own thoughts.
It’s Sunday morning, I hear that noise, as my cell door opens. My shirt is wrapped around my eyes to keep the light out, and I don’t get up. I can sense I am being watched, and reluctantly remove the shirt from my eyes and its him. The “crazy man” is standing in my doorway, waiting for me to arise. I decline! When breakfast is over, I feel the vibration as the cell doors close again, and I am relieved. It’s now 11am, time for lunch, and this time I get up and join the population for the first time. “Who do you think you are?” I was asked by the “Crazy man.” “You must think you’re Bad Bad Leroy Brown”, his voice demands. A confused look is all I can muster. I’m perplexed at the mess I have gotten myself into, I’m not entertaining him at all. Then, he maneuvers around me, where I’m seated with my plastic tray of un-desireable food, and he strikes me in the core of my back, and repeats, “I don’t think you’re so BAD!”
I’m not afraid of human interaction, so my immediate reaction is to drive my tray of food into his head until I feel it bounce of the wall. Inmates begin to cheer, and the correctional officers arrive quicker than the police when you place a 911 call. They separate us, 3 men taking him back to his cell, then they turn to me and call me by my last name, “Vonada, you want to go to church?” I was puzzled, but didn’t hestitate to respond. “No, I don’t want to go to no F*@king church!!!” As I turned to walk away, I quickly reconsidered, then found myself turning 180 degrees in the other direction.
Church was a 6’ by 4’ prison cell, and only one other inmate came to service that day, he was in his late 30’s, African American, and his name is Andrew Kirkman. We were both wearing tattered bright orange jump suits that buttoned from the belly to the neck, and had the name of the prison in bold letters on the back. I ignored him, but we both watched as a short, tubby, bald headed, elderly white man had come to deliver a message of hope to the local county prison. He had no idea, 3 months earlier I turned Twenty One, 8 hours earlier I was arrested for the 3rd time in two states within 3 months. All he knew was that I wasn’t a willing candidate for his Sunday morning message about “ham dinner in Heaven.” Matter of fact, I wasn’t concerned about heaven at all, I wanted to know how to get out of potentially spending 38 years in prison, and how to be a better father for my son here on Earth.
Prison immediately impacts a person, right or wrong, good or evil, it makes a person think, and at this moment, my 1 ½ year old son Bradley, was the only one I cared about. The little man was talking, while I began huffing and puffing, ready to return to my 6’9” cell. I was sitting on the filthy prison floor, in dirt and dust, surrounded by a mine field of cigarette butts, does this man expect me to understand what I was reading from this tiny book. He then spoke abruptly to me, but with compassion and urgency and I looked up into his eyes, and I took interest in his last question, as though he could help me. Then these eight words followed, “YOU LOOK BURDENED, CAN I PRAY FOR YOU?” I sobered from my attitude, almost immediately, then responded, “Yessssss!” He then prayed, and I repeated his prayer, not quite sure what it meant. I do recall asking to be forgiven for the things that I had done, and in closing, I remembered saying “In Jesus Name, Amen!”
The man then left, I’m certain still excited about the prospect of “Ham dinner in Heaven”, and I knew that something had happened, because the heaviness of my burden had lifted. Andrew turned to me and said “Congratulations!” I replied, “Thank you,” I guess. He asked with sincerity about my son, and my heart was pierced. The first time in a long time, I felt a tear, cold as a melting piece of ice, roll down my face. I called to speak with my son, his mother answered and I told her what happened, she wasn’t surprised. I then told her I asked GOD into my life, she replied, “You did whaaaaat?” This instigated a flashback to a letter I had received from her brother who was in prison, and signed, “God Bless!” I criticized him for becoming so weak he now needed GOD.
The prayer was cool, but I was content living life as before. So when the call came for dinner, I grabbed my cup of “Very Cherry Juice”, and as another inmate tried to cut in front of me to get a tray of food, I popped him in the face with juice, balled up my fists and prepared for battle. Then, I felt a firm hand on my left shoulder, that of an ally, and heard him say to me, “Brother, we don’t do that anymore!” I responded, “Maybe you don’t do that, but that’s how I handle business!” He smiled, guards decelerated the stand-off, and I began thinking on my plan to get another attorney and try to buy my way out of prison.
Andrew returned 2 hours later, “I want you to come to my cell at 7pm!” My immediate reaction was, “Man, he’s gonna make me read out of that little Bible!” and I didn’t want to read, but because he was persistent and compassionate, I went to his cell. Andrew asked me to read the Gospel of John, chapter 3, and I reached verse 3, “ Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God!” Andrew asked, do you know what that means? “Not really” I replied. It means when you prayed earlier today, you asked God to forgive you and that you would allow Jesus Christ to manage your life for you, at that moment, you were “Born Again!” I responded, “you mean I have been forgiven for everything I’ve ever done, and I can live free of guilt!” “Yes”, he replied, and when you are confronted with the choice to do wrong, choose good over evil.”
This foundation, illuminated my life, and helped navigate my decisions, as I focused on life in the kingdom of God. It includes experiencing the whisper of God, and when worthy of 38 years in prison, grace and mercy helped me to be released in 2 ½ years. I was the only inmate to be transported by the department of corrections during the last 6 months of prison, to a 4 year University, where I achieved a 4.0 GPA.
