Finally Free (17 page)

It's only fitting that I introduce my youngest daughter, London, through my grandmother Caletha …

Every night, my grandmother watched the news. She saw my game highlights all the time, and she was in awe that I was her
grandson. “I can't believe you made it pro,” she'd always tell me. “I can't believe you made it pro.”

Even as a professional football player on a rigorous schedule, I continued to regularly drop by her house. That's how important she was to me.

“Are you eating enough?” she'd ask me as I walked in the door. “You big enough? I can't believe you made it pro.”

When London was born one month before I went to prison, I knew she was going to be different. Her head, ears, and complexion were all different. She just had a different aura about her. As she grew older, I realized that she actually looked
exactly
like my grandmother.

It hurt that I wouldn't be there with her like Kijafa and I had raised Jada. I wouldn't be in the house. We wouldn't be caring for a newborn baby together. Instead, I'd be in a jail cell.

As the news and negativity unfolded, I avoided my grandmother. She had developed Alzheimer's, but she continued to watch the news—every night—and I figured she knew something was up.

My last stop before I turned myself in was my grandmother's house.

“Where are you going?” she kept asking me.

I couldn't bring myself to tell her the truth. It would hurt her too much.

“Training camp,” I lied.

Camp was in the summer—when it was hot. This was November. She knew something wasn't right.

“Where are you going?”

“Training camp.”

My mother didn't tell me until a year ago, but my grandmother ended up calling my mom after I left.

“You better tell me the truth,” my grandmother said. “Is he really going to training camp?”

Mom said she couldn't help but tell her the truth.

Then my grandmother cried like never before.

“I can't believe this,” she cried. “I can't believe he's going to jail.”

My grandmother's oldest son basically spent his entire life in prison. She became used to it; she knew that was his life. But she never wanted that for any of us. And for
me
? After all my work to get where I was?

She couldn't believe it.

Chapter Eight

The Prison Experience

“At that moment, my freedom was gone.”

 

T
here was no more waiting for the worst. It had arrived.

I woke up on November 19, 2007, to a cloudy, gloomy day, which matched the way I felt inside. It was the day I had been dreading for weeks. It was time to leave my family to go to jail and begin serving a prison term that was still three weeks from being finalized in my sentencing hearing.

Turning myself in early was one way of putting myself at the mercy of the court. I hadn't helped my case two months earlier when I'd failed a drug test while on supervised release.

The day I had to leave my family behind was one of the saddest days of my life. My family and I rode from our home in Hampton, Virginia, to the courthouse in Richmond, and from there I was taken to jail in Warsaw, Virginia.

The time leading up to that point meant a lot to me. Every day counted—every hour, every minute, every second—even at night, going to sleep.

I woke up that morning and I told myself,
This is the day
.

Jada could tell something was different about that day.

When I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth, she asked Kijafa, “Mommy, what are we doing?” She said it with a crack in her voice, as if she sensed that something wasn't right, as if she was wondering,
Why are we getting up so early? Where are we going?

When I walked back into the room, Kijafa was lying on the bed crying because she knew it was real. We cried on the bed and finally got ourselves together. Kijafa later told me that she was so distraught, she felt her life was almost over.

My security guard, Paul Wilmeyer, drove us to the Richmond Courthouse. Off and on while we were in the car, I just kept crying. I'd cry and I'd cheer myself up, then cry some more and cheer myself up. Even in the car, every minute counted. We were forty-five miles away, so we had just under an hour to get composed and enjoy what little time we had left. Then we were thirty miles … twenty miles … ten miles away …

“Babe, let's go back,” Kijafa would say over and over. “Let's run away.”

When we pulled up to the courthouse, Kijafa looked me dead in the eyes. “Don't go,” she said. “Don't leave.”

Then she started crying.

Then Jada started crying—outraged—like there was a monster trying to get her.

Then I started crying.

The pain they felt—it was all my fault.

I had no more fight in me. I was done. Forced to walk away from the car, I shook hands with Paul and shook hands with my close
friend CJ Reamon. Then I told everyone that I loved them, and I walked up to the two officers who were waiting for me. When I walked myself in, they started cuffing my hands and legs right there on the spot.

At that moment, my freedom was gone.

I was led to a car for a ninety-minute drive to Warsaw, Virginia, where I would be incarcerated at Northern Neck Regional Jail for the first two months of my term. I thought I was going directly to the penitentiary camp, but when we arrived at Northern Neck, I wondered,
Why am I coming here?
I thought everyone had it all set up so I would go straight to the camp; I didn't know that I had to stay at the regional jail until I was transferred.

As I was getting checked in, they gave me a black-and-white jumpsuit. It was unlike anything I've ever felt before. I thought to myself,
Man, I guess I'm going to be staying here for a while.

They took me to my cell—a one-man cell—and they closed the door. It was right in front of booking—right in front of everything. I looked around, overcome by the feeling.
So this is where I'm going to be living?
I thought to myself.
This is where I have to stay? Two hours ago, I was with my family, free. Now I'm in prison, doors slammed.

I was a caged bird.

I would hear that sound many times—a prison door slamming shut. It was loud—metal on metal—and there was something harsh and final about it. Especially that first time.

Already, I wanted out. I wanted to escape. I started feeling claustrophobic. The cell room had a metal sink, a metal toilet, a stand-up shower, and a blue metal bunk bed. The cinder-block walls were white and tan. There was a bright white light in the room that I couldn't turn on or off. They turned it off automatically at 11:00 p.m.—“lights out” time. I had a TV and a phone.

I immediately tried to call my mom because I was going into a state of panic. It was a completely disastrous feeling. But the phone wasn't working. So I tried to distract myself by preparing my bunk bed. I got up in the bunk, and I'll never forget it—I just lay in the bed, with my hands over my eyes, and tried to go to sleep. I was in disbelief.
This can't be
, I told myself over and over. I tried to take a nap, but I couldn't. Next, I stood up and put the TV on. There wasn't a clock in the room, so I didn't know what time it was. It just so happened, though, that through the crack of my door, I could look out through booking and see a clock so I could keep track of the time.

It felt like an eternity.

Eventually, it was 7:30, and the guards brought me a tray of food. The food looked awful. I was thinking,
This is what I have to eat?

From riches to rags. From the NFL to a jail cell.

It was only day one, and I felt like I had been there for eight days. I'll never forget watching
Dancing with the Stars
and just wishing,
Man, if only I had my freedom. I'd do anything for my freedom right now.

People kept coming to the door, checking on me. Every time that door opened, I was hopeful it was going to be a guard saying, “So-and-so called and said to set you free.” I was optimistic someone was coming to get me and bail me out, but it never happened.

The first day felt like the longest day of my life, and the second day was even longer. I didn't sleep well. I woke up continually, hoping it was all just a nightmare, but there I was, still in prison.

The first morning you wake up, you don't know when you're coming home. You don't know what your loved ones are doing. I couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel because there wasn't an end. All I could see was darkness. I was just in prison, knowing I had a court date, knowing I was going to get sentenced, and yet not knowing when I was going home.

I missed my family. It was lonely not being beside Kijafa—not being with Jada, not being with my newborn baby. I missed lying down with all of them. I cried myself to sleep every night.

I've never been so sad, so dismayed. The next day, my phone was working and I called home to my mom. I called every day, crying—called Kijafa crying, just worrying about what she was doing. It took me a couple of weeks to get strong, to strengthen up and say, “Okay, you know what? I have to do this, and I have to get through it.”

When the day for my sentencing hearing finally arrived—December 10, 2007—I woke up early, around 4:00 a.m. I felt optimistic, hoping that I'd only have to spend six to eight months total in prison.

At the time, I was still in that small one-man cell in Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw. I knelt on the side of the bed, and I prayed that everything would be okay—that the sentence would be light.

The prison officials drove me approximately ninety minutes from Warsaw to Richmond for the hearing before Judge Henry Hudson. My family and friends met me there. We were all stunned when Judge Hudson announced a twenty-three-month sentence.

Twenty-three months?!
I thought to myself.

It was like my whole world came crashing down. I didn't expect a sentence that long. Everyone was in tears; everyone was distraught. We wanted explanations. We wanted to know why.