The Marshall Project

“Covid Breached the Wall and Killed A Man Yesterday”

Trying to stay alive in Sing Sing.

It’s late March, and I am at my table on Sing Sing’s A-block yard. I want to call my wife, but I am wary of being in a caged area, shoulder to shoulder with 23 other guys on the phone. I have my bleach and water concoction in a little earwax remover bottle and stack of paper towels in my pocket, ready to wipe the receiver. A paper towel covers my mouth. A big rubber band wraps around my ears, keeping it in place. Rubber gloves are on my hands. My buddy, a porter back in the cell block, provided me with the PPE.

Guards have just gotten the okay to wear masks. But we still haven’t. Yet guys cover their faces with cut off.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Marshall Project

The Marshall Project5 min readAmerican Government
Biden Will Try to Unmake Trump's Immigration Agenda. It Won't Be Easy
In one beating, the woman from El Salvador told the immigration judge, her boyfriend’s punches disfigured her jaw and knocked out two front teeth. After raping her, he forced her to have his name tattooed in jagged letters on her back, boasting that
The Marshall Project8 min readPolitics
No-Show Prison Workers Cost Mississippi Taxpayers Millions
When Darrell Adams showed up for an overnight shift at the Marshall County Correctional Facility in rural Mississippi, he was one of six officers guarding about 1,000 prisoners. Adams said he thought that was normal; only half-a-dozen guards had been
The Marshall Project4 min read
Coronavirus Has Sparked Another Epidemic in My Prison: Anti-Asian Racism
Sitting in my cell on a mandatory precautionary quarantine, I'm still finding it difficult to make sense of everything that's going on. In the beginning, “pandemic” was a word I had to translate for my cellie, a Vietnamese refugee who struggled with

Related Books & Audiobooks