“Mr. P and The Blade”
by Inmate 07770-062
Just a guard.
A man who once dreamed of white aprons,
steel pans clanging like applause,
flavors blooming in the steam.
Then Desert Storm came,
left sand in his bones
and a shadow in his step.
Prison work was steady—
steady enough to forget the kitchen for a while.
Steady enough to believe the slogans,
Repent. Rehabilitate.
Steady enough to watch other people’s clocks
tick away their time.
Dreams?
They started to feel like
they belonged to someone else.
Until the day he saw her—
not in the mess hall,
not in the yard—
but in her cell,
shoulders bent over a plastic bowl,
chopping onion, fresh jalapeño, ripe tomato—every bit contraband.
The blade in her hand was no kitchen issue.
One call and she’d be written up.
But he didn’t call.
He just watched,
listening as she poured out recipes like they were prayer—
gumbo thick enough to stand a spoon,
beignets soft and tasty as a
Sunday morning in Beaumont,
shrimp boils where the air itself
tasted like Louisiana’s mamère’s finest.
“Next time I make rounds,” he said with a kind nod,
“best not have anything out where I can see it.”
From then on,
they talked flavors of Cajun Southeast Texas—
redfish kissed by smoke,
crawfish boils under a blazing sky,
how the sun there could turn
any day into a festival.
Mr. P left the gray halls,
left the clang of gates for the sizzle of skillets.
Opened a place all his own,
where the tables smelled of garlic and good living. He called it Lagarou—
Cajun for the best, because legends deserve a name.
And in the corner of the menu he shares,
“For the ones who carried hope where no sunlight reached, and fed it until it could walk free.”
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