Another Tribute to Phyllis Hyman

From Eddie Griffin

I Don’t Want to Loose You



[Previous]

Did I ever tell you the story about how I fell in love with a female prison guard, whose brother, also worked inside the same prison?

It is one thing for a black inmate to fall in love with a white female prison guard. But it is another thing when her brother worked in the prison’s food department and, on the sideline, organized Klan meetings with his buddies who also worked inside the prison.

Falling in love again, after 18 months in the prison dungeon known as the Control Unit, I found it humanizing, insofar as my senses and sensibilities returned to me in a passionate way.

When I first saw Debbie, striding across the prison compound, golden hair blowing loosely in the wind, in her gray uniform, and black jacket boots, the iceman melted, by the radiance of her beauty. The angry, notorious rebel in me came out like an evil spirit cast to the winds. My heart ached with secret desire.

I had not seen nor spoken to a woman in over six years. I was a Spartan, a eunuch, gladiator, and fierce warrior in the toughest penitentiary in the country. My life always flashed before my eyes. And, my vision of death in hand-to-hand combat was thwarted over and over again only by the grace of God.

But I was not prepared to die from heartbreak. So, began one of the most interesting experiences of my life.

[To be continued]







Phyllis Hyman (July 6, 1949 - June 30, 1995)
Died by suicide because of lonliness... but I will always remember