John C. Barrett
John Barrett (left) performing with other musicians in a Florida prison, obtained from Miami New Times.
My friend J.B.
by Israel Martinez
In prison you meet many people, not all worth remembering, but my friend J.B. was one you would never forget.
Twenty years ago on a weight pile at Hamilton C.I. a 250 lb goliath asked me if he could get a set with the 75 lb dumbbells I was currently bench pressing. When I said, “yeah sure.” He started curling them. Since we saw each other every workout we started to crack on each other just to pass time and kinda motivate the workout. . . I learned quick this big dude could talk shit with the best of them.
J.B. always had a story. . . And I heard every one of them. Some 5 or 6 times. No matter the topic or how you felt, J.B. would tell a story that would have you smiling and thinking about some of the dumb shit you did in your own life.
Transfers in Florida Prisons are inevitable and rarely do you ever see “friends” again, but I was lucky. Over the years J.B. and I, both serving life sentences, wound up at three more prisons together and even though they outlawed “weight piles” we would still find reasons to crack on each other.
I was at Belle Glade when the “Skynny Lizzard” band started. J.B. no longer having any weights to lift learned he wasn't bad on the bass guitar. “Music became his new reason for being.”
Imagine my surprise when seven years later at Dade C.I. standing in a group of other people I knew I see my Ole’ Bud J.B. Now in his fifties, very little of the muscle he used to spend hours a day trying to increase remained, but that quick wise ass wit was just as sharp as the last time we spoke. . After being hit with a barrage of wise cracks and good natured insults, J.B. got me a job where he worked in education and where the New Skynny Lizzards played.
My friend was in relative good health when I got here and within two years I watched his body deteriorate and distort until I could barely see any resemblance to the man I met on that weight pile. For months medical just ignored him., finally we had his sister call and send Emails complaining of the lack of medical treatment. He fought for a year. In a wheelchair, after three trips to the hospital, I finally hear what I feared. J.B. was gone. And it was blamed on Covid-19. . At first the anger at the lack of treatment, and the guilt of not doing more myself weighed heavy.
Now I realize my friend isn't in pain any longer. Not in Prison any longer. Locked away for 30+ years my old friend completed his life sentence. “His debt to society.”
My friend I miss you. . .
you’re probably flossing with guitar string, playing the bass behind Janis Joplin hoping you rocking and rolling freely with no muzzle on content RIAA restrictions or parental advisory joking and smoking with musical gods at the Hard Rock battling with the bands in the land of the Grateful Dead jamming in peace, make the galaxy your studio, may your souls album be released
we miss you J.B., now you can finally breathe and be FREE.
~“E”
This memorial was reproduced with permission from a newsletter by Exchange for Change, published on October 4, 2020.
From Mourning Our Losses:
John C. Barrett died in South Florida in June 2020 after a battle with COVID-19. He was 55 years old. John had served more than 30 years of a life sentence and become a “shining example of his character and the man he truly was,” his sister Tina Barrett wrote in the Miami Herald. John participated as both a teacher and student in classes that focused on writing and music during his time in prison and was deeply loved by those he came to befriend in the multiple Florida state prisons he was shuffled through.
One of those friends, Israel Martinez, wrote a piece honoring John (the entirety of which is shared above) for Exchange for Change, a program offering writing classes that both men attended. Though John contracted COVID-19 sometime in late spring 2020, Israel wrote that his health was deteriorating for years without medical support from the Florida Department of Corrections. Tina, who was in regular contact with John for all his years in prison, completely lost contact in April and was unable to speak to John before receiving a call that he was in the hospital and near death. In her piece in the Miami Herald, Tina wrote that “John had been dying, figuratively, for 30 years [as] I watched him struggle to create a meaningful life behind bars in a Florida state prison.” He was also on Death Row for four of those years. “The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) took his [life], slowly and painfully, for decades. A part of me died alongside him even though I was living in Ohio, thousands of miles away,” she wrote.
In addition to a writer, John was also a musician, writing and playing music on his guitar during his time in Florida prisons. Sara Keden, a songwriting teacher who met John through working with Exchange for Change, created a GoFundMe in memory of John, and she will deliver the proceeds in his name to the organization. On the page, she shared some of the lessons that she learned from her friendship with John: “Laughter is powerful” and “No matter a person's circumstances, it is possible to create a wonderful and fulfilling life through friendship and music.”
In a poem he wrote in 2018, John considered freedom:
Freedom, what is it? Who is it for?
I used to think it was me but I don't anymore
I thought Americans were free
But I found out that they're not
If freedom were free I’d have some
his part of the memorial was written by MOL team member Kyle Hulburd with information from correspondence with Tina Barrett and Skylar Thompson, a GoFundMe organized by Sara Keden, reporting by Jonathan Kendall of the Miami New Times, and writing by Tina Barrett in the Miami Herald.