Lost in the Storm: From prison to the pulpit

By David Marmolejo Rocha

The story of infamous Chicano rapper Sir Dyno of group Darkroom Familia. Pastor David Rocha shares his incredible story of being a Christian while serving an eight-year federal prison sentence. Come into his world as he takes you on a trip that many have never experienced, and see for yourself how prison walls cannot stop the power of Christ.&nb

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parakletos Publishing
• Release date: Jan 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733631624

Book preview

1

The Crazy Place

Lock it down now! echoed loudly through the pod. I tried my hardest to ignore the yelling. I said to lock it down!" demanded the officer.

Unable to continue reading, I put down my Bible and sat up from my bunk. I slowly walked over to my cell door to look out my thin window and into the pod. An argument was quickly escalating as Rico refused to lock down after his hour of pod time. I know what comes next, I dreaded.

My hour isn’t up! I was on the phone with my grandmother! And you can’t even warn me! You just shut the phones off! screamed Rico at the top of his lungs.

Rico pulled his shirt off, ready to do battle. The officer stood on the opposite side of the thick glass, looking into the half-circle pod with eighteen cells. Within minutes I knew officers would come rushing in with riot gear: billy clubs and flash-bang grenades. Rico began pacing the pod like an angry lion, psyching himself up for the inevitable. What does it matter anyway since he’s facing twenty to life for murder? I thought. I whispered a prayer for him.

Life in solitary confinement is inhumane. The hatred it breeds boils like lava ready to explode at the smallest disrespect. Nerves are always on edge and fuses are short. I was about to witness another eruption.

Here they come! Here they come!  yelled someone from a cell in the top tier. Ten officers dressed in black riot gear complete with shields and masks stood ready at the door to rush in. By this time Rico had run into his cell, came out with bottles of shampoo from the commissary, and began pouring it on the floor next to each door, making it slippery for the officers as they rushed in. The first officer was holding a rifle with flashbangs.

Come on! I’ll take one of you down! yelled Rico as he balled his fists, ready to swing.

The door popped open and the officer shot the flashbang toward Rico. Instantly the pod was filled with smoke, giving it the effect of a war zone. The officers rushed in screaming Lay down! Every inmate began pounding their doors and yelling, which made the entire moment seem like a madhouse. Rico swung and connected with the head of the first officer, sending his face shield flying across the pod. The second officer swung and hit Rico with his baton. Adrenaline and rage were so high that the blow didn’t even faze him. Rico’s muscles ripped with veins pulsing as if hot venom was traveling throughout his body. Rico somehow grabbed an officer in a chokehold and tried his hardest to squeeze the life out of him. With gritted teeth, he hollered, All I wanted was to say goodbye! See what you made me do!

Let him go! Let him go now! one officer screamed. The pounding from the inmates became louder. Officers began hitting his legs, back, and arms with their batons. The blows only enraged him more, causing his squeeze on the officer’s neck to get tighter. The officer began to turn purple and his eyes began rolling into his head. With no other alternative, an officer pulled back his baton and hit Rico square on the back of his head. The sound of the baton to skull seemed to override all other sounds. Rico’s hold released as he fell forward, unconscious. The officers swung and struck a few more blows at his limp body, then cuffed him and carried him off.

As quickly as it began, it ended. The only evidence was a smoke-filled pod. The inmates stopped yelling and kicking their doors, and all was eerily silent. With more frustration than shock, I sat back down on my bunk. When will this nightmare end? I asked myself. I was thankful there was an end for me. Some men I’ve met will never walk into freedom. I at least had a release date. It’s unbelievable how many times in the past this could have been a permanent home for me, but God had other plans even though I didn’t know it. Let me rephrase that: I knew God had plans for me; I just chose to ignore Him.

We find God in places we’d least expect. Moses found God in the backside of the desert, watching his father-in-law’s sheep. Peter found God while pulling up to shore with empty nets after a long night of hard work. A criminal found God while he was being crucified next to Him on a hill named Golgotha. Isaiah 55:8 says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. The same rings true today. We find God on battlefields thousands of miles from home, on deathbeds, in car accidents, through lost jobs, or after the death of a loved one. God seems to show up during our darkest and most hopeless times, as a light showing us the path. In actuality, God has always been there; we just weren’t looking.

That brings us to my story. I didn’t find God in a church or a parking lot revival. I found Him in solitary confinement,  a place more commonly known as the hole. The phrase found God isn’t actually correct, however, because to find God implies that God was lost; it’s us sinners who are the lost sheep. So the correct term should be He found me. After years of running and hiding from Him, I slammed right into Him in prison.

It was evening time in this hell on earth, tucked inside the massive compound. The jail was surrounded by fences and razor-sharp barbed wire. I was beyond several steel doors and the general population pods, deep inside the building through the long, silent corridors. The hole was filled with murderers, rapists, mafia gang leaders, cop killers, drug cartel members and your average violent anti-social maniac who can’t be housed in general-population pods because they were too vicious, too manipulative, or too powerful.

I and others alongside me were housed in single cells, which means we had no cellmates. We were kept from one another like Siamese Fighting Fish. We each got one hour outside our cells twice a week, but still within the locked pod. It was the only time we could shower, shave, and use the payphone. We each took turns coming out on an hourly rotation. Two inmates were never out together because allowing contact could have been fatal. Rapists, child molesters, rival gangs and rival drug dealers, as well as racists, were automatically targeted.

We were fed three times a day through slots in the centers of our cell doors. My cell was built with a toilet and sink combination, a concrete table, a metal stool welded to the floor, and a concrete bed with a mattress thinner than my Bible. I had a limited view of the outside through a narrow piece of five-inch glass. I seldom looked outside since my view was composed of a large fence, barbed wire, and sky.

Through a control booth, officers monitored six different pods built into a circle around them. This monitoring system wasn’t always successful, however, with so many pods and inmates to watch. Men found ways to hang themselves and not be discovered for hours. One of my friends did it before I was put in the hole. I still pray for his family and try not to think of the times we laughed and talked of the day we’d be free. That was before he was sentenced to life. That night he called his family and said goodbye, walked to his cell and hanged himself. He was found dead the next morning.

I am in no way encouraging suicide, but I can see how dark and twisted a mind can become in a place like the hole, where hope means nothing and the sane can quickly go insane. It is the belly of the beast, the gates of hell itself. Without God, we have no chance against Satan. This is Satan’s playground: his games, his rules, and he plays for keeps.

Spending days, weeks, and months sitting in a cell alone does something to the human mind. I’ve seen strong-willed men mentally break. They begin talking to themselves, barking like dogs or screaming for hours as they sit in a dark cold cell week after week. I’ve learned how to spot a man on the verge of losing reality. He first begins to talk differently and walk differently; I can almost sense him withdrawing into himself. Others fight from going insane with anger and hatred. They’ll lose all remorse and compassion because it’s easier not to care. So they learn to have no mercy.

Officers approached us with caution and fear. We were shackled to our visits, shackled to the nurse, and shackled to court. We were treated like animals, so most of us began to act like animals. I was in constant spiritual battle daily.

Even in Christ I felt suffocated by the evil presence in the hole.  I constantly prayed for strength. I longed to fellowship with another Christian for support. I longed to hold my children, who I haven’t touched in two years; I fought to stay afloat in the lake of despair. Sometimes I would realize days had passed since I’d last spoken to anyone. Sleeping became a challenge between the yelling, cursing, arguing, screaming, door banging, and meals. Sometimes even getting a full night’s sleep became impossible.

At the beginning of my incarceration, I cherished my sleep; it was the only way to escape my surroundings and situation. I’d dream of my family and the fun times we’d had. Later my dreams turned into nightmares of corpses, death, disasters, violence, pain, and terror. I woke up shaking in fear because I had nightmares of demons chasing me through a forest with no end. What is happening to me? I thought. So, I started praying for Jesus to watch over me while I slept. I didn’t know what was worse, being awake in the living horror of the hole or living through the horrors in my mind while I slept. It’s impossible to fully describe how it feels to be isolated from the world.

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is David Rocha, but most know me as ‘Dyno’. I was born in 1972, a Chicano from California’s agricultural central valley. Born and raised in the small town of Tracy. I’ve been locked down for two years now, with eight of those months in the ‘hole’. I stopped running from Christ in a jail cell, I couldn’t run anymore.

I led a life of fame, violence, crime, money, and drugs. Yes, I was an addict, but not in the same sense that most are addicted. You see, I wasn’t addicted to drugs physically; I was addicted to the power and money that came from selling them. The rush of standing on stage at a concert, the rush of meeting my drug connection in secret places, the rush of weighing meth on a triple beam scale, or the rush of having the power to hurt an enemy at my whim. It was the addiction, my rush. I loved it and couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. Yes, I was just as addicted as the tweakers I sold to, but money was my fix and I could never have enough of it. I can lie and say violence was avoided when possible. To be honest, I loved the violence; to beat, hurt, intimidate and threaten was power. In a perfect drug dealing world, all ran smoothly, but that was not always the case. Someone was always out to take your place, to give better prices or to get better quality. It was just part of life, and I was good at it.

I was a part of the last generation of the old school cholo, dressed in perfectly ironed and creased Ben Davis pants and white T-shirts, Chicano slang and lowriders with hydraulics. A time of cruising strips filled with ‘Raza’ A place you could meet a ‘firme jaina’ and be in a shoot-out on the same street. A place of homegirls with heavy make-up and teased hair. All of the so-called innocent times had long passed, my generation brought in the dark times. Times of drive-by’s, murders with no mercy, manipulation, conspiracy; times of using drugs to control entire cities. We believed in power by force, power only money could buy. It was all downhill from then on, each generation was twice as ruthless.

I’m sorry; I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? My story doesn’t begin in a drug-infested California town. It begins with a young boy of eight in a small Christian church. So relax, be patient and travel back with me to 1980 in downtown Stockton California. May God show you his message through my testimony. Ultimately this story isn’t about me; it’s about a true living God that loved us enough to die for us two thousand years ago, a God that rose again after three days and lives forever, making a way for us to receive salvation. This story is of hardship, sorrow and sin, conquered by hope, forgiveness, and love. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.

1980

It was a small brick building in the middle of a drug-infested downtown area. It might have been an office in the past but now it was a small Holy Spirit filled church. It wasn’t much but to the congregation, it was a place of peace, fellowship, salvation, worship, and hope. Instead of the traditional long wooden church pews, it contained mismatched metal fold up chairs. There was a small stage for an altar and an old used PA system for guitars and microphones. The songs and sermons were in Spanish and the basement was used for children’s bible study. It wasn’t big, lavish or fancy but it was comfortable. People tend to believe that the bigger and fancier a church is that the more God’s presence is there. God doesn’t measure dedication by material worldly things. The presence of the Lord is unlimited, from the White House to the crack house. The Lord goes where the door is opened to Him. The church would fill with 60 people, most middle class or poor and everyone wore their Sunday best, including my family. In attendance were my father, mother and my little brother Angel and myself. My two older brothers hardly attended with us, they were teenagers too busy for church.

My mother accepted Christ when I was five years old. In the beginning, only my mother and I attended church. I didn’t like it or dislike it. The sermons were usually boring but the songs were fun to clap to plus I loved being with my mother. She taught me all the stories of the Bible. Adam and Eve to the Apostle Paul, I loved hearing them. I knew God was real even at the young age of eight years old. My mother was baptized in water while pregnant with my younger brother Angel. Even though I believed the stories in the Bible it wasn’t until I witnessed a true miracle with my own eyes that I truly believed.

My father was an alcoholic yet always maintained his job and provided. My memories of my father were with a beer can in his hand. He always drank after work, at home, driving, every weekend every day. Even though he continued drinking and smoking my mother continued praying for him with me. I shared a bedroom with my oldest brother Ruben, we had bunk beds and I had the lower bed. At night my father would stumble drunk into our bedroom and he’d cry to my oldest brother and I’d pretend to be asleep.

Son, don’t be like me, don’t ever drink, my father would groan. I want to change… I want to stop… I want to be a father my sons can respect, instead, I’m a drunk…please promise me you won’t start drinking.

My brother wouldn’t respond, he was seventeen years old. I would usually just fall asleep and not even notice when he would leave to stumble back down the hall into his own bedroom to sleep. No matter how much he cried I knew he would be drinking the next day anyway. I would silently pray to Jesus for my dad to stop. I didn’t even understand if and why drinking was bad, but I did know that it made my mom cry. Yet the days and weeks would be the same, and nothing would change.

Now as we sat in church once again, my dad attended. He began attending a little more