With the help of the Last Prisoner Project (a cannabis and drug policy reform organization) and activist Shaun King, Thompson’s online fundraiser has collected more than a quarter of a million dollars, allowing him to purchase a condo he’ll soon occupy. Daughter Rashawnda Littles invited him to live with her. But he doesn’t want to be a burden and values his independence (“Can’t get rid of this one,” he joked lovingly, noting after being without her dad for 25 years, she’s at his temporary Airbnb all the time).
He plans to devote his life to criminal justice reform and is already working with the Last Prisoner Project. He’s not going to forget the guys he left behind because they were his community—still are—and “I consider myself an honorable man.”
But there are now more everyday matters to handle. A few days after his release, Kirkwood and Thompson went to the grocery store for the first time. Thompson filled up his shopping cart. “I was like a kid in a candy store!” he told The Counter. “I got all the tomatoes!”
The grocery store was a burst of Technicolor compared to the dullness of prison life and its barely edible food. “I was shocked at all the fruit, the beautiful fruit,” Thompson gushed. “Peaches, plums, cherries, bananas. The variety of seafood. Crabs, fish, oysters. Different flavors of water and pops. I can go on and on. It is beautiful.” He was happily surprised by how big the cans of tuna were, noting that those sold in the prison commissary were a ripoff by comparison.
Today, he has tomatoes with every meal—including with his morning eggs. And he’s cooking. He taught a favorite recipe to his grandson: smothered chicken with gravy (and a side of tomatoes). Thompson, who’d learned the recipe from a friend before he went to prison, directed his grandson’s every step to ensure the younger man got it right for his girlfriend.
“First, you fry the chicken,” Thompson said. The spices are simple: salt, pepper, flour. “Then, you smother it in chicken gumbo—where you can’t even see the fried chicken—and put it in a pan, then you bake it.”
His grandson pulled the recipe off masterfully. Thompson noted, with pride, that Kirkwood, who usually eats like a bird, had seconds.
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February 16, 2021 at 04:53AM
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Freedom food: Incarcerated no more, Michael Thompson finds joy in meals - The Counter
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