Sometimes it’s the little things that count the most — just ask Derrick Deacon.
The Brooklyn man who used to go by the nickname “Fire” spent Thursday — his first full day of freedom after 25 years of wrongful imprisonment – savoring things most of us take for granted, things like “real toothpaste” and a private shower.
“I took a shower this morning. Oh man, it felt wonderful. And I soaped myself in that shower, too. When you’re up top [in prison] you’ve got to rush,” Deacon, 58, told The Post. “You’ve got six, seven, 10 people in one shower. You can’t imagine that feeling. Today, I was just relaxing, soaking myself.”
After sleeping in and waking up without an alarm clock at 10 a.m. Deacon brushed his teeth – he enjoyed it so much that he brushed twice.
“In prison they give you a small toothbrush. And if you don’t have money, you’ve got to use the state toothpaste. That toothpaste is yucky,” Deacon said.
“I brushed my teeth once and I brushed it again. I could brush every corner of my mouth, not like it was before with those tiny toothbrushes.”
Deacon, who was born in Jamaica, then settled in with a cup of peppermint tea and the same bible that kept him going through a quarter-century behind bars that he didn’t deserve.
“Psalms 35, 142, 7. I read those psalms every day in prison. Those psalms keep me going spiritually, mentally keep me focused. Those psalms mean a lot to my soul.”
When Deacon went shopping with his nephew at Caps USA on Flatbush Avenue he noticed how styles have changed since 1989, the year he was sent upstate.
“I feel good, but times have changed. I never used to wear these clothes back in the day. I used to wear linen, silk shirts with a zipper in front and elastic in the waist. Snake skin — that’s my favorite. Nobody wears that anymore.”
Deacon closed out his first day of freedom at the Spice’s Jerk restaurant in East Flatbush, where his nephew called in advance to have the chef whip up some Jamaican grub.
“Rice and peas, steamed snapper fish, green bananas. I didn’t eat that for — you know how many years I didn’t eat that? I was eating that like I was crazy.”
Deacon was convicted of gunning down Anthony Wynn during a robbery in a Flatbush apartment building. He was given a new trial in 2012 after a Jamaican gangbanger was fingered for the crime and a witness recanted and said she gave vague testimony after cops and prosecutors pressured her to, threatening to take away her kids.
Deacon was found not guilty Monday by a jury that took all of 9 minutes to render its verdict. He was temporarily detained on an immigration hold before his release Wednesday.
“It’s such a great relief, after so much time and so much heartache, to have him out here with his family instead of sitting on the phone with him in my office,” said one of his defense attorneys, Rebecca Freedman, of the Exoneration Initiative.
“Now I have him here in my office, happy. It’s just a great feeling to have him be vindicated.”
Deacon said he wants to start his own company – maybe a restaurant or beauty parlor, or maybe a company that transports people to upstate prisons so they can visit their incarcerated loved ones.
“I’m so glad to be home,” Deacon said. “I never thought a day would come when I’d be talking to news people, where I’d get calls from people on the phone, saying, ‘Oh, you’re on the front page of the New York Post!’”