"Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one."   

- Bruce Lee

 “Man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.”  - Viktor Frankl

 

Them

“Them”

 

“There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when it is

committed by our side.”  –  George Orwell

 

I first realized that I was the enemy of society when I was a homeless child sleeping on the roofs of steaming laundromats and eating the abundant varieties of food thrown in business dumpsters. (This was before grocery stores defeated the homeless by installing trash compactors we couldn’t access.)

 

I was homeless by choice. I’d been offered the hospitality of 30-40 foster homes which I impolitely declined, running loose until the courts gave up and legally emancipated me at age 16.

 

It’s possible that one of those foster homes I escaped from would’ve provided me with security, nurture, possibly even love, but I refused to gamble. I despised authority, saw it as a disease that transmutated ordinary people into monsters. Four decades later, rotting in a former slave state prison for a crime I didn’t commit, my opinion about authority hasn’t improved much.

 

Before I reached age 14, I had been assaulted 3 times by police officers; once so severely it took more than a week in the hospital to recover. They hurt me not because of criminal acts, but ostensibly because I lacked respect. Yet the truth is that my irreverence didn’t provoke them nearly as much as my disparity. I belonged to a different tribe, and I was a powerless divergent unable to retaliate. The establishment and its police have always victimized people without status or property; they were the proverbial “us”, and I was “them”, enemies from the dawn of mankind.

 

As individual people, those cops may have had empathy, or perhaps children my age, but as a group, a tribe, they were evil, able to suppress the slightest compassion and unconsciously dehumanize outsiders.

 

When I grew up I almost joined their number, not as a cop but maybe something even more antipathetic: a patriot. I enlisted in the military and surrendered to their indoctrination. They tried to install the capability to murder innocents, without conscience, by convincing me that they and their children were my enemies; less than human because they weren’t Americans. Much to my shame, I believed that for awhile. 

 

We invaded Iraq to “protect democracy”, to bomb their wicked establishment into submission, but a war between governments is a farce of the rich; the privileged always initiate wars, but it’s the underprivileged youth that fight and die in them; the poor and their children who pay the direct price. 

 

I never did get good at following rules, and it wasn’t long before my military career ended. Once again I was regulated to one of “them”, a disenfranchised human of no money or status, who lacked the hive worker skills necessary to acquire any.

 

I was a drifter, drove a clunker, and had long hair; each a crime in itself. Like diverse strangers everywhere (eg: racial minorities, homosexuals, homeless people, etc.) I became a target for police. In a southern town where disparity was the ultimate sin, I was jailed.

 

Attorney General, Janet Reno said: “Justice is available only to those who can afford lawyers.” How right she was. I would’ve fared so much better if I had been wealthy and guilty rather than poor and innocent. Or I could’ve at least saved my life if I had capitulated to the politically ambitious prosecutor and accepted his 5 year easy conviction plea deal. Instead I demanded a trial by my “peers”, and they sentenced me to die in a plantation penitentiary. 

 

If I thought poverty and diversity made me less than human, I soon discovered that there’s absolutely nothing lower than a prisoner. Even lab monkeys have more enforceable rights to humane treatment than prisoners.  We have less prestige than all the unarmed black men, homosexuals and homeless put together. 

 

Just a few months before the police murdered George Floyd and set off international protests, prison guards went into the cage above mine and beat a naked old man named Frank Digges to death. There were, of course, no protests, and I’m betting you’ve never heard of him, even though his murder, and a gruesome photo of spinal fluid leaking down his face was published in a major newspaper. (The Houston Chronicle)

 

Why haven’t you heard of Frank Digges and the thousands of other prisoners tortured and murdered? Because you don’t care, and the media knows it. Because we’re the ultimate “them”, the WWII Jews, the early native Americans with valuable land, the plantation slaves, etc., etc. The marginalized that you as a society don’t even acknowledge as human beings.

 

Given human nature, it seems impossible that concepts like social justice, or its sibling, criminal justice, will ever truly exist. Our tribal instinct is so strong that even small children will cruelly attack a child who’s different. History is full of powerful groups committing atrocities against weaker groups. One could argue that’s all history is. Family, race, religion, nationality…we all belong to a tribe and we’re all guilty of injustice, but that’s not the greatest tragedy, it’s how easily we rationalize our evil.

 

I will likely die in a cage for the crime of being “them”, but I still think that social empathy and justice are possible. It won’t be accomplished by appealing to groups because groups naturally set themselves above and apart from outsiders. But as individuals, I think we’re all capable of walking in other people’s shoes, and it’s often someone’s story that inspires it. Stories allow us to see strangers as humans. So I write, not just to have my story heard, but the stories and voices of thousands of prisoners, many of whom are functionally illiterate and have no voice of their own. 

 

“An enemy is a person whose story we have not heard.  -  Gene Hoffman

Father's Day Death

On Father’s Day 2021, Adrian “Whisper” Dickson, was killed by his cellmate at the Wynne prison plantation in Texas. At about 2:30 PM, the cellblock boss walked by Whisper’s cage, located a few cages down the run from mine, and called in on his radio, reporting an unresponsive prisoner. Several more bosses rushed in and escorted Whisper’s cellmate out in restraints. A nurse came with a stretcher about 5 minutes later, but the guard had already reported on the radio that the prisoner had no pulse and had “bled out”.

Fiending

    “When I buy cookies I eat just four and throw the rest away. But first I spray them with Raid so I won’t dig them out of the garbage later. Be careful though, because Raid really doesn’t taste that bad.” – Janette Barber

“Big Boy Cookies!” shouted the fat black man through a freakishly wide but beautiful smile. He ambled down the run, dragging a filthy jacket in his pudgy digits and occasionally glancing to his rear in an unconvincing casual manner. After screaming his product, his voice softened into a musical purr.

“Jus’ one dolla’ gimme a holla …”

The charming hustler stopped at every beckoning hand, pausing each time to again check his rear, before reaching into one of the sleeves of his dangling coat, extracting an oversized cookie and exchanging it for the “money” that was beginning to fill the opposite sleeve of his jacket. Then he tipped his invisible top hat and sang his way to another customer.

Naked Destiny (Graphic Edition) Illustrations by Adam Pasion

A Faustian Shower

“The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists.  That’s why they invented hell.” – Bertrand Russel

 

State prisons differ vastly from region to region in the U.S.; these human storage facilities go from semi-humane to bloody hell.  A general rule of thumb is the farther south you go, the more cruel the cage is.  I’ve often wondered why that is and the only reason I can figure is that the resentment about losing the civil war, free slave labor and then Jim Crow, is somehow passed down to younger generations along the Bible-belt.  Our guards wear Confederate gray, and many of them have rebel flag stickers and rifle-racks on the back window of their pickup trucks.  If you’ve ever driven past a Texas penitentiary and witnessed the countless black prisoners picking cotton and other back breaking labor with a gun-toting bossman on a horse yelling at them to work harder under the blistering sun, you might even agree with my theory.  (Of course nowadays you have a sprinkling of a few white and brown slaves, but in this region, prisoners are less human than historical slaves ever were.)  This outdated southern justice system is far more brutal than the rest of America and with the way they fight any kind of reform tooth and nail, it may stay that way for a long time.

Archive Classic - Commissary Day

About “Commissary Day”

     When I wrote the following essay, describing in detail one of the more unfortunate rituals of prison, I received some rather strong reactions from readers. Most agreed that it was emotionally hard to read, and some of the more sensitive couldn’t manage to read it at all. I believe my writing was at fault…too much of my own misery leaked through the words. So, I’m rewriting the story, trying to make it more palatable. 

     I ask readers to understand that prison by its very nature breeds unpleasant experiences, and though I’ll attempt to remove some of my own raw emotion from the narrative, that doesn’t mean I can make it any easier to read.

     The issue of race was also a problem for some readers. Race isn’t something I feel qualified or comfortable addressing, but the penitentiary is socially primitive. And however ridiculous, race defines inmates far more than people in the outside world. Let me say that I find racism in any form highly distasteful and don’t condone it. Also note that racism and racial division are not necessarily the same thing. Bi-racial friendships here, while not encouraged, are not uncommon and usually without consequence. Racial division is more a result of circumstance than actual hate. When you create an all-male environment full of deprivation, volatility and uncertainty, it seems inevitable that a tribal culture will result.

Commissary Day 

 

“Principles have no real force except when one is well fed” — Mark Twain 

 

It’s 4:30 in the morning, and my head must weigh 50 pounds as I part it from the “fire-proof” pillow. It’s not just fatigue. Actual torture probably doesn’t break a person as fast as the apprehension of it. Blindfold a victim, strike him at random, and the blows won’t hurt nearly as much as the pauses. I dread this coming day, and my yearning for return to bed weighs me down; every movement willed.

Herd Immunity

"'Criminal justice' was a term she found more apt than it was meant to be." - Barbara Neely

Texas has murdered more than 200 people in the last 6 months.  But maybe “murdered”, is too strong.  What do you call it when preventable death occurs due to apathy, or perhaps deliberate indifference?  What word applies when someone knows that leaving their step-child in a hot car can kill them, but leaves them in there anyway?  Prisoners share the same vulnerability as small children because we depend on our guardians for survival.  If they refuse to feed me, I starve.  If they refuse me medicine, I suffer.  If they leave me helplessly exposed to a deadly virus, I … maybe “murder” isn’t too strong after all, and I bet many loved ones of those 200+ deceased victims probably agree.

Would any of those people have died if they were free rather than trapped in a concrete incubator?  Maybe, but at least they would’ve had a sporting chance:  mask-up, social distance, and possibly even self-quarantine… all of which their guardians made impossible.  Like the step-child locked in a hot car, they were helpless and, no one heard their cries - well, someone heard but they’re inmates not children, so who cares?

Caged Christmas

"That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do." - Mark Twain 

Christmas descends upon us and regardless of your brand of faith, it’s a day few American citizens can ignore, even the disenfranchised ones in prison.  Inmates generally hate holidays because they’re just one more day without mail.  Mail is big in an atmosphere of systematic dehumanization, it’s a revalidation of humanity, recognition that a prisoner rarely receives, even in the mirror.

Our society has traditionalized the winter holidays as remember, love and be with your family time.  For many inmates it’s more traditional to cry into their arms when the lights go out time.  The inability to feel your wife smile against your chest, or bathe in the sparkles of your kids’ eyes as they unwrap their presents, or even witness a normally grumpy family member catch a bit of Christmas spirit…

Agony.

Caged Fear

"There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust."  - Sophocles 

The cellblock goes unnaturally silent, and an eerie sizzle makes its way through my nerve endings as a dead human being surrounded by prison guards, rolls past my cage on a gurney.  One of the backward jogging guards pumps his hand violently into the victim’s chest, and while the pumping lacks the rhythm of genuine CPR, the sight of an apathetic guard even bothering is a sight I’ll never forget. I catch a glimpse of the inmate’s face and it seems obvious that any effort to save him is in vain.  His face is a stale gray, and so slack it appears devoid of muscle.  He looks like he’s been dead for months rather than minutes. 

Reluctant Smiles

"It's not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."                                                   - Agnes Repphir 

I look into the scratched plastic mirror and force myself to smile.  It’s not that easy.  Twenty years of prison pathos have stolen their toll, and even before the cataclysmic life change, the frequency of my smiles hardly put me in danger of being called, “Sunshine”.  Staring at my blurry image, I try to convince myself that my uninspired grin doesn’t make me look like an idiot.

 

I drive my hands up in the air, bounce on my toes a couple of times and, in a tone that hopefully none of the other caged people can hear, say: “WHOOSH!”. I look back at my dull reflection and notice that my smile has snuck away, so again, I grit my teeth and drag it back, silently slandering the authors of all those damned Neuro-Science and Psychology books I’ve been devouring lately.  It appears a fact, independently verified and replicated, that optimists have a longer life expectancy than cynics.  Even uglier is the fact that optimists suffer less illness and aging debilitation.  As unfair as that is to cynics, it’s aggravated by my logic that not only do optimists get a longer dance, they probably have more fun doing it.

Beautiful Meaning

(Originally Posted on September 9, 2017)

"Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose."  - Viktor Frankl 

An ageless debate stagnates among us about whether the tortures of the Texas prison structure is intentional or just cause and effect, but no one reasonable denies that the end result is symmetrical evil.  Yet there also appears to be a pattern in the overcoming of it. It’s subjective of course, and in some cases, men submit to insanity or the ultimate despair before they can adapt, but the rest of us progressively mitigate the suffering.  It’s true what they say: you really can get used to anything.

Shinful Meaning

(Originally Posted on May 14, 2017) 

“How frequently in the course of our lives, the evil which itself we shun, and which when we fall into it is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance.”    - Daniel Dafoe 

Walking on the institutional concrete produced a throbbing so pronounced that most people would have attributed it to fractures.  But my legs weren’t broken – they only felt that way.  When I first heard the term “shin conditioning” I pictured women in terry-clothed robes receiving some sort of lotion treatment.  Serene, with sliced cucumbers covering their eyes… I pictured a lot of things, but never blood loaded faces set in an expression of agony.  “Shin conditioning” had nothing at all in common with peaceful mending and was in fact the polar opposite, the process of battering the legs intentionally, to the point of injury.

Zenless

(Originally Posted on February 5, 2017) 

Oh ugly day. If you’ve ever packed up everything you own in the world into laundry bags on a blistering hot day, lugged it all 332 steps to a dingy gym and, watched helplessly as chronically unemployable, petty-minded bullies used misguided authority to pick through every personal effect while disposing of whatever they saw fit – then you know exactly what I mean.

Hopeless

(Originally Posted on August 9, 2016)

"Despair is the only cure for illusion.  Without despair we cannot transfer our allegiance to reality - it is a kind of mourning for our fantasies.  Some people do not survive this despair, but no major change within a person can occur without it." - Philip Slater 

There’s a friend in the next cell I’ll call Michael.  Michael is a fish, he’s done less than three months of a 60-year sentence, and everything is still new and appalling.  Like all fish in a Southern penitentiary, he alternates from horror to indignation because he still thinks like a human being.  I like Michael, he has a generous heart and a smile that flashes often and unselfconsciously.  It’s hard not to stare at Michael’s eyes sometimes, and I’ve noticed the other veteran prisoners do it too. His eyes still have some light, which makes them conspicuous in the dark existence.

The Black Box

(Originally Posted on June 24, 2016)

"Security is like liberty in that many are the crimes committed in its name." - Robert H. Jackson 

I recently wrote about the one-hundred-dollar medical co-payment that the Texas justice system extorts from the families of its inmates and how criminal it is for a government to double tax its most poverty-stricken citizens simply for caring about a prisoner.  I also talked about how the co-payment policy costs lives because inmates can be so reluctant to pay that fee, they will often allow a minor, easily treated malady to fester until it becomes a life threatening emergency.  I even admitted that despite my own cognizance of such unreasonable behavior, I too have foregone medical treatment to avoid paying that hundred dollars.  What I didn’t mention was that even as I wrote that information, I’d been having an untreated heart problem for months.

Naked Destiny

(Originally Posted on January 11, 2016)

I feel rather than hear a squeaky groan come from my chest in reaction to the sharp pain penetrating my eardrums. They fixed the loudspeaker last night. The same loudspeaker I paid Dennis, 4 Ramen noodle soups to disable a couple of weeks ago. I was hoping for a longer reprieve but overall, the money was well spent. My cage is located in such a manner as to perfectly convey the demon speaker’s penetrating screams. One can avoid the resulting pain with a pair of earplugs but I got caught sleeping this morning, in more ways than one.

Taxation Without Representation

(Originally Posted on December 2, 2015)

I’ve been working on an essay I feel strongly about, but it may take awhile. Even with my vast ignorance about blogs and the internet, I understand it’s important to have a steady schedule in order to keep your readers loyal. I have no idea how many readers Prison Vitality has, but even if it’s just a couple, I value you. I’ll try to produce regularly, but ask your forgiveness if I fail sometimes. Even in a dungeon, people and events sometimes make demands on your time. So, while you patiently await my next essay, I thought I’d share some news.

Fried Chicken Day, Part 3-Final part

(Originally Posted on October 20, 2015)

The one time of year we’re allowed to eat fresh fruit is on Christmas Day. My theory about this rare gift is that it takes place because our human warehouse is located along the Bible-belt and that there must be some sort of scripture that says it’s okay to be humane even to prisoners, on the Christ’s birthday. We are allotted one apple and orange apiece, providing we get up at 2:00 in the morning to go get them. The fruit is out of season, unusually small and not real sweet, but it is ecstasy nevertheless.

Fried Chicken Day, Part 2

(Originally Posted on October 1, 2015)

With low cost being the main objective, there is an exceptional lack of variety in our diet. Have you ever wondered what the absolute cheapest food in America is? I bet I know. Not because I’m a food economics expert, but because I eat it every meal: it’s bread. Biscuits, pancakes, cornbread, noodles or outdated sliced bread purchased at a huge discount from local outlets. No meal in prison is served without bread, and with casseroles making up the majority of our menu, bread forms the largest part of our diet. Ever wonder what the second cheapest food is? It’s got to be beans, as they too, come on every tray with the exception of breakfast. Not to say that breakfast is any more diverse than the other meals. In fact, breakfast has the least variety of all as it’s pretty much always pancakes with an occasional egg and biscuit day to break the monotony. I haven’t eaten breakfast in years, and not just because I’m so sick of pancakes that I’ve taken an oath to never eat another (barring starvation). Breakfast is served at 2 a.m. every morning; how insane is that? Who wants to interrupt a perfectly good sleep cycle to go stand in a line of grumpy convicts, illuminated by horribly bright florescent lights, just to eat some nasty prison pancakes? Evidently, plenty do, but I choose to survive on two meals and a full night of sleep.

Fried Chicken Day, Part 1

(Originally Posted on September 3, 2015)

They’ve got precious fried chicken for lunch today. Oh, it’s not 100% fried, as half the heating is done in a massive oven, thereby liquefying the crust into a greasy gelatin. But in a southern penitentiary, chicken is the ultimate meal.  And fried chicken? Once every couple of years if we’re very lucky. The result of this deprivation is that fried chicken day becomes a holiday that turns the prison upside down. Pretty much every inmate and bossman on the farm wants a piece of that chicken. Two or three pieces if he’s diabolical enough to obtain them. With a chronic diet of insipid casseroles, meals aren’t usually a big deal. Inmates with money can barely be bothered to eat the slop at all, much less stand in a long line to get it. This is especially true in the summer when a trip to the chowhall is pure misery drenched with sweat. But even the rich prisoners show up for fried chicken, so a lot more food must be prepared aside from the usual surplus stolen by the kitchen workers on any given day. The kitchen captain dictates extra food to cover for theft and the gluttons, but today all of his planning will be impotent despite added precautions and security. The final few hundred people in line (please don’t let me be one of those poor bastards!) will wait for hours, the kitchen scrambling to find and haphazardly cook more food.

Medical Malady

(Originally Posted on July 30, 2015) 

“…is not all the world beyond these four little walls pitiless enough, but that thou must needs enter here, — thou, O Death?”  - W.E.B. DuBois    

Some beautiful soul used a broomstick and bravery to disconnect the wires from that evil loudspeaker yesterday, and I wish him many blessings. Gave me the best night of sleep in months.

Time has been flying by and, in most prisons, that’s considered a very good thing because time is the enemy of most caged human beings. If I were given the opportunity ten years ago to fast forward ten years just to void a decade from my life, I would’ve gladly done so. And I would have been a fool. Even time spent being persecuted is precious. Life is so short, and prisoners hardly have a monopoly on suffering. Had I voided ten years, I would’ve missed meeting some amazing people and a large amount of personal growth. Regardless of how miserable my existence can sometimes be, I’m in no hurry to reach the end.

Commissary Day, Part 4-Final part

(Originally Posted on June 30, 2015)

Shortly after one o’clock, in a baking afternoon, the fourth shot of inmates hasn’t left the room, but there’s hope. It’s time for shift-change at the Commissary, and there’s a new employee we all want assigned to our window. She’s been here almost 13 weeks, and she has even the crass-speaking prisoners using the word “wonderful”. She hasn’t developed the chronic sneer of a Commissary lady (or prison nurse) yet, and there’s no sign of the inevitable apathy and laziness that familiarity with prison brings. In fact, she’s been polite, even to inmates, and works very hard. Nobody is sure how long her gung-ho attitude will last, but at present, she’s a heroine. Not only does she run the line smoothly and efficiently, but she’s even been known to get on the cellblock sergeant and remind him to fill her line. I call her the Asian Angel, and if she works, we all have a shot at making Commissary.

Commissary Day, Part 3

(Originally Posted on June 12, 2015) 

Commissary Day (continued)

A Bossman appears in front of the bars and magically has everyone’s attention. He smirks a hello and points a remote-control at the televisions mounted high on the brick wall, turning them to maximum volume. He asks what stations we want to watch, but jeers and shouted profanity are his only answer. Historically, thousands of prisoners have spilled blood over what snowy reception TV station to watch, yet nobody cares right now. Today is Commissary day.

Dear Ally...

(Originally Posted on May 22, 2015) 

Dear Ally,

In almost twenty-one years, you made greater differences in this world than many people far older than you ever will.

Thank you for helping with this blog and for extending your hand into the darkness to grasp mine. I will miss your sublimely kind spirit, so much.

 

Rest in peace, Allison

Commissary Day, Part 2

(Originally Posted on May 22, 2015) 

Commissary Day (continued)

At around five o’clock, the gate to my darkly comfortable kennel will be popped open. I will be released, and I will race to face my trial in the Hyena’s Den (that’s what I call the dayroom, which is both a recreation area and a holding tank). As I consider the tedious wait ahead, I debate with myself, as I have a hundred times in the past, whether to take a book. It’s a steady compulsion, and ridiculous: I don’t think I’ve managed to read an entire page of text in the Hyena’s Den. Ever. If the word “library” has an antonym, surely it would be “penitentiary dayroom”. No two environments could have such opposite intentions. The dayroom is a relatively small, overcrowded, cacophonous room laden with combustible levels of testosterone and fear. Seems like only a fool would even attempt to distract himself with a book in such a volatile atmosphere, and yet, distraction and escape are exactly what I long for whenever I’m trapped there.

Commissary Day, Part 1

(Originally Posted on May 12, 2015)

About “Commissary Day”

When I wrote the following essay, perhaps six years ago, describing in detail one of the more unfortunate rituals of prison, I received some rather strong reactions from readers. Most agreed that it was emotionally hard to read, and some of the more sensitive couldn’t manage to read it at all. I believe my writing was at fault…too much of my own misery leaked through the words. So, I’m rewriting the story, trying to make it more palatable. Because the essay is relatively long, I’ll post it in parts.

 

I ask readers to understand that prison by its very nature breeds unpleasant experiences, and though I’ll attempt to remove some of my own raw emotion from the narrative, that doesn’t mean I can make it any easier to read.

 

The issue of race was also a problem for some readers. Race isn’t something I feel qualified or comfortable addressing, but the penitentiary is socially primitive. And however ridiculous, race defines inmates far more than people in the outside world. Let me say that I find racism in any form highly distasteful and don’t condone it. Also note that racism and racial division are not necessarily the same thing. Bi-racial friendships here, while not encouraged, are not uncommon and usually without consequence. Racial division is more a result of circumstance than actual hate. When you create an all-male environment full of deprivation, volatility and uncertainty, it seems inevitable that a tribal culture will result.

 

Feel free to comment about what you read; otherwise, how can I know if the writing matters?

 

Commissary Day, Part 1 (Circa 1997)

 

“Principles have no real force except when one is well fed” — Mark Twain 

 

It’s 4:30 in the morning, and my head must weigh 50 pounds as I part it from the “fire-proof” pillow. It’s not just fatigue. Actual torture probably doesn’t break a person as fast as the apprehension of it. Blindfold a victim, strike him at random, and the blows won’t hurt nearly as much as the pauses. I dread this coming day, and my yearning for return to bed weighs me down; every movement willed.

Caged View

(Originally Posted on April 10, 2015)

The demented cement wall I open my eyes to every morning is more than a century old and bleeds tear gas when it gets really humid. Some of the white paint from its last paint-job remains and has been scorched with black soot from recent fire — no doubt set in protest from a dissatisfied resident. The wall is pockmarked with multicolored scabs from years of paint-jobs, has crude gang graffiti painstakingly carved with paperclips, and bares battle scars from the countless futile beatings inflicted by wretched ghosts past.

Dancing Daydreams

(Originally Posted on March 11, 2015) 

"All of us invent ourselves.  Some of us just have more imagination than others." - Cher

My balance teeters as I land, spinning on one foot atop of the abrasive concrete, preparing for another leap. I don’t bite it, but man, it’s close. I feel a shot of adrenal relief seize my body, and I bite back an impetuous smile as my body springs into a final landing of a five-piece pirouette… I mean, tornado-kick. I’m gasping for oxygen, my muscles tensed, and I feel the stares of unwelcome eyes. Of course, in prison, unwelcome eyes are almost always watching me. But presently, they’re intent. To be fair, I am making a bit of a spectacle of myself. Not that I have a choice in this overcrowded human warehouse. Given my introverted nature though, I’d much prefer practicing my dances unobserved.

Man Versus Beast

(Originally Posted on January 30, 2015) 

I stare at my freshly washed T-shirt hanging from a string clothesline against the wall. I’ve seen this sight a thousand times yet never seen it at all. What a pathetic shirt. Would anyone in the free world wear it? Probably not. Wearing it would be frowned upon, especially in a public place like a store or restaurant. Not that I think much about what’s acceptable in public, but every once in a while I allow myself a little role-playing game to fill an empty penitentiary moment. “Man Versus Beast”, I call it.

Lockdown Blues

(Originally Posted on January 14, 2015)

"We are children of our landscape, it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we're responsive to it." - Molier 

Twenty-four hours a day trapped in a 5′ x 9′ cage with a huge, sweating man whose stink is only exceeded by the toilet overflowing with excrement. And to be honest, I don’t smell very pleasant myself. The radio says it’s 101 degrees outside, which means it’s probably 115 degrees inside these unventilated prison bowels.

 

There’s no water, and that exacerbates the misery. If I had water, I could wash away the layers of grime accumulating on my skin. If I had water, I could wash my bed sheets, now foul from absorbing several days’ worth of sour sweat.  If I had water, I could flush that nasty toilet, which, even with several magazines covering its opening, and me cowering on the opposite end of my bunk, is still emitting fumes that make my eyes water. Most importantly, if I had water, I could quench my desperate and unreasonable thirst and recoup some of the fluids I’m steadily losing in this morbid sauna. (There’s a cruel prison phenomenon we often joke about: When they turn the water off, the body reacts by immediately becoming very thirsty, accompanied by a strong need to defecate. Much like when they handcuff your hands behind your back, your nose begins to itch.)