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.

And now, in a case of tangible irony, I can relate that on the very day I finished sharing that information, I found myself in an ambulance with a life threatening problem.  For the previous 6 months I’ve been having episodes where I suffer a deep weakness, shortage of breath and an erratic heartbeat.  It rarely lasts more than a few minutes, usually when I’m on the cusp of sleep.  I’ve basically suffered few symptoms during the day and even exercise quite vigorously without issue, so I hoped the problem was minor and would heal of its own accord.  Weeks went by and I still kept having heart episodes but I continued to avoid the prison infirmary because of that hundred-dollar bill.  Then one day my heart went crazy, making me weak as a kitten, so I decided to seek help, a hundred dollars be damned.  When I got to the infirmary I waited 3 hours on the hardest bench in Texas before they’d even hear my complaint, and by then my symptoms were gone again and my vital signs were normal.  I waited another 3 hours to see a physician’s assistant and when I finally got to talk to her I told her about the problem and how long I’d been having it.  To her credit, she ordered an EKG test on my heart which came back normal.  She told me nothing was wrong with me and that I was probably drinking too much coffee.

I paid a hundred dollars I didn’t have, to suffer 6 hours on the bench from hell just to receive an ignorant opinion a dozen inmates would’ve given me for free?  I hated myself.  Not one time in 20 years have I ever received help from a prison infirmary, even when I suffered a herniated disk in my neck and spent 4 agonizing months in bed with a pinched nerve.  I felt so stupid for subjecting myself to that useless infirmary exercise again, and paying for the privilege.

The heart episodes continued, but wild horses couldn’t have dragged me back to that infirmary just to be snubbed by some apathetic prison healthcare worker, so I hoped my problem would heal of its own accord.  Then one night, my body betrayed me.  It could’ve easily been the end for our protagonist, but as it happens, there have been an unusually high number of deaths at this prison unit recently and that fact likely saved my life.

I woke up with my body screaming for oxygen.  My extremities were numb, my hands whiter than my bed-sheets.  When I attempted to get up, I fell to the floor too weak to stand.  I’m not sure how long I stayed like that, but I refused to call out for help.  Eventually a bossman came by counting and saw me on the floor.  He called on the radio for assistance and they took me to the infirmary.  Once again my vital signs were normal.  They told me I was faking.

I should mention that inmates faking illness is far from uncommon.  I’m not sure why, but I suppose it’s often an effort to get attention however callous and malignant, especially for some of the men in higher custody security levels who are forced to spend the majority of their existence in a stimulus deprivation cage.  There is a fair share of hypochondriacs I’m sure and there have always been hustlers, even before the hundred-dollar medical fee. After the fee the number of hustlers only multiplied, those friendless souls that never receive any monetary help from the outside. The hundred-dollar fee doesn’t touch them because Texas is forced to provide medical care (such as it is) even to indigent inmates.  They go get whatever medicine from the infirmary that might sell on “the streets”, like antibiotics, cold medicines, Ibuprofen, athlete’s foot cream and anything else, and sell it to other prisoners.  So, it’s true that many inmates fake their symptoms and the medical staff, much like the security staff, are trained to be skeptical about anything a prisoner says.  Unless an inmate has symptoms plainly visible to even the most ignorant layman, he is unlikely to receive emergency care.

They kept telling me I was faking, but I couldn’t stand up or argue with them.  I found out later from one of the bossmen present that the only reason they called 911 was because of the heat they’d received over all the recent deaths.  I’m not ungrateful, but it still confuses me.  Where would this “heat” come from?  Who would care if an inmate dies and what difference would it make?  The general public is indifferent and inmates’ families are mostly poor and without political clout.  Who’s left to hold a prison accountable for unnecessary deaths?  It makes no sense, but I’m unlikely to ever find the answer.

When I arrived at the emergency room, my vital signs remained normal and in truth I was feeling much stronger.  Fortunately, non-prison hospitals aren’t so quick to accuse people of faking.  They did a blood test and discovered I had a critically low potassium level.  That surprised me; who thinks about potassium?  Who knew you could die from such a thing?  I was hooked up to a bag of potassium and admitted into the hospital.  The guards seemed a bit disappointed that they’d guessed wrong about my imposture.

My stay in the hospital was both sublime, and horrible.  Sublime because of the way the medical staff treated me after 20 years of being treated like an ugly insect by anyone with a smidgen of authority.  After dealing with medical staff that openly hate men because of the prison uniform they wear I had no idea how to react to authority figures that treated me like I had the value of some human.  I kept welling up with tears every time someone said something nice to me.  I guess I’ve gotten so used to rudeness, I’ve forgotten how powerful simple kindness can be.

I have often compared the blandness of prison food with that of a hospital.  My bad.  I apologize to hospitals everywhere.  Another reason my stay was so great was because of the delectable fare.  I suppose the greatest blessing of prison is that it teaches you a deeper, tangible appreciation for things you never truly understood the value of.

Lastly, my hospital stay was lovely because of the adjustable bed and the real pillow.  A real pillow!  Oh how I fell for that hospital cushion, and the soft blanket that didn’t cause itching.  Then there was the TV!  They told me I was allowed to watch TV 24 hours a day and that’s exactly what I did, sleep be damned.  I have loved movies since I was a little boy and I miss them so much; I wasn’t about to lose such an opportunity to sleep.  Yes, all of these novelties were quite wonderful, but I didn’t get to sincerely enjoy them because I was miserably uncomfortable the whole time.

My ankles were shackled close together and a cold steel chain was attached to the shackles, running up between my legs, stripping every hair it touched, and it touched many, as I wore no clothing barring a paper rear-less hospital gown.  But the shackles and chain were nothing compared to the handcuffs.  Ordinary cuffs would’ve been wretched in themselves.  But the “black box” turned it into torture.  The “black box” is a piece of hard plastic fastened over handcuffs with a padlock that prevents any movement of the wrists.  No matter how hard you try to keep your arms close together to prevent the bite of the metal it’s impossible because it’s too unnatural to hold your hands in that position.  So, your wrists automatically pull apart and lean against the steel.  It’s highly uncomfortable and after a couple of hours it becomes an extreme torment.  I stayed that way almost 5 days.  My hands swelled grotesquely and ulcers developed on my wrists.  The guards refused my pleas to loosen the restraints.  They’re terrified an inmate will try to escape being outside a prison, so they’re very strict and security conscious.  Little did they dream, I wouldn’t have tried to escape, even unrestrained and unsupervised.  Twenty years in prison has left me with no place else to go.

The restraints were hell.  I talked about not sleeping because of the TV opportunity, but only exhaustion would allow a person to sleep with that much bodily misery.  I spoke of the delicious food, but meal times were the most painful as I fought the “black box” to try and maneuver food into my mouth.  I dropped more than a few bites of that precious food on my bed where I couldn’t reach it.  You wouldn’t believe how challenging it is to use a spoon when you cannot move your wrists.

The term “bed-sores” has never made much sense to me; how could a soft bed possibly cause sores?  Now I know.  I wasn’t able to turn over or adjust my body much because of the restraints.  As a result, my butt grew raw, and I’m sure the urine didn’t help.   A bed can indeed cause skin ulcers.

The smell was bad.  I reeked.  I kept having to urinate because of the I.V. fluids and I couldn’t master the art of peeing in a jug while lying down handcuffed.  I spilled urine on myself over and over; it went sour as time passed by.  The nurses weren’t allowed to give me a sponge bath because I was a low-life prisoner who might get off on it.  The nurses kept asking me if I wanted a laxative to stimulate a bowel movement.  I didn’t need stimulation.  I’d had the urge from day one, but no way in hell was I going to have a bowel movement while chained like a dog and all of those kind women around.  I was prepared to hold it for weeks if necessary.  Five days was nothing.

Like I said, the hospital stay was both lovely and miserable.

The medical staff performed some tests, but they never did figure out how I lost so much potassium.  Even after they restored my potassium level back to normal, it didn’t solve the symptoms I’d been having for months.  But they seemed pretty sure there wasn’t anything wrong with my heart.  I can only hope they were right.

Now that I’m out of the hospital and back in the apathetic environment of prison, I have 2 problems to worry about:  I don’t know how I’m going to retain my potassium levels or how I’ll know if I don’t have enough of it.  The doctor said she would prescribe potassium supplements but she forgot.  Either that or she figured the prison would ignore her prescription like many of the drugs prescribed to inmates from free world doctors often are because they’re either too expensive or there’s a possibility of abuse.  I have no idea if potassium supplements are allowed for inmates.

Despite these worries, I was relieved to come back to prison and escape the “black box”.  My wrists are still a mess even as I write this.  The return trip was another lesson in misery as well.  I wore only a paper gown in 40-degree weather and it was an ugly challenge to shuffle and edge my way into the dog kennel in the back of the van.  That’s what it’s called: “dog kennel” and for good reason, there’s about the same amount of space.  I barely fit, my knees crammed against a metal cage.  Many prisoners are too large to fit in the dog kennels and need special transport.  Unfortunately, I just fit.  Being chained up made getting up and into the dog kennel no small task and once inside, I was too far towards the back of the vehicle.  The thing is, if they wreck the van, a prisoner has no chance.  Surrounded by metal and no seatbelt, and chains preventing any limb movement, even a minor vehicle accident could mean death to a man stuck in the dog kennel.  My guards were both African nationals from Nigeria, as a growing percentage of Texas prison employees are.  Fewer Americans are willing to accept such a low paying, degrading job.  My guards barely spoke English and called me paranoid, but I was a bit worried about their driving skills.  So, even though it was very painful to slide my body along the steel bench to the barrier at the front of the van because the metal was ice cold and my ulcer covered ass kept getting stuck to it (one must attempt to slide because the space is too small to raise up), I figured the front barrier offered me the best protection in the event of a sudden brake.  If I stayed in the back of the van as my ass begged me to do, a sudden brake would’ve sent me flying to crush my skull against the steel barrier, because I couldn’t raise my arms to protect it.

The ride back was long and very cold, but somehow I felt proud because the cold didn’t seem to bother me as I remained focused on breathing and keeping my wrists positioned to prevent resistance.  I remained proud until we got back to the prison.  It was raining a bit and once I managed to wriggle my way out of the dog kennel, I was forced to shuffle in my shackles more than a hundred yards on the coldest, wettest sidewalk in the history of mankind, barefoot.  I was trembling so badly by the time I got into the building that one guard had to hold my arms still while the other one unlocked my restraints.  But I was finally free of the “black box”.

The night I went to the hospital, I’d been wearing my watch, t-shirt, tennis shoes and state clothes.  I was forced to remove everything and get on the ambulance naked.  When I returned, my property had been stolen.  I’m still pretty upset about that.  I don’t know if the guards or the inmates stole my stuff, but there’s nothing I can do about it.  I suspect inmates.  The guards steal a lot, but usually only commissary or jewelry.  It doesn’t seem likely that one of them stole my low quality tennis shoes.  I don’t know which loss hurts worse, the watch or the tennis shoes.  It was a good watch, one I assumed I’d have the rest of my prison life.  The tennis shoes were fairly new, purchased with the money sent to me by a friend who could ill afford it.  It will be a slice of hell trying to replace those shoes.

I know; I should just be grateful I’m alive, right?  I’m not.  I want to be alive AND wear my shoes.

I’m back under the prison healthcare system now…sort of.  Trust me when I tell you it’s not a very safe place to be.  I’m not exaggerating when I tell you the medical staff hates inmates.  Maybe it’s different in other states, but why would it be?  Who in this world, after undergoing so much education and training in the medical field, would want to get stuck in a prison giving medical care to worthless scum?

The infirmary is required to see you after you return from a hospital.  Once again I spent most of a day sitting on a bench with a sore ass, waiting to see the same P.A. who stole a hundred dollars from me to tell me nothing was wrong.  I sat in front of her as she reviewed the hospital report on the computer.  She looked at me accusingly and said: “you’d be dead if your potassium level had been that low”.  She acted like I was the one who put that lab result in the computer.  She ordered more lab tests and an EKG, which I know will be normal after the dozens they performed at the hospital and once again I’ll be likely labeled a faker.

But I’m not going to let that happen.  No more entire days wasted on the bench for me.  No more antipathy and being chained like a dog.  I’m finished.  Whether they acknowledge it or not, I am a human being and not a green piece of shit.  I plan to refuse all future prison infirmary appointments, and if it turns out my heart issues are fatal, so be it.  There are worse things than death.

 [Edited: 8SEP2017 at the request of the author.]