Prayer for the Music Man

At times we focus on ourselves too much.  Stuck here in prison, these walls dominate our thoughts and actions.  We need to remember that the world "out there" keeps spinning without us, all the while hoping that we are not forgotten by friends and family.  In the end we can only take what people are willing to give and be thankful.   

I think it’s important to be aware of the struggles others are facing.  So today I’m dropping my usual rants, writing nothing about me, prison, or the criminal justice system.  This one goes out to my friend whom I call “The Music Man.”  He and his family are facing something much more important and challenging than anything I have to deal with here.  Their young child is having surgery, fighting for his life.  By all accounts, they are meeting this adversity with courage, openness, and faith.  As a father I can only imagine how frightened they much be.   

I hope you read this Music Man and know that my heart goes with you in this difficult time.  We will say a prayer here at the chapel for you and your family.  Your strength is an inspiration to everyone.  In here it helps me get off the bunk and get going.  You are in my thoughts and prayers.

You Can't Reason with Crazy

Big news around the unit the other day because G-Money decided to shave.  Just in case you did not know, being clean shaven and relatively young in prison signals that you are gay.  No use wondering whether this makes sense or is fair, it’s just the way it is.  You may be secure in your sexuality and not care whether someone thinks you’re gay, but you will still be hassled all day by propositions and pursued by a portion of the prison population. 

Meanwhile, back to the story.  One guy notices that G-Money has shaved and another says, “Yeah, he wants to look good for a visit.”  This makes sense, and he can just grow it back if he wants to avoid all the attention.  But then there’s this crazy -- actually as I see it batshit crazy -- thing.  This guy Tim joins the conversation.  Tim is a self-proclaimed Biblical scholar who claims to know the Bible better than anyone else on the compound.  He claims to live with one foot in heaven, the other foot on earth, where he serves as a beacon of God’s power.  His dimension-straddling power leads him to speak in tongues, and he claims to be able to perform miracles with his voice, heal through laying on of hands, and exorcise demons. 

But this, believe it or not, is not the crazy part.  I have no problem with his beliefs, but what he said in this conversation struck me as, well, odd.  Tim said that G-Money would be able to grow his beard back almost instantly.   "Why is that," we asked?  Tim responded, “Because when you become Jewish, by birth or conversion, God reaches down his hand and gives you the power to grow your Jew Beard!”  Stunned silence.  We’re all waiting for some kind of punchline.  But Tim says, “I’m totally serious.  That’s why Jews look so Jewy.”  At this point, I could take no more.  I invited him to explain how he could tell the difference between my Italian beard and what he called a Jew beard.  He nodded and replied that true believers can tell, adding that maybe I have some Jewish ancestors? 

I walked away.  One thing I’ve learned in prison is that you can’t reason with crazy.   Of course, one good thing did come from this.  We can now tease G-Money about his Jewy beard (poor guy, first it’s the walk and now the beard!).

The Prison Economy

One of the things that I find most interesting about prison is its economic system, where there is both a primary (commissary purchases) and a secondary (barter) market.  At the commissary, as you might expect with a literally captive clientele, you see at least a 30% markup.  That price gouging is what has created the secondary market, which I think is really fascinating, especially since it is totally, completely, without a doubt, AGAINST the rules.  This is the definition of a black market, which thrives in prison.

The black market has three facets:  (1) barter, (2) commissary, and (3) currency.  Bartering is mainly used to exchange skills and services.  For instance, because I have access to a typewriter, a guy comes to me to get something typed up, but maybe he doesn’t have anything tangible to offer in trade.  Well, it turns out that he works in the laundry, and I could use a new pillow.  He gets me the pillow, I type up his document, and we’re square.  The only problem is that one of us could get caught using prison property for personal gain, but frankly that’s a minor risk.  After all, I’m allowed to use the typewriter and he’s allowed to hand out pillows, just maybe not in trade.

The commissary black market works a little differently.  In this case, in trade for typing up a guy’s paperwork, he offers maybe two bags of Taster’s Choice instant coffee.  Now I know that the dude in the laundry room loves having a cup of java while handing out linens every morning, so I take the coffee, do the typing, and then swap the coffee bags for my pillow.  While this, too, is a type of barter, unopened commissary items are valuable commodities, especially to those who don’t have any cash to buy them.  Things can go wrong, however, if I don’t have an item that the pillow guy wants.  That takes a little more hustling.  Maybe I’m offered a can of tuna instead of coffee bags.  I don’t decline the offer, but I make a second swap with one of the muscle men workout guys who seek protein 24-7.  If he’s got coffee, we’re good.

Finally, there’s a hard currency black market, too, which on our compound is not cash but postage stamps.  I’ve heard that in some prisons the hard currency is cans of mackerel or radio batteries, but here it’s stamps.  They have to be unused and mailable, because their ultimate worth is that they can actually be used to send a letter.  Stay with me as we follow the next scenario:  I need a pillow and the other guy needs a 4-page document typed up.  I charge him three stamps per page, which is the going rate (and I know I need at least 10 stamps for my pillow, planning to save the other two for a two stamp Coke or a couple letters home).  Everything has its price in postage stamps.

Another twist here is that you pay a different price with either stamps or commissary.  There’s a sort of service fee attached if you go the commissary route.  For instance, in our example, two bags of coffee cost way more than six stamps, but I can charge a premium if I let a guy pay in commissary.  Say you have a guy walking around trying to sell something for 20 stamps (worth $9.40) or $15 worth of commissary.  Sometimes there’s room for negotiation or a combined payment method, such as, “Okay, I’ll do one load of laundry and pay you five stamps for the headphones!”

It seems that barter is your best route when you want something done that you should not be having done.  For example, I wanted to get the scoreboard repaired at the softball field, but the staff couldn’t be bothered.  But when I offered book delivery service and first access to the Wall Street Journal for two weeks to a guy from Facilities, he made up an excuse to check out some tools and repaired the scoreboard, a win-win all around.  (A couple weeks later, the CO asks about the scoreboard, and we all just play dumb, as if we don’t even remember that it was ever broken (playing dumb always works, because the staff assumes we’re all idiots).

Our prison economy runs quite smoothly, though, since we are in a federal prison, you always have to keep an eye open for some former financier running a Ponzi Stamp Scheme!