Three hours. What’s an activity you do, cumulatively, for three hours a week? Shower? Eat? Play Words with Friends? Here in prison, during corona lockdown, the answer is Go Outside! Three times a week we are allowed outdoors for an hour so the unit can be sprayed with bleach. Because we can’t come in contact with guys from other units, the whole event ends up lasting just 50 minutes, so we don’t cross paths.
Don’t get things twisted, I’m much happier with three hours a week outside than the seemingly endless weeks since the pandemic hit when we were not allowed off the unit at all. In order to maximize our minutes in the sun, everybody gets prepped. Prior to the recreation call, the hallways fill up with guys limbering up and stretching. It looks like the world’s most rag-tag men’s only yoga class. When the call comes, you better be ready. The doors open and it’s like the running of the bulls at Pamplona crossed with Black Friday at Walmart. You get carried forward on a wave and pray you stay on your feet.
Once outside the 150 guys immediately self-divide based on their goals for this precious 50 minutes. The runners, me among them, hit the track, having already stretched and jogged in place to warm up while indoors. Here I go: towel hung on the fence, mask in pocket, water bottle in the corner, hit the stopwatch and run! Each lap of the Yard is about .42 miles and let me tell you, the first day out after so many weeks of lockdown was both the most glorious and the most excruciating .42 of a mile. My mind was still busting out the 10-11 miles I used to do before corona, but my body was yelling, “Hey, 60 days of peanut butter in here! You listening? SLOW THE F__K DOWN!” But the pain was worth it, just to move through space again, it was so sweet!
On the track you have to navigate the speed walkers, the high-intensity interval trainers, the slow joggers, and the plodders like me. Fortunately, some guys could care less about running. One group I call the “Thank God I Can Feel the Sun on my Face” guys. You have to be careful not to look their way lest you be blinded. It’s like staring into a solar array. If we ever make it out of the virus-era, the medical center is going to be running a lot of biopsies judging from the truly frightening sun burns I’ve seen over the past couple weeks.
The third group of guys, I don’t even know how to categorize them. Maybe the Moaners? Picture a guy who, if given a million dollars in twenties would complain that the bills weren’t hundreds. If we go out at 8 am, he complains that the guards called it early just to mess up our sleep. If we go out at 12:30, then it’s just because the guards want us to bake in the sun. If it’s raining, the guards caused that, too. They scowl at us runners for coming too close, at the sun worshippers for stealing the best light. Extra hot dogs on July 4? Why no hamburgers? Free phone minutes? It’s a conspiracy. There’s 150 guys to share three phones. Clearly the free minutes are intended to get us to fight each other over access. These guys live a never ending tidal wave of negativity. Apparently, being in prison is not miserable enough for these guys, they find it necessary to create a joy sucking black hole of pessimism, too.
Well, there you have it, the gang’s all here. If you had the misfortune of being a prisoner, you’d join this motley crew trudging off to Rec three times a week for their precious 50 minutes of sunshine.
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