Shakedown!

8 am and the loudspeaker blares, “Shakedown!”  You can hear the groans echoing off the walls.  Nobody enjoys a shakedown, which involves the guards and sometimes the case manager and unit counselor rifling through your belongings.  They may be respectful of your things or they may not, but either way you can’t do a thing to stop them.  Usually one or two people are the target, but they hit the entire unit anyway.  The idea, I imagine, is to keep us all guessing who they’re after.  They go through everything, including personal photos, letters, even your underwear!

Safely ensconced in your living room at home it may be hard to understand how invasive this feels.  As I’ve written before, I share an 88-ish square foot living space with another guy.  I have one locker with roughly 9 cubic feet of storage and two clothes hooks.  Everything I may be said to “own” is stored in this restricted space.  Letters from my kids, my crochet projects, pictures, my journal.  All of it open to inspection on the whim of the authorities.  And I hate to have my possessions messed with.  Even on the outside I was like that.  But in prison, where we jealously hold onto whatever hint of privacy we can have, these searches feel like a violation.

Then when you consider that you may have accumulated some little extra thing to make life easier – maybe an extra pillow or blanket, a handmade shelf in your locker, a mesh bag for your shower stuff – and that they can confiscate it all, well, we hate that.  Guys do not like having to start from scratch after having paid or bartered for that confiscated item.

Shakedowns seem calculated to interfere with our sleep, too, and guys in here take that seriously.  But the reason we really hate these invasions is that they’re most often instigated by a snitcher.  Somebody is not minding his own business.  He's snooping on others even when nobody’s bothering him in any particular way.  So you may have that precious second pillow swept up because of somebody else’s petty beef or their desire to curry favor with the staff.  This violates a cardinal rule of prison life:  mind your own business, keep your mouth shut.  If it doesn’t affect you, let it go.  And if it does affect you, work it out without getting the staff involved.  Because that brings the heat down on all of us.  

Updates aka As the Prison Turns

Inmates continue to die at an alarming rate, and when a guy went down recently it took a long time for the emergency team to show up, even though he was just 150 steps (I counted) away from their door.  When they carried him out, he was unconscious, and we still don’t know if he’s alive or not.  Even though we all live together 24-7, the guards will not give us updates on our friends.

Half-Baked is struggling at the moment.  He’s got “only” 3.5 years to go on a 10 year bid, which we call “heading downhill”, but he doesn’t see it that way.  He applied for but did not get a Presidential Commutation, after bragging that he was sure to get it, because his reason was fool proof:  “I’m sick of this place!”   Unlike the rest of us, apparently he hates being in prison.  I do feel sorry for him.  He needs mental health care.  He’s not dangerous, he just needs to be monitored, but the solution for him and so many like him seems to be – lock him up in jail.  I’ve been talking with him, treat him like the other guys, try to help him deflect the predators (guys who hustle him out of commissary items or get him to do their laundry, promising to pay him back later, which they never do).  In some ways, I feel sorrier for guys who feel the need to take advantage of those less fortunate than I do for Half-Baked.

Meanwhile, Ms. Wesley Snipes continues her reign of terror at the Rec Yard.  Not only can you not take a book outdoors to read, you can’t even have a Bible to study with friends on the Yard.  She has proclaimed that she doesn’t want anybody walking around “posterizing” (I think she means proselytizing), because it’s against policy (no one knows what policy she’s citing, as it was never a problem before).

Ms. Snipes has cracked down on my crochet class, too.  No longer can we make anything that might be considered an article of clothing, even if we plan to mail it home.  I understand the rationale that inmates might use homemade caps or whatever as a gang emblem, but not allowing us to make hats, scarves, mittens for our families on the outside?  So, of course, I asked her to explain, and she said, “If you don’t like it, I can cancel the whole program.”  A sweetheart, eh?

Finally, my early chow pass:  My mission has been temporarily side-tracked, because too many guys – some lacking what we might call the art of sublety – are also after the coveted Golden Ticket.  They don’t follow any of the generally successful strategies, such as finding a task that needs to be done at chow time, no these clowns just line up to go early with the guys who belong in the line.  Things blew up when 19 people showed up one day with the same excuse for eating early – claiming to be referees for basketball games.  The upshot?  Early chow has now been suspended for EVERYONE!

May I just say that yes, I have gotten the message!  Frankly, it had sunk in quite well after just one week away from my family, so can I go home now?  I just want to hug my kids, kiss my wife and take a nap on the couch.  That’s the general sentiment we all share.   We’re being warehoused, locked away longer than necessary in most cases.  I mean, very few people here are what you might call genuinely evil men.  Most are guys who just got off track and made mistakes.  First time offenders, for instance, who could have been given a much shorter sentence, maybe placed on strict supervision and warned not to make a mistake again.  I’d have been fine with that.  Instead I sit here, fighting all the negativity, the inertia, the feeling that society has just given up on us.  I know that every long day brings me closer to walking out that door.  I just pray every day that my wife, my kids, my siblings and parents will still be waiting for me.  That they don’t lose faith in me.  I get up every day ready to fight the good fight, but it is absolutely exhausting!

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!

Control.

You would think that prison might be set up to help people develop the everyday skills needed to make good choices, adapt to varied circumstances, work on becoming a productive member of society.  But no.  Basic decisions like what to eat, what to wear, when to wake up, it’s all controlled by others.  Your very existence depends on the capriciously arbitrary whims of the staff.  You try to help yourself.  Reading, working out, taking a class or an independent study, going to church services, maybe socializing or catching a little tv or playing a little softball.  You feel a slight inkling of something almost like self-determination happening, but it’s an illusion.  You’re starting to feel a little less oppressed.  That’s when they get you.

The shorts with the hand-sewn pocket for holding your radio while walking the track, suddenly it’s contraband.  They shorts are confiscated and you're threatened with a disciplinary report, even though you’ve worn them with no problem or complaint for the previous two weeks.  For months it’s okay to read a book on the Yard, then WHAM! it’s off limits.  Bringing a packet of condiments to dinner, wearing a hat in the library, I could go on and on, but you get the picture.  Even your job assignment is up for grabs.  You can be cruising along in the library, doing a good job, getting along with your co-workers, and one day find out you’ve been assigned to Landscaping.  You have no desire to mow the lawn, pull weeds, and prune trees, but off you go.  Why?  Maybe you annoyed a staff member or even an inmate who fancies himself a staff member.  A few well-placed gripes and cleverly worded snitches and Voila!  You’re a lawn doctor.

It’s this deadening routine spiced with sudden upheaval that drives some guys crazy.  If you’ve been reading this blog, then you know that my strategy for dealing with pretty much anything is just to grin and take it in stride.  Try to coast over the pettiness.  Get above the power trips and mind games.  Who knows, maybe there isn’t any out-to-get-you agenda anyway.  Sometimes shit happens and that’s just the way it goes.  What’s the big deal?  Life goes on, just let it roll.

Walk this Way

My new buddy G-Money is adjusting to life in prison, but we've run into a problem.  It's his walk.  It's not good.  To illustrate, picture the glittering pianist Liberace walking onstage.  (If you’re too young to have seen him on tv, check out a Youtube video.)  Now exaggerate that sashay to make it ten times more feminine and you have G-Money’s stroll around the prison yard.  We all know that a walk does not define a man, at least not in most places, but here in the Bizarro world of prison sashay = gay.  G-Money is secure in himself and open-minded.  He doesn’t really feel any need to defend his sexual orientation, and he doesn’t judge the inmates who are openly gay, but with that walk of his, he’s getting propositioned in the most overt ways you can imagine pretty much all day long, and that is annoying. 

So G-Money returns for another consultation.  Laughter ensues when it turns out that he is the only person on the compound unaware of his sashay.  All the jokes about shaking what his mama gave him, his “milkshake bringing all the boys to the yard,” etc. (even a move to hold an inmate-sponsored fashion show just so he can walk the runway) have left him confused and clueless.  Clearly an intervention is in order.

Well, I have learned that thirty-three years of practice cannot be unlearned overnight.  We’re aiming for a month-long project.  In week one, we’re starting with posture, hoping that standing tall and (pun intended) straight will help him look more stereotypically manly.  Sadly, early returns are not encouraging.  The walk I’m afraid may not be changeable.  We’ve suggested he at least grow a beard.  Meanwhile, we’re moving on to arm swing.  I’ll keep you posted.