Water Bottle Cozy Crackdown

It's been a long time, I know, but if anyone's still out there reading this blog, I'm alive and kicking.  The BOP and the proprietors of my federally financed resort, meanwhile, have continued their incessant assault on our humanity.  Consistently churning out insane, inane, and insulting policy.  In my next few posts, I'll be describing some of the new rules, starting with generalities and moving on to decisions that directly impact me.

For starters, let's examine the water bottle cozy crackdown.  All will agree that one needs to avoid the dangers of dehydration.  To this end, prisoners are allowed to purchase a two dollar clear plastic squeeze bottle of the cheap, uninsulated variety.  While warm water will hydrate as well as cold, who doesn't like to gulp down some ice-cold agua on a hot summer day?  Thus, some of us have found ways to fashion drink cozies for our bottles.  The simplest version is just a tube sock pulled over the bottle.  The high-end model is a crocheted cover that may even have a carrying strap, perhaps in team colors or with a flashy design.  In terms of contraband, I'd rate these things about as serious as driving 56 in a 55 mph zone.  No one has ever found a drink cozy to cause a problem of any kind.  But the staff hates these things.  They have become militant about stopping us, seizing the dangerous contraband and throwing them away.  One prisoner dared to question the trash can spike and immediately received a disciplinary shot for insubordination.

Why the crackdown on cozies?  Is it possible we missed the news of Death-by-Drink-Cozy being on the rise out in the world?  Middle-aged Jimmy Buffet wannabees choking each other with drink cozies and jiggers of salt?  Someone please explain.  "Oh I'll explain," a guard chortled.  "Cuz I said so!"

One Day at a Time

So, it’s been a minute since I sat down to write.  The reason?  It’s hard to explain, but let me take a shot at it.  On the surface, it’s just that I’ve been keeping myself busy – organizing Spanish language classes and such – and while that’s an excuse, there’s more to it.

Really it’s because when you sit down to write a blog post about life in prison, you have to open your eyes to the reality of being here, and sometimes what you prefer to do is just slog through your day like the whole experience is just a bad dream and not think about anything too much.  There are times when you just don’t have it in you to get smacked in the face by the harshness of your situation.

So you stay busy and engaged in activity, you sleep when you can, get up and do it again.  Before you know it, another day, another week, another month has passed.  That works for awhile, until one day you reach the point where enough is enough, you put on your headphones, head out to the yard, stand there looking around at the concrete block walls and admit to yourself, “Yep, I’m still in Fucking Prison!”

That’s when things get rough.  Now you dwell on your captivity, you try to walk your way through it, but every step it’s just the guilt, the shame, the embarrassment, the pain.  You put on sunglasses to hide the tears (much like Baseball, there is no crying in prison).  It’s all just one more way you punish yourself.

And I’ve learned that eventually you cycle out of that funk too.  Yes, you’re still in prison, man.  Nothing has changed (nothing ever changes).  You can’t control much in here, but you can control your own behavior.  You face up to the negative feelings, you respect them for their power, and you move on.  You lie down to sleep and understand that you’ve made it through another day.  One day closer to freedom.

Because the main thrust of it all is that you cannot, you will not, let it break you.  You lie there and find a way to forgive yourself one more time, for the millionth time, and eventually it sinks in.  You can do this.  You dust yourself off and get back in the fight.

An old man here who is nearing the end of a lengthy sentence often comes to the track to jog.  He can do 3-4 miles with that old man shuffle.  He’s in great physical shape for his age.  One day I asked him, “How many laps do you plan to do today?”

He answered, “One.”

“What do you mean, one?  I’ve seen you do 10, 12, 15 laps before.”

“Yeah.  Well you see I do one lap.  Then if I make it, I do another lap.  Eventually, one lap at a time, I’ve run three miles.”

He was trying to tell me something from his deep wisdom as an old-timer.  “It’s like life in lock up,” he said.  “You do one day.  Then, if you make it, you do another day.  And then one day you’ll be home.”

So here I am, back to writing.  Got one day to get through….

Revolving Door

No one would claim that Federal Prison is the place to go if you want to witness emotionally mature men coping with their feelings.  While stunted emotional development is on display every day, things reach a low (or high depending on how you look at it) when guys go home.  I’m not talking about the guys leaving, I mean the guys left behind.  You might think, of course, you’d be happy for your cellie, your workout partner, your card playing buddy to finally get out, but I’ve seen guys express the exact opposite:  “That ___hole, leaving me here to deal with this place!  He’ll be back in a quick minute, can’t make it out there without me!  I thought we were boys, we were like that, but now?”

True, these guys are using anger to cover their actual feelings – of abandonment, jealousy and confusion.  Best friends at each other’s throats – you see it weekly.  You just hope that they can figure it out before it’s too late.  What a shame to aid and support each other for years, making it through the most difficult times of their lives, only to blow it all up in the end.  But sometimes both the leaver and the left behind behave angrily and even with downright meanness.

On the flip side, sometimes a guy nobody likes goes home.  He’s loud, obnoxious, rude, disrespectful, smell, dishonest, whatever.  Makes your time here harder.  He may be the guy awake and yelling at 5:30 AM or the one who “jocks” the TV.  What a relief when he goes.  Everybody shouts, “At last!  Never could stand that guy!  Good riddance!  Whoo-hoo, party! But hold on.  This jerk is going HOME!  Well, he served his time.  But it shoulda been me!  He deserves prison more!”  The chorus is deafening.  

Eventually things calm down and we understand our one truth:  He’s gone and we’re still here.  Well, at least we no longer have to deal with his behavior.  Sometimes, though, the troublemaker will have a moment of conscience and shake your hand on the way out, wish you well.  And even though he behaved like an insufferable jerk the whole time he was here, you take the high road, wish him well and move along.

Doing the right thing is not always easy, but it’s still the right thing.  Of course, most dudes respond by cussing the guy out and letting him know how they really feel.  I have to admit that’s a little cathartic and entertaining for the rest of us.  (A psychology student could write quite a dissertation just on these weird goodbye experiences.  If the BOP found it in their hearts to help us go to school, I’d write it myself.  They top out at GED, though, which is an entirely different post.)

Now check this out.  At least 20 times since I’ve been in prison I’ve seen the revolving door in action.  Maybe the guy was here in our block, or other prisoners know him from their own earlier bids at other places, but he’s back.  And the response every time is joyful:  hugs, fist bumps, exclamations of excitement, expressions of camaraderie.  Could this be a cover for real feelings?  Of course!  And it’s so over the top!  What did Maya Angelou say?  “We do what we know, and when we know better we do better.”  Don’t they, don’t we, doesn’t society know better by now?  It breaks my heart to see this cycle repeated all over again:  poverty, crime, incarceration.  The revolving door is real, the numbers don’t lie.  While someone of my age, race, education, family support, etc., has maybe a 1-3% chance of returning, for others in different situations it’s 50, 60, 70, even 80%.  I’m not saying I know the whole cause, but I can say some things.  For instance, behaving like it’s no big deal to be back in prison just doesn’t help the situation.  That’s why I have a standing directive with some of the guys in here with 20 year bids.  If I return (assuming anything is left of me after my wife, kids, Mom, Dad, siblings, etc. are through with me), immediately upon my walking through the door PUNCH ME IN THE FACE!  Then call me a Dumbass!

My point is that we all have to stop accepting the prison revolving door as somehow normal.  It’s part of why I try to lend a helping hand to others in here, trying to be part of the solution.  Sometimes guys have no one else inside or outside.  You have to trust that sometimes an act of kindness can change someone’s life. 

Hunger Games

Stealing!  This is the Number One Worst Thing you can do in prison.  Funny, huh?  When you think that some of us ended up in here for exactly that offense!  But in here stealing from one another gets you outcast status pronto.  You can get in an argument, call the other dude’s mom a name, punch him, whatever, and an hour later all is good.  But get caught stealing from another Guest?  You’re done.  Shunned like a leper.

On the other hand, taking what you can from the BOP – no problem.  Which, sadly, has become the Captain’s latest point of emphasis.  His new rules include no second helpings at meals, no slipping uneaten food back to your cubbie for later (not even a banana or an apple), and no kitchen items like muffins, quesadillas, etc. hitting the Black Market.

From the Captain’s point of view, I’m sure it’s about losing money, repressing criminal thinking and extortion, and so on.  What he may not have considered is that we just don’t get enough to eat.  Picture grown men subsisting on three school lunches a day, single serve, no extras.  Especially those of us who try to stay active for our mental and physical well-being.  They say we can always buy food from the commissary, but that’s impractical when you consider that the average library clerk now earns about $9.50/month and a spare shopping list might include 1 box oatmeal/week, 1 bag of healthy nuts/week, maybe 2 protein bars/week and, the only luxury, a bag of instant coffee/week.  Add in a bottle of Advil/month for assorted aches and pains and you’ve spent $67.85 in a month.  That $9.50 paycheck just doesn’t cover it.  A lot of us don’t get money from home.  So can you blame us for slipping an apple in a pocket from time to time?

You might say that I’m just rationalizing criminal behavior, but the way I see it, being behind bars is our punishment.  We just want to stay as healthy as we can and get home when our time’s up.  I’m not advocating for Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, or Panera – just asking not to be hungry all the time!  Every day!  So, you may be thinking, get a second prison job to make a little more cash.  Against the rules!  Switch to a higher paying job?  Well, on the compound there are about 150 so-called premium jobs, and there are 1,350 of us vying for them.  Negotiate your pay?  LOL.  So we’re in a tough position.  Picking up a banana or bag of chips that would end up in the garbage otherwise doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me.

But if you get caught doing so, the punishment is – wait for it – no commissary for 3-6 months.  So then you cannot buy any food even if you do have the money!  Repeat offenders even end up in the SHU.  So, my usual refrain applies – you just have to shake your head, chuckle, and carry on.  Would be nice, though, if you could cancel your reservation at this establishment.  I hear the Motel 6 always has a light on…. 

Captain's Rules

I know my blog posts fluctuate between incredulous and maudlin, but most people here – both the “guests” and the guards – live those extremes.  Their actions and attitudes rarely keep to the middle of the road.  For instance, the guards are either so extremely lazy and uninvolved that they might as well be just cardboard cut-outs, or they’re so over-the-top amped and antagonistic that they do nothing but stir up trouble.  Is it asking too much to have quietly professional guards?  I don’t want to go off on a rant, but if you’ve ever read Orwell’s Animal Farm or heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment (I understand there’s a new film about that), then you may be able to imagine how our new belligerent Captain has emboldened a few uneducated knuckleheads to abuse their power over us.

We’ve begun to wonder to what lengths he will allow the guards to go.  I try to tone down some of the ridiculousness of all this when I share it with you, because “who would actually believe it?”  But here’s an example that may help clarify what I mean.  During the baseball playoffs, the tv room has always stayed open until the game ends.  One tv shows the game, but the others may be playing something on other stations.  No big deal.  Until the Captain decided that only MLB could be watched after hours.  When we made the mistake of not following that rule one night, a guard marched in, turned off all the tv’s and demanded to know who had been watching an unauthorized non-baseball station!  Of course, everyone had been watching the game (wink, wink).  So the guards decided that they could tell who’d broken the rule by where they were sitting in the room, threatening “shots” (disciplinary action) for all of us who had until their arrival simply been peacefully watching tv. 

It seems like every hour of every day some stupid behavior like this happens.  We’re all just hoping to ride it out until the Captain moves on.  Word is he wants to be a Warden and hopefully that will happen – only, please, somewhere else!  As for how nutty we guests behave, see my other posts.  For most of us, though, it all rolls off our backs.  I remind myself daily to remember kindness and compassion.  Everyone wants someone to listen to their pain, and I try whenever possible to be that guy for others.  The benefit?  You definitely hear some stories you’d never hear anywhere else!  Okay, it’s cool and drizzly today.  Gotta go grab my orange hat and say hi! to the Captain!

The Great Hat Debacle

The day had finally arrived, to great fanfare:  HAT DAY!  September 30.  Captain Douchebag (sorry if that offends, but it’s the nicest nickname he has, don’t even want to repeat the others) finally decided that yes it was finally cold enough in the mornings and after sunset to allow prisoners to wear their hats outdoors.  Glory Be!  Hallelujah!  I slapped my hat on my chilly bald head and happily strolled outside to greet the day.

But wait, what’s this?   Down by the guard shack some kind of fracas is underway.  Guys lined up, handing their hats over to the guards.  As I draw closer, I hear, “He’s changed his mind, now says it will be cold enough to wear hats on October 8^th.”  WTF?  But I’m cold now.  That’s crazy!  The complaints rain down on the guards, some of whom allow us to at least stow our hats in our pockets instead of confiscating them.

Flash ahead – it’s October 8 – heading out the door with my hat on!  But then I meet guys coming the other way, saying, "Nope, now it’s October 12^th, take it off!"  At this point even the least cynical, bitter, angry, etc., person among us (the guy I try to be) has to admit the Captain is just f—king with us.  To rub it in, the loudspeaker announces that wearing your hat can earn you a Shot (disciplinary report) for being out of uniform.  When pointed out to a guard that technically we would be “in too much” uniform, since the prison issues us our hats, dude did not even smile, responding with a gentle (sorry kids for the language), “Shut the Fuck Up!

Well, on the 12^th, lo and behold, we wear our hats outdoors without incident.  And you have never seen grizzled, hardened men so giddy with delight!  Sight was funny, entertaining and sad at the same time.  But wait, not done yet.  Remember the title of this post is not “The Hat Incident”.  It’s a full-blown Debacle.

So all of a sudden there’s a new rule that we can’t wear our hats in the chow hall.  Why is this a problem?  Well, normally you walk in, and while waiting by the door you leave your hat on, grab your tray, sit down, remove hat, and eat.  If you forget, a guard just reminds you and you take it off, no big deal.  But now, the Captain has decided that when we walk in the chow hall we must pluck our hats from our heads and THROW THEM AWAY!  In the trashcan!  One lieutenant particularly loves this idea, our throwing out our headgear willy-nilly.  But then an older lieutenant is overheard telling him, “I don’t care what the captain says, this is stupid.  Here’s the problem.  The gray caps are bought with the prisoners’ own money at the store.  If they have a receipt and you make them throw it away, they can file a tort claim and the prison will have to pay them, which means paperwork, hassle, money.   The tan hats are given to them as clothing, they’re BOP property, so if you make them throw it away, then we have to give them a new one!" To which the new lieutenant replies, “I don’t give a shit!”

Next morning a long line of guys shows up at the laundry seeking new hats.  The officer there unleashes a string of expletives but agrees that they should get them.  Only problem is, the storeroom is out of tan hats.  They only have one box of orange – and I mean hunter’s vest orange – hats.  So he passes them out to about 25 guys and says he’ll order more.  These hats, it turns out, are nicer than the tan ones.  This guard earns the rarely bestowed “he’s cool for a guard” label.  Because he did the logical thing, giving hats to men who needed them, and also, even cooler, said, “Fuck the Captain.”  Which now means that every bright orange hat in our sad little world represents a stab at the Captain.  I’m sure you can guess how this goes over.

Next day, on Captain’s orders, all orange hats must be confiscated.  He apparently thinks they are contraband sneaked in from another compound or something.  He demands that all inmates must have laundry issued tan hats.  But you know, it only took two prisoners who absolutely positively refused – they stuck out their hands for the cuffs, said, “Take me to the SHU!” – for the captain to storm off to the laundry to figure out where these outlandish orange hats came from.  You should have seen his face when the laundry officer told him, “Damn straight I issued the orange hats!  It’s MY laundry and it’s YOUR people who threw the hats away!”  Huge round of applause.  I swear it was like the rousing nerd-stands-up-for-himself speech in a John Hughes film.  That is, if Hughes had shot the movie in prison and all the actors were tatted up and dressed in prison garb, but you get the point.  And get this, we kept our orange hats!  Ka-ching! One for the little man!

And let me just tell you, I do love my orange hat.  Even though it’s gotten a little warmer the past few days, you should have seen all the guys making a point of parading past the Captain, nodding smartly in their new orange hats!

Rules for Rules' Sake

I get it, I really do.  In prison you follow the rules, like them or not.  I don’t even mind most of the time, but then there are those rules that seem made just for the sake of having something to enforce.  Such as:

The Knit Cap Rule:  We are not allowed to wear our caps until a guard decides that it’s cold enough for them.  The other day when it was 62 degrees, overcast and drizzling, most folks pulled out their lightweight knit caps bought at commissary or issued by the prison.  That is until the following conversation with a guard (observed with my own eyes and ears):

Guard:  You must remove your hat.

Old Man:  Why?

Guard:  It’s a rule.

Old Man:  Where does it say that?

Guard:  In the rules.

Old Man:  Umm, no it doesn’t.

Guard:  Yeah it does.

Old Man:  Where?

Guard:  I don’t know, that’s your problem.

And a few minutes later:

Guard:  Remove your hat.

Prisoner:  Why?

Guard:  Per the Captain’s orders.

Prisoner:  For what reason?

Guard:  Come on, you can’t tell me you’re cold.

Prisoner:  You can’t tell me I’m not.

Guard:  The Captain will let you know when it’s cold enough to wear a cap.

The Pockets Rule:  While walking to recreation, you are not allowed to have your headphones hanging around your neck or in your hands, even with the radio off.  But our gym shorts don’t have pockets (unless you sew some in, which some people do, but pockets are contraband, and you will be sent back to your bunk if a guard notices your pocket).  This resulted in the best pat-down exchange so far:

Guard:  Hey, come here.

Prisoner complies without speaking and guard pats him down, inmate with quizzical look on his face.

Guard:  You don’t have pockets!

Prisoner:  I know.

Guard (patting prisoner’s butt):  Hey, what’s this bulge?

(All other prisoners snicker.)

Prisoner:  My radio.

Guard:  Where is it?

Prisoner:  In my underwear.

Guard:  Why?

Prisoner:  Yesterday you told me that my radio was not to be seen.

Guard:  But you’re hiding it.  I could take it.

Prisoner pulls wide the band of his underwear.  Says:  Sure, go ahead.

(More snickers with laughter now.)

Guard, red-faced, to all of us:  Get moving!  Get the hell out of here!

The No Books on the Recreation Yard Rule:  This isn’t a strictly new rule, but now old Wesley Snipes, backed by Captain Douchebag, has decreed that we will have NO BOOKS AT RECREATION – EVER!

And finally the You Must Wear a Shirt at Rec Rule:  Which means no shirts and skins games at basketball court.  Can’t take off your shirt when it’s 100 degrees and muggy.  No shirts off, at a man’s prison!  The reason?  Something about it might offend the female staff.  I try to make sense of all this, but seriously?  Do these women never go to a pool?  Or the beach?  I mean, they chose to work here!

Anyway, so much for nothing much happening here.  The Captain appears to be angling to make something happen.  The more he treats us as children with all these senseless rules, the more guys are going to rebel.  They aren’t in prison because they played well with others, or because they got along well with authority.  These petty rules just make already angry people angrier and more resentful.  Respect breeds respect and the opposite breeds the opposite.  Even children know this.