Groundhog Day

Have you seen the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day?  If you haven’t, take a few minutes to at least watch the trailer to give you a flavor of what life might be like lived in an ever-repeating loop.  Which is exactly the life I have in prison.  For instance, I can assure you that at 5 am tomorrow morning my neighbor will get out of bed, wake us up by turning on his light, and then walk away for 45 minutes to iron his clothes.  This has happened like clockwork for all 425 days that I’ve been here.  The only variation is that on weekends he starts at 6 am, when breakfast starts an hour later.   

Another example:  without even looking, I know which guys will be anxiously pacing by the door to be first in line at the chow hall.  Proceeding down 27 steps and 207 strides to the chow hall door (yes, I’ve counted.  No way it will not vary, because this is the only route allowed), I will dine on the same weekly cycle (Monday:  biscuits and gravy, Tuesday: Grits, etc.), so I know exactly what I’ll be eating.  I can tell you which guys will be prowling around pandering for more milk or sugar packets and who will be the first to complain about the food, using the exact same words they said yesterday.  

After breakfast, during Freetime, most guys do the exact same routine they follow every other day, and then at lunch, again the same meal cycle.  The tables will be filled by the same people in the same seats as every other day.  Most will be having exactly the same conversation day in and day out.  You can usually nail the topic based on the first few words.  Will it be the “I’m wrongly imprisoned” routine, the “this prison sucks compared to the last place I was in” diatribe or the tried and true “Yeah, on the outside I was (insert outrageous lie).”  This will all keep up for the rest of the meal, no matter what meal it is, and continue on back to the cellblock.

Back at my cell, I wash up and go to work.  This time I take 223 strides to reach the library.  My 3-1/2 hour shift as librarian provides some variation in routine, as I may be asked to do some research, make copies, discuss books with inmates looking for a good read and numerous other tasks that require actual thought.  Don’t worry, though, the mind-numbing monotony will return.

At 1 pm, an elderly man in a wheelchair rolls up to my desk and asks, “Where’s Jay?  I need to talk to him.”  I then explain (sometimes I’m afraid with a Bill Murray-like eye roll) that Jay does not darken our door in the afternoons.  The old man grumbles a few cuss words at me (the same ones everyday, of course) and wheels away.  Next up is a middle-aged Indian doctor seeking a newspaper or magazine.  He asks, “Do you have anything new?”  No.  “NY Times?”  No.  “Post?”  No.  “Time?”  No.  “People?”  NO!  I have tried to explain that his first question – “anything” – covers it all, but it doesn’t matter.  The next day he will return and enact the same routine.

After 4 pm Count, it’s TV time.  You would be amazed at how many episodes of Springer, Martin, and Charmed are on each day.  You might think, okay, I can see how prisoners might watch Springer and Martin, but Charmed?  Witches?  Sorry, I got nothing.  No clue.  Don’t get it at all.  Just file it away with David Hasselhoff is huge in Germany.  Anyway, after some tv watching, it’s time to hit the bunks.  Only to awaken at 5 am when my neighbor’s light clicks on again.

Okay, it’s not exactly like Groundhog Day here.  Murray's character eventually found a way to break the cycle.  That’s not possible in prison.  We either roll with it, coping for 3, 5, 10 or 15 years and make it out of here, or we crack.  The sad part is the futility.  Clearly, the government doesn’t care about rehabilitating anyone.  And at what point does the length of a sentence no longer serve any purpose other than making it harder for the prisoner to re-enter society successfully?  Should we try support, rehab, allowing links to the outside world rather than harsh terms and demeaning incarceration protocols?  It appears to work elsewhere.  At this point, I feel like I’m going to be okay, because of the love and support I get from family and friends, but when I look around at my fellow inmates, I worry.  How will they cope with this tedium when they have been abandoned by everyone on the outside?  How will they ever escape a Groundhog Day fate?