Jailhouse Humor Lesson

Ever watch a comedian deliver a genuinely distasteful, cringe-worthy joke?  And in that split second before your filter kicks in telling you not to laugh, your body takes over and it just comes out?  You can’t stop it.  You turn to your companion and say something like, “Oh, that’s just so wrong!” or “I know I shouldn’t laugh, but…”

Humor is about context and nothing drives that point home like spending some time behind bars.  It might take you awhile, you may need a period of adjustment not to feel guilty laughing at something that’s way inappropriate.  But if you can get past the awkwardness, then you’ll be laughing, and that can make life in here feel a little more normal.

Here’s an example from my early days as a guest of the BOP.  I’m in a holding cell with another guy who seemed as confused as I was, and then we are joined by a talkative older dude who would just ramble on making somewhat entertaining random comments.  And then a fourth guy enters, sporting a black eye and a heavily bandaged hand.  Blood dripping from the bandage.  I suggest that the guy should call for a nurse.  So while he’s out of the cell getting fixed up, the Old Timer tells us that somebody had been on the news last night for getting in a fight.  Before he can finish the story, the guy with the bandage returns.  He seems nervous and says he needed to talk to the police and explain that the fight was over an ex-girlfriend.  The other guy had pulled a knife (hence his bloody hand) and he had acted only in self-defense.

Nothing funny here, right?  But then comes my introduction to jailhouse humor, courtesy of the Old Timer, who had seen the news story about the fight.  He explains, “The way I see it, you get into a fight with a dude, he pulls a knife and you get it from him?  Maybe you stab him 1, 2, 3, maybe even 4 times and you can call it self-defense.  When you get to poking him 43 times, that argument goes out the window!”

After a momentary pause, I will have to admit that all four of us started laughing.  In the outside world, of course, getting stabbed that many times is no joke.  But in jail, well, I’m learning what that old phrase means:  “If you don’t laugh, you’re gonna cry.”  Not funny, no way, I get that.  But at that moment, in that context, with that deadpan delivery?  Well.

Flip Flop Flap

My great luxury here in prison is a pair of Adidas Slides (flip-flops).  While we are not allowed to wear them outside, they are essential for comfort around the unit.  For anyone new to this blog, yes I’m in a prison that’s relaxed enough to let you take off your boots indoors.  Many guys will return from work or the yard and slip on their slides or put them on for a shower.  I’ve learned to keep mine by the bunk in case I need to get up in the night for the bathroom.  Which leads to this installment of the clumsy white guy chronicle: 

The other night I climbed out of the bunk, slipped on my Slides, and headed to the bathroom to pee, neglecting to put on my glasses.  Well, the accepted prison method for flushing the toilet is to shove the handle with your foot, but owing to drowsiness, impaired vision and low lighting, I lost my balance and missed.  No big deal, right?  Except in missing the handle I somehow placed my foot – shod in my lovely Adidas – right into the toilet!  I mean up to my ankle.  As you may have guessed, there are few things on earth nastier than a prison toilet.  I yanked my foot back and raced to the showers to immerse myself in scalding hot water, somehow forgetting in my panic that the showers are off limits at night.  I’d be risking a shot if I turned on the shower.  On the other hand my foot is now contaminated with radioactive prison toilet water.  My solution?  Use the sink.  Problem there being, I’m not the tallest guy and not the most flexible either.  I just could not get my foot into the sink without turning around backwards, bending at the waist, sticking out my leg and dunking my foot in the sink toes down (try to imagine this contortion).  Which, of course, was the necessary cue for two guys to come strolling into the bathroom.  Funny, though, neither said a word, just nodded like all was normal and went on about their business.  I’m not sure what that says about our lives here, but it can’t be good!  Finally, foot and Slide washed, I hopped back to my cube and collapsed into the bunk.  Even a quick trip to the bathroom can end up being an adventure when you’re a guest of the BOP.

Fake News - Prison Style

Well, we are just coming off five days of lockdown due to inclement weather.  It is amazing what 3.5 inches of snow can do to the routine of a federal prison.  Most of the time, we’re treated like dangerous hardened criminals, but get a little snow and we’re kept inside like children.  God forbid we might actually get our feet wet or enjoy getting outside in the snow.  But finally the snow has melted and we’re allowed to walk the outdoor track again, where we can release some pent up energy and get some exercise.  As good a time as any to share some of the amazing conversations overheard while we were on lockdown.  Believe me, nothing you are about to read is embellished in the least.  I am merely summarizing rather long and involved discussions for brevity’s sake.  Keep in mind that inane and arcane debates are a nonstop occurrence in here.  These are just my four favorites from our most recent lockdown:

The Moon Landing Conspiracy:  Sure, lots of people talk about this.  REM mentioned it in a song.  But in here the conspiracy has taken on a whole other layer of absurd.  You see, the moon landing hoax was propagated by the white man because they do not want black people to know the truth that the moon is a man-made machine designed to help control the masses.  The politics of all that was never explained, however, because the participants in this debate got sidetracked by the science involved.  You see, you can’t land on the moon because it’s way too hot.  That’s why it lights up at night.  It’s a giant light bulb with a powerful heat source inside making it glow.  If you go to Ethiopia, you will see all of this explained in their science text books.  The ancient Kushites knew all about it before the white man started to hide the facts.  The speaker has seen all this with his own two eyes!  I so much wanted to chime in with the hope that the utility company in charge of the moon would switch to long-lasting fluorescent bulbs to save a little money, but held my tongue.

Family Planning Through Linergy:  Two of my neighbors described this rapidly spreading family planning model which came down to us in America from ancient civilizations as the most effective way for society to function.  In this system, males mate as often as possible with as many women as possible, in order to create as many babies as possible.  The optimal number is one baby per woman or 6-9 overall.  The beauty of the system is that the man is only ever expected to care for the most recent mate and baby.  Previous mates (and their children) become the temporary responsibility of the most recent male to have mated with them.  That way no man ever has to feel responsible for more than one woman and one baby at a time.  There are complex rules governing the proper way to interact with any other kids your current mate may have had with other men, but at this point I started to lose track of things.  It began to seem like some sort of huge sexual Ponzi scheme.  But anyway, keep in mind that this model is called (for some reason) Linergy and it’s spreading like wildfire.  If any male readers out there choose to run this idea by their wife, please do let me know how that conversation turns out!

Learning Spanish:  This is a quick one.  Two guys are sitting together diligently attempting to learn Spanish (you’ve got to give them credit for their dedication).  Discussing the challenges of this endeavor, one guy says to the other, “Man, the crazy part is that for every English word, they expect you to know a Spanish word!  Whoever thought this shit up was pretty smart!”  I don’t mean to make fun, but it struck me as really funny the way he said that.

The Emancipation Proclamation, Page Two:  Okay, first off, I don’t know how many pages are in the Emancipation Proclamation, so by no means am I judging that part of this conversation.  But did you know that there is a secret page to the document giving the President the right to reinstate slavery immediately nationwide with ONLY the approval of the Illuminati?  Expect this to happen any day now, according to the learned historians holding this discussion.  I did want to join in this conversation, because I find it intriguing and would love to learn where people come up with this fake news.  In the end, though, I decided to pass.  Just didn’t have the energy at the moment, though I do plan to bring it up again next lockdown.

Well, as you can see, just another typical stretch of killing time in prison.  If nothing crazy, unusual, or surprising happened in here then nothing would ever happen at all.  Although, now that I think about it, if everything that happens is nuts, then doesn’t that become the norm?  As one oldtimer put it to me, “If nobody has it, then why do they still call it common sense?”

Life on the Beach

Here's a guest post by a friend; thought you might enjoy it:
  

I live on the beach.  Well that’s what we call it.  If you haven’t read along with this blog, you may need some background.  See, in the 1990s the U.S. decided to lead the world in incarceration, so it ramped up its prison population, I mean way up, and things in here got crowded.  To fit everybody in, they pulled the tables and chairs out of the common area and welded in place four sets of bunk beds, thus the beach!

The beach is right out in the middle of everything.  The lights never go out, ever.  And anyone who wants to go anywhere passes just inches from your bed.  In our block, a room designed for maybe 70 people, 170 now live and with that many guys in a confined space, the coming and going all day and night is constant.

So how does one end up on the beach?  Newbies often times spend a few weeks there while hoping for a bunk in a less conspicuous corner to open up; if you’re not homeboys with the guards or counselors the smallest infraction can land you on the beach, too.  I spent a week there when I first checked in and returned recently for a minor infraction.  Apparently, I left a sweaty shirt to dry on the back of my chair during the daytime.  Now, if you’re a counselor’s homeboy, you can drape your clothes on chairs and even hang clothes lines with nary a comment.  But I’m not that guy, so up to the beach I went and here I sit.

When you first try to sleep on the beach (sleep meaning lying there with your eyes closed), you notice how loud this place really is.  At 11 o’clock, about an hour after supposed quiet time, the tv room begins to empty out so that dozens of people come pouring forth paying no mind to those in their bunks trying to sleep.  You hear loud debates over whether Lebron or Steph is the best or whatever else has been on the tube that night.  When the tv room finally empties out the bathroom runs start.  My bed on the beach is about four feet from the bathroom door.  Many of my 170 roomies are past middle age, so all night there is a constant stream (pun intended) to the toilet.  You may not know that prison protocol requires us to flush constantly while sitting on the pot, then to wash our hands, and hey, why push the hand dryer button with a finger when you can pound it with your fist as hard and loud as possible?

At some point amidst all the bathroom visits, it’s time for evening count.  Which means that guards with a known aversion to this concept called numbers strut up and down the hall with flashlights blazing and keys jangling.  It never fails that Tweedledee and Tweedledum end up with conflicting totals.  They yell “Recount!”  And start all over again.

And then there’s our obsessive floor buffer guy.  Our geri-curled transgender orderly fires up the buffer and sets to work some mornings at 4:30 am.  If you work in the cafeteria, you have to get up at 4 to be ready for work by 4:45.  Insulin call is at 5:30 am.  Breakfast call is 5:45.  Medical call at 6.  The first interesting arguments start up around 6:15.  And there you are, bleary-eyed, wondering what sleep must feel like for anyone lucky enough to be deaf and blind in this place.

Once I’m up and unrested, I get to hang out with my fellow beach mates.  Since everyone starts out on the beach, you meet all sorts.  Guys that just arrived from country jails look shell-shocked; those that dropped down from medium security sleep in their boots, keep their shank handy, and rag about how this place is no real prison.  I currently share the beach with a guy who wears a colostomy bag (after a hospital screw up) and another we call Louis Farrakhan (constantly preaching Nation of Islam while pointing a finger at someone in this loud staccato voice claiming he used to be a rich securities trader (this is normal in prison, where guys will claim with a straight face that they used to make $150k a day and drive a Bentley and live in three mansions and by the way, if you want a good stock tip all you have to do is send his people a couple thou.)

So that’s a typical day on the beach.  Never dark, never quiet, no sleep, and crowded like you can’t imagine.  Don’t get me started on the smells.  But, you know, I guess it’s not as bad as living in a cube with a floor polishing tranny and Dr. Strangelove.  But that’s a story for another time….

10 Things NOT to Do in Prison

A lot of my blog posts address things you should do to get along in prison.  Today I’d like to give some examples of things NOT to do, all of which happen to have been attempted by the same person, the forever clueless G-Money.  As one old-timer put it, “That boy is a crash-test dummy, just keeps on slammin’ his head into the dashboard again and again.”  In no particular order then, here are Ten Things NOT to Say or Do in a Federal Prison:

1.     Drop your trousers to change clothes in an open pod or cube (as G-Money did on his first week on the Beach here).  When advised not to do this, he compounded the problem by stepping right into…

2.     This reply:  “How ‘bout you don’t look at my ass?”  (Um, seriously?  I mean, never EVER accuse a man of looking at your butt unless you are prepared for a harsh consequence, which in this case was a swift punch to the face.)

3.     Do not go on about how your sentence is just a blip in front of guys who are serving 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 year bids.

4.     Do not openly refer to fellow inmates as “you prisoners.”

5.     Do not talk about how you will refrain from ice cream or candy or soda for the duration of your blippy 18-month bid (no one wants to hear it).

6.     Do not openly compare your case to others and explain why you got less time.

7.     Do not go into the tv room and sit on top of someone else’s blanket, then when confronted tell the guy to “lighten up, it’s just a blanket.”  (In here, a cardinal rule is that you do not sit on, touch, or move someone else’s stuff unless you have express permission.)

8.     Do not lecture a guy that he may not understand what you are saying because it may be over his head.

9.     Do not express anger at being gloved (in prison parlance this means losing a card game 5 times in a row, a full glove) in gin for the 4^th straight time by your truck driving redneck cellie, grab your cards and storm out of the cube. (Being a poor loser in prison is a license for trouble.)

10. After “taking the ball and going home” re 9 above, do not then attempt to smooth things over by explaining that you are simply not accustomed to losing games to those clearly of inferior intellect.

Maybe some of these transgressions seem silly to you, but here in prison, let me just say that each is an offense for which getting punched in the face would be considered a perfectly reasonable punishment.  Luckily (and incredibly), so far G-Money has only suffered that one punch out, though he has been threatened and yelled at too many times to count.  Most of the guys seem to have decided that he is a clueless, short-timer, smug asshole, not worth the trouble to straighten out.  For all of us, at least, he does provide some entertainment.

AAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Last night I was sitting on my bunk with my earbuds in, listening to the radio and crocheting a holiday blanket to donate to charity.  In my own little domestic bubble.  I did not want to look at, talk to or hear another human being.  Just minding my own business.  Can you picture the scene?  Peaceful, right?  WRONG!  Nothing is ever calm or peaceful in prison.  You can seek a moment of relative quiet, try to carve out a little space, but never with much success.  So, as I sit with my radio and crochet, at last I can’t take it anymore.  I unplug the earbuds, set the radio and blanket down on my locker, pull out my stool and climb up onto my desk, so I can see over the room divider.  Then I scream:  AAAAGGGHHH!!!  (I’m not a big guy, but I can be loud, just ask my kids.  They used to put me on restriction for their events, ordering me to yell only at half volume, and other spectators would sometimes ask me to pipe down.)  So, when I shout this time, all eyes turn my way.  The block falls silent and I let loose:

“I can’t take no more, no mores can I take!” (to quote the wise philosopher Popeye).  Starting at one end of the dorm, I point down the rows, singling guys out as I go.  “You, yes I know you a “mans”, you’ve been telling us all this same thing for nine month at insane volume.  EVERY day at 6 am.  Furthermore, I know that “one of these days someone is gonna make you do sumthin you don’t wanna do.”  Well get to it, will you?  Either smack somebody in the head or shut the F__K up!

Ok, next.  You, the Where’s Waldo on Meth looking fool.  No, you were not head diesel mechanic for Werner Trucking for the entire nation.  You can’t even change the batteries in your radio.  You do not have an architecture degree on the side from the University of Nebraska.  I don’t know if Nebraska has an architecture program, but I do believe a prerequisite would be the ability to speak coherently.  And no, you were not the lead singer of a chart topping country western band.  When you sing at church the minister falls to his knees and begs the Lord Our Father to deliver him from the agony.

Dude with a tattoo that is “an exact copy of the solid gold badge” you had on your “clubbin’ car”!  Well, I hate to break it to you but it’s Aston Martin, not Ashton Martin.

Hey, guy who calls himself the “Black Warren Buffet.”  You did not under any circumstances earn $125k per day currency trading for over three years.  Every day, “right off da rip.”  Over $45 million?  How do I know this?  Well, you’re serving a 15-year sentence for selling crack.  Something you claim you did on the side for just a little cash.

To this whole crew over here, I do not care how much you “love the gun,” how many free bodies you killed, how much product you moved, or anything else about your glamorous criminal exploits.  One, I don’t believe you, and two, I DO NOT CARE!

To the dude who likes to scream at his Baby Mamas on the phone.  Any clue why they won’t send you any money?  Maybe has something to do with you calling them b__ches and whores and ordering them to send some money or else?  Have you noticed you are in prison?  Take what you can get and shut up.

In fact, and this goes for all of you, anything you care to tell me about what a badass you were on the outside, understand that there is not a chance that I could ever care less.  You were not Jay Z’s manager, you were not drafted by the Cincinnati Reds (you can barely make our softball team), you did not spend three years in solitary at Leavenworth for strangling a guard, nor were you set up and sent here by the President because he fears what you know.  Nobody in here was a CIA hitman, and no, you were not a Viet Nam war sniper.  How do I know that?  Well, you’re 54 years old, for one thing.  So, um, you were like one of those notorious 9-year old American snipers in Nam?

My rant coming to an end, I announce that I want to be left alone!  I do not want to talk, I do not need someone to confide my problems to, I do not need a distraction from my concerns.  I know my problem:  I’m in prison.  So, thanks for caring, but sometimes you can even get sick of words of inspiration.  You wake up and see the damned bars and beyond them the barbed-wire coiled fences between you and the world and you just want to be left alone.

I opened my eyes.  I was still sitting on my bunk with my crochet project in my lap.  I’d dozed off.  Earbuds had fallen out.  Hmm, maybe I really should climb up on the desk and unload, tell everyone what I think.  I looked around at the relentless, everyday jabber and clamor.  Put the earbuds back in.  Turned up the volume.  Picked up my crochet needles and went back to work on my blanket.

Death of a Friend

My friend Bill was taken to the prison hospital last week, where he died in their hospice unit.  A 64-year old man with pancreatic cancer, he died alone, though if they’d considered taking him to an outside hospital, maybe his family could have been at his side (there, of course, he’d have been chained to the bed even as he breathed his last).    Yes, Bill was a prisoner, and he never claimed to be innocent of the crime he committed.  He already had cancer’s death sentence on him when he was tried and convicted of extorting money and given a 20-year sentence he knew he’d never outlive. 

They tell us there’s a program of “compassionate release”, but in Bill’s case, he hadn’t served enough time to qualify.  He begged the guards to let him spend his last few days in his cube, among the friends he’d made during four years in prison, but they wouldn’t hear of it.  He’d hoped for a slice of pumpkin pie and to trade snacks from his holiday bag at Christmas, maybe thank the guys who’d lifted him up when he was down, but nobody is ever allowed to die on the Unit.   That would be bad for statistics.  The public can’t hear that people die in prison.  So during his last days, facing the cold fact that he would never again take a breath outside of these walls, no friends, no caring, no empathy.

Before they took him away, Bill told us not to mourn.  Up until the end almost, he was out on the yard playing softball and racket sports.  If a guy failed to hustle, he’d admonish him, “Hey, I’m a walking corpse, what’s your excuse?”  Bill never felt sorry for himself.  He wanted to die with dignity, and I have to think that he did.

I hate this place.  I hate what they do to people.  I won’t let it infect me.  I won’t succumb to anger.  I won’t become bitter.  I won’t lose hope.  I won’t let these walls change my heart.  That’s my position always, but you know what?  Today, I hate this place.  Today I am angry and sad and disillusioned.  Tomorrow, Bill will be gone, but the rest of us will still be here.  The sun is going to rise, I’ll get off my bunk, and it’s going to be a beautiful day.  What other choice do I have?