Around 11:30 am or 12:00 we all lined up at the door for lunch. This was another good rule of thumb for prison; just follow the guy in front of you. In jail lunch was brought to us, but here we would walk on our own, freely, to the chow hall. We lined up at the door to the block. Once we were all there the guard in the booth opened the automatic door, we stepped through cramming ourselves into a waiting area, chatting about whatever was on television, or what they had done in processing so far- medical checks, interviews with case-workers, drug-screenings. A few of these guys had been here for months, and had no idea when it would be over, or how long it would take. The prison we were in only allowed one phone call a year. You could call your family at Christmas, but that was it, and there were no “contact” visits. Your family could visit you on weekends, but it had to be through a plexiglass screen over a telephone. They told me that we could not send or receive mail while we were in processing. So, they had been here, completely cut-off from any outside contact. It was easy enough for us, we knew what we were going through, but we worried for our families outside who had no idea what had happened to us. Like me, all of these guys had gone to court, had been sentenced, and that was the last thing that their families had heard of them.

The door was finally opened and we were off. It was a crazy mad dash. We were doing a run-walk to the chow hall behind hundreds of other guys who were all doing this same crazy race to the finish. I would have asked what all of the rush was about, but between the pounding of hundreds of tennis shoes on concrete floors, the many conversations taking place simultaneously, and being nearly out of breath myself, I couldn’t do anything other than follow their knowing lead. Eventually we made it to the chow hall. Once we were all inside, they locked the door behind us, and started serving food.

Prison food is gruel. When they serve broccoli, you only get the stems, and it’s overcooked until it is a brown, messy, mush. Invariably, there is some kind of pasta mixed with; god knows what, something disgusting, or a patty: hamburger patty, turkey patty, veal patty, vegetable patty. But honestly, after jail, I made it my personal rule to never complain about the food. Prison food might be gruel, but hell, it was at least warm, and there was salt. I had just spent seven months eating two scoops of instant mashed potatoes a night, almost every night it seemed, with no seasoning, no salt, no pepper. By comparison, the slimy stuff on my plate right now might as well have come from the Ritz-Carlton and been peronally prepared by Escoffier. There were drink coolers with some kind of drink mix in them and we could go back for seconds on the drinks. There was a cake. Since I am a vegetarian, and because at this point the prison system didn’t know I was a vegetarian, and I didn’t know they offered a substitute, everybody wanted to be my friend. It meant that if they sat with me they could have whatever meat was on my plate.

I had one little moment though at lunch that afternoon. I was waiting in line to fill my drink cup. Some guy had left his tray in front of the drink coolers, and had gone to have a conversation with a guy at a nearby table, so the entire line had come to a stop. I stood there waiting politely for as long as I could, but the people behind me were starting to get impatient. Finally, I grabbed an empty Styrofoam cup, slid his tray cautiously down a few inches and…

“What the FUCK do you think you doin’, motherfucker! You don’t be touchin’ my motherfuckin’ tray motherfucker. What the fuck is wrong wit you. You wanna be startin’ some SHIT?!? Cause I will fuck you the fuck up!” Then to himself, “Goddamn! What the fuck is wrong wit people? Stoopid motherfucker.” I shrugged, not knowing what to say. Filled up my drink ignoring him while he continued his rant, and went and sat down with the almost familiar faces of the guys from my block.

“What did you do?” someone asked.

I couldn’t even explain. “I’m not quite sure…” I answered.

There were two separate chow halls separated by glass walls. Once the line cleared down and we were all fed, another group of inmates were let into the second area. They were all wearing red jumpsuits.

“Death-row,” one of the guys at my table explained, almost with a quiet reverence.

Someone else said, “Would you look at them. They actually look happy,” with wonder in his voice. I looked over. They didn’t look happy, or unhappy to me.

They looked like us.

Some of them were talking easily, others looked more isolated and alone. I saw one guy walking in what looked like some kind of chemical induced shuffle- Thorazine? Haldol? I couldn’t be sure. Other than the red jumpsuits, I couldn’t tell them apart from any other person that was here.

They looked, they acted, like us.

*This is part of a longer piece that describes my first days in prison. More coming soon. 🙂

 

We are sitting at a stainless steel table. The walls are industrial grey, but the paint is peeling and you can see that there are many layers of paint under this. The room smells. It’s a mixture of human body odor, gas, mildew, sour mop water, and cleaning chemicals. There is a guard booth directly attached to this room, and a guard sits there a few feet away watching us all day, but unable to take part in the conversations. We are slowly dissecting a dandelion flower, feeling the tiny, soft, slippery petals in between our fingers; holding the tiniest pieces up to our noses attempting to smell spring, summer, the sun, whatever is left in that outside world that used to be so familiar, but now feels alien and unfamiliar, a thousand or so miles away.

Processing started out with the cop dropping me off into a large room, turning me over to various other authorities. I was directed to go to a series of rooms where they gave me my new clothes- prison “browns”, the brown color indicated that I would be in either medium or close custody. Both of these custody levels are colloquially referred to as “under the gun.” Minimum custody camps don’t have guard towers with armed personnel. They wear green clothes; Of course, every state is different when it comes to prisons. This was how it was done in the state that I was locked up in. One thing that was interesting over the years that I was locked up was, that because so many guys had been in and out of prisons for so many years in so many places, I got to hear different reviews of the various states’ penitentiary systems. Some places were much better to be locked up in than others. North Carolina was considered one of the better prison systems. Alabama, where most of my family lives, is considered one of the worst. I had considered putting in a request to transfer there so that I could be closer to my family, but after my mother looked into it she said, “Don’t bother. We’ll drive.” A friend of mine told me that in Alabama they don’t even have napkins to eat with. I was told that in Georgia they shaved everyone’s heads when they processed, though I have heard that those rules have changed. Then there was Texas, which I was told was extremely violent. Kentucky didn’t sound so bad. One friend of mine told me that in Kentucky you could buy your own personal television set, which they would take away as punishment for when you got caught violating the rules. And don’t even get me started on the Federal prison systems. Those places were considered to be the lap of luxury- swimming pools…movie stars… I was told that some had video games, and salad bars. I heard this so frequently that I had a patent response for when guys would start extolling the virtues of federal prisons, “That does it. You’ve made up my mind. Next time I get arrested I’m gonna make sure it’s a federal offense… No more state institutions for me! I’m robbing a bank.”

I was given a pair of tennis shoes in processing, the same ones that I had had to buy in jail. They were free here, and I was given a pair of “shower shoes”, which I also had in jail. They are little more than rubber sandals to wear while you take a shower. I didn’t really understand what shower shoes were for when I was given my first pair, and went to take my first shower in the jails general population. I started to walk into the shower barefoot, but someone stopped me and said,” You don’t want to go in there without your shower shoes on.” I said that I probably didn’t need them. I like being barefoot. He gave me a concerned, think about it for a second look, and repeated himself. “You don’t want to go in there without your shower shoes on,” followed by, “You don’t know WHAT’S on that floor.” It took a second, but finally it all clicked. I went back to my mat, slipped on my shower shoes. I learned how to wash my feet by balancing on one leg in the shower. That was a skill well worth developing. I don’t think I have ever touched a prison shower floor. Thank god.

Eventually I was escorted through a series of freight elevators and dark tunnels downstairs to the blocks that had used to house the old death row. There were still signs up in the hallways and even in the blocks stating that matches should not be used for vigils during executions. The block I was in only had about 16 cells in it, eight upstairs and eight down. The cells weren’t full, so I had my choice of cells. I took one that was downstairs and center. The set-up was identical to the cells in jail. There was a stainless steel toilet/sink combo, with push buttons for the water, which would only let out a trickle of luke-warm water, polished stainless steel mirror above that. A sheet metal bed frame mounted to the wall, but what I was most excited about was the mattress. It was a few inches thick, rolled up into a tight wad at the end of the bed. I unfurled it. It felt like it was stuffed with cotton, rather than foam. It was lumpy, but considering what I had been sleeping on, this was damn near heaven. One of the guys yelled into me that if I needed a hand fluffing the mattress, he’d be willing to help. We dragged the mattress outside, he grabbed two corners and so did I. We would lift the mattress high into the air and then sling it to the ground as hard as we could. We did this a few times. I thanked him and then carried it back into my cell, threw it on my bunk and stretched out on it. I hadn’t been given sheets yet, and I knew that this mattress was probably covered in forty years of funk, but at this point, I just was beyond caring. It felt so nice to be on something relatively soft.

We lost a tree this week. I would have told you a few weeks ago that it was at least one hundred and twenty five years old. Its grey trunk was massive and hauntingly beautiful with twisted limbs and beautiful old knots. It was a walnut. My wife, Kara, hired a specialist to come in and try to save it. I was skeptical, telling her that it would be a waste of money; this thing was half dead, but Kara was insistent. We had to try, and somewhere inside I agreed and appreciated her unwillingness to compromise. At least we could say we tried everything we could for this old man. Unfortunately, I had been right on this one. The specialists came in and explained that this tree wasn’t really that old at all, thirty years or something. It wasn’t native to this area, and they reasoned that most of the walnuts around here were dying off because they couldn’t handle the frigid temperatures. This one would have to come down. If we didn’t do something about it then we were risking it being taken down by the high winds and it would more than likely hit our barn.

They took it down when I was at work the other day. I ran home from work. Thursday nights are my long run these days and so I get this in by changing clothes at work and running thirteen to fourteen miles back to our rural New York home. I knew it was coming down, but honestly had no idea how our yard would look without its wise old presence. I made it home, exhausted and hungry, and there it was, stretched out across the yard, defeated and sad. I actually didn’t expect my own reaction to it. I walked up to it and stretched my arms around his trunk, pressed the weight of my body against it. I wanted to hear whatever life happened to be left inside of it, the ants and roly-polies, centipedes, the microbes and wasps. I wanted to feel the years of cold winters and sweltering summers in my arms. This tired old man. And I wept for him. Kara came out of the house, across the yard, tears in her eyes too. We had done what had to be done; but what had we done?

And today, Sunday morning, I woke up early and went for a run with my dog and a friend. Trails. Out in the forests everything makes sense again. The trails were dry and a light breeze was blowing. It was perfect. My dog, Dela, had her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth happily. Jason and I fix the world’s problems, or we don’t when we run. Sometimes we talk about politics, or religion, or work. Sometimes we don’t talk much at all, but just work on getting up the next hill. Jason’s a good man. I mean, he’s one of those genuinely good people. He works hard at a job that he doesn’t love or hate, but it pays the bills, and he goes to father-daughter dances with his kid. He has no hate in him. He’s interested in the world around him. He has strong opinions, but he’s also willing to challenge himself and question whether or not his beliefs are correct at any given time. He’s a joy to run with. We’ve been running together for a couple of years now, and he’s still a pleasure to know. We had a great run this morning. I hug him, sweaty and thankful at the end, thankful of his friendship.

I told Kara I would do what I could to get the wood out of the yard in time for our daughter, Story’s, third birthday party. I told her that I would start when I got home from my run this morning.

I’ve been joking lately that toddler’s birthday parties are starting to feel like going on tour to follow the Grateful Dead. It’s the same ritual every time. We go to bounce houses, and we watch our frenzied children bounce until they are both maniacal and exhausted. Then we gather in a room for pizza, a vegetable tray, which is typically picked at, but mostly ignored, and then there is cake. We see the same faces, the parents of my daughter’s little friends, at almost every party. We hit three parties last weekend. Two the weekend before that. There was only one yesterday, Kara agreed to take the hit and go without me. I just didn’t have one more party in me. Not right now. We both agree, we are tired of pizza followed by birthday cake. We miss salad. Kara and I are rebelling together by breaking from the norm. No bounce houses for us. Story’s party will be outside in the yard. We hadn’t anticipated the death of our tree when this was being planned. We planned a field day, with races and, activities to whip the children into a frenzy before loading them up with sugar, but don’t worry, the sugar will almost certainly be organic.

But now there is a tree in the middle of our field day activities, and I have to move the wood, which has been cut up into logs and will be used this winter to warm our bodies. Some of the branches are too long and they will be tossed onto the bonfire pit in our yard.

I’ve enlisted Story’s help. Her mother is off buying more children’s shoes this morning, because Story burns through hers by either outgrowing them, or losing them, at about an equal pace.

So, out in the yard I have a wheelbarrow, and Story is proudly picking up logs that are too big for her and making me watch as she loads them into the wheelbarrow, which is just below eye level. She says that she wants her sweater because, “I’m a little chilly, daddy.” So, we walk back into the kitchen to put one on her. She asks for a cup of water, “without the lid, daddy.” She finishes this with, “I don’t really need the lid,” as much a statement made to herself as to me. And we stand in the kitchen together toasting our hard work and gulping down our drinks. It’s silent in the kitchen. I can hear the wind outside, and our breathing amplified through the cups as we greedily drink together standing next to each other in the kitchen. I pat her head and tell her that she is a really good worker. She agrees.

We head back outside, but I’m tired from the run I did this morning, and the wheelbarrows full of wood that I’ve already moved, so I’m taking a break, leaning against our picnic table, watching my beautiful daughter hunt for insects in the long trunk on the ground. She climbs it and yells, “Look, Daddy!” as she jumps proudly back to earth, and I applaud madly for her courage.

She’s so beautiful to me. I always wonder if she really is as stunning as I think she is. I remember an old psych class I took where I had to read research on parent’s attachments to their children; and recall that parents typically find their children attractive. Children look like their parents, so this helps.

The wind is whipping outside. A murder of crows swoops above our home chaotically. I can hear their voices cautioning each other loudly, as they dart across the farmland across the street from my house.

“Look, Story!” I yell and point excitedly.

She answers magically, “Crows, Daddy’s favorite bird,” with beautiful surprise, and we watch their mad sky-dance together.

It’s a quiet day, sitting out on top of the picnic table, watching my enchanting child touch the world around her, watching her weigh and discover; and I feel so in love with her.

And I feel like I’ve stepped into a poem that I never want to leave.

It surprises me how much I love being a father, a guide, “let me show you, Story, these are…[ snails, or roses, or drums, or this is how a ladder works]” She has given me a new world to see, or maybe the same world, but she gives me the ability to see it.

And I come inside my home.

Kara has returned from the store with new shoes.

And that’s when we learn.

Another mass shooting.

Another one.

Another goddamned mass shooting!

Someone else’s child.

Other people’s children.

Their roly-poly discoveries, their bounce-house birthday parties, and jumping off of logs, and swing sets, and, and, new shoes…

Another mass shooting.

While I was playing in the forest this morning, while I was quietly reflecting over the magic of this love.

While I was mourning the loss of my tree.

And I’m filled with hurt, and rage, and my god, so much sadness.

My child, my world.

Stop killing my world! I hate you.

Stop killing my world!

Please, I beg you, stop killing my world.

 

1. Robert Veeder

 

Sometimes when I talk to my grandfather on the telephone about running he will listen patiently, and at the end I can hear him say a quiet, “I miss it.” He doesn’t run anymore, but he is still an exemplary person, a gentle, loving man who drives himself to church on Sundays (though between us, they should paint his car a bright plaid and put a fire alarm on top so people will see him coming.) He likes to sing. A few years ago he started teaching himself to cook, and was making a pretty great vegetable soup. My grandfather is 95 years old.

Once, when coming off of a running injury when I was at a minimum custody prison, my grandfather dug out his old knee braces and passed them off to my wife Kara with the instructions that I should always wear them when I ran. Some guys were trying to get drugs, and cell-phones across the fence. I was smuggling in running gear. I had the only pair of Balega socks on the camp; I’ll guarantee it. A friend of mine snuck in a plain white, sweat wicking t-shirt for me to run in. I came up with a plan and managed to smuggle my grandpa’s old knee braces into the prison. These were something out of the 1970’s I think, and seemed to be not much more than the knees cut out of an old wetsuit. They were uncomfortable. They burned. They shredded the back of my legs. But it didn’t matter. They were a link to my grandfather. They were a time capsule of running adventures that he shared with me. For a while when I would wear them under my prison garb, while out running my thousands of laps around the yard, I got to run with my grandfather’s legs.

My grandfather’s legs.

Before I started running I watched friends of mine spend endless hours out on the yard’s weight pile. They were always complaining about injuries. There were pulled muscles, and disjointed backs, torn ligaments and tendons that were overstretched. I not only could never figure out why they did it, but also it was always a good justification of why I shouldn’t. Weight lifting was dangerous. People got hurt.

Runners are like this. A few weeks ago when out running some early morning trails with friends, on the very first mile I stumbled, landed horribly wrong, slammed my knee into a rock, tore the skin on one hand and managed to scrape a pretty good chunk out of my shoulder. We paused. My friends politely took a few minutes while I walked in circles cursing. I spit a couple of times and we were off again. I did 17 more miles that day. Luckily, THIS time the injury wasn’t too bad.

If you use your body like this you will get injured. It is inevitable. Talking to other runners about injuries is like walking back out onto the weight pile. There are stories of plantar fasciitis, IT band syndrome, runner’s knee, and countless other injuries that seem to happen regularly on the go.

So, why do it at all? Why would I do something that I am absolutely certain is going to hurt me?

Because the only other option is for me not to do it at all.

And I don’t want to live like that. Not anymore.

I have this one life, and I really want to use it until it’s all used up.

And then, like my grandpa, I want to wring it out when I’m done.

Every

last

drop!

I love you grandpa. Thanks for the use of your legs.

 

It’s Christmas. December 25^th, 2005. There’s something about Christmas in prison that tends to make me appreciate the holiday even more.I couldn’t sleep a wink last night. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I tossed and turned for hours before I finally admitted defeat and got up, in the earliest morning hours, to face the day.

 

It rained all night – a slow, steady drizzle with occasional gusts of wind, which blew soft sheets of water against my Lexan windows. It definitely added atmosphere to my mood…

 

I sit in my cell thinking of Christmases past, all the people: friends, families, strangers – some Christmases have been very happy, filled with warmth and love and cheer. Others – well, tragedy is no respecter of holidays.

This morning, everyone in my cellblock wakes up slowly. “Yo-yo” is the first person I see. He is sitting in a chair, in the dayroom, waiting for the television to be turned on. I am going to get hot water from the fountain, for my coffee (instant). Neither of us wants to disturb the tranquility of the moment. As I walk past, I lift a hand in silent greeting.“Merry Christmas”, he says softly, smiling toothlessly through his walrus moustache.

“Merry Christmas, Yo-yo,” I quietly return. Then I fix my coffee and head back to my cell. Nothing more is said. Nothing more needs to be said.

 

At 7 A.M. breakfast is called: scrambled eggs, grits, toast. I am enjoying my solitude and want to be left alone with my musings. I dine by myself.

My friend, “Bahama”, sits at the table next to me. He’s a Jehovah’s Witness and is adamantly opposed to any holidays. He knows that I love them, so it’s become kind of a running joke between us. I’ll wish him a “very merry Christmas” and he’ll grumble and complain loudly about the devil having my soul. This always makes me laugh. This morning he asks if I am going to eat my toast. I tell him no and offer it to him. As he reaches over and takes it off of my tray, I grin and say “Merry Christmas, Bahama!” (Gotcha!)

He, of course, in his heavy island accent, begins a lengthy discourse on “the evils of San-ta Clos.” I’m too tired to argue or even discuss my thoughts. I laugh and go back upstairs.

 

At 7:30 AM I go to the chapel to set up the music equipment for this morning’s service. One of my closest friends, Al, is setting up the chairs. Neither of us talks. It’s not necessary. While he lays out the hymnals, I run my fingers across the piano keys to warm up. I play a slow rendition of “Silent Night”, while inmates file in, greeting each other. The chapel is packed.

 

The chaplain asks for prayer requests. Hands shoot up: “Families”, “soldiers”, “victims”, “the body of Christ as a whole.”

I raise my hand. I almost never do this. It’s too personal….I say, “Let’s remember to give thanks for everything we’ve been given.”

We pray, sing, pray some more. The chaplain is in rare form. He gives a passionate, historical perspective on the meaning of Christmas.

After the service is over, we all stand around shaking hands and hugging, talking a little. We file out.

I go back up to my room and read for a little while. Finally, thankfully, sleep overtakes me.

Boy, do I sleep. I sleep right through lunch. When I finally do wake up, it is 1:30 P.M. I lie in my bed staring at the textured concrete ceiling, allowing my thoughts to freely drift. I think about my victims’ families. What are they doing right now? Are they able to laugh? I think of old friends who never write anymore. I hope they’re okay. I wonder where I’ll be this time next year. Probably right here.

I get out of bed, shower, and decide to try and call my family. They had asked me to call on Christmas day the last time we spoke. I told them I would try. No guarantees – but I’d try.

I am the seventh person in line for the phone. This will be, at least, a one-hour wait. “Mascot” is in front of me, as well as “Easy-baby”, “Two”, “Rev” and some guys I don’t really know. Every once in a while a call is cut short because no one answers. This leaves me with an odd feeling of sadness and elation. I feel bad because they’re my friends and I know that they just want to talk to their kids. I’m happy, though, to be that much closer to using the phone.

As we stand there, our conversations revolve around new bicycles and family feasts. It is a conversation held in whispers, out of respect for the person on the phone, and because of the grim knowledge that none of us will be seeing the smiling faces of our loved ones any time soon.

Click. Thunk. “Blink, you’re up.” It is my turn to use the phone. My hands are shaking. My heart thuds with apprehension as I dial the number and enter my code. “God, please let them be there,” I pray silently.

One ring.

Two rings.

Three rings.

“Oh, man, they’re not there. They’re probably at church with my sister and her kids,” I think to myself.

Another ring.

“Oh, well….”

An answer! But it may be an answering machine. It’ll take a moment to be sure, one way or the other. Finally, I hear “Hello?”, and a simultaneous, “Hi, Robert”, my mother and father – smiling voices. I can feel myself grinning as they relate the latest adventures of my niece, Anna, and my three nephews, Tim, Brian, and Austin, who are all growing up too fast. We talk about my dog, Gracie, who Mom and Dad adopted when I came to prison. There is never a moment of silence between us. This is a ten-minute phone call and we can’t waste a second of it. What’s discussed never matters. It’s just the warmth of their voices, the sounds of unconditional love. The call is over too soon. It always is. They tell me they’re proud of me, and I tell them I love them. Our conversation ends.

I call the next guy in line as I walk past, almost strutting, a little taller, and a little stronger.

I go outside for a walk. The ground is saturated. There’s no rain, but the wind is whipping. The clouds are dark and ominous. It’s cold, but not unbearably so.

I note the reflections of the clouds in the puddles as I try, unsuccessfully, to step around and over them. In some ways, the reflections are prettier than the clouds.

The yard is mostly empty. The wind carries a few muffled conversations. The quiet is welcome, since those of us who are outside came here to be alone – for reflections.

I go to the weight pile, sit on a bench, and talk to my friend, Ron, for a short time. He tells me his mother is upset because she’s too sick to come see him today. His wife is in New York. His daughter has just been accepted to college, but he doesn’t know which one. Ron is deeply religious, maybe a little crazy, like mild schizophrenia or something. He starts talking about God and the bible and seems to have an entire argument with himself. Not knowing exactly what to say, I simply nod in agreement whenever he seems to make a point or come to some conclusion. Finally, he suspects it’s about to rain, and beats a path inside. The last thing he says is, “Merry Christmas, Blink.” I smile. “Merry Christmas, Ron.”

I’m left alone, meditating on the movement of air pushing down from Canada, across the frigid great lakes, and into the southeast, where I am now. I’m thinking about the rotation of the earth. Eighteen miles per second. I hear a crow.

“Kaaaw. Kaaaw!”

He swoops down out of a pine tree and sets a straight, determined course across the field next to the prison. Just a month ago, that field was white with cotton. Now it’s brown. The grass has gone dormant. The trees, all except the pines, are skeletons.

“Kaaaw. Kaaaw!”

I go back inside, sit in my cell, read for a while, and then dinner is called. At dinner, most of the discussion is about families. There are stories of what we heard on the phone. We talk about cards and letters we’ve received. The meal: beans, rice, an apple, and two slices of bread. Many people will go hungry today. I’m grateful for this meal.

It’s evening. The prison is locked down for the night. Guys are playing scrabble, cards, chess, or watching football. Some are sleeping. “Nam” is sitting at a table, listening to a radio, rolling cigarettes for tomorrow. I read for a while and go to sleep.

THE END

Blinker,

2005

 

 

 

 

 

We had all gathered into the gym to say our final farewells. I somehow felt obligated to go. I didn’t know “Little Baby” well; just saw his big smiling face around the hallways, or when I would go through the line during chow. He would always whisper his offer of “Fried rice?” That was his hustle, had been for years. Fried rice. But I liked his smile, big, white, barn door front teeth that contrasted nicely to his blue-black skin. He was as dark as a crow at midnight. I couldn’t begin to guess his age, except for the fact that he had grown up with so many of the guys that I spent time with out on the yard, so that would make him close to my age give or take a decade, in this case probably give.

I always thought that it was odd the way everyone seemed to age so well in prison. I really couldn’t account for it, at least not until my first winter. That was the first year the heat exchange had been broken, missing some part or another, and it would take a while to get here. I ended up gathering everything that I could before I lay on my bunk at night: clothing, books, trash bags, rolls of toilet paper…everything and using those to cover myself in, trying to do whatever I could to maintain whatever heat was generated by my own body. That’s when I had a realization; We weren’t aging any better than anyone else on the outside. We were being cryogenically preserved…slowly…over time. The heater broke every single year that I was down. Every. Single. Year.

Big Baby had fallen dead walking down the hallway one day on his way back to the block, I suppose. Nobody really knew why. A couple of guys that had known him from the streets and had been close with his family had told me that his body hadn’t been released for autopsy yet. The family was furious, but the state owned his body, and they would do everything within their own power and need to cross their I’s and T’s before he was released to the family. It had been a damn week, and we were all righteously angry about this, because whatever happened to Big Baby happened to US!

When they did finally release his body, I heard about it out on the yard. I think it was Tounk who told me. I loved Tounk, like a brother. Tounk had quite literally taught me how to be in prison. He had been my guide, explained to me what hustles to look out for, showed me who was safe and who wasn’t. He had been down for more of his life than not; good looking guy, and charming (Tounk had been both married and divorced four times on state!) So we were close and he was safe, but I didn’t learn until a couple of years after I had been transferred to a lower custody level what Tounk was really in for…and that’s about as real as it gets. He had told me that he had shot a man in the leg who later died and had been charged with murder two, even though it had been self defense. Out of respect for a friend, I won’t say what Tounk was really in for, but even now it disappoints me that the level of trust I had extended to him wasn’t ever reciprocated. I don’t blame him, don’t blame him at all, but it is sad.

Tounk, Y.O., Wisdom, all of us had been huddled up on the yard talking about how they had taken Big Baby’s body out in shackles. For all of us it was the ultimate form of disrespect, and if you’ve never worn shackles, I hope you never understand.

In the gym the prison choir sang some old hymns. My friend Al led everyone. Al was in his sixties. He had a speech impediment that made him tough to understand when he talked, but he loved to sing, and he would proudly tell you that he had only ever read one book in his life, The Bible. What I learned later was that he had taught himself to read using that book. Al had also been in and out of prison his whole life. Al’s brother was on death row in another state, and his sister had been locked up for murder, his parents had been violent towards each other, but Al didn’t consider it abuse, because sometimes his mom would beat his dad nearly as badly as he had beat her.

I had played piano for the prison choir. I didn’t know how to play piano, and this is truly where I learned, banging out chords to old southern black spirituals. I had hired on as a harmonica player when they first put the band together, but they needed someone to play piano and I needed to play music. I played about five nights a week and twice on Sundays, but honestly, I was in the midst of my own existential crisis and didn’t think much about going to anymore church services at this time; so I sat this one out.

Some distant relatives of Big Baby that he was locked up with, cousins and such; Others whom had grown up with him said a few words.

We all had a good laugh about his hustle of selling dirty rice out on the yard and in the hallways. I would occasionally buy peanut butter from kitchen workers out on the yard. Big Baby knew that I was vegetarian and had offered to make mine special, with no chicken or meat, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Behind me a couple of inmates whispered quiet angry complaints that we should be discussing Big Baby’s hustle so openly while prison staff was present. They weren’t frightened for Big Baby, not anymore. They were angry that we had collectively exposed a future hustle.

That was the only time during this service that I had whispered, “Jesus.”

Part of me had been jealous; I guess part of all of us had been a little Jealous. Big Baby was free.

The rest of us would just have to endure.

The rest of us would have to look for laughter in the hidden spaces.

 

The truth is that I can remember almost the exact moment when I finally gave up the sadness that had consumed my life. It would be hard to say that I was “suicidal”, but more accurate to say that I thought about suicide all the time. Every single day. I am pretty sure that any true human that had gone through what I had gone through, who had committed my offenses, would naturally feel the same way.  Had I not had the support of so many good, loving, and forgiving people I am absolutely certain that I would not have survived this.  I woke up every day wishing that I hadn’t, wishing that death would consume me in my sleep one night, wishing to be freed.  I remember weeping to a friend just in utter despair, “I cannot be this person.  There is not enough of me. I just don’t think I can be this person,” tears streaming down my face.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around the terrible loss. Six people were no longer alive and I could try as hard as I might, but in the end it would still always be my fault.  How could I wake up to this every day? For the rest of my life? And this was like a mantra to me, a wheel in my mind that kept turning incessantly.

Somehow or another I did keep waking up.  Books became my Refuge, well, books, and writing.  I did both of those things, wrote and read like a man on fire. I don’t know what I was trying to get out of them.  The books gave me a place to go, hours and hours of lying on a hard prison bunk just devouring entire novels. I read everything.

Everything.

I think the writing was a different thing.  I was trying to make sense out of things.  Writing gave me a place where no matter what happened in prison I could be safe. Cut me and I will write about it.  Be cruel and I will write more.  Rape me, stab me, beat me…I will write it down.

The rest of my life outside of those two things though were just an inescapable sadness.  I would walk the prison hallways with a book in my hand, no reason to look up.  There’s nothing in prison to look up for, the only thing to run into are walls.

The mail stopped coming after about a year.  That was a lonely time.  I wasn’t dead. Worse. I was forgotten.  Based on a friend’s recommendation I started sending off for junk-mail from magazines. Travel catalogs mostly.  That way I could hear my name called out during mail call, and I could lie on my bunk, smoke cigarettes and peruse the pictures of places that existed out there…somewhere…somewhere that forest, that ocean, that castle, was real. And I felt hope in their beauty.  I would pace my cell endlessly and think of the crashing of waves still going on…somewhere.

I cried so much and for so long that my eyes hurt.  My eyes always seemed to hurt from crying.

One day though it just stopped.  I had this beautiful realization that my sorrow was self-consuming.  It was something that I had indulged in long enough and it was time to stop.

It really did seem that easy, like I had just had enough.  And just like that I stopped.  Not altogether, but for the most part it went away.  I realized that somehow I had made this accident, this tragedy, all about me, and in doing so I was dishonoring the lives, the loves, that had been lost.  I reasoned that I did not have much to offer back for the hurt that was caused.  I could stay sober.  That was one vow I could keep, but more importantly, I could be happy.  I WOULD be happy!  I owed this much. Had the accident happened in a different way and my life had been the one that was lost this is what I would want for the person who was responsible.  I would want them to live their life in a way that was authentic and engaged, to revel in its beauty.

I would want them to SHINE!

And shine on I do! My life is magic.

It has to be nothing less than magic, a glimmering gem on an ocean of stars.

It can’t be anything less because at the end of the day THAT’S what I owe.  That is my greatest amend, to live my life in a beautiful blaze of Star Shine!

Tonight at the end of my day I’ll do the most menial task.  I’ll drag the trashcans down to the end of the driveway, and when I do, as I often do, I’ll look up at the night sky, which was something that had been lost to me during my incarceration, and I’ll listen to the wind blowing across the surrounding fields.  I’ll take a giant breath of the cleanest air and I will whisper a quiet thank-you.

I’m sorry for what happened.  I will always think that this, my sobriety, my splendid, exquisite life has cost too much. I can never be worthy enough. But I can be grateful, eternally grateful.

I am sorry.

Thank you.

1. Robert Veeder

My sobriety date is tomorrow. I’ll always dread it and revere it. I never thought it was even possible. But I got and stayed sober because other people lost their lives as a direct result of my use. I announce it because I’m truly proud. And because I owe it to others to do so. I don’t count down to it. But it’s an inevitable date for me. It’s something that I simply cannot avoid. It’s a day of sadness, deep reflection and even some celebration. There is no other date in my life like this one, like November 1st. I’m sharing this with you so that you can hold it in your hearts with me. A lot of innocent people payed for my sobriety that night. Thank you for being part of my life, my liveliness, my tragedy and my recovery. Thank you for continuing to hold me up and for celebrating my small victories with me.
And please, please, please…always drive sober; there are some things that you can never give back. Some nights you never want to have to wake up from.

Ben and Mozart’s 21st

 

I was locked up with this guy named Ben. I’d loosely call him a friend. Ben was a hard person to like. He was arrogant, disrespectful, and altogether superior to the rest of us. He had been locked up for around twenty years, and didn’t like any of us. But prison friendships are different. They’re formed often out of necessity. Outside of that world, that insane micro-verse, I would never have associated with Ben, and I’m sure that I can safely say that he held the same sentiment for me. In fact, after I was released Ben and I corresponded twice. My second letter made him so angry that he has refused to write me since- that’s Ben.

Ben and I spent endless hours walking the yard together, day after day. We frequently sat together at the chow hall, mostly arguing about, well, with Ben you could argue about damn near anything. That was most of the reason that we hung out together. Ben was insanely intelligent. In his prior life he had been a radio announcer for a classical music station. Ben had one of those rich, clear, beautiful British accents, and he loved classical music; so, mostly that’s what we would talk about. Ben taught me all about the lives of the composers. He told me what to listen for. He taught me the difference between a symphony, a sonata, and a concerto. It wasn’t unusual at all for Ben to excitedly rap on the door to my cell late at night to tell me that I needed to listen to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto exclaiming, “Itzhak Perlman sure can play that little box can’t he?!?”

It was so rare to talk to someone so educated in prison, where the literacy rates are…well, it was just hard to witness. So, while I openly despised Ben, and he me, we clung to each other like old barnacles, soaking up the salt.

One long, hot afternoon Ben and I were tearing apart arguments revolving around the existentialists, Camus, Sartre, which inevitably spun into theology, and a heated debate about what we were here for, why does the universe exist at all.

“So, you tell me, Ben. Why DOES the Universe exist?” I demanded.

“Oh, that,” Ben said, “that’s easy.”

Now I was curious.

“It is?”

Ben said, “Oh sure. The Universe was created so that Mozart could write his 21^st symphony. A brilliant piece of music.” He sighed wistfully.

Frustrated, I said, “Well, that’s been done. What the hell are we doing now?”

Ben shrugged with indifference, “Oh now? Well, now we’re just cruising.”

I’ve been laughing about that one ever since.

 

And tonight I put on Mozart’s 21^st while Kara puts Story to bed. I sigh happily that that world is so far away. And as much as I despise him still; I just wish they’d let poor Ben go. He was a jerk, but there’s a place in the world for them too.

 

“Now we’re cruising.”

Thanks, Ben.

The next day, the kitchen worker moved into our block, into Kenny’s old cell. He introduced himself, said he was looking forward to getting to know me better. I reiterated that I am heterosexual. He said he knew, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t be friends. He’d be happy to help me out. Had I been on the weight pile at all? Because he could really help me out on the weight pile. He was huge. He was just a big guy, who had obviously spent a lot of time on the weight pile; and I had never lifted any weights at all, not at all in my whole life, but I had all of this time to do and what the hell, right? But I was sure that he wasn’t the guy to show me how. I didn’t trust him at all, not at all. When he looked at me, my skin crawled. He didn’t see me at all. I wasn’t sure what it was he did see, but it sure wasn’t me. So I said, “You want to help me?”

“Yeah, you name it,” he smiled broadly with too many teeth.

“Help me convince the clothes house man that these pants don’t fit. They’re too tight. They hurt my back. They pinch my waist. I need some clothes that fit.”

He decided that he could do that, that we’d be great friends because of it, and he started following me everydamnwhere. Where I went, he went. Most of the time he would spend pressuring me, telling me how great I’d have it if I did have sex with men.

“You could have everything, baby. And look at this, you got a lot of time to do. How much time you say you have?”

“About eight years, little more.”

“Eight years, well that’s a long time to go with no one to hold. You know, I ain’t queer either.”

“You aren’t?”

“Naaaw. I had me a pretty little wife when I was out there. Pretty little brown-skinned Indian girl. She was Lumbee. You know what Lumbee is?”

I did. It was a North Carolina tribe that was in the newspapers pretty frequently, due to fighting the government over tribal recognition.

He said, “Yeahhh. I just do this in here. It’s just what I gotta do. I been doing this bid a long damn time, ya know? You don’t know it yet, but it get lonely in here. You gonna need someone eventually.”

He would go on and on like this. Secure in who I was sexually, I was unfazed, but I have no doubt that he had honed these skills on a lot of younger men, and that they had worked. This went on for a couple of days, and when it wasn’t him it was another inmate, or another one, who had just learned that Kenny had left and thought that I was suddenly available. I was getting really frustrated at all of the attention. I was getting really tired of having to say no all the time, of having to explain myself. I would lock myself in my cell for most of the day, content to read, or write letters, but even there, guys would knock on my door wanting to talk. Or when that didn’t work they would want to know if I could write a letter home to their aunt for them since they couldn’t read or write. Of course I would write a letter. They would drag their chair to my door and start dictating, and within minutes I’d be given yet another proposition. It was relentless, exhausting.

 

 

I had just come back from the AA meeting one evening. The yard outside was closed. I walked past the sergeant’s office, went upstairs to my cell, closed the door, and was in the process of rolling myself a cigarette, when there was a knock on my door. I opened it, and two guards were standing there. I thought it was a routine search. They asked to step in for a moment. I took a few steps back to make space for them. They told me that they needed to talk to me, but they needed me to act like they were just searching my cell. Sure, what was going on? They told me that an inmate had informed them that my new friend, the kitchen worker, had spoken of plans to rape me. It was the former kitchen worker. Of course it was.

I was dizzy with I don’t know what. Confusion? Rage? Terror? What should I do?

They asked me if I wanted protective custody. Protective custody? Checking off? It’s a huge no-no in prison culture. Huge. Like being a snitch kind of huge. It can get you beaten, stabbed, or worse.

“No, sorry, I can’t do it. I can’t check off. I got, like, over eight years to do here. I can’t check off.”

One cop said, “Well, it’s your choice. The last guy this happened to ended up in the hospital. Your friend almost killed him.”

The second cop verified this by saying, “Yeah, he’d tied him up with bed sheets, and had spent the morning taking turns going outside and playing basketball, and coming inside and raping him.”

The first cop, “Maybe nothing’ll happen, but if it’s late at night and we don’t see him pull you into a cell, or he stands there waving and we’re too tired to notice and unlock the wrong door, well, there’s not much we can do after that.”

Oh my God! I cannot believe this is actually happening to me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

“Fine, okay, what do I need to do?” I ask desperately.

So they explain the plan. They are going to bring me some shipping bags. I need to put all of my belongings in them, and then they will escort me downstairs and out of the block to the sergeant’s office where I will need to fill out a form.

Down in their office, I fill out a sheet of paper explaining that I felt threatened and that this inmate persistently “kept coming at me” even after repeated requests that he leave me alone, and I sign it at the bottom. After that, the officers go through my belongings and decide on what I can keep and what I cannot keep. They throw away my matches, my tobacco; tell me I have too many letters. They make me take off my shoes. I have to take off my belt too and give it to them.

Then they ask me to turn around, and they place me in handcuffs. That was the last time I ever wore handcuffs.

They escort me to a unit in the center of the prison, upstairs to a new cell, a cell that is only dimly lit, and the windows have been boarded over.

I am in “the Hole.”

Protective custody, my ass.