August 2004 Archives

Well, I am at where I will, in principle, be staying for the duration as a guest of the Governor, as they say here.

Right off, the contrast is marked. The physical structure is the same as at Cedar Orientation--four wings extending ranch style from a central Day Room, guard office and bathroom, 50 men to a wing, on bunk beds lining each hall, with standing lockers next to our bunks. But this new dorm, Redwood Hall, so far seems pretty mellow. I finally have found a population that, (at least this is my first impression) in whom I hope to find some kindred spirits. They seem, on the whole, older, first -time visitors , and much less steeped in prison jargon and culture. When these guys address each other you are as likely to hear “buddy” or “dude” as “dawg” or “homie”. (My frst impressions later proved wrong.)

My first night here I fell asleep blessedly early, at 10pm, awakening in the middle of the night by the need to deconstruct my pillow back into the blanket, as we are in the “Inland Empire,” which is basically the desert, and the temperature dips considerably in the wee hours. I was further kept awake by the scent of manure wafting through a window which would not close, blessedly an odor one can ignore by pulling the covers over one’s head, at least enough to fall back asleep. I was relieved to note this morning the lawns were being reseeded- the scent will pass soon enough. (Wrong again. I later found out the prison was built on an old dairy farm, and the smell of manure was a constant fixture in the mornings, when the ground was moist). I used a razor to tear the waist band off some horrifically-oversized boxers to create an elastic “latch” for the window, and that should help tonight/tomorrow morning.

I also discovered via repeated inquires why the medical techs were not appearing twice a day in the center hallways to dispense meds as they had EVERY single place I’ve been so far in the prison system. It seems once you get your permanent housing, you are supposed to magically know that you have to go to the infirmary after breakfast and dinner to get your meds. When I asked the C.O. how I would have somehow known this, she looked down her nose at me with her best “How-to-Manage-Difficult-Inmates-Seminar” look and said ‘We don’t hold your hand and baby-sit you in this dorm.” I just smiled and imagined what a perfectly sarcastic “602” I could file on the bitch, but my no doubt rapine wit would be so lost on the reader of the complaint form, it seemed a waste of good ink. I instead I took the pass she issued to go late to the infirmary, where a Vietnamese Med Tech took pity on me when he saw this was your run-of-the-mill-life-saving-don’t-miss-a-dose-medication. God forbid it would occur to any of the small-minded twerps who run this place that a simple flyer might be helpful during “orientation” (what a joke that was) to alert a recent arrival to procedures he has zero reason to know are any different than the ones he has been dutifully following. It doesn’t help that the PA system and attendant acoustics are horrific-- one has the vaguest idea, if any, what is being announced.

I enjoyed my very first walk unescorted across the prison compound, past the baseball diamond and basketball courts, (just like the brochure promised!) I am unlikely to make much use of the great outdoors here because 1) it’s August in the desert, stupid 2) I have just heard that a mile north from here, on prison property, are the ground zero breeding grounds for the California mosquitoes carrying the West Nile Virus, (no, the inmate population is not being cautioned, or protected in anyway, I know this from Eyewitness News) and 3) I should be assigned a job this week.

I am of two minds about this. Time should go a bit faster if I work, but I dread having to do something horribly tedious or routine. I personally have no trouble filling up my day writing and reading, the latter which finally I can do to my heart’s content. I will have to await the end of the weekend to visit the library, but there’s plenty of reading material in the possession of my bunkie alone and it appears I will even manage to get my hands on a day-old copy of the local paper on a regular basis, which is plenty fresh enough for me.

I am also happy to report I’m not having to carry on from a completely clean slate, socially speaking; last night I discovered roaming the halls my ex-bunkie James, the good-natured 22-year old who seemed to get a ticket every time he stepped on the gas. He is set to get out 2 weeks before I am, so we should get to know each other a bit. In fact, I ventured to ask him how his mother had died back when he was in the 10th grade. “Someone called it lead poisoning” he replied. Before I could determine if he was describing some sort of toxic environmental tragedy, he added in the wryest, most poignant voice imaginable: “two bullets to the head,” with a gesture that confirmed they were self-inflicted. I figured that was plenty of getting-to-know-you for Week Two of our friendship.

I can add, however, with a fair degree of certainty, that society is not deriving any benefit from incarcerating this boy. I’d further add that the streets aren’t any safer for having 80% of these guys in here, actually, present company obviously included. There needs to be a whole different way of thinking about crime and punishment in this country.

Lastly, I want major brownie points. I am finally at a place where tobacco is King, everybody smokes and I am resisting quite admirably. ( It’s just my Addictive Beast that tells me I’d like it). I want plenty of kisses when I rejoin the land of Listerine, which hopefully I won’t need. Listerine that is, not the kisses.

MCO 2004

Wizard

He is 22

and his name is Wizard

And he has not told me this

But I am quite sure he is the youngest,

and his mother’s favorite.

He has one of those smiles

that immediately disarm,

A little mustache not quite a man’s,

A sweet face that will grow into handsomeness.

He has heard about my blog,

and wants to be in it.

So I ask him to tell me a story.

He is a Southsider and “never did drugs

on the outside,” well, not the

hard stuff, a little weed, some booze, a little coke.

But the hard stuff, he says “ironiklee”

(he probably did very well in school until

he was pressed into a gang)

he only tried here. Meth, heroin,

mostly meth. Sometimes I see him

up all night, his leg twitching,

no doubt thinking about sex in the worst place

to think about sex , straight or gay.

And then tells me the part I already know.

He owes $400 for his drugs, and he

gets a visit on Sunday, and he will ask

for it from his visitors.

And if they decline to give it, or can’t,

Wizard might get ‘stuck,” as in stabbed,

by those who sold him the drugs.

His name is Wizard, he is 22 and a Southsider.

Now you know.

MCO 2004

May I just say that something odd—or perhaps magical—has been happening since I’ve started to write with an awareness that I am being presently read by an audience as opposed to individual friends or relatives. It feels like my environs have been alerted to some sort of psychic shift. More likely, my shift in awareness has caused me to observe my environs more intensely, but it genuinely seems that everything that happens during the few hours of the day that I am not reading or writing has stepped up to the dramatic plate, as it were, to furnish me with increasingly savory tidbits of reportage.

Just one half an hour ago, I was about to take a shower and as I laid my toiletries out, , another neighbor from a bunk across from mine, Angel, inquired as to whether he could ask me a question. (we were the only ones in the shower room at the time).

Angel. looks like a younger, Latin version of Ben Kingsley, with a similarly deliberate and gentle manner, as well as a smile that warms up an offbeat face to make it positively handsome. I answered “sure,” thinking this was perhaps going to be an extension of a conversation we had earlier about AIDS transmission. Instead, Angel asked, “Do you ever wake up in the morning with this, you know, bad feeling in your stomach?” His expression indicated the all too common existential anxiety of waking up and realizing you are in prison. (Since I know this is actually an anxiety many people feel wherever they wake up, just take that feeling and say, triple it.) But I decided to respond by emphasizing as much as possible the discomfort’s universal aspect and answered: “ I think it is something a lot of people feel waking up because it reminds us of the horrible experience of birth. What baby didn’t want to go back into that safe, wonderful, warm belly, the second the doctor slapped him?” And Angel listened, intently, the water streaming down his face, his hand poised over his solar plexus, making a gesture one would associate with the having that feeling in the pit of the stomach—or acid reflux. And suddenly Angel’s slightly quizzical expression made me wonder if I had completely misunderstood.

“Angel” I queried, “you weren’t talking about heartburn, were you?”

To which he promptly replied: “Yeah, with this food, don’t you get it too?”

Of course I went beet red with embarrassment. Who was I trying to be, Sartre in the Shower?

Then slowly, that movie star smile spread across Angel’s face, making him look like Gandhi in the rain. With the most almost imperceptible of nods, he let me know he was indeed talking about what I thought he was talking about.

The little devil.

MCO 2004

Well yesterday I got sort of down after my last entry-maybe it was because of the sentiments riled up from the writing of “Here,” maybe it was because it was classification day and my bunkie James and neighbor Magoo moved. James, I liked very much, a completely good-natured man, very young (22) who nevertheless will have exactly the same face at 55. James, who has a Chevrolet logo tattooed on his arm, didn’t “drive to live” but “lived to drive” hence over $45,000 in various tickets that got compounded and got penalties and led to missed court dates and then to DUI, and then probation and then violating probation etc etc.. Since I always dig a little deeper, James coughed up that he hadn’t finished high school because his mother died when he was in the 10th grade and he went into a spiral that eventually brought an otherwise good car-crazy California kid into here. This is the second time I have met in here a young man who “lost it” at that age after his mother’s death. What a tough blow. I bet it is the underdiagnosed cause of much lawbreaking. And at an age where there is little hope of another mother figure successfully stepping in, but close enough to adulthood that it can hardly be used as a criminal defense 6 or 7 years later.

Magoo, the other departure, was sort of a pain in the ass. However, he was a known quantity, not hostile or toxic, and grudging affection had sprouted up between us. Both left with nary a handshake—often the case in prison. These aren’t real friendships, nor should they be, after only a week. But these mini-adieus still entail a feeling of loss that reminds one of greater losses, and always bring on (particularly, when it is a Bunkie) a fear that their replacement will be an obnoxious asshole who will somehow make your life a living hell. But I have been fairly lucky with my Bunkie-karma, and as for obnoxious assholes, I have learned a thing or two. Mostly that if they are obnoxious assholes with you, they are with everybody. You are not likely the only person they are driving crazy. Most of the time, if you hold your tongue and give them a wide berth, they will usually dig their own graves and then fall into them. My Dad tried to teach me this about obnoxious assholes years ago, but I had to learn it for myself. Isn’t it funny how it takes growing older to appreciate all the things your parents told you that at the time neither of you thought you even absorbed?

MCO 2004

My writing arm rather aches of late, but I’m hoping this cramp doesn’t put a crimp in my cramming as much info on the inside to you on the outside as I can in the time that remains for me here. I will soon be leaving orientation at Cedar Hall and be transferred to a regular minimum Yard, replete with a likely work assignment that might eat up much of the time I now spend writing. Or, if I am lucky, I will finish my term out at a drug rehab where I think they’d keep me very busy doing things like sweeping floors and baring my soul at 3 meetings a day. Frankly, sounds like the lap of luxury, and at very least I imagine that I’d emerge from it close to a few people I don’t know yet but after I do, I won’t be able to imagine my life without. This is my secret to accepting and digesting difficult changes. Each new alteration is ultimately acceptable if you look at every new encounter made because of them as indispensable to the future you.

I finally wangled my first phone calls, borrowed from a porter (one must clean to have phoning rights so the jobs are hard to get) and I tried both my mother and my sister Sandra. Unfortunately, neither were at home. Things will be more civilized soon enough (although considering my words are being read as they are by you all now, that’s pretty civilized! What an irony—there are so many—that it took me being behind bars to get close again to so many from my friend-rich past. Holy silver lining Batman! Vive l’Internet!)

Before I tell my story for the day, I must explain some stuff about prison. It is very regulated who you smoke or eat “after,” according to race or sexual preference. Eating “after” means taking from food that has been already touched or partially eaten by someone else, or smoking from a cigarette that has touched someone else’s lips. In the gay dorm at County, this was rarely an issue, as everyone was gay and racial lines were not an issue. But when I went to Delano, the first reception center where I mixed with “mainline” or the general population, I was warned never to smoke or eat after blacks or Latinos—meaning usually someone at your table at Chow, which is the only place the races mix, as seating is according to your place in line, and though the races are bunched, you find yourself sitting opposite other races. If, for example, you have beans left on your plate, you can offer them to a member of your own race, but Blacks never take from Latins who never take from Whites, who never take from Blacks and so on. Meal times often resembled the gym dance seen in “West Side Story,” in which the “mismatched” White and Latin dancers reach around and over each other to commune with their own. Not an atmosphere conducive to convivial dinner conversation, although I once got quite a laugh at the table by attributing my fictional slutty girlfriend’s poor correspondence skills to her being able to lick “everything but a stamp.”

For a gay male, this entire sharing issue is a little problematic because if you don’t share, you are seen as anti-social, but if you do share, some of the ignorant types who find out later you are gay may take umbrage at having eaten the macaroni that had been on your plate. If you’re getting by without there being a general recognition of your sexuality, then dinnertime is an uncomfortably public time to reveal this tidbit, (as the gay comic described coming out to his family at Thanksgiving, “Please pass the mashed potatoes to the homosexual” ) It’s also not recommended that you reveal why you are in line for pill call twice a day. When asked at Delano, I ventured post-prostate cancer therapy as the reason for my meds. A wise choice, as near the end of my 2 months there I did have to duck a hostile gay/HIV outing attempt from the would-be king of “Woods,” an Aryan supremacist asshole (I know that’s a redundancy) by the name of Chainsaw. ( I am starting to enjoy the score-evening this blog is allowing me. But while I skewer Mr. Massacre, it is only fair that I take the opportunity to apologize to all of my friends to whom I was ever an asshole—whether or not I was addled by drugs or alcohol. That’s no excuse for anything.)

Here in Minimum Orientation, where I have finally arrived, there is a general affinity between members of the same race and little enmity shown publicly between races. Any expression of rivalry is watched for by the guards and as these men are "short-timers,” here for mostly parole violations, there are very few hardcore convicts of any stripe among them. Gays are fairly tolerated, if frowned upon by some bible–reading Christians. This is, after all, generally an MTV generation and gays are not an unfamiliar commodity. However, it is considered good form for those who are HIV+ not to offer their cigarettes or leftovers to others without telling them ahead of time. Such a revelation is generally appreciated but often ignored.

So yesterday afternoon, I was the recipient of an orange at Pill Call, as the MTA, (Medical Tech Assistant) just happened to be giving them out. I finished peeling one at my bunk and hadn’t even bit into it. I offered a portion to Magoo, my Latin neighbor. (I’m pretty sure this is his real name, as I haven’t heard a “Mister” attached to it. Although he does have a distinctive penetrating voice, he doesn’t wear glasses and walk into walls.) He was being his semi-humorous, semi-controlling chop-busting self, engaging in the pointed banter where you never know if he’s joking or not.

He responded to my offer with “Hey, you’re gay right?” I nodded affirmatively, knowing everyone was wondering in any case, and having discovered it is actually generally easier to be “out” and unapologetic in prison from the get go then try hiding it. Magoo said “well I don’t eat after gays because who knows where your hands have just been.” (Particularly ironic because I have never been so completely celibate in my life. And amazing because it was the gayness, not my possible HIV status), His reaction actually caused a few jaws to drop and one of my other neighbors, “Cookie,” said to Magoo: “Gee, Dawg what side of the bed did you get up on this morning?” Now, I sensed that Magoo had mis-stepped and knew it and if I said anything he would have immediately retreated into “Dawg, I was just playing with you” and I risked appearing the oversensitive type who couldn’t be “one of the guys.” So I just said nothing, and retracted the offer of the orange, letting the discomfort of the moment fall on his shoulders. I remembered a cardinal rule of prison shared by my gay friend David Sanchez: “Know when to shut up.” I also remembered my own rule “Timing, Timing, Timing.”

As if to confirm that he felt a bit of the asshole and wanted me to know he didn’t “mean” anything, Magoo promptly asked me in the bathroom how my visit with my sister went. I answered “It was lovely, thank-you.” He asked me what we ate. “Chef’s Salad.” I answered. He couldn’t resist editorializing “What? She came all the way from Albuquerque and you didn’t even have Pizza!” (He probably never ate a Chef’s Salad in his life.)

I was actually pretty sure Magoo already liked me, because I’d laughed at a few of his jokes and had snuck in a sly remark or two of my own. But I knew to wait for the right moment to “get back at him” and not to look for it, it would make itself known to me. Such is often the case for wit at its best.

That evening I returned triumphantly to my bunk with a pillow, obtained from an ex-neighbor who had been transferred with me from the last dorm—someone I disliked intensely but who craves my approval no matter how many times I roll my eyes at his adolescent behavior. (He gets around in a wheelchair, completely faking his disability for a bogus lawsuit—I have seen this young man deliver practice karate kicks!)

Anyway, at bedtime I was tucking blanket beneath sheet, and Magoo noticed my bare pillow. In his inimitable shrill tenor he said, “You’re gonna need a case for that pillow” and I said I’d only received the one sheet in my “welcome” roll, so he suggested I use a t-shirt. I didn’t have one, so he offered that an extra sheet of his. I waited just the right beat, knowing everyone had cocked their ears and then hesitatingly responded. “Er…. I don’t know, I don’t usually sleep “after” straight guys. It’s not going to rub off on me, is it?”

You could have heard a pin drop. Then laughter ripped through my little section of the dorm, no stronger than from Magoo himself. “You’re all right, Marc” (or as they say here “AWRIGHT” )

I chalked one up as I wrapped his sheet around my pillow.

His “straight” pillow case did not rub off, however, as I did not dream of big boobs and mini-skirts.

MCO 2004

This morning was occupied by a visit to the doctor’s office for a standard follow-up, but also one in which I hoped to discuss my aching arm. I stupidly did not bring a book, but this led to unexpected conversations with unexpected gratifications.

In prison, one often has the best encounters not with bunkies, or neighbors, but in transit, in holding tanks or in waiting rooms. Sort of like the conversations one has while traveling or on vacation out in the “real” world.

I had two conversations of note this morning. One was with a young, studly type about whom I’d entertained a fantasy or two, to be honest. His name is Robbie and although he was fairly well-tattooed, I hadn’t seen any gang insignias or a dreaded swastika. He was considerate too, when I introduced myself and extended my hand he apologized for not shaking back for he had a wicked cold and probably had all manner of transmissible fluids on his hands. He certainly sounded horribly congested, which is of course why he was seeing a doctor.

There are some people who like to be listened to and don’t need much prompting to talk. Robbie is one of them. He likes to be liked, and has learned, as far as prison personalities go, how to be likable. He started telling me, unprompted but for a question or two, about the trade of drugs and tobacco in prison beginning with his initial prison experience, 10 years ago, as a young 18 year old.

Robbie told me a few interesting stories, but what struck me was that none of them involved his life on the outside . I didn’t ask how long he’d been “down” but he mentioned extending , even doubling his stays in prison due to penalties on infractions committed while incarcerated. I suppose a large part of this reflects the impulsiveness of youth, the feeling that your life is where you are at the present, the inability to see the long term consequences of one’s immediate actions. But over time, I would say it also reflects a gradual shift in perception. These guys come to view their incarcerated life as their primary lives, and their time on the outside as their vacations, their parentheses from their “real” lives inside..

I am not the first one to observe this syndrome. It’s called institutionalization.

Later, when we were all forced to squat during a “Yard Down” alert, I had a second encounter with a guy I found myself sitting next to. He was a very affable older black guy nicknamed “Doc,” who told me he specialized in getting Motrins, Ibuprofens and the like for a fraction of the price it costs going through the prison infirmary. (The drugs are dispensed free, but the doctor visits themselves cost a whopping $5.00 deducted from one’s canteen account. I can afford the expense, but many can’t. Such is the third-world economy that is prison.)

“Doc” and I bonded almost immediately. I don’t know why. We each just recognized another who looked at The Big Picture. I couldn’t even reconstruct the brief conversation that led up to this, but he told me: “There’s a lot of angry people here. Most of them because they don’t know who they are. They don’t know who they daddy is and a lot of them they don’t know who they momma is neither. I had this girl on the streets, her momma left her in the hospital when she was on crack, and this girl cried and cried in my arms and said to me: ‘I don’t even know who I am, I don’t even know who I am.’”

Doc and I talked about a few other things in the next 15 minutes and I couldn't help but think how many people could not find, as I do, their identity in the hearts and minds of those who love them, because they had so few who loved them in the first place. Instead I just said to Doc: “You’re right, you’re absolutely right,” because he was and because with all my educated ability to articulate, I couldn’t have said it any better.

I actually never saw the doctor, we had to return to the dorm for count and must request another visit. So I think I’ll have to search out “Doc” and trade a soup for an ibuprofen.

But first I wrote this poem:

Here

Here’s to all the babies

Who get left in cribs alone

Who cry for hours

The saddest of songs.

Here’s to all the toddlers

Who get slapped and snapped at,

Instead of missed and kissed.

Here’s to all the kids

In foster homes or juvies,

Who end up in prison

Or mental hospitals,

Behind bars

Or drinking at them.

Here’s to all the people who don’t know who they are

Who don’t know how to say:

“I am in so much pain,”

Except on Jerry Springer or Cops,

Screaming at a uniform.

Here’s to all the guards

Who should be teaching,

To all the dealers,

Who should be healing.

Here’s to building schools

With walls that support hope

Instead of enclose it.

Here’s to a world

Too full of jails,

Of injured men

With tortured tales.

Here’s to making here, there,

And then, there, a place farther away.

Here’s to me, here’s to you,

Here’s to being heard.

MCO 2004

Yesterday was a dramatic day.

First, Spanky, the shotcaller here, called a meeting of the Whites in the Day Room. Once we were so gathered, he proceeded to pull out a newspaper article from his pocket, given to him by one of the C.O.’s. It told of a recent study attesting to the presence of antibodies to HIV in saliva. I’m pretty sure this article was not related to HIV transmissibility, but to how oral HIV tests work, but far be it for me to get in the path of the Ignorance Train barreling full speed down the tracks.

This is the condensed, Reader’s Digest version of Spanky’s informative lecture: “I don’t care what anybody says, you can get this shit by smoking or drinking ‘after’ someone who’s HIV +!” He swaggered in place as he talked, gathering steam with which to lay down the law. “I don’t want to see ANYBODY who’s HIV+ sharing anything with anybody else. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s on YOU to let anybody know you are HIV + And if you don’t, and I see you sharing food or a cigarette, and then I find out later you are HIV+, I’ll personally handle your ass…”

At that point he seemed to realize he couldn’t watch everybody all the time, and that his warning might go unheeded. This led to the brilliant idea of “asking” all those who were HIV+ to raise their hand. Then he added the categories of “homosexual” or “bisexual,” just in case that somehow didn’t cover it. Holy prison nightmare, Batman.

The request was outrageous, of course, but that didn’t make it easy to ignore. I was torn between keeping my hand down as an assertion of privacy and sticking both hands up as an assertion of gay pride. Though I can’t honestly say the decision I did take, to raise the one hand as requested, was motivated by anything other than fear. Fear that the consequences would be worse if I didn’t put my hand up and they found out the truth later, balanced by hope that if I got it out of the way now I’d at least get “points” for forthrightness. (There is a certain amount of respect one gets here for having the balls to be honest.).

I was surprised at how many did put their hand up besides me (and which I got a better look at those who did).. Still, the underlying sentiment was ugly, and the ignorance involved in the question disturbing, especially since the witchunt was fomented by a C.O. handing out medical misinformation that was completely out of his purview..

I am sorry to say I wasn’t brave enough to rise up and deliver a stirring oration telling Spanky he was full of shit, but several inmates who did not raise their hands came up to me afterward to tell me they thought he was.

Drama #2 concerned a young man I’ll call “Chin,” because, well, you can’t miss it. Think Jay Leno after being socked in the jaw, producing a silhouette that slopes diagonally down the left side of his face like the western coast of Mexico. It looks like the result of a misuse of forceps during birth, almost made harder to bear because otherwise, his blue-eyed blond features are well-balanced and pleasing to the eye.

Initially, Chin seemed like a quiet, pleasant enough type. He was one of a few inmates coming not from a reception center, but as a transfer from a Level II yard, (to finish a 6-year term) , so he had some personal property, including books. In fact, he loaned me one, an unexpectedly scholarly tome called “The Indo-Europeans,” which I have been reading with gusto.

To my surprise, Chin raised his hand affirmatively to the query of who in the dorm was playing with a bent racquet. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me, as I had seen him snorting a wellbutrin with Jamie, a young “out” Latino I had known at County, who, in fact, had given me his telephone time slot (he is a porter) to try my Mom yesterday. What I didn’t know was that the Wellbie-sharing was part of a more intense courtship, as least for Chin.

That was his first mistake. Jamie is an independent soul and free-spirit, and didn’t appreciate Chin’s jealous streak, which was premature at best, and at the very least clearly ill-timed, at least when expressed while Jamie was trying to mop the bathroom floor. As things would have it, his extremely no-nonsense C.O. boss, Ms. Harris, heard the exchange and did not appreciate Chin’s use of a threatening tone on one of “her” porters. She suggested Chin back off, or something to that effect.

He-with-the-unfortunate-jaw then showed a choleric streak that probably had something to do with why he had just spent 6 years in Medium. As I heard it, he snapped at Ms. Harris: “Fuck with me and I’ll kill you bitch! And your cat, too!!” (There is a dorm cat here, whose closest thing to a mistress is Ms. Harris.)

Needless to say, Ms. Harris’ reaction was not along the lines of: “I can see you’re angry now, why don’t you sit and have some quiet time and think about threatening my life…” followed up a few minutes later with “Can we have a hug?” Instead, in short order, Chin was “rolled up,” and will probably be charged with threatening an officer, meaning a new charge and a new prison term to be served after he’s finished the current one.

I’m told in this sort of situation, inmates can kiss their property goodbye, as neither the C.O. who has just been threatened, nor his or her colleagues, are disposed to follow niceties like getting the inmate’s property for him. Anything of value in Chin’s locker was immediately plundered by a few whites under the supervision of Spanky. I was the last to look inside, hoping only perhaps for another book. I couldn’t help but notice some personal letters and photos that were left behind, one a picture of Chin back in better times, at the beach, sporting a completely normal jaw. So his distorted look was most probably the result of a prison injury.

The bad temper, however, I suspect stretches farther back.

I can’t say I’m unhappy about inheriting “In Search of the Indo-Europeans,” although I wish I’d gotten it as a gift rather than as salvage from a wreck.

MCO 2004

"Catching the Chain" is a term used for being shipped out from one prison to the other. It inspired this poem, about the wait for the call that your bus is coming in the morning.

Catching the Chain

“I’m so over this place,” he said as if

in the saying of it he would have

sooner begun to leave it behind.

I, on the

Other hand, am rather

Under

this place.

One of the crumbs of a half-

eaten cake that remains beneath a plastic cover

keeping the last piece “fresh.”

But the air in here is stuffy.

The other crumbs as are ready as I am

to be eaten.

We ache to begin the journey into

someone’s moist mouth;

along the membraned tunnels,

to be transmogrified by

important enzymes and sharp juices

broken down to mere cells

left for hemoglobin

right for leukocytes

until, finally, what started as a cake

made with eggs and milk and love

returns to the world as a molecule

of salt or water or carbon dioxide

free

to be part of something bigger

again.

MCO 2004

Once a week we have clothing/linen exchange, in which we turn in most everything we have in exchange for new or laundered materiel. I say "most" because of course there is always demand for extra sheets, from which are made rope - used to hang clothes, tie sheets, to fit beds etc. Plus we keep extra blankets, which are tightly rolled and tied, and then placed sideways and used as stools (picture sitting on a can). Every month or so, the C.O.'s make everyone clear out, as they purge the dorm of all extras and the game starts anew.

But one constant is the astonishing assumption our keepers seem to have that the average size of an inmate is twice that of the average American male, even though there is no evidence--save the fearful imaginings of a terrorized public--that this is so. Inmates are perennially forced to swim in Rabelaisian-sized garb, which starts at Large, and moves up to 2x, 3x, 4x. There is no medium size, or heavens forefend, small. Hence the hip-hop street fashions pants around-the-ass-crack phenonemon. Yes, it came from laundry exchange in your local prison-all sizes "PLUS"

MCO 2004

Martha Stewart's Living—in Jail

We're stunned by the oppression

Impressed by your resolve

(But I'd watch the aggression

when talking to the judge)

The Diva's off to prison

Martha's going down

To all kinds of derision

Send in the IM clones

Down with the injustice!

Up with Feng Shui'd cells!

(Remember we discussed this-

You'll have to wash with Prell)

Call Leona Helmsley

She must have some advice

"Buy some shares of Nestle

The Coffee will be nice"

And when the dyke behind you

s'about to lift your dress

Just say "May I remind you,

That's been done by CBS."

Calling K-Mart shoppers

Listen carefully

Write to Johnnie Cochran

And plead for clemency.

MCO 2004

Day 190 – Sounds

Today’s prison observation is about sounds. Inmates love to play pinochle—endlessly. Which is harmless, except they have this macho way of putting down each card. They lift their hands up high and throw it down in the manner a hyperactive 13-year old would when exclaiming “GIN” over a rival. But instead of one annoying triumphant moment, the 4 guys playing every round go “BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!” onto the bunk, and if your back is turned it sounds like someone is kicking the bunk. It alarms me every time I hear it until I register what they’re doing.

The other observation is that there is always one guy in a group of thirty or so who has made his “shtick” to talk with a certain kind of voice which is usually an imitation of an old movie star (like John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart) or a cartoon character like Bart Simpson or worse, something he made up. Or he does sound effects which are amusing at first, but when these voices become the way in which this person gets attention and infects every contrived mode of expression he uses, becomes DAMNED ANNOYING!

MCO 2004

Sometimes I imagine myself to have done this all on purpose, sort of like Barbara Ehrenreich with Nickel and Dimed. Perhaps you have heard about her book and maybe even read it, but if not, what she did is set for herself as a task to leave her comfortable journalistic life and attempt to live for a year on the minimum wages she made doing menial work—mostly cleaning motel rooms. This is really the equivalent of prison life for some men—enormous swaths of the population consider this kind of hand-to-mouth existence how they must live if they are to live inside the law. It is not surprising that they don’t last very long before turning to where the money is.

A very handsome black guy right across from me was talking abut his refusal to take the TABE test (the Test of Basic Education Skills) which determines your educational level during placement here, and, in principal, can get you into classes to complete your GED (High School equivalency).

Anyway, he was a pimp on the outside, no kidding, discusses it and selling drugs as if he sold used cars, but is clearly very sharp and should have done perfectly respectably on this exam. I surmised that he feared he wouldn’t though, and rather than risk feeling stupid, as no doubt was his experience in school, refused to take the test even though this resulted in a disciplinary “115,” adding 67 days to his sentence. And as he shared this story he said it so dismissively. “67 days, like I really am going to trip over what, a July and August extra!”

This floored me! If I had to be here one more minute that I have to, I might just explode. (Though Sandra’s initiation of the blog has done wonders toward my acceptance of even the remaining 3 months.) Doing time was such a routine part of his lifestyle that being in prison 67 extra days was worth it if it meant he wouldn’t feel stupid by failing a simple test.

MCO 2004

Pistachios

There is a certain kind of footwear I have seen in just two environs. My experience of this type of footwear in each of these places couldn’t be farther apart, at least in the spaces they occupy in my psyche. I first encountered the “espadrille,” a simple, cloth loafer, used mostly for the beach as an alternative to the much more ubiquitous sandal in southern France, in the summer of 1969. When I last encountered it, it was as the institutional footwear worn by inmates at the California Penal System, and I was wearing them for the second time in my life. (For years, because I could not quite remember the French word for them, the few times that they re-entered my consciousness, I called them “pistachios.” In prison I was told they are called "flapjacks.")

We were spending the summer at a lake in the Massif Central, camping on the property of a farmer. My mother had taken my two brothers, two sisters, and me to visit her sister, Francoise, who was with her brood of four, and together we were matched by the ten Cambournacs. They were best friends and neighbors of my aunt, consisted of eight kids helmed by parents Claude and Colette.

If the Kennedys had been French and middle class, they would have been the Cambournacs. And though they sort of knew they were a good-looking, athletic brood, they carried the awareness with an unself-conscious innocence, never wielding it as a weapon.

Claude, the father, was painfully cool. He drove a Triumph Spitfire at 80 mph through the mountains (all of us Olmsted kids drove with him at least once and talked about it for years). For all we know, this behavior could have been the result of an adolescent paroxysm of a man in mid-life crisis. He only came up a few weekends, if I remember correctly. I doubt he could handle the dearth of adult male companionship there as my own Dad, of course, had been left back in New York, and my Aunt Francoise’s husband, Rene, was supposedly considered indispensable to the orthopedic clinic he ran back in Montpellier. In reality his marriage to my aunt was starting to unravel and he already had a mistress.

What we had were three mothers and eighteen kids, five of whom were doing a poor job of becoming magically fluent in French that summer, despite all of my mother’s cherished hopes. (The story of why we weren’t already bilingual is too long and tortured to delve into here. Suffice to say, Mom tried.) At ten, I was on the cusp of puberty and already confused by the nature of the inchoate stirrings that made me far more interested in spending time with the handsome and effortlessly masculine--at eleven --Jean Rene Cambournac, than in his equally coltish and striking sisters.

More often than not, I found myself shying away from too much contact with the summer tribe of endless kids. I enjoyed instead being the kitchen helper to the three French women. Although certainly my mother and aunt adored me and appreciated my desire to learn French, they were no doubt somewhat relieved that I couldn’t understand what the hell they were saying, as it gave them some precious time with other adult women, to dish and discuss world events. Colette Cambournac--pregnant with her ninth child--probably enjoyed the break from her own kids the most. To her I probably held consistent charm because my mother didn’t bother to translate anything I said in English that was obnoxious or annoying.

I can’t quite imagine why my mother decided to indulge the ridiculous and persistent yen I suddenly had to own a pair of espadrilles. She certainly could not have imagined the vaguely sexual allure they held for me. She could not know that they were the closest I could come to the featureless white footwear worn by Johnny Quest, an animated character I had had a crush on from the first grade. Johnny was blond, and wore a turtleneck, and got into all sorts of dangerous adventures with his best friend, Hadji. Johnny was motherless, and his square-jawed Dad was rarely around. Jean-Rene and Claude were Johnny Quest and his Dad come to life.

I couldn’t have articulated it, but I thought somehow the espadrilles would magically confer on me the masculinity of Johnny Quest, or at least the possibility of becoming Jean Rene’s Hadji-like sidekick. For sure they would have set me apart from my sandaled first cousins--effete to my American boy's eyes. (The Cambournacs no doubt wore sandals as well, but I remember them as going barefoot and walking on gravel. If anyone was effete it was the tender-footed American contingent constituted by myself and my siblings, the ones who wanted ketchup and soda and were hopeless clods at soccer. We couldn’t even manage the most basic French insult, although to our advantage we were immune to the insults directed toward us and could make our cousins feel quite self-conscious as we bantered back and forth in English. The ultra-cool Cambournac kids, for their part, seemed completely oblivious to such theatrics.)

Though the three mothers were forced to spend most of their time preparing food for all the hungry mouths to feed, it was their vacation too, and once in a while they managed a swim in the lake or an hour with a book under a tree. So it was a great surprise to me when one of them agreed to squeeze in a trip to the local village so I could get my espadrilles.

I also did not know that espadrilles were absurdly cheap. The price of 3 Francs, 60 centimes somehow remains lodged in my mind (about 75 cents back then). However, as that constituted about 50% of the budget allotted weekly for the Olmsted kids for anything besides food, it qualified as a luxury. (It wasn’t until adulthood that I recognized how brave—foolhardy to some--my mother was to take five children to France for an entire summer on a shoestring budget. To this day she can’t quite understand how she did it, either psychologically or logistically, not to mention financially.)

So, it happened that Colette Cambournac, not quite as glamorous as Jackie Kennedy but with that easy nurturing quality that makes French women world-class mothers, took me into the little hamlet of Salle Curran to get espadrilles. No one but me seemed to be concerned that she spoke not a word of English and that my French was largely confined to a memorized children’s rhyme about capturing a mouse, dipping it in oil, and making snails out of it. I imagine for Colette, who chatted on quite amiably in the car, for all I know about the price of foodstuffs in Equatorial New Guinea, it was a blessed parentheses from the hurly burly of rearing a veritable litter with another one on the way.

I do remember the shoe salesman being rather flummoxed at my request because espadrilles were considered rather more appropriate to fifty-five year old men than ten-year old boys. Being French, he had no compunction making his opinion known, but also being French, Colette had no difficulty telling the salesman politely but firmly to wrap them up.

I have the vague sense that when we left, we had an ice-cream or an orangina in a café, but what was more remarkable is what I don’t remember. I don’t remember Colette going shopping for anything else but a few loaves of bread. Pretty much the trip into town was to buy aquamarine espadrilles for me, not because I needed them but simply because I wanted them.

Fast forward to 30 years later. I find myself at North Kern State prison, Delano, California, C-block during our twice weekly Yard, which for me at least, consists of 12 or so revolutions around the gravel track surrounding a grassy expanse on which we may sit but not walk I have a few “friends” in the block, but they mostly take the time to do push ups or pull-ups on the steel exercise bars and I prefer the solitude in any case. I would actually rather stay on my bunk during Yard, reading or napping, but the food is actually decent up here, and I’m wary of emerging from my prison stint with what I call “jaily-belly,” so I take the opportunity to expend some calories. The only annoyance is that my prison issue “flapjacks” - the left one at least - keeps coming off my heel. (Ironically this is precisely what happened to my French-issued espadrilles of so many years ago.)

As I pause every 50 paces or so to pull the heel of the shoe over the heel of my foot, I am befriended by a heavy-set guy with a crew cut and mustache, the standard look for a “wood,” or white inmate. He immediately proffers his services.

“Can’t keep your shoe on, hunh?”

“Nah.”

“I can fix that for you. Give me ten minutes when we get back inside, I’ll put a lace on it.”

I have actually observed this solution on the footwear of inmates around me, as. I am endlessly fascinated by the astounding array of ingenious solutions to the privations of prison life that I have witnessed here. But rarely do I avail myself of any of them. Aware that most everything in here comes at a price, I do a little bartering for his service.

“Extra,” as he is known, will tighten up my shoe and give me a full tube of toothpaste, in return for a book for stamps. He explains to me he needs the stamps not because he is a prolific correspondent, but rather because he’s a devotee of nicotine, and with a book of stamps he can purchase a “bullet,” or a portion of tobacco that will yield 7-10 cigarettes, depending on the generosity with which they are rolled.

Not too much later, in the Day Room, Extra approaches me with his contraband razor and laces, which are thin strips sliced from blue state-issued bed sheets. With the razor he cuts small holes in the espadrilles, which he then laces through and draws tight.

By this time I am trying to determine if his nickname comes from a) the “extra” pounds he carries b) his proficiency at obtaining “extra” stuff via barter and ingenuity or c) the likelihood of an “extra” chromosome of some sort that would explain why each of his eyes seems to stare in different directions at the same time.

I remember the last time I was in a similar position 30 years and lifetime ago, at a village shoe store in southern France, and it occurs to me that I would be hard put to find two more diametrically opposed people in my own lifetime that Colette Cambournac and Extra, with whom I am attempting to engage in a modicum of intelligent conversation as he repairs my espadrilles.We have touched upon inmate politics, which always revolve around the races getting along.

Extra, managing, it seems to me, to look with one eye at the task at hand and with the other directly at me, offers his thoughts on the topic. “It’s all about respect, dog. I respect you, you respect me, we respect each other; and that way we all get along.”

Colette Cambournac died last year of cancer. Had I been able to speak to her before her death I doubt very much that she would have even remembered going into town with me that day, and even if she had, would almost certainly have had no memory of what she chatted about as we drove along, me quite uncomprehending.

But as Extra leaves me to go to his bunk for the tube of toothpaste, it occurs to me that it would not be out of the realm of possibility that 37 years ago that summer, Colette may have been sharing some life insight about something we may have witnessed together on the street, or even about the intra-familial tension being experienced between cousins divided by an ocean and a language but united by two sisters who adored each other and all of us unconditionally. Although she wouldn’t have addressed me as "dog," she might well have called me “cheri” or "mon beau," while telling me it was all about respect, and if we respected each other we could all get along.

MCO 2004

It feels so good to think I’m going to get back and reconstruct many of the friendships I let fall by the wayside. The problem with drug/alcohol addiction is that everybody you love, even briefly (a brand new friend, relative or an old one) is not, as they should be, the first priority in your life at the moment you are with them, even if just for a conversation, a letter or a visit. That’s because the bottle or the pipe is always your first priority (if even in your thoughts) all the other 2nd priorities know it. It’s like a glass ceiling no one can really break through.

MCO 2004

I have just moved into Cedar Hall, where we are in “orientation,” which means basically medical intake and waiting for a bed to open in the regular minimum security dorms. I had to leave the book I was reading behind, and was left with nothing to read but the PEN (Poets Essays and Novelists- a prison writing program) material my sister sent me. It is luminous. An Italian Professor at NYU once told me I had a gift for literary analysis back at NYU, and this is the first time in a long time I settled into reading about reading. It was so wonderful. I am a party of one trying to conduct a “salon” here, which basically means in my head. I am so sick of the constant topic of conversation being about prison, what joint they came from where they’re going, what it’s like there who they hung out with there. Also who said what on the yard! And when are they going to canteen and who’s se next for the shower and blah blah blah. Prison, prison prison! The life of ideas, the culture of observations is all totally absent here. Of course academia is rife with gossip and personalities and politics too, but boy would I like to find myself on different sides of an argument settled over a good meal or a symposium, than in the manner “disputes” are settled in here.

MCO 2005

Since my incarceration, I have been in remarkably good health. I’ve had one cold on Memorial Day weekend and one bout of diarrhea that only last 24 hours, along with one week-long staph infection that resolved without a problem. Not bad for a 5-month period. I’ve had a physical feeling of well-being at a time I most needed it to support a mental feeling of well-being. That has been an enormous gift that I must be thankful for and conscious of. Prison is simply not a place you want to be sick, especially of anything that would require frequent visits to the bathroom, because in case you were wondering there is no privacy and in some places with no urinals, you have to wait for the appropriate toilet to be free. Prisoners, surprisingly to the outside, perhaps, are very picky about hygiene-- there are designated toilets, designated sinks (one must never spit into a sink, except when brushing one’s teeth. And one must piss in the commode dedicated for that purpose and shit in the commode dedicated to that purpose (there is usually a back-up “shitter” for urgent situations, but there is an attempt to give a modicum of privacy to the person taking care of #2.)

At Delano, behind the toilet was also the preferred place to stash the bag of “pruno” that was currently being fermented. Although it’s hard to imagine this was an adequate hiding place, as it was never uncovered during a search for even after a major toss of our bunks (while we were in the yard). For some reason, (or perhaps for a very real reason) the cops didn’t look there,

The making is of “pruno” (prison wine) is a devotional art here and this is how it works. Once a week, we get “real” pineapple or orange juice at breakfast and that is collected in trade for coffee or cookies. In addition, oranges or apples that come frequently enough in lunch bags are collected, peeled and their juice is squeezed. A “kicker,” which consists of something to provoke the fermentation process is added, and the bag goes below a bunk on in a locker and over the next few days the maker blows into it periodically, because CO2 is necessary to the process. I think it takes about 3 or 4 days (I have observed this but not engaged in it myself.)

I find it an odd sensation to be tipsy here, which I only indulged in once. There was nothing to do with the buzz and I found myself wanting to be sober again ASAP. There was nothing I felt I could do better high and this (miraculously) was a new sensation for me.

I was glad, frankly, that I “tested” myself. I was actually able to refuse the next time it was offered and this is where my Rational Recovery helped. I recognized my Addictive Voice telling me this would be a pleasurable experience when my rational self recognized that it would make it harder to concentrate on the book I wanted to read, and there was certainly no socializing I wanted to do in which a social lubricant may have been pleasurable, like cocktails at sunset on the porch with a date. I have to admit, I have no intention of permanently swearing off the possibility of such an indulgence- but I think I can wait till after parole is over, which I imagine would be a good idea.

The only mood altering substance I have succumbed to is a quarter dose of seraquil- The xanax of prison. ( To the tune of an old jingle “Everybody doesn’t like some thing, but nobody doesn’t like Sera-quil.”) It suppresses that endless brainthrob of thoughts, that combined with the sounds of 66 men sleeping, the low buzz of the TV, and the incessant whirring of the fan, can keep a man awake at night.

Then after a sweet, dream-filled sleep, I plod through breakfast, go back to sleep, wake up again for morning pill call, then dose till noon (sometimes not, sometimes I start my day post-pill call at 9 or so) Catnaps are my sole concession for making time inside go faster. Many inmates here simply sleep through their entire sentence. They have been problematic enough in the past that the doctors are more than happy to dose them into oblivion. I have noticed however that they literally forget how to be awake. When they aren’t sleeping they are more often than not anxiety-ridden and extremely depressed. In the past, they might have been steered into adult education or other rehabilitative uses of their time. But those programs have all been unplugged. Make no mistake about it, there is a direct correlation between overcrowding and doping of the prison population. Of course, I realize I must add a giant qualifier to everything I write- I have spent 2 months at county, 2 months in Delano Reception and 1 month at Chino Reception. A total of 6 months behind bars and I really haven’t been to prison yet! Which referred to as mainline or the general population. Once I get there, I will no doubt garner a more complete picture.

Note: the Seraquil was a Birch Hall habit. There is no such sleep aid where I am now, in Redwood.

MCO 2004

I am going to make an effort with my penmanship (or pencilmanship, as it were.) . What after all, is the point of sobriety if I cannot discipline myself to write legibly? By the way, I don’t know if I’ve been more naturally charged up before- Rebecca [my cousin] said it very well “How many influences in the world cause us to forget our heritage of drug-free happiness? ” There is a solidity to it that I never had with meth. I used to note, wryly , but rather truthfully, that when addicts described the perfect high it sounded very much like the perfect sobriety. “In control, not out of control, steady, feeling good, not too up, not too down just right in between. Duhhhh.”

As I have written you, mail has been lurchy (a made-up word) of late, last night there was none because someone had grabbed the wrong bag, and so they distributed yesterday's at noon today. “Bed 15” - me- got one and another and another and another and another and another- including the fabulous postcard from Caroline. So everyone is like “DUDE WHAT IS UP WITH THE MAIL!” And I announce to your fans (they are not mine, my dear sister, they are yours) "It’s my sister sending me paper!" So at my bunk they gather around enthralled- I feels like Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music” right before she sings “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things” to the Von Trapp children (in bed during the storm).

Any resentment about my bounty evaporated when they saw the gorgeous sampling of paper and mesmerizing writing utensils, including the 2 Fat Ticonderoga pencils that they couldn’t believe got through. Of course I dispensed your munificence to those in need of a pencil or paper or postage. The Disney stamps were most popular, as “models” perfect for the inmates who draw to make for greeting cards home to the little ones. There is nothing preventing their relatives from sending the inmates here what you send, they just don’t.

With all these letters and treasures from you, tonight I don’t feel imprisoned at all. My brain is so without bars on it, so unencumbered. And tomorrow is a brand new day.

MCO 2004

MCO 2004

I shaved my head because it is so tiring to try to get a haircut with just a one single edge razor distributed to us once a week. After my new look, everyone started asking me if I was “GBG.” It seems that “GBG” stands for “Gay Boy Gangsters” which stirs in me a mixed reaction of pride and revulsion as they insist this a real group.

I suddenly understand the rush of feeling protected, even being willing to fight to defend your own. At the same time I am so completely non-violent, I have to reject any such notion. If there were a riot, I would be the first person to run under my bunk. I can’t help but remember an old Joan Rivers joke about the crime rate going up in San Francisco. It seems they were afflicted by a wave of drive-by slappings.

MCO 2004

I visited Mark this weekend. It was a contact visit and we were able to spend the entire day together in a park like setting. We feasted on food items from vending machines and had a glorious time that could rival a weekend in Paris.

Mark has been transferred to “orientation to min. security” and this is his new address

V-31179 Redwood 7046 UP

Mark Olmsted

PO Box 600

Chino, CA 91708

As long as you have the V- number the system can locate him. .

I have tons of new notes on prision so stay tuned.