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
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