October 2004 Archives

My entry for today was going to be about a visit to my doctor that reminded me that though I needn’t see every sunrise as a sunset, as, like many people with AIDS, I had trained myself to do, I probably shouldn’t either put a down payment on a condo for a gay retirement community for 2024. It was nothing major, just some bothersome lipid levels that require a shuffling of meds. However, I have no intention of getting too realistic again. I’ve discovered, as I think I have shared in this blog, that it is extremely important to plan your life bearing in mind the near-term, mid-term, and long-term, because you never do know. You might just live.

My mulling over matters medicinal was made moot by a magical missive in the mail. I had several late birthday cards, and an awaited letter or two, but I most marveled at an envelope from a completely unfamiliar address in Amsterdam--a city I've long loved from afar, in a country I adore (not because I spent much time there--3 days 30 years ago--but because my experience with Dutch people has been uniformly good.) I opened the manila envelope and out tumbled 10 or so postcards- some quite amusing, some artistic, some aesthetically pleasing-- from someone named Moni. I am assuming, but am not certain, that Moni is short for Monique, and so will refer to her in the female gender. Moni, if I am wrong I am sure you will correct me. (Moni’s handwriting could go either way, male of female)

Moni writes:

Hi Marc

Happy Birthday!!

Have a good day and take care.

Moni (a blog fan of yours from Amsterdam).

Let me just say: Holy rib-tickling, mind blowing birthday present! Someone I’ve never met who somehow discovered the blog and likes my writing enough to send me gift postcards! My first fan! (Please let’s hope not my last!)

I feel like Sally Field! “You like me! You really like me!” Plus one of the postcards Moni sent is a set of photos of George Bush next to a chimpanzee with exactly the same set of facial expressions. Earl and I laughed heartily, but the best part was showing it to Adam, the Ketchup kid, who is not only obsessed with the Kennedys but a rabid Bush supporter. (Given the obvious political contradiction, I have concluded Adam is actually obsessed with political dynasties, and it has something to do with his estrangement from his corporate attorney father, but I digress).

Anyway, Moni, I will be writing you directly, but if you could please send your typed address via email to my sister, I will send her my letter to send you because I am really not certain of the spelling of your address as written on the back of the envelope.

Moni illustrates the truth that we can all make a big difference in the lives of complete strangers, in the most unexpected ways and without a terrific amount of effort. This goes for how Moni made me feel today, and I guess also goes for how my writing may have affected Moni.

Some of you can expect some cool postcards in the mail.

MCO 2004

Had a second visit from my wonderful friend Andrea, today. It was on the closest Saturday to my birthday, appropriate enough, as Oscar Wilde was born October 16th, and I had asked Andrea (before I knew she intended to visit) to go to an exhibit of Wilde’s letters at UCLA for me for my birthday (the 15th)..

We talked, as we always do about everything under the sun, and we had lunch. While I waited, with other inmates, for our loved ones to obtain food from vending machines and heat them up in microwaves, I overheard two other inmates talking. One lamented, “You know, when it gets to the third hour, and you can’t find anything to say….” I felt blessed that Andrea and I would never have that problem.

I did mention to her that I wondered if and how I could continue the blog after release, and she didn’t seem to think it was a problem, that even without prison, I could depend on continuing to find the nexus of personal and the political. After all, I’ve done it before, with my essays for Genre and Being Alive, and how about the columnists who have made a career out of it, like Anna Quindlen? I was heartened, but I do imagine I might have to decrease the frequency of my entries to once or twice a week, a la Russell Baker.

After our visit, I returned to my bunk savoring our wide-ranging conversation and the prospect of curling up with a good book and Prairie Home Companion on NPR. At 5:00, Hippie roused me from my assorted reveries for Pill Call. I won’t eat with him anymore, but I will accompany him across the grounds and back to get our meds. (Hippie isn’t HIV+, he gets other meds).

Hippie expressed envy at my lunch with Andrea. He said, “I’ve never once gotten a visit in prison.” His parents were off the hook, they lived in New York and I knew he hadn’t seen them for ten years anyway. I sort of suspected why he got no visitors, and this was confirmed when he answered my next question: “How about friends?” “All my friends are junkies,” he replied. He showed me the horrific track marks on his arms. “Every time I get out, I get high. I 'spoon by noon.' I remember, I was so proud, the last time I actually made it two weeks until I hit the needle.” (Note that he didn't say he waited two weeks to get high, just that he didn't get high intravenously for that long.)

I hadn’t the heart to tell him that one was proud of becoming a teacher, or a nurse, or of a child who took his first steps. Staying sober for two weeks even was something to be proud of. Refraining from using the needle (instead of snorting or smoking) for two weeks was a dubious source of pride. (I have similar beef with those who are “proud to be an American” or “white,” or “gay” even; as if these states are the result of hard work instead of genetic or geographic happenstance.)

I’ll telescope the ensuing dialogue to the fundamentals. Why, I asked, did he think he couldn’t stay sober? He professed the well-worn rationale of demonizing the frequency with which he claimed old friends who got sober simply replaced one addiction with another. "Their lives became all about rehab; all about twelve step groups. Most of them end up becoming counselors in rehabs themselves!” he noted indignantly. “Well,” I replied, “You’re right, they become addicted to sobriety.” “Exactly!” he chimed back, enthused that someone finally understood. But I countered: “Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, that might be a little less toxic addiction to say, heroin? That even if it can be called an addiction it leaves a little bit more room for the constituents of happiness; like healthy relationships, a fulfilling career, and an active spiritual life?” (Perhaps I wasn’t quite this succinct, but what the hell, it’s my blog, I can make myself as retro-articulate as I want).

Hippie stared at me with that horsey blank look that means I’m almost getting through, but slow to a canter, please. It reminded me of Dubya’s expression when asked an unscripted question. Since Hippie has made a big show of asking me quite earnestly about how the debates went, I decided to use an argument I thought Kerry should have used when Bush trotted out that old boogeyman of big bad “government-sponsored health programs.” “Listen Hippie, sobriety is like the British or Canadian Health care system, it’s far from perfect, and riddled with problems, but do you ever hear of anyone from England or Canada suggesting a return to the American style system? Likewise, have you ever heard one of your old friends who got sober saying they were so much happier as a junkie? And want to go back?”

I seemed to have gotten through to Hippie, because an hour later he came up to me and said “I hate you. You found a chink in my steel-trap logic.” ‘Yeah,’ I thought ‘One I could drive a truck through,’ but I didn’t say so, I just smiled and nodded.

Although I was happy to "get through" to Hippie, frankly I find it hard to believe I told him anything he did not know. As for him, I think with his last comment he was actually trying to prolong the gratification of a discussion that was not about the quality of the drugs being consumed or the location of the next Grateful Dead concert. It had, for him, the long dormant echo of a “normal” friendship.

But for me, who happily has maintained the capacity for satisfying inter-personal communication, even with a few speed bumps (pun intended) in the past few years, my satisfaction was derived from finding an apt political metaphor for a personal dilemma.

Maybe there’s hope for my post 11/16 blog yet.

MCO 2004

Early in my incarceration at L.A. County Jail, I was in a gay dorm that had as its greatest drawback the near constant intrusive volume emanating from the big screen T.V. Until I arranged to get my bunk moved to the back of the dorm, I was so incensed by the impossibility of not being subjected to the noise that I actually wrote to the ACLU Prisoner’s Project, inquiring if anyone had ever asked if there was a constitutional right to quiet. Or, said in a more ungainly manner, the right not to be subjected to undue noise.

Of course, rather than use my complaint in a test case, it was simply reported back to the C.O.’s, who pulled me out of the dorm to see if I still “had a problem.” By that time, I was so anxious not to incur the wrath of either the guards or the other inmates, that I completely downplayed my complaint, essentially withdrawing it. Much more that the right not to be “louded” in prison, I now would place the right not to be subjected to violence. The prison system would claim that they try to do exactly that. But this would be a lie. Their priority is may be to prevent violence, but it is violence against correction officers that they most care about. They don’t really care what the inmates do to each other, except to the degree that an inmate armed against another inmate is also armed against a guard.

An inmate who fears being subjected to violence must usually be the victum of violence before he is moved into protective custody. The alternative is to complain his way into a single cell, living in isolation from other inmates, a safe but lonely existence. Most just endure.

For any forward looking reformers and ACLU–types among you, I hereby repeat my suggestions of a few days ago, albeit in a more fleshed-out rendering.

To my knowledge, only California segregates inmate according to race, with the rationale of preventing interracial violence. This is absurd. It is a classic divide-and-conquer strategy that merely reinforces the idea that the enemy is each other, and that a gang identity is the only refuge from the violent domination of other racial groups.

Still, it is so entrenched in the California Penal System that I’m not sure self-segregation wouldn’t ensue if it wasn’t already imposed by the administration. But it virtually guarantees the inmates will seek to arm themselves to protect against a perceived threat from other races, and those that do not are caught in the impossible position of being told they must conform to gang dictates or be subjected to discipline from within. I've heard of inmates being ordered to “stick” another inmate from another race, or be subject to being “stuck” himself (though this is far more common in Medium and Maximum security yards than here in Minimum.)

But even in Minimum, I have been privy (without wanting to, I assure you) to conversations about the transfer of knives from one hiding place or inmate to another. I should not have to endure proximity to violence in order to do my time in an environment where I get to socialize and have access to privileges.

My solution is simply to allow prisoners to classify themselves as "N,” standing for “Non” i.e., nonracial and non-violent. Whatever their skin tone, ethnicity or sexual orientation, such self-designated inmates would reject housing based on any such considerations. They would be placed in housing where all inmates therein were committed to one overriding criteria, a rejection of violence as a means of resolving differences or as a form of expression. Anyone violating this principle (including hate speech or incitement) would be removed from “N” housing and placed into the general population. This group would be independent from the Protective Custody population, (whose ranks would be thinner in the first place) but would also be segregated from the general population, although completely integrated amongst themselves.

I would contend that this is not only achievable, but would meet the conditions of any successful legal claim that in an environment imposed by the state, there is a constitutional right to freedom from violence within the power of the state to grant it. And while we’re at it, I’d throw in volume control on the TV’s.

MCO 2004

I called my sister first thing this morning and discovered that she was throwing me a virtual birthday party on line. Twenty six attendees! I said I was tickled pink and it’s true. The Internet is really a marvelous thing, isn’t it?

Happily, I am off on Fridays, so I didn’t have to scrub toilets on my birthday. I’ve already received some birthday cards but none today. I did however get my Newsweek, my New Yorker, and a travel supplement of the French newspaper Le Monde, from a French cousin. It is the perfect reading material for standing in line or eating alone--which I don’t have to do but have come prefer, after an incident with Hippie, who was becoming my chowmate. Yesterday he took out his dental plate as he ate and licked off of it an offending food particle. I told him he was being gross and he reacted disingenuously. "What? I’m just licking my plate, what’s the problem?” I was emphatic that it was disgusting, and if he rejected that assessment than I would simply ask him as a matter of courtesy that he refrain from doing so in my direct presence. At that point, Earl stood up and advised me: “You are so anal sometimes. Nobody’s perfect!” I was aplopletic. I was anal for objecting to someone licking his false teeth?! Can the criteria for what constitutes gross behavior get any lower?

Earl marched off, with a "talk-to-the-hand" gesture. Later, back in the dorm, I was about to light into him, but he was laughing too hard. “Of course, it was disgusting!” he giggled. “I just knew it would get to you.” He wasn’t referring to Hippie's grotesque behavior getting to me; he was referring to his own "anal” comment. I was relieved to know Earl was teasing, he does it fairly often, faking snits then dissolving into a smile and a wink. Every morning, I can depend on a sneer at waking up. I sneer back; we delight in pretending to hate each other.

And yet I know there is some bite to his bark, however playful. I have often been accused of holding those around me to unrealistically rigid standards. You can imagine how poorly that plays in prison. It is true, actually, and I would have to point in the direction of my mother if we were looking for the source of this inheritance. Of course, my mother and I generally see eye-to-eye on these things, but I would venture to say that like me, she has often enough felt the resentment of others when they sensed that they were being silently critiqued. I have noticed, often enough, a veritable conspiracy between friends to knock me down a few pegs. It’s always cloaked in good-natured kidding, but I’ve seen glee when they manage to get a rise out of me. And then reveal that the perfectly plausible source of my consternation is fictional, made up just to see how irritated I’d get.

My mother’s best friend and one of mine, Claudine, writes me that her non-observant children nonetheless fast on Yom Kippur, to honor their grandparents, lost in the Holocaust. I’m not fasting – prison is deprivation enough- but my birthday does seem like a good opportunity to practice some Yom Kippur-like self-examination. I like having standards; but I don’t like being perceived as priggish or self-righteous. So my vow this coming year, which will change dramatically for me in just a month, will be to keep my standards--but worry more about holding myself to them than others.

A psychic once told me to “stand in the light.” That sounds just easy enough, and just hard enough.

MCO 2004

P.S. This was my birthday horoscope in the local paper: Your work may be thorough and painstaking, but it pays off in a grand way this year! The next seven weeks teach you that you can depend on loved ones to help you as long as you spell out what you need. Love signs are Aries and Leo. Your lucky numbers are 9,20,45,11,and 28.

I unearthed this poem in my papers. I had written it about a female C.O. at County who could be a real sweetheart one day, and then a screaming harpie the next. (She'd get pissed every time we made her late to "pick up her grandkids," and I surmised she was probably taking care of them because she has a son or daughter who was a drug addict or in prison. Oddly, it is often the case with those in law enforcement that their in laws are often outlaws.)

Hava Nice Day

Why you so angry,

Ms. Deputy Nava?

Pissed off they didn’t want you.

at Yale or at Harvard?

Wouldn’t Hannibal Lecter.

Share his Chianti and Favas?

Or are you simply too fond

Of caffeine in your java?

“Less-go! Hoory-up!”

Can I please get my shoes on?

My appetite suffers

When the line forms in the john.

“Wassamatta you?

Wanna lose you program?”

Not really, Ms. Nava

But we’d love to lose you, Maam.

Before you reply,

“The feeling is mutual”

You might be reminded

You need us, we don’t need you.

Con-men or crackheads.

Neatniks or slobs,

Without us, Miss Nava

You’d be out of a job.

MCO 2004

Writer’s Blog: The fear you will run out of things to write in your blog.

I will consider my life a triumph when I see such self-styled terms appear in the mainstream press. Unfortunately, I have discovered that my talent, if any, tends more to pulling out of the air of the zeitgeist the same puns and newly minted phrases that others are plucking out at the same time. I hope I’m wrong, but try googling “writer’s blog” With my luck it’s already patented by a writer from the Jon Stewart ‘Daily Show’. Ditto for “spintelligentsia.”

Still, some linguistic "coincidences" are too intense to be coincidental. Last week, I wrote a poem that appears at the end of this entry (Neglect). It starts “The line is thin between malign neglect and benign neglect…” Not exactly an everyday phrase, wouldn’t you agree? I sent it to my sister Erica, and she had not even received it when I spoke to my sister Sandra and was told my Aunt Francoise’s breast cancer had reoccurred--sort of. I say sort of because I was told by my mother, “the tumor is somewhere in between benign and malign."

I won’t ask what the chances are of such a coincidence because the chances are zero. I cannot believe that it is a coincidence. I do know that I grabbed the pen to write that poem completely out of the blue, and the line poured out quite spontaneously. (Well, that's not completely true. I was sort of angry at someone who can't seem to pick up a pen and write me. Still it was written before I heard about my Aunt.)

Art truly is the capacity to get out of the way.

Today there were ripples from the departure of D-Roll. As I recounted, he left some debts. He also left a CD player. Poor Harold, who is an absolute sweetheart, was somehow assigned to gather some things from D-Roll’s locker and so it was assumed he had the CD player.

Two not-so-nice black guys accosted Harold (also black) today when he was sitting on his top bunk, insisting he knew where the CD player was. When Harold swore he didn’t, a fist was thrown that Harold missed only due to his very quick reflexes and the luck of being on the top bunk. The aggressor’s buddy managed to coax him away. They were from another dorm, so“roaming” during an unlock, and had to get out of there pronto.

What they didn’t know was that Harold’s absent bunkie is TeFunk, who returned today after four days in the hospital on an antibiotic IV that finally cured his coughing. TeFunk happened to be picking up meds at the infirmary when Harold was threatened, but woe to them if they come back when he is present.Tefunk has an extraordinary build, and I'm told as well a deadly right hook.

MCO 2004

P.S. Everyone please send you supportive thoughts and prayers to my Aunt Francoise on October 25th, when she has her surgery. I don’t really believe in the power of prayer, but I do believe in my capacity to be completely wrong, so just in case, do pray.

Neglect

There’s a line

between

benign neglect

and

malign neglect.

No place where they transect

except perhaps

in that almost void

where friendships are dissected.

Where those bonds

of emotional ligature

are disconnected.

The ties once laid down

with such gentle deliberation

now sabotaged

abandoned

every day

a little death

as you sink

our relation

ship.

Your absent pen

a present scalpel

dishonoring what was once

live and sacred.

These tendons needed tending,

not ending,

not

neglect.

MCO 2004

I knew it was unlikely that I would not personally witness some violent eruption at least one more time before I got out of this place. Let’s hope that quota was filled tonight.

I was in my "driveway," (the area next to my bunk) shooting the shit with Jimmy, the “King of the Woods” who has taken quite a liking to Earl and me, (in fact they've dubbed our bunk“Gaywood”). Jimmy's attentiveness is a very good thing. It means there is zero probability of any untowardness directed at either of us, as long as we don’t incur debt or have sex with a black inmate; neither of which, I guarantee you, is a remote possiblity for either of us.

My neighbor D-Roll, however, has overplayed his hand with several inmates, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul one time too many. A big black inmate wanted soups owed him by D-Roll back, now. It was less a question of the debt itself, which was a minor amount, than of D-Roll’s endless reneging on the date of repayment. If promised on a Saturday, it would be delayed until Monday, and then on Monday, he would have only half of it, promising double the other half on Thursday, etc. etc. He also made the mistake of badmouthing the competition, which let it be known in the bathroom (while I happened to be mopping up) that this sort of dishonor among thieves was crossing a serious line.

So back to hanging out with Earl and Jimmy in “Gaywood.” Suddenly fists and epithets started flying in the driveway next door. D-Roll was slammed into his open locker, literally inside of it, though somehow managed to wriggle out, jumping across his bunk, then pitifully scrambling back and forth over several lower bunks, ducking and weaving like a frantic crab until the attack subsided. I am sorry to say my heartbeat barely increased its rate. I’ve witnessed such altercations enough times now to know they don’t usually last. The aggressor can ill afford the marks on his own knuckles that would identify him to the guards. Finally, he withdrew, spewing threats behind him.

As much as I sort of liked D-Roll, (he told me I was "square"--a huge compliment) and as much as I abhor violence, the fact is that he has been in prison 9 times, and knows the score so well he could sing it backwards in his sleep. He constantly pushed the envelope, and had to know he was skating on thin ice. And things had been even more difficult than usual for him because his bunkie was none other than Adam, "the Ketchup Kid," and the bizarrest person I have ever met in and possibly out of prison. Adam, the Bush-Republican-arsonist-rich-kid, made no secret of his class-based contempt for D-Roll, and such enmity in such close quarters can be dangerous, as who knows what Adam was reporting to others about his bunkie's well-stocked locker.

This contretemps occurred minutes before chow, and we left D-Roll behind to recover. When we returned, to everyone’s great surprise, D-Roll had rolled himself up, yet another refugee to complete his term in the hallowed halls of Birch. This was especially shocking because D-Roll is virtually guaranteed to return to prison, and everyone keeps telling me that once you've been in Protective Custody, you need always go back there when you return to jail. I guess D-Roll would rather take his chances with an uncertain future than a present in which he’s certain to get his ass kicked, and maybe worse.

This level of violence here isn’t too much different than what millions see every weekend watching football games. I’ve come to the conclusion that men are violent by nature. Which doesn’t make it okay, but perhaps defines civilization as that which is capable of restraining and harnessing this basest of human impulses.

MCO 2004

I have to be very careful writing this entry, because I want my sister to be able to read it with less difficulty than usual. This is not an entry I want her to give my mother for proofreading. That is because it concerns violence against gays here.

The silver lining in this story is that such an occurrence, at least at the minimum security level, doesn’t seem to be random. You usually have to do something considered provocative for the “hands-off” policy to be ignored or waived by members of your own race, so you can largely avoid problems by following the unwritten rules of acceptable conduct. (The greatest irony of prison is that the vast majority of the time it is members of your own racial grouping that you have to worry about). The bad news is that a justifiable provocation can be a mere perception of wrong-doing. For example, being seen leaving the curtained bottom-bunk of someone of a different race in the middle of the night.

Let me explain about curtained bottom bunks. Some of the only privacy afforded inmates comes from sheets that are hung on the same homemade plastic cord traversing the left and right undersides of the top bunk from which wet laundry washed in sinks also hangs to dry. These “curtains” are usually pulled shut on one side only, the side which conceals the bunk from the prying eyes of a C.O. walking from the direction of the guard booth. Occasionally the makeshift curtains might be drawn closed on both sides of the bunk so the inmate occupying that bunk can enjoy moments of relative privacy (i.e, jerk off).

Curtains allow for a third possibility; a duo who would want their middle of the night tete-a-tete to go (hopefully) undetected. This kind of encounter is usually so discreet as to be invisible to most and as such, defacto tolerated. But there are enough eyes open at night--whether belonging to "soldiers" on watch, tweakers unable to sleep, or the bathroom bound-- that such encounters are risky. And flirting with disaster if they involve individuals of different races.

In another dorm, it seems a young white inmate named Rudy was seen departing from the curtained “house” (bunk) of black inmate in the middle of the night. Whether anything actually happened between the two doesn't matter. Here, perception (or assumption) is reality. As a result, Rudy got a beating in the bathroom because of it. (I don't know if the black inmate was similarly disciplined by his own, but I don't think so. My impression is that they are much more likely to sanction black on black sex, but only between masculine men. A "queen" is fair game. And if Rudy had been with a white "queen," it probably would have gone unpunished.)

Rudy has been in this blog under the pseudonym Robbie. He was the handsome rake I met waiting for the doctor who told me about obtaining drugs at Folsom years ago. Soon after that entry he became involved with Jamie, a tall 30ish Latino who has since paroled. Rudy himself is 28 and handsome and evidently horny enough to take risks, in fact, he and Jamie had been caught in the bathroom at Cedar (the orientation dorm). but this did not provoke the wrath of the whites because it involved a “Wood” and a “paisa.” As I said, Rudy’s latest “infraction” evidently involved a black inmate. And of course it should have ended there. This should have been no one else’s business, either the perception of it or the reality of it. But this is prison.

Evidently, one punishment was not enough. Rudy was accosted again by 3 whites, where I'm not sure. This time he fought back, and fought well, roundly besting the trio. Rah, Rah Rudy. (One doesn't spend the better part of 10 years behind bars without learning to fight.)

After pretending not to see what was going on as long as possible, the C.O.’s finally intervened. They don't generally get in the way when it comes to intraracial disciplinary actions. They are only proactive when the strife is interracial. White on White, Black on Black, or Latin on Latin violence is considered the domain of the inmates, no matter the cause. If an inmate wants protection from his own, he can ask to be “rolled up,” i.e. sent into Protective Custody, where he can look over his shoulder everyday for the rest of his term and during any subsequent revisit to prison.

Rudy was transfered to another dorm. His silent allies, like Earl and I, hoped that was the end of it, but of course a gay man kicking ass, even in self-defense, could not be left to stand unpunished.

Last night, Earl came back from Yard shaking. On the way there, he witnessed Rudy getting jumped by a swarm of Whites. “They kicked the shit out of him,” he reported. But he also lingered long enough to see that somehow, Rudy was still able to walk away. He’s a tough kid.

So Warden, if you’re reading this, I have a suggestion. This prison needs a gay dorm. They do it in LA County; in fact they have 3 of them. I’m not talking about Birch (the Protective Custody dorm), where we are mixed with child molesters, rapist and informants. I’m talking about a dorm where we don’t have to worry about being beat up, “taxed,” verbally harassed, isolated, ignored or shunned. In fact, if you follow L.A.’s model, it could include the gay-friendly, not just gays, i.e.be inclusive of any inmate who wants to opt out of the racism and racial classifications. Really, anyone willing to sign a pledge of non-violence could get in. Anyone who violated it or used hostile or divisive language would be transferred out of there, case closed.

I have no doubt that this suggestion will go unheeded, but I'll try re-suggesting it when I get out. As for the guards in the tower who somehow didn’t see Rudy being beaten up, and the guards on the yard who chose not to look until the damage was done, shame on them all.

MCO 2004

P.S. Update- Rudy has left the yard. We assume he is in Protective Custody. Considering living conditions are harsher there, he is the one who ends up being punished for getting jumped. And once in Birch, he can not transfer back into the general population, as will be marked as an informant. I hope his parole date is not far off.

Politics

As November 16 approaches, I am contemplating whether or not to continue this blog after my release. From what I hear on NPR, plus my own pre-incarceration Internet experience, it seems blogs are primarily mouthpieces for the propagation of political sentiments. Well, I got plenty of political sentiments. Being in prison is in many ways a political condition, one’s daily activities having all sorts of political ramifications or certainly implications.

This morning, Sharif and I were discussing an up and coming black actor – I can’t even remember who--and Sharif said: “That guy is my sister’s brother.” I pretty much immediately surmised this meant his half sister’s half brother, but I think I can be forgiven for responding wryly by pointing out that his sister’s brother would be himself.. I pre-empted his explanation by supplying my educated guess, and while Sharif confirmed it, he also added somewhat remonstratively “we don’t do that.” Although I knew what he meant by “we,” I still asked, as we were at the edge of too treacherous a territory to be presumptuous. “Black people don’t do that.” Sharif elaborated. “We don’t differentiate between full brothers and half-brothers, full sisters and half-sisters and what not.”

This reminded me of people who, when asked about their ethnic background, reply defensively: "I’m American.” As a writer, of course I am fascinated by off-beat stories of unplanned parentage and unconventional couplings. I know from experience that there’s probably a good story behind one’s Czech grandmother meeting one’s Nicaraguan grandfather, and I don’t give a rat’s ass, moralistically speaking, if your mother had 4 children by 4 separate men, as did Sharif’s. But damn if those consummations don’t make for a much more interesting novel than most traditional family histories. (Even though a skelton or two might fall out of the closet in the telling.)

But my exchange with Sharif was inherently political, for it abutted an American reality that black families are as likely to be extended as they are to be nuclear, and illegitimacy and single motherhood remain higher among African-Americans, who are, after all, but a few generations removed from a legacy of families treated as separable, sellable commodities. As far as I'm concerned it's a miracle there is as much cohesiveness as their is in African-American families given such a history. But the entire topic remains extraordinarily sensitive, particularly here.

Once out of prison, I will have to search out the political; here, it finds me.

MCO 2004

At Delano, during the first two weeks, I was in a cell with a nice guy named Mike almost 23 hours a day. To entertain each other, we wrote short stories. I would get inspiration by asking him or another inmate to supply me with three basically elements; a person’s name, a place and an event. I then would write a short story based on their suggestions, and do so that very afternoon.

Her is one of the result of one series of suggestions, by a fellow inmate by the name of Reinaldo Sauer.

The name: Leroy Watson

The place: The Fairfax Area of Los Angeles

The event: A Bar Mitzvah

The Coronation of Leroy Watson

Leroy Watson’s mom, Rochelle, worked as a supervisor at the Belrose Nursing Home on South Hayworth, just a block from Fairfax, where all the Jewish shops were; the Israeli and Russian and Orthodox; next to the gay thrift stores and various eateries and clubs, anchored at each end by banks, centered by the jewel in the crown, Canter’s Deli.

When Rochelle hadn’t been able to find day care, she’d brought Leroy with her to the nursing home, and he’d been adopted by Mr. Lewison, and Mrs, Marks, Mr. Gersh and Mrs. Rothman, Mr. Drabkin and Mrs. Rothstein. They helped him with his homework, and he fetched them Kleenex and cookies, and sometimes played with their children and great-grandchildren on visiting day. This was a boon for Rochelle, because the residents gave her glowing evaluations as a supervisor, and by the time Leroy was 14, she basically ran the place.

Of course, by that age, Leroy didn’t need daycare anymore, but she still worried about him. He worried about her too, coming home to their place in the valley at all hours, working night shifts and all. She worried about him hanging out with the wrong crowd at Fairfax High, which Leroy went to because she put down the nursing home as their primary residence.

So Leroy grew up with a host of surrogate grandparents, and an amazing grasp of European and Jewish history that dazzled his teachers and led him to think early on about college. Mme. Lemberger (pronounced Lanh-bear-JAY) a French resident of the nursing home, taught Leroy that his name came from from the French “Le Roi,” meaning “the King,” so “King” is what he named the sweet pointer mix mutt he got from the pound for his 14th birthday.

If Leroy wasn’t already a beloved fixture, King became a fixture all the residents of Belrose literally clamored for. Rochelle eventually relocated Leroy and herself and the dog to a 2-bedroom on Willoughby, just a few blocks away from the high school and the nursing home. Leroy loved nothing more than coming home at lunch and walking King, and then bringing him to the nursing home after school, where he would make the rounds, and then Mr. Mannstein would help him with his History, and Mme. Lemberger would help him with his French, King curled up happily in the corner.

Sometimes Rochelle worried that Leroy didn’t seem to be making a lot of friends his own age, and wondered if she’d shortchanged him from having a black identity. But to be honest, Leroy’s father hadn’t been the man who gave him his last name. She hadn’t really known his biological father well, it was the 70s and she was 23 when she met Leroy’s biological father. She had been a bit of a party girl. But he was good-looking and of an uncertain ethnic mix, both of which showed up in Leroy.

As if to emphasize his ability to camouflage his looks, Leroy turned out to be a natural mimic. Having grown up hearing so many accents, he could reduce Rochelle to tears of laughter with imitations of various residents, not to mention fellow high-school students. But he had a way of doing so that was always affectionate, never mean, so that those he imitated could see themselves, and laugh along with him. Once he would have everyone laughing, King would start to bark, and wag his tail madly, and everyone would laugh even more. Rochelle adored her son, of course, not just because he was her son, but for who he was as a person.

It had been his impending birth that had caused her to clean up her act, to complete nursing school at night and to get rid of her no-account husband. Truth be told, he got rid of her, and Leroy. Earl Watson was the type of man who had hung around long enough to put his last name on Leroy’s birth certificate, then take off when he realized the child was too light-skinned to be his.

The biggest drawback to the entire arrangement was that every year or so, at least, one of Leroy’s “grandparents” died, and Leroy lived with a lot of loss for an adolescent. When Mme. Lemberger passed on, he wrote up a remembrance, and Mr. Mannstein insisted he read it at her funeral. It was characteristically funny and touching, Leroy even quoted her in her French accent saying “Leroy, you are a very sharrrp young man!” Mme. Lemberger’s family asked for copies of it and even for him and Rochelle to accompany them to the cemetery,

"Them" was really just Madame’s wealthy son, Jean, who had put his mom in the nursing home temporarily, after she broke a hip in 1995. She stayed on at her own request as she had lived in Southern California all of her life, had taught there for 26 years. She had no wish to move to Florida, which she considered garish, and no desire to return to France, or Europe for that matter, since most of her family had perished in Auschwitz, which she had barely survived. (Actually, everyone who had survived Auschwitz had barely survived.)

There were other holocaust survivors at the nursing home too, and they rarely referred to their experience directly, but they had a tendency to eat at the same table, and play cards together. There was an unspoken comfort of some kind that linked them, as far as there could be any comfort at all for those who had witnessed the unspeakable.

Once, in fact, there had been a terrible incident at the Nursing Home, when one of the orderlies at the home had been helping administer flu shots, and had asked the men to line up on the left, and the women on the right. His seemingly innocent request was met by a stunned silence, and Mrs. Schacter, who had Alzheimer’s and rarely said anything, had started wailing. It was Leroy who quickly told everybody to get into single file, and later explained to the ashen-faced Mr. Johnson that the division he requested was what first greeted new prisoners as they were coughed out of the cattle cars upon arrival at the camps.

It was in the limo on the way back from Forest Lawn, when Jean Lemberger, who spoke in a mélange of accents that testified to a childhood in England, and France, (where he now lived,) suggested that Leroy should have a Bar Mitzvah.

“But, I’m not”---interrupted Leroy to the obvious—

“--Jewish, I know,” Jean completed the objection for him. “Let me tell you something, my dear Watson,” (Jean couldn’t resist a bad pun, though Leroy actually thought it was funny) “Bar Mitzvahs exist for two purposes. One, to declare the Bar Mitzvahed boy a man, and two, at least these days, to equip the young man with the means for a future. Money to see the world, or pay for college. Why shouldn’t you be able to benefit just as so many of your childhood playmates?’

It was true. Leroy had many many friends his own age among the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the nursing home residents, many of whom had invited Leroy to their Bar or Bas Mitzvahs. The cost of presents became a running joke of sorts between Leroy and his mother, who rolled her eyes painfully every time she had to peel out enough bills for a respectable token honoring the occasion. Leroy, ever resourceful, finally developed a rapport with one of the booksellers on Fairfax and could get an early edition of a J.D. Salinger or Issac Bashevis Singer at an inside price, making for some very classy gifts without wrecking havoc on his mother’s bank account.

Leroy humored Mr. Lemberger, or Jean, as he insisted on being called, not knowing yet how tenacious a man he was. Nor was he aware how much his mother went on about him to Jean. Leoy did know Jean was a widower, and had one child, a daughter who was bi-polar or a lesbian or both—Madame Lemberger had spoken of her with deliberate vagueness but evident sorrow at their lack of closeness or its cause. Jean ascribed Marie-Claire’s absence at the funeral to an intense fear of flying. Whatever her phobias, neuroticisms, or sexual identity, she was unmarried and childless, so Jean did not have any grandchildren.

Jean’s idea of a Bar Mitzvah for Leroy had two immediate consequences. One was that discussing it with Rochelle gave him an excuse to showing up at Belrose, usually around noon. He would take her to lunch, and then, claiming a special attachment to King, could usually get her to accompany him and the dog on a walk around the block, or two or three blocks as her lunch hour increasingly became her lunch two-hour. This had the salutary effect of putting some metabolic bite behind Rochelle’s perpetual attempts to lose an extra 15 pounds, but no doubt that she was the unexpected recipient of man’s attentions helped her dieting finally show results as well. And this was not some “player,” but a man of education and substance. There was a glow on Rochelle’s countenance not seen since Leroy graduated from the top of his class in the 8th grade,

The second consequence of Jean’s idea was the controversy it began in the nursing home, as debate roiled through the dining hall and the bedrooms, across dinner tables and bridge games, even during Jeopardy, as to whether a gentile could, or should have, a Bar Mitzvah.

Esther Hertzberg (though she denied it) started a rumor that Leroy was going to convert. Manny Brody pointed out it would take a few years of study before he could do so, and Esther was a gossip, anyway. Finally, Meyer Rothman, a former judge, made a simple proposal. “Let’s just throw a birthday party for the boy! We can call it whatever we want!” For years, Mrs. Lebowitz and Mrs. Epstein would argue who came up with the idea, but sometime the same afternoon the celebration was coined “The Coronation of Leroy Watson.”

Leroy was flattered by this idea, that seemed to be taking on a force of its own. On the other hand, he was protective of his mother, and there was a cloudy discomfort in the back of his mind. Was Jean trying to buy her affections ? He would have hated for her to get involved with the man for the wrong reasons. He’d never felt deprived from not having a father present, perhaps because he’d had so many grandfathers to help raise him. Above all, he wanted her to be happy, for the right reasons. Leroy was not a sullen or selfish son, and he considered his mother as much a friend as a parent.

That night, he asked her to walk King with him. He got right to the point.

“Mom, how serious is it with you and Mr. Lemberger?”

Rochelle blushed. She was used to a very open communication with son, but her romantic involvements—though few and far between—were one topic they had never discussed.

“You know Leroy…” she searched for the right words… "it’s a little different when you get older. You don’t really fall in love the same way, at least not me. Although maybe it feels different because it is the first time, really. Jean is lonely, and I guess am too, and I’m sure that’s part of it. And he’s smart, and thinks I’m smart”—

“—you are smart, Mom—“

“—I know I am, son” she reassured him, although they both know she had enough inner doubt that it mean a great deal to her to that Leroy and Jean thought so.

“Do you think you’d want to get married to him?” asked Leroy.

Merely a week before, Rochelle would have burst into laughter at the suggestion, but the previous night, walking the same walk with King, Jean had broached the very same subject. He hadn’t proposed, exactly, but he let it be known he had to return to France soon, and wanted to return knowing whether things were serious enough for him to come back.

At least that’s what Rochelle told Leroy, at first. Then when Leroy pressed her, she confessed what in fact he’d asked was whether Rochelle would consider coming with him to France and more specifically, whether she thought Leroy might want to finish high school there.

Leroy’s heart jumped out of his chest. He was one of those kids who was excited by nothing more than the idea of seeing the world. He wanted to see Notre Dame and the Tower of London, Gaudi’s Barcelona and the Taj Mahal. He even wanted to see Auschwitz.

“So what did you tell him, Mom?”

“I told him I’m glad he understood it was a package deal. But because it was, I had to speak to you.”

“Are you crazy?” asked Leroy. “Like you have to consult with me about that! You go find him right now and tell him yes before he changes his mind!”

With that, Rochelle threw her arms around her treasured son, because she was indeed in love with Jean.

The Coronation of Leroy Watson was held at Canter’s Deli two weeks later. The residents of Belrose came in droves, everyone of them who could physically make it, whether on their own or with walkers or in a wheelchair. They chipped in to buy Leroy a crown, (Arnie Magat was a costumer for 40 years at MGM, and tracked one down from their prop department) and with great fanfare and many toasts, Leroy became "The King” as the other King barked his approval. Leroy knew he’d after find another name in France, where it wouldn’t sound right to be called “Le Roi.” He’d choose something French, like Luc or Pascal. At least he would be a “Lanh-ber-jay” and not a Lemberger or a Watson.

At least, for now, surrounded by all of his grandparents, and his Mom, and his new Dad, he was a King for a day.

MCO 2004

Today I saw the T.B. nurse, and passed Tefunk in the waiting room, who had just been seen. When I spoke to Ms. Oyen, she told me Tefunk had expressed gratitude to her that someone had intervened on his behalf, because he’d supposedly had much difficulty getting seen. I guess he felt obliged to take rather a different posture back in the dorm. In any event he was hospitalized today. Diagnosis: Pneumonia.

I am relieved for him and for us. Ms. Oyen also laughed about my dream

Also, today my bunkie, Steve, paroled. Earl moved into his bunk, so his now my new bunkie. I have dubbed us: "Lucy and Ethel." (I am definitely Lucy and Earl is definitely Ethel).

In other news, Sharif, my neighbor, received some books from an African-oriented alternative press. On his bunk, I saw with horror that one of them was “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” For those who don’t know, it is completely fictitious propaganda tract purporting to lay out the Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. It dates from Czarist Russia and has was used by Nazis and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists to support their poisonous claims. I even read about it recently in an old issue of U.S. News and World Report that did a cover story on History’s Great Hoaxes.

I got into a brief exchange with Sharif, who felt that I couldn't make such a critical assessment of the book if I hadn't read it. I countered that I didn’t need to read Aryan Supremacist literature calling African-Americans "mud people” to know they were sprouting hate-based fiction disguised as fact.

I would be gratified if someone could send me the best, easiest to read, most authoritative but short material debunking “The Elders…” that they can find. I don’t want to argue with Sharif, I just want him to know the truth.

MCO 2004

The saga of Tefunk the Tubercular continues. As I reported a few blogs ago, he was irritated that Ms. Oyen, the TB. R.N., had called him in to check on him because it meant “someone was messing in my business.” Ironically, I have been summoned to see Ms. Oyen again tomorrow, though I shall not berate her for telling Tefunk too much. I’d rather tell her about the dream I had about her where, at my old Third street residence in New York, I witnessed her from my sixth floor apartment there manhandling difficult inmates while wearing a trench coat. She should get a kick out of that.

Tefunk is a "Crip" who takes gangbanging and rapping very seriously. He alternates from being the nicest of guys to being vaguely menacing. Last night when I was listening to the Vice-presidential debates, he took advantage of the fact that everyone was out to dinner to put on his headphones and rap so loudly I literally winced, pushing my earphones closer to my ears and turning up the volume on my walkman to hear the debate. Tefunk saw this and jumped up, almost gleefully asking/telling me: “I was so loud you couldn’t even hear!” All I did was mouth back that I was listening to the debate. I refused to take the bait.( “Debate the Bait”-- that’s a good rap song for you) and get drawn into a denunciation of hip-hop and gangsta culture that I suspect he wanted to hear from the white boy.

No thank you ma’am, I will not be provoked. Of course what I would like to ask him is "would you really want to me to like rap, Tefunk? I’m part of exactly the population you want to alienate, aren’t I?" I might add that the population of Tefunk’s neighbors is thoroughly alienated by the coughing fits that spasm him for 45 minutes at a time in the middle of the night. One almost expects a fatal asthma attack, it gets so bad. At long last the seizures cease, leaving poor Tefunk spent and us struggling to get back to sleep. During the day, when most of us snooze at least an hour or two, we are subjected instead to the bizarre sound of Tefunk’s breathing (while awake). It has morphed into an annoying, repetitive snort.

It is generally made more tolerable by the white noise of the fan, but with the colder weather disputes are erupting over its use. Tefunk will unplug it, and my bunkie, Steve, who is leaving tomorrow and therefore a bit braver and more reckless, plugs it back in. The result has been words that could lead to more words that could lead to more words and unpleasantness with racial overtones if we are not careful. Tefunk and some of the other "youngsters" who have plenty of testosterone coursing through their bodies consider violence a completely legitimate, even desirable form of expression, and they have been overheard by Earl discussing in low voices the need to assert black dominance in the dorm.

I completely blame the C.O.’s for allowing this sort of situation to arise and fester. When they walk the ward at night, they must have heard Tefunk's wracking cough and have to realize it must be very disturbing to his neighbors. Not to mention that a medical intervention might be in order. He needs to be in a hospital room until the doctors figure out what the hell is wrong with him. Yes, this is expensive for the prison, but considerably less expensive than a wrongful death lawsuit the family could bring.

Tefunk’s cough is a deep wheeze that is unrelenting and has gone on non-stop while I am writing this. If it is merely a severe bronchial infection that for some reason resists the antibiotics he has taken, then put him in a single cell until it’s over so we can sleep. We don’t even have the fan now to mask it; at least without freezing our butts off. The C.O.’s should also step in and determine the fan rules in the colder months. Although normally I'm one of those who prefer things breezeless when the temperature drops, I threw in my two cents to keep it on because it makes life immeasurably more tolerable for this non-smoker in a virtual sea of smokers. Tefunk’s reply to this was “well then you shouldn’t have come to jail if you didn’t want to deal with the smoke.”

I stood defenseless in the face of such steel-trap logic, and decided not to throw any more cents into the discussion. Later, Tefunk came up to me, and I was ready for an adversarial question, but he just asked “how do you spell ‘sincere’"?

I told him, squashing the impulse to use it in a sentence like: "I’m sincerely worried about you and sincerely want to sleep undisturbed."

MCO 2004

I ask everyone reading the blog today to join me in celebrating Mark’s Birthday by sending and electronic comment. Just click on the link below labeled comment and send him a message, somethin’ anythin’. Then I will send them all to him. He will be very touched when he calls me on the morning of his birthday.

He has 31 days left! Yipee! Let the countdown begin!

Earl has a new bunkie, by the name of “Hippie.” He is 38, and handsome--in an equine kind of way. His face is extremely rectangular and elongated, one almost expects him to whinny instead of talk when he opens his mouth. His mane--er--hair, has been cut short, quite against his preference. Normally, he told me it’s waist–length, earning him his moniker. However, Miss Harris, a C.O. who, ironically, is notorious for her wigs, insisted he cut it off to conform to “grooming standards.” (Evidently, when some long-haired prisoners escaped several years ago, they sheared off their hair and beards, sufficiently altering their appearances to aid in their eluding capture long enough to commit considerable mayhem. I learned this at breakfast with Hippie, who has become my new chow-mate.) For those of you wondering why I don’t eat with my good buddy Earl, he has a pre-existing gig with another buddy, Don, who he met before me. Don seems to like me well enough, but is adamant about not being seen eating with more than one gay man at a time. I find this irritating, of course, but know not to take it personally. In prison, as in life, perception often counts more than reality. What is distressing is that being possibly perceived as gay is still a horrifying prospect for most heterosexual men. I was even nervous for Hippie being seen eating with me, but Earl--who is always asking for secrets to be kept but can keep none--reassured me that Hippie knows both about my being gay and my HIV status.

At breakfast, Hippie had just finished telling me about his wonderful, slightly counterculture parents. They sounded a lot like mine: mother an English Teacher in the local high school, father worked for an aerospace company but went into consulting after he objected to the company’s defense contracts during the Vietnam War. They were educated, loving, prosperous; it was counterintuitive to hear Hippie refer to a childhood and adolescence of turmoil and confrontation. Moreover, he hadn’t seen his parents in ten years, and six out of those last ten years he has spent behind bars.

Then Hippie spied an inmate across the chow hall with hair as long as his used to be. “That makes me really pissed,” Hippie spat, "Why does he get to keep his hair long, when I had to cut mine?” I acknowledged this inconsistency sympathetically, at the same time had to ask why having long hair was so important to him. “I’m a hippie. I love the Grateful Dead. I’ve always had long hair.” When I pressed for some more persuasive arguments, he simply repeated his “I’ve always had long hair” mantra. But the inconvenience alone, I pointed out, along with the fact his short cut suited him well. Hippie stuck to his guns. “I’ve just always had it.”

Hippie takes Dilantin, a seizure medication, so we go to Pill Call together. On the way, I had the chance to hear some questionable assertions. For example, that Chino was used as an internment camp for the Japanese, and the Chow Hall was used as a cafeteria. The first part might be true, but I kind of doubt that the interned were served their food, although they may have used the chow hall to prepare their own, I suppose. Hippie seemed sure of it though, as he seemed sure of a few more things that just seemed off, in some way. Even Earl, who tends to be a bit clueless when it comes to assessing others, motioned me aside and asked in a soft voice “Isn’t my new bunkie aggravating?”

At dinner last night I out and out asked Hippie why he thought he’d had so much trouble in his life. He answered "maybe it was because I was adopted, you know, the stigma." Stigma? That was news to me, and I challenged the characterization, being the proud uncle of two very well adjusted adoptees. Further inquiry revealed a twist. Hippie was not adopted until he was 18 months old, and there were several foster care situations of unknown quality in between his birth mother and the kindly lady who passed him to his adoptive parents.

This was a similar history to that of Jeff, my 28-year old bunkie at County. Jeff was intelligent and personable and had an obsession with the poetry of Milton that led me to promise to investigate the possibility of college correspondence courses for him upon my release. A long prison term was a certainty for Jeff, as he had beaten his boyfriend into an 8-month coma during a jealous rage. I saw him similarly erupt at County, bloodying someone seriously who'd made a play for his paramour du jour. Later, when we discussed his inability to control his temper, he told me he was given an official diagnosis of affective-bonding disorder when he was returned to foster care by his adopted parents at age 3, due to his inability to respond to them.

During my time at County, when the dark, and very deep anger started to cloud Jeff's brain, he took to consulting me. I counseled pacing and writing poetry, both of which he did much and better and better. Though they felt like bandaids on a gaping wound that would never heal.

So it seems my theory rests intact. I’m the only idiot with a loving family and enviable education to manage to get himself in such an unlikely mess.

Hopefully my loss of freedom has been turned into some gain. I’ve tried to make sure that I’ve not wasted this apparently very rare opportunity for an articulate writer to bear witness to a world few other writers ever find themselves witnessing.

I doubt that the babies of my readers need fear being unheld, unsnuggled or unadored, from pregnancy to puberty and beyond. I can only emphasize the degree to which what I've heard here points to the crucial nature of this particular expression of love. And that every child, once born, has the right, even exigency, to be wanted and loved.

MCO 2004

Neglect

There’s a line

between

benign neglect

and

malign neglect.

No place where they transect

except perhaps

in that almost void

where friendships are dissected.

Where those bonds

of emotional ligature

are disconnected.

The ties once laid down

with such gentle deliberation

now sabotaged

abandoned

every day

a little death

as you sink

our relation

ship.

Your absent pen

a present scalpel

dishonoring what was once

live and sacred.

These tendons needed tending,

not ending,

not

neglect.

MCO 2004

(This is an excerpt of letter sent to a friend)

Tweaks, Beasts and Alcohol

I’ve been thinking of you a lot while reading the paper, thinking of all the things I would have enjoyed doing with you, mostly going to certain movies and theater plays. I realize before the tweak, I had cut back on such things because they cut into my drinking. I always went to the movies in the afternoon and rarely to the theater because going at night screwed up my 6:00 pm cocktail. I either went to the theater or movies at night a little buzzed, coming down just as the show ended and not really in the mood to go home, or I would resist and start drinking at 10:00 pm. That was fine, but it’s amazing how deprived I felt not drinking at 6:00 or 7:00pm. One cocktail would seem a civilized compromise, duirng the intermission at the theater, but how many times would my sensitive bladder be erupting while I found myself stuck in mid-row center, rendering the entire experience a rehearsal for a “gotta-go-gotta-go” commercial?

I share the above to remind myself that if I really embrace a “Big Plan” of abstinence, that abstaining from tweak while returning to alcohol may simply shift the addiction back over to alcohol. I think that while doing tweak, one is temporarily “cured” of alcoholism. I have the sense my biological mis-reaction to alcohol will kick right back into place once I’m tweak free. It’s a big leap to let go of the idea of a Bloody Mary before dinner and a few glasses of wine with it, but it so rarely stopped at that… And though I maintain the delusion that I held my liquor well, this is just “my beast” talking. My beast also tells me that if I don’t drink, my companions will somehow be disappointed, that I will be less interesting and fun to be with. I suppose that’s true- if they are also addicts. I don’t suppose the non-addict much cares. I certainly wouldn’t give a shit if they had a couple of drinks. In fact, a few people can use a little social lubricant, and soon become downright charming. But let’s face it, no one gets wittier and more interesting after 3 or 4 drinks, and I was usually just starting then.

MCO 2004

Define "keeping your head."

From what, exploding?

It’s really keeping one’s mouth

From exhaling screams

One’s arms from throttling the neck

of the insane idiot four paces away

To keep one’s legs from running as fast as

they can rurrunrunrunawayawayaway from the

noisenoisenoise

It is, after all, the repetition that is so agonizing.

How many times can “motherfucka’ be used in one paragraph?

It is not my head I keep, It is not me here at all.

I am a memory, being remembered by

myself, a year from today.

And the volume of this memory can be

blessedly turned down, and then the picture

as well, until it fades, along with the

feelings around them, until the memory

exists no more, and there is left no

proof, even, that any of it ever happened.

MCO 2004

This morning my job was more annoying than usual, as the last night’s clean-up crew evidently was missing one man and so no one cleaned the same bathroom at 9:30 pm that I had clean at 8am today. It doesn’t take long for 100 men to dirty up a bathroom, especially when in addition to the obvious, it is also used to do laundry, clean food receptacles, and as a rendezvous for smokers and rappers.

I mentioned it to “Woods,” (his last name, not to be confused with the Whites) who is the lead porter and my nominal “boss,” leaving it up to him whether or not to mention to the C.O.’s that the job hadn’t gotten done the night before. My intention wasn’t to get anyone in trouble, as much as to explain to Woods why it would likely take me longer than usual to clean. I minded the prospect of the extra work less than I minded the prospect of him checking up on me while I did it. He used to tell me I “wasn’t doing it right,” until I finally just told him to leave my ass alone, it wasn’t rocket science and my way left for a perfectly clean bathroom. Usually his objections had to do with me taking too long, i.e. being too thorough.

This, amusingly enough, was the same issue a supervisor had with Brad, a gay friend of mine in another dorm, when he cleaned. This is definitely a gay/straight thing. As any woman can tell you, straight men do not know how to clean a bathroom. This is partly because it’s an icky job and partially because they consider attention to detail a disdainful feminine trait, unless of course they are fixing the car or talking about sports, both cases in which no detail is too obscure or trivial.

More than that, with Woods, his reaction reflected the classic dynamic of what happens when you give little men a little power. They feel compelled to wield it, even when directions are obvious and don’t bear repeating, and the tasks in question hardly require micromanagement. I don’t mean little men as in small in stature, although in Woods’ case, that description happens to apply. I mean little as in small-minded and lacking the experience of exercising any but a small degree of authority over others. Woods may also have felt a bit insecure ordering a guy around who used a big word like “inconsistent.” I doubt if Woods made it past the 8th grade.

When I gave the bathroom a particularly good scrub one inspection day, and Redwood Hall won the right to go first to Canteen that week, Woods made an unexpectedly conciliatory gesture by seeming to credit my handiwork. I thought this out of character, to say the least, until he asked me if I would get him a pack of rolling paper (for cigarettes –it’s make-your-own here) from the canteen. I said “sure,” and gladly spent the 40 cents to gift him. Call me a brownnoser, but anything for peace in the workplace.

Still Woods remains somewhat alarmist in his posturing, and responds to the most routine request in a harried or defensive manner, as in: “hold on, hold on, I got to get the spray bottle in the office!” or “ I already gave you your ID card back!” So I wasn’t entirely surprised when, just before 11:00 am clean-up, Woods came charging down the aisle spouting ominously, “Get yo’ blues on, they want you in the office, there’s an oddity!” Getting your blue shirt on is usually not a harbinger of good news, it denotes “official,” but I was more intrigued by his use of the word “oddity.” It conjured up the unlikeliest of tableaux for this place; perhaps an English headmistress with a pince-nez, a Maggie Smith type, intoning to Hercule Poirot: “I’m afraid there’s been an oddity.” What kind of oddity? Had someone removed the spring from the spray bottle for use in a syringe? I asked. Woods just repeated it again. “An oddity, that’s all I know.”

So me and the other morning porters filed into the office, ready to hear details from Ms. Brown, the C.O. on duty. “There’s an ‘audit’ this morning,” she explained, referring quite matter-of- factly to a visit from the state inspectors. “I just want to make sure you’re all dressed right and have your work shoes on if they come while you’re cleaning up.” One of the porters, a chronic thong-wearer, went back to his bunk to change, but I was declared “audit-safe” in my attire.

Poor Woods. I didn’t want to rag on him in earshot. But back at my bunk I couldn’t resist. I regaled Rob and Sonny with my imitation of Thurston Howell III, “Gilligan, there’s been an oddity” You see, I have finally found a way to turn even such a glaring flaw in prison as being a WASP to my advantage. Like everything everywhere, it’s about that sometimes tricky little bit of business not taking yourself too seriously, even if sometimes you have to insist others do. That, like my WASP imitation so appreciated by Rob and Sonny, was taught to me not by Jim Backus, but by my Dad, the original Thurston Howell III wannabe.

You know, had my Dad been alive during this experience, I am sure he would have been an absolute rock. In fact, his memory has been a tremendous and unexpected help to me. Believe me, given our relationship, that statement is rather a cherished one.

MCO 2004

This morning, Earl’s bunkie, Scott, was gone. Vamoose, se ya later, adios. He just wasn’t in his bunk at morning wake up. Poof!

Since alarms weren’t ringing, we knew Scott had not escaped. (One doesn’t bother escaping from Chino, in any event, because if you are here, you likely have less than a year or two left on your sentence or parole violation. If you try to escape you will probably fail, and if you succeed at first, you will almost certainly be caught; and in both cases it would result in a much longer stay in a much worse facility than if you were just patient.)

Scott is a drug addict, and owed considerable amounts of cash ($800, rumor has it.) to those who obtain for one such reality-relief, mostly the Mexicans. He is set to parole, or so he told us, in November. Scott had to pay up, and soon, or he was going to get hurt, pure and simple. He didn’t have the money, (despite his job at the laundry) so he rolled himself up, stealing away in the wee hours to the guard booth for a pre-arranged whisking away, to spend his remaining time in Protective Custody (probably in Birch Hall, where I was directly before this.)

It amazes me that dealers here allow a debt to arise in the first place, given the fact that this is not a Yard where, like some others, Whites as a group are required to honor the debt of individuals in their race (a policy which guarantees intra-race enforcement of a pay-as-you-go policy.) Under our you’re-on-your-own rules, those owed risk those owing getting away without paying. So why do they let the debts mount?

Because the dealers know that the potential debtor knows his risks are even greater. They include getting stabbed by “soldiers” on a “mission” planted in Protective Custody, or tracked down on the outside upon release, by confederates of the dealers inside. Moreover, the dealers know most debtors will be back here, and their histories will come with them. If they escape retribution in protective custody, and back on the streets, they will not likely escape it when they return to prison. Which doesn’t mean the dealers will get their money back, but the immediate loss is less important than others knowing there are consequences to stiffing them, as this serves as an example to ensure that other outstanding debts gets paid in full. Sort of the cost of doing business.

So Scott is either very foolhardy, very confident, or both. No matter what, he’ll have to be very lucky.

I’m rooting for him, but even more for his long-suffering mother. She probably doesn’t know about his drug addiction, or would have paid the debt for him. I pray that means that when he gets out, he’ll do something about it.

MCO 2004

Day 247 -Schmutz vs. Drek

I can’t resist the above title, considering how it evokes our recent Presidential debate match up. (I jest, or course; I like Kerry, I think he’s a real mensch, unlike Shrub.)

I had an unlikely Yiddish-related moment the other day. I was in the restroom, rinsing out a plastic bowl of soup remains from lunch. I was being particularly conscientious, as I had just cleaned the bathroom that morning as part of my porter duties.

The inmate to my left mistook my concentration on the task and joked “Don’t fall asleep, now!” I quickly explained “Just trying to get my schmutz out of the sink.” As I looked up, my gaze was met with a decidedly fixed stare.

“Schmutz?” he echoed. I mistook this response for a lack of comprehension, so of course explained. “It’s a Yiddish word, it means a bit of icky crap.”

“I know what it means,.” he responded, in a way that indicated we had taken an abrupt exit off the Banter Freeway. Almost grimly he explained: “It means the smegma underneath the foreskin of a gentile penis.”

“Really?” I responded, genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know that.” Within moments he just turned on his head and walked out of the bathroom. I had the distinct sense I had said something offensive to this inmate, who was in his late 30’s and right on that dividing line between good-looking and ugly. A small shift in his features, and he could go either way.

Later at breakfast, reading my Mother Jones Magazine while eating (I was, of course, the only inmate reading anything at breakfast), I looked up to see Mr. Schmutz a few tables over, eating with an inmate who coincidentally had stiffed me on a can of tuna, though that’s neither here nor there.

Mr. Schmutz, as many of the prisoners do here, had his eyes closed in prayer. He was saying grace before eating.

I may not have even noticed this, had his eyes not been closed for more that the typical five seconds. But he prayed for ten…fifteen…twenty seconds at least, maybe more. This said to me “Christian,” as in Aryan-supremacist-whites-are-the-real-chosen-people-sort-of Christian. I got the distinct feeling this guy takes his gentile penises (peni?) very seriously.

I maybe should have said “Drek?”

MCO 2004

This morning I was summoned to the Administration Building, where Counselor Wesson had a set of papers ready for me to sign for my parole venue transfer to Albuquerque. There was an urgent air about the process, Office Wesson had even cancelled her office hours at the dorm in order to take care of it. After I signed the papers she said “I have to get these up to the Captain, he’s waiting.” I wonder if the undue importance given my transfer request transcended my sister’s letter, and has to do with the interest generated in my case by the blog. If this is true, and she is reading this then, Warden Lori DiCarlo, THANK-YOU you’re wonderful! There are some good, smart, responsive people in the system and you’re one of them.

After signing, I moseyed on over, with trepidation, to R & R to deal with the infamous Sergeant Erickson and pick up the 8 books sent by my friend Ellen. My fears were happily unfounded, in fact, Sergeant Erickson was so cordial I have to wonder if Counselor Wesson hadn’t repeated my “Are you a Democrat or Republican” story to higher-ups, and whether the Sergeant didn’t get a subsequent phone call. He even mentioned “our little misunderstanding.” I did not challenge his characterization, in fact was almost touched that he observed (without sarcasm) “You’re an educated guy, aren’t you?” as he passed me, among other tomes, Bill Clinton’s autobiography, the 9/11 commission report and Noam Chomsky’s latest uber-leftist-intellectual treatise. I was even asked to report back to the Sergeant any “good stuff” in Clinton’s biography, a clear reference to his liaison with Ms. Lewinsky. Right, I’m really going to stop by and detail how many blow-jobs were received in the Oval Office.

The uncommon sight referred to by the title of this entry would be that of my trekking down the road from R & R to Redwood dormitory with no less that 8 books in my arms, (all wonderful choices, thank-you Ellen.) This is a woman with 4 children, count ‘em 4. The time and care taken, not to mention the generosity, touch me deeply.

I had to camp on the steps of my dorm awaiting unlock. and was the object of intense interest by several of my dormmates, similarly locked out. One, Cutty, who I have previously described in this blog as pathologically charming, questioned me about the Noam Chomsky book, and when I tried to describe Chomsky’s politics, interrupted me to ask for an elaboration of the meaning of “leftist.” I made sure not to betray my amazement that such a basic concept had no meaning for him. (There are no stupid questions.) Instead, I matter of factly explained the origins of “left “and “right” in the seating arrangement of the first French Revolutionary Assembly, and more currently, describing the U.S. Liberal/Conservative dichotomy.

When we got inside, Cutty asked if he could “check out” the book, but he quietly returned it soon after a brief perusal. Hell, it’s challenging for me. (I have to share an anecdote about Cutty. He had heard that I had enlisted the aid of my sister Erica in obtaining a pen pal for another black inmate, Carolina. It was Cutty’s opinion that anyone who’d write to a prisoner was “crazy.” Go figure)

In the middle of this bookfest, a Paisa (Mexican) bumped into a young African-American, evidently a Crip with a chip on his shoulder. From what I heard from some of the black O.G.’s (which used to stand for “Old Guard,” now “Original Gangstas”) the Paisa apologized, but it seemed some of the black “youngsters” have been under pressure to “gangbang,” i.e. assert dominance over rival Latinos who largely dominate the drug trade. For an hour or so, things were quite tense in the dorm, groups of blacks and Latinos gathered like blood clots around certain bunk areas, quietly exhibiting shows of force. If the C.O’s noticed, there was no indication of it. They generally stay in their little office for the vast majority of their shifts.

Happily, after a tete-a-tete between the shotcallers for the black and latinos, cooler heads prevailed, and the apology was accepted. Although the tension was uncomfortable, thank God there were no whites involved. If there is trouble between two races, the third race is not expected to be involved or take sides.

I get to go back to my books, and have no need to visit the library from now until November 16th. Neither do several of my neighbors, as I am now the resident librarian. Thanks again Ellen, from me and some of the guys in B Wing, Redwood Hall, California Institute for Men at Chino.

MCO 2004

Some days are better than others, particularly when good things happen in a cluster. Today was one of those days, although it got off to a rocky start.

Earl told me that Tefunk was royally pissed because he had been summoned to the Nurse Oyen’s office, where she told him “someone had expressed concern” about his wracking cough. (If you could see Tefunk you’d understand my nervousness about his wanting to know you the intervener was.. He’s totally BLABS —Built Like a Brick Shithouse.) God forbid he’d be relieved that he was finally getting some traction with the medical staff, instead he was irritated that “someone was getting in my business.” Earl acknowledged his feelings, then tried to step past them, encouraging Tefunk to instead focus on the fact that he desperately needs to get treated. The coughing has been going on for over a year! He has been transferred from elsewhere because they suspected an environmental allergy. Since it didn’t clear up with the new locale, it’s clearly not that, and it’s doubtfully just the bronchial infection Tefunk insists it is. But what do I know? It’s ridiculous that an unschooled bystander should be offering up an armchair diagnosis, but it’s more concern than he’s been getting from the docs. In any case, Earl certainly won’t tell him I was the one who intervened, and if anyone related to Tefunk is reading this, instead of telling him it was me, make some noise on his behalf with the medical staff.

Letters from the outside to prison higher ups are relatively rare, given the kind of population in here and the corresponding educational level of most of their loved ones. A well-written letter that clearly and concisely states a reasoned argument doesn’t have much competition. Such was the letter to the Warden from my sister Sandra, that immediately got the necessary paperwork to authorize my parole transfer to Albuquerque upon my release on the desk of my previously there’s–nothing–I–can-do–about–it counselor. Of course, I very graciously thanked her as if she had something to do with it, and then took the opening to tell her about my episode in the mailroom with Sergeant Erickson. When I told her t the “are you a Republican or Democrat?” part of the story, her jaw literally dropped. (Ms. Wesson is African-American, and a social worker, so I’ll bet a Democrat).

I realized instigating a little office gossip might be more effective than filing a complaint. I would love for the Sargeant to feel embarrassed about the incident more than anything. Ms. Wesson also made a call to the mailroom, and I found out the 8 books waiting for me from my friend Ellen, sent directly via Amazon.com, are within the limit of 10, so the package is completely within procedural parameters.

I will face Sergeant Erickson tomorrow to get the books . Pray for me.

Tonight is also the night we get some outside food, from a Pollo Loco or somesuch, ordered a month ago. A feast! It also is a full moon, and there was an earthquake! However, I did not get a MacArthur Genius Grant. (The awards were announced today. Maybe next year.)

Incidentally, my birthday is coming up. October 15. I was going to bury it, but I’ve had nothing but awful birthdays in this century and I would actually love some cards and good wishes. I’ll be 46, by the way. We’ll save the really big celebration for 50.

MCO 2004

PS If you want to send a gift, a pretty blank postcard is fine, They’re fun to send back out to say hi!

When I was arrested in February, I was stuck with 25 others in a fetid holding cell in which we inevitably coughed and breathed on each other in very close quarters for three hours before we were let out. This was a holding tank for “K-11’s,” the county’s designation for those who are gay or transsexual or claim to be. I was with a fair amount of “street people,” most of them regularly incarcerated, and no paragons of health.

I’m pretty sure that’s where I was exposed to Tuberculosis, for which I tested positive when I arrived at the North Kern State Prison Reception Center at Delano in April. I was put on a year’s worth of prophylactic (preventative) medication (standard for the HIV+). I do not presently have active TB, nor can I transmit it, but