Day 254 Hippie and Happiness

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