Valentine's Day: 2/14 in 2-1-4

This is a a re-post from previous Valentine's Days. Why re-invent the wheel, right?

Valentines Day is a big deal at prison camp. My room -- 214, ironically -- was no exception. For guys like Mush, from L.A., but with "lady friends" from all over, it was an especially big deal. After the Super Bowl (another big event in prison camp) Mush spent almost every waking hour from the minute the Giants walked off the field, leaving the stunned Patriots and osteoporotic Madonna behind, until just hours before mail went out Valentines Day morning cranking out cards.

Some inmates wanted more "typical" portraits for Valentines Day.

He had books of poetry, he had old cards and letters that he'd written to use as templates, he hired people to make cards for him. He was a card writing machine. And he wasn't just doing it for himself. There were plenty of word-weary guys in Unit 209 who came to Mush for help with their Valentines Day mojo.

One evening, about a week before Valentines Day, I was in my usual spot... My chair, pushed against the wall, under the window at the foot of my bunk -- technically, I guess, it was the foot of Fons' rack, since he had the lower bunk, but his chair was alongside his mattress; I got the end spot near my locker.  I was drawing a heart on a card for my kids.

That's when it happened. Mush looked up, stood and came over to see what I was doing. "You're good," he said. I thanked him.

"Jonas, you think you could draw a big dick inside this card?" I looked at him. I looked at the card.

"Yep. Sure." I sent Mush down the hall to borrow some colored pencils from Dent. When he came back, I sat down at the desk and half an hour later, he was the proud owner of a penciled penis. He was quite happy with the outcome.

He took it down the hall and showed a handful of the people he was writing for. I practically had a line out the door. Over the next week, I cranked out nearly a hundred cards for more than a dozen guys. They were decorated with hearts, genitals, flowers and every sexual position that my clients and I could brainstorm. Some would come up to me and ask for exactly what they'd seen on another card. Others, though, would look at all the other cards and say they wanted something completely different: a one-off that I wold promise not to repeat for anyone else.

In spite of all the cards I worked on, I myself only received one valentine while I was at FPC Duluth. But I gained something much larger than Hallmark Holiday gratification could ever give me.

By the time Mush came to me and asked me to sketch that skin flute, I'd been at FPC Duluth four months. It'd taken that long for me to find my hustle, my incarceration calling: I was a prison pornographer.

FPC N.Y.E. 2012

It's not New Year's Eve, and the year is still young; this week is cold, and winter so far has been a single long blur of frozen mist and cabin fever -- like being locked down in the fog on New Year's Eve three years ago.

The FPC Duluth was cloaked in a sound-dampening fog. You could see from dorm to dorm but not much farther. I couldn't see one side of the walking track from the other. That's where I was when we were recalled without warning around 7:30 p.m. I assumed it was because of the fog and started heading toward my unit to be counted.

On my way back to the dorm I walked past the admin building, where all the lights were on. My dorm-mate Pat pointed out the cars parked alongside the building and then one of the windows, through which I could see the warden, the AW, two lieutenants and the HR officer. Given the fact that it was a holiday Saturday night, this seemed really strange. Maybe they were going to have some kind of shakedown.

Back in the dorm, after count. Everyone was on edge. We were back early on a holiday evening. People in the theater had to leave their movie. The TV rooms got crowded and loud. Throughout the evening, COs would randomly pop up and conduct breathalyzer tests, trying to flush out hooch.

Earlier that same week, a large cache of contraband -- including tobacco, a cell phone, an MP3 player and creatine supplements -- had been found above a ceiling panel in our unit. The CO who'd found it, Carlson, was known among the inmates as Jack Bauer for his doggedness in tearing apart fixtures and structures in his search for contraband. As a result, the TV rooms and microwaves locked up for several days, and our unit was placed in the last position for the dining hall.

In addition, inmates in our unit were required to write a page-long essay describing how we all played a part in letting contraband into the dorm (e.g., not ratting out people we may have known were using tobacco or simply not being observant enough to notice such things). We each had to read our essay in the theater in front of the rest of the inmates. It took us weeks to get through the 150 people in our dorm.

On New Years Eve, in the midst of all this going on, the staff-appointed inmate leadership of the dorm (the CORE) was on edge about contraband use. They were walking the halls confronting people doing things they they thought could get us into more trouble as a unit. They caught one of my roommates, Thalen -- an unusually twitchy pill-peddler from Tennessee -- smoking hand-rolled cigarettes at the top of one of the fire escapes. A couple of the CORE group members came to our room and were trying to get all thuggy with Thalen, which made for a rather tense moment for the rest of us who were just chilling in the room. I got into an argument with one of the guys when he started mouthing off to the rest of us. A weird tense evening all around.

Next day -- New Year's 2012 -- the flags at FPC Duluth were all half-mast. Info seeped in fits and spurts, but it eventually came out that CO Jack Bauer had committed suicide in staff housing the previous evening, precipitating the recall and the presence of all the brass on the compound on a holiday weekend night. The stress that incarceration creates among individuals is not just limited to the inmates. It stretches out its tentacles to their families and even to the staff who have to remain in the setting long after inmates get to go home.

"Did You Tell 'Em About the Skits...?"

Yes. In prison camp, we had to compose original skits -- and perform them. Three to five times a week. I shit you not.

Granted, it wasn't everybody. Just the 150-or-so of us in the RDAP unit. 

For many, it was a nightmare. But for a select few of us, it was a juicy opportunity for subversion; and for another handful of talented performers, it was their long-awaited star turn. I was one of the go-to writers in the unit; even if it wasn't my "Upbeat Group"'s turn on stage, I was sought out as a mercenary who could whip out a quick, 5-minute skit incorporating a little humor, a few RDAP principles (gratitude, humility, etc.) and do so in an hour or less. A few stamps, a couple packs of ramen or a snickers bar, and I was your huckleberry. As it were.

Even in FPC Duluth, where I was reminded every day to practice humility, it was tough to quell my creative ego. Many days, I cringed to see my not-so-carefully crafted words mangled by amateurish deliveries. Eventually, I learned: I figured out who the really good performers were I therefore saved my best stuff for the divas who wanted a vehicle -- or for my own group. I specialized in Seussian-style rhymes wherein I could drop the names of staff, inmates and counselors, walking the line a bit, but never quite crossing it. Inside jokes; double entendres that couldn't be proved. I had fun. I was good. But I was by no means the best; nor the most entertaining.

It probably shouldn't be surprising to find deviant -- or devious -- minds in prison camp. But I was outright flabbergasted to encounter some of the humorists I met there. They were devious and witty and literate -- and willing to use their talents in the pursuit of poking the institutional bear: something I was willing to toy with, but, for the most part, not actually do in light of the relatively-little time I was actually going to spend at FPC Duluth.

Wheels was one example of an exceptional prison camp humorist. Wheels had served a lot of time -- more than five years -- by the time I even showed up. A fellow -041er (Minnesotan), Wheels had started his bit with several months in a county-jail federal holding facility and then transfered to a low-security facility in Milan, Michigan, where he played tennis with Sam Waksal. He claimed that they transferred him so far from home because he fought them so hard at trial. Given what I've read and what I've heard from friends, he's probably right.  

He had a lot of pent up rage over his situation, but was also funny as hell. Plus he'd served long enough to feel pretty bulletproof about anything he might want to say. Wheels was our Kafka. The problem was he couldn't find a delivery system for his avant-garde, absurdist humor. Until Bob showed  up on the unit.

With Bob, Wheels had the perfect collaborator. The shit he though up was, on its own, subversively funny in a "Young Ones" sort of way. Often it made no sense at all; and yet even then, because of its nonsensical nature, was hilarious. Moreover, Bob was fearless on the stage -- even if it meant having to do some sort of punitive public apology; being remediated (losing some of the time off earned from participating in the RDAP program or getting thrown off the unit all together) -- which meant that Wheels had an actor to deliver his lines.

In one of his most memorable works, Wheels had an inmate stand at the podium reciting "Metamorphosis" by Wallace Stevens:

Yillow, yillow, yillow,
Old worm, my pretty quirk,
How the wind spells out
Sep – tem – ber….

Summer is in bones.
Cock-robin’s at Caracas.
Make o, make o, make o,
Oto – otu – bre.

And the rude leaves fall.
The rain falls. The sky
Falls and lies with worms.
The street lamps

Are those that have been hanged.
Dangling in an illogical
To and to and fro
Fro Niz – nil – imbo.

During the recital, Bob was backstage, playing the sound effect of a whining mosquito over the sound system, while using a length of twine to drag an empty box slowly across the stage behind the podium. At the same time, two other inmates acted out an argument behind the curtains.

It was ridiculous. Absurd. It made no sense. Much like the BoP.

Minnesota Takes Steps Toward Employment Reform

Effective January 1 of this year, employers in Minnesota will not be able to ask about a prospective candidate's criminal history on the initial application. While this is a small step in a country that incarcerates more people than any other nation on the planet, it is significant. 

With each passing year, a greater percentage of Americans come in contact with the criminal justice system. This can leave otherwise-qualified candidates out in the cold when it comes to employment. In cases where restitution or monetary reparations are involves, stumbling blocks to employment not only hobble the ex-incarceree, but also limit victims' ability to be compensated for the crime. 

The newly-expanded "Ban the Box" law now covers private employers in the state of Minnesota. The new law requires public and private employers to wait until a job applicant has been selected for an interview before asking about criminal records or conducting a criminal record check. It makes it illegal for employers to disqualify a person from employment or to deny them a license because of their criminal background unless it is directly related to the position.

While the new law doesn't prevent an employer from throwing up a roadblock at the interview, it at least gets a resume or application in front of a hiring manager. This is definitely a step in the right direction -- especially in a job market that still suffers from post-recession softness.

Thanksgiving in Prison Camp: 2011 Journal Entry

Rainy and foggy today -- watching the beacon at the Duluth airport's tower sweep across the bottom of the mist bank before hitting my window at its regular second-or-so interval. The first count this morning was interesting -- or funny, I guess: once again Frazier was messing with the count. 

Bravo (the faux-hawked bleached-blond lieutenant) and Gunther were doing the count. Just as they came into the building and announced "Count!" Frazier decided to vacuum his rug. He ignored all the shouts at him from up and down the hall until Bravo sent Mush -- my roomie -- to tell him to knock it off. Apparently the Lieutenant and the head of the Education Department (Gunther) suffer from some sort of arithmetical deficiency because they had to count us two more times -- the last round going room to room with the bed book, matching up faces with names -- before they could get their individual counts to coincide and clear the unit.

This had me concerned because Julie and the kids were coming for Thanksgiving. I had expected them before the count, but with the thick fog they hadn't arrived. So I waited on the edge of my bunk until count was cleared and they started calling for visits again. I was among the first called, hustled out of the building and a quarter mile or so through the chill wet mist to the visitor center.

This was my third visit wth them but my first Thanksgiving at FPC Duluth. It was more tense than usual because it was fraught with all sorts of holiday stress. They needed to get back for dinner, were concerned that I was missing the camp holiday meal and were insistent that I eat something with them out of the vending machine to at least have some semblance of a family holiday meal. I, on the other hand, showed up tense and on edge because of my visit-anticipation, the waiting, the lateness and my general malaise about being in prison on a major family holiday. I was overwhelmed and edgy and sad and anxious and didn't want them to spend Thanksgiving in a prison camp visitng room; but I didn't want them to leave either. All was well with the kids, but the visit ended in some unsatisfying bickering between Julie and me, of which I was the instigator.

I walked back through the fog, hollow, depressed and lonely. I immediately wrote a letter of apology to Julie, but it did little to assuage my angsty feelings. I arrived at FPC Duluth in September; in October, I received divorce papers -- I'd known they were coming, but after 16 years of marriage and 18 in a relationship, it was still a kick in the nuts; and now I was seeing my soon-to-be-X on my best-loved holiday in a prison camp. It was a triple-stacked shit sandwich and I'd taken a big bite.

That night, as I lay in my bunk -- upper, next to the window -- the fog still hanging over the camp and the airport next door, I caught sight of a green runway beacon in the distance. I'd just finished rereading The Great Gatsby, and my mind immediately seized upon the novel's oft-quoted last lines:

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

It didn't necessarily make me feel better, but as I looked at the light, I felt more at peace. I understood that the past is the past; and that I could not reclaim it, could not sail against the current, that close to the wind. I needed to ease up the sheets and fall off, turning my bow more toward the future. 

After that night, that airport beacon became my "green light" and represented departure, the future and tacit permission to move on, to proceed through the crossroads I'd reached in my life. I still look back over my shoulder more often than not, but now I am moving with the current. And my course is easier for it.

 

Even Federal Prison Camps Are Not Above Human Rights Violations

Today is Blog Action Day 2013 (#BAD13). This year's topic is #HumanRights. Since this is a personal blog about my experience in federal prison camp, I am going to go there.

The Supreme Court, along with some other heavy-hitters, have decided that prison (and prison camp) inmates are entitled to some basic human rights. Not all of the same ones that the non-incarcerated enjoy but a handful nonetheless. As a humanist and former attorney, I've always believed this. Those who disagree are reading the wrong blog on the wrong day.

I've mentioned in earlier posts that my ride through the federal criminal justice system was pretty smooth. People were pleasant, kind and mindful that my family and I had seen better days, in spite of my own personal and professional failings.

Prison camp was a different story. Not necessarily for me: I don't think I ruffled too many feathers in general, but then I was a white-on-white (white-collar, white-skinned inmate) male in an upper-Midwest camp run by a staff that was at least 90 percent white and 70 percent male. The inmate population was far more diverse, the majority likely non-white. This, along with a clear hatred of their jobs among many of the prison employees, made for an occasionally unpleasant compound environment.

The regulations promulgated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP), and clearly printed in the handbook issued to all FPC Duluth 'campers', state that inmates "have the right to expect as a human being [to]... be treated respectfully, impartially, and fairly by all personnel." It is also considered staff misconduct to threaten an inmate with physical harm.

One high-ranking officer (above Lieutenant-grade) at FPC Duluth, in particular, failed to get -- or was perhaps unable to read -- the memo from the BoP, the Department of Justice, Congress or the Supreme Court that this was how things were supposed to be. For purposes of this post, we'll call him Officer Douchebag.

Officer Douchebag is a short, balding man. When I was there, he sported a goatee, wore ill-fitting blazers and had a propensity to scream profanities... at pretty much everyone; perhaps it's Tourette's, but I kinda doubt it. Rumor had it that he had brought so much heat upon himself in the way of inmates filing complaints against him that he would pretty much never be promoted nor allowed to leave Duluth as long as he worked for the BoP.

When I first moved into M Dorm, Unit 209 -- RDAP -- two of my roomies had stories about Officer Douchebag (ODB). One, my bunkie, Corona, was a big -- well over six feet, could deadlift 550 --Mexican dude from Eastern Washington. The incident occurred when Corona was sitting on a boulder outside the activity center, resting after work hours. The ODB approached and threatened to "kick the shit of him" if he didn't "move his ass" from the rock. According to Corona, the situation de-escalated quickly when he stood up and cast his shadow over ODB, who left quickly cursing under his breath.

Another roomy from the 214, Blaze, was once caught standing and staring by the ODB. Blaze wasn't doing much of anything, he was just outside, on the compound, minding his own business. Blaze told me that ODB walked up and threatened to "rip [his] fucking throat out" if he didn't move along. I tend to be a pretty fair-minded person and took these ODB stories with a grain of salt; but on June 4, 2012, while waiting for ODB and some other staff members to finish the weekly inspection of our dorm, I got to witness his violations of BoP regulations first-hand.

As an orderly in the dorm, I often was present when the weekly inspections occurred. The dorm that won for cleanliness got called to food service ahead of all the other dorms. This meant that you got out of the building soonest after the counts and could hit the email or the track before they got crowded. So, we orderlies tended to hang out and see how we did.

On that particularly Thursday, I was in my room when the inspection team stopped next door in 216. Another orderly, T.H., who is African-American, was in the room when ODB shouted at him, "If anybody is going to do any hitting around here, it's going to be me."

The orderly, T.H. replied, "I didn't say anything about hitting nobody."  The ODB replied, "Yeah. But I did."  This is a contemporaneous account of the above exchange, written in my notebook immediately after it occurred. I wrote them down because it seemed to me that ODB's words clearly constituted a threat of physical violence -- or at the very least a lack of basic respect.

My example here is by no means exclusive; I heard many stories and witnessed many indignities at FPC Duluth. I believe that much of what I saw was racially-motivated by a white, power-engorged staff who felt free to let loose their racism on disenfranchised, non-White inmates.

In a country where we incarcerate and execute more of our population than pretty much any other nation on Earth, it's not surprising that this is par for the course. On the other hand, since this country was founded on such glorious words as those contained in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, you'd think we could do a little better at the "all... are created equal" and Bill of Rights parts. Even for prisoners.

Am I Losing It? Does It Matter?

I was in prison camp for a grand total of 56 weeks -- just shy of 13 months. I saw my kids every few weeks, and a steady flow of family and friends made the trip for visiting days. I have had jobs that I hated more than my routine at FPC Duluth.  It was the not going home at night that was the problem.  I would rather do my 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. routine at federal prison camp than be stuck in cube with a 3-foot tether attached to my head, helping whiny lawyers who don't want to do their own work, as long as I could leave at the end of the day.

I was lucky -- I knew it then, and I know it now. But I worry.

As much as I missed my kids, and in spite of getting divorced from my wife of 16 years, my time in prison camp was enlightening and a game changer. I got in shape, I achieved a lot of clarity about what my life is and what I want it to look like, and the stuff that is actually the most important -- my kids, experiences, making uncomfortable decisions -- all crystallized for me in a way that I believe some people never get to see.  I honestly think that I may live longer, getting that year -- and then some -- back because of the experience.

But now, almost a year later, I find myself in traffic, stressed, sweating the small stuff, worrying about bills and jobs and time... things that a year ago I knew were inconsequential to the actual quality of real life. I still know it and am able to talk myself down. But I worry.

What if I get caught up in the everyday stress, all over again, blink, and then I'm 60. I will have wasted 15 years after spending a whole year realizing that life is precious. Too precious to waste being angry because the douchebag in front of me is driving too slow (doesn't change the fact that he's a DB; I just don't have to be worked up about it).

That kind of answers the questions I get asked about this blog. Why embrace the experience? Why keep picking the scab? I especially get these questions from my friends -- and I made some real, true friends (another of life's surprises!) -- who were in Duluth with me. Practically everybody I met was there longer than I was. I was a part-timer, white-on-white tourist at the camp. My right to complain about much of anything was pretty inhibited. So they wonder why I won't let go when I was barely there.

But I think it's because I realized early on in my sentence that I was still alive. That each day I woke up in the morning was a day in my life... and I was not going to get it back if I didn't spend it in a way that contributed to the quality of my life. No matter where I was. So, I kept busy. I walked, wrote, drew; I took classes, I thought. Near the end of my time at FPC Duluth, as anxious as I was to leave, I experienced pangs of panic... I was worried that I didn't have enough time to finish a number of projects that I undertaken. I literally thought, on occasion, "I need more time..."

Thoughts such as those occurred to me because I had come to realize that a year off with little worry -- my children have a great mother, and I knew that they were well cared for -- is a gift. I flippantly began referring to my post-prison camp life as Trent 2.0. In time, I began to take the moniker seriously, as I believed that a permanent change was necessary and a new version imminent. And upon my release into the halfway house, it was true.

But real life began to set in.

Working jobs on someone else's schedule, carving my entire schedule around my children's, jumping through hoops thrown at me by various institutions from U.S. Probation to Normandale Community College has weighed on me. It has threatened to return my life to its former state: a routine.

Fortunately, I am still self-aware enough and took good enough notes to remember the experience. A year away from my kids is too much. Living as a slave to the modern American economy of consumption is not necessary. It's a trap... one that squeezes tighter the harder you resist. Rather, you have to be willing to relax and simply let go. Unhinge yourself from the societal constraints that make you feel stressed and find what makes you happy and do it. Because you and I are going to die. Soon. Too soon. And I want to spend as little of my time left on this earth in a cubicle as possible. I choose instead to roll on the ground with Sam and Sarah, walk in the water and find a palm tree with a sunset.

So, when I find myself not driving with Aloha, and becoming increasingly angry at the slow-moving douchebag off my bow, I think of Walt Whitman. Old WW has so much to say on the way to live our lives. I find some of his transcendentalist messages so powerful that I felt compelled to read the following to a theater of 150 semi-befuddled, fellow federal prisoners:

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
 Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. 

To their credit, I think they got it -- although I was called into an office by BoP staff and told that I would need to "dumb it down" in the future -- most men I met saw their sentence as a life-changing experience.

So, I may be losing it a little bit. And it does matter. Because I know that I have to contribute a verse. It may be imperfect, poorly executed and sloppy. But it will be my verse, and I will die better knowing that I tried a little harder to write it due to the experiences I've encountered.

Federal Prison Economics 101: Currency

No money coming in from the outside? FRP payment (restitution, fines, etc.) taking up all of your prison paycheck? There are other ways to make a living in prison. You just need to get yourself a hustle and put your full faith into the credit that backs the almighty postage stamp.

In Federal Prison, Stamps Are Money

When I was at FPC Duluth, the value of a 1st class "forever" stamp was pegged at 30 cents. You may have paid 45 cents for it at the commissary, but on the 'pound it was worth 30 cents. On occasion, if there was a shortage of stamps on the compound (i.e., demand exceeded supply), the price of stamps would creep up toward actual value.

Such inflationary periods only really affected stamps bought in "books" of 20. Sometimes, they actually were a book of stamps like the ones you might purchase at the post office (or in our case, the commissary). More often, a book was a cut-up collection of mismatched, well-worn stamps, often from different vintages, usually held together with tiny, black rubber bands that guys who wore braids would otherwise use to keep their hair tight. A store-bought -- or "flat" -- book, was even more valuable during inflationary periods than a regular book.

Stamp Inflation

On the FPC Duluth compound, and I'm sure the same is true at other facilities, stamps were in circulation like dollar bills circulate on the streets. A lot of them were older, many had been on the compound for years. New stamps were always being added by people who would buy them from the commissary or otherwise acquire them from the outside -- although sending in stamps through the mail or delivering them to inmates in any other way is against institution rules, they still came in illicitly. But, at the same time, stamps were removed from circulation on just as regular a basis.

Inmates mail letters, or send out art or crafts that they made. In some cases, the stamps in circulation were so old that they actually weren't "forever" stamps, and therefore valueless. Such stamps were usually passed off to new inmates before they got wise to their inability to use them and just held onto them until the next bus of eager-but-naive campers arrived on the compound. Occasionally, a more scrupulous inmate would come across a soft, faded 33¢ Purple Heart stamp and just throw it away.

 Regardless of how the stamps enter and exit circulation on the compound, there is a continual ebb and flow of supply. For the most part, this works. That is, until a more macro-level event comes along to mess up everything.

Inflationary Events

On the compound, several predictable, inflationary events occur throughout the year. Mind you, such events don't increase the purchasing power of stamps, just the cost of obtaining them if you actually need the physical stamps. During football season, stamps become scarce on the weekends as bookies and pool organizers hold onto bets and take the "stickers" out of circulation. So if you need to mail a letter or pay somebody that requires "cash" you should plan accordingly. Otherwise, you may be paying $8 for a flat book on Sunday that you could've had for $6 if you bought it on Wednesday.

Stamps are damn near impossible to come by in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. The NCAA Tournament also puts some inflationary pressure on the cost of stamps. As inconvenient as such times are, you can always plan ahead. Moreover, you know that by Monday or Tuesday, everyone will be paid out and you can go back to the normal pricing.

It's the unpredictable "market mover" events that cause more serious problems on the compound... we'll get to those in the next post.