I'm Going to Fall

When I was a first grader, I fell out of my bunk bed and broke my collarbone. I didn't wake up but dreamt about falling and feeling burning pain in my shoulder. Dad woke me from my screaming sleep.  The thin carpet layered onto the concrete floor of our ground level apartment had done almost nothing to cushion my fall.

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Afterward, Dad fashioned a safety rail out of a two by six pine board. I had to wear a brace to school for a few weeks. It was a neutral, creamy colored, hospital terry cloth-covered foam contraption that made me think of a parachute without the pack: just the straps...

As I regarded the gray steel bunk frame and the thin bare, stained ticking mattress laying on it, this is what I thought about. The bunk was at my adult eye level; the floor, tile covered reinforced concrete. No guard rail. At 43, a fall from such a bunk would probably do a lot more than fracture my collarbone. My two new roommates, Chris and Gary, watched me from the safety of their bottom bunk perches. - Take either one, Gary said. Both upper bunks were vacant. I was numb, wishing my nine-years-dead father would shake me out of this bunk bed nightmare.

This was the first specific fear I tripped over after arriving at prison camp: falling out of the bunk and hurting myself. To that point, everything had been a fog of robotic unreality from noon, when John (my brother) dropped me off, all the greened inmates standing along and in the street, watching; to R & D, where crazy Eddie Reed took my paperwork by mistake, and I was parked in a holding room with Martin, late of the Bahamas via Chicago; to being told by Nurse Lind that I had high blood pressure, that she was putting me on medication so I don't "stroke out" and, oh by the way, since I admitted to having drunk the night before (really? who wouldn't?) here's a breathalyzer and if you blow anything above 0.0, you'll spend the night in The Hole; to being walked across the compound to Dorm 210 by the Chris O'Donnell looking guard; to Whiskers hollering at him as we walked by a disarrayed array of feathers, seagull, dead -- eaten... raccoon? -- and saying he suspected "fowl" play, get it, "fowl"? Into the dorm and up the stairs and turning right into the hall and then right (even though it was a left-and-a-left; I turned right at the top of the stairs the whole time I lived in 210) again into the room where the fog lifted and the background blurred and the 1080 dpi hi-def vision of the bunk slammed across the flatscreen of my sight and I thought, I'm going to fall.

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.

Top 5 Most Surprising and Cool Things Prisoners Get to Have in Prison

While some county jails may be as depicted in the photo accompanying this post, prisons are not necessarily as spartan as they are depicted in the popular media. Inmates at both the state and federal levels have access to many things that -- to me, as both a citizen and inmate -- were surprising. Below is an article from Top5.com that lists the five things I am most surprised about.



The United States incarcerates more people than any other country on the planet. Such a large prison population represents a serious market for companies that supply correctional facilities' commissaries, such as St. Louis-based Keefe Group. Between inmates' basic rights to certain comfort items and contractors lobbying to get more products into facilities, prisoners have access to a surprising array of amenities.

5 Food Selection

At every level of incarceration, from federal prison to county jail, inmates with enough money "on their books" can eschew facility food for fare purchased through the commissary. While most of the selections consist of mundane junk food like chips and candy, or staples such as peanut butter and Ramen noodles, some of the food available in prison commissaries is downright surprising. Sriracha sauce and yellowfin tuna in Thai chili sauce, anyone? Or perhaps you're in the mood for pizza tonight. Just pick up a pizza kit with crusts and sauce, add a little white meat chicken, some cheese, olives, jalapeño peppers... and kick it up with the onion you pocketed from the kitchen: Prison pizza paradise!

4 Video Game Consoles

Inmates in states like Maryland and Wisconsin can purchase video game consoles—which they can hook up to their personal flat-screen TVs—and lose themselves in a virtual reality that is considerably different from the reality in which they're living. Game choices are typically limited to nonviolent, non-explicit titles. Facilities will also cap the number of individual games an inmate can have in his possession.

3 Typewriters

A typewriter is a surprising inmate amenity not only because prisoners in many non-federal facilities can have one but also because such an anachronistic machine is still available for purchase—anywhere. Courts have held that inmates must be allowed access to typewriters in order to create legal documents. However, the image of an inmate in her cell, hunched over a Smith-Corona, clacking away like a '40s newspaper reporter, is a startling one.... 

Keep Reading at Top5.com.

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.

Bearing Bad Weather

Last Friday night, June 21, the Twin Cities saw some nasty-ass weather. No tornadoes or anything, but straight line winds and flash-floody rain. Thousands still don't have power -- nearly a week after the storm. Random trees and branches are scattered throughout the city.

Longfellow neighborhood in Minneapolis
after Jun 21, 2013, storms.

So what does this have to do with prison camp? Because last June, almost to the day, I was at FPC Duluth during the storm that caused the worst flooding on record in northeast Minnesota. 

Built on a hill above Lake Superior, where the St. Louis River, along with numerous smaller streams, empty into the lake, Duluth received almost 10" of rain over a two-day period. That is bad.

According to the Washington Post, "Massive flooding swept throughout the region. The floodwaters submerged two-thirds of the Lake Superior Zoo, drowning 11 animals. MSNBC reported: 'All but one of the zoo’s barnyard animals died, zoo spokeswoman Keely Johnson said in a statement earlier. That included the zoo’s donkey, goats and sheep'” The Associated Press said workers safely recovered two seals and a polar bear which had escaped."

A June 20, 2012, storm caused the worst flooding in Duluth,
Minn.'s history.

Unlike the zoo animals, those of us living in the faux-natural habitat of FPC Duluth were pretty much fine. Wet. But okay. That's because the camp is situated on high ground, next to the airport. The rain was so hard that they recalled the compound to the dorms at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday night and didn't reopen it until 2:30 p.m. the next day. We lost power in the dorm for a short time during the night, and the PA system in our unit shorted out.

It started with an electronic hiss that keyed with each fat drop of rain. It was Wednesday night by the time they cut power to the PA all together. The had rain stopped, too. The obtrusive silence was broken only by breathing inmates and a slight breeze rustling the trees -- no AC, so windows are open -- in the dark, amber-lit air. I had to pee.

I climbed down from the bunk and slipped on my shower shoes, walked the dozen or so steps down the hall from room 214 to the bathroom, which was shrouded in shadow -- only the auxiliary light in the shower room was on. But I could see my way to the urinal by the light coming in from the compound through the window's broken screen.

I exhaled, savoring the relief of my relaxing bladder; finished, shook and flushed. I washed my hands and stepped to the window, surveying the compound grass in the 3 a.m. dark. The rusty red of the nextdoor commissary building was washed to an amber gray by the streetlights scattered throughout the camp. Behind the commissary, a bright white light shone from the door of the compound officer's station. All the lights were out in 211 and 210, the wide dip of law between the units reflecting the pale orange of halogen lamps. A polar bear.

A polar bear.

A polar bear glided silently, one giant paw in front of the other, its snout swinging vaguely left side to right, across the dewy grassblades. As it approached the sidewalk between unit 211 and the commissary, the bear stopped and turned its head, aiming his gaze up the length of his snout, targeting me. I sucked in a sharp breath and pressed an open palm and my forehead against the screen, as if waving goodbye through a bus window, trying to get a better look.

The bear turned away and quickened his pace as he pawed off behind the admin building, past the Special Housing Unit -- the SHU, or "hole" -- and not 20 feet from the open compound office door, disappearing down the hill toward the visiting center.

I stood there in the quiet bathroom. Water dripping echoed off the tile walls and floor. The image of the white (amber in the light) bear on the dark compound, burned in my mind like a retinal spot after a a camera flash. I waited until I was convinced the bear wasn't coming back. Then I walked to back to the room.

I was distracted as I climbed up to my rack, shaking the frame. Kou, my bunkie, started awake: "Jonas..."

"I saw a polar bear."

"Mmmm." He rolled over and went back to sleep.

Berlin, the Lake Superior Zoo's polar bear, escaped
during the June, 2012, floods.

Federal Prison Economics 101: The Basics

The federal prison economy pretty much reflects the way things work in the real world. Except that it's just that: a reflection. Everything's a little blurred around the edges and illusory. On the other hand, there's nothing quite like a little time in prison to make you realize just how much a fiat currency -- like the US dollar -- is based on faith and cooperation to begin with. A little rocking of the boat and all hell breaks loose.

The prison economy has two distinct bases: "outside" finance and "inside" finance. In this post, we'll take a look at the former. I'll follow up with a look at the inside economics of prison camp in my next entry.

Where Does It Start?
The prison economy has to start somewhere, and for all intents and purposes, it begins with our family and friends. You all "put money on our books" -- i.e., make a deposit in our Bureau of Prisons (BoP) inmate trust account -- by sending a money order or wiring funds to the BoP lockbox facility in Des Moines. After it's processed, the funds are then available to us:  for use at the commissary; to purchase educational or craft materials; to downloand songs for MP3 players; for medical or dental co-pays; or, in large chunks, to make payments toward fines, criminal restitution and child support. Most importantly, for many, the funds were used to pay for phone calls and email minutes.

The other source of income that inmates receive is from prison "jobs". In some cases, where a facility has a Unicor operation -- a manufacturing arm of the BoP that makes chairs, desks, file cabinets, bed frames, plastic spoons, etc., to be used in government agencies like the BoP itself -- inmates can make several hundred dollars per month. Where I was, FPC Duluth, anyone earning more than $30 per month for his job (about 30 hours per week) was "prison rich". I made around $18 per month cleaning the bathrooms in our dorm. 

That being said, it's not like we really had to work very hard; nor did we exactly have bills to worry about. The wages we earned were simply a little extra to spend on the email terminals and a subject about which to piss and moan -- probably, the most popular prison camp pasttime.

For most, camp wages are not a major source of income. At camp, the majority of US dollars comes in from friends and family. Others, however, don't use -- or need -- US dollars to make a living in federal prison. They rely, instead, on the facility's "inside" economy, which a future post will examine a little more closely.

5 Worst Places to Be if Zombies Attack | Top5.com

5 Worst Places to Be if Zombies Attack | Top5.com

Motherf***ers: A Field Guide

In case the title of this post isn't enough of a clue, children and those disdainful of the vulgar should look away. I apologize in advance to grammarians, as well: I will be doing the English language no favors here (as if I ever do, anyway, but this post is particularly bad).

Do you all know what a simile is? If you go to that magic search engine dictionary that pops up definitions without telling you where they came from, you will learn that a simile is "A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, (e.g., as brave as a lion). " Thanks to my time at FPC Duluth, I will never be at loss for a simile again. Because in one amazingly versatile word, I have found the only comparison I will ever need.

Motherfucker.

I've tried to track down a typical motherfucker, but they are elusive -- and seem to be ever-changing. For example, just as I would begin to detect a chill in the air (It's motherfuckin' cold in here!), a blast of warmth would head me off in another direction (It's hotter than a motherfucker up in this bitch!).  They are not easy to pin down. If anyone has any pictures of a motherfucker in the wild -- there are many in captivity, but cameras are typically not allowed where motherfuckers are kept -- please post them in the comments section.

Meanwhile, for those who wish to stalk motherfuckers in the wild, keep an eye out for these particular characteristics:

They are attractive (Sexy as a motherfucker!) but also homely (Ugly as a motherfucker!)

They may be a little zaftig (Shit! This is heavier than a motherfucker!).  I also understand that they tend to be savory (This nacho bowl is tastier than a motherfucker!)

Motherfuckers are also wet, dry, windy, tired, fast, slow and foul-smelling. In some cases, they are bad (He is one bad motherfucker!). But just as often they are not (This is gooder than a motherfucker!).

If you surprise one, use caution as you approach (Mean as a motherfucker!). However, chances are you'll be okay (Happy as a motherfucker!).

Perhaps you'll be luckier (Lucky as a motherfucker) than I've been in tracking down a wild specimen. I can only hope so. In the meantime, happy hunting Motherfuckers!

The Bunk, part 2

And when the trucks came, they brought horror, discomfort and a lot of pissing and moaning to the FPC Duluth compound: they brought new mattresses. Yes, our old mattresses varied in size, thickness, odor and levels of both stain and duct-tape over rips; but they were still mattresses.  These new things... well, were not.

Crinkly, aqua-teal, plasticized batting replaced mattresses at FPC Duluth.

On that last Wednesday of September, about three weeks after I'd arrived in Duluth, everyone in E-dorm was told to remain in the unit and not report to work until we were told to. Around 7:30 a.m., a couple of slow-moving, overloaded trucks pulled up to the back of the building. A voice on the intercom told us to strip our beds and carry our mattresses to down to the trucks, where we could swap them for a new one.

 I'll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison by La (Google Affiliate Ad)

As much as I would miss my old mattress, I did not particularly titter with glee at the prospect of carrying it down two flights of stairs, its besmirched fabric pressed against my skin and face, years of inmate skin dust clouding around my head. But I did.

When I got down to the back of the dorm, I tossed my mattress on a pile, coughed out a cloud of bed dust and was handed a six-foot long, greenish-blue vinyl bag of heavy recycled rags. Wrapped in dusty plastic. It was really heavy. And it was my new mattress. So I hauled it back upstairs to my my room, managed to lever it onto my upper rack and re-make it to FPC Duluth standards -- two sheets, square corners, one blanket on the bed, the other folded into thirds at the foot of the bed.

The entire exercise took about an hour. I was dusty and tired. I waited for count to clear -- which means that somebody says that we're all still there and are free to roam the compound -- then hopped in the shower and got cleaned up. I finished up my work detail for the morning, just wiping down the bathroom, went to lunch and came back to the dorm to read until it was time to start my afternoon routine.

As I was sitting in my chair, reading, my name was called over the intercom. I was told to report to the counselor's office in Dorm 209. When I got there, the counselor informed me that I would be moving dorms and to go get my stuff packed and hauled over before the 4:00 p.m. count. "And hey," he called after me, "Don't forget to strip your bunk and bring your bedding with you!"

The Bunk: Your Bed Away from Home

Monster Bedroom Twin Study Loft Bunk Bed - Kids Bedroom (Google Affiliate Ad)
Whatever you call it -- bed, rack, pad, piece-of-shit green thing -- your bunk is about the closest you get to a parcel of real estate in prison camp (I guess your locker is, too, but that's more of a condo, really). Many spend a large amount of time in or on their racks. The lower-bunk guys use them as recliners, work tables, sofas and all-around go-to pieces of furniture. The upper bunk guys have a perch.

After three weeks at FPC Duluth, I moved from a 4-man to a 6-man room.

A bunk is more than just a dorm-room furnishing; it's also a form of identity. "Where's Jonas?" "Two fourteen, back wall, up." Your rack is a receptacle for mail, commissary repayments, books and anything else that someone wants to get to you but doesn't want to leave on a desk, or even your chair. Even though your chair may be right next to your rack, it's still a little bit out in the room: too public. More private -- or even clandestine -- deliveries often end up under your pillow, or the regulation-tri-folded blanket at the foot of your bunk. Really private stuff (like onions, peppers or fruit from the dining hall) goes in your pillow case. Hopefully, it's wrapped in a trash bag or disposable kitchen glove. Just as often, it won't be. And that's okay.

My first room at FPC Duluth was Room 215 in Unit 210, or E (for "Erie") Dorm. In a classic example of unnecessary bureaucratic redundancy, each building had 3 different monikers: its number (207-211); its Great Lakes Name (Huron - Superior); or the first letter of the Great Lakes name from the mnemonic H-O-M-E-S. No one knows why. However, different staff members were quite attached to their own way of referring to a building and refused to acknowledge the existence of the other names. For example, going into a visit once, I was asked by a guard what dorm I lived in. I replied with my unit number. He asked me again, and I once again gave him my unit number. Then he asked if I meant "M" Dorm -- this was after I'd moved -- and after thinking for a second, I agreed that yes, perhaps I meant M Dorm. And then he let me into the visiting center so I could see my children. I really appreciated the object lesson buried in that exercise. I learned a lot from it and will carry its meaning with me throughout my life. Really.

Anyway, when I was first led into Room 215 -- E Dorm! -- the two guys already in the room had long-since occupied the lower bunks. It was a four-man room. As I walked in one bunk was pushed back, lengthwise against the far wall, directly opposite the doorway. The other was pushed against the wall to my left, opposite the lockers. The room's windows were in the wall at the foot of the former rack; the desk was attached to the wall between the doorway and the head of the latter set of bunks. I chose the upper bunk on the latter.

I was freaked out, overweight, sad, scared -- and had literally just been diagnosed with high blood pressure. Getting into the top bunk those first few days was not fun. I had to step up onto my chair, put one foot on a peg bolted to the bunk frame and swing myself up onto the bed without falling or hitting my head on the ceiling. If I had to go to the bathroom at night, I had to do this both ways and try not to wake up Chris, my bunkie.

Those first couple weeks were not horrible from a prison-camp living perspective: three of us in a big, four-man room. After a couple weeks, a fourth guy -- Joe -- moved into the other top bunk. Although I envied the ease of use that the lower-bunk guys enjoyed, I got used to the upper bunk in Room 215. The mattress itself was about 4 inches thin... the mattresses in the room were all of varying materials, thicknesses and levels of stain. I was told that mine had been lain on for seven months or so by a 400-lb. short-timer named Country (or occasionally Big Country) who did most of his time in the bunk. I wondered if that was why it was no thicker a couple of pork chops stack on top of one another.

And then one day, at the end of my third week, the trucks came...

2/14 in the 2-1-4: V is for Valentine

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

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.

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, wold look at all the other cards and say they wanted something completely different: a one-off that I would 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.

Thank You

I was numb when I arrived at FPC Duluth. The sentencing in United States of America v. Trent Christopher Jonas (how's that for an attention getter if you happen to be the named defendant?) had occurred two months to the day earlier, on July 7, 2011. Sentencing itself was a relief. I had waited seven months to find out where I was going and for how long.

The plea agreement I signed in December 2010 had a "box" of 51 to 63 months for the crime to which I admitted. This meant that my family and I waited more than half a year expecting that I could spend as many as five years in prison, all the while hoping, of course, for less. I felt detached from almost everything. I couldn't make plans more than a few weeks out because I never knew what was going to happen or when. Nothing but the most important -- my children -- mattered. I drank a lot.

Prison Issue # 23 (Google Affiliate Ad).        

Ultimately, Judge Montgomery, who was very kind throughout the process and empathetic at sentencing, determined my own stupidity was considerable punishment in itself (it probably helped that I admitted everything along the way; which makes me either a nightmare or dream client depending on my attorney's point of view) and decided that a downward departure was in order. In sentencing me to 24 months, and recommending the nearby minimums security camp in Duluth, Judge Montgomery made reference to the extraordinary letters of support she had received on my behalf. I was not given a chance to see most of them, and still don't even know who all wrote to her.

To know about such letters, though, was bittersweet. Not only did it show me the quality of friends that I have, letters or no, but exposed the level of disappointment I must have caused in those who care about me. As one friend expressed it in different correspondence, I had suffered a precipitous "fall from grace." Realizing that so many are willing to stand by me in spite of my toxicity still blurs my eyes. More importantly, it gives me an imperative to live a better next chapter in my life. To my friends and family (including ex-family) who are reading this, thank you.

I promise more interesting prison-y bits in the next post, but this one had to be written.