Headphone Epiphany

This was a weird week leading up to Christmas.  It was a week I learned a major lesson in growth and grace.  It all started typically enough.  Tuesday evening “Big S” had to work for 5^th period school (he’s a vocational aide and recently named computer aide to work with me and the new IT students).  Big S has been working out five days a week with “Jah”.  No big deal, so far.

He gets to work Tuesday night and his left arm – forearm, bicep and elbow – are swelled to three times their normal size.  His arm is blotchy and discolored.  A workout injury?  Possibly, except he and Jah hadn’t lifted since Sunday.  His instructor calls medical for him and at 7:00 pm he’s down with the nurses.

I’m sitting on my bunk doing, well, what I do almost every evening:  watching a “Seinfeld” re-run while reading “USA Today”.  Three officers move into the cut and open “S’s” locker and start packing him up.   I know the officers and one says “they’ve got him at medical.  Keeping him overnight.”

As I’ve described before in this blog – and in an accompanying piece this week – medical care in prison is abysmal.  All of us were worried – what’s up with Big S?

Side theme:  they have him completely packed up and “LA” comes by to see me.  LA because he’s from Los Angeles.  A bright young guy, LA nonetheless has way too much con in him, especially for a 24 year old who’s lost five years of his life to prison.  “Heh, Larry, did they take the other set of headphones?”  “What headphones?” I replied.  “I left a set on his bed.  Guy in 6 building needs repaired.”  Now Big S knew nothing about the repair or the headphones on his bunk.

Wednesday morning and Big S pushes his cart back in.  The diagnosis:  a bug bite (spider?) caused a massive infection in his arm.  High doses of antibiotics (and ten days of “pill call”) and he’ll be fine.  He’s going through his stuff and sees the extra set of headphones.  I explain the entire LA conversation.  That afternoon, Big S takes the phones to work and an electrical aide rewires and builds a new headclip (the phones we are allowed to buy have thin, cheap brittle plastic on the top.  They always crack within days of purchase. A guy in the shop makes a heavier, more pliable headpiece).  Big S gives the phones to LA for return to building 6.  Thursday afternoon two guys come running into the building looking for Big S.

“Gomez” (the guy in building 6) says someone switched out the speakers.  The name and number are scratched out and the earcovers (foam) are worn out.  Big S is perplexed.  The electrical aide had repaired a new set. The set Gomez sent back over for Big S to examine was old and worn.

So Big S goes to confront LA.  And, LA denies, and denies and then finally admits the truth.  He’d switched the speakers (earphone part) to sell before he leaves.  How do I say this other than Big S was pissed!

A couple of things to remember:  prisons are notorious places for cons to be run.  Guys try and get things over unsuspecting inmates all the time.  Conversely, you expect the guys you befriend; you help, to shoot straight with you.  Numerous times I’ve been, shall we say, let down by guys in here who have asked for help and then done slimy things.  You get used to it and you don’t let it change how you behave and who you are. 

The second thing to remember is Big S is a pretty big guy and “pp” (pre-prison) he was a fighter.  He worked nights as a bouncer at a few Richmond area bars and participated in a half-dozen UFC fights.  He also had a quick temper.

I watched LA stammer and stutter his way through before finally, with head down, going back to his bunk area and retrieving the good phones.  And, I watched Big S, jaw clenched, angry, trying to control his visceral reaction which was to break LA into a dozen pieces. 

Big S came back to the cut, obviously upset.  I climbed off my bunk and listened as he explained everything that had taken place.

“So what are you gonna do?”  I asked Big S.  “Forgive him.  Isn’t that what you’re always tellin me God expects us to do?  It’s not worth fighting over.  LA hasn’t figured it out yet.  He’s doomed to come back unless he does.”  “Forgive him.”  Can you imagine?  We throw terms like “forgiveness” around so easily and yet our initial reaction is to, well react.  Big S somehow decided the reaction wasn’t worth it.  Something else was required.  How much baggage, how much anger do we bottle up inside seeking “satisfaction” for wrongs perpetuated against us when the right thing to do is say “OK, I forgive you.”

Does that mean people will stop conning you, hurting you, trying to take advantage of you?  Probably not.  LA, he’s six weeks from going home and he’s still running cons.  He was willing to sell out his relationship with Big S for a few bucks.  LA was/is one of the high-risk recidivism offenders.  He’s done five years this bid on drug distribution and gun charges.  He’d been in and out of juvenile detention and twice did short jail terms.  He claims “I’m never coming back”.  But, how you behave in this environment largely dictates how you’ll be on the street.  In LA’s case, the prognosis isn’t good.

Will Big S’s handling of the situation suddenly cause a light bulb to go off over LA’s head and he’ll begin “doing the right thing”?  I don’t know.  But I know this:  the old way of doing things doesn’t work.

That all this took place on the eve of celebrating the birth of Emmanuel – “God with us” – came as no great surprise.  Big S just did what that birth was all about. He looked at the world through God’s eyes and said “that’s alright.  I forgive you.”  How odd that I saw that play out in prison.  Then again, “He came to set the prisoner’s free and open the eyes of the blind.”  And it all started with some headphones.