Moving

A few weeks ago I finally was assigned a bottom bunk.  After almost three years here at Lunenburg, I switched from a “top rack” to a bottom one.  I had other opportunities to switch bunks in the past but decided I wanted a specific area with guys I thought I could live near.  And the area you live in is important.  Cleanliness and neatness matter especially when your personal space is less than two feet to the left or right.  And, being in such close proximity to five other men, you see, hear and smell everything that goes on around you.  You think you’ve “seen it all”, then some new chucklehead comes along and reminds you there is always someone out there more ignorant, more disrespectful, more slovenly, than you imagined.

It’s hard to describe living in such close quarters.  Your bunk becomes your personal island.  There is a list of don’ts in prison and most involve your personal living space.  You never sit on another man’s bunk; you never sit in their chair without permission; going in a man’s cut – without prior approval – is close to breaking and entering; you don’t “ear hustle”, listening in on another guy’s conversation – even when that guy is less than two feet away from you.  Finally, you don’t run your hustle around your bunk to call attention to your cut area.  No one wants the officers snooping around your cut.

Still, guys aren’t locked up because we’re smart.  Everyday someone will leave a plastic knife out (used to cut veggies, smuggled out of officer’s chow).  Everyday someone will leave their locker open with bags of fresh vegetables and fruit in broad daylight; or, they’ll have their TV blasting BET.  It’s stupid, disrespectful, and brings heat on the neighborhood.

So I was careful where I moved.  I didn’t want to live in the “trailer park”, six bunks full of dirty, redneck white guys with trash everywhere.  Nor did I want to move into the “projects”, six bunks of mostly young black guys who listen to RAP late into the night and play poker and tonk nonstop every weekend. 

And I’m happy with my move.  No more climbing up and jumping down from five feet.  I can sit in my chair, watch TV, and write.  And my neighbors are almost all quiet and studious.  If you can have such a thing as privacy and respect living with 95 other guys in the space of a basketball court, I’ve got it.  And, I know, things could be worse.

Lunenburg is changing.  We’re not sure why.  It could be the Gov’s re-entry program, or budget constraints on DOC, or the realization that compounds made for 800 overtax water and sewage at 1200, but the compound population is decreasing.

Those rotten, short middle bunks the warden spent months installing in buildings are being removed.  Top bunks in the middle two rows in buildings 2 and 3 were taken out as were rear bunks sitting in the Fire Lane.  That’s a reduction of 26 inmate beds per building side, 104 less beds on the compound.  And the guys who lived in those bunks?  They were transported elsewhere.  Buildings 5 and 6 are next.  That change will reduce Lunenburg’s capacity to approximately 1,000. 

We’re not sure if our college building (4) or the factory building (1) will also be reduced.  It would be great:  70 guys fighting over four showers and four commodes instead of 96.  But, with 88 students (and more coming in around October 1^st) the college building would need both A side and B side.

Moving is expensive.  To transport an inmate from one compound to the next costs money, but so does keeping a man locked up for a year:  $25,000 and counting.

Ironically, the bunk I moved into belonged to one of our first IT grads who went home.  He’s working, going to school and doing well.  And ultimately, that is the move we all dream about.