School's in Session 2

Spring semester began the other day and we’re one week back into college. It’s funny really, how close we came to losing the whole program. And yet, out of the worst came a new feeling of excitement. Guys are generally excited about getting back in classes. There’s a new air in “4A,” our college-only dorm (or soon to be).

            There’s still fallout from December’s purge. Computers won’t return to the building until February. Another aide was let go. It’s simple really; you were either with the program or against it. If you were against it, you’re out. Four guys who ran their mouths and cut corners were axed. It was like the scene in “Godfather I” when the family convinces a young Michael Corleone to kill his father’s attacker. “It’ll lead to a bloodletting, but that’s good. You need one every five years or so,” Michael was told by one his father’s capos. And so it is in here.

            Change – even when traumatic – can be good. At MSRs all over the Commonwealth (medium security re-entry facilities) representatives of the community college are meeting with vets to get students for our GI Bill “IT” program. So far, over 50 such men have filed for their DD 214 (the Department of Defense form showing the vet had an honorable discharge and is GI Bill eligible). The first thirty approved will move here in late February; the remainder will be waiting listed until later this year.

            Think college doesn’t matter to guys in here? One of our grads recently won an award from Apple and the college he’s attending for designing a new app. In the press release it said he learned IT development in the “Campus within Walls” prison education program sponsored by SVCC.

            School’s back and it’s busy, and it’s challenging, and it’s making a difference. If only the rest of prison time was so successful.

 

The Senator's Son

A lot of attention was directed toward State Senator Creigh Deeds as Virginia’s new Governor – Terry McAuliffe – was sworn in. In less than one week, the outgoing Governor recognized Senator Deeds return to work during his farewell “State of the Commonwealth” address. Face it; Senator Deeds presents a compelling story. It is a story, unfortunately, that is widely ignored and swept under the proverbial rug except when violence erupts. Then – and only then – do we ask “why?” Why indeed.

            As everyone knows, shortly after Thanksgiving week a 911 call was placed by a neighbor of Senator Deeds. The Senator had been discovered staggered and bleeding as he walked along a rural roadway in Bath County. Deeds had been stabbed numerous times. Police went to the Senator’s house and during a guns-drawn search, found the body of Deed’s son, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

            Within a day the public learned that the Deeds’ son had suffered from serious mental illness. Interestingly, it has not been disclosed what this actual diagnosis was. A bright, quiet kid, his mental disorder led him to leave William and Mary College and – just days before his suicide – a failed attempt by his father (Senator Deeds) to have the young man hospitalized. For another few weeks (just like after the VA Tech massacre) Virginia’s mental health apparatus was on full display. The picture was not good.

            And now, with Senator Deeds healing from his physical wounds while grieving the death of his beloved son, the politicians gather again in Richmond to kick off yet another session of the General Assembly, and they say, “Something must be done about mental health.” Please, give me a break.

            His name is Gary. Of course, it could be Thomas or Tyrone or a dozen other names. Gary is thirty-five and suffers from schizophrenia. Each day, both morning and evening, Gary takes a combination of psychotropic medications. The pills dull his senses to the point that he sleeps upwards of twenty hours a day. It’s the only way DOC has found to turn off the voices in Gary’s head. That’s right; Gary hears voices, multiple voices. The pills work most times. But, there are other times, like last week …

            So Gary’s up three days straight. Even doped up with enough crap to stun a bull moose, he’s up twenty-four straight hours for three days. He’s fidgety. “What is it?” I ask, when a friend of Gary’s asks me to write up an emergency grievance to get him to medical. “It’s the voices,” the guy tells me. “They’re talking non-stop and telling him all kinds of crazy shit.” So I file the emergency grievance and I put in it, “psychotic breakdown,” words Medical knows Gary doesn’t know, and an hour later he’s called to medical. I see him a short while after that. “How’d it go?” I ask. “Ok. I’ll see the Psych tomorrow on video conference and he’ll adjust my pills.”

            That’s right; the psychiatrist isn’t actually on site. He handles multiple prisons via “video conference.” Five minutes on camera and a new script is written. More pills prescribed. It’s economics. You’ve got over one-third of the men here on psychotropic meds. That’s the extent of DOC’s psych treatments unless you’re unlucky enough to find yourself sent to Marion – that’s the state prison for the criminally insane.

            How bad do you have to be to end up in Marion? Try this: I’m at the receiving unit, also known as “hell,” and there’s a nineteen year old kid so wacked out that every night he’d scream “help me Jesus, they’re killing me!” He’d yell like that for hours until 4:00 a.m. when he would shout like a rooster “cock-a-doodle-doo.” And, paper, bars of soap, and profanity would be unleashed against the front of his cell. That young kid was shipped to Buckingham a level 3 prison. He was crazy, not criminally insane.

            Yeah, mental health should be a priority for the state. Almost half the Virginia DOC inmate population suffers from some mental disorder or illness. Here’s the irony: Tens of thousands of Virginians suffer from a mental disease or disorder and the state uses the criminal justice system to control them. Schizophrenic? Hear voices? That’s no excuse. You break the law, you go to prison. Then, all the prisons do for your mental condition is load you up with drugs. You need mental health services in the Commonwealth? Go to jail. At least you’ll get meds.

            I’m sick of politicians and private citizens wringing their hands every time a young Mister Deeds appears on the scene. Collectively, we don’t give a shit about mental health. It’s only after the poor, sick bastard acts out that we talk about it. You want to see how much Virginia cares about mental health? Come inside a prison during “pill call” and watch the hundreds of zombies stand in line for their hit of Prozac, or Thorazine, or Seroquel, or all three.

            There’s another young Mr. Deeds out there and Virginia’s only solution right now is to let him act out then watch him kill himself or send him to prison. That’s harsh, and vulgar, and way too accurate.

 

Oh Dennis

Here’s a quick thought: Dennis Rodman was in North Korea the other day helping the little despot Kim Jong Un celebrate his birthday. A reporter from CNN asked Rodman about American Kenneth Bae being held in prison by North Korea for no reason. And Rodman gave a stupid, drunken answer to support the repressive regimes blatant human rights abuse of Mr. Bae (Rodman has since apologized).

            No doubt North Korea is one of the worst nations in the world when it comes to human rights abuse. But I wonder, is America living in a “glass house”?

            The United States continues to operate Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba in violation of International human rights protocols. Over 400 men are held in isolation (again a violation of human rights accords) without charges ever having been brought against them (some have been held for over twelve years).

            A court-appointed JAG defense attorney told CBS, “Every morning we raise the flag and play the Star Spangled Banner, but the constitution isn’t allowed at Gitmo.”

            Hearings are held in secret. Attorney conferences with clients are listened in on. And prisoners are denied basic constitutional rights. But that’s ok, because if America doesn’t violate its own principles, the terrorists win. Wait a minute, that doesn’t make any sense. Precisely.

            Just as the petty tyrant Kim Jong Un should heed the call for Kenneth Bae’s release, so too must America with Guantanimo Bay. Or, we’re no better than him.

Summer of 1927 – Déjà vu All Over Again

I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s “Summer of 1927,” a fascinating historical look at one astounding year in America. One section – about prohibition – caught my attention. Prohibition, wrote Bryson, “was easily the most extreme, ill-judged, costly, and ignored experiment in social engineering ever conducted by an otherwise rational nation … It made criminal out of honest people and actually led to an increase in the amount of drinking in the country.” As I read Bryson’s tragic yet comedic recounting of prohibition, I couldn’t help but think of the nation’s current “War on Drugs.” We learned nothing from prohibition.

            America has 25% of the worlds incarcerated. Approximately 40% of the men and women behind bars are in prison due to some drug-related conviction. The sale of drugs is one of the primary means gangs use to finance their operations. Over fifty-thousand Mexicans have died as that nation – under direct pressure from the United States – seeks to curb the flow of illegal drugs north.

            Heroin and crystal Meth use are rapidly increasing as is crime associated with the manufacture and sale of these drugs. Prescription pain medication abuse is near epidemic levels. The inner cities are as awash in drugs as they were in the late 60’s and early 70’s. New synthetic drugs such as ecstasy are easily found in almost any high school in America. And this nation’s response? Criminalize it, drive it underground, and treat it like booze in the 1920s. Does anyone see the insanity of this approach?

            Who benefits from America’s “War on Drugs?” For one, the drug cartels and gangs who make billions off this illegal cash business without any taxes being paid. And all that cash gets serviced by banks; America’s financial services industry launders the money.

            Then there’s the prison industrial complex - companies who make billions providing services to state prison systems at a breaking point due to America’s drug war. From inmate medical care, to alcohol and drug treatment, food services – even whole privately-owned prisons with corporate employees serving as guards – these corporations make billions off the incarcerated and their families.

            And law enforcement itself. $60 billion dollars a year for prisons; $120 billion a year for the criminal justice apparatus. Police departments get more and more dollars as others – schools, and community health care, and transportation – fight over the rest. You would think we would have learned from prohibition.

            So guys come to prison, get out, go right back to the drugs, and come right back in. The drug bosses and the CEOs of C.C.A., and GEO and Keefe. Keep smiling because the money’s still coming in.

 

The Governor and The Gospel

The other night, Governor Bob McDonnell gave his final “State of the Commonwealth” address. At noon Saturday, with the swearing in of Terry McAuliffe, McDonnell’s term will end. McDonnell faces a challenging post-office future. The prospect of Federal indictment hangs over his head. His future in politics – what was once thought of as a lock for vice-presidential nomination and a senate seat – seems almost certainly destroyed. He leaves office quietly, wearing the strain and stain of scandal.

            And his remarks took on a sedate tone. He thanked members of the General Assembly – Republicans and Democrats – for working together. He spoke about his administration’s accomplishments without sounding pompous. And then he cited the Gospel of Matthew. The Governor talked about Matthew 25, and the poor, the sick, the homeless, the prisoners. And he said. “Virginians have done for the least of these among us.” I shook my head and smiled. Only in America, I thought, can we create a civil religion and ignore the real political action while citing the most radical, profound call Jesus made. We try and co-opt the Messiah and His message without giving a moment’s thought to the radical, life-altering words it contains.

            Years ago when I first started this blog I wrote an open letter the then newly-appointed Director of the Department of Corrections, Harold Clarke. It was in response to Clarke giving an interview suggesting his Christian faith dictated how he conducted himself as director. In that blog, I bluntly asked Clarke, “What kind of director of corrections would Jesus be?” I may be wrong, but somehow I don’t think Jesus would be involved in corrections, not in the way Virginia operates it. Jesus, you see, is about rebirth, and forgiveness, and sacrifice, and hope. None of those things are evident in Virginia’s prisons except in the hearts of those who believe, believe that there can be a resurrection to a failed life.

            But the Governor said “Virginians have done for the least …” Really? Governor McDonnell, have you seen the conditions in your state’s prisons and jails? How many Virginia children live below the poverty line? What is the status of mental health care in the state? What, Governor, would Jesus say about your administration?

            Here’s the thing – the Gospels of Jesus Christ are not for the faint of heart, nor should they be co-opted into some inane political sound bite. None of us can say we are living His message. His message – of radical love and service and forgiveness – is so consuming, we all fall short. Instead of telling each other how Christian we are, we should be like the tax collector in prayer, with head bowed saying “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Heaven, the Lord said, awaits that man.

            We believers are called to take the words of the Beatitudes to heart, to forgive “seven times seventy,” no matter what, to not worry or fret and know that the Lord is near, to give everything for God. That message is beyond anything the Governor or any of us could ever do. It is a message of hope and perfection, and woe to any politician who tries to claim it as his or her own.

 

School's in Session

College classes start Monday. That in itself is amazing. Think about those words, “College classes start” and remember I’m in prison behind three heavy metal fences interwoven with razor wire. Remember that almost 70% of men and women behind bars have less than a high school education. Those three words continue to astound me. Monday we start up again with seed money from a private college foundation. The government will spend $60 billion this year locking up and keeping 2.3 million people behind bars. That’s $6o billion by the states and Federal government on prisons. And yet, Virginia (which will spend $1.3 billion just on its adult prisons) will provide zero dollars – that’s right $0.00 – on higher education in its prisons. “College classes start,” Wow! Liberal arts for the incarcerated (I wonder how that would sound in Latin!)

            In dozens of blogs, I’ve written about the longer term recidivism prognosis for inmates who earn college degrees while behind bars. No rehabilitation or re-entry program used in any prison matches the results achieved when an inmate becomes a college graduate. Recidivism is virtually eliminated. That piece of paper does what no other program behind bars can do: it stops released offenders from returning to prison.

            “College classes start.” Ask the public about support for school behind bars, ask about empathy for the horrible conditions in most prisons, and the average polled law-abiding citizen will say, “the hell with them. That’s what they deserve for breaking the law.” I know, I used to say it myself. Somehow, in spite of that ignorant attitude, there will be college again.

            In March, twenty vets – almost all of whom served post-9/11 – will begin college classes in the IT program. I’m always surprised when I see politicians and citizens line up to say how much they appreciate the sacrifices made by our men and women in the armed forces. Words are cheap. PTSD is in epidemic proportions among the post-9/11 vets. Depression (and suicide), drug-abuse, homelessness, and yes, criminal convictions, are all at watershed levels. The VA is impotent when it comes to Veteran Mental Health. “Thank you for your service.” Yeah right. Still, vets from all five MSR facilities (medium security, re-entry) are signing up to move here and participate in our GI college program. “College classes start.” It has a nice ring to it.

            That’s the “macro” view, the big picture. Here’s the “micro” look. We almost lost the program. For six months, the money had dried up. Guys got discouraged. They put in for transfers. “College is dead,” was the word all over the compound. Try keeping seventy guys positive in this environment. It was tough. Then came “black Thursday” when two of our college aides got locked up. Three times after that I was called to the investigator’s office. “We can lock you up,” they’d tell me and I’d smile. Hell, I’d think, I’m already locked up.

            Three times our building’s been shook down. “Where are the thumb drives? Where are the burned CDs?” Nothing was found and college, well we got the computers back and we’re starting … again.

            One of my new “projects” is to prepare the guys for success in school. Time management, study habits, note taking, research methods, and writing skills – five areas most men here sorely lack competency in. I told the guys the other day, “We’re under the microscope.” Many here – officers and inmates alike – are pulling for us to fail. The night before our class meeting I noticed “Bridge Over the River Kwai” was on one of the classic movie channels.

            “Watch the movie,” I told the guys. “And watch the British Colonel at the beginning.” For you movie buffs, you’ll remember the Colonel shows up and he sees thousands of British P.O.W.s out of uniform, stealing from each other, and carrying on with no discipline. “You are behaving exactly the way the enemy expects you to,” he tells his officer corp. “The men must remember they are soldiers in his majesty’s army.” The Colonel then confronts the Japanese camp officer. The Colonel risks his own life to show his men what it means to conduct yourself with pride and decorum.

            My point? People expect men in prison to behave a certain way. Instead, we need to act with pride and dignity and show all these naysayers we’re better men that our convictions.

            “College classes start.” You could see it in their faces yesterday when guys came by to get their textbooks and when my friend Mike led an impromptu math review class on set theory to get everyone up to speed. I was walking back after work with a few of the guys when one of them started whistling. “It’s ‘Bridge Over the River Kwai’,” another guy said. “Catchy tune.” Yeah, school is back in session. Thought dead and resurrected. “College classes start.”

Road to Triumph

I read a devotion the other morning that began with a story about French General Ferdinand Foch at the First Battle of the Marne during World War I. the Germans had attacked in overwhelming numbers and the French lines were disintegrating. Foch sent the following communiqué to headquarters.

            “My center is giving away, my right is retreating. Situation excellent. I am attacking.”

            The author of the devotion wrote that “sometimes in life’s battles we can feel as if we are losing on every front.” He then noted that trials can be God’s road to triumph. I thought about those words this week as I tried to steel myself for another year in here. I spend every morning before sunrise in prayer and Bible reading. And, I think this experience has made me a better man, a better Christian, a wiser, more merciful believer. But faith and hope are tested repeatedly and I’ve come to accept that having faith, believing when everything tells you otherwise, is the key.

            For the past six months a group of supporters have been lobbying to get my sentence reduced – modified in a way that would allow me to leave prison and get to work paying off my restitution and doing what I’ve been called to do. That sounds funny from in here, saying you have a calling, but one of the many things I’ve learned during my time in here is that I can teach and motivate men in very difficult circumstances.

            Many people wrote letters to the Governor on my behalf. My cousin, who – along with her husband – has cared for me and supported me in more ways than I can count since those very dark days at the jail, sent me copies of those letters. “Read them when you’re feeling down so you see what people think of you,” she told me when she mailed them. I haven’t read any yet. I haven’t been in a position where I “needed” to read them and, quite candidly, the fact that someone would take the time and effort to write on my behalf is very humbling and touching. So, I start each day reminding myself I can’t do anything that would discourage and disappoint the people who have backed me, and prayed for me, and hung in there with me when logic and common sense should have told them otherwise.

            Hope is a mysterious thing. It’s a feeling that what is wanted will happen. It’s expectation. Combined with faith – an unquestioning trust and confidence – hope is what keeps us going when everything tells us all is lost. As I’ve written before, I love how Stephen King’s protagonist Andy Dufresne in “The Shawshank Redemption” explains hope:

            “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. And hope never dies.”

            Michael Morton spent twenty-five years in a Texas prison for the murder of his wife. The evidence, the prosecutor said, was overwhelming. Morton described his nights in the prison, the screams, the smells, the despair. At one point in his time behind bars, his son (who was required to visit once each quarter) wrote and said “I don’t want to visit anymore.” What could Morton do? Within two years, the son wrote again. This time to ask that he be allowed to be adopted by his aunt and uncle and change his last name. Morton just said, “Those days were the worst.”

            Twenty years after he entered Texas DOC the parole board (yes Virginia, Texas still has parole) offered to release Morton. “Admit you killed your wife and you will make parole.” Morton couldn’t do it. No matter how much he hated prison, how much he missed freedom and fresh air and privacy and the thousand other things we take for granted each day, he couldn’t say he killed his wife.

            Morton had a lawyer who for nine years had tried without success to get his case reopened. “I told him to take the parole board’s offer,” the lawyer said. “And when he told me he couldn’t, when he told me he knew all he had left was his honor, I promised then and there I’d never give up trying to get him free.” Honor matters. Even when you face the worst you do so with dignity and honor. And you hope. You never give up hope.

            I wish I could say that the whole time I’ve been in here I was honorable, but I can’t. When I first got locked up, I was a mess. I’d spent so much time living with what I was doing, so much time anxious, depressed, and hating myself that my arrest should have been a relief. It wasn’t. I lost everything I loved and held dear and it didn’t depart quietly. I was full of fear and self-pity. I said things. I wrote things. I thought things that I deeply regret. I was weak, and cowardly, and dishonest. It’s hard to imagine being worse than you are at your lowest, yet I was. Jail was not character building. Jail was destroying what little was left.

            So Michael Morton stayed in prison and he hoped, and he prayed, and he believed. One evening, years earlier, when the prison was awash in the cacophony of piercing screams and shouts, Morton put his headphones on and turned his small radio dial to nothing but static. He wanted the white noise to block out every sound around him.

            He lay there with his eyes closed and the sounds of the prison drowned out amid the constant crack and whir of static until he heard it, the clear beautiful sound of a classical music piece on a station that never came in on his radio. And the music soothed him; he felt peace and security; the bitterness and the loss left him. Even though he was behind bars, Michael Morton was free.  And I knew what he meant.  I understood.  I’d been there and had the same epiphany, that moment I knew it would all be alright.

            Freedom. On the eve of his twenty-fifth year behind bars a Texas court ordered DNA testing on evidence – a blood soaked bandana – found at the scene. The test showed Michael Morton’s wife’s blood and the blood of an itinerant construction worker already doing a life sentence for the rape and murder of a woman that occurred less than a year after the death of Morton’s wife. A review of the evidence used to convict Morton showed that the prosecutors withheld evidence that would have exonerated Morton. The prosecutors needed a conviction, so why not the husband?

            And just like that, the doors of the prison swung open. Morton was exonerated with apology – and money – from the state. But the twenty-five years? The bitterness over the loss? How do you go on? “I never gave up hope,” he said. Hope is a good thing. Andy Dufresne sure knew what he was talking about.

            On a sweltering July day in 1863, Joshua Chamberlain looked over all that remained of his bloodied Maine regiment. Only one of six men remained standing. They were out of ammunition. All day they had fought, barely holding their line against a succession of enemy attacks. They could not stop another onslaught. Nothing stood between his line and his army’s rear. His battered regiment was the right flank of the union line. There was no reason to go on. No hope of success. But hope is a funny thing. Sometimes it just takes a step forward. Chamberlain ordered his men to fix bayonets; and they followed; on the order they charged down the hill into the advancing army; and the tide turned and the men from Maine prevailed; and the union was saved.

            I don’t know what the Governor will do. In less than a week his term ends. The new Governor will take his oath of office on Saturday ending the McDonnell administration. And Governor McDonnell? He faces his own legal problems. The Washington Post recently reported that the Governor’s private attorneys met with Justice Department prosecutors to delay his indictment on influence peddling and improper receipt of gifts until after his term expires. And I’ve wandered the past few weeks if in his time alone the Governor ever said to himself “I wish I’d handled things differently.” Or “I’m a good man who made a mess of things. I just need a fresh start.” I wonder if he has had his epiphany yet, his revelation that there are consequences to our actions and we have to face those consequences – “man up” – and then move forward with integrity and honor.

            I don’t know if I’m getting out early. I do know I have hope and hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. Hope a lot of times is all we have left when we lose everything else. But, hope never dies. As long as you hope, you are on the road to triumph. It doesn’t matter if you’re in prison, or poverty, or just in pain. Hope keeps you going.

Year-End Thoughts and Timely Rants – It’s All Words

Another year down. A lot has been going on the past few weeks in here and out in the “real” world that’s kept me thinking. For better or worse, there’s plenty of time to think while you’re in here. Funny, but most guys try and avoid thinking in here. Thinking is dangerous. You think and you ask yourself “why,” why did I ever let it get this far, why did I not properly account for the consequences, why did I not understand the hurt my arrest would bring? Guys try and avoid why; they try to avoid painful self-reflection and admit no matter how bad their lives were, how bad the hand they were dealt, they – and they alone – are responsible for their incarceration. Yeah, thinking is dangerous in here.
            I have a friend, a young guy I work with – only 36 and already he’s been in twenty-one years on a first degree murder charge. He killed a neighbor kid, a teenage boy just like him, and then casually left the scene, changed out of his blood-soaked clothes (stabbing someone to death will do that), and went to school. He was in the school cafeteria when the SWAT team came swarming in and with guns drawn arrested him.

            Every year since his twelfth behind bars he’s come up for parole (murder 1, old law, do twelve, then parole eligibility until you hit your “mandatory” release date – usually at 50% of your sentence). Every year at his hearing the parole examiner asks, “Do you know why you did it, why you killed that boy?” And every year he gives the same answer: “I don’t know. I haven’t given it that much thought?” What??

            I don’t get it. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about my selfish, stupid, reckless behavior. I can’t forget the call to my wife, her words in her letters telling me she was divorcing me. I can’t forget my parents’ faces in court as I was sentenced. I have a running list in my head of every person who in spite of my complete self-immolation of my life – has sent me a letter or card saying “you’re in our thoughts and prayers.” I remember to the millisecond that moment when I gave up and when God said “not yet.” My entire purpose for being now is to make right what I did wrong. I can’t help but think about it; and he says it never crosses his mind. Thinking.

            Nelson Mandela died a few weeks ago. He was – he is – a remarkable man. No one gave him much thought when he was arrested and imprisoned for having the radical idea that apartheid was evil. Mandela was no Gandhi. He was willing to use violence to achieve his goal.   The white government sent him to prison to silence him. They misjudged who they were dealing with.

            A writer noted that prison was “the crucible that formed the Mandela we know.” No matter what happened in prison the system could not take away Madela’s pride, his dignity, and his sense of justice. “He refused,” the writer said, “to be intimidated in any circumstance.” Mandela, talking about prison, simply said. “I came out mature.”

            I carry a Mandela quote with me. It goes:

            “Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.” Such beautiful words. Such powerful meaning.  Difficulties.

            I have a friend in here named Chuck. I met him at receiving. Chuck’s an “old head,” sixty-five and four more to go in here. This isn’t Chuck’s “first rodeo.” He’s been in twice before. Chuck has a drinking problem. He also has a temper problem. Combing the two is like using a match around gasoline. Chuck was driving drunk when a cop pulled him over. “I just wanna go home,” Chuck sputtered and pulled a gun on the cop. Chuck then walked home and passed out in his yard.

            Law enforcement didn’t take kindly to Chuck’s gun waving – “threatening an officer” they called it and now he’s doing ten years. But, Chuck was there at receiving and he knows what a psychotic carnival DOC is.

            Anyway, Chuck’s been in visits a number of times when I’ve been up on my monthly visit with my parents. And Chuck always gives a wave and a “Hey counselor,” shout out to me. The other afternoon, I finished running and Chuck was sitting on the picnic table. He called me over. “Saw you in VI Saturday,” he said. “I wanted to tell your folks from the first time I saw them at receiving they never had to worry about you. I’ve seen you face down gang bangers and knuckleheads and never once back off from your convictions or who you are.” I thought about Chuck’s words that night. I feel alone and isolated much of the time that I’m in here. I frankly don’t get much of the behavior or bullshit that passes for being a “grown ass man” in here. There is nothing “grown” or “manly” about much of what guys do in here.

            At first, I think I was overly aggressive, overly blunt because I had some deep felt desire to get my ass kicked. See, I hated what I was outside; hated who I’d become; and I didn’t see any way of finding the real me again. So I was blunt and brutal and stood my ground and kept waiting to be punched or jumped or worse. And it never came. It never came because for all the bravado voiced in here, men in prison are basically cowards. They join gangs because they’re afraid to be alone. They talk of their gun exploits and their break-ins and beatings as evidence of their machismo. And I saw through it. I saw it was a bunch of lies and bullshit.

            Guys in here are afraid of me (funny, but my young friend Mustafa says I could be vicious bully if I wanted to be), afraid because I tell them the truth. Prison exposes a man’s weakness. It takes a lot to carry yourself with self-respect, pride, and dignity. I’ve come to realize the men who learn that overcome prison and all the other baggage they carry.  Self-respect.

            My friend Bob left the day after Christmas. In the past month four men who made prison livable have left: Scotty and Dave got home (and are doing great); Craig was transferred after his major screw up (and I still feel that loss); and Bob. Bob is a man of honor and courage. Bob came in very young in the eighties after committing a very violent crime. And he saw and survived the worst in prison: the racial animus, the stabbings, extortion, and rapes, and the drugs. He made parole before he defeated the demons he faced. And drugs and alcohol led him back here.

            Bob didn’t give up. He left the other day with a future laid out for him. He was a guy who in another time in my life I would have considered a friend. He was serious when need be, well-read, and loyal, characteristics sorely lacking in here. I will miss my conversations with him. I know he will do well. Friendship.

            A federal judge appointed by George W. Bush ruled that the NSA surveillance program was “most probably unconstitutional.” He asked, “What would our founding fathers say to our government’s massive snooping?” I wonder. We live in a nation of fear. We are afraid of “terrorists” and in the name of defeating them we sell our national identity of freedom. Meanwhile, more children die each year in this country from poverty, hunger, and neglect than all the deaths caused by terrorists in this nation’s history.

            In the name of law and order we’ve created a massive prison industrial complex that incarcerates more men and women than any country in the world; more behind bars than Stalin’s gulag purges in the Soviet Union. I live in a police state inside prison where I am constantly subjected to cameras, strip searches and questioning. And the officers are always right; the cameras conveniently turn off when a man is left to die from a heart attack or during a confrontation with an officer. If people outside don’t wake up and demand that their freedoms be respected, the difference between life inside the fence and outside the fence will only be the barbed wire. Freedom.

            I’ve spent a good deal of time this past year thinking about God. Funny writing that because I’ve come to believe God thinks about me all the time. Before my arrest, I was an ordained elder in my church and taught Sunday School and yet I learned more about the mystery and magnificence of God in a dark cell and even darker days in here than ever before.

            Here’s what I’ve realized. We talk a lot about God’s blessings when things are going great, but we don’t give Him much thought. And then our world comes crashing down and like Job we yell out, “Why” and we’re scared, and alone, and at the end of our rope and the time comes in the quiet and stillness of the night we know, we know we aren’t alone; we are loved. I believe the words of Pastor Rick Warren:

            “God can bring good even out of the bad in my life … God loves to turn crucifixions into resurrections.”

            Very hopeful words from a man dealing with the suicide of his oldest son. Faith.

            I love Pope Francis which is surprising coming from such an unabashed Protestant. But this Pope gets it. God is in the AIDS wards, and war zones, and prisons, and slums. He’s with those crying for help and out of loss or pain or fear. “Emmanuel,” “God with us.” The last few weeks I haven’t been able to get that Advent hymn out of my mind:

            “O come, O come Emmanuel
            And ransom captive Israel”

            And over Christmas I re-read Luke’s Gospel and remembered Jesus in the synagogue where He read from the Prophet Isaiah, “He has sent Me to proclaim release to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed.” That is the God who kept me going when I made such a mess of my life. That’s the God who sees me though today.

            So it’s the New Year and things are good because I have hope. And as Andy Dufresne says in “The Shawshank Redemption,”

            “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. And hope never dies.” Hope.

Who's Calling?

Last Saturday, amid the suicide in building “7,” a new crisis broke out here. Over in building “2,” on a slow, rainy Saturday with the compound locked down as the administration dealt with the death of an inmate while in their isolation custody, an inmate decided to call his girlfriend. “No big deal,” you say. Except the guy made the call from his bunk. That’s right; the guy had a cell phone.

            Cell phones inside a prison are a major security breach. Get caught with one and it’s an automatic trip to “the Onion,” Red Onion – Virginia’s only supermax facility. The only way to get a cell phone in is through staff. Some DOC employee here is dirty. Pay him or her a couple of hundred dollars and the phone gets smuggled in with a charger and access card or number that lets you put minutes on the phone. Yeah, having a guy with a phone in the building is a big deal – bigger, in fact, than some inmate choking to death on a Styrofoam cup!

            So Einstein is waxing philosophical to his “boo” and an officer hears and sees it. A confrontation ensues and the inmate and his phone are placed in custody and taken to the hole. Two other officers remain in the building to pack Alexander Graham Bell’s belongings up. And lo and behold they find a pocket knife and a shiv (homemade knife). Things start to get real interesting in “2” building right about then!

            Building “2” – both sides – was immediately put on full lockdown. No one came out without escort; the building wasn’t allowed any rec on Sunday; chow calls came after everyone else on the compound ate and returned to their own housing.

            Monday morning brought shift change and the night shift was ready to head home for a five day break. Except they couldn’t leave. The night shift – about thirty of them anyway – stayed over and en masse marched into “2.” For six hours they ripped “2” building apart searching for anything else. One guy and his pillow left in handcuffs. At least thirty mattresses came out for x-ray. Just like everything else in here a few hours later it was over.

            What’s the result? Well, for one thing the investigators are demanding to know “Who brought you the phone?” The inmate is sticking with “A guy I didn’t know was going home and left it with me.” They know that’s a lie – and not a very good one – but a week or two from now, after the inmate is transported to Red Onion, this too shall pass. That’s prison, crazy behavior and even crazier responses.

            It’s been a heck of a couple of weeks in here, but you learn to roll with the punches.

 

 

Just Another Dead Inmate

The staff here screwed up the other day. An inmate had a breakdown on Friday while in his building. He was handcuffed, taken to medical to check him out, then dropped in “the hole,” isolation, and placed on suicide watch. That’s not uncommon in prison. Guy gets news from home – death of his mother, a sibling, or child, maybe finds out his wife is divorcing him and taking up with a new man – and he snaps because he can’t do anything else, and prisons have a way of breaking your psyche. Prisons make grown men weak. And weakness is preyed upon inside.

            So the inmate, having a fit and throwing whatever he can get his hands on, is tossed into isolation. Security protocol dictates that nothing be in the cell except basics: toilet paper, a small bar of soap, a set of sheets (of course, at another Virginia prison a few years ago, an inmate choked to death trying to swallow a sheet), and officer instructions to check on him every fifteen minutes. And that’s what an officer will do. Every fifteen minutes he’ll walk up to the door, peer in the window and through the metal tray slot yell, “You alright?” Then, he’ll log it in “the book.” Everything gets noted in the book, thick log books – dozens of them – in building booths and security stations going into program and vocational buildings. Every minute detail is noted in the book. Of course, it’s easy to fudge the book when you only check on someone every hour instead of every 15 minutes.

            All Friday night, into Saturday morning, night shift checked on the inmate and logged in “inmate alright.” Day shift arrives at 6:00 a.m. and shortly thereafter, breakfast trays are served back in the hole. The guy on suicide watch can’t be given a plastic spork or a hard plastic tray – after all, he could hurt himself with those things. He’s given a Styrofoam cup and a Styrofoam box holding his meal. The day shift drops it off then decides to let him eat in peace – or should I say pieces.

            See, the inmate ate Styrofoam cup and tray. By the time the day shift C.O. made his next pass through, the inmate was already blue and unresponsive. Per guys in the hole, the C.O.s hadn’t checked on him for over 45 minutes. An officer saw him lying face down on the cell floor. “Get up. Count time.” When he didn’t move, the C.O. called for backup. That took another ten minutes. A medical emergency was called and staff tried to resuscitate him. The compound shut down – no one moved in or out of any building – as the nurses wheeled him to a waiting ambulance for the short ride to the hospital and the official pronouncement of death.

            That’s when the fun really began. Medical shut down for the rest of the day. Officers on duty in “7 Bldg” – a/k/a “the hole” – had to be interviewed and log books verified. But, at the end of the day it’s just another dead inmate, just another law breaker who’d been costing taxpayers $25,000 per year. And in the schadenfreude society we live in, I’m sure a number of folks will say he was weak for killing himself, or created this situation by breaking the law. I just find it ironic that folks are sent to prison to become “law abiding” citizens and these prisons are nothing but dysfunctional, soul breaking zoos. Not really a healthy environment to rehabilitate in.

            Another dead inmate. It happens. It happens quite regularly. In this case, it happened to a middle aged son – and father of two children – who was suffering from severe depression. It happened to a man in the middle of a mental health crisis and correction’s response to that crisis was to throw him into a windowless 8 by 10 cell. And, I wonder if there needs to be a law against not giving a damn when you throw a depressed man in solitary? What do I know, I’m just another inmate.

His Mother's Voice

My buddy Rabbi Dave went home Monday. As I write this, he’s back in his house in Pennsylvania starting his life over. I’ve said this a lot in the blog, but prison is a tough place to build friendships. So much of what goes on in here is really a con game. Relationships don’t matter; it’s what you can get from someone that counts. It’s an environment where “trust” is a four letter words and “use” is the golden rule. And that has always bothered me.

            I try and be genuine in here. Who I am in prison is who I am with family and friends outside. Am I weary and cautious at times? I have to be. Still, guys I’m close with matter. And there are a handful – three to five – which I can see keeping in touch with. Rabbi Dave is one such guy.

            I’m glad I met Dave in here. He’s a good guy. And I’m glad he’s home. His last full day here, his mom drove down from PA to pick him up. The weather was terrible (ice and snow). Another guy in the building offered to get Dave patched through to his mom while she was on the road. I saw him on the phone; a few minutes later he stood by the door wiping his eyes. “You ok?” I asked. He told me that was the first time in over eight years that he’d heard his mother’s voice.

            They had had a falling out before his arrest and conviction. Contact between them had been sporadic for a number of years. I get that; more importantly, he got it. It’s easy, almost too easy, disappointing those we love. But time, and the bond between a son and his mother, helped to lessen the hurt and remind each that what was between them was stronger than what drove them apart.

            And I thought about something Pastor Rick Warren wrote recently. Warren, author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” has been dealing with the suicide of his youngest son, who had struggled with mental illness.

            “This year became the worst year of my life,” Warren wrote. “How am I supposed to be thankful?” He answered this way:

            “God doesn’t expect me to be thankful for all circumstances, but in all circumstances … God sees all I go through. He cares … God can bring good even out of the bad in my life … God loves to turn crucifixions into resurrections.”

            Eight years and he heard her voice; and he cried out of joy; and he went home. You can give me a dozen explanations for Dave’s new life beginning at home but I think Pastor Warren’s is the only one for me. Nothing good comes from prison but good can come from any circumstances. My friend Dave reminded me of that.

 

College Update

I wrote last week about the shake up in the college following three of the aides getting busted. The week took a strange twist. As quickly as all hell broke loose, it dissipated. On Monday, I was called into the principal’s office and told the investigation was over. The two senior aides were getting 100 series charges and were being packed up for transfer. The third aide, “Access Mike,” received a 200 series charge and would be allowed to stay, but he’s prohibited from computer access.

“You’re now the senior aide. I need you to get us registered for classes to begin January 7^th.” The rest of the week I spent time trying to rebuild what was close to being destroyed. How close did we come to losing college? The principal shared an email with me from the Regional Director to the warden. The investigation made its way to the senior DOC staff. The conclusion: too much is at stake to let two guys, and their reckless behavior, close college.
           
It’s tough. Prison is not conclusive to empathy. Once the heat was off and things began to return to normal, the general consensus was jokes and contempt for our lost aides. “F --- em,” was heard over and over followed by “Do you know what classes I can take Larry?” Personal interest trumps reflection and empathy every time in here.

Are things any different? Hard to tell right now.

Inmates are usually not known to learn life lessons from others’ misfortunes.  The students and aides met with the warden on Wednesday.  Our building will revert to all college students in the next month or so.  We’ll get classes going and move on and, hopefully, a few guys will earn their degrees.

One thing prison has taught me is everything can change in an instant.  Nothing in here is guaranteed.  Prison, I guess, is just like real life.

Funny to See You in Here

Prison is a funny place to run into someone from your prior life. For some strange reason, it’s happened to me more than once. A few years ago, I was in the law library when a college sociology class was about to begin. I recognized the instructor. Likewise, he recognized me. And so began my conversation with “Jim.”

            “Larry, what are you doing?”

            “About ten more years. How are you?”

            “So so since the school (i.e. the university my ex works at) let me go. You know (insert ex’s name here) was head of the tenure committee that put me out.”

            “I didn’t know that. I’ve been handcuffed by own problems the past year and a half.” (bad joke)

            Funny how my old world collides with life in here sometime. A handful of counselors here are graduates of the university where she works and I played professor’s husband. And these people always want to tell me they remember seeing me at some dinner or event on campus. One guy even remembers me speaking to his Constitutional Law class (a favor to a History professor my ex knew). You would think these things would bother me. They don’t, not really anyway. Oh, there’s that briefest of moments when I can’t help but feel the emptiness and loss of so much from that “old” life. That quickly gives way to the reminder that I screwed up, big time, but I’ve tried since then to make it right. And, nothing about being in here lessens who I am.

            That theory was tested again last week when a new senior administrator started working here. He’s in charge of all re-entry services and programs, a very important job given this facility’s status as a “reentry center.”

            I’d come back from work and was lying on my bunk reading and waiting for rec call. The door opened and in came the Warden and his entourage: the Major, the Assistant Warden, the three Unit Managers, and a handful of counselors. And I see a new guy walking with the warden and the Major as the warden says “this is the college building side. B side is part one of the cognitive housing program.”

            “I know that guy,” I thought. At the same time that I noticed him, he noticed me.
            “Larry, what are you doing here?”
            “About ten years.” (My lines somehow keep repeating). I told him I was a college aide and worked in GED classes as well.

            “I’ll talk to you again soon, “he said and followed the group over to the other side of the building. He was my neighbor. He lived two doors up from me “BA” – before arrest. He still lives there only now there’s a different car in the driveway and it belongs to my ex’s fiancé.

            I ran into him the next day. He saw me in class and waved me out to the hallway. He shook my hand. “I wish I could give you a hug. The neighborhood has not been the same since you left.” I hate to say it, but that felt good in here. He asked how I was holding up and it was genuine.

            “I disclosed to security that I knew you. You have an outstanding record; no problems with you being here under my management.” And that was it. I returned to class; he returned to his job; our lives crossing paths a second time in a totally different way.

            Because this is a re-entry facility so many of the inmates are returning here with a home just a few miles from the front gate. The officers who work here are their neighbors. They went to school together, played little league together. A lot of them drank together and bought weed from the same sources. They hunted the same fields; some even dated the same women.

            But they find themselves in the same place. The roles are different, but the goal is the same. At the end of the day you want some place to call home.

            I don’t mind when someone here recognizes me. I can’t change what happened, I can only go forward. So far, the recognition has been good: “You were a good guy,” they all tell me. In my mind I say, “No, I am a good guy.” This place won’t change that – or me.

The Day the Music Would Die …

Backstory:  It’s the winter of 1977, just between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m home from my first semester at college. There’s a benefit concert over in the chapel at Vassar College which is less than five miles from my home. Ah, Vassar College. Recently (in ’77), made coeducational, most of the women dreamed of being the next Gloria Steinman or Betty Friedan. The guys who chose to attend Vassar in those early years were way too artsy and sexually ambiguous for college girls, even Vassar girls, so picking them up was as easy as shooting ducks in a barrel. All you had to do was mention Joan Baez or Judy Collins, be pro-ERA and abortion and you were in. We loved going to Vassar.
           
There’s a benefit for some cause and Don McLean and Harry Chapin were playing; each a solo, acoustic act; each with a few hits already. Chapin wrote and sang the soulful ballad of a father looking back on not being there for his son in “Cats in the Cradle,” and “Taxi.” But, it was Don McLean we were going to see. He had a beautiful ballad about Vincent Van Gough that I found myself humming as I ran on those fall college days:

                        “Starry Starry night

                        picture palate blues and greys
                        look out on a summer’s day
                        with eyes to dark to see …”

It was McLean’s other song, his ten to fifteen minute FM dirge about the death of Buddy Holly that we all wanted to hear and sing along to. We were all young and brash, too brash really. We were middle class kids whose fathers all worked for IBM. We were all in college and had the world waiting on us. We knew nothing of war, disease, or distress. We had all the answers. Problem was, we knew none of the questions. There we were listening to a guy not much older than us tell us about dreams dying:

“A long, long time ago

                         I can still remember how that music used to
                         make me smile.
                        And I knew if I had the chance
                        That I could make those people dance
                        And maybe they’d be happy for awhile
                       
                        But February made me shiver
                       With every paper I delivered
                       Bad news on the doorstep
                       I couldn’t take one more step
           
                       I can’t remember if I cried
                      When I read about his widowed bride
                      But something touched me deep inside
                     The day the music would die …”

And we sang “American Pie” and we thought we knew everything he was talking about. And you know what? We didn’t have a clue …

Fast forward to the present.  It’s Thanksgiving, my sixth one behind bars. I listen to a lot of old music. No offense to “artists” today, but music is all over-commercialized, over-dubbed, and recorded. You want music that matters; you turn to Dylan, the Dead, the Allman Brothers, and Bob Marley. Hell, I sit around now wearing out a Jimmy Buffet compilation and the guys look at me like I’m listening to big band swing music (check that, they don’t know what the big band era was and “swing” music gets a glazed over stare). Still, they gather around me for lyrical pearls of wisdom.

I keep a three ring binder full of song lyrics, close to one hundred and fifty songs. I use lyrics daily; like trying to explain poetry to guys in the creative writing class, I pull out the Beatles’ “Let it Be” –
           
           “When I find myself in times of trouble
            Mother Mary comes to me
            Speaking words of wisdom
            Let it be.

And in my hour of darkness

            She is standing right in front of me
            Speaking words of wisdom
            Let it be.”

I don’t know what Lennon and McCartney had in mind when they wrote that, I just know as I read the words guys who never heard that haunting piano accompany Paul nodded and said, “he’s talking about peace, and patience, and mercy.”

The music. There are a thousand lines that remind me of her, of us. “Time in a Bottle,” sung at our wedding; dancing on our deck as I whispered “Tupelo Honey,” in her ear. There’s holding both our sons mere seconds after they entered the world and quietly singing “Forever Young” as if with those words I was armoring them for adulthood. Funny, but I can’t watch “Parenthood” on TV because they use “Forever Young” as their opening music.

It was the music, the lyrics that kept me going so many times in here. I don’t know how many nights I wondered, “can I get through this?” and a song would come to me. I couldn’t shake Springsteen’s “Reason to Believe” when I doubted my God, my hope, and my faith:

“Lord won’t you tell us tell us what does it mean

            So at the end of every hard earned day people
            Find some reason to believe …”

When I’d try and find it again it was Seger and “Running Against the Wind,” and Marley’s “Redemption Song” and “No Woman No Cry” that helped me click the laps off and find my balance.

Music. I talk music daily with Saleem and DC (old Motown stuff like Wilson Pickett and James Brown; the Supremes, Marvin Gaye), and Craig and Omar (the 70’s and 80’s before disco and rap and techno and syrupy pop sung by Barbie wanna-bes). It was during one of those conversations when a buddy said he couldn’t make it and reach his dreams outside. I looked at him and just hit him with Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” –

            “Well everything dies baby that’s a fact
            But everything that dies some day comes back …”

He looked at me for the longest time and then said, “you’re saying I died in here, but I can get it all back?” “Something like that,” I replied and I watched him roll those words around in his head and find that glimmer of self-confidence and hope he needed to try and get clear of this place.

Sounds stupid, right? Until you remember how Scottish soldiers carried their dead king off the battlefield singing the Psalter “God Our Help in Ages Past,” or churches for centuries beginning Advent Season with “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Come to Set Thy People Free …”

Freedom. I tried to count all the references in the Bible to God freeing “the prisoners.” The captive, you see, are in God’s loving arms. The music frees the captive’s soul.

            And I keep thinking about Don McLean. He thought the music died:
            “And the three men I admired most
            The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
            They caught the last train for the coast
            The day the music would die.”

The music didn’t die. It was always there, always with words giving meaning to the confusion that too often is our life. So the guys come around all the time and ask questions – I get bombarded with questions – and I try and give straight answers. Somehow, to make my point, to close the case, I hit them with a lyric. And a light goes off, and they get it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about music during this Thanksgiving season. I’ve learned a lot in here, and there are blessings even in difficulties. The music keeps playing and I keep going.

            “Well it’s all right, even if they say you’re wrong

            Well it’s all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
            Well it’s all right, as long as you got somewhere to lay
            Well it’s all right, every day is Judgment day”
            “Well it’s all right, even when push comes to shove
            Well it’s all right, if you got someone to love
            Well it’s all right, everything will work out fine
            Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line”
            “Well it’s all right, even if you’re old and grey
            Well it’s all right, you still got something to say
            Well it’s all right, remember to live and let live
            Well it’s all right, the best you can do is forgive.”

I think the Traveling Wilburys had it right. 1977, Vassar College, and I heard that the music died. Thirty-six years later with failures and disappointments a mile high and I feel more hopeful. And, the music still lives; the words still give meaning even in here.

            “Yes my guard stood hard when abstract threats

            To noble to neglect
            Deceived me into thinking
            I had something to protect
            Good and bad, I define these terms
            Quite clear, no doubt somehow
            Ahh, but I was so much older then
            I’m younger than that now.”

                                                        Bob Dylan, “My Back Pages”