de Accion de Gracias

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 2014.

            Its Thanksgiving evening 2014 and the lights in the building have finally lowered. I’m watching as “Number 9,” the new guy in bed 9, throws his mattress over his shoulder. What the hell is he doing? I think. “Number 9” wasn’t there Wednesday night. Sometime after midnight – early Thursday morning – they moved him in. The bunk was open after “Cheesy Sidler” moved from “9” to “91.” “Cheesy Sidler,” college graduate, whiz on the computer, child sex fiend. I name everyone and “Cheesy Sidler” was no exception. We were standing around one morning waiting on breakfast and this guy sidles up to us. One minute he isn’t there, the next you can feel his breath on your neck. And, he has this big toothy “I just farted” grin … “Cheesy Sidler.”

            The Cheese is in on a sex crime with minors. He’s smart and, he’s in total denial. He has the arrogance of so many child sex offenders: “I’m innocent; I’m not like them.” I try not to emote anger around him but it’s tough. He looks like what I look like to the young black guys in here. Cheese was raised in Africa; his parents – Baptist missionaries. Fifty-eight years old, daughters, grandkids, a wife. They visit. He has become an Orthodox Jew. He goes to “7” building every morning to wear the small wooden box on his forehead and rock and pray. He’s Orthodox, but is he Godly? Can he atone in rhythmic chants for his perversion and crimes? It’s getting dark in the building and I wonder if that’s the real meaning of “grace,” coming to grips with your sins.

            Back to “Number 9,” he tells the CO, “I don’t like it here.” I crack up and ask my neighbor O if that works. Can I just say, “I don’t like it here,” and that’s that? 9 then gets all his stuff – a plastic trash bag of dirty, balled up clothing and his pillow – and drops it beside his mattress thrown down by the trash can in the day room. I’m exhausted but can’t go to sleep because I’m witness to a train wreck.

            “Look,” says the CO. “You can put your stuff back in your bunk area or go to the hole. It’s your choice.” Old 9, he ponders “option A” versus “option B” and chooses to return his things to his bunk … at least for the night. I climb in bed and read my verse from the morning one last time, pray, and then think about how pretty Thanksgiving sounds in Spanish, “de Accion de Gracias.”

            2008. I had lousy Thanksgivings before. There were times we thought we should split; I never told her I blamed her for losing my dreams. Maybe that’s wrong. I was willing to give every dream up just for one time hearing “I love you,” or “thank you,” or “I appreciate what you’ve sacrificed.” Instead it festered. But, pretend happiness works. So does turkey and good Scotch and oysters on the half-shell. Ah, food and drink and family and friends … an overstuffed table with wine glasses clinking. Not 2008. There were the letters; the newspaper article a week before said I stated “in open court in a clear voice ‘guilty,’” as each count was read. Counts – 1, 3, 6, it didn’t matter. I had highlighted the part where she said, “I’m praying you die in there.” Funny thing is, I prayed the same thing.

            Thanksgiving at the jail and they bring trays to the pod. It’s two-toned pressed turkey meat – low-cut, cold lunch meat, - instant mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I’m not even hungry; I’m nauseous, and worn, and depressed. “I don’t like it here.” I wish I thought of saying that back then. “In all things give thanks for this is the Lord’s will for you.” God, I was learning had on off-kilter sense of humor. “Thanks God for ruining my life!” That I remember. “de Accion de Gracias.”

            Thanksgiving 2014, my sixth here. I arrived a week before Thanksgiving 2009 and remember that first dinner, the heaping tray with real turkey and pork roast, and candied yams and real mashed potatoes with broccoli and greens and stuffing and rolls. There was sweet potato pie and cake with banana cream frosting. I had told myself I wanted out, wanted to die and now, one year later I’m smiling, enjoying Thanksgiving in prison. In prison! That’s crazy! But, the food, the smells, the conversation, I was ok. Was it like the quail during the forty years in the wilderness? The food “appeared” and the people were sated.

            This year we’d decided to keep out regular work-out schedule. So, big meal at 12:30 (4A ate first!), a nap – why not!?) – then outside at 3:45. For a day and a half it had rained. The track, the weight pile, nothing but mud. Five of us head out in 40° mist. “Go quick,” O says because we know dark is only forty-five minutes away. We’re running, slogging through puddles, and curling bars, then dead lifting. I’m out of my shirts, so is O and Moose and our heads are steaming. I never dead lifted 240 before; I’m on 210, then 225. “Screw it” I yell and squat and lift 240, 3 no 4, no 5 reps and drop the weight with a primal yell of success. I take off at full throttle through the puddles and I’m buoyed. I don’t know why, but I feel … free and alive. “de Accion de Gracias.” I get what Paul was telling those struggling church members in Philippi while he sat alone in prison. “Live above your circumstances,” Paul exhorts his fledgling flock. No matter what, He is in control of our circumstances. Maybe that’s the toughest lesson to learn: We want life our way, in our time, on our terms. And, we keep messing up.

            Thirty-three years ago. I stood in a church and looked a beautiful girl in her eyes and recited vows. You know, looking back, I didn’t take all that seriously. I knew what I wanted and I wouldn’t let anything stop me. We chose Thanksgiving weekend because, well it fit right before my law school exams. At jail I dreaded Thanksgiving and the knowledge that I failed … and those dreams,

            “If dreams were lightning thunder was desire

            This old house would have burnt down a long time ago”

            Dreams. Vows. Weight lifted – real and imaginary. “de Accion de Gracias.” Cheesy Sidler, Number 9; I’m ok. I’m falling asleep thinking about what was, so long ago, and what will be.

            “Just give me one thing that I can hold onto

            To believe in just living is just a hard way to go”

            Live above your circumstances. I keep thinking about those four words in the meaning of “grace,” accept God’s forgiveness and be what He intends you to be. You can’t run from, or hide from, your past but you can overcome. Maybe Nike is right, “Just do it.” “de Accion de Gracias.” I like the sound of that.

Three Monkeys

Almost everyone is familiar with the three monkeys: one has his hands over his eyes; the next covers his ears; the last covers his mouth. “See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.” I found myself thinking about those three monkeys this week as events unfolded in here.

            There is a great deal of transitioning going on here. The population is at its low point: 930 plus or minus five on any given day. That’s a good thing. Building sides are now down to 60 to 74 men. But this decrease in number comes at a price. There are a lot of new faces every week. Men show up here for re-entry at the twelve to eighteen month remainder of their sentence. A good number of these men are short-term, guys doing only two or three years. They are young. And, young and short means chaos. And, chaos means trouble.

            There’s been an uptick in gang activity, more and more young guys wanting to “fit in” so they join. There’s been an increase in drug use. Almost every day I see a handful of young guys loopy-glazed eyes, practically drooling. Heroin is the drug of choice but pills of all kinds are plentiful.

            Then there’s theft. All over the compound guys are having property stolen. Almost six years in and I’ve never even had a paperclip taken until last Tuesday morning. As back-story, I sleep with my watch off, sitting in a small tray on the corner edge of my bed. Every morning at 3:00 am, when the door opens and the COs head in for count I wake up and look at my watch. An hour later – 4:00 am – my alarm goes off. Everything is normal on Tuesday at 3:00. I fall back asleep waiting on the alarm …

            Which never rings at 4:00. I awake with a start – it’s 4:15 am. Why didn’t my alarm go off? What the f---! My watch is missing! The booth COs see me scrambling around. They wave me up to the front. “What’s the matter? And why’d you sleep in?” See, my schedule is like clockwork. I explain my missing watch. They check the logbook and note four guys – all new – who were walking around on the floor between 3:15 and 3:45 am (I never knew they logged that in!). Here’s the problem: I had to wait for the investigator to come on shift to check the building video feed which wouldn’t be until after 8:00 am.

            So I’m pissed. I’m trying to read my morning devotions and pray and write, but all I can do is obsess on my watch. Morning routine starts – 6:00 am count, breakfast, and work call and everyone in the building knows: we have a thief. And there’s an older guy who just got here two weeks ago; he has eighteen months left and is here for re-entry; he transferred in from the Federal system – 16 years there; and, he’s an “OG” – a big hitter in an NYC street gang; he has talked to me a few times, needed help on college enrollment, stuff like that. He comes over to me, “Larry, we can’t have a thief in here; that’s disrespectful. You push it with the investigator. And, when they find out who it is, you let me know.” “Let me know” – I’ve had gang leaders tell me that before; that’s a serious offer.

            11:30 count and another guy makes an announcement: “We got an f------ thief in here. Give the watch back!” I go to lunch and see the investigator. “I’ll look at the tape. We’ll figure it out.” The rest of the day, sans watch, runs normal. Except, after lifting weights (5:15 pm) I come in and “low and behold” my watch is in the bathroom. The band is torn and the back a little loose (where someone tried to get the battery out) but it’s usable. And the thief? Two different guys have been pulled out of the pod to talk to the investigators; the video’s grainy but both those guys were around my bunk.

            For almost six years I’ve never locked anything. I figured, if someone wants something of mine they’ll peel the locker back. But, a building thief – in such close quarters – throws everyone’s rhythm off. With a thief inside there is “see no evil.” He’ll get found out and pummeled and the COs will look the other way.

            Two building and a guy on “B” side is in debt for over $150 to an “A” side store box. He does the calculus and decides, “I ain’t payin.” And, candidly, at this level most store box guys write off deadbeats. At higher-level prisons not paying leads to broken bones or worse. So the “B” side debtor goes to take a shower. Meanwhile, a “door break” is called and the “A” side store man goes to the “B” side, walks in (a 100 series violation – being in the wrong building) and heads to the debtor’s bunk where he takes 1. Debtor’s TV; 2. Debtor’s Timberland boots; and 3. Debtor’s Nike sneakers. Debtor returns from the shower and sees his stuff missing. He knows without asking who has it. He calmly walks up to the front of the building and enters “A” side; heads to the store box man’s bunk and a brawl ensues.

            “Take that shit outside,” the floor officer calls out (great response instead of “break it up!”) and pops the rear door to the ball court. The two combatants comply and throw down against each other only … only the debtor isn’t going to just engage in a boxing match. He pulls a thin metal stake out, the size of a pencil, and starts jabbing the store box man around the chest, neck, and back. And blood is spilling, and the tower sees and pandemonium breaks out. COs and counselors are running from everywhere toward 2 building. “Cease all movement on the compound! Cease all movement!”

            The PA is blasting the message over and over. On the ball court the store box man is yelling. “He stuck me! He stuck me!” Both men are tackled. Debtor is cuffed and hauled to “7” building – he’s facing “street charges” (malicious wounding) which will add 7 to 10 years to his sentence (the next day he was moved for “security reasons” to a higher level compound). Store box man? Fortunately no organs were hit. A few stitches and he was back to normal except he’s facing charges for running a store box, stealing debtor’s property, entering “B” side, fighting, and a few others. He’ll lose all his good time and his security level will rise so he too will move to a “more secure” facility.

            The facility, like the monkey covering his ears, doesn’t want to hear about the discord. Ok, so 2B was on lock for a few hours while they looked for more blades; but, the fact is men are constantly rotating from building to building – that creates tension; that breaks down community. Add to that, the transitory nature of guys now means there are a lot more con games being run – not paying debts, stealing.

            Finally there’s Chase and his chemo treatments. After months of misdiagnoses and delays Chase began chemo Monday. He left the building at 4:00 am and was driven the 75 miles to Richmond and MCV. By 6:00 pm, he was back in the building. By Wednesday, Chase was weak, unable to eat the food they serve in the chow hall; nausea, vomiting, faint feeling – that was Chase. I asked him if medical was “doing anything” for him. “If I walk down to medical they’ll give me nausea medicine,” he told me.

            That night, during 9:30 pm count, Chase fell out. He was helped to his chair by two of his bunk neighbors. The building officers called medical but they waited until count “cleared” at 10:00 pm to come with a wheelchair and get Chase. I constantly challenge my fellow incarcerated to “show empathy; be compassionate,” and yet the very system in place is not empathetic. What does it say about Virginia policy that a man – within 6 months of completing his sentence – is treated so cavalierly where a cancer treatment is involved? What does this say about society’s righteousness?

            “Patriotism consists not in waving the flag,

            But in striving that our country shall be

            Righteous as well as strong.”

            James Bryce’s words must be taken to heart. We cannot be like the third monkey and fail to speak out when government in the name of criminal justice behaves in an immoral manner. And, treating even convicts the way Chase is being treated is immoral.

            “See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.” Three monkeys making a point … or are they running Virginia DOC?

The Bar Mitzvah

For a little while last week I thought about writing a piece about Lance Armstrong’s fall from public grace, our society’s insatiable appetite for details of the fall, and the equally insatiable debate that always rages between our demand to know if he’s really sincere (“Is he ashamed because he was caught or ashamed because he sinned?”) in his confession and our desire to give our fallen a “second chance”.  The topic of “second chances” intrigues me – as you can imagine – and I jotted down a fair number of notes, dialog really, about what I’d say to Mr. Armstrong if given the chance.

But, I was sidetracked by a documentary and it got me thinking a different way.  So, Mr. Armstrong will have to wait; but the idea, at least from my way of thinking, that “the truth will set you free”, applies here as well.

The story takes place in Bergen-Belsen, a notorious Nazi death camp.  The chief Rabbi of Amsterdam was there along with thousands of other Jews.  He maintained his faith and organized the prisoners as best as he could.  One day, he approached a young Jewish boy in the camp.  “I understand you will soon turn thirteen.  Would you like to study for your Bar Mitzvah?”  The boy, at first stunned by the offer, agreed.

Each morning the Rabbi would wake the boy at 4:00 and they would sit outside and read from a small Torah.  The boy learned his lessons in Hebrew.  Soon it was time for the ceremony.  But, the Nazi’s frowned on acts of faith.  In a bunkhouse, with the windows covered, the boy was led up to a makeshift altar.

Before he began there was a knock on the door and a lone woman entered.  It was his mother.  They had been separated on arrival at the camp.  The Rabbi, however, had found her and had her smuggled across the camp.

In those filthy, dismal conditions, with hundreds of Jewish people he did not know, the boy recited the text that had carried his father’s people forward from generation to generation.  Through slavery, freedom, captivity in Babylon, pogroms throughout the centuries, he repeated the same prayers every Jewish boy says at his Bar Mitzvah.  At the conclusion, with the ceremony over, the boy was handed a small piece of chocolate as a gift.

Weeks later, the Rabbi again pulled the boy aside and gave him the Torah.  “Keep this and tell the world what took place here”, the Rabbi told the boy.  The Rabbi would not see the end of the war.  But the boy - he survived and made it to Israel.  He would become a scientist and design an experiment that was carried into space on the Space Shuttle Columbia by an Israeli astronaut. 

And the Torah, that small Holy collection of the word of God, was also carried into space.  It was Columbia’s last flight, the fateful re-entry when the space shuttle broke apart over Texas.  The old man who’d been that boy once movingly said the Torah had been “From the depths of hell to the edge of space”.

I love that imagery.  Life is a very difficult proposition.  No one’s life is free of trials or difficulties.  Some, like the boy’s, are thrust on us by the evil that seems to permeate human kind.  He experienced more trial, more difficulty, more inhumanity, than most can comprehend. 

Others, like me, find ourselves in great difficulty and trying circumstances because of our own sin.  We struggle to come to grips with our behavior, our wrongs, and the consequences of our actions even as our lives go further astray.  And the consequences, we realize much too late, are usually beyond what we anticipated or deserved.

Life can break you; it can stretch you and wear you down.  Unless you learn a few simple truths.  First, you always have to have hope.  Without it, there can be no faith.  And faith can move mountains.  It can lead a boy from the concentration camps of Nazi Germany to a life of family, friends and science.

You also have to be kind, in spite of the anger launched against you.  The Rabbi understood that.  It is a lesson I teach myself over and over in here as I deal with a wide array of broken, angry, dysfunctional men and the program system that perpetuates the disgust of prison. 

Finally, you have to forgive and let go of the hurt and pain.  How do you forgive when you’ve been hurt so deeply?  I have spent literally every day of my confinement asking that question.  There isn’t any easy answer.  It’s like the Nike slogan – you “just do it”. 

The other day I learned a new reader – “Tonya” – popped up and was clearly not happy with me.  I wrote a number of witty replies down to “zing” her.  See, I know “Tonya” isn’t “Tonya”.  I know everything that occurred at the office for months after my arrest and my arrest leading to someone being fired did not occur.  But, I also know it’s easier to blame others when we find ourselves in situations we don’t like or understand.  As I’ve said many times on the pages of this blog, what I did was wrong.  But, what I’ve been through and what I lost does not balance with my sins.  And that, I’ve learned is alright.  So I keep hoping.  And I keep believing because my faith tells me that hope does not disappoint.

I had intended to write about falling and your chance at redemption.  Come to think of it, that’s what I wrote about.