Christmas ’14 Part 2 Meeting Ximena

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

 

            I have weird experiences in here with my writing. Almost everyone – it seems – knows I write. I get asked almost daily – “What are you writing this week?” Or “Is this going in a blog?” I’m constantly amazed by people coming across my ramblings. So, I’m sitting around the other day and a guy asks me, “Why do you write about all this stuff?” Good question. I thought about that a little while. Why do I write about all this stuff? Maybe, I think, something I write will make a difference to someone. They’ll pause for a moment and say, “He may have a point,” or “I’ve felt that same way.” That’s my noble rationale for writing. The less noble reason is I want to write a story that will lead me to meet Ximena.

            Writing nobly. I was walking back from chow one night when a young guy, new to the compound, stopped me. He very politely asked, “You’re Larry and you have a blog?” When I said yes, he told me I helped his mom and wife understand what this “really was.” Funny thing is, I get that almost weekly from guys who have family – or friends who stumble across my site and stop for a moment, read, and get what’s going on.

            There’s a song by Sara Bareilles, “Brave” that goes in part,

            “You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug

            Or you can start speaking up …

            Fallin for the fear

            Disappearing, bowing down to the mighty

            Don’t run, stop holding your tongue

            Maybe there’s a way out of the cage you live in

            Maybe one of these days you can let the light in

            Honestly, I want to see you be brave.”

            I write – a lot – because I think I have perspective now. As I told two friends who visited the other day, this past six and a half years have exposed me to a lot I never thought existed. There are a great number of folks who live on the fringe of society. For them, the deck is stacked. They are disrespected, disregarded, and America seems disinterested in their well-being.

            I didn’t want to think color, religion, or you financial status mattered. I smugly held to the notion that all are equal before the law. They aren’t. Ours is a fragile experiment in governance and we as a people fail more often than we care to admit. I found myself thinking about rap artist Macklemore’s song “Same Love,” addressing prejudice aimed at gays.

            “America the brave still fears what we don’t know.

            God loves all his children is somehow forgotten,

            While we paraphrase His book that’s been around 3500 years …

            I learned in church if you preach hate in the service,

            Those words aren’t anointed.”

            I write because I think honesty requires it. For too long I wasn’t honest, about a great number of things. Then I found myself in a foreign environment, lost, confused, broken. Honesty came naturally at that point. There’s a lot wrong with all this in here. There are more than a few who deserve better, who need compassion and help, not punishment. There is also a lot of evil and ignorance and just plain stupid behavior. So I write because in my heart I believe I have a story to tell. The people, the stories are fascinating.

1. Gay Tony. He sits to pee and sashays around the building like he’s in a Lana Turner movie. When he first moved in he said, “I just love the way you talk Larry, so worldly and polite.”
2. There are “Vikings,” guys who think showering and laundry are optional. You watch them use the bathroom and exit without a bar of soap coming near their hands. And, you finally break down and say, “Look, you need to get in the water and wash your ass!” You learn guys live in here like they live outside; there are some filthy men living out there!
3. You see layer upon layer of DOC “counselors” who do no counseling and in fact, cause more harm than good. They put inforce stupid rules to “modify” behavior – they only piss guys off. “Evidence Based programs” – that’s the catch word for re-entry programming and it’s nothing but inane jargon created to keep people employed.
4. Drug use is rampant. God knows how much is spent on “piss” testing. Weed, coke, heroin – it’s all here in abundance. And, somehow guys have figured out how to beat the test. The investigators rely on “rats” dropping “notes” on “enemies.” Want to hear something funny? Most of the “informants” the investigators rely on are dirtier than who they rat out.
5. So, four guys in our building – all who are walking in and out the port-o-johns on the rec yard far too often – get tested. They “conclude” someone dropped a “note” on them. As I said earlier, guys are plain dumb. Anyone can tell they’re up to something. “You know Larry, this should be expected in here. This is prison.” I disagreed. You learn who you really are in your worst moments. You don’t have to be a user/an addict/ a scumbag in here; it’s way too easy to be one out there.
6. The factory guys. Sure, they make fifty-five to eighty-five cents an hour making furniture that is sold at exorbitant prices to state agencies who could buy the same stuff on the open market at lower cost. That’s Virginia’s “correctional enterprises” program: slave wages plus captive buyers paying exorbitant prices.

Yes, that’s life around here. It gets discouraging sometimes, ok, most times. Then, I think about Dr. Ken Brantley. He was in Africa, a doctor serving with the Christian aid group “Samaritan’s Purse.” Brantley contracted Ebola. He returned to America and was treated with experimental drugs. And he survived.

            “I still have the same flaws I did before, but whenever we go through a devastating experience like what I’ve been through, it is an incredible opportunity for redemption or something. We can say, ‘How can I be better now because of what I’ve been through?’ To not do that is kind of a shame.”

            Dr. Brantley understands redemption. Perhaps, just perhaps, that explains why I keep writing. You screw up, you throw it all away and you try and get beyond the regret that gnaws at your very being. You realize you can’t change the past, but maybe you can affect the present and improve the future. So noble. But, there’s “Ximena.”

            My buddy, O, has been trying to teach me Spanish for more than a year and I must confess, I’m miserable at it. I recognize a fair number of words, can read it and create grammatically correct sentences. But translating it and speaking? Let’s just say you wouldn’t want me asking anyone in Honduras for directions!

            He did get me watching Univision which is where I found “Ximena.” Ximena – a former “Miss Columbia” in the “Miss Universe” pageant is a mid-thirties “weather girl” on Univision’s morning show. Univision is to beautiful women what Omaha is to steaks. Every show is cast full of gorgeous women. No matter how bad the news is in the world, you smile watching Univision.

            So I decided – I told the guys – that I’ll write the great American novel so that I can get invited to Univision’s morning show and meet Ximena. Hey, it’s a goal, maybe not a noble goal but a goal nonetheless.

            Christmas 2014; seventh one inside. And it’s Ok. There are days I still wonder when all this will end; there are days when I feel like I am more alone than I thought possible. But then, then there are those days when I know I matter, and this matters; days when I laugh more than I ever believed possible in these circumstances.

            I’ve thought about the “human” condition a lot recently. We have such an almost natural ability to do horrible things: killing kids in schools in the “warped” name of your God. We seem to kill more than we heal; we are self-centered, vindictive, and fearful. And then, in the hopelessness and darkness there is … hope. That’s Christmas, a reminder that no matter how dark things appear, there is a light, “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Are there any more hopeful words?

            What does all this have to do with prison? A long time ago a prophet said the following, that a day was coming when “He” would,

            “Open blind eyes,

            To bring out prisoners from the prison.”

            Everything I write, everything I experience in here is seen through that lens. It’s all about prison, though not just the ones with walls.

Merry Christmas

Herman, Jo Pa and Us

Yes, we have cable connections at our beds.  Most guys have TV’s:  clear plastic, 13 inch color sets (remotes are prohibited) that cost over $200.00 but can be purchased in catalogs for $70.00 (electronics are covered by the exclusive contract DOC has with Keefe.  Inmates – just as with commissary, phone calls, and CDs – pay exorbitant mark ups for “personal property”.  And most guys do their time watching TV – a lot of it.

Sports, as you can imagine, dominates TV watching in here (closely followed by BET and Univision (the Spanish network that specializes in beautiful women 24/7).  This past week all eyes were focused on two huge scandals and news and sports converged into a perfect storm of opinions.  Herman Cain, black Republican candidate for President, has been dogged over allegations brought by four white women that years ago he sexually harassed them.  As that story swirled around the building with debates over the veracity of the accusers’ stories and underlying racial component to it, the tragedy that has become Penn State broke.

Penn State:  Football, Jo Pa and pedophilia.  Newscasters flocking to “Happy Valley” to “report” (I use that word tongue in cheek) every scurrilous detail.  With self-righteous indignation, talking heads tell the viewers exactly what the proper moral response should have been from Joe Paterno, the athletic director, the grad assistant and everyone else involved.

And the news reporters:  what must Edward R. Murrow be thinking?  They report as “breaking news” every lurid tidbit they can find.  Each mention of “anal penetration” brings another spike in their Network’s Neilsen rating.  And the notion of innocent until proven guilty?  “Screw that.  We can speculate why Sandusky wasn’t offered a head coaching job anywhere. “

Meanwhile, as their grandfatherly head coach is forced out, Penn State students gather and chant, “Jo Pa” until the cameras show up and the night mixes with alcohol and anger and cars are turned over and windows broken.  All the while we sit in our prison dorm and watch and argue.

Herman Cain.  You want black inmates to feel sympathy for a Republican, run the stories the way they’ve come out about Cain.  The entire episode smacks of the century old fears that black men are hypersexual.  The fact that the black man in question is a conservative Republican only adds to the feeding frenzy.

Penn State.  Regular inmates hate sex offenders, especially pedophiles.  Though this – and all compounds – have their share of them, they survive in prison under the constant fear their crimes will be found out.  If my crime and education carry special status with respect and admiration, theirs is at the opposite end of the spectrum.  At higher level facilities child sex offenders are routinely raped, beaten and murdered.  They spend their bids in “pc” – protective custody – for fear of what the general prison population would do to them.

Here, they are taunted (“diaper sniper”, “clown hands”), pushed around and robbed.  A year ago I wrote a blog detailing my ambivalence dealing with sex offenders.  How, I wondered, do I meet my Christian duty to be merciful with my disgust over a man who would find sexual release with a child?  I reached an uneasy equilibrium, a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach that allowed me to treat each man the same, to not pass judgment.  And then came Penn State. 

Is Sandusky guilty?  I don’t know.  Should Joe Paterno morally have done more?  I don’t know all the details.  I know this – in a frenzy to get ratings our “Fourth Estate” has sold their souls and we collectively encourage it each time we buy into the “breaking news” of the day mantra.

I know one other thing.  The New Testament Book of James (my favorite Book in the Bible) details in five chapters Christian discipleship.  It is not an easy path.  As I listened to the debates in here unfold about Herman Cain, Penn State and Joe Paterno; one admonition from James kept replaying in my mind:  “mercy triumphs over judgment.”  Wise words if ever there were any.

And for all those who “know” precisely what Herman Cain did and what Joe Paterno should have done Rudyard Kipling said it best:

“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

to serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there nothing in you
except the will which says to them:  Hold on.”

Convict Cable

Prison has cable and prisoners have TV’s. To a good many people, that will come as a surprise. Our prison here is on “Corrections Cable”. We get basic channels, bare minimum, and the inmates pay for it, not individually but with the “slush fund” the prison collects from overcharging on commissary (for a detailed explanation on the commissary and cable contracts read my previous post – “Contracts 101”).



TV watching is a prime past time in here. Inmates can buy a color TV (13 inch) through commissary for over $200. The TV is specially manufactured for prisoners. It’s made out of clear plastic so officers can see inside to make sure there’s no contraband stored in the case. The same TV in a catalog lists for $89.


You order your set, wait two weeks and then you walk across the compound to personal property and pick it up. The property officer puts “security” stickers around the case (stickers removed, you get an alteration charge) and engraves your name on the set to prevent theft. You also need to order a surge protector, coaxial cable (to hook your set up to cable) and a headset. Prison rules prohibit you from watching your set without headphones. After spending your $300 for the full “set up” you’re ready for TV.


Of the 96 bunks in this building, there are 92 individual sets. We get the four major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox). Then there are the specialty channels: CNN, TBS, TNT, CW, A & E, Univision (Spanish), PBS, Health Channel, ESPN & ESPN2, BET, Spike, and Lifetime.


The two “eye opening” prison experiences for me have been watching guys line up for ice cream on Tuesday nights and seeing all the sets tuned to Lifetime. There is something off kilter about guys sitting on their beds, eating butter pecan ice cream, intently watching “Army Wives” on Lifetime. To be fair, most guys watch Lifetime because the women are hot.


The other big channel is Spike. Spike is all bikinis, guns, cars and action movies. Two weeks ago, Stallone’s newest “Rambo” came on Spike. From the corner of the building, P or V or E (pick a letter; it’s someone’s name!) yelled out “Rambo on 10”. Within nanoseconds 50 sets turned to Spike.


You can spot the child molesters. They love cartoons (no joke) and avoid any show with bikinis (Spike had “Ms. Hooters” contest on a month ago, the “game guys” all had “You’ve Got Mail” on).


TV is really mind numbing. There are guys that lie in bed all day (except for meals and bathroom breaks) switching from “Jerry Springer” to “Wife Swap”. They know every channels programming schedule by heart. Their TVs remain on 24/7 except during “standing counts” (there are only 3 of these each day).


If you are shocked that prisons allow inmates to have TVs and cable, think of the alternative. 96 guys living on top of each other, many guys angry at the treatment they received in court, feeling wronged, pissed off at the world. Guys with kids put in bunks next to child molesters; Bloods next to Crips; and you hire two female COs to keep the peace. TV does more to keep the building quiet than 10 Cos could do.


I used to be a big TV guy before I got arrested. Now, I check the scores on ESPN at 5:30 in the morning and then the local news and headlines. With the exception of an hour a night, my TV is off. There are too many books to read, stories to write, crossword puzzles to work, law work to handle; to dull my mind with TV.


Don’t get me wrong, I love a couple of shows. Besides sports and news my “picks” for TV: any Gordon Ramsey cooking show; “The Mentalist”; “The Office” (Tuesday night 3 hours on TBS, just an FYI); “The Closer”, “Rizzoli and Isles”, and “House”. I’m just trying to keep my mind fresh to get through each day. Gotta go, “Big Brother” is coming on.