Super Bowl … And Winter Inside

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 2015.

 

            Past couple of weeks have been interesting in here. There’s been the security audit – a sham of a process where everything looks good for a few days; then the “system” goes back to normal and cluster rules the day again. There have been fights, dirty urines, new tattoos, more weed, more tobacco, no bagels on commissary, even after 22 day stretches. Days pass … but it’s like the movie “Groundhog Day;” you’ve seen it all before. The shifts change, the rules are rewritten, and then everything returns to how it was: poorly run.

            What breaks the monotony? Super Bowl for one thing. In my former life there was always a Super Bowl party. First, at our house with twenty or more friends and the table packed with food and drinks. Later years, there was Vegas – special invitation to high roller casino parties with more food and drink than is imaginable. Beautiful women everywhere. It was hedonism to the nth degree. Then came arrest, and lock up, and the Super Bowl didn’t matter until …

            I got here. Sports matter inside; and, the Super Bowl is celebrated in here just like on “the street.” It is an event that allows you to feel part of everybody else. You’re doing the same thing everyone else is.

            Food is everywhere: Pizzas, dips, nachos, wraps, cheesecakes, banana puddings, snack mix; it’s all here and it’s all made “fresh” (as fresh as prepackaged foods can be when mixed with Ramen and Rice and block cheese). Hours upon hours guys line up for access to the microwaves. Meatballs, pepperoni, bacon, ham, roast beef – the smells fill the air. Popcorn, cheese doodles, Fritos, Doritos – chips are unbagged and placed on newspaper. Kick off and tickets: bets for a dozen lines with quarter boards (1 soup equals 1 pick) flood the room. It’s loud and exciting and as close to “not here” as you can get. And as the game progresses into the 4^th quarter every eye is on the field. Nothing can break the feeling except “Count Time. TVs off.” It’s 9:30 count and for five minutes the building is silent and we remember, we are still inside … Football and the Super Bowl, they remind you of what is beyond here.

            Then, winter hits. First the arctic blast – it’s 0° and no rec is called. The snow starts and by Tuesday we have over six inches. No school. Stuck in the building, you read, watch TV; some play cards or bones (dominoes). You watch the news and again you’re reminded the world outside, real life, is so much like yours in here. They can’t keep the weather out. They try and take away your dignity, truth, self-respect, freedom. But those things, like the weather, find their way in here.

            The playwright Eugene O’Neil, remarked that “Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.”

            As I walk out the door and head down the boulevard to chow I think instead that the grace of God is snow. It is cold - 5° with the wind chill – and it is pristine and it is quiet; and it pierces the despair that is life behind bars. Winter, contrary to so many poets’ words, really is a fresh season, a new beginning. Keep your spring; I’ll take Super Bowl and snow and running shirtless with my breath hanging in the air. Prison has no answer for winter.