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.

 

Karma and Other Thoughts

Big S and I went out this afternoon to workout. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and we were walking a few laps before sprints. It was the kind of Saturday afternoon I always loved; grilling, sitting on the deck, glass of wine in hand. Things were a whole lot different then.



Big S is a big believer in Karma. As I’ve written before, he really is innocent of the crime that put him in here. But, he’ll be the first to tell you he deserved to get some time. He had a great job in loss prevention with a major department store chain. He gave it all up, including a chance to be a manager with the chain to become a bounty hunter (a/k/a “The Dog” on A & E Network). He played fast and loose as a bounty hunter and thought he was untouchable. Then, he got caught up in a mess, a victim of misidentification, and he gets prison time.


I kind of buy the Karma theory. My faith tells me how you treat people, how you forgive, is how you’ll be treated and forgiven.


In my case, I knew by late October of 2007 that I was out of control. In 2006 and ten months of 2007, I had taken almost $1 million. I was buying anything I saw for people, flying first class with friends in tow every month.


I came back from a five day trip to Vegas with two friends the first week of November. I totaled up what I’d taken just that year and flipped out. I destroyed all the records I had and vowed never to take another penny.


For weeks after that while I was driving to work I’d be overwhelmed with fear that I was going to get caught. I’d start sweating and I’d cry out “God, I don’t want to go to prison; I don’t want to lose my family”. Then, I’d get to work, things would be fine and cocky me would think everything was gravy.


I made it 92 days without taking any more money. Then, I treated two friends to a Vegas “invitation only” Super Bowl party. Another five days in Vegas, round-trip airfare, rooms, meals. I was going to handle the bills on my own until my broker called. The market was going down and I needed to invest in gold, he suggested. I panicked and prepared a $30,000 check to buy into a gold fund. It was February 8, 2008. I lost hope that day. I knew I couldn’t stop. I frankly gave up. Seven months later when I was arrested, it was because an accounting clerk had seen the investment check from February and thought it looked suspicious. Karma.


Or maybe it was something more than that. I’m a firm believer that God allows things to happen sometimes for a reason. In my case, I needed to be caught; without the arrest I’d probably be dead by now. I hated who I’d become. I couldn’t even look myself in the face. I was drinking a great deal to dull the pain of realizing I had made a mess of my life.


In hindsight, getting arrested saved my life. Big S realizes this experience has taught him how to be a better father. He loves his daughter, always has. But, being apart from her makes him want to be there every moment of her life. He wants to be the father she deserves.


Me, I was thinking as I ran, about the time I taught my wife to drive a four speed stick. I was sweet and patient. I never raised my voice. It was all “more gas, less clutch sweetie”. I thought about the time when she was pregnant with our first son, how I doted over her. I almost got diabetes being so sweet!


I liked that guy. I didn’t like the guy that stole, the guy I’d become. A good number of folks wrote letters on my behalf to the judge. A few testified for me. It was a humbling experience to hear people talk about your decency when you don’t feel it and probably don’t deserve it.


Karma is OK. If you pay attention to it you can get another chance. That’s provided you act decently. Funny, but I realized while hanging with Big S today my life’s gone full circle. I only wish I could teach her to drive that four speed stick again

Place Your Bet

Last night was the final game – the championship – for the “over 40” summer softball league. Our building – as it had in the regular softball season – went undefeated the entire season, got cocky and lost. Not only did they lose the game, but the main four players lost about $100 cash.



These four guys are all ringers. They’ve all played softball for years in the “prison leagues”. One guy – M & M – will tell you “I’ve played ball at every prison in the system since 1986”. That’s something he can put on his resume!


So these four guys in the spring just “happen” to all get moved into our building. I had thought about playing, but once I saw these four gems in action, I decided against it. They hand-picked who would play. They taunted and criticized their teammates and their opponents. And, they got cocky. “Pride goeth before the fall.” I learned that in my own situation. These clowns learned it with their bets.


Gambling is illegal in prison, yet we have one of the most sophisticated bookies here I’ve ever seen. He could work in Vegas at a casino’s sports book operation.


C is a young guy, 24. Ironically, his brother is a rising senior majoring in history at the University my ex teaches at. He’s been locked up for almost three years with seven to go. He ran his own “chop shop” in the Harrisonburg-Winchester area. He must have had a pretty large operation because he still owes in excess of $800,000 in restitution (for all the stolen cars he disassembled).


C has a great math mind. He knew of my gambling background and we hit it off. I don’t gamble. For awhile, I thought I suffered from a gambling addiction. Through therapy I realized it wasn’t gambling that was a problem, it was my wanting to be everything to everybody. In fact, I was a pretty good gambler. I had a positive win-loss rate in both Vegas (the Mirage) and Atlantic City (The Borgata) for the five years I played high limits craps.


Anyway, C and I routinely discuss odds and sports book. He runs a sheet on anything and everything: Baseball; NASCAR, WNBA; the World Cup. He clears $500 on a good week, then pays his “runners” (guys in every building who accept bets and collect) based on their intake.


He ran book on the softball league. Our “fearsome foursome” all decided to bet on themselves to win it all and to win big. As Pete Rose can attest, the cardinal rule in baseball is “no betting on the game.”


You would have thought they learned their lesson when they lost the regular league championship. No, these guys – while sitting around doing Bible study – also plotted how to run the action up to maximize their winnings.


Back to the game. The “Fab Four” squad is getting killed. One of the unique aspects of “prison sports” is the unbelievable amount of crap thrown at the players. Heckling is not an art form in here; it’s a way of life. And, everyone – even the guys in our building – is rooting against these four scumbags.


Right fielder makes an error, M & M explodes. Runner tagged out at home, Max hurls insults at his teammate; talking about his mother, his wife, his sexual orientation. Guys on the sides of the field hoot and holler. Every other word is profanity.


Then, ever so gradually, the tide begins to turn. The game gets closer, only one run down and last at bats. Two quick outs and the bottom of the order still to bat.


“Cheddar Bob” somehow places the ball just right to get a single. “Carolina” hits one in the gap and Cheddar moves to third. The crowd is going wild. Bettors hold their tickets waiting to see which way it goes.


Moore – the 10th place hitter – is due up. Max, M & M and Elliott are huddled by the bench. M & M whispers to Moore and then M & M retrieves his bat. M & M, the “Sultan of Swat”, “the Great Bambino” steps up to the plate. No one notices he’s batting out of order; no one notices the best softball players in the history of DOC are cheating. No one – that is – except for Jimbo – the other team’s first basemen.


“Walk Him”, he yells to his pitcher and, on three straight balls, M & M walks and heads to first. Max steps up to the plate.


Jimbo leans over and whispers to the first base ump. He pulls out the lineup card, looks at the bench, looks at M & M and yells out:


“Batted out of order; runner on first is out. Game over!”


Pure pandemonium breaks out. M & M is screaming; Elliott has to restrain him. Guys are laughing and cussing the “losers”.


I see C sitting at a picnic table. He smiles as I approach. “Made over $600 just on the game.”


I want to give a “shout out” to a guy who left this week and a guy who’s still here. “Boston” went back to the regional jail for “transition home” in 90 days. He hated a couple of guys he lived near. His final “see ya” – he left feces covered shorts on one guys bunk; urinated in another guy’s cup, and filled “friend number three’s” boots with used tissues and toilet paper. He made a sign for the C.O.’s that said simply “you clowns all suck. Die scum!” A beautiful farewell from a real gentleman.


Then, there’s Reggie who really is crazy. He’s our morning trash man who literally talks to his trash cans. He said something very enlightening to his trash cans the other day after an alleged Christian called him a “mental a—hole.” He looked at his trash can and said “wonder what Jesus would say to him for talking to me that way?”


I had to agree with his trash can: that was a hell of a good question!