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?

Chase to Freedom

            He didn’t look like the other IT students when he started back in late 2012. Back then we were operating under a special DOJ grant to provide college training to “at risk” offenders – guys who were classified as “likely” to re-offend after release. And you could spot those a mile away. They were young – mid-twenties mostly – with their state jeans sagging low, their language coarse, their attitudes arrogant. You’d look their name up on the admittance data sheet and see a compass score (recidivism likelihood test) of “9 out of 10” or even “10 out of 10.” You couldn’t make a bet in Vegas on these guys succeeding. They were all on their second – or third – two year bid, heading for twenty to thirty inside a few years at a time.

            But he was different. He was mid to late forties and quiet. He carried himself with a dignity you earn in a place like this over years of watching the system break so many others. He introduced himself to me in a soft voice, polite. “I’m not very studious,” he said. “But I’ve been gone so long I know I need this program.” He told me he never so much as turned a computer on, nor had he ever written anything other than his GED essay ten years earlier at a higher security level.

            I checked the sheet. First name, “Chase,” Compass score, three. He was an atypical student. Over the next six months he and I grew closer. When he started our intro computer class he typed ten words a minute, mechanically scanning the keyboard and plunking down his left or right index finger. He would read and reread English assignments; he’d write three, even four drafts of papers. Slowly each week there’d be improvement.

            And the two of us began to talk. He was originally from Baltimore, public housing that was gutted to make way for the hotels and tourists spots that became the Inner Harbor. He’d sold drugs, “managed” women (i.e. prostitution) and nearly killed a man. For that he got twenty years. And so, at age twenty-seven, after two short stays in the Baltimore City Jail in his late teens and early twenties, he started doing real time at a high security prison in Virginia.

            Here was the thing about Chase – he was real. He wasn’t some caricature of an inmate/rapper/future NBAer; he was a guy who lived – who survived – the worst of DOC and found his soul. A few years in, he converted to Islam. So many of the Muslim inmates, like so many of the Christian inmates, are civilly religious. By that I mean they love the trappings of the religion and the grouping participation gives you, without the responsibility. Chase, however, was devout in his faith. He wasn’t saying he was Muslim while gambling, stealing, and selling porn. He was peaceful; twice I saw him break up fights.

            Yeah, Chase is a good guy. He finished out IT program and stayed in the college building making candy – that’s right, he’s the resident candy-maker. About two months ago he started going to medical every few weeks. “I have a swollen saliva gland,” he told me. “The doctor said to suck on sour candy and that would clear it up.” Two months later and his neck swelled. Medical got a little concerned then. So they sent him to Southampton Hospital for tests. The results weren’t good. Chase has stage “2” Lymphoma. He begins chemo tomorrow morning.

            For six weeks Chase will be shackled and transported each morning to McV Hospital in Richmond. They’ll drive him back each night and lock him in an isolation cell. That’s cancer treatment in prison. I’m probably more upset about it than Chase is. “It’s all part of being locked up,” he matter-of-fact told me.

            Being locked up is always an excuse for bad treatment. It was Chuck Colson, who following his “Damascus Conversion” and prison stay wrote, “Prisons are evil. They don’t rehabilitate … when you send kids to prison already embittered and they are brutalized and ignored they don’t change. Jesus commanded us to be salt and light in the world.”

            Chase isn’t the first inmate I’ve known who’s gotten sick in prison. Ray – a 66 year-old Vietnam Vet – has fourteen months left. He takes nitroglycerin almost daily for his weakened attack-prone, heart. Why is he still in here? Surely the state can see the logic in releasing seriously ill offenders a little early. Unfortunately, in our “tough on crime” Alice-in-Wonderland state, you have to be within “90 days of death” to even be eligible for early medical release.

            Chase is prepared for chemo. And, he takes the misdiagnosis in stride. Still, I can’t help but wonder what it says about us as people that we tolerate what happens behind bars in the name of justice. Chase told me the other day, “Cancer or no cancer, I’m walking out of here in December.” I wouldn’t bet against him.

Hearing About A Death

One of the young guys in the building – “Lil D” was called to the watch commander’s office the other day after noon count.  He was told “your mom died unexpectedly during chemo this morning”.  Lil D is five years into an eight year sentence for selling heroin and crack.  He’s 24.  People may not approve of what this young man did, but only a cold-hearted person could not feel for him as he struggled to come to grips with his loss.

Prison is not a place to expose emotions – other than anger.  Sadness and heartbreak are signs of weakness.  Yet “Lil D” returned from the watch commander’s office, lay on his bunk and openly wept.  Later that afternoon he went outside to workout.  I was on the ball court running suicides.  He asked me to time him:  4 minutes straight jump rope, 1 minute rest.  We talked.  He couldn’t go to the funeral:  DOC rules prohibit it.  He needed a letter to his mom to be read at her burial and he asked me to help him.

That night we drafted the letter.  It was simple, eloquent and beautiful.  It captured the sadness in his heart and the love he held for his mom.  Death is never easy to come to grips with, especially in here.  Lil D’s mom can be proud of her son for his courage that day.