Indecent Exposure

"Frankl came away from Auschwitz convinced that there are two basic types of people: decent ones or indecent ones. Here's the interesting thing, decency and indecency do not fall along national political lines. There were decent Nazi guards just as there were indecent inmates." --Oliver Thomas (USA Today)

I'm not comparing this state penitentiary to a Nazi prison camp, but as I read this paragraph today in my newspaper I thought, "Couldn't have said it better myself."

I've been struggling a bit lately dealing with my anger when I come across an "indecent" personality. First of all, we all have our own perceptions of what defines "decent" along with "indecent." Some of my associates both in prison and out are most likely considered "indecent" by someone's moral standards. In fact, I think it's fair to say everyone on this planet has been thought of as indecent at one point in their life or another. But what is it that actually defines a decent or indecent person?

In the past I've mysteriously embraced a life of crime. I've done some things that most definitely had more negative effects than positive. I've run drugs and guns, stolen things and have sabotaged many would-be meaningful relationships in the name of drugs, alcohol and the instant gratification of selfish oblivion. I trashed excellent job offers, abandoned musical and artistic talents, not to mention a wonderfully "decent" family. Am I a decent person? I still think so.

I sit in a cell now 23 hours a day. My fate depends on my arch enemies - correctional officers. They bring me food, books, paper, pens and toilet paper. They bring me clean sheets and clothes. They walk me to a phone to call friends and family five times a week and to shower three times a week. Every time I leave my cell it's in handcuffs. I'm paying my debt. My "indecent" behavior has caught up with me.

I haven't felt the sun on my face going on seven months. I'm allowed two books and two newspapers/magazines in my cell at a time. I love to read. There's a hole in my wall, so sometimes I talk for hours with my neighbor. His name is Thumper. He's been incarcerated for five years and in all that time he's been visited only once. I'd say he's a "decent" enough guy. Some of the interests we share are in politics, history and exercising. We exercise a lot.

I thought it would be nice to choose a book and then both get a copy of it sent in. We planned to read during the day and have a discussion regarding what we read at night. Kind of like a book club. We chose an anchor of a book on the old British prime minister, Winston Churchill.

Since Thumper doesn't have much, if any, family support, I asked my family to send him his copy. I received my copy a few weeks ago and we've been awaiting the arrival of his. Today the property officer, a guy named Gonzales, came up to my cell and instantly began to play what I call "cops and robbers." He started ridiculously interrogating me about the book as if Winston Churchill had recently transformed into a bag of crystal meth. He asked why my family sent us both a copy. I told him it was none of his business. He stormed off, refusing to give Thumper his copy. No more book club. That, my friends, is what I call a prime example of an "indecent" person... to say the very least.

Fishing for Poems

I was trying to figure out what I wanted to blog about this afternoon but couldn't come up with much more than these words you're reading now. I'd like to share a poem written by a friend of mine who lives two cells down the tier from me. I live in a super-maximum security prison unit where they don't let myself or anyone else physically interact with each other. Despite these restrictions, strong relationships are built by yelling to each other or passing notes. The latter is done with a technique called "fishing."

To fish I slide a comb with a long piece of string tied to it under my door and down the tier as close to my target's cell as possible. Then he pulls my string into his cell by hooking onto it with his own comb/string missile. I connect the note, newspaper or whatever I'm sending over to the end of string still in my hand and he pulls it into his cell. Boston and I share notes, news, poetry and artwork by fishing. He has been in prison for 21 years and has around 15 years and two life times before he's legally considered free. I think his poem is a look into the constant daydreaming that goes on in this solitary place called home, but I won't try to critique his work. Enjoy.

After doing 10 straight years in segregation in Walpole's D.D.U. Control Unit in Massachusetts, two things can happen to you; one, you go crazy or two, you grow stronger mentally; I chose number two even though sometimes I feel like number one found a place inside of me!!! My writing poetry helps stave off number one. Enjoy.

"Seasons of Reflection"

Does the purple dawn silently creep or is it more a misty blue?
Does the black crow outside still screech as the day drinks up night's dew?
I don't know anymore, but I know you do!
Let me tell you what I'd like to do;
I'd like to take a long walk outside and try to lose myself in the treetops where inside my mind I'd find a warm safe place to hide and let my eyes lick the foliage like lollipops, surely I shall be reminded by the radiant colors of the trees of my youth and sin of existence and a decade shall be reflected on the scent of a cool breeze as I refuse to let my age wear down my resistance!

The Autumn chill wraps tighter around my bones with time and wrinkles the faces of familiar expressions. Those colorful leafs of yesterday shall be long left behind as their purpose leaves illusional impressions...

As my memories fade and go back to where they stay and the trees are left standing naked and bare, I am forced into another season where age and time reason but refuse to let my dreams become dust in the air...

And still be reminded by all my reflections during their daily inspections on how quickly they try and steal all my graces, as my senses become dim and their changes grow slim and one day we'll both be gone without traces...

Everything D.O.C.'s ever done will turn into particals in the sun, even my gravestone will turn to dust; just like these words, butterflies, bees and birds, even all of their iron and steel will turn to dust!!!

Daniel T, aka Boston
Still Going Strong 21 Down
© Daniel T. 2010

"Are we animals in a cage,
or caged because we are animals?"

A Few Paths I've Crossed

I once met a man who had lost his legs in what he called a fishing accident. His legs were crushed by another boat as he hung for his life off the side of his ship after nearly being thrown by a giant wave into the violent abyss that roared beneath him. We were at a bus stop downtown and he invited my friend and me to his apartment to smoke a joint and eat dinner. He would have gone hungry to keep our bellies full if it had been necessary.

My friend and I were homeless at the time. More so, mobile with a different kind of mobile home. The mobility lived in our sneakers and home was your couch or your floor or maybe your parents bed if they were out of town. We almost always found a place to sleep, my friend and I. We didn't even have to ask several people. In fact, most people who would have us over at all already assumed we'd be staying for the night.

I had a pretty girlfriend who would have snuck me into her parent's house every night, but I tried to limit stays at her house to a few times a week, since we would usually get caught in the morning. Her step dad hated my guts. One time he told me he was going to get his gun and that when he came back I had better be gone. He didn't come back. He didn't even know where his rusty gun was. We did. We used to play with it. The gun was actually hidden under my girlfriend's bed while he stormed off to fetch it. He didn't worry me. My girl and I were sixteen and in love, or so we thought and he was no more than a source of annoyance who had a habit of making hallow threats. He probably still can't find his gun. Maybe he never even looked for it.

I washed dishes at a hole in the wall "home style" restaurant. The food was deep fried and delicious but there was never more than a single table or two occupied. The host ended up being a good friend. He would sneak shots of whiskey to me during my shift and sometimes when the bosses left early, we would smoke a joint in the back alley by the trash bins. My girlfriend's house was only a few blocks away and sometimes she would walk over and smoke with us and wait in the empty dining room for me to finish my shift. On Friday nights after work the three of us would walk twenty blocks to the host's house, stopping at the lucky mart for a twenty-four case of beer. We'd drink and laugh and order pizza and I would sleep in an empty room across the hall from the host's on a half-inflated blow out mattress with my girlfriend for company.

One night the host had ten or fifteen people over to barbecue. A few hours into the gathering after most were one too many beers full, the host in a drunken rage broke his hand on a windshield as the driver pulled off barely escaping what had started out as a mellow party and ended in chaos justified by reasons not accounted for. A few minutes later as the few people left over sat around the host's bedroom, passing a joint and watching him nurse his swelling hand, four police officers walked into the room with their guns drawn and told the host to put his hands behind his back and the rest of us to exit the premises. That's the last time I saw my friend, the host. His roommate said he had had warrants out for his arrest for years. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that the police raided the house on that particular night. I spoke with him a few times on the phone. He said he was happy and that he hoped he could turn his life around some day.

Sometimes I'd stay with a kid I'd met in middle school. His mother had smoked crack while she was pregnant and he had been born nervous and manic and addicted to drugs. He stayed with his foster dad in a giant house in a nice part of the city. His foster dad had grown sick of the kid's behavior long ago, but instead of trying to "discipline" him, which seemed impossible, he would keep the fridge and garage constantly stalked with frozen food, soda, ice cream and would supply the kid with a carton of Newport cigarettes every week. The entire house pretty much belonged to the kid, a giant playground except for a room in a remote corner of the top floor where his foster dad lived safely sealed behind a door thicker than the one to the vault at your neighborhood bank and with more locks, alarms, and safety measures. I would almost never see the foster dad. I would walk through this house and be amazed at how many man-sized holes covered the walls. Some of them actually had the perfect shape of a human body as if some mysterious wall people had detached themselves from their native habitat leaving only their hollow shape as evidence to their existence.

The kid sought constant attention and he was overly hospitable. He would feed anyone who would keep him company and give us cigarette packs and there were several rooms to sleep in if it got late. Sometimes I would wonder what would happen to the kid when his foster dad passed away or decided he wanted his house back. It wasn't the kid's fault, the way he was. He had a good heart, but was doomed for failure in terms of any productive role in society from the moment he took his first painful breath of air, shrieking and clawing at the strange emptiness, already feeling the loneliness and urgent neediness that would galvanize his simple ambitions and conduct his torn relationships. A future of yesterdays and constant setbacks. A revolving door of sort of friends to pat him on the back and ask for a cigarette, then a light and thank him for the dinner and for his hospitality at such an odd hour.