The Roy’s:Episode Twenty-Three
May 26th, 2008
Episode Twenty-Three
… maximum security prison.
Embarrassing as that previous sentence is to write, unfortunately that’s the flat out truth. Apparently, Eau Claire does not take kindly to their probation clients committing felonies. This instance was case in point, as my probation officer convinced the judge and the district attorney that a year of intensive sanctions was certainly in order. At the time, the city of Eau Claire had an IS program in which anyone deemed appropriate for the curriculum would be placed on an ankle bracelet and then given the opportunity to integrate themselves back into the community in a more positive manner. There was a catch however, in that you had to spend a quarter of your sentence behind bars. Since I committed a felony, no matter the restitution, I was required to spend three months in the Wisconsin prison system. I would get to start spending my time at Dodge Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in southern Wisconsin.
Shit.
All I have is my personal story. However, I will take this opportunity to say it was nothing like you see on television. No, I wasn’t gang raped, sorry. Regretfully, I didn’t witness any mass stabbings on the recreation yard either. Those things aside, it is every bit as degrading and intimidating as one might think.
Here is my story.
After sentencing, I was given a week to get my affairs in order. My affairs at that time were to get as wasted as possible. I tried to go back to work for the week, but suffice it to say my mind wasn’t really into it. Right up until the final day, I spent most of my time either at the bar or with ‘the one’. I think I was completely in shock for the most part. My last night of freedom was spent at ‘the one’s’ house in what was a very somber occasion. Ironically, supper that evening was purchased by the friend whose check I had forged. I have always wondered if I am the only person who has ever been bought dinner, by their victim, the night before entering prison for said crime.
I would imagine I am.
I had to report the next day at six in the morning, so sleep that evening was not even an option. It was an extremely difficuly twelve hours for me, and probably twice as hard for ‘the one’. She, for some silly reason, was still interested in this walking crime spree, and the waning hours of that morning were spent alone, with ‘the one’ in what was a tremendously difficult night, where I tried to distance myself from a female who was looking for any kind of window into this depressed young man’s mind. I couldn’t give it to her at the time, and I left ‘the one’ that morning in tears, tears that I wanted to share, but couldn’t bring myself to shed.
Finally, I had arrived at rock bottom.
I turned myself in that morning to the Eau Claire County jail. Within hours, I was in a minivan headed down south for the prison. It was an agonizing four hours of anxiety. The stress level spiked to an all time high when we arrived, as the certainty of the situation became more and more obvious. Although not my experience on the inside, the outside of the prison is everything it appears to be on television and then some. It is an awe striking collection of cement and steel, with miles and miles of razor wire as far as the eye can see. As soon as you pull in you realize there is no way out. This is where all the bad people go …
… and stay.
You are allowed to bring a photograph and twenty stamps with you when you enter the prison system. I only brought the stamps; there wasn’t a picture in the world that meant anything anymore. Upon arrival I was stripped of everything except those stamps, showered, and promptly put in hunter green.
Yeah, I expected orange too.
After your initial hour or two at the spa, you are then given a haircut, by who is essentially the first inmate that you actually meet. At this point asking for a nice layered look is pretty much out of the question, and the large African American gentleman that did my makeover, used only an electric clippers, one length, almost to the scalp. When you’re finally done with the outfitting, you then enter the main hallway into the cell block you have been designated to stay in. Walking into this cell block for the first time is when the full consequence of your actions hits full bore. It is enormously large, enormously shiny, and …
… always, and I mean always, loud.
From that instant on you completely forget what silence is all about. I believe that is why I am so reserved today. In prison, there is always noise, and I would not experience a serene moment throughout my stay. I understand how people can go crazy.
That is why I cherish silence every day.
Anyway, the first thing they have you do is fill out barrage of forms. They place you at tables in the middle of the block while you are surrounded by cells on all sides. Essentially, it feels like you are on display. I thanked god for my acting career at this point, because the show began right then and there. I ceased to be myself and started to be whoever and whatever I needed to be at that specific time. People start sizing you up the minute you walk through the door. You best know how to act, how to respect, and most importantly how to talk. If you don’t figure this out right away…
…you’re toast.
I kept my mouth shut, pretended I wasn’t scared, and started to go with the flow. A flow is exactly what it is too. It begins the moment you get there and ends the day you leave. You are thrown in without warning and it is wise to stay right about somewhere in the middle. If you start to venture to either bank, it can get treacherous.
After what seemed like days I was finally led up the stairs of the cellblock, to be placed in my cell, with who was to be my first prison roommate. Every scenario possible had already gone through my head, and I don’t know if this was planned in any way, but when I walked into my cell there stood a white kid…
around my age….
and from my town.
Like the lottery, only better.
This kid would be my cell-mate for the first three days of what they refer to as intake. Having someone who was in an almost identical circumstance, turned out to be instrumental in my overall stay, as we were able to talk openly, discuss what was going to happen next, and not have to worry if the other guy was an axe murderer. Thirty-six hours later I got to do it all over again. After your intake time is finished you are again moved to your main block for a thirty-plus day evaluation, in which the powers that be assess your risk level, your crime, and where you should be placed in the penal system for the duration of your stay. I was separated from my initial cell mate and placed in a cell with an old hippie from Madison, doing a year for marijuana crimes.
Mass murderer averted again.
Then it was complete lock-down.
Twenty-three hours a day.
Notice the episode number?
I plan well.
The next month was perhaps the longest I will ever face in my life. Boring does not begin to describe the sound filled solitude that would ensue. I absolutely refuse complain due to a deep seeded belief that those who protest being bored in prison are straight chumps. But seriously, there is absolutely nothing to do for the first month. You get out of your cell three times a day for ten minutes to eat, a shower three times a week, and possibly a check-up with the doctor if you’re lucky. Outside of that, you sit and …
…rot.
For the first thirty days, that’s precisely what I did. I sat and thought about what I had done with my life, what I was going to do in the future, and how I was going to pass the next instant. This watching of the second hand is really all you can do. We did manage to get a cigarette once and that was the pretty much the ultimate highlight of that April. I dined and conversed with murderers, bank robbers, and every other criminal under the sun. All with different stories, all with lives headed in different directions. I barely felt human, often finding myself removed as if I was watching the whole scenario from outside of myself.
Then, out of the blue and completely unannounced, I got word that I was getting transferred for the remaining sixty days of my sentence. This is the moment that everyone waits for, the moment you find out where you will spend your time. I expected to get sent to one of the minimum security facilities somewhere up north and closer to home, where cigarettes could be found a plenty, and going outside at will was commonplace. When it was my turn to pack up my things and leave, they took me …
…down the hallway and up the stairs.
I couldn’t friggin’ believe it. I assume that since I was a short timer they just figured it best that I stay at the same facility. So, they moved me to a dormitory style cellblock called unit eleven where I was thrown into a cell with fifteen other guys. This is when it gets a little intimidating. Like I had done so many days previously, I just kept my mouth shut and went with the flow.
Hear nothing, see nothing.
I knew right away that I needed to figure out a way to make my stay there a little more comfortable. I thought about it for a couple of days while I buttered up one of the guards a little bit. A couple of weeks later, when the opportunity arose, I applied and got the most sought after job on any cellblock. I was now officially the guy who controlled …
…the underwear.
Silly as it sounds, it was one of my most brilliant ideas. After landing that position the rest of my stay was pure gravy. If there is one thing in prison treasured more than anything, it is a fresh pair of underwear. I used this simple fact to my advantage repeatedly.
I never had a single problem with anyone.
When I wasn’t folding and handing out underwear, I read. Specifically, I read L. Ron Hubbard’s entire Mission Earth series … twice. I ate, slept, read, slept, ate, read, and then slept some more. For two months straight I continued this routine, with the only deviation being the day that the O.J. Simpson verdict was read. It was a tension filled atmosphere and an extremely interesting dynamic to be immersed in for its reading. Right verdict or not, everyone around me seemed very relieved the verdict came down the way it did. I think it would have been a much different story had it been the other way around.
Truth be told, the entire thing was horribly humbling and not a day passed in which I had not regretted every single decision I had made. My time started to pass a little quicker when I started to receive letters from ‘the one’. Those letters were more comforting than any duvet cover that this world has to offer. She was the only one in my corner.
She was my life line.
When my sixty days were up I got transferred to a medium security prison in Jackson County, picked up the next day, and transported to a criminal based halfway house back in Eau Claire. There to greet me when I arrived was ‘the one’ with some clothes and a bag of change. She was the most beautiful thing I had seen in what had seemed like an eternity.
Absolutely radiant.
A mere twenty four hours later I had secured employment and as I watched the fireworks that fourth of July evening an unknown re-birth of sorts had already begun. Life wouldn’t give me much time to enjoy it.
Little did I know that when the sun came up the next day I would be forced to make the most difficult decision of my life.
I received a letter the next morning.
It was from ‘the girl’…
…and she wanted me to …
(Stay tuned for Episode Twenty-Four)
pack93z said:
Rut roh.. a lifetime choice of sorts I think is comming.. doesn’t it just seem to be the case.. once you move on past someone.. they seem to try and pull you back in some sort of fashion.. anyway.. maybe I am completely off base with my assumption..
May 27th, 2008 at 8:16 am #
Zombieslayer said:
Good write up on prison life. No, never been and knock on wood hopefully never will go, but it’s always scared me.
I know what comes next. Accidentally read them out of order.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:43 am #
Anonymous said:
This is a great blog. Keep it up.
June 26th, 2008 at 2:19 pm #