My wife is more superstitious than I am, so I will not talk about leaving. As I wake up this morning, a little earlier than normal, I would like to reminisce about my stay here. Maybe today I will leave.
First, I will miss the personalities of some of the guards. A few of them are definitely likeable. Maybe like a dog, you wag your tail for whoever feeds you and takes you "out" for a walk to my legal visits. I remember that my dogs used to go crazy when I picked up the chain, and they knew they were going out for a walk. Honestly, it is the same each time I hear the keys or handcuffs rescuing me. After initially "tabling" my ego and pride, even strip searches after visits became worth the departure from the cell for an hour or two. Some of the guards touched me (not that way) because they care. Some are simply more evolved and competent than the others who are overwhelmed by the task and the responsibilities at hand.
Without my diary notes in front of me, since I sneak them out through my daily visits, I hope my stories and comments are not too redundant. For you see, my mail is opened, read, and stapled together and I am pretty sure my letters and stories would have been censored by someone with the same qualifications as the more inept characters who have already been presented .
Before I go down prison memory lane and all is well again with the world because I, a non-criminal, am finally leaving to return to the "non-toilet paper center world". Let us pray for those for whom today is just another day in this non-productive system of make believe.
Chapter 13 – A Heart to Heart with You
Often "patriots" resent any criticism of good old America. My country "Love it or leave it". "My country, sure we have problems but we're a hell of a lot better than any other country in the world". As a lower to middle class former Marine, I've said and believed what these "patriots" today believe.
I have poked fun and was even sacrilegious towards many of the procedures, policies or inept actions of the unchecked authority during my stay at MCC. I have discussed and described a criminally negligent counselor, a Chaplain devoid of compassion, the sounds of the night, the relationships between prisoners and guards, the internal shower construction, my escape during the count, "button-flushers", toilet paper centers, clothes, and the parade of psychologists, "rounders", and countless other uncaring middle managers. I gave the top management only one test (my requested phone call) and they failed with impunity. I've shared with you the loss of personal freedoms and the thoughts and, in some cases, the practices, games, books and activities one does when his world has been taken away.
But remember, whether today is my final diary entry, or yet another disappointment on the road to release; there are hundreds of thousands of souls, many like you and me, living within this broken system today and tomorrow. There are countless families trying to hear the truth from those with whom they speak. There will be countless dialogues today of promises not kept, innumerable thoughts of despair, hatred, unacknowledged depression, humanity ignored, filthy cells, supplies not given, words not heard and America getting weaker - not stronger. It has been said that a society’s character can be judged by the manner in which it cares for its indigent, which includes its prison population. From Guantanamo, which all patriots have given carte blanche for my fellow Marines to waterboard and detain without the semblance of due process, to even MCC and my brief stay with no hearing and an incarceration without my civil liberties respected; our prison and judicial system needs an examination and full overhaul.
To the alarmists who believe that my remarks constitute an opening of the "Willie Horton" doors of justice, their indiscriminate and parochial conclusions are ill advised. Let us consider that our prison system is now a very large business that is not scrutinized. It needs prisoners to grow. Frankly think of it as a fire that needs wood. We pay for the salaries, construction, upkeep and repeat returnees because that's their built-in obsolescence. Many still discuss that the Packard automobile company went out of business because the car was too well constructed and consumers didn't have to repurchase them every few years. Are our prisons designed for rehabilitation or a lifetime of generational dependency? Are we packing them in for generations to follow?
So today, this morning, my walk down memory lane may be short lived and the Judge may forget, or feel my punishment still does not make him feel good about his absolute power. Nevertheless as I imagine my counselor with 3 names, the mad-hatter psychologist seemingly afraid of the inmates, to my tattooed neighbor, my neighbor who beat the telephone system by creating an imaginary phone and countless other memories; I wish to thank-you for giving me some reason to write. Whether this diary results in cocktail party dialogue or a reporter deciding to examine the financial books, or a lawyer having the courage to file a lawsuit on behalf of the system's responsibilities to his or her clients continual incarceration, to maybe a TV talking head beginning an investigation; I contend that all sides of this issue need to be heard! Prisoners may not all be eloquent.
But during my brief visit to their world, their eyes spoke volumes. Please hear their silence.
If you could have read these eyes and mannerisms with the same intensity that I was blessed to see; then you would never compliment this diary but you would know how far short of the expose' my simple words came to the intensity of the challenge before us. The solution is not within the Bureau of Prisons. The solutions must come from the hearts and minds of our American collective intelligence and our desire to be the bearer of freedom which symbolizes our nation.
This, my captive diary reader, is one man who has been punished from misguided authority. The media tells us that some of our financial problems are caused by our involvement in the Iraqi War, or it's the next election, or it's the revolution of our social divide. No, it’s how we handle this bleeding ulcer in our economy and our collective soul. Let's focus on this problem. It affects multiple societal issues.
We laughed and maybe cried together in my unwanted twenty-five day stay in a Federal prison. There haven't been too many diaries that get out. There were many "Anne Franks" who probably had their diaries destroyed. We need only read and see the truth in one story, and that should be enough for us to believe in the many ongoing tragedies which thousands have experienced and yet have gone unwritten, disbelieved or unread.
Like the reason I am here, sometimes life calls upon us to be touched by a mistake or an injustice and to act in support of others who may never know what you did for them. This work is a dedication to those inmates who cannot or are prevented from speaking for themselves.
I would tell you at the very least to call your elected officials, but unfortunately, their approval ratings are lower than the President today. But we must accept that we live in a "selective" democracy and these elected men and women only work on what the polls and their constituents' letters tell them to address.
This is an issue that deserves more attention than steroid use in baseball. There are some BOP officials who should be taken in and out of hearings in cuffs or with bags over their heads. We have questioned the tobacco industry for attracting and then killing their customers, but do our prison officials ever get questioned for the psychological deaths of millions of these less than hardened criminal inmates?
My Illustrated Man dialogues or inmate serenades of nocturnal sounds ask you to look into where and how they will be treated, and how much we will be forced to pay for the next few generations. These inmates will only be replaced by maybe one of your offspring. Once you slip in; it is close to impossible to get away. They need customers. They require more customers. How do we change this? It's your move. (And I hope mine out of here today).
If it's worth the effort, I'll relate my actual move out of this prison. Who knows what indignities or laughs the system of BOP still has to show us. (How prophetic when you finally read of my final day)
You see, I think the BOP is subconsciously crying out for help as evidenced by their actions, can't you hear them?
Although I had hoped this entry would be my last, I must still relate an incident while I wait to go to the legal room for a visit this morning, hoping to hear of my release.
The shower crew has returned and all hell has