Solitude

When it’s time to take a break from the day-to-day irritations that come with serving a life sentence in prison, there aren’t a whole lot of options.  You might rack up a minor violation and take a weeklong getaway in the segregation unit.  Or, if a guy’s really going through something and in need of a prolonged “vacation”, he might rack up some more serious charges.  And then we have something called the Administrative Control Unit.  It’s a high security detention unit that was added to the prison a couple decades ago.  It’s big, with high ceilings and lots of very secure doors.  It can provide a level of relative peace and quiet you’re not going to find anywhere else.

The hallways in the A.C.U. are long, brightly lit, and unfinished with all the plumbing, electric, and venting mechanicals exposed overhead.  It reminds me a lot of the maintenance corridors in another one of Minnesota’s better-known institutions – the Mall of America – with its tunnel-like hallways that run behind the hundreds of shops.  I did some repair work there in the 90’s, many lifetimes ago.

The cells in the A.C.U. come equipped with double doors, its own shower, and a TV screen high in the wall behind heavy plexiglass.  In years past that TV was privilege-only earned over time with prolonged stretches of good behavior.  Now it’s a standard part of the A.C.U. experience.  It plays two channels.  One, an endless loop of the federally mandated P.R.E.A. (prison rape elimination act) video in English, Spanish, and Hmong.  The other, a weekly rotation of religious programs; Native American ceremonies on Monday, Buddhism Tuesday, and so forth.  Yep, that’s TV, except during a time out.  Otherwise known as “quiet status”, it is implemented when a guy snaps out or otherwise goes off and causes some kind of a ruckus.  You spend a 24-hour stretch with no books, no TV, etc.  Just cool out, and you’re back to normal.  If not, the cycle continues 24 hours at a time.

For example, there’s this one guy… (No, not me.  A “theoretical”, you know, “just for the sake of discussion” …).  Anyway, there’s this one guy who just landed in the A.C.U. who came in hot.  He’d been going through some things and was very pissed off.  Smoke coming out of his ears, the whole deal, automatic quiet status.  Seems like he kind of snapped out during a work detail.  Kind of yelled at the supervisor.  Maybe said some things he shouldn’t have said.  Maybe had a knife on him.

(Note to self…): You know, it might be time for that guy to sign up for that anger management class again.  See if it sticks this time.  Deep breaths, count to ten.  It worked for a while last time…until it didn’t.  Old dogs, new tricks, and all that.

Twenty-four hours of quiet is a good start.  It’s enough time to take a few deep breaths, count to ten a few times, take a good look around my new home – identify the parts that need to be cleaned immediately, what can wait.  Take a look out the window, take in what passes for nature around here…the weeds, and grass, and flowers in that order.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I would be back there long enough to watch the grass outside my window grow knee high and the weeds even taller.  I’d enjoy a melancholy beauty as I watched those little wildflowers for a little while every day, never giving in to all the ugliness around them, rising above it all.

I didn’t know then that I’d be there long enough to watch a maintenance man in uniform drive a ridiculously small riding lawnmower through the knee-high grass and even taller weeds.  Long enough to see the wildflowers that I had watched grow a little more every day reaching for the light, thrive in such an otherwise ugly place, plowed under and folded flat by the front axle of the maintenance man’s child-sized riding lawnmower to meet the unyielding blades of fate.  Only the roots remain.

It’s quiet again.  The reaper on the riding mower is gone.  I hadn’t even noticed.  There was the steady drone of the blades and motor and then quiet again.  It was the same quiet as before.

There’s probably a metaphor or two in there somewhere.  Some kind of greater truth.  But if there is, I’m choosing not to dwell on it.  It’d probably be wise for you to do the same.

In the A.C.U. with the inner and outer doors of the individual cells closed, (there’s a sallyport between the cell and the hallway), all but the loudest of the sporadic noise of your old friends and new neighbors are muffled.  The ones that make it through are easy enough to tune out with a little practice – ignore even, consciously anyway, with much, (much, much, much), more practice.  Most of the yelling is about a whole lot of nothing, communication’s form of boredom, chit chat.  Just talk to break up the days and weeks, and months, and years of loneliness.  Other times, it’s simply self-expression.  The yeller yelling to let out pain, rage, frustration, or maybe he’s just plain old batshit crazy.  You name it, we got it.  And sometimes it just feels good to scream and rage at nothing at all just for the hell of it.

I’ll get off quiet status at 9 a.m. the next day.  A guard brings me an intake bag and a couple of paperback books.  She goes into the adjoining closet and powers up the TV.  She makes sure it works, and I can hear it.  I finish the process of getting my cell set up…books on the floor by the bed, pen and paper on the desk.  I wash the cell down with a rag and the bar soap that came with the intake bag.  It is a paper sack with motel-sized hygiene products in clear packaging, a black plastic comb, and a pen, (a two-inch long ball point ink cartridge housed in a clear flexible rubber sleeve).  “Kites” are also included; two yellow, three pink.  These are the forms we use for any kind of request or complaint.  Yellow for general, pink for medical.  The medical kites include a seven-point checklist to address several predetermined issues the inmate may be experiencing including…”in the event of”:

•  Medical emergencies
• Thoughts of self-harm

(“In which case you should” …)

• STOP
  • Contact staff

Yellow kites, pink kites, and USPS mail are picked up every night during the 8:30 round.  Email correspondence is incoming only.

Return kites, answered within seven days, USPS mail, and incoming JPay emails (in printed form), are delivered after the 5 p.m. meal.

Welcome to the A.C.U. We hope you enjoy your stay.