Are You Hurt? Part Three

During the first week of May 2010, I obtained Level 1 status. What started out as any other day on F-pod, abruptly altered course when a guard appeared at my door and said, “Pack your stuff, you’re moving.” That had been expected, I just didn’t know when they would show up. I got my answer, though. 

 

Knowing when things would happen tended to set my mind at ease–lowering anxiety, helping me to adapt. Though it was easy to mask the fear of the unknown, I had learned enough about what I would likely face up the hall to feel confident in my ability to transition. If I could handle F-pod, I shouldn’t have any problems elsewhere. Or so I hoped. 

 

I had already conditioned myself to endure the worst TDCJ could offer. After each weekly move, I habitually cleaned each cell, contending with the detritus of the previous occupant, hair, dried skin, and toe nails; dirt-caked floors and various stains splattered on the walls; dust bunnies the size of small rats….

 

It all seemed to me then, and still does now, as a display of each slow death one man after another shared. You could mark the passage of time by how thick the dust coated the bunk, by the size of each dust bunny rolling about—by the intricate lattice work of matted hair that barely shifted as I moved around the cell.

 

Once I learned to meditate on a certain topic or person, like my sister, each stain I wiped away brought me closer to her, or to a better realization of how my mind worked. Each area I freed of grime, the biological remains of another, gave me leave to share my own forensic story. Sometimes it took hours, but I never complained during the process, except to shake my head at how far each man was willing to let themselves go. 

 

They say cleanliness is next to godliness. If true, then many of those men were sanctified as demonic overlords.

 

The move in the first week of May marked the end of my thirty-day exile. A period of time to scald my senses and break my spirit? I had ample time to reflect and develop a unique awareness, for sure. When it became common knowledge that I would be leaving soon, guys I knew shouted out random comments.  

 

“See you up the hall!”

 

“Dodge the bullets next time!” 

 

Right, it was necessary to forgive the idiots.

 

Some asked me to carry messages (kites), or asked, “Hey, can you tell…” Yeah, yeah.  It seemed like everyone had an urgent I-need-to-get-word-to-a-person request.  But I understood. We worked together to share information. I would do my part. I even collected some books and stamps (to pay a debt) for guys on the pod I was going to. 

 

The extra items were hardly a burden. I had accumulated property, but only two white-mesh commissary-bags worth. Legal work, stationery, writing supplies, and the Harry Potter box set filled one. Assorted hygiene products barely reached the one quarter mark in the other. It took very little time to pack. Then I made sure the cell was clean, and used a new cologne strip to leave it smelling fresh—my gift to the next occupant. 

 

Once cuffed and outside the cell, an SSI began the loading process. I watched, answered questions, replied to other requests, and breathed slowly to relax. Then with my bags, mattress, and meager necessities on the old rust-flaked flat cart, I let the guard lead me away. I left the decay marked by cell-warrioring, banging, random fights, and human effluent behind.

To suggest I was ready to leave F-pod would be an understatement. No one in their right mind would want to stay. But even in such a dark place, with its fetid air and hazy ambiance, it was possible to get attached to things. Mostly the men who’d helped me in a time of need, when I had nothing and could not access commissary. They had long been repaid, but the feeling of gratitude remained. It still does. 

 

It would have been easy for them to stay silent, ignoring how I suffered—leaving me alone out of sight, out of mind to remain unaffected. Their great gift to me was sharing my burden by supplying basic hygiene items, extra food, and reading material. Then in the odd hours conversations helped us to connect further. 

 

I accepted the privilege of their kindness, and I took the lesson of their generosity with me. I felt that if I could find a way to draw men out of their mental shells, getting them to focus on and explore positive things, then I would be paying it forward. 

As a whole, experiencing the Disciplinary Pod in Michael Unit’s Administrative Segregation reminded me of the time I visited Skid-Row and Box-City in Los Angeles, California, where broken men and women on the fringe of society chased addictions. In both places, as homeless on the streets or in prison, great effort was extended to reach their oblivion of choice. If, in fact, they ever had one. 

 

Outsiders might say they were simply junkies and fuckups. Guards (and even other offenders) used terms like psych-patient to classify those who acted different; or if an individual was truly bad, piece of shit, trash, snitches, and then expletives of choice were tossed in. 

 

Were the fringe addicts flirting with various forms of evil? If I was to believe that, was it any less evil to be a sideline spectator? Were they riddled with doubt and self-hate, thus doomed to a failure they didn’t want to ponder? Was it truly an act of free will that set them on the illusory paths of release?

 

It often seemed that many of the men on F-pod couldn’t help but wallow in pain, craving it, wanting to taste the fecal combination of foul discourse and physical abuse–as if fucking themselves up made them truly free. Many were obviously bored, willing to accept any sort of attention, because even pain was preferable to nothing. Give them chaotic drama, a way to openly grieve, maniacal laughter, cackling aggression, even the ghostly evolution of imprinted madness. Anything but apathy. 

 

I didn’t need to ask to understand how, as a means to obtain comfort, those men enslaved themselves to any habit of addiction as an antidote to suffering and loneliness, because I had walked those same paths. In that way, they were living a life that mirrored my own, a life I wanted to overcome–where narrow-minded awareness and radical thought had limited my options, making me a slave to my physiologically damaged mind. 

 

Explore the depth of that reality in Badflower’s song “Ghost,” with the words take away the pain, I’m a freak. Brandon Cain embodied that notion every time he shouted the misunderstood plea, “Are you hurt?” Whether they wanted to admit it or not, those expressions were the requiems emitted by the ley-lines of shame passing through the heart of every man. 

Much like the cadence of my steps, there was a tempo to the us vs. them culture. Each correctional officer faced the challenge of balancing how they did their jobs with their emotional reactions to disrespect and aggression. Offenders were naturally going to retaliate against oppression, being denied what they felt they needed, even if their actions could be deemed unreasonable. 

 

In such a low-pay high-stress environment, I would like to think their beliefs mattered—that shared Gods and principles could bridge divides. But too often it was difficult to see the right side amidst all the wrong. 

 

Who, by the nature of their position, was more correct? Were they bound up in a cosmic struggle for belief-oriented dominance between angels and demons–those principalities of good and evil? Or was their visceral reality the only realm of true freedom, where even shared beliefs were stereotypes to fuel contention, forgiving each other’s refusal to offer another common decency?

 

Unfortunately, when men and women are pushed (forced) to rely on their primal nature, esoteric beliefs become irrelevant. Could it be that what is too often so readily judged to be evil, is actually nothing more than disease and ill health?

 

I believe the concepts of hope, faith, and love are universal. Cultivating a better state of right being can work wonders in helping to resolve conflicts. But it takes a strong, independent desire to detach from labels and the emotions entwined with them. Then it takes time, within any belief system, to become respectful, empowering, inclusive, humble, curiously open to the experiences of others, willing to stay interconnected, capable of sharing perspectives and needs, responsible and accountable towards the suffering of others, and remaining positive during a crisis to seek growth and change. 

 

Therein exists a way to avoid the all too prevalent systemic abuse behind closed doors, which is overlooked because, “you are in prison, what do you expect?” We have broken wings that used to fly as Chris Stapleton sang, but it doesn’t take being in a physical prison to reach that state. Nor should we ever think that our choices never affect anyone else. I strive to avoid giving up on people, despite their failures. I want to believe it is possible for everyone to do the same. 

 

To that end I may be naïve, because the utter shame I have never been able to shake was the commonality found in guard and offender alike when it came to picking on the weak. Such cruelty was unnecessary. Suffering should not be mocked, but sadly, it is often scorned as a get over it weakness. 

 

Those with damaged minds suffer great indignity in prison. For them I constantly feel compelled to offer up fervent prayers for peace. 

Walk with me into the nexus of 12 building, a north-south vein branching and pulsing with activity. Let us chase the phantoms together, boots and shoes squelching, squeaking over gleaming white tile. Hear the section door slam, and the whomp-whomping wheels of the cart pulled by the SSI behind us. Feel the guard’s firm grip on my right arm. Smell his stale breath and musk. Then breathe in the Cool Water–which I spread in the cell–lingering on my fingers, and the remnants of the guard’s Eternity failing to mask his exertion. Hear coded messages from my escort’s Motorola. See the gray uniforms, black (anti shank) vests, a bobbing baton as the lead guard called out, “face the wall!” 

 

Inmates in two piece whites, often wearing tan or black boots, stood nose-to-wall until we passed, or scurried across intersections, pulled/pushed other flat carts (most loaded down with property), talked to associates while standing in alcoves, or leaned out of rooms ( mainly around the kitchen area) to simply watch.

 

Often I was their muse. Each of them knew where I came from and where I was going. Inaudible greetings were common, conveying shared understanding of the harrows I had endured. To some, through their glassy-eyes, I was but part of the panorama–another offender in white, a white man in cuffs, a poor soul being led toward the next chapter of existence. 

 

There went the cleaning crew–the cart with paint and chemicals, and assorted brooms, brushes, and mops stabbing the air trailed them.  Laundry bins, one white, the other blue, were pulled frantically through the hive of medical personnel in scrubs off on errands. Ranking officers issued orders; other guards escorted men dressed similar to me in button-down white jumpers. 

 

Awash in neon light, we passed two-tone walls, black rising to white, rising-rising up to conduits, duct work, and pipes. Heading northward, port-hole like renderings of nature dotted the eastern hall. 

 

Were they true images drawn from the artist’s personal experiences? An elder stag watched from the woodlands. A bass with mouth agape was leaping amidst spraying water. Near a bush by a stand of towering pine trees, a bear was seeking something. Ducks were content to rest on a pool of crystalline water. Further down I knew a trio of Longhorns waited, but our journey ended before I could evaluate their expressions.

 

We passed one, two barred windows framed in black, like gazing through bruised and swollen eyes, constricting my view to glimpses of nearly clear skies that suggested another reality.  Were those plexi-views less surreal as a gentle wind caused puffs of clouds to drift, fresh-cut grass to sway, or too distant trees to twitch? Was the stop-action motion of people walking, cars rolling by, horses grazing in the distance, a peek at something I was missing? A treasure that was lost? Did it ever really exist? 

 

Like the frozen eyes gazing out from the nature scenes, or down from the stern (undoubtedly judgmental) eagle resting atop the painted flag—in the center of the hallway where the ceiling dropped–there was the hint of something more…a hint…Would I be as stoic or free if my acrylic poses were rendered there? 

 

But those musings ended as we entered a short hallway, stopping before another black door. The guard beat on the window with the baton, then the metal, which rang out and reverberated, temporarily masking the rattling chains on men in cages, ratcheting click-click-clicking cuffs, Ms. Arthur (the property officer) telling offenders to sign forms (ignoring the “Fuck you, bitch”comment from a disgruntled guy who wasn’t wrong in his assessment of her), and other slamming doors. Soon the electronic (or magnetic) lock released and we passed into another 84 cell warren of individuals I would begin familiarizing myself with…a week at a time. 

It didn’t take long to notice the differences. A cleaner pod and cell. A mirror without scratches. Few if any markings on the wall. My hot water worked! The toilet didn’t leak. A tan plastic cover over the electrical outlet instead of a welded-on stainless-steel plate. 

 

Of course I couldn’t expect every cell to be as good, but there wasn’t a spider in sight and only one measly roach. As far as first impressions went, those were improvements I could live with. Heck, even the birds outside seemed less depressed. 

 

After delivering the messages, books and stamps, I didn’t interact much the rest of that first week, but I learned the consequence of getting rolled to F-pod was taken seriously. Having a radio was a lifeline for many. The privilege of being able to access all of what commissary offered really was worth staying out of trouble for. My blue slips for a radio, fan, and hot-pot were ready to go. 

 

When I did talk, I quickly determined that a good majority of the men were affiliated with one gang or another, based on their race. Being solo wasn’t a problem, just a curiosity. My story quickly became lore, added to the tomes of many. 

 

On store day, ice cream and putting in for appliances made me smile. More books arrived courtesy of Linda. The latest Time magazine updated me on world events. All too soon, though, my 29th year of living was set to end. 

 

May 9th arrived in a rush—a blur of crappy food and sweaty sheets. I began that day grumpy and depressed, lost in silence, wondering where my father was and how he was doing. 

 

Why? It was his birthday.

 

Every year he was absent in my life, I couldn’t help but remember back when the actual day didn’t matter as much as the time we got to spend together. I was born on the 10th, but for many years we celebrated on the same day–the 9th. Being in his presence, hearing his voice and laughter was pure joy…even as my heart beat faster when my anxiety spiked. Our relationship was complicated. I constantly fought to reconcile my love for him with anger, frustration, a sense of abandonment, and hate. I didn’t really want to contemplate all the “whys”–doing so would leave me in a funk for days. When the guard asked, “Are you ready for your shower?” I did not hesitate. Unlocking my mind was a good reason to go, but also sweaty sheets, remember? Without a fan, it was pretty much a necessity to get out of the cell each day. 

 

It was cooler on the run, during the walk, which somehow reminded me of the first shower I took on F-pod. The compare and contrast was just silly. Back then I was still subject to subtle retaliation tactics, so I was stuck wearing some boxers that required me to knot the elastic in front…because I could’ve sworn a 300 lb. gorilla had worn them as spandex. Then my towel: it looked like it had been used for target practice. Silver-dollar sized holes, and frayed edges (not to mention about a quarter of it was missing) made drying a swiss-cheese experience. But that was okay. The only way I could get out of my cell at that time was by going to the shower, because I was on cell restriction. 

 

My real problem was the lack of shower shoes. Luckily I had ample time to contemplate that fate, because it was a grand production of several officers, with a Sgt. and a camera that were necessary to even open Tony T’s door. He had forced his cell door open and beat up a law so they feared him. As they filmed his five step walk one way, then five steps back, finally returning him to his cell, I decided that I would just go to the shower fully dressed. And that is what I did. 

 

Still, having shower shoes was such a little thing, made critical by their absence when bodily fluid control problems were an issue. There was absolutely no way I was going to stand barefoot in the shower. Instead, once in the shower I slipped my shoes off and leaned them up against the door, as far from the water as possible. Then I bathed in my socks–gray, partially ripped with frayed elastic socks. No problem at all (though admittedly, I did scan the walls with a certain amount of dread).

 

When it was time to wash my feet, I did a one-legged flamingo, pulled off one sock, soaped, scrubbed and rinsed that sock and foot, then laid the sock down so I could switch. The left leg was trickier, though. Damaged left knee, remember? It was a similar situation, except there was more of a half-flamingo, squat, sway, and play patty-cake with both walls that was required to keep from tipping over. 

 

I couldn’t help but laugh quietly as I relived that action. 

 

I walked back to my cell on F-pod dressed in a jumper, socks in one hand, dripping gorilla-spandex boxers in the other, while my slip-on canvas shoes squeegeed themselves free of water with each step that I took. 

 

I looked down at my soapy toes peeking out of the front side of my shower shoes and laughed again. That was enough to lighten my mood for most of the day…until night crept in. 

Annoyed with my lumpy mattress, I had rolled it up and set it on the floor. Then I folded my (by then dried from the need-to-get-the-sweat-out-rinse) sheets into a pad on the bare metal bunk, which is where I was laying, feet propped on my folded jumper, thinking–periodically casting side-eye glances of disgust at the legal work on my table. 

 

My eyes were tired of the e pluribus unum way to aver how, in retrospect, blue should have been black, because the probable orange (which was little more than supposition at the time) really needed more due consideration within the realm of jurisprudence. It was enough to make my eyeballs spin in their sockets and gaze at my brain’s attempt to form some sort of rational understanding with disdain. 

 

Ignorance wasn’t an excuse? Sure. Bah! Verbatim ac litteratim it was all vomito to my neural pathways–a sure via crucis I needed to escape. And yet, legal work was my self-induced peine forte et dure to avoid the darker recesses of my mind, something I had approached a’ l’abandon to prevent a crise des nerfs. 

 

Macabre? Sad? Pathetic? All of the above. 

 

It was my aversion to the cerebral episiotomy necessary to reconcile the past, so I could work more fully on the present. My reticence was due to the vortex of emotions that bonded me to my father. Unfortunately, because it was his birthday, I was open to exploring the subject, but did I really have the strength to confront it all? Would I bend or break? Luckily, fatigue won out.

Undoubtedly, it was cowardice drawing me beneath layers of awareness. With eyes closed, body exposed to tepid air, I was a wraith nestled in the ambience from the door and slanting down from the window. No thoughts existed, just an image of a walkway. One I knew well. A concrete path over a brook of water, burbling around what resembled stones patterned as a natural, uniform guide toward the impression of a mist-shrouded water garden beyond. 

 

I took one step, two, listening to the liquid melody as the scene shifted. There was no path. No veil of obscurity remained, just me as a boy in simple shorts and a shirt, kneeling beside a long-ago twin sized bed, with fists clenched and eyes cinched tight, fiercely praying. 

 

“Please God,” the boy once me, whispered,” please don’t make me be like my father. I don’t want to hurt anymore.” The words were desperate, repeated until they fractured into one syllable, staccato pleas. 

 

Finally, as if drained of reason and purpose, he leaned forward, touched his forehead to the mattress, and then slowly climbed into bed. As he turned, settling on his back, a tear glinted on his smooth cheek. His eyes, glistening pools of sorrow, closed. His lips, so pale within the monochromatic shadows, began to move.

 

Surely there were words, but I could not hear into the sepulchral realm of phantoms the boy rested in, so I moved closer. Deeper. Until I merged with him and finally understood. 

Imagine, not a crooning dirge to seduce wakefulness, but repetitious thunderclaps of sound ripping silence apart, forcing eyes to snap open and a body to all but levitate with adrenaline. 

 

The guard stopped beating his iron bean-slot bar against the plexi-glass shield on my door. “If you’re eating, turn your light on!” He commanded. And like an automaton, I stumbled forth with bleary eyes, instinctively finding the button to set the halogens ablaze, causing my eyes to slit in protest. A tray waited on the slot. I grabbed it, set it on the sink, already knowing, through much Pavlovian conditioning, what would come next. 

 

“Want coffee?” Was the question asked, but my white cup was already in place before the SSI actually finished. He poured from his white bucket, up to the brim, and then moved on. Soon a guard slammed the slot closed. 

 

I took a sip of the steaming chalky-metallic brew, caring less for the taste than the tingle beginning within. A daily ritual to encourage the mind and body to seek more than a sedentary reclined state. I needed to get things done, and I needed energy, which meant I needed to eat, but as usual bleh pancakes greeted me. Such an uninviting sight: partially-cooked doughy flat-cakes drowning in the congealed mess of brown syrup.

 

Just looking at it gave me a headache, or maybe the dull throb was more of a residual reminder that I foolishly allowed myself to sleep too deeply. I’d missed the tell-tales of banging carts, other commands…but maybe it was for the best. I could not fully recall what had held me, but to get lost in such trances were as much of an addiction as any other. 

 

Two more sips. A third of the cup was empty–more white to see. My hands began to shake so I set the cup down. With my spoon and finger I began the methodical process of lifting the top two pancakes over into the second largest slot on the tray, away from the viscous, bubbling quagmire. The last of the trinity was a sacrifice. I smothered the other two in applesauce and ate mechanically: swift cuts with the spoon produced several large sections; each mass filling my mouth was nearly swallowed whole. The food, as it was, stilled my hands. 

 

The headache dwindled. 

 

When the guard returned, and opened the slot and called for the tray, I passed it to him then stepped away, returning to the dregs in my cup. To the dregs of my Spartan life. 

 

That was how, on May 10th, my thirtieth birthday, I found myself choking down the rest of the then tepid coffee before the mirror. Changes drew me in. The steel clarity provided a new, reflective awareness of my hairline, a thinning that surely didn’t exist before the previous evening, as if more than mere hours had passed. And my body seemed heavier, holding weight it had never been able to manifest before. 

 

Too much else reeked of lucid reality for it to be a dream. The scar on my head, another above my brow, one on my chin.  A hint of an age-old nose break. Memories of swollen eyes, black rimmed, bruised and red-splotched from draining tears. Just one eye completely red from burst capillaries when my father choked me. 

 

My gaze was relentless in seeking out old wounds; a broken jaw; emotional breakdowns; the desire to thrust a knife toward, into, my chest. A faint scar remained on my breast. Much like they sliced down both arms, razor-etchings from sorrow that once owned me. Where my flesh had been rended apart, pale traces remained–on my thighs, my knees, my shins. There would never be a need to get tattoos, not when the rips and gouges, bullet holes and abrasions told a more lurid tale. 

 

My eyes were showing me the self-actualized renderings of pain, confusion, and jaded yearning. Why had I been so content to accept the mutilation? Why was I still allowing fear to rule me?

 

It was a small thing, but in that moment I saw a new path, as if turning a faceted gem in the light, following the reflected glimmerings. My time amidst the broken had opened a new awareness within, showing me the depth of the vault where past grievances were stored—all that was unresolved. It was massive and daunting. It terrified and yet invigorated me, because there was the true face of what had been tearing me apart. On those shelves were all the lost hopes and dreams, a broken childhood. The failed man. My choices were a reflection of an inner cancer; feeling unworthy of praise or joy, all that could have been good. 

 

For too long I had been setting the pain aside, in a corner, out of view from the need to reduce its ability to fester. And so, as a present, there was an ethereal force within asking me to see differently. The mire couldn’t be dissolved in an instant, it whispered, but with time I would learn to navigate the web. It dawned on me then; all of the effort towards cleaning cells had been laying the foundation for that moment. A subconscious, primal desire took the reins when I was too weak to push forward. 

 

Some say the eyes are the window into the soul. If true, then mine was cracked open to let the effluent of time ooze forth. 

 

There was too much to consider, so I decided to focus on the one thing that had been recently plaguing my mind. I searched out the image of my father in the driveway, watching me leave the last time. And I spoke the words that began the process of unravelling the chains binding my heart: “Forgive me, Dad.”

 

In turning thirty, I felt freed from the need to chase a self-imposed doom, where I had pushed away success, love, and kindness. I learned to evaluate fear in a new light, because pain and suffering were as natural as breathing.  

 

I reached into the past, into those moments when my viperous tongue had assaulted my father: “I wish grandpa was alive, and you were dead in that grave.”

 

To stop the fight between Bryan (my step-brother) and I, Dad pinned me down.  I raged: “So what are you going to do now, beat me like you did my mother?”

 

I never hit him, never caused him an ounce of physical pain, but I knew my words had been a thousand-cut torture on his mind as he fought his own demons. 

He failed me as a father. 

 

I failed him as a son. “Forgive me, Dad.”

 

“Are you going to rec and shower?” a guard asked.

 

Blinking, drawn from my musings, I noticed how a sheet of light was beginning to filter in through my window. So much time had passed….

 

“Are you going or not?”

 

I nodded. “Yes,” I offered in a weak voice. My mouth was dry. Saltiness lingered on my lips. Wetness padded my cheeks but that was okay. The guard had already moved on. I turned and began getting ready to embrace the day.