FreedInside

One point I would really like to highlight though, as someone who has lived inside the system a number of years, is that reading is quite the luxury in prison. I was fortunate enough to always have a stockpile of books because of family support. Most can not afford such luxuries, and access to the library can be tricky its at best and treacherous at its worst. Many inmates get cases for trying to sneak into the library because of how difficult it is to access. And if you are in solitary or in a restrictive custody level, your book choices are going to be the ones general population do not want. Even with my assortment of books, my library was a blessing and a curse. Every six months (except during COVID) during shake-downs I would have to carry everything I owned across the unit, have it searched, pack it up, and carry it back. During these shake-downs the walkways would be ankle deep with abandoned books which were usually doomed to be thrown away.

As a guy who attempts to write comics, it would make sense that I would be all for vigilante justice. The idea that when a cartel hijacks someone’s wife while the couple are on vacation in another country, a hero will emerge from the shadows to dispense some justice in spiffy clothes with a sweet ride. It sounds great and that plot line gave us decades of excuses to watch Mel Gibson get tortured by big men with thick accents. I mean, what’s not to love there?

Unfortunately, vigilante justice in the real world has more consequences than just a couple of flattened Gibson toes and is harder to police than by just flashing a green rock at guys running around in capes. Vigilantes in the real world tend to arm themselves – and inspire others to arm themselves – with automatic weapons which are not particularly known for their accuracy. Vigilante justice also presumes the problem is with individuals and not with institutions, cultures, or even society. Vigilantes punish the bad guys (and they are guys, I don’t hear a lot about vigilantes hunting down deadbeat moms or the current Queen of the South). However, I have yet to see a problem that is just one person. In prison, inmates usually fell into one of the following categories: hustler, unfortunate, or idiot. Hustlers wanted to make a profit – and usually did for a time. There has to be a payoff for a hustler to do something, and usually he has to see someone else get paid first before attempting some crazy shit. The unfortunate and the idiots are people who don’t know better, people who with even just an ounce of education or support, could have avoided prison. However, there are pockets of society so looked down on, that we don’t want to look at them until it’s time to lock them up – or, in the case of vigilante justice, kill them.

Masks are just starting to come off in Colorado, especially in the more liberal parts of the state. My friends and family who have been on the outside during the pandemic say how weird it is to see the masks coming off and how they are not quite ready for it. While I understand the totally legitimate concern of going so quickly from lockdown to masks off, prison has hardened my response into two curt words. Fuck masks.

I say those words after having prison officials doing everything short of shoving the masks down my throat. I received my first mask at the same moment I realized that the first positive COVID-19 case had been discovered on our Trusty Camp. Field Squad bosses -- who had come directly from working the cell block on the unit which had been converted into a quarantine zone filled with inmates that tested positive for the virus -- busted into our dorm clutching piles of masks to their uniforms. I took the piece of cloth they handed me and promptly placed it in an abandoned corner of my cubicle. I did not want that thing anywhere near me -- let alone my face -- and planned on getting rid of it as soon as possible. One of my neighbors showed me his clearly used mask that still had “JEWZ SUK DIK” written on it. At this point, April 2020, I felt if there was any way that I was going to get the virus, it was going to be from this disgusting mask the officers handed me (only later I would figure out I had already caught it).

Of course, as soon as we received the masks, new rules about the masks went into effect. At first, if we so much as left our cubicle -- to go to the bathroom, shower, or shave -- the masks had to be on. Then it got worse. Unless we were laying down, the masks had to be on -- even if we were in our bunk area. After that, if our eyes were open, masks had to be on.

While all these rules were being enforced, I lived in the tightest quarters of my entire prison experience. During the pandemic I was moved at least six times, most times to dorms at full capacity. Many times I was moved as part of a mass move to empty out a dorm by combining multiple nearly empty dorms into one. So whatever good the masks may have been doing were definitely undone by moving me to live within arms reach of several other people who had not been tested.

After getting a number, inmates in Texas get a job. Since Texas inmates don't get paid, the job falls into one of three categories: field slave, house slave, or injured.

Field slaves work long hours, usually in the sun, and often under the supervision of a field boss on horseback holding a shotgun. These slaves may also spend their days and nights cleaning up after other inmates, while each new shift of officers creates new sets of rules for these slaves to follow.

House slaves generally work indoors, sometimes even in the A/C. These jobs can range from truck-driving to paper-pushing. These inmates often work side-by-side with free-world employees. Still, the division between employee and slave is clear -- especially when it's time to take out the trash. No paid employees clean, take out the garbage, or even lift objects when an inmate is around. An officer once stopped me in the hallway over a shoebox-sized package which I so rudely did not think to carry for my master...I mean supervisor.

Even though no inmates are paid, all inmates are expected to work. The only exception to that rule are the injured. To be classified as injured requires days, weeks, and months of back-and-forth trips to medical to build a laundry list of restrictions. To receive a restriction usually requires a serious impediment, like losing two legs to diabetes. Guys who have gone to the hospital with broken limbs have failed to get restrictions, forcing them to work and somehow climb onto top bunks night after night. Still, where there is a will to avoid four-stepping in the Texas fields during the mid-July heatwave, there is a way to get medical restrictions. A common strategy is to fall-out, usually by collapsing in the field and not moving until the medical teams arrive -- which can take hours. Even then, this may only buy an inmate a week-long sick pass.

Those fortunate enough to make the injured roster become the bane of working inmates. Injured have free pickings at the commissary, while workers get the leftovers, if workers get lucky enough to get called out for commissary at all. Stay at home cellies on the injured roster frequently cause problems for their 9-to-5 counterparts by taking over the cell during the day or trying to dominate much coveted cell-time. And of course, injured have ready access to the lockers of workers while they are gone.

Everyone has to take an IQ test upon admittance to prison. Inmates get to take the test only one time no matter how young they are, how many withdrawals they may be suffering, or how inhumane the 4 AM test time may be. No one knows the result of this test unless they get a case. Inmates usually avoid cases because the parole board can see them and does not look on cases favorably. 

One day, an inmate fittingly called Youngster decided he needed to move, and the only way to do that was to get a bunch of cases. The afternoon of his first case, he strolled back into the dorm with a grin on his face as he joyfully yelled, “I’M A 77!”

I looked at him not understanding, “Are you talking about your IQ?”

“Yessir! It says right here in the corner, I’m a 77! A 77!!!” he laughed across the room.

Knowing that 70 is mentally disabled, I treaded carefully, “Why are you so proud of 77?”

“Well, like, 140 is a genius...right?”

“Sure...”

With entries being a little scattershot at this point, it is probably time for a mission statement: 

I have to spend a day in a county jail that recently had confirmed COVID-19 cases*. I spend the day there and then have to travel back to my mom’s house in another state, probably by getting on a plane and traveling through at least two airports. I asked a probation officer if I still need to spend this day in jail with the pandemic still an issue. Yes, I do. Congratulations Texas, you are tough on crime.