SHAWSHANK: The Final Redemption

There's a scene where an inmate manages to lock himself inside an office where he is able to use the security P.A. to broadcast music.  All across the prison men are pausing to stop and listen.  Perhaps one of the "realist" scenes in the movie.

Music knows no boundaries.  There's no fences, no concrete walls...only music that carries throughout.  The universal language that, whether in your native tongue or not, can cause you to stop, drop anything, and move to the music.

When I heard Rihanna sing, Love on the Brain, I stopped and was moved.

So much that I downloaded it onto my MP3.  It's not even that "love is on my brain".  Rather it's the passion and soul she puts into that song.  Perhaps it's the artist in me, but I find it amazing.

When you live in prison you latch onto things that free your mind from the confines of this place. Sleep certainly takes the first prize.  That's the easiest way to do time.

The next in line would be relationships.  I have been blessed with solid people in my corner both in here and out there.  Throughout our lives they come and go.  Some people grace us with their presence for a short time.  Perhaps they are angels God places in our paths to help us through extraordinary circumstances.  Others will walk the entire journey of our lives beside us.  My Mom has done that.

Some days you can argue that's just family and that's what they're supposed to do.  However, plenty of families don't show love and support for their members.  One little thing and the house is divided and nobody talks to old Uncle Tom because he pissed somebody off.

I'm not on that and I'm blessed non of my family is either.

I called home the other day to speak to my Mom and a little voice answers and says, "Hello Uncle Mike"...

It's my sister's daughter.  She doesn't know me other than the pictures of me on the fridge.  Well, and to know that my sisters all tell their children about their Uncle Mike.  So I'm alive and well back home.

I'll get home and the pieces will all fit once again.

I think there's love, loyalty and respect in a great family.

I've been gone and forgotten to some.  And they now take the bottom of my list of acquaintances.  It blesses me to see how my family has stood tall and kept me alive there with them.  And that's what's on my mind today.

I want to tell my family...you are the best team this man could ever have.  My hat's off to each of you.

Some people will never come to this place...and thankfully.  I'm not angry I came here.  Nor am I angry about the time I gave here.  Had I stayed free these past 10 years, life out there wouldn't have taught me the lessons I learned in here.  Joke about the school-of-hard-knocks...but I've been a pupil there all these years.

Touch the stove and you get burned, you'll really think hard and long before you do that again.  The person who is just "told" not to touch is much weaker than the one who was burned.

I am that dude now.  Took the lesson the hard way,  but I fully understand.  If you thought you knew me before prison,  you probably won't now.

I'm blessed my family has taken the journey in stride beside me.  This way we have all grown together.  And you reading this crap?  Well---we're growing together too.

Really!?!

On top of the three meals a day D.O.C. feeds, we have a canteen to purchase personal items to keep in our locker and eat from.  If  your fortunate enough to have loved ones who can donate to your cause.

The canteen sold top rolling tobacco for inmates to smoke until about four years ago.  The cost of treatment for inmates who developed lung cancer was killing "them" along with the inmates.  So tobacco products are no longer offered in the canteen.  This has caused them to become a highly smuggled product.

A pack of cheap cigarettes is purchased and after opened all the filters are torn off.  This down-sizes the product being smuggled.  It's packaged in what is called a bomb..  Tightly compacted and wrapped in cellophane.  Those cigarettes are called Cadillacs.

A pack of 305 Cigarillos cost $2.00 on the street.  Once inside these walls that mark-up is $50.00 per pack.

You don't smoke an entire Cadillac.  Instead it is quartered.  Each piece is sold for $2.00 in what they call a plug.  That plug is broken up and then rolled into a small joint looking smoke.  Since there are no rolling papers sold anymore, the closest alternative is pages from the Bible.

So your cigarette is smuggled as a Cadillac.  Broken into quarter plugs, then rolled up in torn up Bible pages for you to smoke.  You smoke unfiltered tobacco and then inhale all the ink printed on the pages.  Talk about getting your "daily bread".  A friend said they should call them HOLY SMOKES!

And I wonder how that's working to cut back on lung cancer for the Department.

Because a plug is $2.00 it causes most cigarettes to be smoked by two men.  They each donate a dollar.  Once they burn it down to a roach sized piece another man comes along and asks for the short.  That man keeps all the "shorts" until he can roll up his own roach-joint.  By the time he has enough he has small pieces that half a dozen men hove smoked from.  And they wonder why the cold and flu passes around so quickly.

I personally hate to see the Bible torn up and smoked from.  But, I live with a bunch of idiots.  Nasty people who do nasty shit.  Like the guy who, as he takes a piss, plucks out a few pubic hairs and sets them on top of the urinal.  Is that really necessary?  Or the man who picks his nose while he talks on the phone.  Wiping it on the wall next to it.  You have to wear rubber shower shoes while in the shower.  I won't even get into what's on the walls and floors in there.  You have to live in here, but touch as little as possible.

Maybe you've seen those rap videos where everyone has their hand in their pants or is grabbing their crotch.  I live that every day.  I make my phone calls on the phone that the man before me has his hand in his pants, then back on the phone.  Needless to say, I don't shake hands.  Prison makes you a fan of the fist-bump.  I don't know where your hands been so it won't be on  my hand.  What makes a man feel he has to readjust his pecker and spit during the entire conversation?  As if these men have went back to their animal instincts.  Why not just hike your leg on that post over yonder and pee on it?  Why must you have your hand in your pants?

And the officers know all about it as well.  they are constantly telling full-grown men to "Pull up your pants..." And..."get your hands out of your pants."

It's crazy.   I have grown so used to these things I barely even notice them.  Now I'm looking to come home and the transition process has already begun.  I see these things and shake my head, thankful I'll be leaving here.

CRAZY QUIRKS VS INSTITUTIONALIZED

Sometimes I sit and watch the guys around me.  Prison does crazy things to dudes.  More severe cases are called institutionalized.  Those are men that once released don't stand a chance.  Freedom literally scares them and they will re-offend, just to come back to the life they know here.  A bed every night and three meals a day.

There are others that just develop crazy quirks.  Misfires if you will.  Don't laugh at an institutionalized man because if you do you should be ashamed.  Like poking fun at a mentally challenged person--you're just being an asshole yourself.

Men with weird unexplainable actions are interesting to observe.  Almost as good as a paid safari to watch a lion take down a wildebeest.

I would be a liar if I said this place hasn't affected me too.  My shoes are military precision paired and placed under my bed.  As soon as I wake up, before I even leave, my bed is made military style. Hospital corners and 6-inch cuff.  I slide it over to one side of the bunk so I don't sit on it and mess it up.  I'm not crazy.  That's so I'm inspection ready at any time.  If an officer has to stop and tell me to make my bunk, I'm dead wrong.  This means that instead of walking past, he's now lingering at my pad.  This means next I'm subject to a shake down, which I don't ever need.

I leave things matched and paired and slide to the edge of my bed.  This alerts me to anyone messing with my shit.  You have to do that here.  Maybe someone wants me gone and out their way, so they slide a shank or a cell phone under my mat or bunk.  They tip the cops off and I go in for something that wasn't ever mine.  I shake myself down every day just to make sure no one sets me up for the fall.

I lock my cup and bowl in my locker.  Never leave it out.  Someone could come put some bleach or Ajax in something to make you sick.  A few drops of simple Visine will give you the explosive diarrhea for two days.  These guys play dirty.  This is my life.

The cops play a hard game as well as the inmates.  Cops will lie on you to get you in trouble.  Maybe they know you're up to no good but can't ever catch you.  They put phones, dope and knives on dudes as well.  Then come shake you down.  You really have to stay in your own lane here.

So the silly shit I do and have become anal about is stuff to save my ass, if not my life.  Someone else probably watches me though...shaking down my shit...laid under my bunk like a mechanic doing an oil change and thinks..."what the hell is he on?".  One day I will no doubt drive a woman nuts if I can't shake this place.  I can.  I will.

Back here we just mess with each other.  I'm reading a book right  now.  I wondered why I kept reading this same page every time I opened the freaking thing.  Then realized my Bunkie keeps sticking my bookmark at page 85.  Thanks asshole.  But--these are the things you need to keep you sane.

My Bunkie has been doing time with me for five years.  He was at my last prison too.  He ran over someone with his car while on spring break in Panama City.  He was a college student at Florida State.  He killed the person.  He's doing twenty years.  That's my best friend.

The man who gets all the good books sent in that I read sleeps next to us in another bunkbed.  He likes motorcycles and we're going to ride to Sturgis for a bike week once I'm out.  He leaves six months before me.  He's been in for 18 1/2 years.  He did home invasions and assaulted a policeman. They gave him 25 years.

I've met some good people here.  They were not when they came in, neither was I.  Some just made a bad mistake.  One man comes here and changes to become a good person.  Another comes here and will leave a greater menace than he came.  A friend of mine states to always move forward....I like that.  Never forget where you've been and the journey you took to become who you are.

Before long this will become a fading memory.

GET EVALUATED

Prisoners begin their journey at a reception center.  Upon arriving you begin a  number of evaluations.  Where you are regarding your level of education.  Do you have any previous medical history?  Are you sane?  Do you have prior gang history?  A file is created for you.  This becomes your jacket and will follow you your entire stay in the Department of Corrections.  Every time you get into trouble, go to confinement or fail a G.E.D test, it's logged in your file.  When you transfer from prison to prison your file moves with you.

You have probably seen someone charged, on the stand, who is found mentally unable to stand trial. Others are tried and convicted but as soon as they're evaluated here, they are declared psychiatric patients and begin medication.  There are special prisons for those special folks where they can receive the "care" they need.

D.O.C. is similar to the army.  They have officers, Sergeants, Colonels and Majors.  As you climb the ladder, so does  your pay.  Some hire on and don't want the headache created with higher status. Others strive to climb that ladder.  We call them "G.I. Joes".

Another way for an officer to up their pay is when they are in high-security situations.  There are certain pay increases when you place yourself in high-risk situations with high-rick inmates.

I'm not certain what the D.O.C. is attempting but they are closing down some of the psychiatric facilities and placing those inmates into general population at lower security prisons.  One logical explanation is the pay rate would then be adjusted for officers in those situations.  The downfall is that now you have very unpredictable inmates living among everyone.

I have done my time by staying in my own lane.  Staying out of others way.  Finding the path of least resistance.  We are creatures of habit, so once you see the general movement...just carve out your little nest and go with the flow.  You can't do that when the playing field is unstable.

Unstable brains make unstable scenarios.  So now there's a new thing to be aware of.  These guys don't need a reason to stab you.  They wake up and the voices tell them what to do.  Stare in their direction too long and their mind sees you as a threat.  They sit at a table and stick their leg into the aisle.  The first dude who comes along and accidentally brushes them gets assaulted.  And you're supposed to look ahead and see all this shit.  It's a lot to have on your plate.  Especially for these young men who just came in.  They don't see all I've explained to you.  The view I have has come from years of dealing with this place.  You don't learn this stuff overnight.

So our lives have become a high-risk situation.  You already live in an unpredictable world where the staff make all the rules.  You are guilty until proven innocent.  I'm sure you have woke up and the kids are throwing a fit.  You can't find an outfit to wear.  You and your partner have words that leave your spirit troubled.  Finally, you're out the door with a hundred problems on your mind.  Unable to properly focus you don't see the traffic light is red.  You drive into the intersection, a horn honks, and suddenly a car screeches to a halt only inches from your door.  It's OK... your safe.

Now picture a 200 pound naked man chasing you with an ice poker because the demons told him to kill you.  This life is full of land mines...waiting for you to activate the trigger.

And some days I feel I navigate the mines in here as well as the ones out there.

Thankfully it's not much longer now.

REALITY THAT IS FAR FROM NORMAL

Prison is one crazy wild ride.  There was a time when stuff made me do a double take.  I find lately my feelings have dulled to a reality that's far from normal.

While working out the other day I looked around me and for some reason noticed the events occurring around me.  I was doing push-ups by the softball team dugout.  I looked at the bleacher area and two men sat facing each other giving hand-jobs.  I looked the other way...only to find those bleachers had the spectator section for this pocket pool tournament.

Not wanting to be distracted I cut across the yard to the soccer field.  Not that I find penis distracting, just the entire scenario was straight out of an adult film and I wasn't interested.

I continued with my work out and before long saw the yard officer approach 3 inmates sitting on the edge of the goal line.  The officer began to shake them down and took 2 water bottles full of home brewed wine.  The brewery consists of the ingredients being placed in gallon jugs and buried under the ground.  Wine burps while fermenting and if made indoors the officers will smell it and confiscate it.    When buried outdoors the risk is less, plus its then in a "common area" and nobody can be charged.

Well, except for these geniuses.

They were drinking on top of the mother lode.  After the officer saw the wine in the bottles he then began to search the surrounding area.  Soon after he dug up the entire 5 gallons, thus closing down A.B.C. liquor.  Never to worry, they'll plant more tomorrow.  Still, there's something going on everywhere you turn.

A few months back they quit running canteen from the rec field.  Men would go to canteen, buy groceries, and have to return to the rec field with their purchases.  A crew of dudes would jump them. One puts you in a choke hold until you black out, then they steal your stuff.  They break it up between 5 or 6 dudes so even if buddy goes to the cops, they'll never recover his shit.

Now you go to rec, or you stay in the dorm and go to canteen.  Many dudes won't even step onto the rec field because they are already being hunted.  There may be cameras in the dorm but they don't have them on the rec field.  Thus the yard is where dudes go to handle their business.  You know...drink, get a hand-job and do some pull-ups.

I work out.  Five days a week.  When I leave prison my health is all I'll walk away with.  It matters to me that I have a body than can last and carry me where I need to go.  And...I'm not going to let some little group of punks take my shit.  I carry a saying..."you may beat me.  But I'll teach you not to do it again."

Ha!  My mom makes wine.  Yeah, she bought a home brewery kit.  Except she doesn't have to bury it. On top of making wine she also types this stuff.  Then my Aunt posts it.  It's a family affair.  If I take all of you through a day in my life, my Mom and Aunt come with us as well.  Sorry guys for bringing you along today.  Still...I think you need to understand all this.