[SHU], which may or may not be different from the food received by the general population inmates.
Breakfast: Contains one packet of cereal, one half-pint of milk, and six or seven chunks of a sugary fruit or a tangerine.
Lunch: Consists of boiled potatoes, oatmeal and a slice or two of some sort of inedible and foul smelling bologna. It is not the texture or taste of any bologna that I have ever known. It could be hardened to become shoe leather if I wasn't so afraid of the mice or rats getting to it during the night. Sometimes there are two slices of bread and a boiled egg.
Dinner: Pretty much the same as lunch but rice is often the replacement for the potato, oatmeal and bread. Cold oatmeal is often the side dish.
Obviously, prison food should not be reviewed by Zagat, but we could do very much better. Pride and self-respect improves anyone's self-image. By destroying an inmate's self-image what long term rehabilitated help then is within this penal system, which costs taxpayers sixty billion dollars annually?
It has now been almost ten days that I have been in the "hole" and the men who came in with me are still waiting to make a phone call, see a counselor or get a toothbrush or toothpaste. However without the proper form or Counselor's visit, we sit and wait. Nothing can be purchased if you cannot communicate with the outside world to wire funds, speak with family members or have the peace of mind that is essential in isolation to get through the long and dark twenty-four hour days and nights.
Many hardened correction officers, who unfortunately have to deal with this bureaucratic bullying, cease to see the inmates as fellow citizens. That same thought process that enables soldiers to kill when humanity is stripped from your thought process exists within this corporate mind set.
Today I had a one hour and thirty-five minute prison shower, which deserves some clarification. I wish to help you visualize this three times per week shower ritual. After cuffing an individual and moving him to a shower cell, he is then “caged in" a small grey metal shower and locked in. Cuffs are then removed through a similar slot like the one we have in our cell door. One then undresses and normally lays his clothes on the floor of the shower due to the filthy condition of the floor and growing bacteria. Since this day I was the eighth or ninth to shower, I "stepped up" on the wet orange suits, underwear, socks and towels to shower and shave. If you are issued a razor, they attach a metal magnet which reminds the guard who is releasing you to get back the disposable razor. Today, they forgot to attach the reminder for me. I told them. “Boy, do I belong here.”
After my shower with one very small cold water spray, I dried and stepped out into the l' X 2' outside caged area with only a towel on. The thin orange prison towel is a large washcloth with minimal absorption capability.
Unfortunately the changing of the guards occurred when I stepped out of the shower and despite my fearfully polite reminder, I watched four or five of the officers rush to go home and the night guards began sitting about to discuss sports, what food to order, women or union rights - thus leaving me standing there waiting for clothes. There are no shower shoes without commissary purchasing so, therefore no shower shoes.
Over forty-five minutes later, I was still waiting to be handed my exchange of clothes and to be escorted back to my solitary cell. There were some female guards during this guard change over and I must confess I was a bit embarrassed at either being ignored or not noticed at all or noticed more than I thought appropriate.
As I am approaching eleven days into my incarceration my elusive counselor has yet to submit my phone list or get me books to read or find out why I still do not have shampoo, toothpaste or mouse traps. I still await those basic requests. Yes, mousetraps are the basics in here.
Today, I was honestly told by a guard if I wanted more palatable food I should convert to one of the Middle Eastern religions. "Jews and Muslims get a diet of vegetables and fish", he said. Some of the inmates then "sell" their vegetables for other supplies in this institution. I am not yet ready to sell this food. What I have been eating is far from my perception of currency. I was to learn later about currency exchanges in prisons.
My book “On the History of Salt”, which makes me feel like Bubba and his Shrimp discussions in the Forrest Grump movie, is really my only book (except for the Bible which I read until I fall asleep.) The time in solitary would pass more productively for me and others if there were positive books for the young inmates to turn their lives around or to improve their emotional thought processes. I have observed that prison life seems to not be so difficult for most repeat offenders. They and the guards seem to actually enjoy the banter which appears to be gang slang more than acceptable English. There will be more to follow on that slang gang talk later on in this diary.
After thirteen days the room and the accommodations have not grown on me. I trust that my hardened "sin" of not having the money for the appealed fine of this Judge will one day end my solitary confinement, although I have been told that, under the Patriot Act, I can stay in prison for no crime for up to three years at his discretion. I do have some difficulty with the unchecked power of a politically appointed Federal Judge, but I have to save that for another time, and only after we win our Appeal.
I started reading another book given to me by an inmate, "All God's Children" and on page fifty-five the following quote did give me reason to think at how the term "lynching" came about. The passage states that the word "lynching" probably took its name from Captain William Lynch, a backcountry settler of Scottish-Irish descent who lived first in Virginia and later in South Carolina. In the 1760's, he and his neighbors developed the custom of handing out swift and violent justice to "lawless men" or any unwanted stranger by flogging or killing them. Due process and evidence were not always necessary.
Since I believe my Judge also didn't consider due process and evidence, I guess the genetic "Lynching" problem goes back farther than I realized.
I was informed today that my telephone form was filled out incorrectly because I left a space between the area code and phone number. I must wait another four or five days. Who doesn't leave a space between the area code and the number? Why does it matter?
In addition, I have been told that the "books" are not being delivered because there is chicken pox in my ward and all child bearing library women will not visit. So yet we find another excuse to not work. If I wasn't crazy before entering prison, I would become such as a result of this system. My counselor told me that my commissary form, not honored last week, also had to be redone in ink. Then she said "I've been here 18 years and I'm today as crazy as this system". "The system will do that to everyone", she concluded. My compassion goes out for those foreign speaking prisoners trying to get a pencil, get a form, and meet a counselor, Chaplain or Warden. Everyone says, "Fill out this" or "fill out that" but the results of continual inactivity are the same. I asked why I was exposed to chicken pox and was told that, "You are not exposed because you are behind the door." As one of the other inmates asked again for the basic form which the counselor does not have, she told him to shut up and stop bothering her.
I did receive today, in exchange for my coveted History of Salt a copy of the "Perks of being a Wallflower" - another quality education selection. Without "child bearing visits", I guess I should just silently enjoy the isolation breathing in of chicken pox germs. At least I am not child bearing, but I am starting to "bear" a grudge for a broken penal system that prevents rehabilitation and creates childlike inmate dependency on the idiots who run these institutions. How tragic that Mrs. Andrews, my counselor, will retire one day and be paid for spreading such incompetent insanity. There will be more on this woman in the pages to follow. By the way, my question of why men can't deliver the books was ignored.
I use my plastic spoon/fork for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have the same white spoon/fork with three small perforated edges to serve as a quasi-fork and will have it until my final day. It leaks as a spoon and is not sharp enough as
