He (she) was locked up all the time except for shower. Everybody made fun of him (her) but he did not care. Everybody called him “stinky.”
Since I knew the Magistrate Page was gay, I was curious about this new person. I began to open dialogues with him, but whatever I wanted to say, he could not comprehend. He talked just like Page so it reminded me of Page very much. When I watched him talking and acting even in the cell, it made me angry, because it resembled the gay Page’s behavior and antics in the public court. He used to whine at many inmates when he wanted something. It was an interesting thing to watch in the prison.
Cunning Person
One next-cell neighbor from my right, Harrison, a twenty-three-year-old white male who had a good-looking wife, was crying everyday. He showed me his wife’s picture. She was indeed pretty. He was caught while smoking joints and received a ten-year sentence.
He said since he was taken to prison, he had kept worrying about his wife possibly cheating with other men. He said, because of his back trouble, he could not have regular sex for the time being. He worried that she would take advantage of his being incarcerated and probably messes around with many guys outside. He talked so well that anybody could believe his stories, which sounded like he was once having affairs with other girls. If he thought his wife would eventually be doing something wrong, then he should have known the consequence of smoking weed before being admitted to prison. No later than a week, he was transferred to the Farm for a continuous smart life.
Maturity of RDC Fund
About three weeks later, the counselor called and informed me I was going to be moved to the CIC, because the deposit maturity at the RDC had been completed. My initial fund as a beginner prisoner was evaluated by the specialists in prison businesses and now it was time to revalue it so the RDC could sell the fund to the designated company. I realized they were handling the junk funds before losing prisoners’ values.
After over two months of prison-stock trading, I had learned the prison system of Indiana, and the RDC was, to me, a warehouse and it stood for Random Distribution Center, and DOC stood for Department of Collections. The DOC was selling the prisoners per their wholesale prices after waiting so many days of maturities depending on values and colors and sentences.
The individual prisoners were surely expensive goods, so the DOC did not want to lose single merchandise per their calculations that they kept viable flesh in the isolated and well-guarded places collectively called the prison.
Everyday, the police brought valuable merchandise and stuck them in the warehouse, RDC, for wholesale to other prisons. Most of them were young. It disturbed my mind very much to watch young people taken into confinement, in the process arresting their mental growth and emotional development. Interestingly, the government puts them in cages and then expects them to be corrected and rehabilitated under DOC policies. Yet this is the real scenario of how government handles criminals and why there are so many prisoners in this modern country, America.
Society has to know and remember that rehabilitation, in a sense, can mean re-habitations and, as a result, violations by prisoners are repeated, becoming their primary goals in serving time in the most well-protected warehouses in the world.
4
Transfer to CIC
November 12, Thursday
Reclassification
At 5 a.m., the officer knocked on the cell and informed me that we were to move after chow. At the appointed time, I carried my belongings and went up to the third floor. There were nine prisoners together in the dayroom. I believed the RDC received an order to move ten mixed-colored viable human goods to the prospective retail stores.
Once we got together, the officer stepped in the day room, put shackles and handcuffs on us, and then marched us to the outside. We got on the bus. It rained a lot. I sat next to one black prisoner.
The well-barred correctional bus stopped at the central office and two officers with rifles got on the bus. Then the bus began to roll and kept moving toward the north. Fortunately my nose got better from the outside air.
About thirty minutes later, the bus stopped at Attivery Camp and dropped one of the goods, but they found out soon enough that that merchandise was not for the camp, so he was put back in the bus. I wondered myself how come this correctional facility could not tell where each merchandise belonged to. What do we need the RDC for? I thought.
The bus arrived at the Pendleton Reformatory first and they dropped five prisoners — three blacks and two whites — and then continued the drive to the CIC. It was close and only about several blocks away from the Reformatory.
CIC (Correctional Industrial Center), Pendleton, Indiana
When the bus stopped at the CIC front gate, we got off the bus. It was drizzling, so we got wet immediately while standing outside. The correctional officer came out and ordered us to get inside the checkpoint so we did. When I got inside the building, they strip-searched us again. After they double-checked the papers from RDC, they told us they would take us to the clothing department.
When their initial inspections were done, we were taken outside again and waited for the transportation. It was cold and I began to chill because I did not wear a jacket but only had on a T-shirt and sandals from RDC. All of us were shivering while waiting for the van at the outside of the receiving post.
The van finally arrived and they moved us inside the prison compound. As the van took us inside the CIC compound, they led us to the clothing department first. I felt chills all over my body. I could not concentrate where I was, and I was holding both arms tightly and rubbing.
CIC Prison Supplies
When we got to the clothing department, they gave us prison supplies each as if welcoming our arrival.
One by one we received our supplies: one toothpaste, brush, razors, state boots, seven pairs of pants, seven pair shorts, one jacket, ten pair socks, seven T-shirts, one belt, one set of linens, four towels, two washcloths, three thermals (thermo-underwear), one winter hat, two blankets, and one bedspread. They were all new. I was very impressed by the prison supplies.
As they dropped the items, my eyes went wild and lost focus because of so many items dropping at the same time. While receiving clothes, my body was hurting and I felt pain all over from the cold, but I fought hard to keep my composure. After we received our clothes, they took us to the A-Dorm where we were supposed to spend time until we were reassigned to our destination dorms.
A-Dorm
Half of the A-Dorm was for new arrivals and was used as the detention facility inside the prison. The other side of the A-Dorm was a facility for kitchen workers, and in the middle of the dayroom there was a lot of weightlifting apparatus. Through the window I was able to watch some inmates working out. The detention side of A-Dorm had a single bed and single room.
The CIC was a clean and newly constructed prison, so that the view was good and its look did not suggest the idea of a typical prison at a glance, but it resembled somewhat one of those dormitories for cadets. It seemed better than I was used to seeing in my early life in Korea during the Pacific War.
The other, bigger part of the A-Dorm was for segregation units for those who violated or were penalized over their own convictions.
I put all my clothing in the dresser. There was a lot of screaming coming
