SOME SINGLE-BUNK BUNK

The divorce process isn’t easy, but I’m finding my comfort zone once again from within the razor-sharp concertina wire and surrounding gun towers where I’m logging in my required thirty-two contact hours per week with Michigan’s finest: convicted felons.

The other day an Albanian student approached my desk for an unofficial therapy session. I’ve always been willing to listen to their problems, their ailments, and have at least acted concerned if not offered advice.

“What’s up?” I asked once he slunked down in the chair near my desk.

“I’m having bunky problems,” he answered. He proceeded to tell me how he felt sorry for his bunky. “His family pretty much disowned him,” he claimed. “He doesn’t have any money coming in. I’ve been sharing some of my personal store items: Ramen noodles, soup, coffee, honey buns, potato chips, peanut butter, crackers, you name it.”

“Then what’s the problem?” I asked.

“I do this out of the kindness of my heart,” he continued.

Then I learned about the payoff: All he wanted was for his bunky to shower once in a while.

“He smells really bad. When I confronted him about it, he got all nasty with me. I told him, ‘Look, I’ve been sharing my food with you, I’m not asking for much.’ Still, he acts as if none of what I did for him matters.”

“How long has he been your bunkmate?” I asked.

“Seven months. Seven months I’ve been sharing my food with him.”

I’m thinking to myself: Try eighteen years of building a future with someone. Try eighteen years of supporting someone, letting her have the freedom to make choices regarding not only her lifestyle, but your lifestyle as well—a lifestyle that included fifteen years of involuntary single-bunking. Try eighteen years of sharing everything, of trying to make a relationship work, only to have your partner put her hand up, as if to say, “That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m done. I’m through with you,” and toss you aside like trash ready to be hauled away.

Instead, I tell him, “You can always request a new bunky. Just remember: whoever you get could be worse.”

JOCKEYING FOR POSITION

This is what I find most encouraging about the writing trades: They’re all mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity to edit themselves into something like intelligence. They also allow lunatics to seem saner than sane.
—Kurt Vonnegut

I have this new student, call him white-boy if you will, kind of looks like a red-faced Chris Daughtry. Anyway, he’s one mad-at-the-world motherfucker.

“How am I gonna get my GED when you’re never here?” he asks me, or should I say BLAMES ME.

I know what I’d like to say, I’d like to ask him “Why’s it so important now you ASSHOLE? It wasn’t important when you were in the public school system.” Instead, I keep my mouth shut.

He continues his rant, about how the tutors aren’t helping him, how the other students are too loud, how he can’t concentrate. He pulls ear plugs out of his waxy orifices for emphasis.

“Look,” I say, “if you really want to learn, you can block out all kinds of noise.” I start fiddling with my wedding ring for—oh, I don’t know—emphasis.

He storms out of the classroom.

An older black prisoner approaches my desk. “You know,” he says, “that guy got his ass tore up by a bunch of young black guys last week.”

“Oh yeah,” I say.

“Yeah, for using the N-word in the dayroom.”

“Really?” I say, displaying my fake-ass disbelief. “He called them a bunch of Nigerians?”

We both start laughing. I tell him about the time I saw a “white lawn jockey” in someone’s front yard. The laughter continues.

"Had to be Detroit," he says.

OBSERVATIONS MADE FROM THE INSIDE

He don’t know what day it is.

He be pickin’ up signals from the t.v.

Somethin’ runnin’ interference.

He got spiders crawlin’ on him.

I say he hittin’ that crack-pipe too hard.



Look, he staring out the window again. He lost in space.

He in orbit right now.

Lettin’ go of gravity, Teach?

Shit, da wind’ll blow him away.

Shit, he doin’ blow.

He look like one of us, like a gang-banger.

Ah, he okay, long as he don’t walk outta his pants.

Wet his pants, you mean.

He walkin’ outta his skin.

He give new meaning to lightweight, he fright-weight.

He featherweight.

He losing his feathers.

He a cuckoo bird.

Teach a cuckoo bird. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo .

-------------------
These are some of the comments made in my prison classroom this past week. I still put on my game face, my wedding ring, and teach as much as possible.

In the photograph I’m holding up a running t-shirt from my high school days.

DAE-DAE AND HIS REPLACEMENT

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
—Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus”

This is what’s left of Dae-Dae: A crumpled up self-portrait I dug out of the trash. He’s been missing in action. He’s in a red cell. They gassed his stomach because he swallowed eight AAA batteries. He’s internalizing his demons; letting them move inward from his arms and shoulders which sport years of cutting. Still, mental healthcare staff is unimpressed with his latest antics.

“We got one guy in 5-block,” a male nurse tells us in the employee lunchroom, “who swallowed an entire electrical box. He had to have it surgically removed.”

Impressive is an understatement; we are in awe.

In my first hour classroom I have this new student, Dae-Dae’s replacement. He sits on the opposite side of my desk and uses its surface to do his assignments. With each stroke of his pencil, with each calculation, he begs encouragement. Guided practice has become the norm. He’s too serious about perfection to make decisions on his own and rarely smiles.

One day I crack a joke and for the first time he laughs—not one of those small self-controlled chuckles, no, his laugh is guttural, rises up from the belly and splashes across the room like a tidal wave.

That’s when I noticed his forked-tongue. “What in the hell ever possessed you to do that?” I asked.

He tells me about his past employment in a tattoo shop, how a regular customer encouraged him to have it done.

“That had to hurt like hell,” I said.

“It swelled up pretty good,” he acknowledged, “but you’d be surprised how fast the body heals.”

His conversation turns personal. He tells me about his ailments, his hobbies, how he misses being with family. I let him have this moment. I continue listening. I consider it an investment in his education.

When class has ended I wonder about Dae-Dae. I know he’ll return as soon as he passes those batteries, as soon as another space becomes available in my classroom.

MOOSEHEAD: A MIDWESTERN TRAGEDY

Everyone’s impressed with that Chrysler / Eminem Super Bowl Commercial: Imported from Detroit; but it’s not the Motor City I’ve grown accustomed to—heck, there’s more brand identification in that cheesy, glittery, ball-dropping “D” used to ring in the New Year: a decline in education, a decline in jobs, and/or a decline in pay. Everything going down down down except prices. Try buying a new vehicle under those circumstances; might be easier stealing one.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud to be a Detroiter, which includes those outer-rings of suburbia. Who doesn’t need a good conversation piece when out of town?

“Where’re you from?” a stranger might ask.

“Detroit,” I’d answer, which is code for yeah, I’m a badass, don’t mess with me … I’m so baaaad I’m gonna go all Bollywood on you by chirping that ridiculous song by T-Baby:

“It’s So Cold in the D.”




—Why?

—Well, why not?

I’m no more of a badass then your grandmother, or your elderly neighbor. The only difference: I’ve seen the worst product of human potentional enter my classroom on a daily basis.

First, let me apologize for the T-Baby link. It’s a poorly executed song paying homage to yet another dead body, another homicide stat—I’m fairly certain the guy in the video didn’t choke on a hotdog at the Coney Island. If “It's so Cold in the D” is really about some fallen victim of the streets of Detroit then he’s definitely turning over in his grave. It’s a shame when someone fails in their attempt to elevate the aftermath of murder into an “art form.” You’d be better off watching Detroit 187.

My “D” consists of public school failures who think they’re the cat’s meow, who think they’ve got nine-lives. I’ve got this student, can’t spell for shit, he’s been working on his memoir—as if people are dying to know all about his troubled past. He doesn’t think he needs an education.

“Hey teach,” he says, “how do you spell juice?”

“It rhymes with moose,” I answer. I continue with my paperwork.

“How do you spell moose?”

“M-O-O-S-E.”

He’s busy writing each letter. An older gentleman, waiting for the finished product, takes a peek. “Hey teach,” he says, “I think he just spelt goose.”

It’s definitely cold in the “D.” Not all high school dropouts can become millionaire rappers. But there's still hope for Detroit. Check out the following link for more on the gritty, real Detroit:

http://www.palladiumboots.com/exploration/detroit .

Give Me a Roethlisberger, Hold the Pickle

I’m not sure why I waited or if it would have even mattered, but I started reading Stephen M.R. Covey’s “The Speed of Trust,” a self-help book given to me by management over the summer. I decided to read the book not out of necessity or obligation; At least that’s what I’d like to believe. I started reading it because of one particular incident that has left me, as they’d say in baseball, “in a pickle.”

Here is what I did: I informed an employee that it wasn’t a good idea to offer up a fellow coworker’s name for whatever problems arose in their shared workspace, especially when questioned in the office area. Before I could finish, she made it known that my advice meant nothing.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut. But I didn’t. I sincerely believe my intentions were noble. I told her there’s a certain individual who listens to everything we say and communicates that knowledge to the inmates. She knew exactly who I was referring to, and yeah, I mentioned his name. As I walked away, another coworker said, “You’d’ve been better off sticking your tongue in a light socket.”

Before I tell you how I got ostracized, let me point out Covey’s three factors involving intent: motive, agenda, and behavior. He asks, “Are you going to trust someone who could really care less about you … or about work … or about principles, or values, or anyone or anything else?”

Reflecting back, this may have been where I made my biggest mistake. I thought I was protecting a coworker from having her business freely shared with prisoners, information that could be used to manipulate policies and procedures and ultimately compromise the safety of the institution.

In the book I learned about Covey’s two categorizations for agenda: 1). Mutual benefit and 2) Self-serving. He claims that “The Speed of Trust” is greatest when seeking mutual benefit.

I agree. Not once did I think about how advising my coworker would benefit me. Not once. And within two days it became quite clear that as far as mutual benefit (which I intended) there was zilch, nada, zero. I’ve learned long ago how to navigate volatile situations; unfortunately, in this case, my speed of trust traveled from one coworker to another, who in turn, told the office worker, who in turn, confronted me.

“Did you tell so and so that I was talking about her to the prisoners?” he asked outside my classroom door.

“You talk about everybody in front of the prisoners,” I replied.

“You’re a fucking idiot!” he yelled.

Wow! I think that Trust-Mobile careened out of control and rolled into the ditch. My students heard the name calling and started laughing.

But it doesn’t end there! Next, the office worker called the boss at home (who does that?) to say that I stirred the pot by telling a female employee that he made sexual remarks about her in front of the prisoners.

Huh? What?

The plot thickens, the rumor mill’s now at full production: his informant, the one who may have twisted my message … gulp … there’s allegations … gulp … there’s subtle hints—hell, I don’t know what to make of any of this—that there’s been an affair … enough drama.

I’ll finish the &*#@*!!! Book and keep my mouth shut. I’ve seen too much crap jump off in prison to get involved in this kind of horseshit. From now on, the only time I’ll speak out is when an inmate is waving a lock in a sock at an unsuspecting coworker.

Lesson learned.

As for football: Pittsburgh will punish Green Bay with a slow, steady ground attack.

... AN' HERE I GO

Dolly Parton said it best: “Here you come again.” At least that was the song running through my head when I received the latest memorandum from the Michigan Department of Education. Here’s what the Director of the Office of Professional Preparation Services had to say regarding my Professional Educator Certification Renewal Application:

We wish to acknowledge your renewal application … blah blah blah … OPPS is in the process of transitioning from the License 2000 (L2K) educator certification database to the new Michigan Online Educator Certification System (MOECS). At this time OPPS is not accepting paper applications. The old system was retired December 1, 2010. Applicants cannot apply for renewal until the MOECS pilot begins on February 8, 2011.

Next, I was instructed to initiate the renewal process by self-registering for a MEIS account, then registering for a MOECS account where I can pay the $160 fee by credit card.

Okay, so now I have two more online accounts to register for, two more online accounts that will need my personal information. I started this renewal process in October 2010 where I had to create an account with Learn Port and transfer my information to another MDE account to get credit toward my new teaching certificate; correct me if I’m wrong but that’s a total of 4 accounts (so far). I learned fairly quickly that the Learn Port site is unsecured; in fact, I was able to peruse the home addresses of other public school teachers and school principals. If you’re curious as to my address, fat chance: it’s a prison address.

In order to keep my job I’ve jumped through all these hoops the Michigan Department of Education “gurus” or “post-hole diggers” or better yet “pile higher and deeper” education doctors have invented. I’m not too thrilled about continuously having to create new accounts on the internet, knowing all too well that personal information is stolen all the time. After jumping through their hoopity-doopity-doos (what other options do I have?) I will once again request that they make “the year I was born” inaccessible to the masses. They, on the other hand, will fail to see how this reeks of ageism. The older I get, the more cantankerous I get (not that I’ve aged much: see photo taken today).

I have until June to complete this renewal process and, hopefully once it’s completed, the MDE will send my new certificate promptly, as well as update their verification website of teacher certification. I’d hate to be escorted from the prison school building … again … as if I were an outlaw … which seemed more important at the time than dealing with an employee arrested for DUI … had to bury that one under the table … no sense in getting juiced … no sense in revving up the V-8.

FROM BEHIND THE OBSERVATION GLASS

As I was checking my email in the recreation director’s office overlooking the gymnasium, a fairly large inmate under the immediate supervision of a psychologist decked another inmate and stomped on his face … repeatedly. Friday mornings, I had learned, were not a good time to be in that area; mental health staff held therapy sessions for five block then, and by the looks of what went down—one older prisoner with shoe imprints and blood all over his head—I’m not sure I wanted to be anywhere near what I’d like to call the criminally insane. From the office window I observed the corrections officers escorting the attacker from the gymnasium. What had been so disturbing about the incident wasn’t so much the perpetrator’s non-emotional response toward his violent behavior as much as the blank expressions of the other mentally disturbed prisoners. It was as if they were incapable of making a connection with what had just happened. “Hey,” a person with most of his faculties might think, “that could’ve been me! I could’ve had my head squished like a tomato!”

I’m not sure how those therapy sessions work. How does mental health staff suppress the inmates’ demons, when do they say, “So and so can function in the general population,” and who is held responsible when those demons are unleashed on staff?

Currently I have a rather unique student, an older gentleman, in one of my morning classes. He’s been riding a roller coaster of emotions since I’ve met him; one minute he’ll tell me that I’m the best teacher he’s ever had; the next minute I’m the son-of-a-bitch keeping him from getting his education. There’s no middle ground with this guy. He’s scheduled for med-lines three times a day and has admitted to having psychotic episodes. I’ve learned not to joke with him anymore because he’ll engage me in laughter; he’ll say something funny and laugh himself, and then at the drop of a coin he’ll say, “You think this shits funny, don’t you? I’m not here for your entertainment!” And I’m thinking where the hell did that come from? It was his joke. It’s not always easy navigating the land-mines of the mentally ill, but I’ve learned to acknowledge their fears and frustrations and to do it from more than one arms length away. I’ve seen how quickly someone can suffer head trauma and I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure it isn’t me.

CARAMEL & BUTTERSCOTCH

“You wanna get someone good …” Prisoner Bismarck half-asks, half-suggests, referring to the flash-fiction piece I just read to the entire class, “… use sugar.” This leads to a discussion about caramelizing sugar. “White sugar is for making caramel,” he says, “and brown sugar is for butterscotch.”

The flash-fiction piece that generated this discussion is called “Hot Chocolate & Microwaves.” You can read it at Staccato by clicking here .

Comments are strongly encouraged at their website.

Thank you, Matthew Boyd, Editor of Staccato.

FROM THE BULLY PULPIT

I don’t know why I read the newspaper. Maybe it’s because of all those perks and guilty pleasures I get; I’m speaking about MLK Day, how I had the day off, how I scanned the Detroit Free Press and discovered that as an employee for the State of Michigan I should be ashamed of myself. I’m speaking about the front page article: “State Workers Holiday Perks Could Be Cut.” I learned that not only should I not have MLK Day off; I should not have the day after Thanksgiving either. No surprise there, when you take into consideration the Detroit newspaper’s union busting past.

But I’m a convict-teacher. I work year round. What about all those educators in our public schools? Summers off! Winter break! Spring break! How dare they! Funny thing is: our puzzle palace, aka Lansing, can’t even fund the mandates placed on our public schools. Or so they have said.

Not too long ago they found a surplus of school money; unfortunately, they don’t want to spend it on education; reminds me of the extra 3% of my salary earmarked for healthcare—money they want to steer into the general coffer, but then my union and the courts got involved; now the 3% is in escrow, waiting to be spent on—get this—not balancing the budget, but on our healthcare costs! Shame on us public employees. How dare we question their motives! How many private companies filled in their budgetary gaps with their employees’ healthcare funds? Makes you wonder.

Today’s sketch is titled: Michael Vick’s Pit Bull.

CATFISH TALK

There are, and there are not, situations, predicaments, hassles, aggravations, or just plain happenings that I’m willing to tolerate. The occasional serial murderer roaming the school hallway: I’m okay with that; the under-medicated schizophrenic staring out my classroom window while conversing with no one: Fine by me; or the false accusations on prisoner grievance forms suggesting I be fired effective immediately: Is that the best you can do?

But here’s what I never signed up for: 1) The Lansing State Journal publishing my name and salary in their paper because they felt the public had “a right to know” and 2) The Michigan Department of Education providing my age to potential employers so they can decide whether to interview me. Do you think Michigan’s Governor Snyder, otherwise known as “One Tough Nerd,” thinks revealing such information is okay?—and if so, perhaps he’ll suggest that the private sector follow suit or suffer the misery of higher taxes. Fat chance.

Some folks may argue that that’s the price you pay for being a public employee. Freedom of speech becomes freedom to target … FYI becomes the right to personal information. Look, I’m told, Governor Snyder no longer makes his own decisions regarding his investments because he wants transparency in government. Am I that gullible? Are the Chinese? Maybe we have something in common with the Chinese; maybe we don’t have a choice anymore.

And now, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, along comes Spokeo. “We’re not your grandmother’s phone book,” they advertise. So I checked-out their website, I typed in my name and hit return, and said, “Hot-diggity-damn!” Joe Q Public has access to my home address, phone number, approximate house value, and wife’s name, and get this: for a small nominal fee Spokeo will reveal much more. Just what I need: some ex-felon with an ax to grind (physically, if not metaphorically) sitting on my front porch. Fortunately I had the option of removing my personnel information from their digital phonebook. Insert one finger in the dike, no “Wiki-Leak” here. There’ll be more holes to fill, I’m sure of that.

For all you facebookers out there, I strongly recommend the documentary “Catfish.” Go rent it ASAP! Deactivate. Reinvent. Reactivate. It’s all good! Mustn’t be complacent like live codfish exported to China. We need more catfish to keep us agile.

OLD LONG SINCE; BO-NEN-KAI

The assignment was quite simple and even though I was greeted with “You’re the only son-of-a-bitch here” most of my convict-students went about completing the task. As I monitored my classroom I said, “It’s not going to be a polished piece. What’s important is that you get your thoughts down on paper; that you jot down a few possible New Year’s resolutions for 2011.”

“I’m locked-up in this bitch, so what’s it matter?” Prisoner Clayton said.

“Even in here,” I answered, “you’ve got to look forward to another day.”

Prisoner Clayton asked if he could sketch a celebratory scene of how he’d ring in the New Year. I figured it was better than arguing; at least he’d be doing something. What you see above is a direct result of his efforts.

Although some of the resolutions were better than others, I thought I’d share a low-functioning prisoner’s “over-simplification” of how to improve your lot in life. He starts out wanting to purchase a $300,000 home. Then he offers his unrealistic solution on how to acquire it, followed by ways of saving money. Please click on the document below and enjoy his rough draft; I’m sure you would agree, especially after reading his piece, that dreaming is easy and cheap.

Most of my convict-students have high hopes of changing their attitudes and reconnecting with family; boring stuff actually, considering their limited choices in the hoosegow. Still, it’s interesting examining resolutions made by others. I’m not sure why I thought this assignment was such a good idea; in fact, I think subconsciously I wanted to take my mind off of my own failed goals for 2010.

The Japanese have what they call “bo-nen-kai” parties, otherwise known as “forget-the-year-gatherings.” I’m struggling with the appropriateness of it, considering their cultures high suicide rate and how killing off the year with temporary amnesia solves absolutely nothing; but, I’ll have a drink or two from the comforts of my home and quietly reflect on where I’d went wrong with last year’s dreams and desires. At the stroke of midnight, when the people in Times Square drunkenly sing:

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

I’ll turn off the television and the lights, lie down, and wake up to a new sunset.

Happy New Year everyone!

WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END?

I don’t have time for conversation. I’ve got too much paperwork, too many reports, I’ve got a bunch of crybabies lined three deep accusing me of leaving them off the GED schedule; So when Inmate Marshall says, “My new bunky says he knows you,” I ignore him. He continues anyway. He says, “My bunky worked for you once before, as a tutor.”

I’m still not interested. I’ve heard all kinds of horror stories regarding ex-students and ex-tutors. “That’s nice,” I say, not as an acknowledgment, but more as a yeah I heard you, now go away.

He doesn’t budge. He says, “His name is Rider.”

I drop my paperwork. Rider paroled a few years back. His freedom lasted about one year. He was living in a broken down car somewhere near Walled Lake. I last saw him on Channel 4. This family placed an ad in the newspaper: used car for sale. Rider went to look at it. I’m not sure who showed him the car, or whether he test drove it, or what. I can only guess that the seller’s child had been playing in the yard when this ex-felon arrived.

“He wants his old job back,” Inmate Marshall says.

I’m thinking you’ve got to be kidding me. This here Rider fellow caught a new case. After looking at that used car, he returned later that night and snuck into the family’s home. He kidnapped their five-year old child and raped her.

“He says he was a good worker,” Inmate Marshall says. “That you gave him a good evaluation.”

I’m thinking, Good worker? Based on what? That he brought a child he had raped back to her home, back to where he had snatched her from, and then fled? How’s that for having a moral compass?
“He wants to know if you’ll hire him,” Inmate Marshall adds.

“I don’t hire anyone,” I answer. “The classification director assigns the jobs.”

I tell Inmate Marshall that there are no guarantees in prison; if Rider gets a tutor job it may be for another teacher. I certainly don’t want him in my classroom, not that I have much of a choice, not that there’s a bunch of high quality candidates to choose from.

THE APPLIANCE SALESPERSON

All roles are dangerous. The world tends to trap you in the roles you play, and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.

—James Baldwin

I am just a convict-teacher; nothing more, nothing less. I am placed several rungs below the appliance salesperson who flits about, trying to stir the pot, deflecting any and all deficiencies into the wind. “Look over there,” the appliance salesperson might say, his feet propped up on his desk where the phone rings and rings and rings. So I look in whatever direction he’s pointing, a diversion from the “real” problem: the appliance salesperson.

I am just a convict-teacher. My new school computer, the one that I was supposed to get many many moons ago, never went past the appliance salesperson’s desk. Toss the convict-teacher a bone, give him the old computer that the appliance salesperson almost fried with a space heater; the convict-teacher will be eternally grateful regardless.

The convict-teacher, unlike the appliance salesperson, is the equivalent of a mushroom. Shovel shit his way and keep him in the dark. But here’s the real irony: The convict-teacher will continue to grow. As long as the convict-teacher is not a poisonous mushroom, the appliance salesperson will feel comfortable with this arrangement.

But the convict-teacher has learned patience. He waits and observes each and every impropriety. The appliance salesperson brags about a washer and dryer he sold to a man—but not just any man—the former boss of a prisoner at our facility.

“I’ve got his business card,” the appliance salesperson says. He shows it to me “He owns his own company.” He tells me how this guy is going to visit his former employee / prisoner / friend. I think to myself, why did he bring this business card inside the prison? Is he the conduit, the messenger for something?

Earlier this week our judicial system tried to determine whether this boss, this purchaser of a washer & dryer, should bare some  of the responsibility for dismissing his employee from work early one day, whether this boss had known his employee was drunk at the time. This convict-teacher does not know all the details, nor has he met this prisoner’s former boss. What he does know is that a mother and her two sons died one fateful day when a man plowed into their car. What he does know is that the appliance salesperson is a stones throw away from the prisoner responsible for such a tragedy. So why help him and not your fellow coworker?

I am just a convict-teacher. This is my only job. What do I know?

LEFTOVER TURKEY

Incredulous. I know of no other word to describe our computerized prisoner call-out system. Those who did not show for their first testing session last week, including the lame turkey I had mentioned in the previous post, were to have their next testing session cancelled.

I gave the school secretary a list. I said, “Remove the following prisoners from the testing schedule.” This was last week. I thought I’d made my instructions perfectly clear.

His response: “O-kee-doke.”

So I come to work today to find the same leftover Turkey on my schedule.

I don’t have a problem being lied to; it happens all the time in a correctional facility. What I do have a problem with is when someone contradicts their previous lie with another lie.

“How come these guys are still on my schedule?” I ask.

“It’s a one-time call-out,” I’m told. “They can’t be removed from a one-time call-out.”

Hmmm… a one-time call-out where prisoners are scheduled for two-days of testing. Hmmm… wouldn’t that be a two-time call-out? To confuse matters even more: I thought—but I could be wrong, after all, I’m kind of new at this (if nineteen years is considered new)—I thought prisoner call-outs were daily, “D-A-I-L-Y,” daily. I’ll have to give the secretary the benefit of the doubt; maybe he tried to remove the requested prisoners but couldn’t. Maybe there’s a glitch in the computer program that handles prisoner movement. I hope not; I’d sure hate for an employee to get raped or killed because some convict had access to an area because of a “glitch.”

From this day forward I will submit a partial testing schedule, and if someone doesn’t show, then they will not be included on the next prepared partial testing schedule. The hell with efficiency; safety first! How’s that for problem solving?

Now that that’s cleared up, maybe I can get this self-audit of how we GED Test off my desk. Just because Newberry Correctional Facility had another cheating incident doesn’t mean that our testing format has been compromised; we do things differently.

THINKING TURKEY, GIVING THANKS

It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re living like a turkey . . . John Maxwell

No matter how hard I try, no matter what advice I give, there are students fighting me every step of the way. Their resistance, you would think, would weaken with age. We call it: growing up. Prisoner Harris has defied that maturation process.

“I’m ready for the GED Exams,” he says.

Even though he’s approaching thirty and has been enrolled in school more times than I’d like to count, I explain the rules to the game: 1) you need to show up for class, 2) you need to do your assignments, and 3) you need to qualify for the actual GED Exams by passing a series of half-tests. “Put forth an effort,” I tell him, “and you may surprise yourself.”

He’s not buying it. He thinks I’m the problem; I’m the obstacle preventing him from earning his General Equivalency Diploma. I’m not Monte Hall. This is not “Let’s Make a Deal.” Even if it were, even if I asked, “Door number one? Or door number two?” I guarantee you that after handing him the key he’d lose it, he’d lock himself out.

“Okay,” I tell him, “We’ll disregard your attendance; we’ll disregard your dismal study habits, your poor work ethic. I’ll schedule you for the next half-tests.”

I already know my decision will not affect the outcome. Although he’s in agreement with this arrangement, he continues to miss class which leads to him not seeing the posted test schedule. However, on the day of reckoning he’s given an itinerary with his scheduled time for testing. He never arrives. I fill-out an absence form. The school officer calls his unit. Soon I'm provided with an explanation: “Prisoner Harris overslept and was not aware of the testing session.”

More John Maxwell: Turkey-thinking + turkey-talk = turkey-walk.
Soar like an eagle everyone, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

*Note: Pictured from left to right at the Lawrence Street Gallery are Rick Moore, Michelle Brooks, myself, and Mark Durfee. More to come.

THEY GO IN THREES

Usually, when the corrections officer makes his rounds, there’ll be a youngster sitting in the hot-seat next to my desk. The hot-seat is reserved at regular intervals for the latest teenage-convict acting up. Others mockingly call it the time-out chair, or the cooling station—a place to chill, to gather one’s thoughts before attempting (yet again) to study the required GED material without getting sucked back into the vortex of prison negativity.

Earlier in the week while walking the corridor the corrections officer did a double-take. There were three hot-seats in front of my desk with three teenage-convicts flipping through page after page of “major misconduct” tickets I had written, copied, and filed in a three-ring binder.

“Damn,” one of them said, “he’s got tickets in here that are older than I am.”

“My point exactly,” I said. “Don’t think for a minute that I won’t write your asses up, that I won’t make you disappear. Continue doing what you’re doing and you just might end up in an observation cell in your skivvies, weighted down in a bam-bam suit, lying on a thin mattress with no blanket, no nothing. Do you really think anyone in here gives two-shits about you?”

As two of them decided to get out of earshot—my advice: a wind tunnel of words rushing through their ears—muttering white bread muthafucka, asshooole, the third hung back. “I’m gonna die in here,” he said.

“You’re doing life?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well then, you have a choice: die now or die later.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

I explained how he needed to learn how to do his time without pissing off the other convicts. “Over the years we’ve had inmates mysteriously hang themselves; we’ve had more stabbings then I’d care to count; we’ve also had an inmate drown in a toilet with another inmate’s foot conveniently placed on the back of his neck.” I’m not sure he understood my message; he slumped down in the hot-seat; he looked defeated. “Now go back to your desk and do your assignment.” I had nothing more to give, nothing more to say. Then, as he turned to leave, I offered the following consolation, “Hey, at least you’re alive. That’s got to count for something.”

THE ONE-SIDED EXCHANGE

I’m getting too old for this shit. I simply requested that Coleman, a teenage carjacker, pick up the scrap paper from the desk he was sitting at and throw it away; it was on his way out for Chrissake.

“I’m not your bitch,” he said. “It’s not mine.”

“I didn’t say it was yours.”

“Give me my ID motherfucker before I do something to you.”

I knew enough to stay at least two arms lengths away. He rifled through my desk searching for his ID card. Never mind his exchanging it for a pencil earlier in the class period; he had absolutely no intention of giving it back.

The teacher next door entered just in time for me to make it official: "I'm giving you a direct order to throw the paper in the trash." He continued with the verbal threats.

Not long after that, a corrections officer stepped into my classroom. I explained the situation.

“It’s not mine,” Coleman interrupted. “He’s gonna make me do something to him.”

Don’t ask me why, perhaps there’s strength in numbers … 3 to 1 … but he eventually obeyed the direct order.

“Wait until tomorrow,” he added.

I noticed his clenched fists. I asked for clarification.

He continued, “Tomorrow’s gonna be the worst fucking day of your life in this bitch.”

The corrections officer tried to calm him down.

“He heard me,” Coleman said. “He’ll find out tomorrow, that’s a promise.”

How many opportunities did he need before he’d tone down the rhetoric? What would it take for his jaw to quit flapping? He never missed a beat, even when the handcuffs were slapped on him.

I gave the corrections officer Coleman’s ID card. “Do you mind,” I asked, “reaching in his pocket? He has my pencil.” I had two more classes to teach and a limited supply of writing utensils.

THE THINGS THAT MOVE US

“You don’t understand,” Prisoner Carnell says above the laughter. He’s defending his absence from class, trying to put last week’s observation cell and padded gloves behind him.

“You just want attention,” Prisoner Melton, one of my brighter students, says.

Carnell pushes his long-john sleeves all the way to his shoulders as if he’s ready to whup some ass. He’s fairly small, 140-lbs, and his forearms and biceps have a history beyond his years.

“Damnnn!” a few students say. They’re impressed with the display of old and new battle scars.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Prisoner Carnell says, “I’ve kicked plenty of ass in my day. I’ve got more pent-up rage, more anger, than anyone here could ever handle.”

“Fuck off,” Prisoner Melton says, “I ain’t a-scared of you.” He puffs out his chest, his testosterone level increases.

“You have no reason to be afraid of me.” Carnell slides his sleeves back down. “My chances of going home are better if I don’t fight.”

“Doin’ THAT,” another student indicates, “ain’t gonna help you to freedom.”

Carnell explains his actions. “Whenever someone’s wronged me, pissed me off, I cut. It’s my way of dealing with the bullshit. I’m not hurtin’ no one.”

An argument ensues between Carnell and Melton. It’s fairly obvious Melton is egging him on, trying to verbally abuse him. After a few minutes of back-and-forth insults, I intervene. “Gentlemen, I need your itineraries. Now.”

They know the drill. Both are booted from the classroom for excessive noise. Carnell demands a waiver form. “I’m not coming back,” he says. Melton shrugs his shoulders, “see you tomorrow Teach.”

***

Recommendation: John Jeffire’s “Stone + Fist, Brick + Bone.” There’s some powerful poetry in this collection. My personal favorite, which relates to the above post, is “The Composition Teacher Ponders Questions Posed by His Students at the Allen Correctional Institute.”

***

Note: Lori A. May's interview with Tonja Bagwell, curator of the Poetic Travelers series.

EMOTIONAL RESCUE

"Prison pulls the masks away from men. You can’t hide what you are, in prison. You can’t pretend to be tough. You are, or you’re not, and everyone knows it."

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts







I’m not ashamed to say it—“I feared getting hurt.” I envisioned my teeth knocked in, an assortment of ceramic and wire cutting into my gums. I had followed protocol. My students entered the classroom exchanging ID cards for pencils—except Prisoner JB. He walked in and announced how he would not be attending class today, he was returning to his unit.

After everyone was seated, I filled out an absence slip: Prisoner JB, 04-018T, 0735 hours. Twenty minutes later he returned. “I’ll beat the living shit out of that whore ass bitch Samuelson!” He was referring to my coworker, a female school officer. And for what, locating his whereabouts, making sure he attended school?

His peers listened attentively, curious to see how this unfolded. Before I could speak, he snapped, “You don’t know where I came from, do you?” I held my ballpoint pen like an ice-pick, concealed under my desk. “I’m Level V,” he continued. “I’ve assaulted staff before.”

I stood up as slowly as possible, trying to stay calm, my weapon conveniently tucked in my trouser pocket. I made my way to the door, made myself visible to the hallway camera. “I need you to step out here,” I said. He complied. I stayed an arms-length away. “Start walking toward the officer’s podium.”

Once we reached our destination, I said, “Why don’t you tell Officer Riser here what you told me.”

He wouldn’t speak.

I killed the silence. “Keep him away from me,” I said to Officer Riser. “I’ll explain later.”

It didn’t take long to sort this out. Not too long afterward, Prisoner JB was handcuffed and taken to segregation, while I prepared a “Threatening Behavior” ticket. The real irony behind all of this was that when I spoke to Corrections Officer Samuelson, thinking they had a verbal confrontation, she said, “I never spoke to him today, never saw him.”

Another coworker looked up Prisoner JB’s rap sheet: breaking & entering, home invasion, and assaulting a police officer. Two year sentence. From what I had gathered, he wanted to lock-up in segregation; he grew tired of his bunkie pressing him for sex.