Springtime in prison: The snow is melting, mud everywhere. Inmates are melting too.
Speaking of inmates who had meltdowns, the “Wrestler” was taken off to the SHU (the Special Housing Unit, aka “The Hole”) for committing numerous transgressions at the camp. There is no news about whether he will come back here or get “reassigned” to a different prison camp. If he gets reassigned I heard that the Blue Boyz have to find another prison that will take him. It can be a long process. Why another prison would want to take a troublemaker is beyond my limited brain capacity to figure out.
Either way, the man will have to stay in the SHU until they find another prison for him, which could take months. It’s a lot of paperwork. Federal prison is like living in the post office. So the poor guy will have to sit in the SHU until it is determined what to do with him.
See what happens when you “keep it real”? One minute you are an average inmate, working out, hanging out, watching TV, working on your paperwork. And the next minute you are stuck in a room the size of a closet, with a toilet in the middle of the room, either alone or with another guy, flourescent lights shining on your face 24/7, and you only get one hour a day to go outside and get some fresh air. Your cell is next to many other cells with guys in similar circumstances, so you have guys yelling and screaming at all hours, banging their heads against the walls, you name it.
A scene from a horror movie.
The Blue Boyz don’t tell you when you will be leaving the cell, so they can take you out at any given time. They could take this guy out and put him back in the camp, figuring after he spent some time in the SHU he has learned his lesson.
When you get thrown in the SHU the Blue Boyz don’t contact your family to let them know that you no longer have access to a telephone or emails. I heard that the Wrestler’s mom drove up here for a visit, a two-hour drive. Some of the inmates recognized her in the parking lot, and told the Blue Boyz, who informed her, as nicely as they could, that her son was not available for visits at this time.
A Redneck Tutorial
The redneck Blue Boy returned to work today. I asked him why he had inmate Charlie’s mug shot on his cork board along with the mugshot of another guy named Weitzman or something like that. He said he didn’t know and to go bleep myself.
The other Blue Boy said that these were his favorite inmates.
The redneck said the Weitzman guy was known as “Big Jew,” as he was over six feet tall and weighed a lot of pounds. He woudn’t admit that these were his favorite inmates. He said he hated Charlie.
The guys were eating macaroni and cheese for lunch, so I asked him whether this was redneck food. He said it wasn’t, and I didn’t know the first thing about rednecks, which admittedly I don’t.
I told him rednecks keep their Xmas tree light display on their house on year round. He said that was a white trash thing, not redneck.
He said there is a big difference between rednecks and white trash. I said that rednecks eat animals that they kill, like deer. He said that was a living-off-the-land kind of thing, not redneck.
I was very confused. I hope to learn more about this as I spend more time in prison.
Everything Must Go!
Wednesday is commissary day at the camp.
Once a week inmates get to buy stuff from the prison commissary store. Most of the stuff is overpriced. Sweatshirts cost about $20; you would normally pay about $10 for them at Walmart. Chocolate bars, granola bars, peanuts, popcorn and other junk food you get charged a premium. No discounts, no sale days. You can even buy bottles of spring water or seltzer water. You can buy stuff you use in the shower, ie., shampoo, soap, deoderant, moisturizing cream.
You can buy medicine, aspirin, motrin, vitamins, but no name-brand medicine in here. The medicine is manufactured by companies you never heard of. You can also buy a bag of rugelach, cologne, coffee.
There are a number of Jewish food items in here you can purchase, kosher items. There are also religious items, like a Muslim prayer rug, American Indian bandana, yarmulkes.
Next door in the medium they have an actual store, that you can only shop in once a week. That is set aside for your special commissary day. If you try buying stuff on a day that is not designated your commissary day, the Blue Boyz will tell you to take a hike. Some inmates get away with it, as the Blue Boyz are too busy to notice sometimes.
Over here the commissary items get shipped to the warehouse in individual mesh bags and then handed out to the inmates off the back of a box truck. Names are called, and you pick up your mesh bag and check to make sure you have everything.
Sometimes the Blue Boyz mess up and put stuff in there that you didn’t order or leave stuff out.
Today I never made it back to the camp to pick up my bag, so someone put the bag on my bunk bed for me. I asked the Blue Boyz at the warehouse what happened to my bag. They told me an inmate put it on my bed. They said it was waiting for me, along with a warm body that was also waiting for me on my bed.
No Hand In That Crime
In other news, the first batch of shmura matzahs have arrived at the warehouse [for Passover]. I unloaded them off the minivan driven by the Hasid from Brooklyn.
“Shmura” matzahs are not the regular matzohs you buy in the supermarket. They are hand-baked, burnt to a crisp, and shaped like a pizza pie. They taste like a burnt piece of raw dough, which is basically what they are.
The Blue Boy wanted to know why the Jews eat these matzohs. I explained that it was the bread of affliction, representing slavery, bondage — kind of like Club Fed over here.
He was wondering why the Jews killed Jesus. I told him I had nothing to do with the death of Jesus. I was locked up for mortgage fraud, not murder.
Previous installments:
• Larry Noodles & The Tossed Banana
• A Peanut-Butter View Of A “Real Prison”
• Arrival
• Tempers Flare Over … What?
• Blinded By The Light
• The Russians Take Control