My ten days in the hole for that first "investigation" did nothing to slow me down. I had two roommates in that time, one improbably called Superman, who was weak as hell, but went to visitation on weekends and swallowed a few balloons full of good pot. We smoked off his bag one of the last times he had the chance to peacefully possess marijuana( a few days after being released from the hole a couple of Gs stole all his weed and storegoods). My next roommate was a sissy, and we co-existed, but I took his tennis shoes from him before I was released(a brutish move, for which I have no excuse).
Back to H2, with some new shoes now. Burnout went to H1. During the 10 day interval a new young white guyhad been moved in H2 as well. I cannot remember his name but he quickly positioned himself to be victimized by our commitee(to make the telling of this segment more fluid, I'll just call him John).
I almost immediately disliked this joker. He had the habit of walking around with a ferocious mug on his face. He kept it locked on 24/7, the hardest stare I ever saw, equipt with a frown. Completely incongruous with the rest of him. He was basically a little blonde boy. If you shaved his head, kept the glare, added 50lbs of lean muscle to his frame, taught him to fight, and gave him a headbusters reputation, you;d be dealing with an intimidating man. As it was, he came off as a bogus intimidator. He also manufactured an incredibly fake deep voice when he spoke and his liberal use of slang rang false in my ears.
My roommate at this time was a 30-something white man called psycho, a very common alias in prison, but trust me when I say that this guy took his name seriously. In the 4 days I made it before getting PI'd again, I don't think he slept once. His only drug was coffee. My first day back, I did some speed and listened all night to psychos nonsensical conspiracy theories and bizzare ideas about race. Every 30 minutes he drank another cup of coffee. By the following evening, I was ready to crash. As I fell asleep, psycho continued his rant from the previous evening long after I stopped responding to him. I believe he spoke for many hours after I dozed off.
I got along with mentally troubled people like Psycho(back then I was a little wild eyed myself), they were entertaining to watch, and provided steady comedic relief.
John sealed his fate by provoking Buckwild. This wasn't always a hard thing to do; Buck liked to creatively misinterpret people's actions as personal affronts on his manhood. I wasn't present to witness this exchange, but it had something to do with the two of them comparing shanks. I guess Johns was bigger and sharper and Buck took offense.
Later on, we called John into a cell. Me and Q took Johns knife away, then left him to fend for himself. A few minutes passed. When he came out, you could see Buck had beaten him up. Nothing drastic, just a black eye.
The next day, we all got bent eating xanax, and in the midst of a boring afternoon, Buckwild and I went into Johns room and took some of his storegoods. He offered no protest at all. In the process of getting punked out in this manner, he still maintained to keep his defiant little snarl in place
After lockdown that night, John caught out of the dorm, signing himself into protective custody. Whatever he wrote on his statement form implicated me and Buckwild, so the staff came and escorted both of us to the hole.
I have a few things to say about this event in particular and my behavior in general during this time period: Everyone is influenced by their surroundings. Back then, I hadn't yet turned 22, was new to Calhoun, hadn't been exposed to that much gang activity, and had alot of testosterone flowing through me. I got caught up in the mix for a while. I ran with the pack.
One of my faults is my almost dog-like loyalty. If I'm down with somebody, I'm really down with them. Even if they're wrong, they're always right in the final analysis, to me anyways. Many times I've ended up in trouble because of my associates.
I've been a crash test dummy many times as well. Particularly when I was younger, it didn't take much to rev me up. I lacked common sense in the extreme, took chances, did foolish shit for recognition, never wanted to let my team down. I showed loyalty to people who didn't give a fuck about me. I got sent on missions, did other people's dirty work, and took risks for other peoples benefit. Some of this was natural, everyone who wants respect has to put in work for it. Still, I put myself out there too much. I was foolish.
I was also caught up in the mob mentality. We operated like pack animals. Someone compared us to the gang of young criminals in A Clockwork Orange. Some of the shit we did wasn't very cool at all. And then again, we were in prison. It's an uncool place. It influences in a negative way. Blame it on the fucked up place that breeds this behavior.
As for John, he brought that on himself with his over the top facial expressions, his desire to show off, and pure clumsiness in navigating around the dangers in his enviroment. My main reason for disliking him was the way he broadcast that mean frown at everyone.Damn man, lighten up! Nobody likes someone who carries themself in such an arrogant way. It's good to be humble and to walk around with the knowlege that there is always someone bigger and badder than you out there.
Having said that, I shouldn't have been stomping around regulating on anyone else. Unless I'm wacked out on drugs, that kind of behavior is outside of my character. I'm not a person that can claim the moral high ground very often; without a doubt, my life has been full of excess and selfishness. However, for the most part, I don't treat people unfairly. If I do somebody wrong, they usually have it coming. I'm not a man of violence, I'm not out to get anyone. I'm also saying these things from the (marginally) wiser age of 28. It's true that aging mellows a person.
I don't know if there's any lesson to be learned from this interval in my life. Maybe it's because once your name becomes known to authority figures or police, you'll always have a harder time staying out of trouble from then on. Things that you had nothing to do with will be attributed to you, based solely on your tarnished name. People start believing the worst, are eager to believe, and expect the worst of you. Attempts at rehabilitating your image will be uphill battles and a small slip will undo much hard work. It's bred into people to sensationalize, to blow things out of proportion, to add some negativity to the mix.(I don't like to add anything in, but I think this part is important and wish people would take this to heart, or at least remember it next time they want to pass judgement or reopen old wounds-Ed) The bordom of regular life demands colorful people to keep things interesting. It's easier to be successful and stay out of trouble if you're the one laughing at the crazy shit someone else did, instead of being that colorful person.
A couple years down the line, when I was at Smith State Prison, an investigator for Internal Affairs came to question me about what happened to John. Apparently, he took some creative liberties when he signed on PC, and embelished the story of his victimization. His account was so dramatic that the officers at Calhoun had been compelled to file an official report, which eventually found its way to IA, a division of the DOC that investigates serious violence,staff corruption, etc. I listened in amazement when the investigator read Johns statement, denied it, made no statement of my own, and never heard another word about it.
This time I stayed in the hole on PI(pending investigation) for over a month. The maximum amount of time an inmate can be locked down PI is 30 days, after that point, the administration is supposed to have enough evidence to either charge you or put you back into population. Calhoun marched to its own drum though.
My first roommate's name was Really Real. He was a 40-something hustler and dope fiend; we played dominoes 10 hours a day, smoked buglers, and drank keefe coffee. After a couple months I got moved into the cell with Jason Jones. He had alot of influence with the staff, because they were so afraid of what he might do. If he wanted another roommate, all he had to do was ask.
Jason earned this respect in the most outrageous way; to explain his rise to prominence at Calhoun, I have to explain the B11 phenomenon.
Prison has a disciplinary coding system. Based on the type and severity of the offense, there is a letter and a number assigned to it, The code goes on top of the DRs when they write them out.
B11 is the code for an exposure charge, a form of exhibitionism, when a prisoner openly masturbates in front of a CO or other staff member. This is an unofficial sport in the GA penitentary, with an entire sub-culture built around it. Think of the "Multiple Miggs" character in Silence Of The Lambs, who jacks off while Clarice Starling interviews Dr. Lector, and then throws his semen on her.
The thrill for a "Jacker" is in the response from the female staff. Sometimes they ignore it, sometimes they encourage it, and sometimes they send their admirer to the hole for a B11. If a gaurd allows or encourages it, she's "eating the dick up". If an inmate throws caution to the wind and openly masturbates on a gaurd, he's "going fed on that ho" or "killing that bitch". The amount of B11 charges in an inmates file signifies the amount of "kills" he has, and getting sent to the hole for a B11 is "catching a murder charge".
Dedicated followers of this style of penitentary exhibitionism are known as "mad jackers", and they really get involved in their hobby. Some prisons try to press free-world criminal charges on the worst offenders, and a conviction can mean having to register as a sex offender when released. At Smith State Prison, they permit no female staff on the south side of the prison. Die-hards are forced to take their show on the road, exposing themselves on the small yard, either to the officers in the gaurd towers, or the ones driving the peremiter car ("car-jacking").
In spite of the seemingly solitary nature of masturbating, it's often a team effort in prison. A particular cell may afford the best view of the officer in the control booth, so jackers will tag-team her, taking turns using the room. I saw a crew of jack boys encircle a female officer once, boxing her against a chainlink fence during shift-change at Calhoun. Shoulder to shoulder, they jacked off as she recoiled against the fence, suitably terrified(it looked like they were going to rape her).
I never got into "jacking" for several reasons. Most obvious of these is that, during my earliest years of socialization as a child, I learn well-adapted general rules governing when to expose my genitals in public. These rules basically say that you DO NOT expose youself to the world to see; most kids recieve this training around the time they learn other life lessons, like not to play with feces or how to eat without making a mess. Basic entry level guidance on how to act like a human being.
Then there's the fact that I didn't see anything arousing about a fully clothed CO walking through the dorm. Not to say that there aren't any sexy ladies on staff, but they were the exception. And they had clothes on. The fiendish reaction to any female, no matter how ugly, regardless of how unappealing her body might be, wasn't something I could relate to. It wasn't like being inside a harem, surrounded by beautiful naked women sucking on popsicles. Most of these COs were about as sexually appetizing as a sack of dirt. The threshhold of what the maddest of jackers find erotic begins with having a pulse, and (ostensibly) female reproduction organs. MEET THIS CRITERIA IT'S PART TIME BABY!!
Another mental block prevented me from ever embracing the B11 lifestyle. Most of the time, the inmate is stroking himself without permission from the officer. This uninvited display seems like a trespass. It's pretty brazen, like a precurser to sexual assault, rape for beginners(considering the frenzied way some mad jackers pursued their quarry, I'm absolutely convinced jacking is just a temporary rape substitute, until they can make parole and take some pussy again). I'm not bashful, but I'm not about to pull-out and start gunning on a CO. To each his own.
From what I understand, jacking is a relatively new phenomenon in prison, popularized by 80s babies. I believe it spread around the GA DOC around the time they stopped allowing subscriptions to pornographic magazines, another brilliant policy change. As usual, this system creates more problems than it ever solves.
There are no conjugal visits in GA, anywhere, no matter how long your sentence is. There's no outlet for sexual tension, you just have to accept your plight and walk around with hot nuts until you go home. Forced celibacy is cruel, degrading, and probably causes psychological damage over an extended period of time. It's the worst punishment prison has to offer; it's cold. For this reason, I have to say that I sympathize with the jackers. Idiotic prison policy breeds misbehavior, in the same way that misguided policy on drugs breeds violence and fills prisons. It can't be denied.
My friend Jason Jones was a mad jacker. He was also unafraid of heights. When a female CO objected to him exposing himself, instead of going quietly to the hole, he climbed up a hot water pipe, got up into the rafters, and sat on an air duct, 30 feet above the floor of the dorm. This caused mass hysteria, as the wardens, captains, leiutenants, and every other available member of staff rushed to G-building, trying to talk him down. In case it was a planned diversion, they had to lock down the entire compound until they could negotiate a reasonable response from Jason. They got all the extra cots from the laundry room and rushed them to the dorm, to pad the floor in case he jumped. He essentially took himself hostage, embarassed the staff, and then bartered with them, agreeing to climb down if they gave him special privileges while he was in the hole. They gave in. Jason climbed down after an hour.
One of his special privaleges included choosing whom he wanted to be roommates with. Jason was a wiry guy, but his lack of size made him vulnerable if attacked by a larger man. In the hole, if you get in a fight with you roommate, you are literally on your own. It could be a long time before an officer walks cell to cell, peeking inside each window. Jason wasn't afraid, but he wasn't dumb either. He had some enemies. He had a valid reason to be concerned about who he shared a cell with.
After several weeks in the hole, Jason was having problems with his roommate and wanted another one, but the officer wouldn't move him. When it was their turn to be escorted to the shower, Jason waited until the cell door opened, then ran past the officer and once again climbed up onto the air duct. This time he stayed up there for 8 hours, smoking cigarettes, verbally abusing the furious officer, and finally going to sleep. The administration reprimanded the CO for allowing it to happen, deducted 5% of his pay for 6 months, and Jason reasserted himself as an inmate to be taken seriously.
Not suprisingly, Jason was on psyche meds, which he did not take. He also got a side-affect medication that almost all the prisons discontinued because of how popular it was as a drug of abuse. Jason was the last man at Calhoun that was prescribed it. They took everyone else off of it, but when the doctor tried to change his medication, Jason did something outlandish and they would finally relent. Twice a day the nurse came to our cell and gave him a couple of these pills. They had a powerful effect that I find hard to put into words.
This time, the warden was more hesitant to release me into general population again. He said he had been hearing my name entirely too often, as various snitches wrote notes detailing my escapades. I wanted to get out, but was content to chill with my homeboy in the meantime, getting wasted on his strange side-effect meds, and listening to war stories. He definately had a couple.
Jason was down to his last year on a 10 year mandatory sentence for armed robbery. Like me, his tour of the states prisons included the worst ones, and like me, he stayed in trouble most of the time. Jason had "Decade of Aggression" tattooed across his back. Talking to him was enlightening, just hearing all the trials he'd faced, the blood sweat and tears. Some say that prison helps to preserve a person, and I think that can sometimes be the truth, but it also takes a heavy toll. Jason Jones was a living testament to how much damage a man endures, after bareing the strain of incarceration for many, many months.
Seven years later, I look in the mirror and know that strain is evident in me also. This system eats people, then spits out damaged goods. What an ineffective way of coping with crime. What a burden for society, to reabsorbe a mass of debilitated, angry men.
Does anyone else think there's something wrong with the states approach? Who exactly benefits from the current strategy?
Not the criminal.
Not the victim.
Not society.
Just what the fuck is really going on here?
