Читать книгу Prison Puzzle Pieces - Dave Basham - Страница 38

Once you walk through those series of doors to start your shift, you have to force your mind into an entirely different place. I always related to it as pulling my mind out of my head and placing it on a shelf. My normal mind, at least as normal as my mind could possibly be, was not functional in this environment. Ok, instead of calling it my normal mind, let's call it my regular mind; the one I use regularly even when I'm not regular.

My abnormal mind made it so I could function in this place. Inmates told me that the way they survived and kept from going nuts was to close their eyes and imagine they were with their family, playing with their dog and many other things that made them feel good.

They told me many things that would not be appropriate for me to describe to you even in a book like this, if you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, you are obviously quite young. Read this book again in a few years and vivid pictures will pop into your head and you will be in a place just like those guys.

The reason it was difficult going into prison with my regular mind was because that mind feels compassion, anger and all of those other emotions that control what we do. Entering a prison is a place where my actions couldn't be governed by emotions. They had to be governed by the rules of the institution.

Quite often, my regular mind would creep in and get in the way. I would have to fight to get it back out of my way.

You can't be around some of these guys without being friends with them. There are others you can't be around without wishing Minnesota had a quick death penalty system with no appeals.

It was a great feeling when I retired knowing that I would never have to step back in that place again. At the same time it was quite sad. There were a lot of those guys that I knew I would miss.

There are people I had conflicts with that I miss, because there were people in that place that were intelligent enough to realize that my decisions were based on doing my job. I could respect people who came to me that disagreed with me. Those people helped me and the institution a lot. An inmate having the guts to tell me exactly how they viewed things was what I needed in order to make the most intelligent decision possible. I have always looked at things with the perspective of the more informed one is the better decision one can make and the better one can feel about having made the best decision possible. I was always open to hear what anyone had to say. I truly miss the diversity of perspectives and ideas these guys had. It felt good when I could incorporate that additional information into my decisions.

It was a constant battle in my head when I realized I was friends with an inmate. I felt like it was wrong. I felt like it was forbidden and against the rules. I can say that I was able to maintain objectivity and treat everyone the same, but that was becoming more and more difficult as time went on. Obviously, there were people I communicated with more and had a good time with. I frequently miss those conversations with so many of those guys. I saw things the way they saw things more than I saw things the way institution policy was laid out.

I can see how so many institution policies came about, even the ridiculous ones. One person does something stupid, so a policy is made that states that it is a violation, just in case anyone ever tries it again. Because of common sense not being allowed in courts, someday there may be a policy specifically stating how much snot an inmate is allowed to blow into a piece of toilet paper and the only allowable process acceptable to dispose of it.

There I go with my regular mind creeping in and letting out a bit of anger, but I caught it in time, I think.

It is difficult to write about feelings, especially when my persona was not to be feeling. According to a lot of the guys, I failed quite often at this.