Читать книгу Sold Short In America - Richard A. Altomare - Страница 11

Yesterday, I tried to describe my evening symphony of noises. When I re-read it, I choked up with some degree of personal discomfort. As I sit in my cell tonight and dinner is a bit late (almost -2 hours by now), I listen to my solitary confinement neighborly orchestra gently reminding the guards of the lateness of the dinner. From "Where's my fucking food" to "you cock-suckers, did you fat fucks eat our fucking food?" All of the voices came to life. The two Jamaicans started arguing over whose fault the food lateness was. My newest friend called his imaginary alter-ego to start ranting about these white mother-fuckers who have taken his freedom and now have taken his food. The banger has been trying violently to break down the door - doesn't he realize that if an inmate breaks down the door, there are at least five additional locked doors which are worked by keys and others only by electronic central command. Hey maybe, that's the job they'll give Mrs. Andrews now that she is immobile. No doors will ever open. My Tourette syndrome neighbor seems to be quiet now - I guess he's waiting until the moon comes out. What I didn't remember (I think psychologically I blocked it out) were the other "sounds" which contribute to my Club-Fed nocturnal experience. The creatures that live in the walls are so very loud. I hope they are prison cats chasing the mice.

If this was your apartment house, you wouldn't sleep here. The running and scratching noises are continual and I can only imagine that the population of rodents is being handled as efficiently as they handle the prisoners. When someone knocks this building down, anyone in the area should go out to the Hamptons for a few weeks. These non-stop rodent noises must be added to my evening symphony. Lights remain on twenty-four hours a day in this writer's cell.

Normally after a two week vacation, I am anxious to go back home. The same is true of this incarceration vacation and forced diet program that the good Judge thought was important for my character and his ego. The fact remains that I have more character than both the agency and the Judge on this matter and other issues. Maybe someday they'll get a similar vacation, although now they think it is impossible. Life is funny and God certainly has proved He or She has a twisted sense of humor by what I have observed through only my little prison window and my abused inmate neighbors.

I am told that although the food is 2 hours late it has finally arrived due to the "elevator problem". Thank goodness I don't have to keep the broken elevator secret to myself any longer. I wonder today like Holden Caulfield would - how did they get Ms. Andrews down the stairs? That is a sight I would have paid to see. They probably have a freight elevator and that would have been an appropriately ignominious departure for the woman who has prevented telephone contact for me and everyone except my friend with the imaginary phone. He simply may have been trying to get on the "list" longer than me. Food tonight was only a cup of rice and two cold hot dogs. I wonder how many calories that was.

Tonight I spoke across the hall with the 25 year old young man who has been contained in the system for six years. As I spoke with him, watched his smile, thought about the last six years of a boy who could have been my son, I cried. He was in solitary confinement because he yelled at his counselor. She put him here in solitary. I am a reasonably good judge of character. The boy was incarcerated six years ago for a non-violent offense. What are we doing to young men like him? Give me a young man like this and I could make our society proud of him. What a waste of humanity. When they are done with him, this young man will be a repeat offender.

I selfishly talk about the injustice of my civil contempt and my loss of weeks of a maturely fully lived life. What does a nineteen to twenty-five year old lose? Our prosecutors and Judges have been giving long sentences for non-violent crimes. We need to re-visit and restructure our sentencing guidelines. That BOP budget could be reduced to less than twenty-five billion and fewer lives would be ruined - and that includes citizens, inmates and guards. I am sad tonight - not for me, but for the countless lost lives that have fallen through our governmental cracks. How I hope I can persevere in this legal case of mine and will use the knowledge to financially adopt some prisoners and show the BOP an alternative way of looking at their antiquated system of rehabilitation. From prosecutors to Judges to prisons to parole officers, we have the highest incarceration rate in the entire civilized world based on population percentages. Dare I say it? I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge after the spirits have visited in the Christmas Carol. How can I ever again look at these institutions as I have? My heart is selfishly irritated but tonight broken when I see the young men so abused. Our society deserves a much better human repair shop. If cars kept breaking down, we would inspect or close the faulty repair shop. Our repeat prison percentages are abysmal and from what I have observed - we owe it to our society to take a much closer look. This is a political campaign issue! The BOP is the cost of the Iraq War every year!

This morning I was taken to the clinic for a physical exam and they scheduled my blood and EKG tests. Fortunately I was put on a medical "list" so these tests may never occur prior to my departure. The doctor and guard had never before met a non-criminal civil contempt inmate held in isolation for almost twenty days. How fortunate for me.

Although it is early morning a few of my fellow inmates have begun banging and screaming. God knows why? They claim it was two rats fighting from cell to cell.

Well, the shower project appears back on the front burner. Today, they sent up the five guys to work on the shower and our related water issues. They have been on the project for over three hours as I listen to them complaining. At the rate of this 4'X3' shower repair, the Great Wall of China would have taken the BOP over 35,000,000 years to finish.

Well Mr. Mansion and Ms. Black are to be our new replacement counselors. Today a suited woman came to "make rounds". I asked what she was doing. She said I'm here to make "rounds". "Rounds for what, may I ask? Medical? Counseling? Telephone? Psychological?" She quipped, "I am here to make rounds". I can't make this stuff up. I said this was a most productive round. What did we do? She said, "Mr. Mansion will be told he needs to come up here". You tell me what happened? Wasn't Mr. Mansion here with her? The other inmates who had been quiet during the "round" now started laughing and yelling about "rounds". The two Jamaicans started fighting about which of them understood "rounds" better.

Good news. I was given one white sock (one sock only) and two double extra-large pair of underwear. Don't ask me to explain, I only sign on the "lists" – I don't issue any of those things. (Yet)

I'm sure by now Ms. Andrews' legacy will be passed effortlessly to my new Mr. Mansion. I'll keep you posted. As of now, I've still not made a phone call home after almost twenty days in isolation. Unlike the others here I am able to visit with my attorneys and sneak out my messages. What about those unable to do so? Something just doesn't smell right, and that is a figurative odor comment because the odors here on this ward and in my cell are what I would never even try to describe. Some rats have started to complain about the filth.

I am reminded of when the missionary, Tom Dooley, went to work with lepers and he himself caught leprosy. His sermon that Sunday started with "We lepers" and everyone knew he had become one of them.

Well, this afternoon I became one of them. A black inmate's cell had water problems so they planned to move him into the young twenty-five year old white inmate's cell across from me. The one who made a fish line ... you remember? So the black guy doesn't want to bunk with the white guy. He says to the guards because I am watching from my window. "Why can't the two white guys room together?" The guard says, "He (me) has to be alone.” "Why" yelled the black guy. Without waiting for the guard's answer "I said because I kill my bunkmates at night" - and stared at him with my best Charles Manson evil face. It was more of a lost and twitchy stare. He said, "Shit, get me in here - that dude's crazy”. The guard smiled and I had entered slightly into their world of insanity. Hopefully, it will pass before someone gets me a telephone call, the new counselor makes "rounds", I find the other sock, or I get to the clinic for my blood tests.

If I were creating fiction, I couldn't make up these characters as they now have started flowing in front of my door. A new psychologist (female) came by this afternoon. She stopped and engaged me. "Hey, are you my new counselor?" She calmly said, "No, I am a psychologist. Can I help you with anything?" I replied "Yes, I have been here for almost twenty days in isolation, can you help me to call my home? I have not made one phone call since I arrived." Her answer was, "On Thursday the Warden comes by tell him. Have a good night." She walked away. If there is a phrase beyond speechless, that is where I am tonight.

I laugh whenever I now look out the window of my cell door and the black inmate looks and runs inside quickly so I can't see him. I must confess a sense of Hannibal Lector persona starting to take hold as I attempt to survive in this emotionally un-survivable governmentally created bizarre world.

I was told again that I am on the phone "list" tonight. Whether it comes to me, or even if my call actually goes through, I will publish a book exposing this sixty billion dollar poorly run machine called the Bureau of Prisons.

Tonight's dinner was as bad as lunch. Lunch was that mystery meat and two pieces of bread; which meant only the two pieces of bread could be eaten. Dinner was also disappointing. It contained one wing size piece of bony chicken, a little potato and some indescribable beans. Damn those inoperable vending machines in the legal room. I could have gotten through the week with only a few candies and a soda. Well, discipline builds even more character. The vending machines in the legal meeting room continue to be non-functioning. Seeing the food and not being able to get some of it is often more difficult than not seeing it at all.

It doesn't seem like the phone is coming tonight, but there is some bad news in the cell. The guy who talks to himself just had a fight on the phone with his alter-ego. I hope they make up before I leave. They seem to be planning some sort of a ''job'' or a "hit". No psychologist ever visits him.

When my caloric intake is less than normal I get tired earlier. That doesn't mean I sleep through the night until breakfast. It just means that I get sleepy or depressed before the inmates begin their evening serenades.

Many tonight are screaming about "rashes". So far Ms. Andrews was right because apparently I'm on this side of the door for chicken-pox or new rashes. I'm starting to hum like the shower builders. "I got to get out of this place". Oh, by the way, the shower project is on hold as they have been put on a new "list" for parts. I wish this wasn't happening. It's like being in some crazy man's dream with nothing making sense. I've never taken drugs, so maybe this is what they experience during a flashback. Could this be a hallucination?

The phone call never happened! The inmates tonight seem to sense my disappointment. They are howling like dogs. I kid you not. They are screaming for a guard to come. No one has visited since dinner. If they don't come, they don't have to "do rounds"; they don't have to, like the psychiatrist, ask if "anything is alright"; they can just stay in their clubhouse and do nothing. I am disappointed because I thought that when my counselor went down the stairs, I stood the chance of a phone call.

How does an inmate contact his outside world? I have experienced twenty days and no contact. Despite what they say in their literature, their purpose is to isolate and deprive those prisoners. If the result of that deprivation is these repeat inmates as we have been describing, then the system needs an overhaul quickly. As a former Marine, I seem to adjust quickly due to my life experiences. What about the young impressionable ones? What about their families? A phone call alone will not solve this problem; it just simplifies to this layman the arrogance, incompetence, lack of concern, and total disregard for their fellow citizens. And these inmates are citizens! We either can fix them or make them worse.

Tonight CO Deliverance who I believe has the most anger and does the least at night took and ripped up my request for a telephone call and said "yeah-right". He walked away from me despite my calls for him to speak and to explain to me why I have not been able to make a phone call.

It's a dilemma. Do I formally complain about someone in here and then have an inside the prison enemy when today I just have a non-combative lazy governmental worker. Or do I just wait and wait until the system finally catches up and does what it should do?

In addition, tonight I sadly received thirty more of aspirin and thirty more of a cholesterol medication substitute. Do they know something I don't? My continued incarceration has to be addressed before Friday. Am I staying more than thirty days? How could this be allowed?