Once Upon a Time in a Prison Cell Somewhere

Once Upon a Time in a Prison Cell Somewhere

Hard time is not swinging away with a hammer at a pile of rocks under a hot sun. No, with fresh air, the sun, clouds, blue sky, movement, and even a pointless purpose, that would have been a blessing for Henry. He might see a flock of geese fly overhead, or hear the song of a cardinal or an oriol in the distance. With luck, he might even catch a light rain and turn his head upward to feel the hand of the real world on his face.

 Hard time is being stashed away in a God-forsaken concrete block prison cell where there is no day or night, stale air, nothing to do, nothing to see, and time is kept by the loud banging of metal on metal three times a day- breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Aside from meals on a three-bin plastic tray shoved through a slot in an iron door, time melts into itself…same, same, and more of the same. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. There are too many circuits in the human brain to cope in a vacuum.

It was Groundhog Day in a box. Henry would stare at the plain white wall or ceiling for hours…all day…and then the next day…and then another day, and another. He feared his head might explode, or his soul would wither away, or he'd surrender and fall to the floor, mentally and physically drained from battling the relentless foe of mind-numbing boredom.

Henry would walk in tiny circles for exercise. There was no TV, no radio, and nothing to read. He tried hard to shut his mind off before he lost it. He would seek sleep… dear, sweet sleep, at all times of the day or night, his only escape from the suffocating nothingness that engulfed his brain and eroded his spirit. He could do no more than exist. Knowing he put himself there didn't make it any easier.

There was no chair in the cell. Henry could only lie down in his bunk…and lie there…and then lie there some more. He would look at the metal slats above that held his cellie’s “mattress” in place. The poor guy didn’t get a real mattress; Walter got a ripped-up sheet of foam rubber barely 2” thick. It wouldn’t have taken a princess to feel a pea under seven of them. Walter stood 6’5” if he was an inch and easily topped 285 pounds- it had to be like lying on a wrought iron fence for such a big man. Walter's plight made Henry realize that things could always be worse; it is possible to find comfort in the misery of others.

Lunch happened so Henry knew it was the afternoon. He thought it was Friday, but he wasn't sure. It was troubling to realize he didn’t even know what day it was. If it were Friday, back home he might have caught a fish fry with some friends… if he had any friends left. Maybe he’d go to a high school football game, stand along the fence, and start a conversation with one of the players’ dads sure to be there. It was hard to envision the world still going on out there without him; the restaurant was bustling, and the game was played; he just was no longer part of it. As the crow flies, Henry was less than a hundred miles from home; as his mind saw it, they might as well have sent him to the moon. He was shut off from the world, and he could only wonder if and when anyone even noticed he was gone. He understood their lives must go on without him, but it saddened him to imagine himself not being a part of it. He would experience none of it, and he would contribute nothing to it. 

Henry and Walter would not have been friends in the real world. They never would have met. Here, they are besties.

“Walter, you can’t be talking about killing your niece.”

“Well, Henry, maybe I wouldn’t really kill her, but for me, right now, right here, it’s a nice thought. Gives me somethin’ to smile about.”

Henry was learning a lot about the drug trade. A young woman driving up from Texas to Michigan is less likely to draw attention than a big black guy. That part of the plan worked to perfection. It was his buyer deviating from the time-honored adage- “Loose lips sink ships”- that did him in. The Feds were waiting for him at the hotel. That’s where his niece threw him under the bus before his head even had a chance to start spinning.

“I couldn’t believe it. The guy just gave her a look, like, you know, the evil eye, and she folded like a cheap suit. She spilled everything, everything from the border to where we were sitting, in under five minutes. She was like a freaking Chatty Cathy doll. I’ll bet that guy was laughin’ about it at home that night with his wife.”

For Walter, there is supposed to be honor amongst thieves. He didn’t like hearing the guys down the hall discussing their unfair trade practices- a complicated process of adding moisture to product to increase weight to boost profit margins.

“That ain’t right, man.”

Henry was not unaware of the irony of a drug dealer taking a strong stand on business ethics. 

 “And besides a guy could get killed that way.”

“Like your niece…”

That brought a smile from Walter.

“Henry, you a gamblin’ man?”

“Sometimes.”

“How about a little wager on what we’ll have for breakfast tomorrow? I’ll take bran flakes, an apple, and two cartons of room-temperature skim milk.”

“Very funny.”

Even the food- same, same, same.

And then...the worst of times.

“I’m sorry, Henry. I gotta climb down and use the toilet.”

Besides the mind-numbing boredom, that was the hardest part for Henry. The toilet was just a few feet from the bunkbeds, right there out in the open. Henry would cover his head with his pillow and pretend to be someplace else.

"Dammit! I'm going to fall off the bunk climbing up or down one of these times."

"Try not to fall on me."

Humor- the floatation device many inmates cling to for survival.

"Thanks for your concern"

Henry used the moment to consider just how far he had sunk in life. He had a nice house, a nice car, and a nice job; today he struggles to escape the sights, sounds and smells of a man sitting on a toilet just a few feet from his head.

A real-life odd couple: Henry, an old, short white guy; Walter, a mid-thirties, big black guy. Henry- a college graduate with an MBA; Walter- barely made it out of the 9^th Grade. Henry- grew up in an affluent neighborhood with supportive parents; Walter- grew up in poverty in a broken home and was selling drugs and helping his cousin transport prostitutes to big city conventions when he was fourteen; Henry- no bullet holes; Walter- a bullet hole in his left side from a drug deal gone bad. But they got along great for those seventeen days as they were “in transit” to their long-term placement, Henry heading for Minnesota and Walter being shipped to California. Mutual respect, tolerance, and a sense of humor will carry you a long way.

“So, Melinda’s your wife?”

“No, Sherri’s my wife. Melinda’s my girlfriend.”

“Walter…”

“No, it ain’t like that, Henry. Sherri and I separated a long time ago. We just never got around to getting divorced.”

“You got kids, Walter?”

The silence told Henry he maybe should not have asked.

“Yeah… Tony. He’s a good kid. He’s doin’ real good in school. I give Sherri a lot of credit for that.”

And then that special kind of silence, a silence you can feel, that touches your heart…sad silence.

“He ain’t going to be like me.”

Uncomfortable silence.

“I think you’re a pretty good guy, Walter. You’re smart, funny, and a nice guy. You may have made some mistakes, but let’s hope there’s a lot of you in Tony.”

Silence… the peaceful, pensive type.

“Damn, I wish we had radios in here. The NFL starts this weekend…I think. That sure would help.”

“I’m more of a college football guy, Walter. I’d be watching games from noon to midnight back home. But, yeah, a radio would help a ton.”

“It’s total bullshit, man. We’re in Seg just cuz we’re holdovers. We ain’t done nothin’ wrong. The bastards should let us shop Commissary.”

Walter thought they’d be there a day or two. They were on day thirteen. Inmates dream of having the privacy of their own cell, but Henry knew he did about as well as possible having Walter for his cellie.

Henry felt some anxiety when he got Walter for a cellie. His cause for concern stemmed from a CO’s comment as he removed their shackles and ushered them into their cell. The CO looked down at his notepad.

“Huh, that’s odd. They usually don’t put a white guy in with a black guy.”

That didn't sound good to Henry. He was the new arrival. Walter was a savvy alumnus of the system. Henry was small and Walter was huge. Henry was well aware of the friction between the races in a prison, and he could envision half of his lunch easily making its way to Walter’s tray. The relief he felt once he got to know Walter was immeasurable.

“What’s your deal, Henry? You got people out there?”

“My wife, my poor wife, and a son and a daughter.”

“They with you?”

Painful silence.

“You alright, Henry?”

“Yeah… my wife, I think she’ll move on. That’s ok, things weren’t good for a long time. My boy…yeah, he’ll always be there for me. My daughter…she’s too hurt…it’s hard to say.”

“Sorry, Henry. That accounting stuff. Did you like it?”

“Hated it.”

“Then why did you do it so long?”

“A man’s gotta eat.”

The baring of Henry’s soul. Was it the circumstance- two grown men thrown together by fate and locked in an 8’x9’ concrete block room with a toilet in the corner- or was it Walter, with his calm demeanor, his soft voice, a great sense of humor, his ability to understand, and the sense he had a real interest in him? For whatever reason, Henry felt a certain closeness to the big man resting uncomfortably above.

“I had it made, Walter. I’ve got no excuse. I did it all to myself.”

“One thing you have to learn, Henry. You can’t be beating yourself up over it. It won’t do you no good, and you’re going to have a tough enough time dealing with the here and now. You can’t help anyone out there. You just need to survive the time.”

“And how do I do that, Walter? I’ve got seven years of it. I don’t think I’ll make it.”

“You keep your eyes on what’s right in front of you, Henry, and you keep your mind inside the fences. The here and now is all that matters. It’s not one day at a time. You’re going to be living hour-to-hour, sometimes minute-to-minute. This is your address now, this is your life. Accept it, deal with it, and you’ll survive.”

It didn’t occur to Henry that a young black man with a long, unsavory criminal history had somehow assumed the role of his priest, counselor, and therapist. He only knew he felt some comfort and relief in the presence of his new friend.

“Yeah, it was all greed, Walter. And our CEO didn’t take kindly to that fudging the books stuff.”

“Man, that was some crazy shit you was pullin’ out there, Henry. You sure don’t seem like the type.”

“Yeah, I kind of surprised myself. But once you get started, it’s hard to stop.”

“Same here. I was never addicted to the drugs. I was addicted to the money.”

It didn’t take Henry long to realize that Walter wasn’t just street-smart; Walter was smart-smart.

“I’ll bet you could have done a lot of things in life, Walter. A different set of circumstances early in life, and I bet you could have been a lawyer or a big executive somewhere.”

Walter laughed.

“I did run a legit business back home. You know, a little sideline to the big money-maker. It was pretty much a front, but it did bring in some pretty good cash.”

“Really? What was it?”

“Credit repair.”

“You ran a credit repair business?”

“Yep, had an office and everything.”

“I’ve heard of it. How does that work? Financial counseling, planning, restructure debt?”

Another big Walter smile.

“Well, it ain’t that complicated, Henry. We just have a man on the inside.”

“What does that mean? Inside where?”

“Inside the credit reporting agencies.”

Henry’s turn to smile.

“A client comes in, lays down the cash, we send some to our guy, a few clicks on a computer, and presto-chango! A good credit rating!”

A laugh from Henry.

“I don’t think that’s how it is supposed to work, Walter. That doesn’t sound all that legit.”

“All that big money stuff, rating people, it’s all BS anyway. And I was helping people out. They just needed a break.”

“I guess. What’s the split between you and your man on the inside?”

“50/50. A nice, straight-up, even-steven deal. Well…sometimes there may be a bit of what we call a bookkeeping error, and it comes out more like 60/40.”

“Walter! What happened to all that business ethics stuff?”

Big, big smile from Walter.

“A man’s gotta eat.”

And then it goes quiet. Henry and Walter have run out of things to say for the moment, as well as the energy to say them. Distraction from their current plight takes effort, and both sink back into the abyss of their own misery.