Thank you for your poetry Dominique.

Loosen your bonds, amass allies, increase self-sufficiency.

This is a story about universal american incarceration.

“68 million people living with convictions (approximately 1 out of 12)–

more than the entire population of France.

We are in danger of becoming a nation of criminals,

because we are policing from a place of fear.” ~Rick Jones

Introduction

“Where am I?”

It looks like I’m in a box. Just a plain grey cube.

Is this…

“Am I in a jail cell?”

1

They’re pulling me into a courtroom.

Odd. The seal on the judge’s podium is for Oregon.

That’s odd because I live in Washington.

How did I even get here?

They tell me I’m suspected of murder.

How did I teleport into a different state, kill someone, and get arrested.

I don’t remember any of this.

2

After a couple days in jail I meet Byrd. Byrd introduces me to VillaLobos…

That’s “Wolf Village” in Spanish.

So. Yeah. My friends: Bird and Wolf.

As if I didn’t feel like I was losing my mind already.

Byrd teaches me about stashing food, soap, and stamps. Stuff that I can use for bartering.

Lobo teaches me about who is who. What the gangs are. What the symbols mean. How to talk to people.

Byrd is covered in animal tattoos —

“‘Cause I’m a fuckin’ animal man, you know, if you do me wrong…”

Lobo has a ton of Joker tattoos,

Not the the DC Joker, the playing card kind…

“I used to be called joker, always makin’ people laugh you know…”

“… But nows that I’m ‘old and in charge’ everyone calls me “The Wolf”.

***

I write my brother a letter… I don’t even know if it will get to him.

Has he moved?

How am I supposed to know his address?

When’s the last time I wrote a snail mail?

When’s the last time anyone wrote a snail mail?

Maybe he’ll be able to tell me what’s going on.

3

They took me to court again.

And then again.

And again.

Eventually I was sentenced.

I don’t know what kind of system this is.

I couldn’t even do anything.

I’m in the jail. I can’t communicate with my Public Defender. Even when we are in the same room… he has so much going on, he can’t stop shuffling around the paperwork, let alone answer any of my questions.

They sure as hell aren’t out there finding evidence on my behalf…

They have a Law library in the Jail, which I can access for an hour a day… if I fill out all the forms… and there’s room… I try to do the research… I try to learn about the law… but, the language is so unusual… The books… they aren’t like normal books… How am I supposed to understand what is happening?

It’s not like it matters anyway. My P.D. won’t even let me talk… I can’t even tell them that I’m innocent.

I am not allowed to talk.

They already have all the evidence they need. There were a couple of witnesses that say they saw me in the area of the crime around the time of the crime.

Open and shut.

I’m cooked.

Just like that.

Life in prison.

Like the blink of an eye.

Yesterday I was in my Tacoma apartment,

Today I’m packaged up, off to a warehouse for humans.

Hundreds of miles away from home.

How is this possible?

It’s like I’m dead.

4

They call this place “intake”.

They dropped buses of us off and shuffled us through this long serpentine hallway…

Like cattle.

The twisting corridor had arrows and instructions painted on the floor. I shuffled along.

Get naked.

They take photograph me from every angle.

Turn your head and cough.

Pee in this cup.

Put your clothes back on.

They sit me down:

Blood Pressure, heart rate, medical history, all that.

In a little cell I take tests for 4 hours.

IQ… personality… Sexuality… who knows.

More medical examinations. They give me injections.

“Follow the arrow to the next door”.

A tv is mounted high in every room, in every hall.

The FIFA World Cup is playing. The noise of Vuvuzelas follows me everywhere.

I’m in another little box.

A buzzer- “Come in!”

I’m in an office.

A Lieutenant.

She’s looking over my file.

She asks me one hundred questions.

One thousand Times.

I’ve heard these questions one thousand times. In jail. In court. In therapy. In my lawyer’s office.

In two different exam rooms earlier today.

“What are you here for?”

“It says here you’re suicidal. Is that true?”

“How old are you?”

“Do you want to harm anyone?”

I notice… on her file, my name isn’t even spelled correctly.

I mention it to her.

“Oh. I’ll get right on that.”

My paperwork,

It still has the wrong name on it.

All that momentum.

Too many files had the misspelling.

Despite my ID, my birth certificate, my social security.

There’s already too much wrong information.

Even when they correct it, someone else receives a file with the incorrect spelling, so they undo the correction.

4b

I’m kept in a cell by myself. Everyone here is isolated. They don’t know what we are.

They won’t know what we are until the paperwork is complete.

“What am I”

I sit in this box alone and try to figure that out myself.

“Did I kill someone?”

I think back to the last day I remember…

Just another day.

I don’t think I went out to drink…

I know I didn’t have any travel plans.

How did I get here?

I know I was no saint…

I was just a bartender.

A flawed, often selfish person…

But, a nice guy…

You know?

And I thought about it.

Days and days I sat alone in that box examining myself.

We aren’t supposed to talk… but one day, in the line to pick up our food, this guy starts to talk to me:

“What’s a nice young guy like you doing in a place like this?”

He looks a bit like Tony Shalhoub- a Shlubby Tony Shalhoub…

But, his voice is kind and his eyes are bright.

“I have no idea”

I mumble to him under my breath. scared of getting in trouble.

“Me neither Brother! One day I’m in Saudi Arabia, the next day I’m here!”

He laughs a warm joyful laugh…

until the guards quiet him with a scowl.

4c

I spent more days alone in my box. Examining myself.

Finding parts to myself that I didn’t know existed, parts that I’d forgotten.

My memories… My thoughts… My feelings…

Every relationship I’d ever had.

Every show and movie I’d ever seen.

Every prayer and profanity I’d ever uttered.

These all became the furnishings that filled my cell.

I tried to keep them organized.

Neatly filed like books.

Some memories were so large that they were like entire worlds…

I had kept those memories like photographs

Simple snapshots…

But, some… somewhere deep… deep enough for me to step into and wander around inside.

After the initial boredom… After exhausting the standard thoughts which typically run through my mind…

After the movies, songs, and sitcoms that hum as filler between those typical thoughts…

These thoughts and soundbites faded away…

Revealing, my voice.

Do you know the sound of your own voice?

My experience:

Your voice. Your true voice…

Your true voice is so quiet.

True voice is so quiet that it takes days of silence before your ears and mind are sensitive enough to hear your voice.

Most of those loud voices. The loud thoughts that pester you.

Fear. Anger. Sadness. Greed. Need.

The true voice talks more about… Principle.

And Guilt.

4d

The days went by, they eventually concluded the nature of my being.

As I contemplated the artifacts of my mind,

They reached conclusions drawn from 1,000 sentences drawn by one hundred strangers, overlain with the results of 10,000 checkboxes…

I was assigned to a medium security facility.

They packed my rucksack, and herded me onto a bus to god-knows-where.

It reminded me of my Navy days.

I sped down the highway.

50 grown kids surrounded by thousands of free citizens — like we were heading out on some macabre field-trip.

People stared at us. Amusement, curiosity, horror?

I eventually started making monstrous faces. They wanted to gawk? I’d give them something to gawk at.

All day long, we stopped at jails and prisons. Dropping some people off, picking others up. Reclassification.

When we arrived at my prison, people started talking about “The Thunderdome” — Cell block 8.

The entire place resembled something out of Mad Max. The hills around us appeared to be desert dunes.

I couldn’t see any grass or greenery. The buildings were even an off white post-apocalyptic type of adobe.

At the intake center, guards inventory your things, deciding what is appropriate for you at the faculty, warehousing the rest of your belongings for the day you are released or transferred.

One guard, upon finding a photograph of someone I loved… He held it up and made a noise of appraisal.

“This your girlfriend?” he asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“NOT NO MORE SHE AIN’T” He shouted with glee. He let out a guffaw and slapped my shoulder, happy to share the joke.

Another of his favorites — he would ask everyone if their name was written on the bottom of their shoes. We all lift our boots. The word “inmate” indented in the rubber.

“There it is! That’s your name from now on boys! “Inmate””

***

I was given a slip of paper. -Cell 112, Cell Block 8-.

And they sent me off.

Confused.

Aren’t they going to escort me? I’ve been locked up, or escorted, shackled, or part of a line. Now, was I really supposed to walk myself? I was scared I’d get shot. Someone might think I’m escaping.

I made it to the cell block. They opened my cell.

Someone else obviously lived here. Who did they put me in here with? Where are they?

I was so confused.

I didn’t know what to do next.

I layed down on the bare cot and waited to find out.

***

Hours later, the door lurched open- mechanically powered on a sliding rail.

Dear god…

The skinny bald old man with a broad smile made me sigh with relief.

Otero. He introduced himself as Ol’ Joe Otero.

“Welcome to Prison!”

Without hesitation, he began answering all the questions in my mind.

After supper, Otero suggested that we play a bit of chess.

Ok. (I had resolved that if I got anything out of this experience, I would become a better chess player).

He got the board and before either of us made a move. A funny looking guy named Harry entered the cell.

“Oh Otero! I messed up bad! You gotta help me…” and Harry began telling us about how he had struck his cell made with a bale-maker during the supper-time count. Lyons. Harry had struck Lyons.

“But I didn’t mean to… He just, he was talkin’ and he made me mad… you gotta smooth this over with him…” Harry pleaded to Otero.

*SMASH*

I heard shattering glass and I looked to the cell across from my mine. I saw one man bleeding from his head as he fought with two other men.

“LOCKDOWN. LOCKDOWN.”

“RETURN TO YOUR CELLS AND LOCKDOWN.”

This is announced over the PA and red lights begin to flash.

The assailants leave the cell and the man with the bloody head is hunched over on his bunk.

Guards are running all around. The doors force themselves closed. The Cellblock is full with hundreds of shouting voices.

Guards rush the bleeding man from his cell.

I spend my first night in Cellblock 8 watching the investigation unit pick through blood and the shattered coffee pot in the cell across from mine.

“ThunderDome” indeed…

This is the first quarter of a book called SuperMax- an escape manual for adults.

The goal of this activity book is to educate people about the injustices within the legal system while empowering people to recognize their own oppression and liberate themselves.

For more, please visit SOLeducation.org