“What business?” I ask her.
“Writing,” she says.
“It’s not my business,” I protest. “It’s … It’s a craft, a discipline. Something I do to keep from losing my mind.”
She quotes the title of one of my short stories and tells me that, if and when it is determined that I have not been paid for my work, and if the stories are not found to be a threat to institutional security, my manuscripts will also be sent home to my mother.
Fuck! All that work! I was almost finished with my rewrite of the novel. Joe Stassi was right: these people never quit.
“What about the new sentence computation?” I ask, near exhausted with frustration.
“You will need to resubmit the court documents to prove your case,” she says.
I HAVE TO write to the courts and seek additional copies of the necessary documents. Weeks go by. Nothing happens. Then months pass. Seasons change. I make friends with a fellow named Drago, an astrophysicist and former Princeton professor originally from Eastern Europe. He’s been imprisoned, sentenced to five years, for allegedly attempting to poison his department chairman, a well-known physicist who, my friend claims, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics based on work that he stole from his young assistant and published without giving Drago due credit. Drago tampered with a bottle of generic aspirin, supposedly substituting arsenic he made into tablets to resemble the real pills. The crime became a federal offense when Drago replaced bottles of aspirin with the poison and placed them on the shelves of a pharmacy. He then purchased them to give to the professor so that he would poison himself. The plan failed when the sales clerk in the pharmacy noticed the aspirin bottles had been tampered with. Drago claims his case resulted in the implementation of tamper-proof bottle caps.
Drago is engaged and intense when discussing the origin and future of the cosmos. Other times he seems dejected and isolated. We walk in the yard, and he tries to explain his mathematical projects, his endless calculations of the expanding universe, then returns to the housing unit to work on his equations, where, he claims, he has developed a mathematical formula that proves the existence of God.
I don’t doubt him, God may well be found in the numbers, but I don’t understand the math. I don’t know what to believe. Nothing seems real to me anymore. When at last I get a meeting with the Bureau of Punishment staff person in charge of the records department, she tells me that they are unable to recalculate my sentence “at this time” because of the chaos in the system created by all the transfers due to the riots and overcrowding. I can’t see how any of that has bearing on my situation, but I know better than to argue or to even question these people. She says that I will be notified when the new release date has been determined. But she says that could take several more weeks. I file more administrative remedies, BP-9s, BP-10s. I write letters to Judge Griesa and to the director of the Bureau of Punishment. Nothing produces any results.
It is hard for me to settle into any kind of a routine and get back into my writing. I’m reeferless, the synapses in my brain call for THC, but I haven’t cozied to the cannabis underworld in this joint, and I don’t have the inclination to seek out and turn a guard to have stash smuggled into the institution. There are a lot of wiseguys from Boston and New York doing time here, some of whom I know, but there doesn’t seem to be much action in the way of contraband save garlic and olive oil, which is just as well. The last thing I need at this juncture is to get jammed up for violating the rules and regulations of the institution. For perhaps the first time in my now seven-plus years in the system, I do not fear a urine test.
MY PARENTS VISIT once, making the long drive from eastern Massachusetts. My father, Emery, doesn’t say much. Both mother and father profess to be proud of the fact that I chose not to rat, and, given my relief in the courts, it appears to have been a wise decision. The old man looks at me as though I were someone he’s been associated with for a long time but never really knew, never really understood. I feel like I know him better than he knows me. He’s a man who would avoid confrontation at almost any cost. Even during World War II, he was stationed far from the front lines, in Australia, where he was put in charge of providing entertainment for the troops on R & R from the war in the Pacific. I hesitate to call him a coward. He has an above-average intelligence and is a near prodigy at playing cards. Cribbage is his game of choice. He may have character strengths I am unable to discern. His choosing not to be a tough guy may be an act of bravery. But a man who feels fear and overcomes it in the crucible of physical danger gains insights the man who shuns confrontation will never have.
Mary is the fighter in the family. No one disrespects her or insults her or any member of her clan and gets away with it. She’s a passionate ally. She tells me she has been corresponding with Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank in hopes of getting him to compel the Bureau to act. It’s hard to say what, if anything, anyone can do. The Bureau of Punishment is a jurisdiction unto itself. The bureaucrats validate their singular powers with the rationalization that they are burdened with responsibility for the isolation, upkeep, and control of the most dangerous men in the world, and therefore they can only be held accountable to themselves. Of all federal bureaucracies, the Punishment Bureau may be the most impregnable and autonomous. Still, Mary is not one to give up. She’s now reaching out to Senator Ted Kennedy’s office.
Mary also tells me that she did indeed receive the carton containing my manuscripts. We make a plan for her to mail the draft of the novel to me one chapter at a time. I will do my revisions, then return the manuscript to her for safekeeping.
SUDDENLY, IT’S SPRING again. Mud season in the Adirondacks. Busses arrive with more prisoners and no place to put them. When one of the busses disgorges another batch of convicts from FCI Petersburg, I get news of the old don, Joe Stassi.
“Joe got out,” a convict I recognize from Petersburg tells me when I see him in the mess hall. “The warden made them give him back all his good-time, and he went straight to the street—no halfway house or nothing. He was so happy—though, you know Joe; he never let them see it. He told me, if I run into you, ‘If you see Richie,’” and he imitates Joe’s raspy whisper, “‘let him know how much I appreciate what he done for me.’”
Imagine that—a victory! I helped to free one of the most sophisticated gangsters and talented killers of the golden age of the Mafia! Wonderful. I think of his reunion with his wife, Frances, who waited for him all these years. Would there still be love between them? Or rancor after too long a separation? And his children—Joe Junior, with whom he remained in close contact while he was locked up, and a daughter from whom he was estranged—would there be reconciliation? Joy? Forgiveness? Or bitterness, alienation, and regret? Might Joe have been better off dying in prison than returning to a changed world that holds no place for him? And would there be any hope for redemption? Or is his next designation hell?
Ah, so many unanswered questions. I can meditate upon such mysteries all day, even as my new friend Drago contemplates the genesis of the cosmos. I can feel glad I was instrumental in getting this highly skilled killer back out on the streets and pray he’s too old to kill again. And wonder that I helped free a Mafia don who was a prime mover in the formation of organized crime, suspected of having inside knowledge of the Kennedy killings, yet can’t get my own ass out of stir, can’t even find out how much more punishment this transporter and distributor of herbaceous smokeable plant matter is obliged to endure.
But perhaps I protest too much. For the next thing I know, as I feel near to having coerced the bureaucrats into an indefensible position where they must act or withstand the wrath of Senator Ted Kennedy, instead of a new release date they prescribe yet another major dose of diesel therapy.
I leave the mountain and go down once more into the valley.
DAYS ON THE bus, nights in county jails. Again separated from my property, at last I am deposited at the federal prison in Talladega, Alabama, where once again I am
placed in administrative segregation—the Hole. I bunk with a bank burglar who delights in recounting long, detailed stories about the many complex, successful heists he and his partners pulled off before they were all arrested, when one of their girlfriends ratted them out. “Never trust a bitch,” he says.
In going from the dry, overheated air of the prison in the mountains and the stuffy air of the bus to the air-conditioned frigidity of the Alabama plains, I come down with a cold that rapidly worsens to what feels like pneumonia. I can’t eat. I’m so weak I can barely move. It’s all I can do to roll over on the bunk, sit up, and struggle to a sitting position, then stand to aim my limp dick at the urinal next to the bunk and pee urine so dark it looks like weak coffee.
Nobody gives a shit. I’m too weak to care. They ship my cellie out. Days pass and I don’t seem to get any better. I’m sweating and shivering at the same time. I hunker down in the air-conditioned nightmare and ask the Lord to forgive me and deliver me. I don’t want to give the authorities the satisfaction of croaking here in Alabama where nobody knows my name, only my number, and my people have no idea what has become of me. Yet death feels near. It seems to hover in the morgue-like refrigerated air. My hands tremble when I reach for my face to feel I’m still here.
One morning, they take us out of our cells, stand us in a basement hallway, and order us to strip. I have to lean against the wall to keep from falling over.
“You all right, convict?” one of the hacks asks and prods me with his rib-spreader.
I muster every bit of strength from deep down in my shriveled-up scrotum and answer, “Yeah.”
“Lift your ball sack. Turn around and spread your ass cheeks.”
This guy seems to take pleasure in describing our private parts in graphic terms as though to remind us that even these most personal regions are now government property. We are ordered to dress, tricked out in shackles, handcuffs, and belly chains, and marched out to board the BOP bus.
It’s a little over twelve hours on the Punishment Express up through Tennessee and into eastern Kentucky. I’m too sick even to enjoy my view of the World passing by through the bus windows. Early the next day, we arrive in Ashland, just west of West Virginia and barely south of Ohio. I somehow manage to get off the bus, have my restraints removed, and make it through Receiving and Discharge.
MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, when I recover enough strength to meet with my case manager, I learn my new release date has been calculated and awaits me.
What’s this? I hold the piece of paper and stare at the new release date.
Something’s not right. These numbers do not compute.
Chapter Fourteen
THE TAO OF PUNISHMENT
Disciplinary Hearing
FCI Ashland, Kentucky, June 1990
YOU HAVE NO rights. This is a kangaroo court. Whatever they say you did, you did.
“So why am I here?”
“We want to hear your side of the story.”
“There is nothing to tell. Nothing happened.”
“Was this a racial incident?”
“No, fuck no.”
“Watch your language, convict.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Why were you and inmate Rector fighting?”
“We weren’t fighting.”
THERE ARE THREE inquisitors. One is my case manager. I call him Axelrod, not a bad guy as far as these Bureau of Punishment stiffs go. And a lieutenant, a man I hardly know. And the captain, who has my central file before him. They take turns asking the questions. I have been at this prison for barely half a year. This is the first time I have appeared before a disciplinary committee in the eight years I’ve been locked up; not the first time I have been under investigation, but the first time they actually caught me violating “the rules and regulations of the institution,” as they like to say, as if I give a shit about their rules and regulations.
The captain looks perplexed. He’s trying decipher my new sentence computation sheet.
“How much time has this inmate got left?” he asks the unit manager, Axelrod, who shrugs in response.
“That’s a good question. We’re waiting on a final sentence computation from the central office,” Axelrod explains. “This convict was sentenced to fifteen years in his first case in the District of Maine. He picked up another ten years in New York running consecutive to the fifteen, for a total of twenty-five years. And he got six months added on for criminal contempt of court, which was overturned on appeal. Is that right, Stratton?”
“So far, yes.”
“Then he got some time cut,” Axelrod continues. “Stratton, do you want to explain what’s going on with your sentence?”
“I don’t really know myself. It’s still unclear. The two sentences were made to run concurrent instead of consecutive. But there’s been a dispute regarding my earned and statutory good-time.”
“Never mind,” the captain says. “I’ll wait on the new computation.”
“He could possibly be released soon,” says Axelrod, who has actually been trying to help me recover the good-time the Bureau of Punishment sentence number crunchers want to withhold.
“So why are you getting in fights? If you could be going home soon?” asks the captain. “That doesn’t make sense.”
I have no answer. Certainly, it makes no sense. I don’t understand it myself.
“You got a problem with blacks, Stratton?”
“No.”
“You a member of a prison gang?”
“No.”
“Any tattoos?”
“No.”
“Roll up your sleeves. Open your shirt.”
They believe nothing we say.
No tattoos.
“Drugs? Gambling? Homosexuality?”
The unit manager shakes his head, says, “He’s a convict, keeps to himself.”
I would say: I do good time.
“According to the incident report, you and inmate Rector were fighting in the TV room. Do you deny this?” the captain asks.
“Yes.”
“So you’re saying the officer filed a false report?”
“No. I’m saying he was mistaken. I fell down. Rector was trying to help me up. He fell on top of me.”
Axelrod smiles. The captain and lieutenant laugh.
“This guy would deny the sun is shining,” Axelrod says. “Hey Stratton, is the sun shining?”
“I can’t tell. I haven’t been outside in a while.”
Now all three of them laugh.
“Go on, get out of here,” the captain tells me.
The guard standing by the door cuffs me behind my back. “Where to, Captain?” he asks.
“Take this convict back to seg.”
HELLO, HOLE. HOW does that song go? Hello wall … How’d things go for you today?
Another deferred decision, that’s how. It’s as if these people can’t figure out how much more punishment I deserve. I have been in the Hole a little over two weeks. Unlike cartoon convicts, I choose not to mark the days with hash marks etched on the cell wall. I keep track of the passage of time in my head. It’s not about time, really, in the literal sense, not about the tick-tock of the clock. I learned some years ago how to do a long bid: winter-summer, winter-summer. Skip spring and fall. Seasons pass. Time means nothing until the possibility of release becomes real.
Never mind all that, I tell myself. Pay attention to the here and now. Live in the moment. Bend reality with your imagination.
I am not impatient to be released back into general population, back into the relative freedom of the compound, the noise and tension of penitentiary life. I enjoy the enforced solitude. If one is to be lonely, better to be truly alone. If only I had something to do. There are just so many push-ups and crunches a convict can squeeze out in any given twenty-four-hour period. Then to start all over again. My kingdom for a book … a pencil and paper … anything to occupy my restless mind besides the endless fretting over time
. Still trying to convince myself time does not exist. Nothing is real but the steel walls of the cell, the beating of my heart. I have no memory, no life before I came to prison. I do not know anyone or who I am or why I am here. And furthermore, I don’t care to. Nothing matters. Nothing lasts. Nothing makes sense. I can’t count on anything but myself in this time and place.
It’s the not knowing how much more punishment I will be forced to endure that plagues my mind, like not knowing how bad I really am. Drug smuggler. The worst of the worst. Fucking scum of the earth. Poisoning the youth of America. Ruining the minds of our children with that shit. That wacky weed. The Supreme Court held, in Solem v. Helm 463 U.S., 77L. Ed 2d 645: “The principle that a punishment should be proportionate to the crime is deeply rooted and frequently repeated in common-law jurisprudence.” So give me fucking life. Or take me out to the village square and hang me. Flog me to death. Draw and quarter me. Tie my limbless torso to a four-wheel-drive truck and drag me through the streets. Let the good citizens see how we deal with these druggies. There is only one thing worse than a drug smuggler, and that’s a communist drug smuggler. Or a terrorist drug smuggler. Fuck ’em. Let ’em all rot in prison. Who cares?
Or … not. Let him go. He’s already served eight years. It was only weed. Cannabis. Hashish. Been around for centuries. God made it. Millions and millions of people all over the world enjoy it. It’s legal in Holland, and the Dutch have not lost their minds. Maybe reefer has been given a bad rap. Hello? Is there anybody out there? Some people maintain it is medicine, beneficial for a number of maladies including nausea and weight loss due to chemotherapy. Depression and anxiety. Always worked for me. Whereas booze is what got me in trouble. Fights and aberrant behavior. Automobile accidents. Saying things and doing things I regretted in the morning. Hangovers. The worst thing I can say about pot is … well, this: it got me locked up. Though, not really. I got me locked up. I went against my own beliefs, violated my code of ethics and worked with a known coke addict, my now dead friend Fearless Fred, and that commenced a shit-storm of one fuck-up after another.
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