10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE COMING TO PRISON

10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE COMING TO PRISON... or any other place you'd rather not be for an extended period of time

This is the first few chapters of a nonfiction book I've been working on. Rough Draft. I wanted to share it with you. Feel free to comment, critique, or rave about the words to follow. Again, ROUGH draft. So, without further adieu:

10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE COMING TO PRISON... or any other place you'd rather not be for an extended period of time...(working title)

——

I never thought I'd be here, in a cell, writing a book about prison that I hope no one ever has to read. But since this is the country responsible for this here book's largest group of potential buyers anywhere in the world—inmates—it does make a bit of sense. I guess it's only right that the hard-earned knowledge between these covers is laid down where it was picked up, born in the place it's most likely to come in handy: America, land of the free, home of the slaves...

So you're headed to prison.

DON'T PANIC.

Take a deep breath. Contrary to popular belief, and every instinct you possess, this is not the end of the world. If it makes you feel any better, I know what you're going through—millions know what you're going through. You're not the first to walk through those gates, and you won't be the last. You're just the most recent member to be inducted into the storied fraternity of America's Prison Industrial Complex; a fraternity in which your humble author is a fellow card-carrying member.

Our current national charter of incarcerated brethren boasts upwards of 2.3 million members. From coast to coast, brothers and sisters, as varied as the colors of the rainbow, call this place home. In running for the saddest statement ever put to words, America's inmates are, quite possibly, the most eclectic and non-discriminating society in the history of this great nation. Send us your poor, your weak, your huddled masses. It doesn't matter your gender, nationality, race, creed, color, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs, you will always have a place in America's prisons.

I'm not here to judge you. It's not my job. I don't care what you did that lead you to the point in your life where you're thumbing through this book. I stopped asking those questions a while ago—which brings me to the first of many rules.

Rule number 476: don't ask questions you don't need the answer to.

I'm here to help smooth the transition, to save you some time and, hopefully, the blood, sweat, and tears it often takes to gain the hard-fought knowledge kept between these pages.

Think of me as your cultural liaison for the prison industrial complex that has claimed you as property for the foreseeable future.

Being new to rule #476, you might want to ask, who the fuck am I to be giving you advice? It's a good question. I mean you don't know shit about me.

If you want to blend in you need to know the locals and speak the language. So feel free, at any time, to access this database.

Chapter 1 Perspective

Before we get into the dirty details of your newly minted prison life we need to build a foundation, something to support the rest of the shit you'll need to know about incarnation.

Ironically, the first thing you need to know about surviving prison has nothing to do with the actual intricacies of prison life; it has to do with mental fortitude, and it's something you must develop on your own—if at all possible—before ever setting foot on a prison compound.

The secret to life in general and especially surviving a serious prison sentence is to develop a deep understanding of these four words:

It's all about PERSPECTIVE.

There is nothing more important to surviving, and even thriving, in prison than your perspective. In a place that renders you this helpless, with so little personal control, nothing will protect you longer, or kill you faster, than your personal outlook. Once your freedom has been stripped away, your ability to develop a healthy and unshakable perspective will be your safety net throughout your sentence, and you're truest act of freewill.

The first step in affixing your perspective is finding your core; the gravity that will hold you in orbit through the emotional rollercoaster of prison life.

Prison, and life in general, is full of reasons to either feel sorry for yourself or to feel blessed. Look to your left and you'll find someone, usually a real undeserving asshole, with an account full of money who's just a week away from an unconditional release. Look to your right and you'll find someone, often a good person, who has truly changed their life, someone who genuinely understands the tragedy and magnitude of their crime, who's serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Just a few inches to either side is someone who's got it better and someone who's got it worse. It's up to YOU to choose which direction you will train your attention.

The point is universal. EVERYONE, even the person to your right, with the life sentence, has something to be grateful for. It's up to you to pick yourself up, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and find your core. Maybe it's as simple as LOVE, knowing that you have someone in the world who cares, someone who puts money on your books, maybe it's that you have your health, your kids have theirs, or just the fact that you have an out date and will again have a chance at freedom when many will not. Whatever it is, only a whiny coward will sink into despair and self pity when faced with struggle. A real man, a real woman, will stick their chest out and meet whatever challenge is around the corner, with fortitude and determination.

Look deep enough and you will find this hidden strength within.

As crazy as it sounds, the best form of perspective control is the glass half-full perspective, even in prison...especially in prison. If you can mine every situation for the gold within, rather than the piles of shit you will undoubtedly have heaped upon you in here, you will be able to make it through anything.

ANYTHING!

I'm not suggesting this will always be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

For the sake of your sanity, you must also learn to differentiate between the controllable and uncontrollable circumstances you find yourself in. In prison, the scales will lean heavily in favor of a seemingly endless series of uncontrollable situations with rare, but brief moments, of actual control. In most cases, our perspective may be the only true form of control we actually possess; a realization that's simply easier to come to behind bars than in the real world.

Once you gain the ability to see a situation as beyond your control, you must let it go. I mean really let it go. There's a Buddhist saying that if there's a problem that you can fix, there's no need to worry because it is fixable, and if there is a problem with no solution, something that you can do nothing about, then there's no need to worry because, after all, there is nothing you can do. The point is that anxiety is at best a wasted emotion and, at worst, a destructive force all together. If you have to meditate and be a Zen master then so be it; if you have to look at it as a pragmatic and logical approach to remove pointless emotional distress, then do that. There is no one-answer-fits-all approach. Do what works for you.

"It could always be worse."

Make these words your unending mantra. "It could always be worse." Words that may initially seem hollow, considering your circumstance, but believe me, they are anything but.

Are you blind? Are you deaf? Are you in constant agonizing pain? Are you in the midst of a never-ending cluster migraines, or on the verge of death at the hands of an incurable disease with no friends or family to put flowers on your grave after you've gone to dust? If not, then things could undoubtedly be worse. And if you are the ONE inmate, blind, deaf, alone in the world, with a terminal case of unending migraines, well this book alone may not be able to save you, and for this I am sorry.

For the rest of you: "Things could always be worse."

Chapter 2 Quarantine

So the gavel has fallen. You've been stripped, shackled, and stuffed into a transport van headed to prison. Your first stop in the prison industrial complex: quarantine.

Quarantine is the cocoon you enter as a free member of society only to emerge a short time later as a ward of the state, another chrysalis or monarch butterfly of the prison industrial complex. Quarantine is where masses of inmates from the varying counties, or jurisdictions, of your state are housed to be examined, sorted, poked, and prodded before being shipped to their corresponding prisons.

The time spent in this weigh station is meant to be temporary but institutional overcrowding and lack of available bed space has lead to much longer and, often, miserable stays. What was designed to be no more than a week or two can stretch into several months. Like many transformative experiences, it will be one of the more uncomfortable phases of your incarceration; it's an abrupt exposure to a strange, alien, place, completely unwelcoming with absolutely no frills, harsh C.O.s, and a population of temperamental and newly incarcerated inmates. I spent just over a month in this state of convicted limbo.

But remember—it could always be worse.

Think of it as a month-long, chaotic and rather violent, waiting room. Most of your time in quarantine will indeed be spent waiting; waiting to see the doctor, the dentist, the psych, the counselor, the orientation presentation, the quartermaster, and on and on until they have built you up and dressed you out as they see fit for your incarceration. In fact, it's great preparation for the rest of your sentence; a master's class in waiting, with a minor in lack of control.

Fortunately, like every situation, quarantine is a blank slate. While they poke and prod you looking for reactions, as they run you through the mill and jot down the results into their little clipboards, you should be doing your own experiments in information gathering; you should be taking your OWN notes.

Life, and the Universe for that matter, is fractal in nature. Look close enough at anything, no matter how seemingly unrelated, and you will see the same systems, mechanisms, and lessons at work; mechanisms and lessons that can be applied across the board. Myamoto Musahsi once said, "Find the way in ONE and you will find it in ALL," or something like that. The point is, if you can master one thing—truly master it—you can master anything, because the qualities it takes: the traits, the insight, the self awareness, the discipline, and the commitment it takes to master one thing—no matter what it is—can be applied to the mastery of anything.

This perspective is the alchemy that will allow you to turn any circumstance into opportunity.

The good thing about quarantine is that it's as close as you can get to a practice run in prison. It's a month-long chance to calibrate, to test the water and yourself around other inmates who are doing the same—most of which you'll have the comfort of never seeing again.

You will start with intake. If you're being transported from a large county you'll be with other inmates, which is a good thing if you want company; a bad thing if your past—specifically your case—is something you'd rather leave behind.

This is a good time to talk about the consequences your case can have on your comfort level while incarcerated. Even civilians know that the nature of your crime can determine your level on the prison hierarchy. When it comes to categories of crimes, the social structure is less like a pyramid, or a ladder, and more like a raised platform in a lake of shit.

Pretty much everyone is on the platform: the killers, the thieves, the drug dealers, the drug addicts, the extortionists, the con artists, the arsonists, the assaulters, the involuntary killers, the drunk drivers; they're all commingling in a nice big felonious-platform mixer.

Sure there are certain crimes that are more, or less, admired. Beating a child rapist to death, for instance, will get you more cool points than passing out in a pile of your own shit behind a police substation with a half ounce of heroin dangling from your shirt pocket with a needle in your arm. But other than having a hilarious shit story, the junkie will still be on the platform. There are only two things that will certainly keep you from the platform: a CSC case (criminal sexual conduct) and snitchin'. Either one is nearly guaranteed to keep you knee deep in shit. Though, as you'll find out, nothing in life—and especially in prison—is entirely black and white.

So arriving at quarantine alone may be preferred if your goal is to hide. Though keeping a secret in prison is more difficult than you might expect—come to think of it, it's nearly impossible.

Rule #932 Keep quiet.

The only group of people more concerned with gossip than a squad of high-school cheerleaders from the Valley, are prison inmates.

I, arrived at quarantine with company. His name was Tate and it was his second bid. Tate was an easy going, slightly goofy, guy. You'd never mistake Tate for an alpha male—in appearance or demeanor—which gave me a little extra confidence knowing that he'd survived his first prison sentence relatively unscathed, but more than anything it was someone to talk to; someone who wasn't a complete stranger. Plus, having Tate there made the cramped, three hour, ride to quarantine infinitely more bearable. At least I had someone to share this experience with.

Whether you arrive by yourself, or in a group, the path ahead is whatever you make it. But remember this, no matter who you’re surrounded by—in prison—you’re always ALONE; it's just the nature of the beast. It doesn't mean you can't build real and meaningful relationships. On the contrary, the "foxhole friendships" forged in extreme circumstances can be some of the realest friendships of your entire life but, when the lights go out, you'll still be alone. We are all doing our own sentences, battling our own demons, and walking our own paths.

Rule # 658 You are alone.

An inmate's path is not wide enough for two people to walk at the same time. You can SEE each other, you can TALK to each other, you can even bond with each other but you can't walk on someone else's path.

Upon arrival at intake, you'll shuffle your shackled ass into a room where the transport officer from your county will un-cuff you and strip you naked so he, or she, can take the shackles and clothes back for the next unlucky bastard to make the one way trip.

This is a good first lesson.

Rule # 88 Nothing in prison is ever really yours.

You may have bought it, stole it, or had it issued to you. It may have been in your possession for a few days or for twenty years. It may have your name and number engraved on it but, make no mistake, it is not yours. Do not confuse possession with actual ownership. The minute a corrupt CO takes it, breaks it, or the institution decides that it is no longer an approved item, it becomes contraband and is either destroyed, discarded, or absorbed back into the system for reuse.

After being stripped searched again, this time by a department of corrections officer, you'll be issued a state jumpsuit, usually still warm from the poor bastard that filled it last. And that's it, standing there in newly-used duds and a pair of dirty socks, you are no longer an inmate of county jail; you are now—officially—a ward of the department of corrections; a prison inmate.

Quarantine starts with a series of stations and checkpoints waiting to strip you of every last bit of freedom and personal identity that might've survived your county bid.

You'll see a nurse who'll make sure you're not currently dying of any infectious diseases; apparently, they want you healthy before draining you of vitality, probably so they can check your deterioration, and their success, against a baseline of health. Sick bastards! You'll see a shrink to make sure you don't plan on doing immediate harm to yourself or others. They can't take credit for driving you mad without first proving that you were sane. Though they have trouble proving sanity when over a quarter of all inmates suffer from mental health issues. You'll see an STG (Security Threat Group) coordinator who'll take pictures of your tattoos and determine any gang affiliation. You'll be weighed, measured, branded and pushed on to the next line.

Somewhere in the hours of waiting to be ushered into the next station, long after the hunger pangs have made your need of sustenance impossible to ignore, you'll be tossed a soggy sack lunch and a cardboard carton of flavored drink.

You'll eat your first meal as a prison inmate with no shoes, standing in a line, or huddled over a concrete bench. You'll find an apple, four duplex cookies in a sandwich bag, and the makings of a sandwich, which you'll attempt to construct out of two smashed pieces of white bread, a slice of American cheese product, and a meat-like sheet of skin peeled directly from the face ‘Freddy Krueger'. Oh, and a single packet of what's, supposed to be, mayonnaise but is labeled salad dressing. You'll search the paper sack, convinced that there has to be more—that there's no way they could expect you to survive off of such minuscule amounts of food. But try as you might, you will find nothing else inside but the bottom of an empty bag.

Rule # 52 You've got nothing coming.

You can forget about what is fair, what is right, and what SHOULD happen. If this expectation is your barometer for what will happen, you will be consistently wrong and, in no time, entirely defeated.

Whether you arrive by yourself, or in a group, the path ahead is whatever you make it. But remember this, no matter who your surrounded by—in prison—you’re always ALONE; it's just the nature of the beast. It doesn't mean you can't build real and meaningful relationships. On the contrary, the "foxhole friendships" forged in extreme circumstances can be some of the realest friendships of your entire life but, when the lights go out, you'll still be alone. We are all doing our own sentences, battling our own demons, and walking our own paths.

Sometime after eating your five-star sack lunch, in the prison eatery of a cramped room with a toilet, you will be called out to one more line. A small room where a disinterested, and perpetually annoyed, CO (the go-to demeanor of nearly every employee in the Department of Corrections) sits behind a digital camera with a log book by his side. With the speed and care of someone with better places to be, without warning or instruction, the C.O. will snap your photo as you try to flash your quickest tough-guy look for the camera. Without time to prepare, most of the pics end up looking more like constipation than intimidation.

With a speed, uncharacteristic of the Department of Corrections, you'll be issued your prison ID.

On the front: your picture, barcode, and prison number.

On the back: name, DOB, height, weight, scars, piercings, tattoos, and STG status.

This is your first piece of state-issued property. This little piece of plastic will prove to be a useful accessory in the hands of the innovative prisoners. The convict's version of a Swiss army knife of sorts: something to scrape water off a steel table to play dominoes, or to clean the dirt off of a place to sit, to wedge a towel or sheet in the crack above your cell door so it hangs down and covers the window when you need privacy, but most frequently, the prison ID is used as cutlery. With enough practice you'll soon master the plastic of dicing and slicing meat sticks, cheese, and onions...It's gotten to the point where I can cut up a meat-stick faster with my ID than an actual serrated plastic knife.

Whatever you do, make sure not to lose this versatile piece of property. The first one's free. After that—if you break it, deface it, or lose it—expect to be charged. The current rate to replace a Michigan State ID is 5$. And you're required to keep it on you at all times. A single moment of forgetfulness and you run the risk of catching a major-out-of-place ticket.

Every three years they'll call you in to take a new, updated photo. You can count the years of your sentence by the pictures behind you and the ones still ahead. I'm three constipated pics in with two to go.

After getting your identification you'll be given a mixture of hygiene products. A clear plastic grab bag filled with the shit you'd find in the bathroom at a cut-rate motel in the shittiest part of town: a little disposable toothbrush, three bars of small soap, a tiny tube of clear toothpaste, tiny stick of clear deodorant. The only thing of actual monetary value is a single stamped envelope. Whether you plan on writing anyone or not; hold on to this envelope.

Rule # 15 waste not want not.

A quick stop at bank teller style window to declare any and all income or assets, to be claimed by the State's treasury and you're on you way.

The last stop of the initial intake process is the quarter master. It's where you get your state-issued clothes. Ours was in a reconstituted gym.

Roughly thirty of us planted ourselves randomly on three long benches, each man making sure to keep as much distance between himself and the next man as possible. Random inmates scuttled around behind a massive cluttered in the middle of the gym. One of the inmates wound himself through the benches checking our IDs against a list on his clipboard. Making sure to keep his voice low and avoiding eye contact as he went, he said, "If you want anything extra in your bag put your stamp (envelope) on the bench and I'll pick it up. We looked around at each other like lemmings waiting for someone to make the first move.

A CO stood up from behind a desk in the corner. The convict repeated his offer. Again no one moved, everyone afraid to be the first one to look stupid. I pulled out the single envelope and put it on the bench beside me. He verified my number and circled something on his paper. Before the C.O. could make it over to us the convict had slipped the envelope behind the list on his clip board.

One by one we were called to a little window in the cage. The convict with the clipboard eyeballed the sizes for each inmate and yelled out his estimates for each article of clothing. The minions behind him scuttled around the cage filling green duffle bags with the orders. Everybody was to get the same:

2 pairs of blue pants with elastic waste bands and a single pocket in the back.

2 blue canvas v-neck shirts

2 white t-shirts

3 pairs of white socks

7 pairs of whitey tighty underwear

2 thermal tops

2 thermal bottoms

1 pair of orange basketball shorts

1 blue coat slightly thicker than a windbreaker

1 orange winter hat

1 pair of gloves

1 pair of cardboard like shoes

When it was my turn at the window the clipboard guy asked me what size pants I wore.

I told him, "large."

He said that they run small and waited for my response.

"Extra large?" I said.

He yelled back, "Three Pants, extra large! See if we still got some of the pocket pants back there! Oh, and a belt."

One of the minions brought a stack of pants up to the window. He handed me the first pair. "See if these are too big." I unfolded the pants and held them up to my waist. Unlike the all-blue stretchy waistband pants that my fellow newbies had received, these pants had an orange stripe running down each leg. Plus they had four pockets, a zipper with a button, and instead of an elastic waste band there were belt loops.

“These will work," I said, and handed him the pants.

He went down the rest of the list giving me almost double of every item; the best of what they had in that cage of their's.

A part of me thinks that they went overboard in hooking me up just to show the other inmates, in my group, just how much they'd missed out on.

Which brings me to Rule # 411 Take what you can get, when you can get it.

Fortune favors the bold and abhors the indecisive.

Either way, it was the best stamp I'd ever spent in my life.

Rule # 312 Nothing is free; you have to be willing to pay for what you want.

The extra clothes cost the quartermaster guys nothing; they're convicts, they're not exactly loyal to the system that incarcerated them, and this little scam just provided them the chance to even the scales—one pair of pants at a time—not to mention to make a few bucks in the process. Each stamp is worth roughly two ramen soups, a soap, or a honey bun—about 60¢.

Of course, it was a risk; that's why no one else dropped the envelope. I could've lost my only stamp and had to fight this guy in the middle of the gym, on my first day in the joint, but nearly everything with a potential come-up comes at a risk.

It's simple risk vs reward. I couldn't see these guys playing this as a scam. If clipboard had approached just one or two of us, I would have been more suspicious. I would've thought he could be singling out the inmates he saw as easy marks; the ones least likely to retaliate. But the fact that he asked all thirty of us, gave the deal a little more validity. No way could he assume that he would be able to get down on all of us without any retaliation. Plus if this was a scam it would be short lived; how long would it have lasted before someone either fucked this guy up or one of these fish simply ratted him out?

Determining things should become second nature, but until they do, use your intuition and a little critical thinking to help you make your decisions. Or, you can just play it safe until your Spidey senses have fully developed.

After getting our new duds we were ushered into the shower area of the gym. We stripped, changed, and returned yet another borrowed jumpsuit. Next we were separated into groups. The CO behind the desk said "One North, stand over here." He read out a list of inmate numbers and pointed to his left. Though I didn't know what it was for, a part of me hoped that me and Tate would end up in the same group

"One South," yelled the CO. He pointed to his right. Tate's number was the first one he called in this group. Mine was the last. He did this until we were in four separate groups.

We were led out of the building and directed to our cellblocks. Overwhelmed and slightly disoriented, we dragged our new duffle bags, full of our new clothes, across the yard to our new homes.

Walking into the cell block is the moment prison nightmares are made of; the infamous scene in every prison movie. In Michigan, the quarantine cellblocks are long rows of cells stacked on top of each other in the oldest prison in the state. The noise is the first thing you notice. A thousand voices, all competing for clarity, hum. How could that much sound be so constant? A five tiered wall of prison cells reach towards the distant ceiling. Necks bend skyward like baby birds trying to find where the tiers end.

A little desk sits off to the right under an awning of sheet metal; a barrier to protect the officers from the gravity assisted assault of batteries, flaming toilet paper, and any other objects that can be squeezed through the bars overhead. It's a lot to take in but stay calm. Fans buzz from every direction. Electrical cords crisscross the floor briefly disappearing under mop buckets full of dirty water. An inmate drags dark streaks across the exposed concrete with his mop. Signs and orders with exclamation points are painted along the walls near the desk.

The seven of us try our best not to look overwhelmed; nearly all of us are.

A short grizzled brown-skinned CO, with tufts of curly grey hair rebelling under his black—state issued—ball cap, comes around the desk. Clipboard in hand, he reads off prison numbers followed by, I'm assuming, a cell number. It's hard to make out anything but snippets of what he's saying. I'm glad I wasn't the first number on his list.

Rule # 58: Mistakes or mishaps don't have to happen to you to learn from them.

The guy to my left steps forward. The diminutive CO points to a table with seven bedrolls and fourteen rolls of toilet paper. The guy to my left grabs a bedroll and two rolls of toilet paper. He looks around, unsure what to do next. The CO yells over the buzzing of the fans, the river of voices, and the banging of cell doors, "What are you waiting for?!"

Struggling to hold onto his duffle bag and bedroll without dropping the rolls of toilet paper, the guy to my left says nothing, but the look on his face says, "Tell me what the fuck to do old man, I'm lost."

"Three forty two!.." The hook points up at the wall of cells. "Third tier, cell forty two!" The guy to my left drags his duffle bag towards the first set of stairs, dropping a roll of toilet paper. He didn't bother to pick it up. I grabbed it on the way to my cell; waste not want not.

My temporary living quarter was on the fourth tier right in the middle. Jackson has the movie style prison cells, rows and rows of bars with arms and angled mirrors protruding from the cells into the catwalk. Forty some feet in the air, on a narrow walkway with nothing but a waist high handrail to keep you from plummeting to an uncertain death, possibly paralysis, is a disorienting path to your very first cell.

I dragged my duffle bag down the rock until I found the cell with the corresponding number above the door. Hundreds of eyes. There's no way around it; everyone watches everything. Prison is an introvert's hell. I couldn't wait to get into the anonymity of the dark cell. I pulled on the bars. The door was locked. I had to stand there until an officer came to let me in. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes but it felt like an eternity.

Eye contact is a tricky thing in prison. A little too much can come off as a challenge; too little can be perceived as weakness.

Rule # 41 Trust your instincts

Animalistic instincts—allegedly—long ago abandoned by modern society, are alive and well in prison. Intuition, fear, confidence, strength, and weakness are all indispensable aspects of the social interactions behind bars.

Standing there, with all of my recently acquired earthly possessions, I waited. The cell next to me had a pair of arms protruding from the door. In cells that small there is really no other place to stand. It's either stand at the door or lay down on your rack. My neighbor was standing. I made just enough eye contact to illicit a head nod. The CO bent the corner onto the catwalk. I nodded back.

The door rattled. I pulled it open. I dropped my bag onto floor and the bedroll on the bed.

First you should know how cramped this tiny cell actually was. Closing the cell door behind you leaves about 6-8 inches from foot of the bed, on your left, and even less to the desk on your right. It was so small that the left side and right side designations are merely symbolic. In actuality both bed and desk are pretty much in front of you, just slightly oriented to either side. Spreading my arms I could just about touch both walls at the same time. Between the bed and the desk was a gap just wide enough to squeeze through. The cell itself is slightly longer than the bed. On the left, above the bed, was a decrepit, asbestos-ridden, corkboard—or what was left of a corkboard; a place for inmates to hang Playboy centerfolds or their doctorate degrees from Harvard. On the right, past the desk—though still touching it—was a high school style locker, about 6'0ft tall. In the corner, past the locker, was a stainless steel toilet. The positioning of the locker was fortuitous; sitting on the toilet, you could open the locker and be partially shielded by the door. I eventually discovered that if I hung my coat on the open locker door I could get full coverage. Next to the toilet, sticking out of the back wall, was a tiny waist-high sink. And that's about it. Oh, and there was a single light bulb above the sink. There wasn't enough room to fit a chair at the desk. Fortunately, the bed was close enough to serve double duty. Cramped and claustrophobic does little to convey how small this place will feel.

I sat down on my rack and exhaled half of my spirit. Though technically my time started the day the gavel dropped at my sentencing, this is when your bid is officially underway. I took a few minutes there, staring at the pockmarked concrete floor beneath my feet; a few short, but pivotal, minutes to close the door on the life I was leaving behind and to open the reinforced steel door in front of me.

Rule #32 In prison, reality is something you must not allow yourself the comfort of ignoring; you are where you are and it is what it is, act accordingly.

I remember taking a deep breath and shaking my head free of anything other than resolute determination for the path ahead. Letting a mixture of pride and anger fuel me through a tough situation wasn't new to me, but this was different, this would prove to be the longest and

most difficult struggle of my life. I exhaled my last breath of uncertainty and stood up.

There was work to do!

The first thing you should do in any new cell, before unpacking your clothes, kicking off your shoes, or taking a shit (unless it's burrito day in the chow hall), is CLEAN your area of control.

Rule #19 Cleanliness is next to godliness.

I'd say roughly 50% of physical altercations are over hygiene. When you are forced to live in close proximity with other people, you should always go the extra hygienic mile.

I fished around in my duffle bag and pulled out one of the two mesh laundry bags I'd got from the quartermaster. Each inmate is issued two large towels and two washcloths.

I had four of each; the best stamp I'd ever spent.

Inside my hygiene bag were four small rectangles of green antibacterial soap. Two identical half-used bars were stuck to the edge of the sink. Since I was cleaning the room, and not myself, I figured the ones on the sink would do.

I lathered a washcloth and cleaned every surface in the cramped space: the sink, the nylon sleeping mat on the bed, the industrial green railing of the bed itself, the chipped wood surface of the metal desk and all of its shelves, the thin high school style, graffiti-laden, locker, the walls, the steel bars of the cell, the floor, and finally the toilet, inside and out.

Rule #91 Think about what your doing before you do it. Measure twice, cut once.

Always start with the cleanest surfaces and finish with the dirtiest. What sense would it make to start with the toilet and cross contaminate every other surface with shit water. This might seem like common knowledge but you'd be surprised.

After working up a sweat, cleaning every reachable inch of the cell, I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed out the washcloth until it was reasonably clean and hung it on the little knob on the side of the stainless steel toilet, specifically designed to hold dirty washcloths (or so I've always assumed). This would now be my floor and toilet rag.

With the cell no longer a petri-dish of disease and filth I felt comfortable enough to start making my bed. Unrolling the bedroll I found four sheets, two pillowcases, and a blanket that had, apparently, been constructed by somehow fusing a series of brillo pads together—at least that's how it felt. The county jails I'd been to always had "bed socks" that simply slid over the mats. Now I had actual sheets. It took me a few nights of sliding around like an oiled-up seal, inevitably waking up on a bare mat, to finally ask my neighbor for some advice.

I'll save you the hassle;

Take your sheet and stretch it out. Take the top corners and tie them together into a knot, making a sort of hood. Loop this hood over the top of your mat, where your head goes. Move down to the bottom and tie the corners of the sheet in the same manner. It should be a tight fit, so you may have to fold the mat up towards you to fit the sheet over the bottom of the mat. Once you secure the sheet, flatten the mat back out an you have a fitted sheet. You should never have to actually touch that disgusting piece of biohazard plastic again. The rest of the bed is made up as normal.

After sliding the crisp white pillow case over the dilapidated pillow and laying back onto the cool new sheets, I felt a genuine sense of relief.

Rule # 17 Take the time to appreciate the small things.

As I laid there, in MY bed, in MY cell, I feel like an actual smile spread across my face as I stared up at the ceiling.

A though floated across my mind. When did I become such a germ-a-phobe. It's not that prison turns you into a totally different person as much as it messes with your dials. Prison will force you to turn your cleanliness factor up a few clicks. Unless you want to be stepped on and looked over, your level of introversion will move a few clicks towards the extroverted end of the spectrum as well.

It's interesting to watch the way this place changes you. Prison is where your habits and quirks meet the Darwinism of practicality.

For example, I'd been a nail biter my entire life. Since I was a kid, I'd chew at my nails until I had bloody stumps for fingers. I'd tried numerous times to quit, only to realize the futility after I'd gone back to devouring any nail growth as soon as it'd appear. Since coming to prison, I no longer bite my nails. It's just too dirty. Cleanliness takes on a whole new meaning when you have nearly 200 roommates, all with varying degrees of hygiene, all touching the same surfaces. My whole life I was a nail biter and all it took was a twelve year prison sentence for me to kick the habit.

It wasn't long before I was roused from my contemplative day dream by the scuttle of movement somewhere outside of my cell.

Maybe I'd dozed off.

"CHOW TIME!! DON'T MISS YOUR DOOR. MISS YOUR DOOR, YOU DON’T EAT!!"

"Ehh, ya goin' ta chow?"

I leaned my head against the bars.

"Ya goin' to chow?.."

A hand reached out and tapped my bars. It was the neighbor.

"Yeah, I'm goin,'" I said.

"When they get to our tier," he said, "they brake all the doors at once, for like five seconds, if you don't pull your door open your stuck in here. Won't be able ta eat."

I'd already heard about this. It was a cornerstone of the gossip as we were processing in. "Don't miss your door," the inmates on their second or third bids would say.

I asked how to tell when the doors are broke.

"By the sound," he said. "They use a big ass metal bar to unlock the cells on the rock. When they get ready to break the doors they tap the bar against the railing."

I could hear metal clanging on one of the tiers below us.

"I'll let you know. If you lean on your door it'll slide open when they break it."

"Bet. Good look bro."

"No doubt."

I got ready for chow, which didn't consist of much other than putting shoes and coat on.

I walked to chow with the neighbor where he offered up all kinds of unsolicited information about prison. This was his second bid. A "P.V. new bid" (parole violation with a new case)

Rule #56 Everyone knows EVERYTHING.

Seasoned inmates love to tell you what to expect and how to jail. It makes them feel important. And yes, I can see the hypocrisy of pointing this out while I'm literally writing a book on the subject.

Don't be an asshole.

It's up to you to disseminate the usable information from the bullshit. So much of the fabricated info offered up will be unnecessary and, seemingly, un-beneficial for the one spewing it. This can make it difficult to sift through the bullshit. "Why would he lie," has been the Trojan horse that allowed entrance to many a skeptical mind.

If knowledge is power, and pretending is easier than actually gaining knowledge, then the liar, armed with confidence and a practiced delivery, is king of the naive. Which, in prison, is a formidable percentage of the population.

This brings me to one of the ACTUAL 10 things you should know about prison.

Rule #5: Don't listen to what someone says, watch what they do.

Your rudder, to steer thorough the river of bullshit you will undoubtedly encounter in prison, will be your ability to accurately judge character. And the only reliable way to do this is to observe a persons qualities, traits, and habits, not their words. Base your character assessment on a person's presentation of themselves and you will be consistently disappointed and frequently victimized.

There was a guy in my unit, I'll call him "Frankie," who'd been down for twenty some years. Frankie, was a hell of a talker. According to him, he was a published author, he had his own publishing company, he'd written a series of children's books for which one publisher called him the "Dr Seuss of the 21st century." I know because he told me this three different times, as if it was the first. He said he had numerous businesses and had grossed over a million dollars while in prison.

Eventually Frankie talked himself into one of only three laundry-porter positions in the unit. It's a good gig. As a laundry man you suddenly have access to all kinds of fringe benefits. You're allowed out of your cell all day, you have access to bleach, real soap, favoritism by the CO's, but most importantly, it's the best "legal" money hustle in the joint.

In addition to their regular job duties, the laundry guys provide a PREMIERE laundry service. For a monthly fee—usually a bag of coffee—they will wash your laundry separately with the proper amount of detergent, bleach your whites, and fold your clothes on any day of the week, regardless of the schedule. They will do whites on color days, colors on white days (laundry, not races), and linens whenever you want.

Being a laundry porter is good, consistent, money. And other than being time consuming, it's simple work. Each laundry man comes up with their own system. The days are on an alternating schedule; whites, blues, whites, blues, whites, blues, linen, rinse and repeat. Pun completely intended. Our cell, or bunk, numbers are written on a tag on the side of our laundry bags and our corresponding cell, or bunk, numbers are written in large bold print above our cells, or bunks. Our bags are turned in, washed, and passed back out. It's the simplest of all systems. Straight forward, black and white, no room for interpretation. Numbers!

For months, people would tell me about Frankie's accomplishments, they'd send me to him after I'd finished my first novel, to see if he wanted to publish it; when I was working on my query letters, for advice; and when I was having a lawyer draw up intellectual property rights for my work, for a second opinion. But I'd seen the writing on the wall.

This isn't an after-the-fact "I told you so," way to demonstrate my superiority. It's only due to my neurotic need to look for systems in everything that I noticed the tell-tale signs of a con. Ask me about ANYTHING and I have theory on it; our inherent addiction to novelty and how it affects fashion, freewill vs determinism, the sociological factors involved in prison gang recruitment. This was just another example of my neuroses.

Liars, or people who have a penchant for habitually exaggerating the truth, have trouble keeping things straight. The few conversations I'd had with Frankie were enough to pick up on the idea that he might just be a bullshitter of the highest degree. There were things he'd repeat, word for word, bullet points of bullshit that he'd whittled into effective propaganda—like the Dr Seuss line. Plus by the time I'd met him I had been down long enough to know that most, not all, but a huge majority of seemingly impressive people who are insistent on consistently telling you how impressive they are, are consistently...impressively...full of shit.

It wasn't long after Frankie got the porter job, that laundry related problems began to occur. Bags were left unwashed, delivered to the wrong cells, or came up missing all together. Time and time again, inmates came to find that it was during Frankie's shift that their bags were being delivered to the wrong cube, when their bags disappeared.

At first, most were surprised by these laundering discrepancies and quick to believe Frankie's excuses for the constant mishaps. Over the span of a week he told my cubie that it was his coworker's fault, that he wasn't the one who passed the bags out, that the bag wasn't tied enough times so it had opened, mixing his items with others, that the number on his bag wasn't legible, and finally, after all reasonable excuses were exhausted, that he does such a shitty job because he really doesn't care about doing a good job. But no excuse can change the fact that this self proclaimed genius couldn't figure out how to pass out, clearly numbered bags, to clearly numbered cubes, when the other laundry porters, far from being geniuses, were flawless in comparison.

Just as Myamoto musashi said, find the way in one and you will find it in all. I believe the inverse is also true; do a shitty job at one thing, no matter how minuscule or unimportant and, odds are, that you'll do a shitty job at most other things you do.

If the inmates who'd, essentially, paid Frankie to lose their clothes for them, had watched what he DID rather than listening to what he was SAID, they wouldn't have been so blindsided by his failures.

Which brings me to another point.

Rule # 49 Don't put people in the position to let you down.

In prison, you don't get to choose who you interact with, or live with for that matter. In this environment, if you don't want to spend you entire bid in the hole, you have to learn to deal with people and to accept them for who they are. As long as you know WHO you're dealing with, they should never be in a position to disappoint you. You can be friends with the guy who never pays anyone back, just don't ever loan him money if it will bother you when he doesn't pay you back. You can kick it with the guy that talks shit about EVERYONE, just don't be surprised when you find out he was talking shit about you.

In a place where you're essentially powerless over your surroundings, knowing WHO it is that's around you is an important tool to exercise SOME control.

Fortunately for me, in my vulnerable state of prison infancy, my neighbor Beto wasn't a bullshitter.

At least I don't think he was.

In any case I wouldn't allow him into a position to disappoint me. I took the practical, and verifiable, advice that Beto had to offer and took the rest with a grain of salt; like the fact that, though he looked Irish and his real name was Eric, he claimed to be a Mexican named Beto. He could speak fluent Spanish though.

In any case, I liked him.

A pleasant surprise about prison—a phrase you rarely hear—is that there are genuine, helpful, selfless people who just happen to also be incarcerated. And the more you live up to these qualities and attributes, the more you invest into the positive things, the more you will run into these like minded people.

Beto was my prison SIRI. All I had to do was beat on the wall and ask him a question and I'd soon have a detailed and well explained answer. Come to think of it he was better than SIRI, in the sense that he'd offer up helpful info without me even asking.

In civilian lingo, prisons are designated as minimum, medium, maximum, and super maximum security facilities. In the state system, prison levels are number based, 1-5. This he explained unprompted.

It's easiest to think of level 1 as minimum, 2 & 3 as medium, 4 as maximum, and 5 as super max.

Each increasing security level has more limitations. Your placement is determined by an often irrational scoring system. Points are accumulated by disciplinary infractions—which makes sense—but also, when you first come down, points are doled out by the amount of time you're sentenced to—which is definitely a refined type of bullshit that has nothing to do with temperament or behavior. If you're sentenced to more than seven years you automatically go to a level 4 (maximum security) prison, no matter your crime or how well behaved you are.

Quarantine was run as a level four with just one, hour long, yard a day. Other than yard, chow time and administrative-related call outs, you're locked in your cell. Which was good preparation for me because, as Beto explained, that's where I was headed. My first three years in prison would pass in level 4 facilities.

Fuck!

Since quarantine is a temporary stop you can't acquire any real property. You can't order things like TV'S, radios, or tablets until you make it to your first real joint, and because there's really nothing else to do in quarantine, and everyone is new and equally alone, we tend to talk a lot.

It almost always starts the same: "Where you from?" It's asked in the hope that you might know some of the same people, or been to the same places; it's all an attempt to not feel so alone.

Since I was raised out of state, I had given up any hope of such menial comforts.

I got to see Tate at chow but it was becoming obvious that prison would be a one man path. On the ride out, Tate had asked me about Buddhism—specifically, meditation. It was a great excuse to start writing. That first day I wrote a few pages to pass to him at chow. I also started a journal. Before coming to prison I had been dabbling on the border of what I considered to be serious writing at the time (something I knew nothing about). Now, I finally had the time I'd needed to really figure out what "serious writing" was all about.

Rule #3 find something productive to do with your time.

I cannot overstate the importance of this rule. This is the only way to reclaim the TIME the system(or life in general) is actively trying to take from you. TIME; the most valuable, least renewable, resource in the universe. Don't let it be stolen from you without a fight.

Whether it's fitness, getting Arnold huge, writing a novel, learning a second, third, or fourth language, painting a master piece or reaching spiritual enlightenment, you have to find something to do. Your life isn't on pause when you're locked up. Unless you let it be.

Chow was a chaotic, bustling, feeding trough. The food was terrible and the portions meager, but I was starving. Our IDs were scanned and we followed the metal partitions through the cafeteria line. Think Subway, except the glass that allows you to see the fresh vegetables is metal and conceals God only knows what.

"Cake or Apple?"

The guy a few spaces ahead of me looked confused.

"Cake or apple?!" repeated the kitchen worker.

The same unflappable confusion, this time accented with a smattering of anxiety.

Again he said nothing.

He got an apple dropped on his tray

I got a cookie.

The apple guy grabbed a milk and a cup of orange liquid. He balanced the drinks on his tray.

"One or the other," said a C.O. stationed at the end of the line to check our trays.

He had to go back to return the milk.

Poor guy.

Others mistakes.

We ate our trays of rice and chicken broth with semi-cooked peas and bread. A C.O. stood over us repeating a few select phrases.

"Let's go, we need the seats!"

"Let's go gentlemen. Eat and go!"

We ate what we could and dropped our trays off where an inmate slapped them clean-ish on the inside of a dirty trashcan.

We stretched our walk back to our cell block sucking up all the fresh air we could. This zombie-like trek, to gain a few more minutes of precious fresh air, is referred to as the Level 4 shuffle.

An inmate's relationship with their cell is a complicated matter—at least it is for me. We want to be outside, to have some freedom and fresh air, but chaos and unpredictability lie beyond that steel door. Your cell is your sanctuary, as well as your... CELL.

It doesn't matter who you are; the first days of actual incarceration will have your head spinning. This is the culture shock phase of prison. Past present and future swirl together in a complex storm of emotions. Alone in this place, completely alone, your mind reels, darting in unforeseen directions.

Rule #79 Find your anchor.

In a place with such little certainty and control, breathing becomes vitally important. It's always there, ever reliable, completely anchored in the present moment. Our emotional state, as well as physiology, is tied to the breath. Deep calming breaths always help. Become a master of the breath.

With the heavy steel door secured behind me I changed into my orange shorts and laid back onto my crisp new sheets, somewhat satisfied from the hurried lunch. Laying there, I realized how noisy prison is.

Staring at the ceiling, an activity I'd grow increasingly familiar with, I thought about the life that had, so recently, crumbled to ashes around me. I felt the bottom. I was secure in the fact that I could go no lower, that I had nothing left to lose. It was crushing, but knowing what I know now, I would have understood that, sometimes, losing EVERYTHING is what it takes to appreciate ANYTHING. And, as hard as it is to survive, walking through the fire is often the only way out of a burning house.

Rule #67 Every situation is full of potential.

It's up to you to work the alchemy necessary to mine the gold of in your circumstance.

Quarantine is a limbo we're all anxious to escape. There is nothing to do; It's run as a maximum security joint; there's just one yard a day; we have no personal property; and phone access is extremely limited. We didn't have much to compare it to but the inmates who'd been here before told us we should be miserable—so we were.

I lay there wondering how long it would take before I'd ride out of this place. Everyone claimed to know the pattern behind the madness of who left and when. Some said if you were headed to a level 4 you'd be here for at least sixty days. Others said level 2s would take a month, and level 1s, just a few weeks. None were reliable predictors. From what I could surmise, we were stuck there until a space opened up at a facility that could take us.

Akhems razor is a tool rarely sharpened behind prison walls.

That night I went to sleep to the symphony of voices and conversations, so numerous that they'd become an increasingly familiar hum. I drifted away wondering what my kids were doing, hoping my family was OK.

Every twenty minutes or so I'd roll over, in an attempt to find a position comfortable enough to squeeze out a few more minutes of slumber. I tossed and turned but couldn't hold on to any meaningful sleep. I thought it was the noise, the new surroundings, the stress, the stiff plastic covered pillow, the thin brittle mat, the scratchy blanket. After years and years of sleepless nights I've come to realize that it's not one of these culprits alone that keeps you from REM sleep, it's a concert of all these factors...but mostly the mat and the pillow.

I was awake long before I opened my eyes. I sat up to the sound of crashing metal and booming voices. A loose sheet of paper was wedged between the bars. It was my first "call out" or daily itinerary.

Anything you have to do will be printed on your call out: doctors and dentists appointments, work detail, library, barbershop, church, classes..etc, all set to military time, all passed out the night before...

TO BE CONTINUED…

Prison Dictionary.

All day: (noun; slang) life without parole.

Area of control: (noun) the area, most often in your cell, you are responsible for. Any contraband found in your area of control will be considered yours, regardless of actual ownership.

Back forty: (noun) the large area of the yard with a track.

Banger: (noun; slang) a prison knife.

Bird bath: (verb; slang) to wash up in the sink.

Blues: (noun) your official prison uniform that is blue in color.

Bottles: (noun; slang) alcoholic beverage.

Box: (noun; slang) administrative segregation, aka: the hole.

Break: (verb; slang) when a door is opened/unlocked "break my door" means "open my door”.

Call-out: (noun) daily itinerary.

Chow hall: (noun) cafeteria.

Day room: (noun) the common area in every unit with television, phone, and microwave access.

E.R.D: (noun; abrv) Earliest release date, or you first parole eligibility.

Flix: (noun; slang) photographs or pictures.

Health care: (noun) medical unit.

Hook: (noun; slang)a prison corrections officer.

Jack: (noun; slang) telephone.

Jail: (verb; slang) the act of living, and all that it encompasses, while incarcerated.

Jpay: (noun)company that provides email services, some states have jpay tablets with music, games, photo album…etc

Kite: (noun) an inner-institutional a message, letter, or form.

Laundry bag: (noun) a mesh bag you will hand in to be washed and dried by a laundry porter. Make sure to tie as many knots as possible when you tie it closed. Also make sure to have you cell number clearly marked on the bag.

Lock down: (noun; slang) to go to a secluded area, most commonly a cell, to fight.

Lock up: (verb; slang) to willfully refuse to return to cell in order to be relocated to another facility, most commonly to avoid a debt or violence.

Quarter master: (noun) clothing dispensary and repair.

Rack: (noun; slang) your bed.

Rec: (noun; slang) recreational activity. Occasionally used as slang for fighting.

Rock: (noun; slang) wing or tier of a unit.

Rotate: (verb; slang) to actively participate in gang activity with a specific set.

Service: (noun) religious meeting.

Stamp: (noun) a pre-stamped envelope.

Stinger: (noun) a homemade electrical device designed to boil water when plugged into an outlet.

Tube: (noun; slang) television.

Bobby Caldwell-KimAugust 26, 20194 Comments