I miss going to prison.
I volunteered to help others, but the incarcerated men helped me at least as much as I helped them. That’s the basic truth of being of service to others. It’s hardly a new realization, but during this particular period in time it’s more poignant.
I used to leave San Quentin and think about what it would be like to be caged. I would take a walk to try to clear my head while I thought about what the guys would do just to eat a fresh orange. I was acutely aware of how lucky I was to live in this country. My generation had escaped the world wars and great depression and it seemed like easy sailing from here.
If we’ve learned anything over the past few months, it’s that none of us are exempt from anything really. Just as 9/11 rocked our boats, the past few months have punctuated that there is a very fine line between security and the unknown.
What would it be like to be imprisoned? What would it be like to lose our freedom?
This could not happen to me/us in today’s world. We live in America, there is no real danger that outside forces will take over. I’ve considered cyber crime a threat that could take us to our knees, but it wouldn’t impact our freedom per se, it would just be a huge clusterfuck of events that would rattle our cages but life as we know it would move on.
l considered the threat of a plague but was quite certain that medical advances could nip that in the bud. That was the stuff of movies and recent history proved it could be dealt with. No, barring natural disasters, we on the outside were safe.
Strange as it sounds, prison was a bit of a safe place for me. I never truly found my place in the workplace and skirted around dating jobs but never really getting married. I have a ridiculously eclectic resume that at best could be edited into a small book. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I opted for not growing up.
This is why working at San Quentin prison was so good for me. I found my audience. The men weren’t going to judge me because they didn’t have any reason to. But they got to know me over time just as I did them. And it was a bond that was unlike any other.
I’m about as transparent as it gets, and I think the men appreciated that. Prison pretty much stripped them down to their core. No need to wear a mask when nobody gives a shit.
Not to say that the men didn’t care. It’s just that they had to face who they were and where they were in order to survive. No need for pretense. Credentials didn’t matter. The game had been leveled to survival and in prison that meant getting with the program.
The program, or so it seemed to me, meant facing your demons. The only real way out was through an extensive rehabilitation program that was afforded to the men who were lucky enough to land at San Quentin.
The smart ones took classes. The Prison University Project gave them tools as did other services like working for the San Quentin News or in the media center where programs like were implemented. The men found purpose. They met volunteers who devoted their time to supporting them because they knew nobody is perfect and none of us are who we were.
The men I worked with, were more evolved and more motivated to contribute to their communities than most of the people I met on the outside. They would often ask me about the outside. I repeated that the madmen were running the asylum.
I can’t communicate with the men I’ve been working with on the inside. We would have been getting close to the final rounds of the San Quentin Warriors/Kings season. The videos we had just started working on would be edited. Brian and I would talk about next steps and Orlando would be falling asleep at a meeting. I would have said something stupid that Raphael would have laughed at and Ish would grin his impish acknowledgment.
Instead, I flip the calendar in my kitchen like watching some old black and white movie tracking time. I watch the number of prisoner’s deaths and the number of infections inside San Quentin grow and the outdoor field now covered in tents to house the sick. How did this prison where men filled their days with the hope of joining the world again turn into a slaughterhouse? One more preventable disaster is added to the list which will be on the bottom of the concerns of most people. As if the prisoners are expendable.
I see news reports of the men who have died. I think about some of the men I work closest with on the basketball team; Brian, Raphael, Orland, Tone and Tish. All the different players benched for year.
There are protests but my age and health hamper my participation. There are devoted people from Restore Justice fighting for the men’s rights. There are so many great organizations doing what they can to be the voices for the men and but I am right there with them. I'm not alone as a volunteer who wakes up every day and thinks - I miss going to prison.
Comments