My
Ticket to Prison
It was my ticket to prison. Following the guard’s direction from the
loudspeaker, I pushed the ticket machine button. “128” was printed on what
looked like a raffle ticket for a drawing.
“Drive to the top of the parking lot,
park and then wait with the others until your number is called,” the faceless
stern voice commanded.
I soon found myself with the other
visitors. We huddled together in the
early morning icy wind. After the two-hour
drive, it felt good to stand up, but the wind made me yearn for the shelter of
the gatehouse down the hill. It was surrounded by coils of ribbon wire,
overshadowed by the guard tower with the black, one way glass.
One lady kindly asked me if this was
my first time here.
She told me the routine, what to
expect, adding that it was a cold, heartless place to visit.
She and her mother had been coming
to see her son for several years now, and it was always a hard thing to do.
“We’re his only connection to the
world, to family,” she said.
“It’s the only thing we can do for
him, coming here every week,” she said.
Her voice dropped and she looked
away. I could see a tear in her eye.
“Numbers 120 to 130,” the voice
crackled over the loudspeaker.
We moved hurriedly down the hill
into the gatehouse. Paper money was
changed into dollar coins for the vending machines, and people took off their
jewelry, shoes and belts, and handed their driver’s licenses to the
guards.
When my turn came, I identified who
I was seeing and then set off the metal detector.
“Glasses, too.”
As directed, I moved, blindly,
sideways through the metal detector, satisfying the stern faced guard glaring
at me.
We all had the back of our right
hand stamped, with invisible ink. When
we left, a guard shined an ultraviolet light on our hands, making sure we
weren’t inmates, that we hadn’t switched places and were organizing a great
escape.
I reassembled myself and sat on a
wooden bench with some of my cohorts, waiting for our turn to walk in small
groups through another steel door and across the yard to the visitors’
building.
Once inside, I was directed to
several rows of plastic chairs and low tables, more appropriate for a fourth
grade classroom than a prison visiting room.
There were a few vending machines on one wall, offering chips, sodas,
and coffee.
The room was dimly lit with a few
florescent bulbs and small barred windows near the ceiling. The dark cement floor sucked up what little
light came through the windows.
A large modern painting of a tree leaned against a
gray wall, near a large chair on a platform, where a guard sat, staring out
over the assemblage of visitors.
There was nothing else in the room
that resembled life on the outside, and I wondered if the painting hadn’t been
hung yet, simply because it was so out of place here.
We were grandmothers and aunts, a
few girlfriends, two guys who might be brothers of inmates, and a lawyer. He looked out of place, in his three piece
suit and large three ring binder. He
paced and looked at his watch, anxious to get on with the rest of his day and
finish up his business with his client.
The rest of us had our prison visit
clothes on. The rules said no blue
jeans, no blue shirts or jackets. Blue
is the color of inmates here, and the prison wanted a clear distinction.
We waited, and waited some
more.
A few inmates came in, embracing
their loved ones and then sitting on the opposite side of the small
tables.
We waited some more, and I saw the
kindly mother and grandmother look at their watches and the big clock on the
wall.
I caught their eye and
shrugged. They nodded and shrugged
back.
Finally, my young friend came out of
the side door. He and all the other
inmates were clad in blue jeans and blue shirts, with blue lanyards and their
prison ID cards around their necks.
We hugged and took our seats.
I hadn’t seen my buddy for four
months, since he got sent upstate to adult prison, after serving all the time
he could at the youth prison where I go every week. He’s got seven more years to go, and had to
move to adult prison when he turned twenty four.
What got him here was something that
happened when he was thirteen, when life was crazy, chaotic, without guidance
and direction. He was arrested at
seventeen, and treated like an adult in court.
The system pounded on him, maxing
him out, making sure he got the presumptive sentences reserved for the worst of
people.
But he’s not. He was a kid himself when he came to prison,
never been in school, never really parented and raised to be a healthy young
man.
The youth prison was good for
him. He finished school, and let his
curiosity lead him to becoming an expert gardener, craftsman, and artist. He taught others, taking on leadership,
gaining the skills and confidence of a healthy, productive young man. He’s everything you’d want a young man to be
in this world.
We talked for the next hour and a
half, two friends catching up on our lives, and the news from the youth
prison.
His dad died last month, a heart
attack ending a troubled life, leaving the relationship with the son in prison
still unresolved, still unhealed. The
anger and bitterness now mixed up with grief, with the emptiness of not being
able to go to his father’s funeral, to take care of his widowed mother, and the
rage and violent life of the younger brother.
We tested out the vending machines’
offerings of soda and coffee. Starbucks
has no worries about the competition here.
My friend has a good job, managing
the kitchen garden. He’s ramped up the composting,
and is planning new crops for the summer.
His eyes twinkle as he tells me of his plans and the new watering system
he’s designing.
He’s saving his money for a
guitar. Prison rules wouldn’t let him
bring his old guitar with him, but he’s scribbled out some new songs, and
another guy has let him borrow his guitar once in a while.
I can’t send him a guitar. He has to buy it from the prison canteen.
“They worry that you’d send in drugs
with the guitar, you know.”
We laughed. He’s too serious of a musician to think about
smuggling in drugs or being a criminal.
“There’s ‘yard night’ in the
summer,” he tells me. “I’ll have my new
guitar by then.”
You can bring your guitar with you,
and guys play and sing, and tell stories.
They even barbeque and turn the prison yard into a house party, at least
for two hours on a hot summer night.
I don’t ask him much about life
here. I can tell he’s not wanting to
share, not wanting to explain the emptiness, the boredom.
He grins when he talks about the
botany book I sent him. College level
stuff, and good for his mind. He reads
it every night, soaking up the science, the methodology. He redraws the illustrations, creating new
works of art in his cell.
Last year, he petitioned the
Governor for clemency. About twenty
people added letters of endorsement, from the youth prison’s school principal
to most of the volunteers. The prison
staff weren’t allowed to endorse the petition, but loaded up their letters with
assessments and evaluations of what he’d accomplished.
We attached his portfolio of botany
illustrations, and photos of his wood carvings and wood burnings, and the
multi-layered wooden bowl that won a special blue ribbon at the county
fair. We sent copies to legislators, and
we wrote to the Governor.
Nothing has happened with that, and
now he’s in this prison of 800 men, medium security for the next seven
years. Or, until the Governor might
decide that he needs to be out, needs to be working on his bachelor’s degree in
botany at Oregon State University, and creating fine works of art for the world
to enjoy.
We didn’t talk about all that. The silence from the Governor’s office lies
like a stone in my heart. It’s too
painful for him, too. Seven years more
is a long, long time.
The guard in the chair boomed out,
“Visiting is over. Inmates to the
rear. Visitors to the front.”
We stood, and I picked up our empty
coffee cups. Awkwardly, we moved to the
end of the table, and hugged one last time.
“I’ll come again soon,” I said.
“Oh, you’re busy. I’m doing fine,” he said.
He doesn’t lie well, and looked down
at his shoes.
“I’m not too busy for you, son,” I
said.
“I’ll be back,” I said. “You’re an
important guy to me, you know.”
For the second time that day, I saw
a tear form in someone’s eye.
And when I got back to my pickup,
there was more than just a tear.
---Neal
Lemery 2/5/2017
