Incarceration Chronicles IV: 24 February 1994 (Day 8 at Lorain C.I.)
More of my unabridged prison diary....
Preface: Immediately after being sentenced to 7-to-25 years in prison in October of 1993, I spent four months in the county jail before being transferred on 17 February 1994 to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction's inmate reception center at Lorain Correctional Institution in Grafton. I will get to the county jail journals later. But for now we will pick up where we left off, on day eight (24 February) of my three month stay at Lorain.
Please read the previous installments first, if you haven't already:
Part 1: 17-21 February 1994
Part 2: 21 February 1994 (continued)
Part 3: 22-23 February 1994
Finally, here's Part 4:
Thurs. 24 Feb. 1994
post 7:20 a.m.
Last night, for the first time in years, I had a dream about Laura Frederick. She didn't really appear in it. I only called her on the phone. When she realized who it was, she sounded as though she was about to cry. I kept laying the phone down and doing other things. When I'd go back to the phone, I'd say "Hello." She would still be on the line and would say "Hello," too. Then I would say "I'm sorry." This kept happening; but neither of us seemed to have anything more to say. In the meantime, Mike and Barb were sitting in the same room as I and arguing.
I also dreamt of Mike, Uncle Tom, Cousin Dave and Jim Lively. They wanted to go out and party. I declined the invitation. Then in the wee hours of the morning, after daylight, I went looking for them. I found them at Jim Lively's house. It wasn't the same house he lives in, however. A bunch of kids were in a huge swimming pool in the yard. Jim's mom was in the yard, too. I asked for my brother. She said to go in the house. I came to Jim's closed door and said, "What's the word, fellas?" Sounds of "Shhh!" came from within. I assured them his parents were awake and outside. The door didn't open. No other conversation took place. And the dream ended. There was more to it, especially at the beginning; but I cannot remember now.
* * *
9:15 a.m.
I would also like to get sunglasses, gloves, and a stocking cap at commissary. We'll see if I get any more money before I go.
* * *
9:45 a.m.
I just wrote a two-page letter to Aunt Marlene. However, I won't be able to mail it until I get embossed envelopes from commissary.
* * *
c. 10 a.m.
I wish I would have known when I was to be transferred. I could have sent my excess shit home with Pam on visiting day and saved on the UPS charges. Plus, I would have had her or Mom bring me some embossed envelopes. I don't know why the county jail only allows you to have felt-tip pens, while this place lets you have anything but felt-tip pens to write with.
I hope I don't run out of paper before commissary. Maybe I shouldn't have given Jeff [my last cellie at the county jail] that extra legal pad. But he was nearly out of paper while I had plenty. If I would've known they wouldn't let me have my felt-tip pens, I would have left them with him. I was in such a rush that day, I didn't remember to leave him my stamps. I only had three anyway. I did leave all my cosmetics and candy, as well as nearly a hundred envelopes. I hope he gave Mike whatever he needed.
The ground is covered with snow again.
Fuck yoga. I want my mind to work, not be vacant. Alexander Pope said, "Know then thyself; presume not God to scan. / The proper study of mankind is man." Amen.
* * *
c. 10:30 a.m.
Nichiren Daishonin did the same thing for Buddhism that Caitanya Mahaprabhu did for Krishna Consciousness. He made it easier for the common people to embrace and practice. However, both sacrificed what was most significant in the teachings of their predecessors (Gautama Buddha and Sri Krishna). To me, they vulgarized their religions, making them less transcendental. The apostle Paul similarly raped the message of Jesus in order to achieve a wider following.
* * *
post 11 a.m.
attempt at a song for Dave
Underground fire
Passion for hire
You are my blood
My only desire
A night spent with me
You won't regret
A burning for you
I won't forget
And gladly for love
I'd give my soul
This yearning for you
I can't control
Here in the flame
There is no shame
Longing so strong
Cannot be a game
Love is a dart
Shoot at my heart
Enter my soul
And never depart
A life spent with me
You won't regret
This promise to you
I won't forget
I see your pure eyes
In all I do
And all that I am
Belongs to you
* * *
post 12:30 p.m.
Walking to and from lunch, I nearly froze my dick off. The wind was a frigid whore.
Why my former cellie spells his name "Jeffery" instead of "Jeffrey" is beyond me.
* * *
post 3:20 p.m.
I wrote to Jeff, then to Mother Jamuna, whose address Jeff had given me. These letters, too, must wait until commissary.
A bunch of guys in here got moved to regular housing today. They were replaced by new inmates. Among the fresh meat is John Malone, with whom I played cards at the county jail. (He was the one with the crooked deck.)
I also finished my second reading of Bhagavad-gita As It Is. Now what am I gonna do?
* * *
4 p.m.
I just wrote a letter to M.V.
* * *
7:25 p.m.
I just read a tract that my cellie had. It is "Eternity — Where Shall it Find Me" by Dwight L. Moody. I must be getting desperate for reading matter!
After supper, John asked me if I had any cigarettes. I said no and he handed me one. Maybe I'll be able to trade it tomorrow for something to read.
I just began reading something else I got from my cellie. It is the March/April 1994 issue of a periodical named Today: The Family Altar. The thirty-one page-long selections for March are written by Rev. David Feddes. His topic is "Were You There?" Each day's reading centers on a different person or group who was part of Jesus' crucifixion scene. That's a neat idea.
* * *
8:45 p.m.
I just finished reading "Were You There." April's collection is entitled "Living the Resurrected Life" and was written by Dr. John Van Regenmorter. I just began reading it. The author says that all references to "the divine power of Christ" are scratched out of Thomas Jefferson's personal Bible. I find that extremely interesting. You'd certainly increase the New Testament's percentage of fact and decrease its percentage of opinion by doing such a thing.
* * *
8:55 p.m.
The lights go out here at nine in the evening and come on again at six in the morning. Both Benjamin Franklin and A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada insist that nine hours of sleep is far too much. I wonder if that's true.
* * * * *
Strangely enough, when I was 17, I belonged to Nichiren Shoshu for about a year or so. Groups things don't usually work for me. I needed peace & the chanting always helped me. It seems all my life people have been trying to get me to go to churches or temples. I believe the temple is inside us. You prove that point in your tale about your methods of survival, reading praying practicing yoga & Buddhism.
I love the song above to Dave. Another small indication of the great talent. Of course you're related to Burroughs spiritually - it's obvious.
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I was 18 when I was initiated into Nichiren Shoshu. I went to all the meetings, et cetera for a few months, but I was turned off by how they thought they were the only Buddhists with the "truth." Very sectarian, unlike other Buddhists I met later in life....
I still chanted the daimoku and performed gongyo off and on (usually off) over the years, and found it to have a calming effect (like brain novocaine), but haven't in at least five years now. The main concept I still embrace from Nichiren's teachings is ichinen sanzen, which roughly translates to "Each single moment possesses three thousand realms."
Dave is my wife Geri's son (of course she wasn't my wife then). He was a teen at the time, and a very good guitarist. He was writing songs, but thought his lyrics sucked - so he asked me to send him some. I didn't feel very creative at the time, but at least made an effort. Those aren't as bad as some I wrote back then, which will all probably make it online eventually.
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Fascinante!! Especialment tus sueños. La vida es sueño, ¿recuerdes todos tus
sueños?
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Like Joy, I believe that our gods are within us not without.
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If you were 11 years in prison that is more than 4,000 days. Are you intending to blog every word of the 4,000 entries in your journal hour by hour and day by day?
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I didn't write hour by hour all eleven years (thankfully) - later I actually had books, school, various creative outlets, and a "life" of sorts; so I wrote less and less in my journal, though I wrote far more letters.
I'm not sure how far I'll go with this - but eventually I want to have everything I've written put into a digital format (in case anything would ever happen to the hard copies). Not sure how much will end up being blogged....
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Just thinking... if I posted one day of my prison journal a day, and nothing else, it would take me 11 years to post it all. And that's not counting the thousands of letters, the hundred-some songs, a thousand poems, and all the schlock I've written before and since. Frightening....
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I keep thinking how earnest you were/are with your studying. I used to be more earnest about studying; now all I want to do is create. I actually feel guilty when I read a book that I'm not writing instead or creating art instead, that I have to create to justify my existence. But ideally I'd like to study all my life rather than create.
I also instinctly reject "emptying my mind." I'm always trying to stimulate my mind, do the opposite. At one point my rich inner life was all that kept me going.
Such interesting glimpses into your private life.
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I'm not nearly that earnest about studying others' books anymore - not that earnest about chroncling my life either. I quit keeping a journal when I got out of prison. It reminded me of being there - and I remembered Sartre's words that one can either write about life or live it. When I got out, decided to forget writing and live. Of course in time, I began to gravitate back to writing from living.
I had to empty my mind to some degree to get through prison. I have no interest in doing so anymore. Part of the trade-off, however, is that now in some ways, right or wrong, I feel I might be more stressed than I was in prison.
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Nichiren Daishonin is the buddhist group i piad $6 to in 1966 for my Nam Myoho Renge Kyo chant which i still use today. $6 for a chant for 42 years ain't bad.
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I had to pay $20 for my Gohonzon around January 1985. Going on 24 years... it still hangs in my music room, though there's a hole eroded in it from where a cologne bottle leaked in the box my ex stored it in. Tried to get it mailed into prison, but because the scroll was affixed to a wooden rod, they said it could be used as a weapon and wouldn't let me have it. Imagine... stabbing someone with Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
"Here's your enlightenment, pal!
That'll be twenty dollars."
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Fascinating...
I think of meditation differently that I used to. As both you do and Lady, I've always interpreted it as emptying it... I no longer do.. but more quieting it or stilling it briefly so one can observe it's movements see and understand patterns of thought, etc... . Whether that is a correct interpretation or not doesn't matter to me anymore.
Working with it in that way seems to work better for me... because in the former view I felt I had to give something up.. part of my self.. almost a negation.. but thinking of it as quieting it makes me feel I've gained something...it is affirming for me and strengthening instead.. it also gives me a valuable pespective I didn't have before... so for me a big difference.
Where did you get money to pay for things? Was it sent from Home?
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The way I view meditation has evolved greatly since I wrote this in 1994. At that point, my primary "religious" exposures had been to Southern Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Nichiren Shoshu, and ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) - and each of these groups was very restricting and holier-than-thou-ish. My antagonism toward "spirituality" in these early entries is largely a reaction to the exclusivism of these particular sects. Later, I explored a broader spectrum of Christian, Buddhist and Hindu thought, along with Judaism, Wicca, Sufism, and Native American teachings. As a result, I began to see some good in meditation (especially when its objective is not to empty the mind). In 2003-4 I even designed and taught a meditation class in the prison's Horizon interfaith dorm.
When I said "Fuck yoga," I had a very limited conception of what yoga was and can be. "Krishna Consciousness" (and the Bhagavad-gita As It Is) used the word "yoga" to refer to lots of different techniques, including the constant repetition of a mantra and a love of Krishna. The physical postures most of us think of when we hear the word yoga were probably the least familiar yoga forms to me at the time - I would end up studying and practicing those more later. I would not necessarily say "Fuck yoga" today.
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Folks on my visiting list were allowed to send me money, as long as it came in the form of a money order. The prison staff would sign the money orders and deposit them into my commissary account. I would never see the money order. Later, when I reached my parent institution, I took jobs. Worked 40 to 60 hours a week, for which the state paid me 18 dollars a month, and later 19.
I had to give away my shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. when I transferred from the county jail. Had to buy new, unopened ones from the prison commissary. So I was without all these things during this first week or so at Lorain.
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I find the comments interesting since most of the people who you know now didn't know you then. It gives all of us a more in depth understanding of your spiritual "upbringing" that came mostly while in prison. I have always found this most amazing! Your letters gave ma a lot of insight into this. That is why I posted three of the first on my blogs. Now that I know you have carbon copies of them I suppose it will be unnecessary to publish any more of them. Did you keep all the letters I wrote to you also? And by the way I have also the list of books you wanted to read that you sent me along with one of your first letters. I think there were about 200 on that hand written list on lined paper that you wanted to read. My only regret is that I was unable to send you some of them. But I guess you eventually did read at least half of them. The only advantage of being there was having the time for eleven years to read voraciously every day of the over 4,000 you were in prison. This is something that most people don't have with families and jobs that take up their time. For that I give you a lot of love and hugs and am glad you have survived to write these blogs to enlighten all of us who don't know the "inside" and what happens there. And I love sharing your personal experiences that worried me so much while you were there, especially knowing you were innocent and being punished for something you didn't do. It has always for all these years seemed to be such a terrible injustice, especially since I knew you before you went to prison. You were one of my best students in all the years I taught at LCCC. So please keep writing your book. It will show a spirit and a kind of inner faith that so many of us admire.
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That's nice to know.
I'd gathered from reading your blogs over the years that you are more eclectic in you ideas and views than you were then... It must have been interesting being exposed to these ideas then but in a confined environment where you couldn't measure them against anything other than something else you read.
Did you discuss any of these ideas with the guys you roomed with? I would imagine with little else to do at first when you were in there that there was ample time for discussion about all sorts of things.
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But I might say: Fuck certain types of "yoga."
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I guess I have come to pretty much the same conclusion over time... like Steve .. and you. I've developed my own "religion" and "practice" and feel comfortable with that now more than ever. I guess it would be a little of the best of a number of faiths even un-named ones.
I would have found it hard to have a cellie who was so diametrically different in temperament or interest but know you didn't have achoice... I guess it is something you have to get used to or you don't survive.
Either keep to yourself or develop a think skin...
thanks for the extra info... it really helps fill things out.
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I talked about such things with other inmates when I found those who were interested. For example, my last cellie at the county jail (Jeff) had been heavily involved with Hare Krishnas. So we talked a lot about such things - and he introduced me to a lot of Hare Krishna penpals (like the Mother Jamuna I mentioned and the Swami/guru who would later come visit me). But at this point in Lorain, I was pretty much stuck with a cellie (Gary) who had no interest in talking about anything but his professed innocence (which I doubted) and his fundamentalist Christianity - so I prefered to avoid conversing with him whenever possible.
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My first thought whenever this subject comes up is, I could not do this. No way. I could not stand it or survive it. But then people probably ask you, "How did you ever survive it, how did you manage." It occurs to me that you manage when there is no other choice. I would manage but I would never get over it. I'd probably never stop buying pens. I really related to that bit from your last entry.
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When I went in, I really didn't believe I would survive it. Somehow I did.
But by the time I'd written this, my mind had begun to come to terms with the fact that I had to make the best of it or be destroyed. Four months earlier, during my first week in the county jail, I wasn't dealing with it all quite so well.
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I know I don't have to explain this to you, but I know exactly what you mean. I found my self holding on from minute to minute, hour to hour. I slept a lot in the begining. It makes me want to ask you when you started reading. I could not read anything and have it make any sense that first year. And that was devastating because reading and writing had always been where I found refuge in a world of my own. I can't wait to hear all about the books. How and when you get them, the reasoning behing the system, how many books were you allowed, denied. That is going to be one of my favorite parts. It also sounds like you met a lot of special people and did speial work during this time. I can't wait to hear all about it. I think you're doing a wonderful job so far.
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I'm grateful for your empathy and encouragement, Tara. Interestingly, at the county jail I'd just come from, I had greater access to good books - enough to fill the four months I was there, at least. Lorain Correctional Institution did have a library. But we "reception" inmates had no access to it (I guess they didn't want us carting their books off when we got transferred to our permanent institutions). Only the permanent residents of Lorain C. I. (known as "cadres") had access to the library - they were the workers (everything from mowing lawns to serving our food to scrubbing the visiting room toilets). We "reception" inmates had no jobs and far fewer privileges than the cadres (they could also get food and clothes boxes from home, whereas we couldn't - though it's worth noting that things have changed and now no inmates receive food or clothes boxes from home). But don't let me get too far ahead of myself.
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I've had two loved ones in the county lock up at different times. Both admit that they were guilty of their crimes, even though they were not hurting anyone but themselves. I'm glad to report they both learned their lessons and are upstanding citizens. But I do remember taking that long, disheartening walk back to the parking lot with an armful of Stephen King books and Hanes tee-shirts (with his name under the collar in laundry marker) wondering at the injustice of me having so much more than I needed and the one I was leaving behind being deprived these most simple creature comforts. One of the guards took a liking to me when my ex was in the "County Hotel" which meant that I could bring my ex extra stuff, including an Easter basket. But he did get a write up for having pine cones in his locker. That jerk actually told me that I needed to visit him less because, are you ready for this, he wasn't getting enough sleep! In jail, he wasn't getting enough sleep. I should have started visiting some of the other guys. They loved me. I used to send letters on lavender paper sprinkled with Chanel #5. Ex used to sell them for cigarettes (back when you could smoke in there)and the men would sleep with them under their pillows. They also used to line up at this big glass window and wave at me. I always gave my biggest, best wave right back at 'em. The letters that he didn't give away, he lost. Like yours, those letters were a chronicle of a time in my life. I was looking forward to seeing them again. I should have run off with the guard!
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Thank you very much for sharing this, Tara!
In the county jail I had to send bags of dirty underwear/socks home on visits to be laundered. In prison, this was not permitted, and the institution had its own built-in laundry staffed with inmate workers.
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