Despite the seating being divided by gang, the important thing to keep in mind was what ethnicity sat where. This was because the dayroom was where race riots were started, and if you sat on one of the benches I just mentioned, you were expected to fight for your “race.” I put race in quotes because I believe there to be only one race: the species homo sapiens, but I digress. The last bench was called the Ho bench. Hardcore Christians sat there, along with child molestors that hadn’t been dealt with yet, and a few very old men. This was the only place someone could sit and not be expected to fight. It didn’t mean someone who sat there wouldn’t be attacked if a riot kicked off. It just meant there wouldn’t be repercussions for him if he escaped the fighting by climbing up the bars that made up one of the dayroom walls. If anyone else did this, their own people would beat them or shank them for cowardice after the riot.

The dayroom accomodated the full wing population of 196 men several times a day, such as at chow and shower time, because we were staged there before being allowed off the wing. Even worse were special events, like commissary day, when everyone stayed in the dayroom all day, trying to get a chance to be one of a shot of 10 people allowed to make purchases. Fortunately, this only happened every three or four weeks. Needless to say, it was pretty crowded. Now, from the bench break-down, you might expect that most of the inmates on the wing were hispanic. That wasn’t the case. Most were black, and therefore many black men found themselves with nowhere to sit. To exacerbate the situation further, the guards often ordered us all to find a seat, and threatened those who didn’t with disciplinary action.

Can you guess what the leading cause of race riots was? People sitting on benches that didn’t align with their ethnicity.

It was always crowded and there were always men looking for a place to sit down, and loathe to sit on the filthy floor. The tables were home to gamblers, slamming dominos down with all their might. Two televisions, on either side of the dayroom, attracted crowds of people to stand around them. They were always turned up to full volume, but no-one ever heard a word. And somehow, in the middle of this huddle of people there was always at least one bench with just one guy sitting on it. Holding it down, it was called. The guards shouted at the men standing up, and pointed out that there were a few seats available. The guys holding down those seats cracked their knuckles or fingered their shanks.

The part of the dayroom farthest from the guard monitoring the door, and from the windows looking in from the hallway, was where fights were supposed to happen. The gangs all had contraband in the dayroom all the time, so if a minor fight broke out it was in their interest to keep the guards from noticing it. Two men who started hitting one another would be restrained and shoved “under the TV,” where a standing crowd was normal. Bare knuckle fights very rarely last longer than a couple of minutes, especially when bigger guys are involved. Body builders hit hard, and quick knock outs were common. As long as the fight was race on race, and within the same gang, nothing else would go wrong. If, however, the fight involved any other ethnic pairing, the winner was immediately ganged up on by the loser’s homeboys. This naturally escalated into a gang war or a race riot. I wish it had been more uncommon, but it wasn’t. It happened all the time, and as long as it didn’t spread off the wing to other parts of the prison, the guards didn’t much care.

Reading this , you might think to yourselves, “Why go into the dayroom at all, other than before meals and showers?” Most people new to the penitentiary think the same thing, and try to spend as much time as possible in their cells. Unfortunately, a 9′x5′ cell is home to two men, and both need at least some down time every day. Can you guess what most cellies fight about?

I spent the next 22 months in the company of murderers, rapists, armed robbers, pedophiles, and worse. I also met plenty of people who probably shouldn’t have been in prison at all. I tried not to judge, though. I knew I would never see anything more than was shown to me, and that I couldn’t trust even that information. Besides, when you are in prison, you do your own time. Concerning yourself with other people doesn’t help you endure your sentence, and you can’t afford to involve yourself any more than necessary.

I was released on St. Patrick’s Day, 2009. It was cold still, even in Huntsville, Texas. I was numb. I’ve been out for nearly three months now, and I’m still numb. I’m a different man now. I’ve seen things that I’d rather not have seen. I’ve fought for my life. I’ve hurt people – something I’d never done before. I have insight into the human condition that I never knew I lacked. I’ve overcome fears, and I’ve developed new ones.

In the time between my first and second arrest, I changed my life dramaticly. I gave up a 7 year relationship with methamphetamine and heroin. I rediscovered my respect for the rule of law. I started taking a mood stabilizer and an anti-depressant. I lived secluded in the woods, on my parent’s charity. I was chaste as a monk for 2 years before my arrest, and for the 2 years of my incarceration. I devoted myself to the practice of an obscure martial art. This was a big part of a larger project- to heal myself.

When my sentence was handed down, and the bailiff cuffed me and walked me out of court, my life changed dramaticly again. I did not find it possible to be as good a man in prison as I had endeavored to become outside. Prison is all about impossible situations. You can’t conduct yourself ethically in that place. At the same time, I couldn’t abandon my ethics wholly either. If you want to make parole, you must avoid disciplinary cases while serving your time. If you wish to survive in your cage with the other animals, you must transgress from time to time. It is simply necessary. If you wish to avoid the cases that these transgressions tend to bring, you have to bribe someone. None of this synched with my worldview. Nothing I had to do in prison meshed with being the kind of man I wanted to be. Nevertheless, I did what was required of me. I made my second parole, and as a result, I’m sitting here typing these words.

In this blog, I want to talk about readjusting to the world. I want to talk about finding myself again. I’ll probably talk about justice, humans as resources, how society uses them, and how they might do a better job of that. I’ll talk about the stigma of living in America as a felon. I hope someone reads this, and that they get something from it.