A Few Prison Tales

These stories are true and illustrate the fickle reality of prison. The first tale is about one of my dorm mates who is or shall I say “was” enrolled in the FTP Class. This was his second time in the class. The first class ended abruptly as he reached Day 4 of the 8 Day Class. He was prohibited to attend class because his race was locked down. Since he couldn’t attend class, he effectively failed or what is commonly called recycled. He had to start all over again when his race was off lock down and then he was “re-enrolled.” Also, I must mention this dorm mate started his first FTP Class prior to when I started the class. We were in two different classes – he in 69 and I was in 68. I finished on March 7th and his class was due to finish on the 9th – the day of the incident. However, on the 7th day of the 8 day class, one of the inmates made a derogatory remark to a prison worker and the Fire Captain decided to punish the entire class by NOT holding class on the scheduled 8th day which was March 9th (and also the day of the incident). This was a very damaging decision for my dorm mate because he should have been completing the class on that day and would have graduated without any problems. Due to the lockdown and not holding class, he has to begin all over again! All of the events were out of his control and he was an innocent bystander. To his credit, he handled it well and just shrugged his shoulders.

The second tale is about a conversation I had with my neighbor late yesterday afternoon. A little background first. Tuesdays are sheet and pillowcase exchange days. The cleans ones are usually passed out around lunch time. My neighbor was in the FTP Class at his time but his Bunkie was in the dorm. His Bunkie took an extra sheet from my neighbor and was going to tell him they ran out of sheets. However the person passing out the sheets saw this and confronted my neighbor’s Bunkie. Then he decided against this and placed the sheet back on the bunk. When my neighbor arrived back later in the day I overheard him, his Bunkie and the person who handed out the sheets talking about this. My neighbor then mentioned it to me as we were waiting for the door unlock. I feigned some interest but wasn’t actually concerned. About an hour later, my neighbor started talking to me about the “sheet” event and made a mistake by asking my opinion. He asked me what I thought about what his Bunkie die and whether my neighbor had the right to be upset. He did ask my opinion and I was honest by telling him it made no sense to me to get upset over whether or not his Bunkie was going to take the sheet. He then said, “It is a big deal because this is prison.” Well, that sort of set me off because I am tired of everyone saying the little things mean a great deal because this is prison. I told him it shouldn’t mean anything because it is inconsequential to anything in reality. I went on to say fights / stabbing occur in prison over such minor things - it is incredible. My neighbor is being released within the next 9 months so I said to him, “Next year at this time when you are on the outside do you think you are going to remember this sheet episode?” He didn’t respond and shook his head as if to say, “Yes, that makes sense.”

Normally, I keep my opinions to myself but yesterday my neighbor did ask and I answered. I am so tired of the “it’s prison” reason for all idiocy. Yes, it is prison and everyone does deserve respect. However, when an entire race has a 20 year feud over a pair of boots it maybe time to re-evaluate the priories. I have yet to see a fight or argument over something intelligent. It is always over something stupid. There needs to be more of the “let it go concept” inside this prison because there would be less problems. I don’t believe I overstepped my bounds because my neighbor is still talking to me and I have found myself to be more outspoken than usual.