Prison Programs Deserving Of Honorable Mention: Frog Gravy 52

If you are newly diagnosed with blindness and wish to read a book, menu or map in braille, who was the translator for the book, map or menu?

If you are in need of a vested service dog to assist you at all times in your daily living, who trained that dog?

Who are the men and women caring for babies born in captivity to inmate mothers in Kentucky?

Three programs at KCIW PeWee Valley Women’s Penitentiary are worthy of mention: the braille translation program, the Paws With Purpose program, and the Galilean Children’s Home.

In association with the American Printing House for the blind, KCIW inmates translate print materials into braille. I had a fascinating conversation with an inmate who was involved in braille translation; she had advanced her expertise such that she was currently working on map translation.

There are about thirty such programs nationwide. At KCIW, some of the women are certified literary transcribers through the National Library Service of the Library of Congress. If you come across a braille textbook, there is a chance that an inmate did the transcribing.

To qualify for admission into the braille program at KCIW, an inmate must meet honor status, but also must be quite a ways from meeting with the parole board. The learning-intensive program takes time and so, inmates participating in the program are serving lengthy sentences.

My eight-year sentence was so long it was absurd (my judge sentenced a knife-point cab driver robber to less time than me), yet not long enough to gain admission into one of the learning-intensive training programs. In other words, my sentence length was problematic because it was too long for some things and not long enough for others, leaving me in a void. Hence, it is actually possible to be jealous of people serving lengthy sentences. I really admired the women in these programs.

The Paws With Purpose puppy prison program is another wonderful intensive program, where women train service dogs. Barkley, the doodle, was one such dog, too cute for words. The dogs stay with the inmate trainers pretty much around the clock during the week. Sometimes the dogs take breaks to go into the community with volunteer program trainers, so the dogs can be exposed to traffic, malls and the like. Usually the dogs-in-training on the KCIW campus are vested, which means that inmates other than the trainer are not allowed to touch, pet or play with the dogs.

Again, an inmate must be something like two to five years to the parole board (I am not sure which) and must have attained honor status. Honor status is achieved through good behavior over a long period, and has perks such as desired housing in Pine Bluff Dormitory, as well as eligibility to apply for admission to programs such as Paws With Purpose of the braille translation program.

The Galilean Children’s Home (video above) is a wonderful program, supported by private donation and non-profit, that was founded by Mennonite couple Jerry and his late wife Sandy Tucker.

Babies born to inmate mothers at KCIW are often cared for in the Angel House division of the large Galilean Children’s Home, which also houses and cares for other orphaned children.

Each week, the women of the Galilean Home, which is located in Liberty Kentucky, Casey County, bring the babies to a visiting nursery in the chapel at the prison, for a bonding session with the inmate mothers. Please have a look at the video, as I believe this program is unique to Kentucky.

We need more programs such as these, but unfortunately they seem to be disappearing. Kentucky is turning jails into prisons, in the name of money, and warehousing Class D nonviolent offenders in cement with no programs, so they return to the community with nothing but a new criminal skill set in hand. Would it not make more sense to have inmates parole to the community with job skills and references in hand? Would it not make more sense for a Class D nonviolent offender to be able to state, proudly, that she had given something back to the community during incarceration? That she had put some thought and work into goals and planning for the second part of her life?

One of my goals is to get books into jails and prisons, but this will be difficult because some Kentucky jails ban educational materials outright, as I have previously mentioned. It makes absolutely no sense to ban education to the largest incarcerated population that will parole into the community the soonest: Class D nonviolent offenders.

Links:

Braille Translation Program in conjunction with KCIW.

Paws With Purpose prison puppy program.

The wonderful Galilean Home.

Andrew Wolfson, Courier-Journal on Professor Robert Lawson’s article describing Kentucky turning jails into prisons.

The Dictionary, Trick Writing And The Bird: Frog Gravy 47

First, “The death penalty is hella fuckin’ balls-to-the-wall awesome…”:

The religious symbol Wine, Wheat, Sea, Grapes by Crane-Station on flickr. Jail Art: colored pencil, magazine ink and eye shadow. Drawn in Ricky’s World.

Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account in Kentucky in 2008 and 2009, in jails and in prison, and is reconstructed from my notes.

Inmate names are changed, except for nicknames that do not reveal identity.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

McCracken County Jail, Spring, 2008, Cell 107

After some frantic searching in the cell, Ruthie finds the photograph of her mother, who passed away. She finds it, finally, during a trip to the toilet; she had sat on it, and it was stuck to her ass.

Ruthie wants to know if her mother is in heaven, and if she is, will she be sending a signal to Ruthie, like when the lights in the cell flickered this morning. She asks me. I am not an expert in heaven (In fact these days I think I am more an expert in Hell), but I tell her that I believe in a spiritual realm, and I believe we will see our loved ones when we die.

Tina, who takes a literal view of scripture, says, “She’s just asleep, until He comes to judge. You know, like when you go to sleep and…and that’s where your mother is…And the devil will reign for seven years. And, if you don’t have that number, you won’t be able to buy things, or eat things…”

I hear this, and cannot get the words out of my head: And he shall reign forever and ever…For Ever and Ever, Hallelujah, Hallelujah… and I wonder if it is indeed true that Handel wrote the Messiah in, like forty-five minutes during a manic psychotic break. At any rate, the man is a genius, and even though he writes of God’s reign and not the Satan that will be scanning our computer chips for the mark of the beast to see whether or not we can shop at the WalMart In The Sky, the Messiah is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.

In this cell, in this mixture of madness and sadness that is condensed as though cooked under reflux, I adjust the towel on my head, and continue working on the jailhouse dictionary we are composing. Down the hall, Harry shouts from his isolation cell, “PLEASE! Let me OUT!! Help me! HELPMEhelpmehelpmehelpmehelp.” I am reminded of the acronym GOMER, which means “Get Out Of My Emergency Room,” but if you read House Of God by Samuel Shem, you will know this, of course.

Spork: a jailhouse eating utensil that is a plastic hybrid of fork and spoon.

No-shank pen: a flimsy, short version of the ballpoint that has been rendered useless as a weapon.

Hot on the walk: A very good looking Class D nonviolent male working the hallway, such as the one who, from time to time graces us with a view of his erect penis from the broom closet down the hallway. You have to get on tiptoes and strain a bit to see this, but it’s worth it.

Kentucky taxpayers spend something in the neighborhood of $30,000 per year per non-violent war-on-drugs inmate for us to sit in a cold cell, composing a twisted urban dictionary and gazing at the occasional male specimen of perfection. Kentucky. Fuck yeah.

Christie explains trick writing to me in a bit more detail. Trick writing has afforded her the opportunity to pay restitution to her check-writing victims and obtain canteen supplies that she needs to live, such as shampoo and other hygiene products. I am fascinated, and although I have never trick written myself, I would venture to guess that trick writing alone is a multi-billion dollar industry in this country.

There are a good many men who are interested in contacting and developing correspondence relationships with locked up women. Contrary to popular belief, the men are not always interested in sex, or in sexual letters. They are more interested in having a pen pal. There are many sites on the internet that advertise for prison and jail pen pals. Many relationships are long-lasting, and often, particularly if the female inmate has no viable family ties any more, the pen pals are all she does have. Not infrequently, the pen-pal relationships evolve into long-term relationships and marriages.

Christie’s pen pals come from all over the country: Maine, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico. A nudist in Indiana (who looks like he came straight out of the movie “Revenge Of The Nerds”, she points out). A marathon runner in Texas. A professor who speaks French and Italian.

We eat lunch: chicken breast, one slice of white bread, carrots, broccoli and vanilla wafers. After lunch I go into the toilet and climb onto the steel sink, and look through the tiny, scratched out slit in the ghosted-out, bullet proof window. There are the dumpsters.

And a bird! Oh my God a bird! What a blessing. I got to see, even if for a fleeting moment, a bird.

And this is the highlight of my day. If God could bring me just one bird to see each day, I will be happier than ever.

McCracken Horror Picture Show: Frog Gravy 41

Horses. Jail Art by Crane-Station on flickr. Colored pencil, pen and magazine ink.

Frog Gravy is a nonfiction account of Kentucky jails and prison in 2008 and 2009, and is reconstructed from my notes.

Inmates names are changed, except for nicknames that do not reveal identity. My name is real.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

Frog Gravy posts are all here: froggravy.wordpress.com, although to get to older posts will take a bit of backward scrolling through the “older entries” instruction.

McCracken County Jail, Paducah KY, cell 107, March, 2008

Christie and YaYa have just gotten into a loud verbal fight over boobs.

Christie, who looks like Christie Brinkley, has perfect boobs, as she says, “best boobs money can buy,” and we all enjoy looking at them, and so do the Class D men working in the hallway. When Christie is in the shower, YaYa insults her for displaying her wares to the men on occasion, and Christie becomes hopping mad. She’d rather be in general population, she claims, than to be in a cell with YaYa. She pounds on the steel door.

A guard comes to the door and says, “All I can tell you is that this jail is full and I don’t got no time to play Kindergarten Cop, so you’d best kiss and make up because I can tell you that if one of you goes outa here, you’re goin’ onto concrete. I ain’t got no place else to put you, so if one of you goes onto concrete, you both go.”

Things calm down. It is my TV day because I cleaned the cell, and so I adjust the towel on my head, get up from my sheaf of no-shank jail notes and collection of origami cranes, and change the channel to the news.

Down the hall, Harry shouts from his isolation cell, “HELLLLP!! Let Me OUT!!! Helpmehelpmehellllp me. Please! HELP!”

In the cell, Meg gets off the phone with her trick, talking about she “got plenty of bidness,” and she and YaYa exchange family photographs with each other.

Meg, who has nine children, including six-month-old twins, says, “And that baby was tiny, only this big, but his nuts, I’m telling you, his balls hang down to his knees…and this is the older three’s baby’s daddy, and my baby’s daddy of the middle four kids, this is him, he’s 28, and my twins’ baby’s daddy is 24, and this is him. He’s mixed. The other two are black.”

YaYa says, “This is my son’s baby’s daddy, and this is my daughter’s baby’s daddy that stays with my mama, and this baby’s mama is in prison, and, I keep these. This is my family. I have to rely on my own family, you see what I’m sayin.’ You find out who your friends are when you come up in here.”

Lunch arrives, and we eat potatoes, greens, chicken and a cookie (did I mention that the food in McCracken County Jail is actually quite good?) On the TV screen we see that a group of Amish men in neighboring Graves County have been pulled over and cited for not displaying a large, reflective orange triangle on their horse-drawn buggy. They will fight the charges, because they believe the orange symbol on their buggy violates their religious beliefs and practices.

“I heard this story once,” I say. “Horse-drawn buggy got pulled over for a DUI. The driver had been drinking, and his friends loaded him into the buggy. The man spoke German and so did the horse. The man’s friends told the horse in German to go home. Seems to me the horse was sober, and the horse was the driver. Just sayin.'”

“People get DUIs on all sorts of stuff around here,” says Christie. “Riding lawn mowers. That’s common.”

“Huh. Yeah,” I say, “There was that guy in town that was convicted of a DUI in his electric wheelchair.”

After lunch, we watch Jerry Springer on TV and Christie and I get ready for the 7:30 church service with the local faith-based treatment group, Ladies Living Free. I am hoping for placement into their residential program, as a probationary status alternative to a prison sentence. Ladies Living Free takes into account attendance records at their services, and so, Christie and I give ourselves three-and-a-half hours to prepare. We spend the afternoon doing our hair and applying makeup that we manufactured from magazine ink and FireBalls. The magazine ink, truth be told, looks better than some of the stuff I got at Sephora in Seattle, when I had money, back in the day.

Jerry Springer is hosting ‘Hillbilly Games II.’ Which means there was a Hillbilly Games I. On the screen, one obese woman says to another, “I’m gonna kick your ass, bitch,” and then they both strip off their outer clothing and get into a pool sort of affair, that has about four-and-one-half inches or so of Pork-and-Beans in it, and start whaling on each other, shouting obscenities all the while. So now, the TV is beeping a bunch, and two scantily clothed fat women fight in a child’s swimming pool of Pork-and-Beans, while some guy stands on the sideline playing the banjo.

I have seen a bunch of these shows now, during my residence here, and I’ve met people who cannot read or write and neither can their parents or grandparents, and this very jail, in fact, bans education, and no one gives a shit, unless the WalMart is closed.

Finally, in the evening, after an afternoon of meticulous preparation and homework completion, Christie and I stand at the steel door, waiting for the start of Ladies living Free.

But the start time comes and goes, and the other population cells have already been paraded past our cell and into the chapel, but we are not included in the service.

We pound on the door and a guard comes. Christie asks, “Why can’t we go to church with the others? We are going to be late.”

The guard says, “It’s considered 12-Step for ladies.”

“It has nothing to do with the twelve steps,” says Christie. “It’s church!”

“It’s twelve step.”

“Well good!” I say. “We’re here on drug charges, and the only twelve-step requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking and using. They don’t discriminate.”

“You are not allowed to go.”

“Then tell them the jail will not allow our attendance so that they will not be led to believe it is us.”

“I cain’t do that.”

“Bring a grievance form, please.”

Grievance and response. McCracken County Jail, Paducah, KY, March, 2008.

Christie and I file a joint grievance. It says:

We previously had this issue regarding Sgt. Tiffany deciding which cells get to attend church & which ones don’t Once again Are we not allowed the same options as EA and WA?-cells[?] They attend both services in one day yet we are not allowed the same treatment. She doesn’t even ask if we want to go and it is not due to any disciplinary action. I would like a copy to this grievance when your response is noted that is photocopied clearly, please.

The response:

Sometimes church runs late and doesn’t get started on time. Sometimes ministers have things to do and runs short (sic). You are not on disciplinary actions. EA/WA were the only ones that went and it was quick. We’ll address this later.

EA and WA included the entire female jail population, except for us and the isolation/hole cells.

YaYa emerges from the toilet with a wad of tissue and says to me, “Look, Rachel, a sewer fly.”

“A what?”

“A sewer fly. You know. A sewer fly. They comes up outa’ the sewer.” The squirming fly is about the size of these typed letters, and it is almost translucent. That means there are maggots down there.

So, I guess our disinfectant, that I used to clean the cell with this morning, is not working all that well.

Lighter note. Steve, the lawnmower guy taser DUI lawnmower:

You Can Keep Your Bugs: Frog Gravy 37

Rose, heart balloons and crane by Crane-Station on flickr. The drawing is ink, magazine ink and colored pencil, and was done in Fulton County Jail (Ricky’s World) because McCracken County jail banned art supplies. The crane was folded at home.

Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account in Kentucky, during 2008 and 2009, in jails and in prison and is reconstructed from my notes.

Inmate names are changed, except for nicknames.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

Frog Gravy posts are gathered at froggravy.wordpress.com.

McCracken County Jail, Cell 107, early March, 2008

In the morning I do not want to wake up, because I still dream in freedom. I ask Leese how long it will be before I dream in captivity. Leese, who is on her bunk writing a poem, looks up from her writing and replies, “About seven months or so.”

Since we are only allowed religious materials to study, I study scripture each morning, and complete some bible studies. I have two bibles: a Catholic Serendipity bible with discussion questions that my family sent to me, and an NIV New Testament that I checked out from the small library. The Catholic bible almost did not make it to me, but when my family threatened to call the governor, the bible made its way to Cell 107.

I do some standing-in-place exercises. I write. I fold and refold my towels. I wash my underwear. I refold my towels again. I rearrange books. I count pieces of paper. I re-hang cards and cranes and pictures of my son with toothpaste. I climb onto the steel toilet and peer through the slit that is scratched in the ghosted-out window to the outside world. I look at the dumpsters.

Down the hall, Harry shouts from his isolation cell, HELP!! Let me out !! HelpmehelpmehelpmeHELP!”

Since January, we have been to the outside cage for recreation two times.

The day drags into evening, punctuated by meal tray arrival. Meal tray arrival becomes the focus of our lives, and someone always stands at the steel door and peers down the hall to watch for the meal cart. When the cart turns the corner in the hall so that it is visible, the watchman alerts the others with a cheery, “Trays!”

Class D men, accompanied by a guard, deliver the trays through a slot in the steel door. For breakfast we had cereal, toast, eggs, milk and one tater tot. We ate the food with an orange, plastic “spork,” a utensil that is a hybrid of a spoon and a fork. For lunch we had a hamburger patty, one slice of white bread, beans, spinach and pudding. For dinner we ate a chicken patty, black-eyed peas, carrots, bread and cake. We sound like locusts when we eat. We smack, belch, and fart. There are always spats that begin with “Are you going to eat that?” Everyone hoards. We are animals at a trough.

The cell is constantly cold, and with each passing day, I have more difficulty with my vision. I think the fluorescent lighting is damaging my eyes. The screaming and wall pounding in the jail never stops.

At 2 AM, the steel door opens and three guards enter our cell. Hands are on my shoulders and I am roughly led to the shower stall and told to remove my clothing. “SQUAT!” says the guard in a loud tone. I squat. “COUGH! she shouts” I cough. “Again! HARDER!” I cough again, harder.

After we are all stripped and after we all squat and cough in the shower stall, we dress ourselves and are placed in the hallway to wait. The guards tear the cell apart looking for tobacco and contraband. There is no tobacco and there is no contraband in the cell. The guards take down all of our family photographs and throw them onto the floor. They tear down my cranes. They scatter papers and books and letters and cards all over the floor. They upend bins with our belongings. They confiscate cups.

As they are leaving, one of the guards says to me, “You can keep your bugs. You just can’t hang them.”

“They are peace cranes,” I say. “They are birds.”

He leaves, taking a crane for himself.

We return to the cell and pick up the pieces of what we have collected and displayed to remind ourselves that maybe we belong in families somewhere. I pick up my cards with the turtle and the wolf and the birds. My cranes are crushed and torn. Ruthie picks up the only photograph of her mother, who just passed away. She cries. Leese retrieves her poem. Its four pages are scattered.

After this night in the jail, aside from one other time in prison, when I teach another inmate how to fold an origami crane, I will not fold another crane until after my release.

The next day, the same hellish routine begins. I am seated at the steel table with notes, studying scripture from two bibles.

Sally, the guard, comes by the cell and says to me, “You cain’t have nuthin’ but one bible in here.”

“Why, because you have too many books to search through when you’re looking for tobacco at two in the morning?”

“You guys is lazy. You just sit up in here like the Queen of Sheeba, havin’ everybody waitin’ on you.”

“And exactly what else are we to do?” I ask. “We have nothing. I mean nothing. You tell us we can’t have anything but religious materials, then you try to take them away. Clergy can’t even visit anymore.”

“You don’t need nuthin’ but one bible to do bible studies.”

“I study different versions.”

“Are you Catholic?”

“Oh, here we go. I happen to be studying Catholicism.”

“You cain’t study nuthin’ from two different bibles! One’s Baptist and the other one’s Catholic.”

“So?”

“Well them’s two different religions. You cain’t do that.”

“Same textbooks, except the apocrypha.”

“You cain’t study Baptist and Catholic at the same time! I was gonna be a Mormon one time, till I done read that Mormon bible. They be marryin’ all them wives and everything. I cain’t do that. I done decided I couldn’t be no Mormon.”

“Mormons don’t do that anymore. It’s against the law.”

“You cain’t study two religions.”

“I like to learn. I love to study. I’d take classes, but the jail won’t let us. This is all we have in here, Sally. First, it’s books they take away. Then, it’s classes and 12-step meetings. Then medication, and health and dental care. Then, outside recreation. And then it’s toilet paper. We have to jump in the shower after we use the toilet!”

“They’re gonna start charging you if y’all make any more hair rollers out of toilet paper.”

“Fine. Put the toilet paper on commissary then. Did you know that we get two individual paper towel squares to clean the whole cell? And then, when we use a pad, they put us all on pad watch.”

“We’re spendin’ too much money on y’all.”

“The woman next door is on pad watch, Sally. She just had an emergency c-section. She nearly died in here. Her placenta was 75% abrupt, and the baby was breach. His foot was through her cervix, and you guys walked her out of here in shackles after making her wait for an hour while she nearly bled to death! And here’s the kicker: She is on Pad Watch.” They flew her two-pound, three-month premature baby to another state, Sally, and she gets three pads a day, including the pus pad for her incision. Where is the Queen of Sheba in that?”

Sally says, “Don’t get smart with me. I don’t make the decisions.”

Actually, Sally is correct. She never did make the decisions, and, aside from this encounter that was frustrating for both of us, I found Sally to be kind-hearted. I also observed that Sally’s job was nearly killing her. I think she wanted for things to be better for the inmates.

By inches and seconds, the jail ruins inmates and guards alike.

Penitentiary First Impressions: Frog Gravy 30 [with jail art]

Jail House Mouse by Crane-Station on flickr. Jail art, pencil

Author’s note: Frog Gravy is a nonfiction account of incarceration in Kentucky, first in jails and then in prison, during 2008 and 2009, and is reconstructed from my notes.

Names are changed, except for nicknames that do not reveal identity.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

I also post at Firedoglake.com in the MyFDL diary section.

KCIW, PeWee (pronounced Pee Wee) Valley Women’s Penitentiary near Louisville, December, 2008

After nearly a year in two Kentucky county jails, I am thankful to be in prison at last. County jail time is the hardest time that an inmate can possibly do. There is no education, little or no treatment, often no work or not enough work, few programs, and rarely, in some cases, is there even the one hour of recreation. Twenty-three hours a day in a cell is simply not true. In McCracken, for example, I was in the cell for weeks at a time without recreation.

Kentucky warehouses non-violent inmates in county jails, often for years at a time, and it ruins people. Kentucky is turning county jails into prisons.

A brief general note on classification: A Class A felony is the most serious, and carries a minimum sentence of 20 years to life.

Class B: 10-20 years

Class C: 5-10 years

Class D: 1-5 years

I was convicted of two drug felonies: possession of one-tenth of a gram of crack and tampering. I received nearly the maximum sentence for each- four years each for a total of eight years. So, I was a Class D. But since my sentence was so long, in some circles I was considered a Class C. In other words, the sentence length was problematic. It was too long for some things and not long enough for others, leaving me in an exclusion zone with very few options. I could not get to prison, because of my non-violent status. But I could not get into any programs either, because my status was technically not serious enough. The judge denied all forms of treatment. Once I was with DOC, I could not get into some programs such as the Substance Abuse Program (SAP), because I was a Class D and not a Class C. But I could not do Legal Aide training or work in industries because my sentence was not long enough.

Never in my life did I imagine that there would be a time that I would beg to get to a penitentiary, but I did. I often joked that, had I known all of this beforehand, rather than not commit a crime and receive an eight-year sentence that was for non-violent crimes, I might have fared better if I had killed someone. At least I would have been in prison, doing something constructive. Alternatively, I would have been free much sooner, had I taken a deal. However, I steadfastly refused any and all plea deals.

All penitentiary inmates (there are about 700 at PeWee) are required to work. I am ecstatic to have an outside job with the landscaping department.

Last night’s fried fish dinner was awful for everyone except Bob, the resident possum, who was happy to have fried fish. Poor thing. He is so ugly he is cute, and today he came so close that I got a good look at his pink snout.

This morning for work, I put on two t-shirts, my khaki short-sleeve shirt and then my khaki long-sleeve shirt, plus two pairs of khaki pants. The pants are too big, so I wrap rubber band hair ties around the bunched elastic at the waistband. I then put on my only pair of “winter” socks and then my work boots. I don my khaki jacket and over that a nylon rain coat and over that a reflective vest.

I pull out a nail clipper and clip five holes in each of two tube socks, and place the socks on my hands. Over the socks, I put on cloth work gloves.

It is snowing, large chunks followed by smaller, harder, sleet-like snow.

In the cardboard recycle pile at work where I break down boxes, I find two full bags of discarded chips and save them for Bob and the birds. Already, my prison name is Bird Lady. Most inmates do not even know my name. I am Bird Lady, or Miss Bird Lady, a polite, Southern way of saying the name.

As I break down boxes, I read labels. Our produce comes, for the most part, from foreign countries. Indonesia, The Philippines, and so on. Our shoes, socks, hygiene products and almost everything else come from China, Vietnam, Mexico and other places. I notice that some beef products come from Brazil.

My current colored pencils come from China. An earlier set was made in Indonesia, probably in a sweat shop by people who do not read, write or draw. I begin to wonder why we hate immigrants so much in this country, when we outsource our labor. Foreign hands sew our clothes and pick our produce, so why do we get hateful when people want to come to this country to do the same work?

My current inmate work partner, Molly, did not come to work this morning; she uses the weather as an excuse for her laziness. I am relieved, because I would have received some unwelcome, far-fetched lecture about Bob and how, at any moment, he may just attack us for no reason. I got the lecture yesterday, and I cannot reason with Molly by pointing out that possums are hated, abused and harmless.

Sometimes you cannot reason with non-reason. I once heard an inmate go on and on about the danger and aggressiveness of ladybugs.

There is a Jail House Mouse pictured above. Here is his description:

-Born in a hole in Soledad.
-Never knew his mother
-never knew his dad.
-been in every prison, level one to level five.
-Harley wings tattoo in Folsom.
-steals commissary, cell to cell and sneaks into cells and takes cookies from boxes.

Author’s end note: This is to be continued. I am trying to keep each post short.

Intermission With Clowns: Conversation In The Cell: Frog Gravy 16

Author’s note: Frog Gravy is a depiction of daily life during incarceration in Kentucky, first in jails and then in prison, in 2008 and 2009, and is reconstructed from my notes.

Names have been changed, except for nicknames that do not reveal identity.

This post is from jail.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

McCracken County Jail, Cell 107, February 2008

I am seated at the steel table, tearing the back blank pages out of various novels, and folding the pages into origami cranes. The novels are from the jail ‘library.’ The titles are: Killing Kelly, The Kill Zone, Renegade, Hand Picked Husband, Cold Night Warm Stranger and Love’s Stolen Promises.

Ruthie is seated next to me, watching. She wants to learn how to fold cranes. I have asked her to watch me fold a few first, and then I will teach her.

The current crane is from Hand Picked Husband.

Leese is on her bunk, writing a poem. Sirkka is on Terry’s bunk, rubbing Terry’s back. The television is on, airing The Price Is Right.

Down the hall in his isolation cell, Harry yells “HELP! Let me out! Helpmehelpmehelpme HELP!”

Christie is on her bunk, talking:

“Last time I was in the hole, I was next door to Trip, and I mean we talked all night. I am not lyin,’ he was hung just like a mule, and he’d get down onto the floor underneath the door like this…” (She demonstrates), “and stick his thing under the door and say, “Can you see it now?!””

“He was hung,” agrees Tina, “Especially for a white boy.”

Christie continues: “And he said if I send you a piece of paper will you wipe your coochie on it and send it back to me? And at first I wasn’t gonna do it, but he’d say, “Chicken, you chicken,” so then I did it.”

“And?” I ask.

“And there was all this pantin’ and everything, and then it was quiet.”

“Trip was a trip,” says Tina. “He used to jerk off at the window to the hallway when we were walking by his cell on our way to church service.”

“Didn’t he get kicked out of church for that?” asks Sirkka.

“Yeah,” says Tina. “And there’d be all this jizz on the windows…”

“That’s not as bad as Jennifer up on the table naked with a shampoo bottle up her cooch when the men walked by,” I say.

A male Class D, Walter, who has a crush on Christie, walks by the hallway window with a broom and signals Christie that he has a note for her, but he will wait until the guard passes.

The guard, Sally, opens the door flap to our cell, hands in a roll of toilet paper, and says, “You bitches is lazy.”

Sally closes the flap and leaves.

“Isn’t she going to retire soon?” I ask.

“She’s always been like that,” says Christie.

Walter comes back, and sweeps a note for Christie under the door with the broom.

Walter wants the other Class D who works the hallway with him fired, so Walter can have the whole hallway to himself. He has cooked up a scheme. He wants us to put a note out to the guards.

Walter has taken the time to compose the note for us. It reads:

“That man on Class D, second shift, askd us to suck his big black dick. We is white women and we are not enterested.”

Tina says, “I don’t want to write a note out on Cecil.”

“Neither do I,” I say. “He never hurt any of us.”

Terry says, “Yeah. He never hurt nobody.”

Suddenly Sirkka jumps up and runs across the room shouting, “OH! What the fuck was THAT?! You nasty bitch!!”

It seems that Terry has just farted.

Christie says, “She lifted her ass cheeks, just like a man.”

Tina says, “Something crawled up in there and died.”

“Put a cork in yer butt,” says Leese.

“I can’t poop. That’s the problem,” says Terry.

“Put some soap in your butt,” says Christie. “I used to do that with my daughter when she was constipated.”

“Yeah, it works,” says Tina.

I can’t believe it but Terry is headed to the toilet with soap in hand.

“Rachel, help me,” says Terry from the stall.

“Not with that, nope,” I say.

“Just put a little piece in, then pull it out,” says Christie.

“Does it burn?” asks Terry.

“Have you ever had a dick up your ass?” asks Leese.

“She didn’t just say that,” I say.

From the stall, Terry says, “I don’t believe you, Leese. Have you ever had a dick up your ass?”

“Hell, yeah. He done popped the head in and I kicked the motherfucker right off and ran to the shower, cryin.’ I cried when I shit. I don’t let no dick up my asshole.”

Tina says, “You can come with a dick up your ass.”

Terry (in the stall) says, “This burns like a dick up your ass.”

Christie says, “Put your leg up. Stick the bar further up your ass.”

Leese says, “Courtesy flush, courtesy flush!”

“What?”

“You drop ten turds…you flush eleven times. You’re gassin’ up the cell,” says Leese.

“Nice. We smell like goat herders at a vulture’s dinner,” I say.

Tina says, “These conversations we be havin.’ I ain’t never gonna be right when I git out.”

“You ain’t right now,” says Terry from the stall. “Ha! You may be right but you ain’t right now. Get it?”

“…said the woman with a bar of jail house soap up her ass,” I say.

Author’s end note: Frog Gravy posts are also located on Firedoglake.com under MyFDL