🔵 By Raymond Shaw. Photo by lauragrafie.
The automated door slid open with an electric swoosh, and at once I understood how sensitive the human senses could actually be. The air was putrid! My nostrils were assaulted by a scent of feces mixed with the odor of un-deodorized arm pits. A shrill cacophony of sounds pierced my eardrums. “Nigger, nigger, nigger. Niiiggger!” were the first words I heard as we entered the long corridor.
“All of you black heathens are nothing but niggers”, someone was yelling at me from behind a cell door. I tried to catch a glimpse of the racist as we walked by, but his cell window was covered with a brown substance I now know was his own excrement. I quickly wrote him off as a lunatic. Someone further down the hall was kicking on their door so hard the walls were shaking. A steady rhythmic kick. Doom! Doom! Doom! I wondered what his need was and how long he’d been kicking. Underneath those sounds I heard two others arguing. “You are a bitch, and your mama is a bitch, and your kids are bitches too”, the first guy taunted in a singsong voice. “I’ll be your bitch, but when I catch you”, he added “then we’ll see who the bitch is when I turn you into a fag, you punk!” Everyone knew that to call someone a bitch or fag in prison or anywhere else for that matter, were fighting words. I wondered what issues two men could have that would cause them to resort to those types of insults, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near them whenever they met face to face.
“Put my Rook on sixty!”, came yet another voice. “My Rook on four takes your Rook on sixty!”, came the quick reply. I realized two people were playing a game of chess amidst the madness, and I wondered how they could be playing together in two separate cells. As I shuffled through the hall the leg shackles bit into my ankles causing me to wince and walks slower. It seemed as if the female guard who was escorting me to the cell I would be occupying for the next forty-five days was immune to the stench and the madness. Her face was a blank slate as she stared straight ahead.
“Aye bitch!” came an unexpected shout as we passed another cell. “I’m gone beat yo ass when I catch you,” a guy threatened. Her reply was immediate and quick witted. “The only thing you gone beat is your dick,“ she responded without breaking stride. Everyone within ear distance broke out in laughter, including myself, but I noticed her grip on my arm tightened. The only sign that she may have been slightly rattled. With my hands and ankles shackled in cuffs it was standard practice for guards to hold your arm by the biceps to ensure you didn’t trip and fall.
As we stood in front of the cell she spoke into the radio attached to her shirt, “Open cell seven-teen.” The door opened automatically from the touch of a screen located in an officers station on the other side of the building. “Don’t try to kick me”, she warned as she squatted down to unlock the ankle cuffs. I informed her I was a man of respect, and I could tell she appreciated my kindness. Once the ankle cuffs were removed I stepped into the cell. “Close cell seven-teen.” the door slid shut with a resounding thud. She removed a large metal key from her waist belt and opened an elongated five inch by sixteen inch metal trap that was cut into the door. I stuck my wrists outside the trap opening and she removed the hand cuffs, closed the metal trap and quickly walked away.
I could hear the catcalls as she retraced her steps back through the long corridor. Men were heckling her and making lewd comments about her face and physical features. Usually those types of insults would be deemed disrespect and a conduct report written by her describing the incident and the inmate(s) involved. I was especially surprised she didn’t write a report on the guy who had threatened to beat her ass. That would be deemed Threats and Disruptive Conduct, all violations of the Rules Of the Department of Corrections’ 303 Code Of Inmate Offenses And Disciplinary Procedures. However, this was segregation and not General Population and most of the guys were already sentenced by a hearing committee to serve anywhere from thirty to three-hundred sixty-five days in segregation status. I turned to look into the cold five by ten foot cell. The walls were devoid of color. A metal sink/toilet combo was attached to one wall. Adjacent to that was a concrete slab approximately twenty-four inches in height and five foot in length.
On the concrete bed, if you could call it that, was a thin cracked plastic mattress. A thin blue blanket was rolled up on top of the mattress. Next to the concrete slab of a bed was another concrete slab that extended from the wall. It was to serve as a table. I quickly unrolled the blanket and found two thread bare sheets, a thread bare towel and wash cloth, a small sample size bar of soap, a four inch plastic comb, a Bob Barker brand miniature toothbrush and a Bob Barker tube of clear toothpaste. I wondered if the Bob Barker name on the hygiene items was the same guy who hosted the Price Is Right television game show. I sampled the toothpaste with my finger, and it tasted like hair gel. I was disgusted. I quickly put the sheets on the mattress, tying them down to ensure they wouldn’t move.
I wanted to look out of the window cut into the wall alongside the concrete slab of a bed, but it was deliberately frosted so that there was no view to the outside world. The only thing you could determine from the window was whether it was day or nighttime. The artificial light source inside the cell was encased by an elongated metal fixture. It was controlled by a metal censor attached to the wall. Touch the metal censor and the light would turn from dim, to normal, to bright. But, never off! I quickly realized that there would always be a dim unnatural light in the cell twenty-four hours a day seven days a week.
Someone was knocking on the wall from the cell next to mine. “What’s up,” I yelled through the small space on the side of the door. “Do you have any books over there, cuz you gone need them?” my neighbor asked and informed me at the same time. I told him I didn’t. “Well, they don’t allow personal books over here, so you betta catch that C.O and ask that bitch for a couple books to read. And, try to get some good shit by Stephen King or Robert Ludlum, cuz ain’t nobody gone wanna trade with you if you get some bullshit books.”
“Where are the books?” I inquired. “They have a book cart that comes around every Friday, but ain’t no good shit gone be on there? She gotta go in the lil’ room where they keep all the books and grab you something decent. So catch her when she make her next rounds.” He also informed me we couldn’t have any personal food or hygiene items purchased off the canteen while in segregation. No television, no radio, no newspapers or photos were allowed.
I also learned how harsh disciplinary segregation, otherwise known as “THE HOLE” could be. We only showered twice a week. Recreation activities are held inside the building in a single man cage the size of a large dog kennel. Otherwise, unless you had a call to the doctor or other officially related business, you were stuck inside the cell 24 hours a day with nothing except two books and whatever documents/papers you received from your attorney, friends and family. There were no weights to lift. No pull up bars or balls to bounce. Even chess boards had to be fabricated out of paper. And during a cell search you were subject to more disciplinary action if the wrong guard discovered you had made a chess board. It was considered possession of Contraband, and you could lose your privilege to have paper, which meant no books! While in the hole most inmates lived in constant fear of receiving Major Violations which meant more time in segregation. Over time I’ve learned of inmates who’d started out with thirty days hole time and ended up staying in segregation for several years!
I was grateful for the advice. Me and my neighbor exchanged names and discovered why we both were in the hole. He’d had a fight with another inmate and had received one hundred and twenty days disciplinary separation, which meant he only had to stay in the hole sixty days. He explained the difference in that if one received Program Segregation he had to serve every day instead of half time. “So, if I got ninety days for a positive urinalysis test for marijuana, then I only gotta do forty-five days right?” I asked.
“This your first time in the hole, so more than likely you’ll do forty-five days, but don’t hold your breath, cuz these bitches be trippin’. Never know what they gone do!” I couldn’t imagine staying in the hole for forty-five consecutive days, so I definitely didn’t want to stay for ninety.
I stood by the door listening and it sounded like all the inmates were in the cell with me. The noise was thunderous. Whether people were having mutual conversation, arguing, or playing chess, everyone had to yell to be heard, I wondered how anyone could sleep.
I had been incarcerated at the age of twenty in Waupun Correctional institution in Waupun, Wisconsin, for less than a year and had only heard all the horror stories about the hole. Now, I was living it myself. In my household no one had ever possessed any books, or read them. No literature whatsoever. No poetry or even short stories, nothing. Whether fact or fiction. The only book I could recall was a Bible my mother kept on her night stand. And, I never saw her read it. She just kept her money in it; either for good luck or because she believed that if someone broke in the house they wouldn’t search a Bible. The only other books were the ones I brought home from school to complete my homework. Standard text books only.
Nevertheless, I stopped the guard and asked her for two good books. She was nice enough to bring me two – the limit we could have while in the hole. “Sorry but this is all I could find,” she apologized as she unlocked the trap and handed me the books. I thanked her and sat on the concrete slab to inspect the books as if they were Christmas gifts. One was a thin fifty-page book about a woman and her dog. I frowned at it and almost threw it on the floor, and although I don’t remember the title or author, it was the first novel I’d ever read and remains one of the best books I’ve ever read to date. I didn’t understand then, but I understand now, why it is said we should NEVER judge a book by its cover. The other book was Pet Cemetery by Stephen King.
And although I’d already seen the movie, I learned then that there is no better medium for expressing ideas than the written word. For me, I discovered reading while in the hole, one of the harshest environments on earth, which was one of the best things to happen to me in my life. I completed the forty-five days and returned to general population with a sound mind, which can’t be said for other inmates…
It was my first time in the hole, but wouldn’t be my last…