Prison Camp: Becoming an Inmate Continued
A Forum for Stories of Incarceration, Justice, and Redemption
On certain days, prison feels like the afterlife, on other days, like a typical work day, and on most days, a bad dream enduring the slow torture of meaningless, menial tasks. I lived among one hundred other inmates, more wilderness than community. There is nothing more solitary than living among the exiled.
A MUDDLED BROTHERHOOD: Portraits of three inmates
Over time, after the period of adjustment is over and a routine is established, each inmate comes to terms with the frightening prospect that prison is home. Despite the conditions, I embraced a life of contemplation, renewal, and earnest self-reflection. I considered myself to be a person of conscience. But reconciling this with the reality of my crimes and being exiled in prison would provide an existential challenge. I concluded that men can always dream of a new start and redemption, but can never extinguish the history of their malfeasance. Overcoming disgrace is a fool’s errand. I could only accept it and try to move forward. I decided that this was my new community and that these men would form a new circle of life for me, and I would embrace them.
The cubicles that comprise the dorm area morph into neighbourhoods, tribes form, and inmates move next to theirs. It’s inevitable, I guess. I made up the names based on my New York City roots: Northern Boulevard (as in Queens, NY; the only corridor of mixed identities,) Spanish Harlem (the Hispanic drug dealers from Puerto Rico,) Harlem (the young Black gang members,) Jamaica (several island guys), the Middle East (the Muslim community,) Israel (including the Russian Jews,) and Park Avenue, where the white-guys congregated. Corridors weave between sixty-four cubicles, and there’s a continual passing in the hallways where each inmate is confronted continually by the repassing. Some inmates looked straight ahead without a word, others employed a slight nod of acknowledgement, and some a “what’s up,” without a look, which became the most popular form of passing. I never really figured it out. It was always uncomfortable.
Prison camps are working camps. Everyone’s assigned a job. There were no great options: orderly, maintenance, the kitchen, landscaping, the commissary, the power house, and the military base. Otherwise, there’s dog training and education. Dog training is popular because the trainers live in a larger bunk with only their pet as a bunkmate. However, it has its downside: walking at 5:00 am, and just before lights out at 10:00 pm, in any weather. There was only one slot for education, and it’s like teaching high school in a second language, maybe a third language. I chose the kitchen. I learned to do the washing, the loading, and even operate the long stainless steel washing machine, a frightening apparatus that had to be reassembled every morning and was rumoured to have taken limbs from prior inmates. By the time I was released, I was the Number one dishwasher. Guys used to kid me. “DiMenna, you can always get a job now when you’re out.” Such a distinction. Actually, I was proud of it. I even got to like it. Something about the tactile there. I can’t explain it. Sometimes, I think it saved me.
Since my early release in 2020, due to Covid-19, I’ve had time to reflect on those who were most impactful, whether they were friends, inmates I worked with, or those I didn’t interact with but were present for me in some fashion and were a significant part of my experience. Below are profiles of a few of those inmates who continue to haunt me as I try, like all of them, to reassemble my life after prison. I thought that profiles of the inmates I served with would be a worthwhile project, providing portraits of those men who remain a gravitational force in my life.
Here are three of the ‘Brotherhood’ who shaped my time at the camp. All out there somewhere. I still think about them.
THE MAD PROFESSOR
Lou—known as Crazy Lou—was a quirky, nerdy, former chiropractor in his fifties, who evoked the mad, crazed professor in the movie “Back to the Future.” He was the quintessential oddball. Convicted of major insurance fraud, he was featured on the business channel’s “American Greed” series. Although his medical designation was chiropractor, according to Lou, that was an incomplete and inadequate description of his expertise, and it didn’t come close to the unique medical professional he considered himself to be. All the other inmates disputed his accomplishments in this regard, but he had a good audience in me, so he sought me out. He told me that he could diagnose patients with a glance, a touch, or sometimes even a sound. Many, he told me, he healed over the phone. A woman whose blood color was black was diagnosed as genetic due to the guilt her mother had suffered during pregnancy. Another woman he diagnosed by placing his hand on her stomach and determined that a devastating cancer of the uterus was looming, and recommended that she see an oncologist. She didn’t believe him, neglected his advice, and died shortly after that. He was outraged by her indifference to his diagnosis. She called him later when her diagnosis was confirmed. But he told me that he hung up on her.
“If they don’t listen to me,” he said, “they are dead to me.”
He had an unusual exercise routine, a strange series of stretches, mostly leaning to his left and right as he walked the track every day, in almost slow motion while stopping to spit every other minute. He said that spitting was essential for maintaining good health. His spitting disgusted the other inmates. But he was immune to criticism. “They’re all idiots,” he told me. At mealtimes, he devoured everything, managing extra trays of food through trades with other inmates who marveled at his capacity to eat, yet mysteriously never putting on any weight. He told me he had trained his pituitary gland with meditation.
He had been in prison for ten years when I met him, dedicating his time to gene research, the synthesis of cosmology, and neuro-genetics, and planning to study all of these subjects at Harvard upon his release. He spent hours after work in the cafeteria or library, reading medical textbook volumes, taking notes, and listening to Metallica through clumsy and worn-out headphones. He was convinced he would uncover the link to the above. Among his many outrageous claims was that he could levitate, or at least he was on the verge of accomplishing this feat. He said he was close to understanding dark energy, which was the source of the issue that overcomes gravity. He was also working on discovering the immortal gene in humans. He told me that we are all made of substances in the galaxy, of the same stuff as the stars and the planets. He will unlock all of it once he’s released. I believed him.
He told me I had good genes, but my posture was my weakness. He could fix me, he said, and he tried. He would have me sit in a chair, and from behind, he would suddenly quirk my neck right and left. You could hear the crack. While it never was painful, the sound was frightening. I finally refused this exercise, and he replaced it with a kind of bear hug, pinning me against the wall with several semi-violent lunges. I was convinced that we were on our way to a cure. (this is how crazy you can get in prison). But he was released before I was cured. I’ll never hear from him. But he’s out there, looking to save the world. Maybe he will.
THE RASTAFARIAN
Rasta was American-born and had no particular relationship with the other island inmates. But because of his Rastafarian dreadlocks, he was known to all the other inmates as Rasta. He was in his late thirties, midnight Black and as wily a character as there was in prison. Although not a big man, he was cut, supremely fit, a workout hound, and a big personality. He had an informal workout class for the white guys. Almost all of the over fifty guys worked out with him. He tried to recruit me, but his regimen was too intense for me.
You always knew when Rasta was in the room. Loud, laughing, shouting, or pleading his case about something. He was also the jailhouse lawyer for the Black community. And he was a good one. He even tried to help me. He wanted me to fire my attorneys.
“Fuck them lawyers…represent yourself….don’t you know the judge gives you more credit…he has to listen to you cause you’re disadvantaged…you don’ have no jackshit legal scumbag in front of him…these judges know…they know man…you stand there like a man…he’ll listen.”
He had hundreds of girlfriends who sent him nude photos of themselves. He had two full photo albums filled with them. He described them all as “friends with benefits.” There didn’t seem to be a girlfriend among any of them. He said there were some kids along the way, but they kept him out of it. He was a hard one to figure out. He was seemingly from everywhere: Connecticut, North Carolina, LA, and even New York City. And he touted several businesses, including real estate, for which he always picked my brain, because my career was in commercial real estate. Although it was drugs that brought him to prison, he told me he was swearing off them. His plan after prison was to open a string of workout gyms based on his unique regimen and located in the best locations in the US. He was a person of endless superlatives.
He was the only inmate who could reduce his sentence via a 2255 appeal provision. 2255 is a typical vehicle employed by inmates to reduce their sentence. The appeal is based on “ineffective assistance of counsel.” However, the success rate for this endeavour is minuscule. Every inmate believes his lawyer was either incompetent or screwed him. Ninety-nine per cent of 2255 submissions are rejected. However, Rasta was granted a furlough to attend the hearing of his appeal, where he argued his case himself, and the judge surprisingly released him. He stormed into my bunk.
“I’m takin off Big Brother…party tonight…I told them fuckers they better let me out by five…”
“Do they have to?”
“Fuckin eh, they do, or I’ll sue their ass.”
He had a huge smile as he said it. Then, a big hug, and he was gone. He said he was going to North Carolina, New York, Connecticut, and the West Coast, but he changed his mind every time we spoke, so I have no idea where he ended up. But I’m sure he’s carrying on. He said the one positive thing about prison was that a street guy like him and a business guy like me could come together as equals. After a while, I didn’t think that we were equals. He was by far the more intelligent man. Streetwise and otherwise. At the end of the day, he was a question mark to the overall inmate population. I thought he was genuine. Just a rare bird. Not for everyone. There was something inspiring about him. In some ways, I feel I let him down. I’m not entirely sure why that is. Maybe because we started out as fast friends, and then over time, our relationship just petered out. There was no falling out or dispute. We just drifted away as we all do, back to our tribes. It’s inevitable, I guess.
THE SINGER SONGWRITER
Brian Nelson was a former long-hauler who walked the track with a guitar, but everyone called him Nelson. He told me that there were three sex offenders in the main prison named Brian, and he didn’t want to be confused with them. He didn’t walk the track often and only during the summer. Although he was a long-term inmate, he was surprisingly not bitter. He was always on a diet, but none seemed to work. He told me that over the years, he had lost fifty pounds twice and put on fifty pounds twice. He was one of the few inmates who were balding and didn’t succumb to the popular shaved head trend. He certainly didn’t look like a singer-songwriter. But he was. Every once in a while, you’d see him strumming, meandering around the track, moving from the inside lane to the outside lane in a deliberate stride. Pausing, stopping, never acknowledging anyone, he seemed oblivious to everyone passing him. I’d hear melodies and lyrics that were very familiar, but none were anything I could have heard because he made them up as he walked. One night, just before count, he came into my bunk and told me he was going to organize a camp sing-along of the “Inmate’s Anthem,” which I had never heard of. He said I might not know it, but I would be able to figure it out and sing along with the rest of the camp. I was skeptical as I don’t have a great ear, but I said I’d try. He had a loud voice, and he was able to surprisingly quiet the entire dorm, just before the final count at 10:00 pm. The start was intermittent and soft, and the Spanish guys weren’t even trying at first, all confused about knowing the lyrics.
FIRST VERSE:
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.
At the start of the second verse, more inmates joined in, and Nelson was waving his arms like a conductor, his big gut jiggling, imploring everyone to sing it out. I couldn’t name the melody, but it was a familiar one and easy to sing along.
SECOND VERSE:
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU
Nelson, confident he had everyone’s attention, sang louder as we began the second verse, and by the end of the second verse, the whole camp got the joke and was singing loudly, lustily, heartily, and everyone was smiling and laughing. It got so loud that I was afraid a CO (Corrections Officer) would come back and start sending guys to the Shoe (solitary confinement).
THIRD VERSE:
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU
And on and on. We sang for ten minutes or more. One of the best nights in prison. In some ways, the obvious was more nuanced than when I first heard it, and I enjoyed the fun, the laughing, and the place. But the words began to sink in. I thought about Judge Bolden and his words about me at my sentencing hearing, that I had been disconnected from humanity. And I understood then that all of us, here, were all disconnected the moment we arrived in prison. And this is the anthem of the exiled. FUCK YOU.
The above excerpt is from an essay, A Muddled Brotherhood, published in Minutes Before Six, a literary journal that features work by writers with lived experience in incarceration. Read the complete essay here.
Up Next on White Collar Journal:
Wednesday (Justice Notes): Restitution: A life sentence Double-indemnity, or fair retribution
Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Prisoners’ Lament Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections
Sunday (Prison Camp): Prison becomes home More profiles, God, and other coping strategies
Thank you for these profiles of humanity. 🧡