Prison Camp: Daily Life
A White-Collar Journal forum for criminal justice, lived experience, and the personal search for redemption
When I arrived at federal prison, a minimum-security camp north of Boston, a muddled brotherhood was waiting for me. It was a diverse group of one hundred and twenty inmates, comprised of Hispanic drug dealers, Black gang members, violent offenders, insurance fraudsters, internet scammers, income tax cheats, sex offenders and white-collar offenders like me. Those with more serious violations had earned their transfers to the camps through good behavior at higher security prisons, and most were serving the last few years of their sentences. I was the oldest inmate at the camp, having turned seventy-six a few months before my arrival. At first, it was more wilderness than community. But, over time, we coalesced into a community, a true melting pot if there ever was one. Since my release, 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. Today I’ll begin a series profiling those inmates who continue to haunt me as I try, like all of them, to reassemble my life after prison.
CRAZY LOU
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 a 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 didn’t come close to the unique medical professional he deemed himself to be. His accomplishments in this regard were disputed by all the other inmates, but he had a good audience in me, so he sought me out. He told me that he could diagnose patients with a glance, or a touch, and sometimes a sound. Many, he told me, he healed over the phone. A woman, whose blood was black, he 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 should 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 in order to maintain good health. His spitting disgusted the other inmates. But he was immune to criticism. “They’re all idiots,” he told me. At mealtime, 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, synthesis of cosmology and neuro-genetics and planning to study all these subjects at Harvard when he was released. He spent hours after work in the cafeteria or library reading medical textbooks, taking notes, and listening to Metallica through clumsy and beaten-down 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 was on the verge of accomplishing this feat. He said he was close to understanding dark energy, which was the source to overcoming the issue of gravity. He was also working on discovering the immortal gene in humans. He told me that we are all made of the 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.
Up Next on White Collar Journal:
Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform
Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections
Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison
If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.
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