Having completed the portraits from A Muddled Brotherhood, I thought I’d return to some of my earliest prison writing.
Moonstone Press will shortly publish a second edition of A Different Kind of Hell, a collection of fragments from my prison journal. I wrote many of these pieces in a kind of stream-of-consciousness prose, often without punctuation or conventional sentence structure, attempting to capture the disorientation and unreality of incarceration as I experienced it.
The following describes my arrival at the federal prison in Devens, Massachusetts, where I was unexpectedly placed in solitary confinement for three days before being transferred to the prison camp.
WELCOME TO PRISON
I thought I was ready for prison but not even close and maybe because I could self-surrender and the false comfort of that and my lawyer telling me all along that everything would be all right but never kept working out all right and when I finally arrived and the door closed behind me and I was standing alone in the stark waiting room with overwhelming despair and panic as one man and then another man checked me in and then another man told me to go to another room and then another man told me to strip and bend over and put on some clothes and then another man told me to go into another room and a pretty but scruffy girl in a Red Sox hat came in to the room and told me that prison is not like TV and that I had to go to Solitary for three days before I was checked into the camp where I thought I was going but not yet she said which sucks she said but that’s the way it is and then she left the room and another girl came in who was older and heavy set and said she was a psychologist but didn’t look like a doctor and asked me if I wanted to kill myself or kill anyone else and I asked her if anyone answers yes to these questions and she said yes they do and then she left the room and another guy called me out of that room and told me to go into another room with a large glass panel in the front with a dirty stainless steel toilet in it and I waited there thinking that was the room I would be in for three days but after a while another man came in who didn’t speak English very well and kept motioning me to do something but I didn’t understand so he pulled me up and I finally understood that he wanted me to turn around and he handcuffed me and took me up a staircase and then outside where a long block building loomed and we walked along a stone path with barbed wire along the path until we stood at a steel door that looked like it never opened but then it did suddenly and we were inside a dark hallway with a crowd of men in orange jump suits and guards with tattoos and long beards who looked like inmates shouting at one another and all the inmates in cuffs like me and one guard who seemed like the one in charge who shouted to the guy holding me to take me into another room where they uncuffed me but told me to strip again and then gave me an orange jump suit to ‘put this on ass hole’ and then another guard with a very long beard like the baseball players wear nowadays took me down a narrow hall with steel doors on both sides and tiny windows in each door and frightening faces staring out until somewhere in the middle of this hallway they opened one of the doors and pushed me in and I heard the steel door slam and the sound of keys jiggling as he walked away and I looked around at the dirty slimy cell and the filthy toilet and dirtier shower stall and the steel bed and a ceiling twenty feet above your head with a fan blowing cold air right in your face and I heard the guard shout as he walked away “Welcome to prison.”
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.
Thank you for reading White-Collar Journal. Subscribing is free, and I hope you’ll continue with me as I explore stories of incarceration, justice, and redemption.
If this piece resonated with you, consider sharing it or leaving a comment. To support this work and help spread awareness about justice reform for white-collar defendants, subscribe to White-Collar Journal and stay connected. John DiMenna is a member of the White Collar Support Group.
To leave a comment, Substack may ask you to verify your email address (a one-time step to prevent spam). You don’t need to subscribe or create an account. Just check your inbox for a one-time link.
The stream of consciousness nails the disorientation and craziness of this.
John, thank you for continuing to share these deeply personal experiences. There is something incredibly moving about the honesty and vulnerability in your writing. I can feel the fear, confusion, and disorientation you experienced, but also the strength it takes to revisit these moments and give them a voice.
What strikes me most is how vividly you convey the sudden loss of control, dignity, and sense of self that comes with entering an institution like this. Your words allow the reader to experience, even if only briefly, something that is difficult to fully comprehend unless one has lived through it.
I have always believed that there is tremendous value in your willingness to share these experiences, not simply as a reflection of your own journey, but as a way of giving others a deeper understanding of the human experience behind incarceration.
There is strength in your words, John, and a humanity that continues to resonate with me. I hope you recognize how meaningful your writing is, not only to me, but undoubtedly to many others who have the opportunity to read it.