...Every night the 2nd shift cops post a list of appointments and job changes on the glass-enclosed bulletin board. Most of the time these reports are taped to the wall. Either they cannot find the key to open the glass doors, or they are just too lazy to put them inside. I believe it is the latter, personally. My name was on the job change sheet for all to see. It was now official that I would have a job outside the unit! More people were approaching me and asking how I was able to get that job. It wasn't me, it was my God that provided this opportunity. I just didn't have the courage to say it like that. But it is true, God did arrange this.
It must seem odd to you that I was so excited about my new job in the laundry. This is prison and the pay is 12 cents per hour! Why would I be excited? I needed to feel normal in a very abnormal place. I didn't want to be confined inside the unit housing all day as an on-call janitor. I wanted a routine that would take me outside the housing. I wanted to work with a team. I wanted some dignity. And I wanted a job that my hero, Chuck Colson, held when he was in prison. I read about his work in the laundry in his book "Born Again". God honored me with this opportunity.
The laundry department is in the mall on the East side of the compound. It is between the medical department and the barber shop. Inside there is a small area for "customers" to wait for service, with a wooden bench and two fitting rooms. There is a stainless steel counter top that separates the waiting area from our working area. One end of the counter flips up so we can pass through. On the North wall there are three large industrial washing machines that sound like jet engines when they are in the spin cycle.
If they weren't bolted to the floor, I'm sure they would take off in flight. On the East wall we have three large built-in dryers. The dryers put out enough heat that they could be used as convection ovens, if we had a shelf to put food on. These dryers have a potential to ignite fires if they are not monitored carefully. This has not happened here, but it has at other prisons.
On the South wall is our tailor station, complete with a commercial singer sewing machine. Next to this is the Commanding Officer's office. The floor in this room is concrete with a glossy waxed finish. The room is very bright and clean. I believe it is the cleanest area in the facility. There are six inmates on the laundry detail. One man, Ted, who is from a small island off of Columbia and speaks broken English, is in charge of the washing machines and buffing the floor. Jeff is in charge of the dryers. He is the youngest (mid-20's) and struggles to work as a team. He is always trying short cuts, which I attribute to laziness, which usually backfire on him. They provide us with comic relief and frustration at the same time.
Dave is our uniform store room manager. He is the unofficial assistant to the C.O. and manages the inventory. He is also the one who recommended me for this position.
Garza is from South Texas and our official translator for Ted...at least he is when he can "stand" him. Sometimes it takes him a while to understand his broken Spanish before he can explain it to us. Many times he simply shrugs his shoulders indicating that he has no idea what Ted has said to us. Garza is our tailor and does a great job with repairs and alterations.
Alex and I serve as orderlies of our department. We keep the clean room clean. We also fold the sheets and blankets as they come out of the ovens. Alex moved to the USA many years ago and speaks pretty good English. Sometimes he is hard to understand as his Portuguese accent is very heavy. He is very patient with me and willing to repeat himself when I don't understand him. He is my age and maintains a comb-over to cover the space where hair once used to grow. He was given the nickname "Belvis", as he is our Brazilian Elvis. He likes Elvis music and the whispy comb-over and his triangle lamb chops give his nickname definition.
Since I have joined the department, we have come a long way as a team. We are developing a bond that goes beyond our work time. We all live in the same unit so we are around each other most of the time. We spend time waiting for lunch together and we hang out in the Spanish corner of the television room. I really need to learn the Spanish language!!!
We have two cops who supervise us. There is only one on-duty at a time. They are both nice to us and treat us as employees instead of inmates. This takes a while to get used to. They talk about their personal lives to us and tell us stories from other prisons they have worked at in the past. They treat us with respect, which in my mind is the best part about working in the laundry. Both cops have been at this institution since it opened in 1997. They both know exactly how many days they have left before they can retire and recite them much like inmates who can recite how many days they have left until they are released. They, like us, must do their time here. The difference is they are here voluntarily.
Both of them have very different ways of operating the department, which forces us to adapt how we behave with each of them. Despite their unique styles, they get along well with each other. Mr. Wess runs a tight ship. All customers must interact directly with him as we stand by for instructions. He is very intimidating to customers as he frequently will berate them to make a point or establish his position of authority. There are many times I felt really bad for the man who was the recipient of his disparaging rant. After the victim leaves with his dignity trailing behind him, the C.O. turns to us and makes comments to justify his behavior as though we need to validate him. Because he is like this, I have cautioned my friends to avoid asking him questions when he is on duty. One of my friends did not heed my advice and tried to exchange a long sleeve shirt for a short sleeved one. This C.O. told him no, while I watched as my friend was refused the request. In a split second my friend turned and looked at me. This happened so quick but it felt as though it was happening in super slow motion. His mouth opened and he began to ask me a question. I stood in horror as he started to ask me, "What day should I..." Thankfully he realized how wrong it was to finish the rest of the question and stopped! He then walked out of our store. The mere fact that he was asking ME the question in front of a cop is very dangerous because it challenges his authority and put us both at risk for further abuse. I spoke to my friend later that day and explained the peril he put me in with his "near" question.
Mr. Austin is the other cop who is much more relaxed. He allows us more freedom while we work. He welcomes special requests and will be fair about it. He will treat inmates with dignity and will reject requests with kindness. There are days our tailor wishes he would say no to some of the requests that come in. He is kind to us and goes out of his way to offer us perks. He gave us all two long sleeve t-shirts, which are rare here. He bought a box of gel pens and gave us one to use at work and for personal use. He allowed us to take some pine-sol back to our cubes so we can clean them better. He had our tailor customize my shirts for me. The shirt tales are short and my torso is long. So he had the tailor cut up three good shirts and sew them on to my shirts so that I would not have to keep tucking my shirt in. He goes out of his way to work with us and make it nice to work for him.
I mentioned earlier that being treated with respect by the C.O.'s was all I needed in exchange for my work. As it turns out, they still pay me a wage. Last month I was paid $28.50 for my labor!! However, I discovered the other benefits that come with the job. Every month we get extra hygiene products. I get an entire bottle of laundry detergent for personal use, extra razors, extra soap, extra toilet paper, brewed coffee (yum), extra socks, boxers, and t-shirts, extra writing tablets.
This may not seem like much to you, but these are great perks to have as they are more than others receive. I give some of these items away to others who need them. All of these items are given to me. Nothing is taken without permission. The previous laundry detail was stealing large quantities of supplies and selling them back to inmates. They were all fired for that reason.
I am undeniably blessed by God to have this job. The job provides definition to my day. It is meaningful, and I get and give respect while I am there. I have good friends to work with, even if I struggle to understand them at times. Going to work makes me feel a little more normal than I did as an orderly in the unit. Being normal in an abnormal environment is the key to surviving prison. I see men here who walk around like zombies, lost in their misery. I refuse to join them and with the power of the Holy Spirit, I can conquer this place!!!
May God bless you, May His Spirit be upon you...
McFreedom
Friday, June 14, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
INSIDE THE FENCE: The Blessing of Employment
Prison is the great equalizer. There are men here with different backgrounds and experiences. Some are highly educated and some can barely read. Some had great careers and some sold drugs on the street. Some are wealthy and some are broke. Being in prison brings everyone together on the same plane. Here we are all inmates. There are no exceptions. We are equals here.
Because we are equals, it means we all have to work. Our training, education and experiences don't have any impact on your first job. Everyone starts out working as an orderly when they first arrive, as did I. Orderly positions are not difficult. They are humbling positions of monotonous work, cleaning up after your fellow inmates. Each of the four units has the same positions. The duties are broken up so as to include many people.
My first assignment was to spot clean the walls and scrub the corner of the floor and the wall where they meet, which they refer to as the gray line, because it is painted gray. The hours we work are 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. There are not enough walls of gray lines to keep me busy the entire shift. I soon learned the routine was not like a job on the outside of the fence. In reality, the orderlies start earlier than 7:30. We begin at 4:30 a.m. to avoid the morning rush and therefore reduce conflict with inmates who have to get ready for their jobs outside of the unit. This means that at 4:30 in the morning, you can hear alarms beeping, brooms dragging on the floor, mop buckets with squeaky, wobbly wheels rolling down the dark hallways. We all move into action and get our jobs done before the Voice releases to Mainline. At 6:00 a.m., after breakfast, we would go back to bed. Periodically, through the day, we would touch up our work areas, as needed, until 3:30, after which the afternoon crew would take over the duties.
It wasn't long that somebody on our crew left, leaving his position of cleaning the hot and cold room and the unit laundry room. The head orderly moved me over the this new area. The unit laundry is a small room with three commercial top loading washing machines and three front loading dryers. These machines are free to the inmates to use as long as they provide their own detergent, which can be purchase in the commissary. Most men here prefer to do their own laundry in this room instead of having the compound laundry do it for them because there are about 150 men in the unit. These machines get a work out and the room is busy from 4:00 a.m. to midnight. Most men clean up after themselves, but this room is prone to heavy accumulations of lint!
The other room is the hot/cold room where we have a very large commercial ice maker. I am amazed at how much ice we use here. On warm days, the storage bin is empty by the afternoon. It works overtime producing ice at night. There is no door to this room, so the loud noises it makes are heard through the unit. Next to the ice machine is a hot water tap that has a heater on the other side of the wall, which provides, on demand, nearly boiling water (190 degrees) which we use for making coffee, soups and other cooking. Most prisons offer microwaves for this purpose. The folk lore passed along here states that we "did" have a microwave at one time, however, it is alleged that an inmate heated up liquid in the microwave and threw it at another inmate causing severe burns so they took away these microwaves and put in the 190 taps. Now we don't have to wait so long to heat water and burn someone. I have never seen our hot water used maliciously like that, except when I am not careful and burn my OWN hand. You just can't fix stupid!!!
My job was to clean these areas every morning and then touch them up every hour or so. By no means was it a difficult job.It was very annoying and I quickly tired of chasing lint bunnies around int he laundry room and removing ramen noodles from the 190 sink drain. Perhaps the worst was the smell of tuna or mackerel that would be stuck in the drain. So many of the guys are inconsiderate slobs in this room.
Every week the prison safety officer would tour the units and give us a score on how well we clean and live. We also recycle our paper, soda cans and plastic. The safety officer would produce a memo with the results of her inspection. This report would determine which unit would be dismissed for meals first. It would also bring about any necessary correction if your assigned area was found to be at fault for any point deduction. We never knew when the safety officer would make her rounds. The unit cops had different opinions about this. Some could care less about the inspections or even if we reported to work. Others seem to over react in the opposite extreme. They would do their own surprise inspections and hold you to task.
This was true of one cop who I named, Colonel Klink!! Col. Klink seemed more than obsessive about passing the safety inspection every week. The two areas I cleaned every day were the primary areas the inspection officer focused on. Subsequently, they were the most used and difficult to keep clean. There were many times I would be in my bunk between my periodic cleaning only to hear my name broadcast on the Voice. I would get up and walk across the building and report to Col. Klink. He woudl tell me that one of my rooms was a "mess" and required immediate cleaning. I would go to these areas for my own "inspection" and usually find a piece of lint that was recently released from the dryer filter or a fresh ramen noodle that escaped someone's bowl. Very minor infractions but enough to make my life miserable when Klink was on duty.
I knew this job was not for me. It seemed so pointless and endless. I wanted to find work outside of our unit building. Something that had more of a purpose and broke up my day. The problem is these jobs are not easy to come by. There are 600 men here, but there are not 600 jobs. You need to know your way around and know the right people to get these jobs. I was too new here to have connections. Even so, I would try.
I had heard that the medical department had an opening for an orderly. This would still be a janitor position, but it would be out of the unit and I would be working with the nurses, physicians assistants and the doctor. I thought I could fit in this department quite well, so I submitted a "cop out" requesting this position. Weeks went by without hearing any news. Then I learned it was filled by an older man who has been here longer than me.
I had mentioned my desire to change jobs to one of my new friends. He had one of those nice jobs in the laundry department in the "mall". I asked him if he would keep me posted if he heard of any opportunities. I am glad that I did this because it paid off!! A few weeks later, there was talk in the unit that many of the Hispanic inmates who were here for INS charges would be moved out to other prisons managed by private contractors. This was not a rumor, after all. They loaded a bus with these men, which left open beds and jobs. Two of them happened to be in the Laundry Department!
My friend told me about this opening so I promptly completed a cop out with my request and then proceeded to deliver it directly to the Laundry Cop. When I arrived, I introduced myself to the cop while the existing laundry workers watched, making for a very intimidating experience. I had never spoken to this cop before, so I did not know what to expect. I was blessed by his jovial style in his response, despite the coarse words which are a standard of most of the cops' vocabulary around here. In his disarming tone, he shared that he had a good recommendation from my friend. He then explained how he had two positions open, but he had filled one of them with my Christian friend, Alex, from Brazil. He told me that I was the second person and his vacancy was full. I walked out of the room stunned and in disbelief, but elated in a very subdued sort of way. I was happy to be done with my orderly position, which made it harder to go to work the next day.
I knew that getting this job was very unusual for a new inmate, like me. This had to be ordered by God. I was reserved in who I told about my new position. Those whom I confided in were equally surprised that I was awarded this position. After speaking with some of these men, I realized that positions in laundry were sought after. Some told me that they had tried to get in to the department but were refused. I decided not to tell any more people until I was officially transferred to the department, which seemed to be taking forever.
(TO BE CONTINUED....)
McFreedom
Because we are equals, it means we all have to work. Our training, education and experiences don't have any impact on your first job. Everyone starts out working as an orderly when they first arrive, as did I. Orderly positions are not difficult. They are humbling positions of monotonous work, cleaning up after your fellow inmates. Each of the four units has the same positions. The duties are broken up so as to include many people.
My first assignment was to spot clean the walls and scrub the corner of the floor and the wall where they meet, which they refer to as the gray line, because it is painted gray. The hours we work are 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. There are not enough walls of gray lines to keep me busy the entire shift. I soon learned the routine was not like a job on the outside of the fence. In reality, the orderlies start earlier than 7:30. We begin at 4:30 a.m. to avoid the morning rush and therefore reduce conflict with inmates who have to get ready for their jobs outside of the unit. This means that at 4:30 in the morning, you can hear alarms beeping, brooms dragging on the floor, mop buckets with squeaky, wobbly wheels rolling down the dark hallways. We all move into action and get our jobs done before the Voice releases to Mainline. At 6:00 a.m., after breakfast, we would go back to bed. Periodically, through the day, we would touch up our work areas, as needed, until 3:30, after which the afternoon crew would take over the duties.
It wasn't long that somebody on our crew left, leaving his position of cleaning the hot and cold room and the unit laundry room. The head orderly moved me over the this new area. The unit laundry is a small room with three commercial top loading washing machines and three front loading dryers. These machines are free to the inmates to use as long as they provide their own detergent, which can be purchase in the commissary. Most men here prefer to do their own laundry in this room instead of having the compound laundry do it for them because there are about 150 men in the unit. These machines get a work out and the room is busy from 4:00 a.m. to midnight. Most men clean up after themselves, but this room is prone to heavy accumulations of lint!
The other room is the hot/cold room where we have a very large commercial ice maker. I am amazed at how much ice we use here. On warm days, the storage bin is empty by the afternoon. It works overtime producing ice at night. There is no door to this room, so the loud noises it makes are heard through the unit. Next to the ice machine is a hot water tap that has a heater on the other side of the wall, which provides, on demand, nearly boiling water (190 degrees) which we use for making coffee, soups and other cooking. Most prisons offer microwaves for this purpose. The folk lore passed along here states that we "did" have a microwave at one time, however, it is alleged that an inmate heated up liquid in the microwave and threw it at another inmate causing severe burns so they took away these microwaves and put in the 190 taps. Now we don't have to wait so long to heat water and burn someone. I have never seen our hot water used maliciously like that, except when I am not careful and burn my OWN hand. You just can't fix stupid!!!
My job was to clean these areas every morning and then touch them up every hour or so. By no means was it a difficult job.It was very annoying and I quickly tired of chasing lint bunnies around int he laundry room and removing ramen noodles from the 190 sink drain. Perhaps the worst was the smell of tuna or mackerel that would be stuck in the drain. So many of the guys are inconsiderate slobs in this room.
Every week the prison safety officer would tour the units and give us a score on how well we clean and live. We also recycle our paper, soda cans and plastic. The safety officer would produce a memo with the results of her inspection. This report would determine which unit would be dismissed for meals first. It would also bring about any necessary correction if your assigned area was found to be at fault for any point deduction. We never knew when the safety officer would make her rounds. The unit cops had different opinions about this. Some could care less about the inspections or even if we reported to work. Others seem to over react in the opposite extreme. They would do their own surprise inspections and hold you to task.
This was true of one cop who I named, Colonel Klink!! Col. Klink seemed more than obsessive about passing the safety inspection every week. The two areas I cleaned every day were the primary areas the inspection officer focused on. Subsequently, they were the most used and difficult to keep clean. There were many times I would be in my bunk between my periodic cleaning only to hear my name broadcast on the Voice. I would get up and walk across the building and report to Col. Klink. He woudl tell me that one of my rooms was a "mess" and required immediate cleaning. I would go to these areas for my own "inspection" and usually find a piece of lint that was recently released from the dryer filter or a fresh ramen noodle that escaped someone's bowl. Very minor infractions but enough to make my life miserable when Klink was on duty.
I knew this job was not for me. It seemed so pointless and endless. I wanted to find work outside of our unit building. Something that had more of a purpose and broke up my day. The problem is these jobs are not easy to come by. There are 600 men here, but there are not 600 jobs. You need to know your way around and know the right people to get these jobs. I was too new here to have connections. Even so, I would try.
I had heard that the medical department had an opening for an orderly. This would still be a janitor position, but it would be out of the unit and I would be working with the nurses, physicians assistants and the doctor. I thought I could fit in this department quite well, so I submitted a "cop out" requesting this position. Weeks went by without hearing any news. Then I learned it was filled by an older man who has been here longer than me.
I had mentioned my desire to change jobs to one of my new friends. He had one of those nice jobs in the laundry department in the "mall". I asked him if he would keep me posted if he heard of any opportunities. I am glad that I did this because it paid off!! A few weeks later, there was talk in the unit that many of the Hispanic inmates who were here for INS charges would be moved out to other prisons managed by private contractors. This was not a rumor, after all. They loaded a bus with these men, which left open beds and jobs. Two of them happened to be in the Laundry Department!
My friend told me about this opening so I promptly completed a cop out with my request and then proceeded to deliver it directly to the Laundry Cop. When I arrived, I introduced myself to the cop while the existing laundry workers watched, making for a very intimidating experience. I had never spoken to this cop before, so I did not know what to expect. I was blessed by his jovial style in his response, despite the coarse words which are a standard of most of the cops' vocabulary around here. In his disarming tone, he shared that he had a good recommendation from my friend. He then explained how he had two positions open, but he had filled one of them with my Christian friend, Alex, from Brazil. He told me that I was the second person and his vacancy was full. I walked out of the room stunned and in disbelief, but elated in a very subdued sort of way. I was happy to be done with my orderly position, which made it harder to go to work the next day.
I knew that getting this job was very unusual for a new inmate, like me. This had to be ordered by God. I was reserved in who I told about my new position. Those whom I confided in were equally surprised that I was awarded this position. After speaking with some of these men, I realized that positions in laundry were sought after. Some told me that they had tried to get in to the department but were refused. I decided not to tell any more people until I was officially transferred to the department, which seemed to be taking forever.
(TO BE CONTINUED....)
McFreedom
Thursday, June 6, 2013
INSIDE THE FENCE: The Voice
Being that this prison is of low security and we are allowed to roam around freely within the compound, getting information from the staff to an inmate becomes a challenge.
You must also understand that the guards would prefer not to communicate with us in the first place. We are inconsequential to them. An inconvenience to their "busy work schedule". The last thing they want to do is track us down. In fact, they will not physically go and look for any of us.
The solution to this problem is "the Voice". They have an intercom system wired throughout the compound and in the buildings. The speakers are located on the ceilings every 30 feet. You cannot hide from the Voice. The speakers are connected to the phone system rendering every phone a "microphone".
There are some limitations to the Voice. Rooms like the chapel, the bathrooms, the unit laundry and the recreation yard do not have speakers for the Voice. In these areas, you have to make sure you wear a watch and remain aware of critical count times.
The Voice is available 24/7 but normally stops after the 9:30 p.m. count. It starts up again in the morning around 5:45 a.m. when the laundry workers are paged to report to work. Around 6:00 a.m. the Voice will call the cadre to breakfast ahead of everyone else, as they need to report to work outside the fence. Soon after that, they announce the opening of the mainline for the rest of the unit. Breakfast mainline is not heavily attended as most choose to sleep.
As the day moves forward, the Voice continues to call inmates to medical or to see their counselors or case workers. Occasionally the Voice calls people to the compound office to see the on-duty lieutenant. These calls are the most dreaded of all, as it could mean that you have not been responsive to other pages, or you are in trouble, or that you are going to be transported off site for medical treatment. You never know what the purpose is until you arrive at the office.
On one occasion, I heard the Voice call an elderly inmate to the compound office. He disappeared for two weeks and we had no idea why he was gone. The cops went to his cube and collected his personal belongings and locked them in storage.
When the old man returned, we learned that he spent a night in the SHU and then went to one of the local hospitals where they performed heart by-pass surgery. The entire time he was there, he had a cop with him and was kept handcuffed to the bed by his legs and one hand. He knew that he was going to have this procedure done, but he had no idea when it would happen. He had to wait for the Voice to call him to the office.
The Voice takes on many different personalities, since every staff member has access to the system, we hear a wide range of styles. Some struggle with making the Voice work. They might hang up the phone too soon and cut off part of the message. Others start pushing buttons on the phone while the Voice is on sending shrills through our ears. Still others have a problem speaking clearly while using the Voice. This may be because many of them are chewing tobacco. This would explain why their Mountain Dew bottles are partially filled with brown, chunky liquid. Sorry for the detail, but it is true. A good majority of the staff here either chew or smoke tobacco on the job.
Some of the cops use the Voice to audition for their retirement career. Every time the Lieutenant announces recall, he is rehearsing for his career as a boxing referred. First he will clear his voice while the speakers are on. Then he will announce "RECALL" in a deep commanding tone as he builds with a crescendo! The lieutenants are quite arrogant and like to hear themselves.
Our unit cops can also be creative as they interject their own brand of humor on the Voice. Every day the cops must fulfill a quota of breathalyzer tests. Some cops will walk around with the hand-held analyzer and have us blow into it. Other cops will take a more lazy approach and select a group and page them to their office. One of these cops maintained a sense of humor by calling six men whose last names began with the letter "H". After he read off the names he announced over the Voice, "This breathalyzer test was brought to us by the the letter "H"! Just as if he was on Sesame Street!!
There are even lazier cops than these. One example is the cop who came to a group of us and took down our names. We did not blow into the analyzer, but he told us we all passed. He also told us if anyone would ask us to verify his report, we should lie and tell them we did blow and it was zero. I was not worried about having to lie as nobody has ever challenged the results of these tests.
The limitations of the Voice can get you into trouble. There is only one speaker for the Voice in the outside yard. One speaker is enough if there is no wind, you are not wearing a hat over your ears, and especially if you are wearing headphones and listening to an MP3 player. But, if any of the above is happening, it is highly likely that you will miss an important announcement. This is how I almost got in trouble. I was walking the track on a winter night and listening to music. I knew the rec yard would closed in 15 minutes so I double checked my watch before starting my last lap. I had made the turn away from the building and I could see a cop back at the entry point so I turned around and headed back. I got to the place where the cop was standing and he asked me in the standard gruff and demeaning tone if I had heard the page for recall. I told him that I could not hear anything with the wind blowing the wrong way. I also let him know that I had been checking my watch for the standard recall time. I assume that I had satisfied him with my responses as he stood in silence as I walked passed him back to the unit.
Our day-to-day activity is directed by this Voice. We are compelled to obey its commands, if we are tuned in to it. Some choose to ignore the Voice which results in more demanding pages. Before I came to prison I had two cellphones, two e-mail accounts, a home phone and a facebook account. These became the Voice on the outside. They too compelled me to obey them with responses. They gave me more tasks to perform and obligations to perform. They hit me from all different directions. Now I only have the Voice from the speakers. The problem is we all share the same Voice which can be annoying especially on the mornings we get to sleep in. So I guess you could say that I traded in all the many sources I had on the outside with the Voice here inside the Fence.
With the exception of the few areas where the Voice cannot reach, there is not much you can do to escape its reach. The best way to drown out the Voice is with a pair of headphones and an MP3 player. Both are available from commissary and I am blessed to have them both. The head phones are not as good as the Bose headphones I had at home, but they are pretty amazing for being in prison. They fit over my ears comfortably and have a clear sound when you turn up the volume on the MP3 player. They are made by Koss and have a built-in sub-woofer that requires batteries. They call them the "HQ1 Vibration Stereophone". I call them my sanity savers. They allow me to escape the noise around me including the Voice. They are my escape from this place.
I planned to end this entry with the previous paragraph, but I couldn't help but realize how this discussion about the Voice has become an unintended analogy about how God communicates with us. God is our Voice. God's Voice may not be audible, like the Voice here at Elkton, but it is still the Voice of God, who communicates to us through His many personalities. He speaks through His Words in the Bible. The story of God is revealed from Genesis to Revelation. We learn of His character and how He loves us despite our failures and short-comings.
He speaks to us through our conscience and our thoughts. He is woven into our sense of right and wrong. He speaks to us through our Worship in songs of praise. He speaks to us through the messages of our Pastors, who teach from His Word. He speaks to us through our friends who encourage us and speak words of life into our lives. He speaks in theh majesty of the towering mountains and in the roaring of the sea. He is in the raging water of the mighty rivers and in the quiet streams. He speaks in the storms of life and in the quiet moments of prayer and solitude.
There are times we drown out the sound of God's Voice. We ignore His calling and hide in our busy life-style. We suppress His Voice by turning up the volume of our career, our softball leagues, our televisions, our video games, our pornography, our alcohol, our drugs. They all can become the headphones we use to drown out the sound of God's Voice.
God is speaking to us every day. He is calling us to Him, so He can lead us and guide us through the storms of our life. Are we listening for His call? Are we responding to His call?
"The sheep hear his voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When He has brought out all His own, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His VOICE!" John 10:3-4
Don't put the 'headphones' of life on and drown out the Voice of God. Answer His call and He will lead you. Slow down and listen.
-McFreedom
You must also understand that the guards would prefer not to communicate with us in the first place. We are inconsequential to them. An inconvenience to their "busy work schedule". The last thing they want to do is track us down. In fact, they will not physically go and look for any of us.
The solution to this problem is "the Voice". They have an intercom system wired throughout the compound and in the buildings. The speakers are located on the ceilings every 30 feet. You cannot hide from the Voice. The speakers are connected to the phone system rendering every phone a "microphone".
There are some limitations to the Voice. Rooms like the chapel, the bathrooms, the unit laundry and the recreation yard do not have speakers for the Voice. In these areas, you have to make sure you wear a watch and remain aware of critical count times.
The Voice is available 24/7 but normally stops after the 9:30 p.m. count. It starts up again in the morning around 5:45 a.m. when the laundry workers are paged to report to work. Around 6:00 a.m. the Voice will call the cadre to breakfast ahead of everyone else, as they need to report to work outside the fence. Soon after that, they announce the opening of the mainline for the rest of the unit. Breakfast mainline is not heavily attended as most choose to sleep.
As the day moves forward, the Voice continues to call inmates to medical or to see their counselors or case workers. Occasionally the Voice calls people to the compound office to see the on-duty lieutenant. These calls are the most dreaded of all, as it could mean that you have not been responsive to other pages, or you are in trouble, or that you are going to be transported off site for medical treatment. You never know what the purpose is until you arrive at the office.
On one occasion, I heard the Voice call an elderly inmate to the compound office. He disappeared for two weeks and we had no idea why he was gone. The cops went to his cube and collected his personal belongings and locked them in storage.
When the old man returned, we learned that he spent a night in the SHU and then went to one of the local hospitals where they performed heart by-pass surgery. The entire time he was there, he had a cop with him and was kept handcuffed to the bed by his legs and one hand. He knew that he was going to have this procedure done, but he had no idea when it would happen. He had to wait for the Voice to call him to the office.
The Voice takes on many different personalities, since every staff member has access to the system, we hear a wide range of styles. Some struggle with making the Voice work. They might hang up the phone too soon and cut off part of the message. Others start pushing buttons on the phone while the Voice is on sending shrills through our ears. Still others have a problem speaking clearly while using the Voice. This may be because many of them are chewing tobacco. This would explain why their Mountain Dew bottles are partially filled with brown, chunky liquid. Sorry for the detail, but it is true. A good majority of the staff here either chew or smoke tobacco on the job.
Some of the cops use the Voice to audition for their retirement career. Every time the Lieutenant announces recall, he is rehearsing for his career as a boxing referred. First he will clear his voice while the speakers are on. Then he will announce "RECALL" in a deep commanding tone as he builds with a crescendo! The lieutenants are quite arrogant and like to hear themselves.
Our unit cops can also be creative as they interject their own brand of humor on the Voice. Every day the cops must fulfill a quota of breathalyzer tests. Some cops will walk around with the hand-held analyzer and have us blow into it. Other cops will take a more lazy approach and select a group and page them to their office. One of these cops maintained a sense of humor by calling six men whose last names began with the letter "H". After he read off the names he announced over the Voice, "This breathalyzer test was brought to us by the the letter "H"! Just as if he was on Sesame Street!!
There are even lazier cops than these. One example is the cop who came to a group of us and took down our names. We did not blow into the analyzer, but he told us we all passed. He also told us if anyone would ask us to verify his report, we should lie and tell them we did blow and it was zero. I was not worried about having to lie as nobody has ever challenged the results of these tests.
The limitations of the Voice can get you into trouble. There is only one speaker for the Voice in the outside yard. One speaker is enough if there is no wind, you are not wearing a hat over your ears, and especially if you are wearing headphones and listening to an MP3 player. But, if any of the above is happening, it is highly likely that you will miss an important announcement. This is how I almost got in trouble. I was walking the track on a winter night and listening to music. I knew the rec yard would closed in 15 minutes so I double checked my watch before starting my last lap. I had made the turn away from the building and I could see a cop back at the entry point so I turned around and headed back. I got to the place where the cop was standing and he asked me in the standard gruff and demeaning tone if I had heard the page for recall. I told him that I could not hear anything with the wind blowing the wrong way. I also let him know that I had been checking my watch for the standard recall time. I assume that I had satisfied him with my responses as he stood in silence as I walked passed him back to the unit.
Our day-to-day activity is directed by this Voice. We are compelled to obey its commands, if we are tuned in to it. Some choose to ignore the Voice which results in more demanding pages. Before I came to prison I had two cellphones, two e-mail accounts, a home phone and a facebook account. These became the Voice on the outside. They too compelled me to obey them with responses. They gave me more tasks to perform and obligations to perform. They hit me from all different directions. Now I only have the Voice from the speakers. The problem is we all share the same Voice which can be annoying especially on the mornings we get to sleep in. So I guess you could say that I traded in all the many sources I had on the outside with the Voice here inside the Fence.
With the exception of the few areas where the Voice cannot reach, there is not much you can do to escape its reach. The best way to drown out the Voice is with a pair of headphones and an MP3 player. Both are available from commissary and I am blessed to have them both. The head phones are not as good as the Bose headphones I had at home, but they are pretty amazing for being in prison. They fit over my ears comfortably and have a clear sound when you turn up the volume on the MP3 player. They are made by Koss and have a built-in sub-woofer that requires batteries. They call them the "HQ1 Vibration Stereophone". I call them my sanity savers. They allow me to escape the noise around me including the Voice. They are my escape from this place.
I planned to end this entry with the previous paragraph, but I couldn't help but realize how this discussion about the Voice has become an unintended analogy about how God communicates with us. God is our Voice. God's Voice may not be audible, like the Voice here at Elkton, but it is still the Voice of God, who communicates to us through His many personalities. He speaks through His Words in the Bible. The story of God is revealed from Genesis to Revelation. We learn of His character and how He loves us despite our failures and short-comings.
He speaks to us through our conscience and our thoughts. He is woven into our sense of right and wrong. He speaks to us through our Worship in songs of praise. He speaks to us through the messages of our Pastors, who teach from His Word. He speaks to us through our friends who encourage us and speak words of life into our lives. He speaks in theh majesty of the towering mountains and in the roaring of the sea. He is in the raging water of the mighty rivers and in the quiet streams. He speaks in the storms of life and in the quiet moments of prayer and solitude.
There are times we drown out the sound of God's Voice. We ignore His calling and hide in our busy life-style. We suppress His Voice by turning up the volume of our career, our softball leagues, our televisions, our video games, our pornography, our alcohol, our drugs. They all can become the headphones we use to drown out the sound of God's Voice.
God is speaking to us every day. He is calling us to Him, so He can lead us and guide us through the storms of our life. Are we listening for His call? Are we responding to His call?
"The sheep hear his voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When He has brought out all His own, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His VOICE!" John 10:3-4
Don't put the 'headphones' of life on and drown out the Voice of God. Answer His call and He will lead you. Slow down and listen.
-McFreedom
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