Ask Tod Anything: Part III

Welcome again to Muninn’s Roost. I am having a lot of fun with all these questions. Thank all of you for being so interested in my situation. Generally, people don’t understand what goes on in a place like this– or understand the justice system at all, really– until they or someone close to them becomes entangled in it. I am happy there is curiosity out there.

And, with that said, let’s get to more of these great questions.

12.) What are some of the silliest or dumbest rules and regulations that govern your day-to-day life? 

Wow, where do I start? They are mostly pretty silly and dumb. By policy, we must all have our trash can in a certain spot. (Oddly enough, it is the only spot in the tiny cage where it is out of the way, and everyone would put it there without that regulation.)

Then there is getting “strip searched” to go to the shower– about 30 feet. After you have handed them all your clothes, been searched, and put them back on, you pick up your bag that has your towel and soap in it. That bag could fit two hand grenades and a pistol, and they never ask to see it, which tells me the strip search is for the purpose of degradation and embarrassment rather than actual security reasons.

The rules they refuse to change– even though they have modified the purpose of the unit– are the ones that actually do harm, though. Where I am housed is an S.M.U. (“special management unit”) and was designed to house people who “have problems fitting into a prison environment”. (What that actually means is that it is a unit designed to punish violent convicts.) So it is a punitive unit in every sense and way. The environment is designed to make people uncomfortable to modify their behavior by making them not want to come back.

Mental health professionals have evaluated S.M.U.’s and have determined that they should not be used to house an individual for more than 6 to 8 months maximum or the mental stability of a person will begin to degrade.

Death row has been in this S.M.U. since 1997! That is nineteen years for those of you who do not want to do the math. And we are not here for punitive reasons. We are here because of the virtue of our crimes on the outside only– this is where death row is housed, and we are on death row, simple as that. So because of that, we are given smaller-portioned meals than someone out “on a yard”. (We are in fact only fed twice a day, while non-S.M.U. inmates on yards are fed three times.) I have not experienced darkness since I got here because the lights are always on. It is purposely kept hot enough in the summer that you sit in your cage and sweat doing nothing, and cold enough in winter that you have trouble staying warm. The list goes on and I could write pages on it but you get the idea. There are lawsuits finally going on concerning medical care…but even that will take years to hash out. So to answer your question, the silly rules one can put up with. It is the ones that are designed purposely to mentally degrade a person that are annoying.

13.) Tell us three things about your daily life on death row that might surprise us. 

Every day runs into the next there. It is very tedious because of its unchanging nature. So I will tell you about me. Perhaps I can surprise you a little bit:

• This “big bad convict on death row” likes to read poetry. I am very fond of Baudelaire and Poe. But I also like Longfellow, Blake, Byron, Coleridge… I find Kipling to be quaint and amusing… I could go on with my likes but you get the idea.
• I am a student of philosophy. (I like to think it…helps?…to keep me from falling too far into the abyss that is insanity.) I stick mainly with the metaphysicians, but I am familiar with all schools.
• And I am an artist. (Not that unusual in prison, actually.) But people say I have flair for drawing pretty flowers. I do draw other things as well, however.

I hope this answer did not leave you feeling cheated.

14.) Not counting lawyers, how many times have you had a face-to-face visitor in the last twelve months? 

The answer is zero! After one is locked up for a while, it seems people get tired of making the trip. (It is a fair piece.) My father was very regular…but he died four years ago this coming January.

15.) How would you want to be remembered by Anna and others in your life after you are gone? 

Likely the same as you want to be remembered by those in your life.

Yes, there are some individuals in prison that thrive on this environment and could live no place else…but most are just people, ground up by a system that is broken and tossed into a cage to try and survive in a world not of their making… a world that cannot be understood by anyone who has not experienced it. Words cannot come close to doing it justice.

16.) Is your execution something you think about daily? 

No, it isn’t. When somebody says, “Haul that one out and kill it!” then it will be my turn. No point in dwelling on it. I actually think that might be a contributing factor to the ones that go truly batshit crazy in this place. In a place like this, it is important to mentally remove oneself from the situation as often as possible.

17.) Have you decided on your last meal and words? 

Anna and I actually discussed this not too long ago, and I will tell you what I told her:

My last meal? I will eat whatever is on the menu that day for the meal. I don’t want those murdering bastards to feel any better about themselves by letting them think they did me some favor or kindness. Execution is nothing more than murder by proxy.

My last words? Don’t know yet. Might be something as simple as, “Slap this horse in the ass; I’ve got things to do!” or I might wax poetic and go on until they stop me. You will have to stay tuned to find out, I guess. I am sure the mood will dictate.

18. Is it unusual for someone to have been on death row as long as you have? Are you unique in being over fifty years old and on death row or is that fairly normal?

There have been four people to die of “natural causes” (whatever that means. I think it’s pretty “natural” to die when they pump you full of caustic chemicals myself.) since I have been here– one was in his eighties! (The funniest, or most tragic depending on how you look at it, was a heart attack while sitting on the toilet!) The longest I know of was killed a couple of years ago after 28 years on the row. (He was almost 80.) No, I am not unusual. There is another in his fifties on my block.

This is why it takes millions of tax dollars to execute someone. They are in the courts for decades! (The last time I totaled it up, the actual drugs cost about $77.00 but that was years ago.)

Talk to your congressman. Ask them why your tax dollars are being wasted when “natural life” means someone never gets out of prison. They die locked up, no chance of parole.

19.) Are you worried about physical pain in your last moments?

No. Pain is something I live with on survival levels every day. (I lived a hard life in the mountains of Colorado for a long time. Been in a motorcycle wreck or two, just “used my body” pretty good. I have a bad back, bad knees, a messed up shoulder…in short, I’m old.) Inadequate medical care means nothing is done for it.  Pain and I are old friends. Besides, as I already said in one of these Q&A posts, I can put up with most anything for fifteen minutes. I am not stressing on it.

20.) To what extent do you find the prospect of life without parole to be more appealing than what you currently face?

Good question… and the short answer is: I don’t. (See the above question as for why.) This is a topic of discussion on occasion in here, and most are in agreement that prison is no place to grow old. In my personal instance, I am currently physically able to work out and I do to an extensive degree, but someday I will not be able to, due to damage to my body from a fast, hard life. When that time comes (if it comes) I imagine I will become very sedentary due to lack of mobility. All the muscle I now maintain around my injured back, knees, etc. will atrophy and I imagine my pain will skyrocket. Not a pretty picture in a place where one is lucky to get an aspirin or an ibuprofen for pain. As stated above… prison is no place to grow old.

Well, I finally got through all the questions! You get a rest, Anna! (I am truly sorry for the voluminous nature of some of these answers. Please forgive me.)

As for my readers… thank you so much, and I am happy that you took the time to interact. I have some good suggestions for future blog posts, so stay tuned! Please, all of you take care.

And please remember, without Anna, none of this would be possible. (Yes, I wrote that and not she.) Again, thank you, Anna. And thank you, everyone, for stopping by the Roost!

Ask Tod Anything: Part II

Greetings again, and welcome to the Roost. I still have a lot of great questions to get to, so that is what this post will be dedicated to doing. (I plan on leaving no question unanswered! If someone has the time to ask, then I certainly must have the time to answer. Time is the one thing I have an abundance of here in my oubliette.)

7.) If you had seventy-two hours of freedom and a modest but reasonable budget, what would you want to do besides seeing your family (assuming you have one). Assume everything you do has to be legal, and can’t be grievously injurious/harmful to yourself and/or others. What would you want to eat, do, see, etc.? (I say “besides spending time with your family for the sake of making the answer more interesting than just “spend time with my family the whole time, the end.”) 

Well, you have taken the fun out of that one! I cannot pay a visit to the lead detective who tampered with witnesses in my case or the judge who used me as a stepping stone in his re-election campaign… Okay, besides those things, then…

First, let me say that Anna has very graciously offered to hang out with me in this hypothetical scenario and I would very much enjoy getting to meet her in person. I am, however, not sure how much she would enjoy at least some aspects of what I would want to do. On the outside, I was a pretty simple person and got enjoyment out of simple things. Ald although I can think of a lot of exciting and wonderful things to do… I have thought a lot about what I miss the most in this cage, and it always seems to be the things I kind of took for granted on the outside. You said no family so that is out. But I am afraid it still may not be interesting for most…

It would start with food. We don’t get much, or very good food at all in this hole. So I would love to meet Anna and her significant other over a meal (dinner perhaps) where the possibilities are endless, but I think I would settle on a porterhouse steak (rare), a baked potato (a big one with sour cream on it), any kind of fresh vegetable (peas with real butter on them would be good), and for dessert… an apple! (We get no fruit here at all.) Or perhaps a pear. And then to top it off, a little bit (would not want to get drunk; I only have seventy-two hours!) of single-malt scotch. I used to drink Glenlivet but any will do. And Anna and I could talk and laugh and enjoy a relaxing meal. Then, (and this is the part I am not sure Anna would enjoy!) there would be a motorcycle involved! I used to build and ride old Harley-Davidsons so ideally it would be one of those. (I know I am on a limited budget here so perhaps I could rent one.) But it would be any motorcycle really. And I would love to find a two-lane mountain highway that twists through an evergreen forest. (I lived in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado before all this.) and enjoy the green, and the smell, and the sunshine.

At some point I would like to find a dirt road off the highway and drive back into the forest…perhaps find a glade with a stream running through it and park the bike and get off and touch the grass and the flowers and trees. (There is no green here…none at all. Just dirt and small rocks and I can’t touch those either.) Then I would like to find a little pool in the water and go swimming. (I have not been submerged in water in a very long time.) Then I would lay in the sun to dry and listen to the birds and wind blow through the trees and likely get a sunburn. (I am pretty pale now. I don’t get much sun.)

At some point I would like to go to a park in a city or town and sit down on a bench or perhaps in the grass under a tree and close my eyes and listen to children laugh and play. Maybe I’d like to throw a tennis ball for a dog. (I had larger ones. I had a labrador retriever named Bubba that I loved dearly…she had died long before all of this happened to me.) Perhaps hear an old gas powered lawn mower and smell fresh cut grass…

I know, this is all so boring, and likely not at all what you were expecting… but in this place I am literally surrounded by people all the time (most of whom I dislike) and there is almost constant noise.  Heavy metal doors slamming, people talking and shouting, the insane ones screaming…and I will spare you the descriptions of the smells… just seventy-two hours of no anger, no violence, just peace and quiet would be worth almost any price to me. It is, for me, the things I never really thought about that I end up closing my eyes and remembering. Sitting on a couch with someone I love with someone I love all curled up by a fire in the wintertime and listen to her tell me all about her day, or just listening to the fire and feeling her pressed close to me. (The only “contact” I have in this place is to be chained by an animal by gloved hands to be removed from my cage.)

So I guess my seventy-two hours would be pretty boring… oh! I would have to sleep in a real bed, too! With soft sheets and a blanket to cover me! Yup, boring. But on the upside, I would likely have change left over from that “modest budget”.

What do you think, Anna? Want to hang out for the whole seventy-two hours?

8.) What was the last election you voted in and for whom did you vote? 

This is an easy and short one. I honestly can’t remember the year. [Anna’s note: I’m guessing it was probably 1992.] I have a problem with keeping track of linear time, which has gotten way worse since I got here. But it was for a guy named Ross Perot for President.

Speaking of voting…what were you people thinking?! Wow!

9.) What historical events have occurred while you’ve been on death row that you wish you’d have been able to witness?

I would not go as far as to use the term “misanthropic,” but I did live way up in the Colorado Rockies, back in a canyon with public land butting up to my proerty lines on three sides, so I was not real keen on crowds…so the most significant events that I would have wished to be in the vicinity of would be the births of my grandchildren. Pretty historic in my book.

10.) The same person asked: What technology has been invented since you’ve been on death row that you are curious about or would be interested to try out?

All technology has been invented while I’ve been locked up. Or at least it seems like it. I had a cell phone when I was out in the world…most of you may not know what I am talking about, but some geezers might. It was made by Motorola and it was “affectionately” referred to as “The Brick” because it was the size and approximate weight of one of those smaller red bricks of the kind used in house construction. It was the smallest and most reliable phone that one could own. (And it dropped calls all the time, not because it didn’t work properly but because there were not that many cell phone towers and there were “dead zones” between them when you were out of range.) The internet itself did exist…but it was in its infancy so I would like to see that.

I also hear a lot about “flat screen television sets” but have never seen one. (My television broke quite a long time ago and I can’t afford to replace it, so I have not seen TV at all in a fair piece.) But from my perspective of living in a cage…I am only allowed to possess ten soft cover books, no more. So I would wish to have one of those “e-readers”, I think they are called, the electronic devices you can download books onto. (And I would have to be able to download books onto it, of course.) to have access to a large supply of books. I don’t think I could even begin to describe my feelings about such a thing. My home (before here) was filled with books (real ones) and reading has always been a very large part of my life.. To have access to the philosophy and poetry and history and fiction again… I better stop; I could go on for pages about this subject alone. I would also like to have access to music. (I have a Walkman-type cassette player– yes, cassette player— of which the cassette player part is broken so I only have the radio left.)

The radio market in Southern Arizona is very limited, so no jazz, no classical, but I do get to hear some metal music on a syndicated shoe called “Into the Pit” that comes on for a couple of hours on Sunday night. But unless I want to listen to country-western, old rock and roll, or an inordinate amount of rap and hip-hop stations for some reason, I am screwed. So an MP3 player (and the ability to load music onto it) would be wonderful. But e-readers and MP3 players are not allowed here. So I guess that is the technology I would like to experience.

11.) If you could choose how you wanted to be executed (hanging, firing squad, gas, electric chair, lethal injection) which would you choose and why? 

What, no guillotine? I think that one would be interesting. It is posited that one may be able to still perceive for a short time afterward. Intriguing, that one.

But you seem to be sticking to the forms of execution used now in the United States. Dead is dead and how you get there does not really matter. In Arizona, lethal injection is used.

I have maintained for years that I would like to forego the two or three drug “protocol” that is now used, and just have them pump potassium chloride (the final part of the “protocol”: the caustic cocktail that actually kills you) through my veins– the only stipulation being that the execution must be televised on broadcast TV so that the public could witness what their tax dollars pay for, on top of the millions it takes to actually get someone to the execution chamber. I figure I can put up with anything for ten or fifteen minutes, and I doubt I will be screaming for that long before I die.

But since that will never happen (not gonna show the public the truth), I guess I would choose firing squad if I could. Seems to be more honor in it, a “live by the sword, die by the sword” kind of thing.

Just F.Y.I.: the other two drugs of the “protocol” are a paralytic and an anesthetic, so all screaming is internalized and people don’t have to watch that.

And on that happy note, I will stop, so as to give Anna’s poor fingers a rest. (Again, my friend, I appreciate this opportunity so very much. Thank you deeply from the core of my being.)

As for the rest of you.. more answers coming! Great questions! Thank you!

 

Ask Tod Anything: Part I

[Anna’s Note: Submit questions for Tod anytime using this contact form and I’ll pass them along to him.]

Hello again, and I want to thank those of you who asked me questions! Being new to this blogging stuff, I am not real sure what anyone is interested in knowing, so questions help a lot.

I will try to answer all of them as best as I can in the order I received them, although there may be one or two that I will have to write a separate post about on their own. So don’t think I am ignoring you if it seems like your question is not getting answered this time around. You will just have to keep visiting Muninn’s Roost and I promise you will get an answer eventually.

So, as the old adage goes: “There are no bad questions; only bad answers.” (I hope I don’t give anyone one of those.)

Oh, before I begin, I have no names to go along with the questions (with the exception of Anna’s “favorite pseudonym” in the form of “Seymour Buttz”… I hear ya! I’ve been locked in a cage for a long time; I could put up with Seymour Buttz myself! Or seeing any butts, for that matter!)

But back to what I was saying… I have no names so I will just state the questions and answer them the best I can.

1.) Why are you on Death Row? 

Outside of general and basic answers, it is difficult to address questions of this nature, especially in so public of a forum. Let me explain. When someone is given the death penalty an appeal process begins immediately. This appeal process lasts up until the very instant that the caustic chemicals are pumped into a human’s veins. (Lethal injection is the method of execution in Arizona at this time.)

So other than generalities I will refrain from saying more than that I was convicted of killing two people.

However, my case is a matter of public record. The number is CV-03-1810-PHX-SRB. You can no doubt answer your own question with that.

I don’t attempt to hide anything with “non-answers”. It is simply  that my lawyer would jump up and down and scream at me for addressing such things so publicly.

2.) If you had to guess, how much time do you have left? 

Another question that presents difficulties… “the system” is very arbitrary and capricious so [answering this question] is impossible to do other than generalize.

Let me give an example of what I mean. Two men were convicted of committing the same crime. The system says they were both present, and both involved. One died about four years ago, executed by lethal injection. The other may have decades to go before he sees the same fate. Why? Because that is the way it is going to work for those two cases. It is like playing craps. Sometimes you roll your point; other times you crap out.

How long do I have? I will be here for a while. Long? Short? Can’t really chew a finer point than that, sorry.

3.) Do you believe yourself to be innocent or guilty of the crime for which you were sentenced to death? If you did do it, do you feel remorse about it? Do you think you deserve to die? 

I am going to have to refer you to the above answer I gave concerning appeals for some of this one. (No point repeating myself and boring people.)

“Do I feel remorse?” In general, contrary to what the system would have you believe (that those on death row are unfeeling sociopathic monsters) yes I am capable of feeling remorse, and do… about a great many things in my life… although I cannot get as specific as you might like, and I do apologize for that.

“Do I deserve to die?” Now there is a philosophical question… does anyone truly think they “deserve to die”? There are those who think it might be “easier” if they die, those who think life is too difficult and “give up on living… but to think one deserves to die… (and I mean truly “deserves” it)… Now, it is easy to think others deserve to die, but oneself? I may just have to make that the subject of a whole blog. I know I want to think about that one some more.

Interesting idea/topic… thank you… I will get back to you on that one.

4.) Do you agree with the practice of capital punishment on principle? Why or why not? How has being sentenced to death yourself affected your stance on the death penalty? If you do support the death penalty, do you feel that it is being applied appropriately in your particular case? Why or why not? 

I love philosophical questions! And these are good ones! (And yet another set I could make a whole blog post out of!)

Do I agree with the practice of capital punishment on principle? Some may find this difficult to believe, but in a word, YES! But there are a great many problems with it in practice. The big easy questions: whom do you apply it to? Why do you apply it? Who decides? My idea of who deserves it may (or may not) be different than yours. The reasons I think it may be appropriate could be vastly different than someone else’s.

So, who do you empower to make such decisions? Politicians? (That is who does it now!) Do you really want to rely on someone who lies, cheats, and even steals to get votes to hold a person’s life in their hands?

(I was actually told I was sentenced to die because the judge was up for re-election that coming year and a “tough stance on crime” would look good in his campaign!)

It was so much easier to answer questions like this before I personally became involved in the system.

There is actually a point in my appeal process that if someone came forward and said, “He didn’t do it! I did! He’s innocent!” it would not matter and the system would still kill me. How can a system, any system, that functions like that be trusted at all? Much less with someone’s life?!

So, while I may agree with the principle of capital punishment, I am intelligent enough to understand that it cannot be applied properly under the current system. It is simply too broken to do so. (I could give as an example this last presidential election cycle as ample evidence of that statement.)

I think I have answered all the parts of that question, if not to your satisfaction then please feel free to ask for clarification.

5.) Do you have any advice from the perspective of an inmate on what makes a pen pal good, and more specifically, what makes a first letter good or bad? Is there anything I [a prospective pen pal] should avoid asking or saying? What do you think an inmate on death row might like to know about me? 

First… “inmates”, simply put, are people. Their wants, desires, needs, likes, dislikes, etc. are just as varied as someone you meet out in the world. So you may “click” with a person you write to, or it may be a chore every time you get a letter. (Not everyone is as lucky as Anna– ha ha.)

So just try and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, try not to get discouraged. You may find someone who can be a friend for years. (It is often easier to open up to someone that you will likely never meet.)

As far as what makes a good first letter? Just be yourself, open up only as much as you feel comfortable with. Tell them what your intentions are. (To be friends, to help them out, you’re bored because you have a lot of time on your hands and house pets are so messy…okay, maybe not that last one.) I personally kind of like to have a picture as that helps to personalize who you are writing to. (I sent a picture to Anna with my first letter for the same reason…and to get the “scare the crap outta her” part over with real quick…like ripping off a bandage.)

It would be irresponsible of me if I did not say be careful! This is a prison, and to be honest, there are a lot of people in here I would not invite to my home or allow around my family or anyone I care about. (Of course, writing a letter…that can be controlled and stopped at a whim if need be.) But still, care is needed.

One reader suggested that I write a future blog post about being a pen pal for someone on death row and I think that is a stellar idea. (There are a few in this place that I would/could actually recommend. Anna and I are friends and I mentioned that very thing to her before the blog started, that mail is always a welcome distraction to anyone who exists in this environment.) So I will expand more on the pen pal idea coming up in the future– as soon as I am able, in fact.

6.) How often do you interact with women?

Besides Anna? NEVER!

No… this is a male prison, so as you might imagine there are not many women around.

There are a few female guards, but as I have a kind of “us against them” attitude toward guards in general, my interaction with them is kept pretty professional from my side.

My lawyer is a woman…but she is a lawyer… so that pretty much says it all there. Saying “I keep it professional” would make it sound too friendly. (I simply can’t stand lawyers in general, although I can’t say I have had a relationship with any outside my involvement in the system.)

I have a daughter-in-law I love dearly. That is about it.

Why? You offerin’? Cause my contact information is there someplace!

I have a lot more questions to answer but I do not want Anna to wear her fingers down to the bone posting this stuff for me, so I will give her a break for right now.

Thank you so much for all the great questions and I promise I will get to all of them. I stopped before #7, Anna’s personal favorite, because I too like it and want to consider it before answering.

Take care, everyone, and thanks for your input!

(P.S. That joke about Anna being lucky to get me as a pen pal… in truth I am the lucky one! Very lucky!)

The Sacrament

I live in darkness — not a physical place,
Devoid of light — but a darkness in my
soul… a life without light– little meaning
and even less joy.

Nothing is my own — nothing is private,
nothing is secret — fingers, not mine
touch everything — take everything…
chaos — confusion — pain.

Decades this has been my world — no contact
except to be chained — led everywhere
Not even an illusion of freedom is allowed
in a world of shit I do my best to survive…
But sometimes — sometimes

The darkness — I can’t keep it in sometimes.
It screams to be let out– screams only
I can hear — they tear at the very fabric of
my psyche… bend my mind to embrace the
darkness– has it become what is best in me?

I bleed — my sanity runs like blood from a
wound. A face I hardly recognize looks back
at me from a piece of polished steel — a face
Distrusted and bent — is it truly mine? I
feel distorted and bent…

It can be difficult to tell physical from mental
pain… it all runs together somehow… I
wonder if it matters — truly — some hurt
themselves just to feel… what? I can only
imagine. I haven’t made to their level… yet.
Maybe someday.

Someone far more wise than I said: one
should learn to love fate– amore fati–
to have nothing other than the the way it is.
Not only to bear what is necessary to bear,
But to learn to love it.

My fate– darkness– it is illegal to keep
animals in a zoo as I am kept… it is deemed
inhumane — am I less than an animal? A
beast to be locked away and feared… is
humanity beasts?

To love fate I must love all it has done
to me– love the darkness — love the anger,
love the beast…

I must baptize these as
the best in me — will the sacrament be
blood? Or my sanity?

Anatomy of a Search

Hello again and welcome to Muninn’s Roost. I loathe to sound like I am whining, but a friend advised that people who visit this site may wish to hear more about this place and how existence is within in it. So upon that friend’s very trusted advice…

I was “searched” yesterday. Let me apologize in advance for having to get a bit graphic with some aspects of this occurrence, but I feel that to get the true idea across at least some of that is needed. For without the purposeful demeaning elements, it loses something.

A search is something one really needs to experience to fully appreciate. And I am not talking about one that is staged for a television show here. I am talking about the “real deal”. Something the guards call “tossing a cell” or “a shakedown”.

It begins with a noise, lot of it. Ten to fifteen guards standing at the foot to a block getting excited over the idea of tearing through cells. Some cycle the mechanism of their handcuffs over and over… it makes a loud zipping and clicking noise. Those disposed to nervousness may begin to feel mild to severe paranoia here depending on their sensibilities. Then there are those of us who feel anger and go on the defense.

Then the door to the block bangs open…

Carts roll in on noisy wheels to put things on that are taken away for arbitrary reasons far too myriad for space to allow a description of. Large trash cans are dragged in to throw away things deemed as trash or my favorite term: “Nuisance contraband,” which anything can be labeled.

The guards stop at the first cage closest to the door, open “the trap” (a small metal door covering a slot in the door through which mostly food is passed through) and the occupant is ordered to strip and hand the gloved guard their clothes. (The guards wear rubber surgical gloves always; they don’t want to touch us with their hands.) While naked the man is ordered to show them the inside of their mouth, to raise their arms, lift their scrotum, then ordered to “turn around and squat and cough”. Some comply with this degrading demand… I just continue to turn until I face them again and demand my clothes back. (I simply must draw the line someplace.) Some can be insistent… in which case I get other clothing and put that on. Some may call over a sergeant and tell them I am being “non-compliant” (like I ever would be compliant) and the sergeant usually tells them to back off a bit.

Then the person is chained and removed from their cage. (Some use metaphorical terms like “cell” or “room” or even “house”… I don’t kid myself, I live in a cage… like an animal.) A team of guards then enter the cage and proceed to tear through what little property the person has. This is not done in a polite or nice manner as it is on the aforementioned television show. (There are no cameras present.) And after they have touched, moved, perhaps thrown everything in your cage… you are brought back, the door closes behind you, the chains are removed, and you are left, sometimes having to walk across your own legal work strewn all over the floor, to try and figure out what might be broken or if something has been stolen from you.

It takes anywhere from two to eight people about ten or fifteen minutes to turn a man’s pitiful existence upside down. And while you are waiting for them to get to you you can hear them in the cell next to you. And again as you try to re-organize what little life you have, they do it to the next person in line.

It takes a while to recover from such a thing. First (after I figure out best as I can what is broken or missing) I just pick things up and put them in the couple of boxes I’m allowed to have. I am not trying to put things where they go, mind you; I am just getting stuff off of the floor and contained. I won’t get things back in order (files and what have you) until perhaps the next day… depending on when the search happened– usually in the evening– the only time one really has to try to relax.

After I get things picked up, I clean…ceiling, walls, floor, everything! (I call it “cleaning the asswipe out of my cage”.) I do this because you can never know where the asswipes (guards) came from. Before they got to you they could have been searching a block where they house the mentally insane, who cut themselves and throw (or wear) their feces and urine, or standing in blood. (The insane cut themselves too.) or blood from an assault, somewhere, blood infected with any number of viral pathogens. (I clean a lot!) Then I wash me from head to foot with an anti-bacterial soap, (when I can afford to buy it) or at  least regular soap. Staying clean and cleaning is almost a full-time job.

It can take awhile to settle back down into your normal (what is “normal” in a world like this?) pattern of existence. At best this place is a theater of chaotic absurdities. What a human can get used to is truly amazing. But generally, after a day or two, the search fades to a dull memory. (One needs the ability to “move on” in an environment such as this.) “Adapt. Overcome.” Such is my mantra.

Well, that is what it’s like to get searched in the highest maximum security prison in the state of Arizona. I can’t promise anything. But next time I may attempt to write about something besides “here”. I like to try to mentally get out of this place when I can. For now, I will leave you with another piece that I wrote. (Yes, about this place.) It has a few lines that pertain to searches in it. I hope you enjoy it, or at least it moves some of you in some way.

Until next time,

Tod

Loneliness — Emptiness

To have so many around and still be
so lonely — it just seems odd — we
are arranged like animals in an old-time
zoo.

I didn’t used to be alone — I had a
family and kids… the cage takes
all that away somehow.

I suppose it is easy to forget someone
in a cage. — someone who does
nothing but wait…

I think all this waiting may have
changed me into something else–
something not quite human, perhaps?

I can’t say that I really feel very human
locked away in my oubliette– is it
to forget? or be forgotten? I can’t
remember anymore.