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Three months & two weeks in -- Spring comes to the halfway house & is confiscated within the hour

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Greetings from your favorite felon. It has been six weeks since my last confession and it is difficult to know where to begin. So much has happened, compressed in the weightlessness of my life right now. In some ways, it feels like I am becoming younger. Back when each day (and week and month) lasted so long and yet still moved within the gauzy haze of half-formed memory. But I will try nonetheless to keep sharing this journey with all of you, because your thoughts and prayers are keeping the road smooth (though not so smooth that it brings nothing useful to learn.)

My life is changing, most of it for the better. I continue to lose weight through exercise, hard work and a healthy diet at the natural foods grocery where I work. (I now eat meals at the halfway house only on Sunday, the one day I am only allowed out for three hours, for church.) When I get up early (Mondays to leave for work at 5:30 am and Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 6:00 am to peddle an hour and do isometrics on one of the few pieces of functioning exercise equipment here -- a stationary bike), I may drink orange juice or a glass of milk, or grab an apple to eat later. And that reflects the first important change in my life circumstances as a ward of the federal Bureau of Prisons. With some written feedback to the halfway house director (and a quiet follow-up conversation with him), we now have enough milk available for breakfast to last the week, and we receive fruit with every breakfast and with many lunches. There is also hot food served for several breakfasts (oatmeal, waffles, pancakes, ersatz eggs, bacon, sausage and/or ham), something that all the other inmates are happy (and vocal) about. But I’m fine with the milk, with the orange juice and fruit. That is enough, as is the pleasure of nailing new holes in my belt to keep my pants up.

There are other changes at this home away from the home where my heart lives, and they are almost all for the good. The exercise I am engaged in would not have been possible six weeks ago because the room where the exercise equipment is located did not open until 9:00 am, after I had gone to work. But after I made another request, the director instructed the CMOs (correctional monitoring officers) to let me in the room whenever I asked them to in the early morning. With that change, I am now joined by other inmates who use the treadmill or do sit-ups and push-ups while I peddle away and read. (My standing joke, whenever other inmates ask why I peddle so much -- 13+ miles each exercise day on the next-to-highest level of difficulty – is that one day, I’m going to shift that stationary bike into forward and peddle on out of this place.) On those exercise days, I save my work clothes from the previous day to wear during the workout, all the better to work up a good sweat.

The “grown up’s” dorm where I live remains relatively quiet, though a few of my dormies still show no awareness that they share the space with others, talking loudly on their (contraband) cell-phones early in the morning and late at night. But these days, when “Pops” (me) growls at them, they usually get up and go to the hallway or bathroom to carry on their conversations. I am getting pretty good at pointing out their inconsiderations while still leaving them room to leave the room without picking up metal chairs to hit me with. It’s probably good training for when I (finally) become a parent, perhaps in my next life.

Other good things are happening. To the several nicknames bestowed by other inmates, I am now most frequently called simply “Mr. Ellis” by the people with whom I share this fate. That probably is a reflection of my age, and of my longevity here. It is hard to believe that, only 3 ½ months in, there are only a half dozen inmates who have been here as long as me. For most people, this halfway house is a 90 day (maximum) buffer between prison and the “world”, just a second in the timekeeping of prison life. (Most inmates who have done years, or even decades, behind real prison walls say, when asked, that they’ve done “a minute” of hard time.)

For others, this place is the place to remind parole violators (most busted for using pot since most other (harder) drugs don’t stay in their systems as long) that their lives are still not their own – that the feds can still swoop down and take control of their day-to-day existence as quickly as they can fill a specimen cup with dirty urine. So the “lifers” in this place (me and the two others who came after me, one with a year’s sentence here and the other with two years) are truly the exceptions. And that brings respect from the short-timers and quiets their bitching when they reflect on how soon they will leave us behind, and how long after they have left that we will still be here. We are their Morgan Freemans, they are our Tim Robbins – we are all seeking redemption, or at least a respite, from the hand of the (non)God that is our government.

Four more good things bear mentioning in this update. The leash around my neck is considerably looser, now that the CMOs and other staff know me a bit better. I am allowed to leave for work earlier than my “assigned” time and my movements are not monitored as closely each day while I am out in the “world”. As long as I am back in the “house” each night when I say I will be here, they don’t seem to care (as much) about what happens during my work day. The feds have also waived my subsistence payments because I could document that my monthly bills are greater than my income. That means I get to keep the 25% of my gross pay that had gone to pay for my confinement in my first two months here. I have also been allowed to bring my laptop computer into the “house” on Sunday afternoons and to use the privacy and quiet of the conference room in the administrative area, away from the other inmates, for a few hours of work on my Navajo project (helping evaluate a treatment program in Farmington), preparing for the next trial (the one to protect my farm from confiscation by the feds) or simply to write all of you. I am there now, looking at the cool blue sky outside the halfway house on this early Sunday afternoon in late February as I type these words to you. Being able to maintain this connection with all of you, without the barriers that made it much harder just a short time ago, means so much

But I have saved the best “good thing” for last. By bringing 12-STEP meetings into the “house” in December and January, we seem to have succeeded in demystifying that 12-STEP program (and in demonstrating its benefits) enough so that the director now allows inmates to attend “outside” 12-STEP meetings in the Nashville area. New inmates who are coming to the halfway house directly from a court-ordered treatment episode can now attend daily 12-STEP meetings so they can get their recommended “90 (meetings) in 90 (days)”. For those of us who have been a part of 12-STEP “for a minute” before arriving here, however, we are only allowed one outside meeting a week.

Fortunately, the director has allowed me to travel to Franklin (30 minutes south of Nashville) for my Saturday morning 12-STEP home group meeting, a blessing for which I am especially thankful. Those of you reading this update who are my local 12-STEP friends can see on my face every Saturday morning at the People’s Church (its real name) how important that gift is to me, as are the gifts of being able to see, to listen to and to hug all of you as frequently as once each week. And I hope that my infrequent presence is a reminder of the gift that all of you have to “keep coming back” to the rooms every day – and more often if you need to. We really don’t miss the water so much as when our well runs dry. But among the many gifts of being Bill W’s friend are the awareness that it only takes two of us to have a meeting (and now there are several of us here at the “house” who know each other), and that the promises of the program are always available and as close to us as our Higher Power (whose protection and care surrounds me at all moments these days with Her grace).

For all the good things that have happened, there are still reminders of where I am, and of what little self-control my life enjoys, at this moment. Many nights I return from work just as the “house” is closed for evening work details around 9:00 pm. When the house is “closed”, we are confined to our dorms while the CMOs come around to perform a head count and while the inmates perform all the chores that keep this place livable (sweeping, mopping and dusting the dorms; cleaning the common areas; scrubbing the toilets and showers; picking up cigarette butts and other trash from the parking lot (in the dark); washing down the kitchen, etc, etc, ad nauseum). While this is taking place, our movements are restricted. So most evenings, I have to wait in my dorm, tired and dirty from the day’s work, until the house is “open” again and I am free to shower and get ready for bed. Sometimes that takes 20 minutes. Other times, that takes an hour and 20 minutes. Either way, the small pleasure and short-term privacy that comes with a hot shower here in the “house” is out of my control and dependent on my fellow inmates getting their chores done in a timely and acceptable manner.

Besides this daily reminder to keep me in my place, there are those singular moments that are equally sobering (and frustrating) in their capriciousness and wrongheadedness. Like a few days before Valentine’s day, when I decided to buy two bouquets of flowers at my workplace (tropical ferns showcasing strings of miniature white and purple orchids) to bring back to the “house”. Since my loved ones are now distant (in space and, for some, in time), I thought that the best way for me to celebrate Valentine’s would be to bring one bouquet for the female CMOs and other halfway house staff, and another bouquet for the women inmates. I bought postcards to accompany the bouquets and signed them “... from the grown men in dormitory 4....” When I walked into the house carrying the flowers at 9:00 pm, all the women present (regardless of which side of the law they were on), were tickled pink (I even got a big grin from the somewhat bullish dyke who is our most recent female arrival). It seemed to perk up the men inmates also, who kidded me good-naturedly in public about just who I was angling to get laid by with the bouquets. The flowers had accomplished what I had intended – to make us all happier for a little while and to share a thankful moment with each other, even as we could not do that with our particular loved ones. So I went to bed happy that night, and thankful for being able to act on the thought, for practicing a “random and senseless act” that brought lightness and life into the “house”.

But when I woke up the next morning, I was not greeted by the sight of the employees’ bouquet in the CMO station. Instead, the morning staff informed me that both bouquets had been confiscated by the night supervisor because there were rules against staff accepting gifts from inmates and against inmates buying gifts for other inmates. When I said that I had not bought the flowers for any particular staff person or inmate but for all of them, the morning staff just shrugged as if to say, “it’s not my rule, I’m just here to enforce it.” And when I asked for the flowers back so that I could give them to some of the women I work with, I was informed that both bouquets had been placed on the vending machines in the entranceway to the halfway house, where they had promptly been stolen by the house thief (my guess is Jo Jo, the same “king baby” clown who had tried to bean me with a metal chair last month). The confiscation had left a bad taste in the mouths of both female staff and inmates, the sweetness of the previous night’s collective smiles and jokes had been soured by the “rules and regulations” of this place.

As much as that senseless and petty act pissed me off also, I used it to communicate again with the director, to tell him that I understood and appreciated the rules against individual gifts but could not figure out how that related to my act. At the same time, I offered to help landscape the grounds of the halfway house, for free, on my one day off (Sunday) when I am otherwise confined to the “house” and to bring in a landscaping friend to make recommendations on how best to beautify the place with tough and durable flowers, with strong and lasting (not dainty) beauty. Sort of like some (not all) of the women inmates here, those who have come out of prison without their “minute” draining everything left of their lives, those who had families to return to, who were both strong and beautiful enough to weather this last spell with grace and some inner peace. Though this landscaping opportunity hasn’t happened yet, I trust that it will.

I also trust that I will keep accommodating to this life, will keep pushing against the reins when they need to be pushed against while wearing those reins lightly otherwise. Because I am a rule-breaker by constitution, by heritage and by temperament. I still have more books in my locker than I should, though I have not been written up again for that. I now sleep without a shirt on, though I do still wear shorts to guard against my naked nature in anticipation of our fire drills – two of which have happened this week, both after midnight. I have occasionally taken a break from work (with my employer’s blessing) to attend an “unauthorized” 12-STEP meeting when I needed to. I have still helped other inmates obtain their birth certificates, prepare their resumes or write their lawyers; even when that might still irritate some of the staff here.

And two nights ago, bless my rebellious soul, I brought two more bouquets of flowers into the house (to give only to the female inmates). This time, instead of asking permission, I simply carried them upstairs after being wanded down with the hand-held metal detector for weapons and breathalyzed for alcohol (the “welcome back to the house” ritual that reminds me nightly that I am not on my farm anymore.) This time, I laid the flowers against the door of the women’s dorm, where one of the inmates quickly gathered them up and made an arrangement for their “day room”. That arrangement is still there, and the smiles on the female inmates’ faces this time have endured a little longer. And I have suffered no adverse consequences from the staff, nor received any unsought after advantages with the female inmates, from this latest act of benign and persistent rebellion.

I could write more, and maybe some of you would read it. As I said to start, much has happened since last I wrote to you. My mother died in February and, without expecting it, I was granted a leave to travel and participate in the funeral, even though it was outside the middle (judicial) district of Tennessee, the only area where I am relatively free to roam. I should (I need to) write about that, and I will. I also want to tell all of you about my new career as a low level grocer’s employee and about the gardens that are coming to life at the Turnip Truck, where (though it is not yet March), young seedlings are already showing their brave, mysterious and green, red, white and purple faces – despite the 11 degree (snowy and windy) morning last Saturday that I had to protect them from.

But those stories, and more, will have to wait a while. I still would like to do some work today to serve the Navajo, and I still need to write some potential witnesses for the farm forfeiture trial that awaits, while I still have use of the private and quiet conference room. I still want to ride the exercise bike today, my longest ride of the week, still want to sweat long, hard and deep – and then go wash my work-clothes to prepare for another week. I still want to step outside in this cool, bright blue day while the sun is still up, want to close my eyes and feel the northwestern breeze that brings a hint of sage and tribal song from the Wind River reservation in Wyoming, a breath of pinon and long-past passion from the mountains of northern New Mexico.

So for now, I will sign off. But with a last bit of good news. Last week, my judge rejected the feds’ motion for summary judgement that would have granted them my farm without a trial. That means that I will be allowed a jury trial to defend and maintain my home place, maybe as early as mid-March. As soon as I know the timing of the trial, I will let all y’all know about it. I am thankful for the judge’s decision, for his statements indicating his awareness that the feds have played fast and loose with the facts in my case throughout this process and for his strong suggestion that the feds settle with me before any trial. Much is still up in the air, but just like my tough and tender seedlings, hope (like spring) springs eternal.

So thanks again for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. Keep doing good and living well (and thankfully) in your own worlds. Keep pushing against the senseless rules that restrict your lives and that keep you from bringing happiness and fulfillment to everyone around you. Keep remembering that none of us should presume to the arrogance of playing God, but that all of us should acknowledge the opportunity to act in a God-like manner, every moment of every day.

I sure hope I can remember those words, when my own “minute” has run its course.

Until the next time, happy Valentine’s Day. Much love from your favorite felon.

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