Prison's War on Paper

With the worsening problem of synthetic drug use in America's prisons, officials have started thinking of paper as a pernicious evil. Other states saw a rise in their incidences of K2 use (and overuse) as early as ten years ago, but Missouri's K2 problem became an epidemic at the same time as COVID-19 did.

K2 (known around the prison yard as "deuce" or "two") is nominally synthetic marijuana. I say "nominally" because so many chemicals are used to create it, its composition and, we can safely assume, its effects change all the time. Only its manufacturers know what's in the stuff—whatever works to get users high, I guess. A batch of K2 could just as well be wasp spray on a piece of paper, which someone then smokes. If the process sounds inelegant, its end results are even uglier.

K2 may not show up in standard drug tests, but I see its effects every day. Deucers stumble and droop and appear blinded by their stupors. Some of them twerk in slow-mo. Some of them mumble incomprehensible syllables from the floor where they sprawl. Some don't get back up. Overdoses are rampant. The prison's already understaffed medical department has to cancel or postpone normal operations a couple of times a day to deal with emergencies such as K2-induced nonresponsiveness or seizing. The worst part may be many deucers' reactions when they see another prisoner's collapse: "Man, he got the good shit! Where can I get some of that?"

More than half of US prisons have reacted by prohibiting prisoners from receiving paper mail, which could be laced with drugs. Instead, they use electronic mail. Missouri contracts with a so-called digital mail center in Tampa, Florida, to receive and scan prisoners' snail mail, then forward it to the mini tablets provided by Securus Technologies.

Less effectively, last year, Missouri also cut off people's ability to order books or magazines for their imprisoned loved ones. I can still place an order with Bookstore X, using my own money and a certified check, but they won't let you order the same thing for me from that same bookstore, because policymakers fear that the pages could be laced with synthetic drugs. I never knew a payment method could have such power!

Legal scholars have authored reams of papers dissecting the benchmark 1987 case Turner v. Safley as it applies to prisons' curtailment of correspondence and books sent to prisoners. They all seem to agree that electronic messaging and e-books are the solution to the flow of K2 into jails and correctional centers. I happen to agree. But there's no evidence that book bans or granting monopolies to for-profit prison telecommunications companies (Hi, Securus!) is effective in that regard. Missouri's book-ordering policy took place in 2024, yet the rampant overdosing continues. According to a recent episode of the Marshall Project's Inside Story, book bans to curb the prison drug problem are highly suspect.

There's no question that synthetic drugs have significantly changed prison culture in a very short amount of time. Before K2, the suggestion of bringing a computer—let alone a USB storage device—into a maximum-security prison would've practically got the police called on you. Computerized devices in this cloistered environment were considered a major threat to safety and security. The Department of Corrections and facility administrators believed such technology might be used to endanger an institution with the introduction of pornogrpahy, blueprints, maps, or other types of illicit information—to say nothing of laptops' ability to record audio and video, which is a whole other kettle of fish.

Anyone who entered a Missouri prison as a teacher or group facilitator had to print out hard copies of the class materials they wanted to bring in. In our digital age, this posed a significant inconvenience. It was also rather wasteful. Printing thirty color copies of a multi-page packet, for instance, seems far less efficient than simply copying a PowerPoint slideshow to a thumb drive and displaying it on a projector screen at your destination. Inefficiency like this is characteristic of virtually every circumstance involving prison, which just tends to make things difficult.

I never thought I'd see the day when a warden was more concerned with stemming drug use in his institution than with preventing violence or security threats. In a way, though, it's refreshing. There are human lives at stake, after all. Saving people from themselves is a more humane and admirable goal than simply striving to keep nude photos or maps of the state out of prisoners' hands.

Another Degree of Infamy

Another podcast addressed the death of Anastasia WitbolsFeugen last week. It went up on YouTube a few days later. Unlike last time, I had nothing to do with this one—Crime Junkie—because my legal team doesn't want any distractions as we prepare for a major court filing. I'm told that the Crime Junkie people did a fair job of discussing the case, considering they only had an hour-long episode. Just the same, I'm glad I didn't have to hear or see it.

As infrequently as I speak about my case, or about the senseless pair of deaths that preceded it, I feel that it's been more than enough. I'm tired of rehashing the same events, answering the same questions, and changing nothing, least of all the minds of people who think fact is subordinate to feeling. Arguing against that kind of stubborn ignorance is utterly exhausting.

I know I'll have to speak again, maybe next time in court. When that happens, I imagine it will be a high-pressure experience—even more so than the first time, and accordingly nervewracking. But at least it should be for a judge who won't be as easily swayed as some people by my onetime girlfriend's incoherent fictions. At least it should require no speculation. At least it should lead to something valuable—more so, anyway, than vacuous publicity.

The Goblin Wranglers of B-Wing

At the age of twelve, I knew magic. I knew spells, charms, and potions. I knew the rules of invisibility, flight, and future sight. Furthermore, I knew other schools of heroism and villainy—psionics, spycraft, vampirism, ninjitsu. I knew how mutants were made. Most importantly, I knew how to rally those with these powers, and together, we embarked on quests. Yes, I was a preteen game master.

Roleplaying requires players, and as an unpopular kid I didn't have many. The one campaign I ran was with my obliging cousin and a fellow nerd from Latin class. This didn't stop me from developing nonplayer characters and mapping out strange lands, nor from blowing whole summer job paychecks on game supplements from my neighborhood comic book shop. My lifetime of active RPG gameplay might add up to less than forty hours, but I know gaming.

Many years have passed, but I can still recognize roleplayers at a glance. (Who else has use for a twenty-sided die?) In prison, where roleplaying games are forbidden by policy, they're even more obvious.

The dauntless roleplayers in my wing use every opportunity to occupy a sagging plastic card table in the corner. Variously used for independent study, Bible group get-togethers, and the occasional loner eating a bowl of instant ramen, the gamers stake their claim there and set up camp, armed with sourcebooks, character sheets, pencils, markers, folders, charts, and dice. They spend hours at that table, quibbling over rolls and strategies. It appears they're operating in a different realm, in a world where they're stronger, better, more adventurous versions of themselves. In a sense, they are.

Their dice are made of soap that's been pulverized, liquefied, molded, meticulously shaved, etched, then coated with several layers of floor wax. No such elaborate craftsmanship would be necessary if the Department of Corrections simply permitted its residents to purchase RPGs. Alas, prison policy explicitly bans roleplaying. Dice of any kind are considered gambling paraphernalia, ergo also contraband. But life finds a way.

The RPG of choice in Missouri seems to be Palladium, a competitor to its more famous forebear, Dungeons & Dragons. Over time, somehow, different titles have trickled into the prison—The Palladium Role Playing Game, Rifts, Ninjas and Superspies, and more. Fans of D&D often call Palladium's rules cumbersome, but what Palladium sacrifices in fluid gameplay is balanced out by satisfying realism. The Palladium system has a smaller market share of the RPG world. It happens to be the one I bought as a kid. Surprisingly, it's also the one that many people in prison risk conduct violations to play.

Sometimes I overhear the B-Wing gamers in their questing.

"I pick up the donkey shit and put it in my bag," says one.

"You can't," the Game Master responds. "The bag's already full."

"Are any of the goblins hungry?" asks another player.

I learn that a crew of the creatures run a boat that the players want to take across the sea, and the players plan to supply food for the journey. I also learn that Goblins eat poop.

This is ridiculous, and I probably could've just left it out, but I think the absurdity speaks to an important point: this is what roleplaying looks like. According to the old-school gamers I've asked, the DOC imposed the RPG ban in the 1990s. Reading through Missouri case law and national law reviews didn't confirm this. It did, however, speak to the historical war between evidence and fear that surrounds roleplaying games in prisons.

In a quick search on LexisNexis, I found sixty-two articles that included the terms "Dungeons & Dragons" and "prison"—most of which appeared to scoff at arguments that D&D could incite gang violence or function as an escape tool. The articles cite the prosocial aspects of the game—how it fosters cooperation, rewards communication, and can serve as a nonviolent channel for players' emotions. A 2023 News Inside article by Keri Blakinger describes how D&D even allowed one death row inmate to cross prison's hard-drawn race boundaries and gain his sole form of daily human interaction.

To play the part of a daring magician, a heroic dwarf, or an intrepid elf, when your autonomy has been hijacked and your material sense of self stripped, could only impart a feeling of freedom. Roleplaying is an escape more engrossing than any book or TV show, and both safer and less expensive than any drug. For the gamers in my wing, who barely interacted before their campaign started, roleplaying is many things.

It was an excuse to improve his reading, says the Game Master. He remembers being functionally illiterate when he came to prison in 1996. Joining a campaign with some guys on his cellblock became his incentive to learn how to read. He praises RPGs for their potential to teach.

Another man describes his in-game character as a grownup version of his young son, who lives out of state and whose voice he hears only when he calls home on weekends. For him, gaming is a way to cope with the distance and feel a connection to his only child.

Not that every gaming story is a noble one. Most people probably just play because gaming is fun. Regardless, the value of RPG shouldn't be denied. If hiring some shit-eating goblins to take them overseas keeps these guys quiet and out of trouble, I say set sail.

A Little Fascist Playtime

Being Hitler isn't easy. You almost never get to vote for policies in line with your real values, lest the liberals sniff you out. You have to be vigilant in keeping that pesky bunch from getting suspicious and assassinating you. Being Hitler is also lonely business. Many times you don't even know who your fascist bedfellows are. It's tough, trusting strangers to do what's right for the party. When the time comes, will they elect you Chancellor?

It's an emotional rollercoaster. I should know—I've been Hitler five times.

I once described how a cellmate and I crafted our own makeshift SCRABBLE set. We weren't alone in this. Prisoners looking for a game less common than chess, dominoes, and cards (all of which are sold in the canteen) often apply ingenuity to satisfy the gaming urge. Are you surprised? People in prison are widely recognized as an enterprising bunch. We make alcohol from raisins and bread, fabricate knives out of toothbrushes, and successfully litigate court cases with nothing but our wits, a ballpoint pen, and some toilet paper. By comparison, crafting handmade decks of Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering cards is a cinch.

Saturday evenings, for the past few months, I've joined between five and seven other tabletop gamers in pursuit of a good time. The games we play aren't exactly Milton Bradley products. When we commandeer a table in the wing, it's to play Exploding Kittens, Sheriff of Nottingham, Settlers of Catan, and everyone's perennial favorite, Secret Hitler. Although you might never have heard of them, these are real games; you can easily buy them, either online or off the shelf at a game shop.

You can, but we prisoners can't. The versions of these games that we play are totally bootlegged. Meticulously crafted with glue, markers, and other so-called nuisance contraband, our boards and cards aren't perfect, but they're in exactly the correct quantities and bear the same values as an official set.

The popular game Catan contains the nineteen hexagonal tiles that make up the board; plus 100 resource cards; road, settlement, and city pieces in up to six colors; six player tokens in those same six colors; one "robber" token; and a pair of ordinary, six-sided dice. Everything but the dice can be made with just a few manila file folders purchased from the canteen, a few hours of scribbling with a pen, and a bit of intrepidity. A nicer set (and let's be honest, we all want a nicer set) takes longer and requires a wider variety of raw materials. As for game rules, those are sourced online and sent in to us by people who are probably just relieved that their imprisoned loved ones have such an innocent pastime.

The coolest thing about these games might be that other prisoners see us playing them and get curious. A game of Secret Hitler can get a little boisterous as controversial votes are cast and players start accusing their tablemates of being fascists. Our loud finger-pointing inevitably draws attention. Pretty soon, "cool" guys who'd never accept an offer to play some lame board game start asking questions. "What is this?" often turns into "Can I get in?" pretty quickly.

I suspect our Saturday-night gaming sessions are more diverse than any other gathering in the facility. Where else can you find a chemical engineer, a gangster, an ex-marine a transgender woman, a devoted athlete, and a literary nerd enjoying each other's company during a shared pastime? Even a guard walking through one time expressed a wish that he could sit down with us to play. Now that would be crossing boundaries!

Fostering community. Finding accord. Obliterating stereotypes. Having pure, noble reasons for taking part in these games would be great. I just think we play because the friendly, low-stakes competition provides a nice break from the drudgery.

How about that? What a concept: I'd rather be Hitler than spend an evening in prison.

Good Thoughts for Sam

My friend Sam's been gone from ERDCC for a few years. He'd been my neighbor, a friend in Buddhism, and a good, positive person to be around. I appreciated his seemingly endless energy and his willingness to point out when I was being too serious. The day he asked me to be the best man at his wedding surprised and humbled me in equal measure. In return, I got away with calling him Sam; everybody else here he made use his full name, Samuel.

Just weeks before the wedding, Sam was unexpectedly transferred to another facility. We stayed in contact by mail for a few months. Then the Missouri Department of Corrections banned communication between any prisoners who aren't related to one another. The last letter I got from Sam was handwritten on yellow notebook paper. It expressed mixed emotions about the Buddhist community in his new environment. He missed the dedication our group had when he'd still been here. The feeling was mutual.

Sam's a big-time videogame nerd, self-described. Get him talking about memorable titles and you won't be given a chance to change the subject for quite a while. His love for gaming runs deep. It shouldn't have surprised me that he'd find a way to get close to his passion in spite of videogames being banned from Missouri prisons.

Over at Farmington Correctional Center, fifteen minutes from ERDCC, where he ended up, Sam started a television show on one of the prisoner-run closed-circuit channels. The show was all about—you guessed it—videogames. Together with a gamer at FireTV, Farmington's video production studio, Sam created "LFG: Looking for Group," a show for imprisoned gamers to talk shop and watch walkthroughs of the hottest titles. I didn't learn about "LFG" from an exchange with Sam or from seeing the show. I only know about it because of Sam's TED Talk.

There's an app on prisoners' tablets called Edovo. It lets us read and watch all kinds of enriching and educational content, from Kahn Academy, MasterClass, the Marshall Project, and more—including a few podcasts and e-books. While using Edovo the other day, I happened across a program guide for the TEDx event that was held at Farmington last April. I knew about that event but hadn't really been interested in watching the footage, even though it's been available for months. Curiosity about the event's organization was the only reason I opened the TEDx program guide. Perusing its fifty pages, I happened upon a smiling headshot and recognizable name in the list of speakers.

Holy shit! Sam! My mind was blown. Why did I wait so long to get curious about this event?

I got such delight from seeing Sam talk alongside his "LFG" cohost. He looked a little nervous onstage, under those bright lights, but he delivered his message with characteristic openness and enthusiasm. I watched it and thought only, Damn, Sam, you did that!

After the video ended, I conducted a little amateur sleuthing. I learned that, a while after giving his TED Talk, Sam was released on parole. Today he's out of prison, enjoying a new life with the woman he loves, playing whatever game he wants. I feel so much joy for what he gets to experience now.

Someone asked me recently if I felt even the slightest sting, seeing people leave this place. "Not that there's no chance for you," she wrote, "but still, how do you cope with that?" Especially considering what I do for work now, it's a legitimate question. I considered my response awhile before replying.

I choose to be present and aware, and to nurture the good in others. On the path I've chosen to travel, others' successes are cause for celebration. It's like the opposite of schadenfreude. Jealousy gets in the way of our happiness in the same way that plaque builds up in arteries. Why shouldn't I be glad when someone makes it out of prison? They've completed their punishment. They deserve to have that new start so many of us dream about. They deserve some good, for a change.

Sam, if you happen to read this, congratulations! Here's my message to you:

May you be happy.

May you be at peace.

May you be safe.

May you be free.

The Prison Food Survey

Never before in my twenty-four years of prison living has the Missouri Department of Corrections asked those of us in its custody to take a survey—until this week. The interactive form appeared on prisoners' tablets on Tuesday morning. It asked us to rate the temperature, portions sizes, and general quality of the meals we're served, and for me, it posed a real dilemma: in what way should I answer the question How would you rate the overall taste and flavor of the lunch menu?

How, indeed.

There's no question, Texas has it worse. According to an article in the February 2023 issue of News Inside, "meager improvements" in the Lone Star State's notoriously awful prison food were short lived. Between May of 2020 and when the article went to print, Texas prisons were still struggling to serve fresh fruit and bread without mold on it. Our diet here in Missouri prisons isn't raw-potato bad, but it's no picnic.

Bringing Texas into this little diatribe isn't what-aboutism. I'm saying only that the problem is widespread, not that its equally distributed. The Missouri DOC contracts with Aramark, a food service giant that's in institutions of all kinds, all around the country, and exercises what seems to be minimal oversight of its (for lack of a better word) franchises.

ERDCC's food service department has many problems, one of them being roaches. It would help if someone cleaned—at least by wiping counters or mopping the dining hall's greasy floors once in a while. Finding workers who won't use their prodigious downtime to smoke synthetic marijuana at the tables would help with that. Too bad no one—neither guard nor Aramark employee—displays any willingness to enforce the rules.

Whole logs of ground beef routinely leave the dining hall in unsearched wheelchairs. Meanwhile, line-jumpers snatch their second, third, and sometimes fourth extra trays right in front of the guards stationed at the serving window. Many times, the kitchen runs out of something and has to make a last-minute substitution. For entrées, this is usually turkey loaf or bologna. When a vegetable side runs out, someone just adds lukewarm water to mashed potato mix. A bruised and unripe apple usually fills in for desserts. No one likes any of this. Predictably, the survey doesn't ask how often we're served the food we're actually supposed to get.

Imposing a teensy bit of accountability would improve this environment for everyone. I suppose it's easier in the short run not to care.

As I answered the survey, I felt acutely aware of the grace I was affording Aramark. Most of the people taking it are probably going to rate everything a 1 out of 5, just to be spiteful. I kept wanting to ask, "Compared to what?" I suppose there's always Texas.

Preparing to Leave

George stares at the monitor, whispering the words onscreen as he reads them. His hooded, watery eyes follow the cursor right, then down and left, then right again, line by line, as he uses the mouse to follow every word of the exercise prompt.

This is George's first time at a computer in years. He said that the last time was in a computer literacy class he took at a different prison, all the way back in the '90s. Before that, decades of wild living had brought him no contact with the digital realm. As I took a seat beside him at the keyboard, ready to guide him along, I asked how much of the class he still remembered.

"I know how to do this." He jiggled the mouse back and forth. "That's about it."

Clearly, George and I were in for a journey. But of course, preparing for a parole date isn't easy for anyone.

At the moment, George still lives in one of the good-conduct wings here at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center. Both of us came down as very young men. No stretch of language or imagination could qualify us as that now. I observed my twenty-fourth anniversary in the system this year. George's time inside amounts to nearly double that. Each of us have traveled a long, rough road, but at seventy-one, George is finally nearing the end of it. He's being released on parole in November.

With less than a year left to serve, George qualifies for services from the Reentry Center, the new facility within ERDCC's fences, where residents can come for career exploration classes, housing assistance, post-release benefits, and more. (I blogged about the Reentry Center here.) Imagine a modern career center—computers, job flyers, motivational slogans, and so on, then post a guard at the door—that's a fairly accurate picture. The state of Missouri opened this facility at ERDCC in May. A few weeks later, I became one of three prisoners to get a job there. That's how I met George.

He trundled in one Tuesday afternoon, wearing a white do-rag with the standard Missouri prisoner uniform of gray pants, a white T-shirt, and clunky, black 10-hole boots. He's a big guy, average height, but close to 300 pounds. It surprised me when he said how old he was. The man doesn't look a day over sixty.

My boss, the Employment Transition Supervisor, welcomed him and did a short interview to gauge George's needs. Probation and Parole approved his home plan, but how he's going to get by out there is another matter. More than anything, he wants a job. At his age, most Americans are retired and living off some combination of pensions, Social Security, or life savings.

"I wanna do bricklaying," he tells us. "Then, after a while, start my own concrete business—sidewalks, patios, porch steps—maybe do a little landscaping on the side."

He's someone I expect will work until he falls over dead, probably with a shovel in his hand.

My position at the Reentry Center encompasses many roles, from administrative assistant to guidance counselor. I'm also on hand to provide technical support. People sometimes have issues interacting with the web-based platform that examines their interests and skills, coaches them on interview techniques, then helps us create their resumes. I sit with every client for a little while at the outset of each exercise, to field any questions that come up.

When George asks about a dotted blue line under a phrase he's typed, I explain how grammar check works (and how it sometimes doesn't). When he misspells "experience," I show him the magic of right-clicking. When he inadvertently enlarges the browser viewport 300 percent, I point him to the zoom control. As eager as he is to progress, I'm hardly surprised by how quickly he catches on.

The early assignments encourage users to focus on personal strengths. A colorful illustration of a tree laden with different fruits prompts everyone to list their personal achievements. George thinks long and hard before answering. Another client needs help, so I walk away to let George contemplate his accomplishments for a bit. When I check on him again, I see that below an image of a shiny pear, he's typed, "Surviving prison."

"Wow," I say, impressed. "That's...."

Words fail me. I'm struck by this plainspoken truth. Not everyone in his position would be able to acknowledge the challenges that life in the system has posed. I've known too many people who, especially as the decades fell away, started accepting the banal horrors of prison life as "just how it is," as though the circumstances we struggle through are normal. Whether they did this out of denial, misplaced self-preservation, or fear is a personal matter. I just appreciate that George recognizes himself as a survivor and is neither cowed nor brainwashed by the trauma he's lived through.

I tell him so. He takes a deep breath and settles back in the chair. "You know, back at the old Walls"—what everybody today calls the now-decommissioned Missouri State Penitentiary—"they had a sign at the gate where you came in: 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.' Well, I never did. I never let 'em beat me down."

At three o'clock we gather our stuff and make to leave for the afternoon. As he tucks a folder full of notes under his arm, he voices concern for the future.

"You know, I been down thirty-six years now. It's a whole different world out there than the one I left. I ain't never used a cellphone, I don't know the internet..."

I cut him off. "We've got tablets, though. They run on Android, the same as half of the phones out there do. If you can operate a tablet, you can use a smartphone. As for the internet, didn't you know you were on it today?"

His eyebrows rise as he shoots me a doubtful look.

"The exercises you've been doing on there—those are all web pages. You can't go to other websites because of security settings, but when you use the computers here, you're actually online."

"No shit?"

"No shit."

Such a little thing, and yet he smiles, suddenly less anxious about rejoining the world. George is becoming a man with fresh hope—the one thing that everyone should leave prison with.

Four Books I Spent My Spring Reading

When the time came to choose what to read next, our book club facilitator suggested we pick up Alice McDermott's novel After This. He was teaching a course on Catholic literature at Saint Louis University and, with characteristic forthrightness, begged our mercy in selecting a book he was already teaching, rather than adding another book to his literary load. After This is a book he loves, he said, which sounded promising enough. Then he went on to say that it was the one book from the course that his students suggested he remove from next semester's syllabus. "They think it's boring," he said. Being the type of readers for whom such warnings arouse curiosity, we assented almost immediately.

This was my first encounter with McDermott. She writes beautifully at the level of the sentence, with prose rich in meaning without ever being ponderous. Plotwise, I can see why contemporary college students struggled with this book: they probably couldn't relate to the world it depicted. Spanning a period between the end of two wars, World War Two and Vietnam, After This has at its center an Irish-American family in search not of happiness—because wanting happiness, in these characters' deeply Catholic mindset, would constitute a kind of unseemly greed—but of simple contentedness. Just to be okay with how their lives are going seems to be their aim. Their saga unfolds episodically, in a series of vignettes, with years disappearing easily between sections. Its 277 pages flip past with almost a breeze.

Freed in May from an onerous work schedule, I did my best to make up for lost reading time, leaping straight into several books at once. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones is a collection of Zen and pre-Zen writings compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki in 1957. It includes texts previously published as 101 Zen Stories, The Gateless Gate (called Mumonkon in the original Japanese), 10 Bulls (maybe better known as the ox-herding pictures), and an ancient Sanskrit text entitled Centering that emerged in India 4,000 years ago, more than two millennia before Bodhidharma famously brought Zen teachings to China. Unlike McDermott's novel, I took extra time with this book, ingesting it in small, meditative bites that never overwhelmed my ability to sit awhile with a given story, koan, or passage.

When Freedom Reads visited ERDCC a couple of years ago, I had to know its representatives' answers to two questions. First: what one book each of them read during their imprisonment most resonated with them. Then: what book they recommend for others in these circumstances. One response to the second question was The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writers Life in Prison, edited by Caits Meissner. This essay collection was put out by PEN America a few years ago, forwarding the organization's mission to celebrate and elevate the literature of writers "whose voices have too often gone unheard or been ignored." The Sentences That Create Us collects inspiring pieces by justice-impacted writers—novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, screenwriters, playwrights, memoirists, and everything in between—to reveal how prisoners whose minds remain free can create a different kind of life through their writing.

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about Zen the way he taught it: simply and with a directness that matched his subject. His book The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation was probably intended to be an introduction to the practice, for readers who were not yet intimate with the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Five Aggregates, the Paramitas, and other essential Buddhist teachings. Even though I've been practicing this stuff for a while, its good to go back to basics every so often and get a refresher. With straightforward pronouncements like "The person who has no compassion in him cannot be happy," and "Twenty-four hours are a treasure chest of jewels," Thich Nhat Hanh once again proves himself a teacher worthy of his beautiful reputation.

I'm not really sure where my reading will take me next. It's been so long since I had enough downtime from work to read much of anything. A visit to the prison's library is in order—my first in almost three years. Who knows what I might pick up.

Modern-Day Cave People

The Flintstones notwithstanding, I don't know where the term "caveman" came from. Although some might've taken shelter in occasional caves while hunting and gathering, our ancestors and the other early hominids—from Australopithecus to Neanderthal—tended to inhabit valleys, plains, and trees. So why do my neighbors, in this modern age, choose to live as troglodytes?

It's against prison policy to cover any window or overhead light. Still, the people next door to me do both. Lining the window with rolled-up towels, they keep their cell blacker than a starless night. Using contraband tape to hang manila folders over the fluorescent light fixture, they ensure that any light emitted will amount to no more than a dull glow. I doubt either of them have thought about the reasons behind these choices. If you asked, they'd simply say, "I like it dark."

And dark it is. I once had occasion to knock on their door. Let me tell you, that void was deep. Even light from the open door barely pierced the gloom. I'm baffled as to how they achieved such an effect. It's not like the canteen sells light-absorbing paint.

What I could see was a small clip-on lamp fitted with a cardboard sleeve, which functioned as a spotlight. Outside of its beam, my neighbor's face was nearly invisible. All you could see in the cell was the small circle of light on the desk where he pieced together a cardboard tractor—precision work that'd be so much easier if someone turned the damn light on.

They're hardly alone in practicing what I call the dark arts. Across the small stretch of grass visible from my cell window sits 2-House, ERDCC's administrative segregation unit. People confined there get "recreation" in wire cages like dog kennels three times a week. Otherwise, they're out of their cells virtually not at all. You'd think they'd want a little sunshine in their lives, but no.

Twenty-four windows of 2-House can be seen from my cell. More than half of them are completely covered with some kind of detritus. A couple have identifiable items hanging in them—shirts or sheets—to thwart the sun. Others are papered with what I assume are Health Service Request forms or pages torn from paperback novels that float around the Hole every so often. As questionable as those works of "literature" usually are, and as little love as I hold in my heart for direct sunlight, I just can't condone vandalizing a book.

The number of cells in ad-seg with covered windows far exceeds the number in general population. The number here in the honor dorm is even lower than that. Based on a quick, informal poll I took before starting this post, only about one in eight cells have some form of window covering. Most of those are temporary fixes—a shirt hung up in the afternoons, for example, when the sun casts a glare on someone's TV. The same held true at Crossroads, the prison where I spent the larger part of my sentence. There's no accounting for taste, but the consistency of these numbers between prisons doesn't seem like mere coincidence.

Are the prisoners who keep a dark cell trying to block out their surroundings? Is their pitch-black room an outward manifestation of depression? Is it merely a sleep aid? There are probably reasons I'm not even considering—some sort of superstition, maybe, about light.

Whatever reason these people have for living that way, I don't relate. Prison may be hard-edged, dirty, and visually unappealing, but I'd rather not have to fumble around blindly to find my coffee cup, my toothbrush, or my surface-dwelling humanity.

Breakfast Line

Queued up for breakfast in the dining hall, it seems to be a mostly ordinary morning. Shouting is at a minimum, since much of the population's still waking up. The smell of this afternoon's lunch—fish patties—has yet to permeate the place. The only real negative is that, directly behind me in line, a frustrated soul won't stop ranting about how his elderly cellmate pissed all over his freshly cleaned floor.

"It wouldn't even bother me so much, but when I mentioned it he just waved me off and said, 'Eh, it'll be okay.' No, it won't! It won't be okay! I have to clean it up!"

This is what I get for asking about his morning. Ahead of me, our mutual acquaintance half turns and rolls his eyes. The line hasn't moved in several minutes, which isn't unusual, really. Anyone who transfers here from another prison will tell you that the chow hall at ERDCC serves more slowly than any other institution in the state. The joke is that the servers are too "deuced out" on K2 to do anything. It's not a joke at all, actually.

"Just sit down! For Christ's sake, if you know you have prostate issues, don't stand to piss!"

Up ahead of us, another person takes a tray from the window, and the line immediately stalls again. Have the prison's biscuits and gravy ever been good enough to warrant this level of discomfort? I venture to think not, then check my privilege. At least you're getting fed, Byron.

"So I ask him, right? I ask him why he didn't just sit down, instead of just spraying and dribbling over half the cell, and you know what he says to me? You know what he says?"

I shake my head, my face expressing what I hope is a kind of nonchalant half-interest. I don't want to encourage this, but I don't want to abruptly shut him down, either. The line continues not to move.

"He says, 'I didn't want to pull down my pants in front of everybody.' I was like, 'The cell door was closed! There was nobody around!"

People behind him quietly snicker at his tirade, and while I've not quite reached a point of being ready to bail on this breakfast venture, I'm definitely wishing the servers would get their shit together and resume pushing trays.

And just as this uncharitable thought about the kitchen workers develops—wonder of wonders!—the line's moving again.

"He just expected me to wipe it up like a water spill. I'm like, 'And let it start stinking? No way! I'm gonna get down there and bleach the whole area all over again!' The dude's gotta be senile, or else he was born before germ theory existed."

Baby steps nudge us closer to the window. At least we're around the corner now—the home stretch, with fewer than ten people in front of us.

The guard posted a few feet ahead commits to his vacuous stare as not just one but three line jumpers retard everyone's progress. It's like landing on one of those disappointing spaces in an even more disappointing board game: "INCUR DISRESPECT! Go back three spaces." I let loose a sigh.

"I should tell the case manager he's incontinent and get him moved to the ECU. I don't know how many more pools of piss I can stand to clean up."

Here comes my food, at last. I take the lip of the brown plastic tray and see that something's missing. A quick inventory tells me there's no gravy, jelly, nor butter. All I have is corn flakes, a box of raisins, two dry biscuits, and a half pint of milk. If breakfast is truly the most important meal of the day, this bodes ill for my afternoon.

At least I can get away from the barrage of bitching. Holding my tray in one hand, I pivot and assume escape velocity, course set toward an outlying table. Behind me, still at the window, I hear the complaints change tack.

"Hey, what's up with my gravy?" he yells into the window. "Are you guys too high to work the ladle anymore?"

The New Guy (It's Me)

Just as I open the book to resume my reading on the history of Zen, the housing unit's intercom squelches. Sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher, guards' announcements on the wing's loudspeaker are often an object of interpretation, but this time I understand perfectly: "Case, bravo one-thirteen, come to the sally port." I set down the book and walk to the housing unit's control module. "Stay right here," says the guard. "Your boss is coming to pick you up."

He means my new boss, over in the Reentry Center. Today is my first day at the job. The Zen book can wait.

I interviewed for a position at the new facility a couple of weeks ago. The pair in charge—Department of Rehabilitative Services employees—wanted a technologically-adept all-rounder, someone who could help prisoners log in and navigate the computerized career resource system, assist with people's résumé preparation, offer tech support for visiting corporate partners who bring video or PowerPoint presentations, do interview coaching, track client attendance, and maybe even facilitate a class or two. "Sounds great," I told them. I didn't even care that it meant giving up nearly $100 a month for a position that won't pay a dime. That same afternoon, I gave my coworkers and boss two weeks' notice. My last day was Monday.

Had the Reentry Center not opened last month, I doubt I would've so easily abandoned my position as XSTREAM's team lead. Instead, I'd probably have continued gritting my teeth through stressful projects, losing sleep over toxic coworker conflicts, and wringing my hands over how to fit personal responsibilities into a day crowded by business tasks—all of the stuff I wrote about in my previous pariahblog.com entry. Options are nice, even when those options are theoretical.

The Department of Corrections boasted that Missouri had opened a Reentry Center in each of its prisons last year; however, the truth of this announcement depends on how you define the word "open." The Reentry Center here at ERDCC didn't even have furniture when that publicity notice went out. (The DOC isn't often dissuaded by tetchy details.) Shortly after that, I heard whispers that a clerk position was available there. One of the inmate carpenters who'd worked on its construction discretely asked if I knew of anyone "reliable." (That's basically prison code for "not a druggie, a thief, or a piece of shit.") At the time, I said no and moved on. But his question planted a seed.

Now here I am, walking across the yard with my two new bosses, feeling my excitement grow as we approach the gate to the "reception and diagnostic" half of the prison. R&D is where new and returning prisoners are processed before it's determined where they belong. Some of the people who come through are on 120-day "shock" time and will be out in months; some are at the beginning of life sentences and will die in prison. Because of the possible disparity between our custody levels, I can't walk unescorted across this yard. Hence, this commute by necessity involves my bosses.

"We've got a plan for you," says one. Just a few years ago, he was a likeable captain working for the DOC. Now he's a likeable civilian. I appreciate the offhanded way he refers to a plan; it sounds like a deliberate downplaying of thrilling possibility.

"I want you to learn the Chromeboxes inside-out," he went on. "Then we'll run you through the VR simulations."

It all has the tinge of dialogue from an early William Gibson novel. Then his female counterpart, a former case manager, cuts in. She brings us back to the present, saying, "After that, I've got some spreadsheets I need made up. I found an extra keyboard, monitor, mouse, and standalone computer. We'll get you set up on that soon."

All this novelty! I always get a flush of uncertainty with the new: Is this really what I wanted? Of course, in this case it very much is.

We pull the first door and step onto gray vinyl extruded to look like artfully distressed floorboards. Foot-tall adhesive black vinyl letters that I cut and applied to this wall last month welcome us.

About $150,000 went into converting the former 11-House into the space that it is today. The open dorms are long gone, having been pulled out in favor of erecting light gray walls. The doors are white. Most of the trim is black. Colorful prints and framed Successories liven up the walls of the Reentry Center's six classrooms and two meeting areas. Wi-Fi antennas and rows of CAT-6 wall outlets demonstrate the building's potential. In one room—the room in which I'll be spending most of my work hours—a row of desktop workstations boasts career resources for anyone nearing release, who requests access to them.

"It smells like oranges in here," I say. The guard, whose post used to be the visiting room, smiles and says, "I just ate one."

"Byron is going to be working with us here, Monday through Friday," my boss explains across her elevated desk, where the former housing unit's control panel used to be. "He'll be staying through, most counts, but taking off for his religious service on Fridays, and for visits, whenever those come up."

"Well," she says, still smiling pleasantly, "welcome aboard, Byron."

It's all so convivial, so... normal. I experience a moment of uncertainty about what to do with my hands. That feeling vanishes once I'm set at a computer and instructed to learn the material backward and forward.

Five hours later, I'm halfway through module one of three—a point that users don't usually reach until their second month.

"I think you'll do pretty well up here," says the boss as he leads me back across the yard. "See you tomorrow."

I can hardly wait.

Resignation/Resuscitation

You wouldn't think that a prison job could keep a person busy enough to induce burnout, but that's exactly what happened in my leadership role at XSTREAM.

Exhaustion, anxiety, distracted thoughts, and occasional testiness over the past six or seven months tipped me off that I was feeling more stress than was healthy. The hours kept me away from my cell for a minimum of seven (as many as fourteen) hours a day, seven days a week, which you'd think would be nice, considering the environment. It wasn't. Stress gnawed at me, even on the good days, sometimes feeling as if I was being eaten from the inside.

The other members of my team relished those long days at their desks. They'd rather stay at work, typing actor names into the database, than be around their cellmates. I never shared the aversion. Either I value my free time too much or my cellmate of the past two years, Bob, is just more tolerable than most people here. Many were the nights that I left work "early" (i.e., before the building closed at 8:30 PM) because I was just plain beat. My colleagues usually stuck around—I guess because the poor bastards don't have lives of their own.

I gathered Team XSTREAM together last Friday to lay it all out. Not wanting to mince words, I concluded my little monologue: "I don't want to work here anymore." Everyone suggested that I simply take a month or two off, clear my head. That wouldn't work, though. The on-the-job issues I'd been struggling with would still be there, whether I left for one month or for six. There was no fixing this. Still, I thanked them for their kind support.

What made me nervous was approaching our boss, the Recreation Director, about my intention to quit. I didn't want to have to justify my decision and decline a bunch of offers to make changes to the workplace, my schedule, or the workload. I'd reviewed possibilities in my head all weekend, and none of them were quite good enough to compel me to stay. I was resolute.

When the boss came in on Monday morning, I asked when might be a good time for us to have a serious conversation. We sat down in his office a bit later and I explained how I'd been feeling, the conversation my coworkers and I had, their idea for a remedy, and all the reasons that I doubted it could work. To my utter amazement, he shook his head and said, "You're preaching to the choir. I wish I had the option you've got here. I've still got two years before I can retire. I'm burning the candle at both ends." He gave me his blessing to do whatever was best for me.

I thanked him, then made my ask: "Can I count on you for a recommendation, whatever I move on to?" I had planned to put in for a clerk position rumored to be available at ERDCC's Reentry Center, a newly opened facility at the prison, where people within one year of release can request help with job-hunting skills, work on their résumés, and even get vocational training. XSTREAM made a lot of signs, labels, and decorations adding to the building's slick, professional appearance, not to mention video-recorded their big open house event a couple of weeks ago. I hoped that our work would afford me a leg up in the application process.

Within an hour of my request, my boss called the Reentry Center and put in a good word on my behalf. They offered me the job without hesitation, no questions asked. I didn't even have to formally apply. (Of course, even after changing employers, I'll still host TV shows for XSTREAM. The team wouldn't let me get away from them entirely.)

I'm supposed to report to the Reentry Center sometime at the end of this week, to talk about the job and my options there. It sounds a little like I'll get to create my own position, with the possibility of even facilitating classes or programs myself. I love the idea of working face-to-face with people who want to use this time to make more of their lives! This feels in some ways like a major shift; in others, it feels like the most natural transition ever.

My last day at XSTREAM is a week and a half away. This probably won't surprise you, but I'm already sleeping better.

Equanimity or Bust

There's no romance in equanimity. The quality of being at ease with whatever comes one's way seems to be in opposition to our desire for excitement and drama. We want passion, conflict, and speed, almost as much in our lives as we want them in movies and on TV.

A writer once mused that it was impossible to compose a story about a happy man, because plot can't co-exist with contentment. He contended that a satisfied protagonist doesn't yearn, fight, or strive; therefore, anything you write about him will be just a tedious anecdote. Story needs movement. Equanimity, on the other hand, is stillness.

Much of our lives consist of struggle. If you're reading this, you have Internet access and leisure time. You're also privileged to have (here I make assumptions) easy access to clean water, adequate food, and a place to call home. Unless you live in a war zone, you probably have no dire existential concerns. Your day-to-day might even afford time for music and art. If so, lucky you.

The wealthy have all of their basic needs met. They don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. They don't need to fear (depending on how they got their wealth) being murdered in their sleep. They can easily afford clothes appropriate to the season. They are also, according to studies, generally dissatisfied. Without existential struggles, significant friction, and narrative interest to contend with, they get bored. Money can't buy happiness, as someone once said, but it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.

It's arguably easier to be equanimous in the absence of excessive difficulty. Study after study shows us that a person regularly faced with moderately difficult challenges will report being happier than somebody living a life of ease. I would argue that this is exactly the thing that the pampered Prince Siddhartha Gautama felt, gazing beyond the walls of his family's palace, before he ventured out on the quest that led him to become the Buddha, an icon of equanimity.

I understand why it's said that following the Eightfold Noble Path—practicing Buddhism, that is—constitutes a different way of being in the world. It changes your life, reveals the impossibility of an independent self in a universe structured upon interconnectivity.

This concept, no-self, is tricky but perhaps best illustrated with the koan "What was your face before your parents were born?" Everything we think we are depends on the existence of everything else. In a world without our mother and father, where can we be said to exist? Our existence depends on them, and on so much else. How much can be taken away from who we believe we are before we aren't us anymore? Are we our designer wardrobe? Our love of 1950s sci-fi movies? Our award-winning hot sauce recipe? Our career as a hospice nurse?

Meditation is the study of the self. To study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to become one with the universe. I'm no Zen master, but I feel a teensy iota of this oneness when I sit in meditation. It's a little scary. How does one avoid the pitfall—which I can only imagine exists—of slipping not just into a state of nonidentification but of nonidentity? It's one thing to forget the self; it's another to be subsumed by a conception (however misguided) of selflessness. Maybe this is where a teacher comes in handy, but I don't have that luxury where I am.

Sometimes I see myself, in my meditation, seated at the precipice of a great void. Leaning forward, I'll tumble into nothingness, into an inconceivably vast absence of concepts or observable phenomena, wherein I'll know only stillness and imperturbability. Leaning backward, I'll tumble to meet the irrefutably solid ground of a phenomenological reality, a consciousness stuck in this gradually declining meat-machine that I call my body. Neither option feels comfortable, yet maintaining equipoise takes so much effort.

I don't want to become one of those frustratingly chill bodhisattva stereotypes, seemingly indifferent to everything going on around him and, in a word, boring as shit. Nor do I want to keep going through this life with the same hangups, limited perspectives, and stressors that have for so long defined who I am. Yet I wouldn't be practicing if I didn't welcome a change.

These are just the worries of someone who's unsure but trying, the expression of thoughts by someone walking a road he can't see. I guess that's everyone, though. I'm nothing special, just one projection of the steady breath and beating heart of the universe.

An Afternoon Furlough (Almost)

The Missouri Department of Rehabilitative Services probably doesn't get much press coverage. Such is its lack of notoriety that I can't even describe for you the relationship between DORS and the Department of Corrections—and I've been a prisoner in the DOC since 2002. They did hit a significant milestone here at ERDCC yesterday, though, with a ribbon cutting for the Missouri Reentry Center, the state's biggest and probably most modern facility of its type. I not only got to be there for the big event, I even got to hand out purple octopuses.

The display table offered to XSTREAM was in recognition of everything my coworkers and I do for the institution, and for all we did for the Reentry Center in the leadup to yesterday's event. We not only cut adhesive vinyl numbers to mark the building's doors, we also made big decorative wall stickers—inspirational slogans, logos, and a career-centric word cloud. We even made the 6-by-9-foot Reentry Center sign bolted beside the front entrance, which the administrative team posed beside with giant scissors before cutting the ribbon.

We put a 55-inch TV beside us, looping a brief promotional video I compiled for the occasion. A 32-inch model on the tabletop continuously displayed our octopus logo. After recording the ceremony, a coworker and I sat and fielded questions from educators, law enforcement officers, visiting staff from other prisons, members of the Bonne Terre Chamber of Commerce, and a newspaper reporter. One of my ambitions is to make XSTREAM a recognized production outfit outside of the prison, creating media content for entities outside these fences. Yesterday felt like an opportunity to move toward that.

While pitching our production work to the public, I handed out swag to everyone who came close enough to talk—because who doesn't love stickers? Our logo is iconic enough to be cool without context, but with any luck the little octopuses I cut in royal purple and baby blue will prompt the person who took one to remember our unique display whenever they glance at the laptop, clipboard, or binder they stuck it to. Who knows, somebody might even strike up a conversation with them about it.

By prison standards, the Reentry Center is really nice, and I'm happy to have played a small part in making it look that way. Being allowed to attend the open house event and talk with everyday people about the work I'm so proud of felt like an afternoon away from prison.

As "The Real Killer"'s Third Season Comes to an End, I Have Some Thoughts

Attention being drawn to my case by The Real Killer is, arguably, a good thing. Continued interest at least hints at a reason for hope. The way Leah Rothman's been setting out the facts seems a little scattershot, but the Jackson County Sheriff's Department investigation lasted almost four years, the facts do tend to sprawl.

I've always preferred putting everything on the table and letting people decide for themselves whether mine is a cause worth getting involved with. That is basically what The Real Killer has been doing over the past thirteen weeks. Messy? Sure, but at least it's honest.

Comparatively, people who believe (or desperately want to believe) that I'm guilty take the opposite tack when it comes to their argument strategy. The anti-Byrons call up the worst aspects of my polarizing teenage personality, cite out-of-context case document excerpts, invent unsubstantiated and often outlandish "facts," then wave it all around like a bloody handkerchief, shouting to all the world that their case against me is airtight.

I do wonder what conversation about the podcast has taken place in that camp. I hear occasional snippets of what passes for communication on The Real Killer's Instagram feed, and it seems like more of what it's always been: some people consider the facts and come away with the sense of my innocence; some watch video of my interviews and hiss, "He's got no soul!"

Everyone's got opinions, but the podcast itself keeps them to a merciful minimum. Anastasia's sisters said in a recent episode that they believe my accuser, in part, because she's stuck to the same story for twenty-four years. I have only this rebuttal: if time invested in maintaining a stance was the measure of its legitimacy, my innocence should be of no question. I've stuck with the truth since investigators first asked me if I was involved with Stasia's death. That was in October of 1997, three and a half years before Kelly Moffett made up her story. How could time convince you that Kelly's being truthful, but not that I am? This is the double standard I'm pitted against—another example of the injustice I've now fought more than half my life.

Listeners have been promised that the podcast's finale is coming soon, that The Real Killer is now taking a short break. What that last episode might be, I can only guess. I've been waiting for disappointment ever since I listened to the very first episode. Other shows' outcomes, even the half-hearted shrug that was MTV's Unlocking the Truth, have instilled in me a bit of pessimism. My approach with The Real Killer has been one of nonjudgment. Week after week, I refrained from guessing what direction the podcast was heading, the whole time half-expecting a hard left turn, as it veers away from Leah Rothman's relatively straightforward reportage.

At the moment I'm typing this, that turn has yet to come. While there are some small things about the podcast I take issue with, they're trifles, not important enough to speak out against or even mention here. Some of them are simply products of dramatic necessity. Leah's got to keep listener numbers up and her sponsors happy. The podcast is, after all, primarily a form of entertainment.

Like everyone who's faithfully listened every Thursday as new episodes drop, I'm waiting with anticipation to see how The Real Killer concludes. You could say I'm waiting for a miracle; I'm waiting for justice, after all.

Sleep, Interrupted

I wake in the small hours, unsure of why, until I strain my ears against the night and hear the faint jingle of keys. A guard's doing his routine wing walkthrough. I'm frequently woken up this way. The cause isn't always noise, though. Sometimes a steel door will slam after I wake up, and I'll realize belatedly that the person who closed it must've aimed a flashlight through the cell window and pierced the fragile membrane of my sleep. In either case, when the interrupter exits the wing, I'm often left to lie here, at the mercy of idle thoughts.

When am I going to be able do laundry tomorrow, considering my schedule? I need to ask how this weekend's Spotlight episode is coming. Shit, and there are still three guest spots to fill for this season of Real Talk. I've got to hurry up and record those episodes! And what are we going to do with the sports slot on Channel X after next week? Mental note: load Twon's notes for the next Playlist episode onto the tablet before our taping. That flyer still needs to be made for the housing units, too. And so on, leaping from thought to thought.

It only makes sense that anxieties about looming deadlines would lay siege to my nights. They certainly preoccupy my daylight hours. Considering that I practice regular meditation, I probably struggle too much with this.

Lying flat on this dense mattress, I turn my focus to the breath. The heaviness of my chest suggests that it's filled with lead. The tension in my neck battles this lumpy pillow. A massage would be nice, I think, then let go of the idea, recognizing its unhelpfulness. Be here, now, I remind myself, and come back to the breath.

It's been a long day. I'm so tired. Sleep should come quickly, but the mattress is hot and my mind is on the move—the perfect recipe for unrest.

I'm no stranger to this. Insomnia plagued me as a teenager. Tossing on my bed for hours on end, I'd be exhausted but kept awake by a mind racing to nowhere. Doctors prescribed medication for sleep, but not even 300 milligrams of trazodone did the trick. The drugs only succeeded in making me dizzy. I'd just lie there, my head swimming, desperate for rest that wouldn't come.

Only when I started taking more control of my life did that anxiousness go away. I started asserting myself, exercising more independence, and opening my mind to the possibility of a rosier future. From major depression, I emerged into something like contentment.

Now is different. I have tools that are tremendously effective under normal conditions. My confinement is entirely to blame for these 2 o'clock wakeups. There's no way for me to prevent from being stirred out of sleep. All I can do is work to get back to that state when it happens. No prevention, only repair.

This fact, too, becomes a conscious thought that harasses me, another ten or fifteen minutes lost to unproductive thought. The sun will be up in a few hours. There's no winning here; I can only practice being a gracious loser.

Unreasonable Ideas

Where do you want to go? Where do you want to be? Do you want to travel or grow roots? Do you live in the city or on some land? Describe your house. How many rooms? Do you have a garden? Do you have a shop? Is there a hoop above the garage? [...] Activate your imagination by adding unreasonable accomplishments. You'd be amazed at what is possible.

—from The Re-entry Guide: A Returning Citizen's Guide to Successfully Navigating through Re-entry, by Frank Patka and Ryan McCrone

I want to go to Berlin. At dawn, I want to buy freshly baked Semmeln at the neighborhood bakery, walking home amid the diaspora of ten or fifteen different countries. I want to enjoy my breakfast with coffee made from beans I just ground, while sitting at a high window to watch the city bloom into springtime wakefulness.

The apartment where I live is cool and aglow in pale orange from the rising sun. The cat purrs loudly, affectionately circling my ankle. Below this floor or perhaps next door, someone is singing, a tenor voice, tuneful and even. I can't make out the language of its lyrics, but its sound is lovely.

After eating, I sit in meditation. Then, with a fresh, clear mind, I begin the morning's writing. It's a novel I'm working on, my second. Writing fiction remains a challenging diversion from the essays, memoir pieces, and poetry that held my focus during the decades I spent in prison. My literary agent in America isn't confident in the book's marketability, which only makes me more thankful for her trust in my ability to create meaningful work.

After a few hours, I have an interview with an American podcaster, to talk snout overcoming bitterness and developing resilience. Even though it's the usual subject matter, interviews always make for interesting breaks from my routine, and I enjoy them even when they turn a little difficult.

Conversations like these always compel recollections of my early days in prison, the contrast between the scared, confused young man that I was and the self-assured person I became. For about the first half of my life, I didn't know what actually benefitted me. I wasted a lot of years, mindlessly chasing a good time. Because now they're more about contribution than about consumption, my pursuits today have meaning: video production for a nonprofit, teaching coping skills to people in need, speaking to educate and inspire, volunteering my time.

Later in the evening, I meet some friends for dinner. I wonder when, exactly, silverware stopped feeling strange in my hand. I eat deliberately, savoring each bite with care and close attention. Table talk consists of the heady and the ridiculous, from philosophical concepts to pop culture. We make tentative plans to take a trip to Poland in the summer. Then we go our separate ways and I head home on the train, watching the illuminated city pass my window. As the carriage gently rocks down the tracks, I think back to all those nights when I searched—usually fruitlessly—for a glimpse of the moon from my prison cell. I peer up at the sky over Berlin and think, Yeah, it's a good life.

This is all speculative, of course. Ask me again tomorrow and I might just as well say Vancouver or Amsterdam instead of Berlin. The locations are mere details. But the substance, you might say the heart, of the life that I want won't change.