Friday, May 19, 2017

William Myrl; Letters To No One (77)

Dear No One,

We had group today, I'm sure I've mentioned it before. If I haven't, its the only group of it's kind in Virginia, and it exists solely because of our workaholic psychiatrist. There's usually about ten of us in the group. We come together to gripe about medications, prison, and the decline of civility in the west. He leads the conversation by asking us questions, but there is no set plan or lesson. It is meant to be organic. He told us a story that had been shared with him in the early nineties, when he took his position at Augusta. 


The institution had been through five or six psychiatrists in as many years. One doctor interviewed and told the warden that he couldn't work there unless he had a CO with him whenever he was with inmates. The warden said they couldn't do that, they didn't have people to spare,and for the doctor it was a deal breaker. The warden convinced him to take a tour of the facility anyway and they eventually came to the room we occupied for our group. It was different then, there had been a grating bisecting the room, with the smaller section storing things inmates weren't to touch, and an ophthalmologists chair. The doctor had asked to see the area, and told the warden that is where he wanted to take his appointments. The warden agreed.

The CO who had shared this story with our Psychiatrist said what followed was some of the worst behavior he had ever seen. They had cursed the doctor, threatened him, grabbed the grating and shaken it. He came three times, and they were looking for another practitioner.


Our psychiatrist said he knew the man this had happened to, that he had gone to an excellent school and that he was a smart doctor, that he cared, and had helped many people. But he left the prison with the conviction that he had been right all along, these prisoners were animals and he had been right to take precautions. He learned the wrong lesson.
Our psychiatrist stood and pointed to the bolts in the wall where the grating had once been.

I haven't been keeping up with you at all. I won't lie and say it's going to get better.

Hearts and Stars
William Myrl
Letters to No One

William Myrl; Letters to No One (76)

Dear No One,

Several changes in security procedures coming up. We are in the process of making special visitation jumpsuits in the tailor shop. They zip in the back, and we will change into them before being able to go in. Other shops are busy making complete sets of whites, so when we have a visit we will be wearing a complete set of communal clothing. Socks, t shirt, and underwear all stamped red for visitation. This is intended to cut down on the illicit materials that are smuggled into this place. It will be a lot of bother for everyone, and slow down the visitation process, not sure what it will do for the smuggling industry. In addition, the vending machines in visitation will no longer sell chips, or anything without a clear bag, or any microwavable foods. 


The changes to mail policy are what inconveniences me. Everything we receive will be photocopied and shredded, the copies will be delivered to us. Cards, photos, no more. Nothing my family physically touches can be touched by me. I am almost religiously offended by this. It's as if they are attempting to combat the magical law of contagion. Moreover, they will limit individual correspondence to five pages or items per letter. They will copy up to three sheets, front and back, and the envelope itself counts as one page. They will make no effort to fit multiple small items onto one page, or to accommodate oversized paper. I'm glad I stopped sending home manuscripts as I wrote them, because getting back copies will soon require a laughable number of envelopes. This policy forces us to rely more on the Jpay email system, which will be great for their percentage. 

We'll get used to all this, and in a few years prisoners will come into the system accepting it as the status quo. Things go up and down, but it's a longstanding truism that when there is change, it is change for the worse.

On the lighter side of the news, Washington and Lee is hosting a class for the third year. Very exciting, and for the third year, I have unable to get past the application process. Submit a one paragraph answer to the question, "why am I interested in taking this course", those selected write an essay, and the top ten essays can take the class. Cool program, but I've never gotten as far as being allowed to write an essay. My paragraph answer was completely revamped, I thought I'd learned from last years failure where I talked myself up too much. Apparently not. There are a lot of people who put in, but you have to be three years charge free to qualify, so really we're talking less than a hundred legitimate applicants. Twenty get to do essays, ten get to be in the class. 
 


It is truly frustrating to me that I am not in the eightieth percentile or above in this process. I've not been graded this low in my life. I am technically an award-winning author (The award was fifty dollars, but I'm counting it.), and I'm not good enough for the Augusta Department of Corrections educational screenings dream team. After last time, my expectations were tempered, so I am not as angry as I was. It would be nice to be in a class, to have an actual teacher, talk to actual students, it would be a very non-prison experience. I'm disappointed that it seems like I'm never going to be a part of it, and its hard to swallow knowing that I simply care more about it than the people who are accepted. This is not a general statement, I personally know many of the people who were able to participate in the previous classes. I don't care a lot about a lot of things, most of what goes on in here falls below my register for emotional affect. Prison drama is not important. This would have been something different, so it meant something. With ten fresh slots, I thought, surely, I would be able to fill one. That's what happens when you have hope, William.

Hearts and Stars

William Myrl
Letters to No One

William Myrl; Letters to No One (75)

Dear No One,

There were three students at group today, and I remembered their names by associating them with famous persons. Someone told the doctor he looked like Stephen King, which he doesn't, particularly. He asked us about King's popularity, and we listed off titles. Other popular authors were mentioned. The doctor said he wondered if there was anywhere the entire population could fit in a ring. Maybe on the rec yard, certainly nowhere inside. He asked how many people would raise there hands if everyone was in a circle somewhere and told to if the bible was their favorite book. In the group, hands immediately went up. 


We talked a bit about kairos, a christian group that holds regular "reunions", popular because they bring cookies. They used to hand out cookies to the entire compound, but offenders ruined it by trying to steal huge bags for themselves. This is why we can't have nice things.


There is a fellow, Bucky, who was brought up. Apparently, he is known for his exploits as a devout crazy person. He went to a group of Muslims on the rec yard and tried to teach them about the bible. He drank diluted cleaner, making himself sick, as an effort at internal ablution. The doctor was concerned, as he had never met this offender, but no one knew his last name, or was willing to offer it.


Landstander and Waddle wanted to know why so many crazy people have religious delusions. The doctor asks if anyone has experienced manic symptoms relating to religion, and I start thinking about Alethianism, which I made up while I was in segregation. Bopedi raised his hand and explained that he had become hyper religious before. The conversation drifted again for a while, until the doctor brought it back to Bopedi, who talked about other manic symptoms like hyper sexuality. Tattoo gave an example of Bucky getting on the top bunk in his cell and masturbating with the sheet over his head while his celly was on the bunk below. At least he used the sheet, I said. I continued to think about Alethianism, half following the shifts in the topic train, until Anna Nicole Smith (one of the students) asked Bopedi a question. What is it like to come down from a manic episode? 


Bopedi said it was disappointing, to see that you weren't really everything you thought you had been. He mentioned his art, and how hard it made it to work without that light. The light was gone. I made an observation at the end that it felt like the light was always there, maybe behind my head, or behind a locked door. I knew it was there but I couldn't reach it. You carry it with you.

Hearts and Stars

William Myrl
Letters to No One