Dear No One,
I enjoy romantic comedies. USA showed one called That Awkward Moment recently, it had Zac Efron and others. The lead love interest wasn't an actress I'm familiar with. She was oddly lovely, or lovely odd. There are certain faces that are better for being quirked, slightly mismatched, and I'm a fool for overlarge eyes. Perfect faces are deserving of admiration, and imperfect faces of love. It was an unusual movie in that the protagonist, Mr. Efron, had no past. His deficiencies as a human being were never explained, though they were naturally overcome by the end of the film. Have you ever seen it? Do you know who that girl is?
Bears (the girl I was with when I was a real person) used to have us watch romcoms together. You've Got Mail was a favorite. Ever notice how overplayed the publishing industry is in movies and books? It diverges strongly from occupational base rates, but who would writers write about if not people like themselves?
In jail, there is a solid block of the population that believes itself to be in relationships. These fellows are watching a movie all their own, and are all too dependent on what flickers across the screen. Some of them are married, it doesn't really matter. When a man and a woman vow to remain together forever, through better and through worse, they don't use their imaginations. Incarceration is an acid that dissolves all manner of bonds, even as it creates new ones. There are some relationships that endure, and they generally begin after incarceration, by mail, with a partner who knows what they're getting and what they're not. Proximity is the foundation of social interaction, its a simple if somewhat emasculating thought. Geography plays a greater role in networking than our own choices do, and prison is the heart of nowhere.
Bears and I, we're still friends, if distant ones. I've been under arrest for more than twice as long as we were together, and I don't have another reference point for relationships. The fact that I hear from her at all after so many years is amazing to me. It's not something I could have reasonably asked for, all that time ago.
There are certain parts of oneself that have to learn to quiet themselves, if we are to avoid unrest. You learn to live without what may once have been considered necessary. It is not a temporary condition, as so many of us will never be anywhere but here. I will go home one day, and people of my good fortune have difficult imagining choosing to go on if we knew there was nothing but this. Humans don't really make a choice to live though, they just keep living, with or without hope.
Everyone is beautiful in movies involving Zac Efron, and I wish it were that way in life. The world is often uglier than the stories we tell about it, and its endings are slower too.
yours,
William Myrl (Smitherman)
Thursday, May 26, 2016
William Myrl; Letters to No One (54)
Dear No One,
The last visit I had with the head doctor, he had three students with him. We went through all the formal proceedings, introductions and telling me I can ask them to leave if I don't want to speak in front of them etc... The talker in this group is a Mr. Court. He asks about mania, I tell him its much harder for me to define than depression is, much harder to pin down, and that I wished I could make him listen to music, because that would be a better way of understanding. So though I will never see that particular fellow again, I have made a list of manic tunes for your perusal. They will come at the end of this letter.
The first person I tried to be friends with was Yi. If you have been reading these, you may have noticed a pattern. I meet someone I find interesting, become overly enthusiastic about their existence, and eventually find disappointment when they don't expand to fill the image of them I have created. Mao, Jark, and Ender are the most recent examples. When I was at Sussex, it was Sawyer. In jail, the first was Yi. He was small, kind of nezumi featured, college educated. One of the first things I heard about him was "he kind of talks like you." You know, in complete sentences. He didn't warm up to me immediately, and it was reasonable of him to be reserved. People who are overtly friendly to strangers are usually running a con. There were rumors that he had unsavory charges (not a lot of things prisoners find unsavory, so you can guess) and I'm sure people tried to take advantage of him at different times both because of that and his slender frame. His differentness. I talked to him about StarCraft to break the ice. He worked on computers in the real world, had a little business. Being in jail couldn't have helped that but who knows. I haven't thought about the guy in years, and I'm sure he's home by now.
He wrote stories, so he was also the first other inmate whose stories I read. I make it a habit now, to always read what people write. In some cases, I will probably be the only person to ever read it. The work is nearly always awful, but that isn't the point.
He wrote a science fiction novel, a draft, about humanity's fight against telekinetic space whales. Not terrible, accounting for its incompleteness. He was developing a romance before we parted ways. It was based on his relationship with his wife, I think, and it was the better read. I wish I remembered enough about him to send him a letter, to tell him I was making progress. He used to do some light editing for me. And he gave me a honey bun for Christmas.
We argued about a lot. He was a smart guy who believed in a young earth, and he thought gold dragons weren't the strongest of the metallic breeds in third edition dungeons and dragons. Two equally ridiculous stances. He asked me why I did what I did (my crimes were well known, when I entered green and white someone dangled a local newspaper down from the mezzanine and pointed me out), and I said, "Why does anyone do anything?" That's probably as good an explanation as I've been able to give anyone so far.
We played chess, and we were well matched at first. He kept practicing, and soon outpaced me. I'm still not very good, haven't played in a few years. Magic the gathering and DnD replaced it far and long ago. I wonder where he has gone, and what has become of him. Yi wasn't the sort to come back to a place like this when presented with the choice. These faces, they keep appearing and disappearing. Prison is a house of phantoms. If you're wondering how I'm going to tie all of this in to the mania topic, I'm not.
So here's the list, some of them stronger than others; they come in flavors, and in no particular order.
Clarity--Zedd.Foxes
LGFUAD-Motion City Soundtrack
Lux Aeterna/Summer Overture--Clint Mansell
Radioactive--Imagine Dragons
How Far We've Come-- Matchbox 20
Teenage Dream-- Katy Perry
Firework-- Katy Perry
This is Me--Draft Kings
My House--PVRIS
Dr. Code--Yucat
Zankoku no Tenshi no Thesis--Original Evangelion opening theme
Zenchi Zennou no Ki--Yucat
Flowers in Paradise--Ouzokuband
Imitation--Akaitsuki
The Protomen (Their first concept album, haven't heard it in seven years or more, and still I hear it sometimes)
The Protomen (Act II: The Father of Death)
That's all I can think of at the moment.
Write you again soon.
Love,
William Myrl (Smitherman)
The last visit I had with the head doctor, he had three students with him. We went through all the formal proceedings, introductions and telling me I can ask them to leave if I don't want to speak in front of them etc... The talker in this group is a Mr. Court. He asks about mania, I tell him its much harder for me to define than depression is, much harder to pin down, and that I wished I could make him listen to music, because that would be a better way of understanding. So though I will never see that particular fellow again, I have made a list of manic tunes for your perusal. They will come at the end of this letter.
The first person I tried to be friends with was Yi. If you have been reading these, you may have noticed a pattern. I meet someone I find interesting, become overly enthusiastic about their existence, and eventually find disappointment when they don't expand to fill the image of them I have created. Mao, Jark, and Ender are the most recent examples. When I was at Sussex, it was Sawyer. In jail, the first was Yi. He was small, kind of nezumi featured, college educated. One of the first things I heard about him was "he kind of talks like you." You know, in complete sentences. He didn't warm up to me immediately, and it was reasonable of him to be reserved. People who are overtly friendly to strangers are usually running a con. There were rumors that he had unsavory charges (not a lot of things prisoners find unsavory, so you can guess) and I'm sure people tried to take advantage of him at different times both because of that and his slender frame. His differentness. I talked to him about StarCraft to break the ice. He worked on computers in the real world, had a little business. Being in jail couldn't have helped that but who knows. I haven't thought about the guy in years, and I'm sure he's home by now.
He wrote stories, so he was also the first other inmate whose stories I read. I make it a habit now, to always read what people write. In some cases, I will probably be the only person to ever read it. The work is nearly always awful, but that isn't the point.
He wrote a science fiction novel, a draft, about humanity's fight against telekinetic space whales. Not terrible, accounting for its incompleteness. He was developing a romance before we parted ways. It was based on his relationship with his wife, I think, and it was the better read. I wish I remembered enough about him to send him a letter, to tell him I was making progress. He used to do some light editing for me. And he gave me a honey bun for Christmas.
We argued about a lot. He was a smart guy who believed in a young earth, and he thought gold dragons weren't the strongest of the metallic breeds in third edition dungeons and dragons. Two equally ridiculous stances. He asked me why I did what I did (my crimes were well known, when I entered green and white someone dangled a local newspaper down from the mezzanine and pointed me out), and I said, "Why does anyone do anything?" That's probably as good an explanation as I've been able to give anyone so far.
We played chess, and we were well matched at first. He kept practicing, and soon outpaced me. I'm still not very good, haven't played in a few years. Magic the gathering and DnD replaced it far and long ago. I wonder where he has gone, and what has become of him. Yi wasn't the sort to come back to a place like this when presented with the choice. These faces, they keep appearing and disappearing. Prison is a house of phantoms. If you're wondering how I'm going to tie all of this in to the mania topic, I'm not.
So here's the list, some of them stronger than others; they come in flavors, and in no particular order.
Clarity--Zedd.Foxes
LGFUAD-Motion City Soundtrack
Lux Aeterna/Summer Overture--Clint Mansell
Radioactive--Imagine Dragons
How Far We've Come-- Matchbox 20
Teenage Dream-- Katy Perry
Firework-- Katy Perry
This is Me--Draft Kings
My House--PVRIS
Dr. Code--Yucat
Zankoku no Tenshi no Thesis--Original Evangelion opening theme
Zenchi Zennou no Ki--Yucat
Flowers in Paradise--Ouzokuband
Imitation--Akaitsuki
The Protomen (Their first concept album, haven't heard it in seven years or more, and still I hear it sometimes)
The Protomen (Act II: The Father of Death)
That's all I can think of at the moment.
Write you again soon.
Love,
William Myrl (Smitherman)
William Myrl; Letters to No One (53)
Dear No One,
The door shakes at one or two, it took longer than you would think to get my psych evaluation, and not as long as most things do for us. Three or four hours were spent in a holding cell with others going elsewhere. We had breakfast, for some reason I believe it was gravy, though it would be ludicrous to imagine I retained that detail through the years. The drive was about three hours, alone in the back of a van. There were two officers in the cab and they occasional said words to me or each other. They weren't in any way hostile, I've noticed security personnel tends to be friendliest where mental health is concerned, assuming you aren't making their jobs more difficult than they are meant to be.
We went to UVA where I was interviewed by a psychologist and a student. There were many questions, and a short written test.They were both very nice, and I failed to convey anything of value to them. I have never been comfortable with public feelings. After a couple of years practicing with the psychiatrist here my communication skills have improved, at the time, I answered them in much the same manner as I would have any stranger asking me personal questions The was diversion and distortion, a bit of bravado, and a bad habit I have never shaken of manufacturing answers to questions I have no real answer to.
For lunch, there was pepperoni pizza and coke. I ate mine alone in the interview room, and picked my nose for the camera one assumes they were observing me through. I tried to pee, failed, my shy bladder triumphing again as two officers waited awkwardly behind me in the bathroom. They must have taken my handcuffs off, I think, though the shackles remained. Wait, I know what it was. One hand was handcuffed to my belt and the other was free for eating and filling in multiple choice questions.
They asked me if I cared what other people thought of me. I said I didn't. They asked me how I would describe me opinion of myself, I said deific. They asked me what careers I might be interested in, I listed; author, actor, rock star, and politician. They noted that I didn't actually have to give an answer if I wasn't sure. Was I still nineteen then? Maybe twenty. I wonder if I had behaved differently that day would I have gotten the diagnosis I have now, would it have helped me later on. I was being defensive, the friendliest obstruction that I know. When the psychologist mentioned some of the things I talked about doing during the months leading up to my arrest sounded like depression, my reply was that maybe it sounded that way, but I wouldn't characterize it as such. It wasn't an intentional stance I was taking, just my natural resistance to sharing private things. I must have peed at some point after that, its difficult to envision making it through the three hour drive home if I hadn't.
My evaluation didn't turn up anything useful for my lawyers purposes. My mom seemed to blame the psychologist for this, really the fault was entirely mine. He did his best to label me with the presentation that I gave him. One of the officers asked me what we talked about in there for so many hours. A lot of stuff.
Today I checked out bipolar for dummies from the library. Its a waterlogged copy. The mania checklist was sought and found, because I had forgotten why I believed it of myself. So I mentally marked the boxes. Yep, still got it; maybe not a terrible case, more hypo than anything, and now neatly medicated. Still, its helpful to be reminded.
yours,
William Myrl (Smitherman)
The door shakes at one or two, it took longer than you would think to get my psych evaluation, and not as long as most things do for us. Three or four hours were spent in a holding cell with others going elsewhere. We had breakfast, for some reason I believe it was gravy, though it would be ludicrous to imagine I retained that detail through the years. The drive was about three hours, alone in the back of a van. There were two officers in the cab and they occasional said words to me or each other. They weren't in any way hostile, I've noticed security personnel tends to be friendliest where mental health is concerned, assuming you aren't making their jobs more difficult than they are meant to be.
We went to UVA where I was interviewed by a psychologist and a student. There were many questions, and a short written test.They were both very nice, and I failed to convey anything of value to them. I have never been comfortable with public feelings. After a couple of years practicing with the psychiatrist here my communication skills have improved, at the time, I answered them in much the same manner as I would have any stranger asking me personal questions The was diversion and distortion, a bit of bravado, and a bad habit I have never shaken of manufacturing answers to questions I have no real answer to.
For lunch, there was pepperoni pizza and coke. I ate mine alone in the interview room, and picked my nose for the camera one assumes they were observing me through. I tried to pee, failed, my shy bladder triumphing again as two officers waited awkwardly behind me in the bathroom. They must have taken my handcuffs off, I think, though the shackles remained. Wait, I know what it was. One hand was handcuffed to my belt and the other was free for eating and filling in multiple choice questions.
They asked me if I cared what other people thought of me. I said I didn't. They asked me how I would describe me opinion of myself, I said deific. They asked me what careers I might be interested in, I listed; author, actor, rock star, and politician. They noted that I didn't actually have to give an answer if I wasn't sure. Was I still nineteen then? Maybe twenty. I wonder if I had behaved differently that day would I have gotten the diagnosis I have now, would it have helped me later on. I was being defensive, the friendliest obstruction that I know. When the psychologist mentioned some of the things I talked about doing during the months leading up to my arrest sounded like depression, my reply was that maybe it sounded that way, but I wouldn't characterize it as such. It wasn't an intentional stance I was taking, just my natural resistance to sharing private things. I must have peed at some point after that, its difficult to envision making it through the three hour drive home if I hadn't.
My evaluation didn't turn up anything useful for my lawyers purposes. My mom seemed to blame the psychologist for this, really the fault was entirely mine. He did his best to label me with the presentation that I gave him. One of the officers asked me what we talked about in there for so many hours. A lot of stuff.
Today I checked out bipolar for dummies from the library. Its a waterlogged copy. The mania checklist was sought and found, because I had forgotten why I believed it of myself. So I mentally marked the boxes. Yep, still got it; maybe not a terrible case, more hypo than anything, and now neatly medicated. Still, its helpful to be reminded.
yours,
William Myrl (Smitherman)
William Myrl; Letters to No One (52)
Dear No One,
Fifth Element is one of the few movies I can watch whenever it's on. I can't explain what seperates it from more lackluster SyFy fair, it certainly doesn't break any new ground from a storytelling perspective, and it ends on a pet peeve of mine, when love is suddenly the answer to every ill. In this case, love stops a demon meteor from crashing into the earth and destroying all life in the universe. That is what happens.
I like to think that fantasy and science fiction is a metaphorical endeavor. It isn't really about Sauron and Gandalf, but what they represent. This excuse explains why the genre is so repetitive. We're not telling new or original stories, its the same tired play with the same tired dialogue each time. Some cosmologies, like Narnia and the Golden Compass, are open about their derivation. Others are less so, a little less. Villains tend to be personifications of negative emotions, hatred and anger and pain. That's why they are always so insane. Wanting to bring about the end all things isn't the crazy part, its how they go about about doing it. Voldermort's actions only make sense if you recognize him as an avatar for hatred, because hatred is stupid and can be beaten by children. Stories are rarely written as if the characters were real people. Instead, they are archetypal fill in the blanks. I'm not saying this is wrong, but it would be nice if we could fight off the tropes occasionally.
So the good emotions beat the bad ones, and love triumphs over all. That's the world as we would like it to be, where good intentions and friendship could overcome as many dark lords as you like. In reality, emotions don't make us stronger in the sense of being able to pull the sword from the stone, but they can anneal us, after a fashion. Looking at the right photograph can be torture if you let it, if you focus on all that you don't have and never will. But sifting through that pain we find some material of use. Love is what keeps our families with us, as inconvenient as we are. It is also a reason to move, to change, to build ourselves anew into something worthy of that love. Not every writer is in a literal prison, but all people struggle, and it is those struggles that are born out in the stories we tell ourselves and each other. The sincerity of a story doesn't make it readable, but other things being equal, it helps. Seeing what we want can inform us of what we are supposed to be. And if we cannot write this world into the confines of a pleasant story, we can put more of that story into ourselves, and become a thing worth writing about, and triumphing for.
Love doesn't win everything for us, it makes us want to win.
Yours,
William Myrl
Fifth Element is one of the few movies I can watch whenever it's on. I can't explain what seperates it from more lackluster SyFy fair, it certainly doesn't break any new ground from a storytelling perspective, and it ends on a pet peeve of mine, when love is suddenly the answer to every ill. In this case, love stops a demon meteor from crashing into the earth and destroying all life in the universe. That is what happens.
I like to think that fantasy and science fiction is a metaphorical endeavor. It isn't really about Sauron and Gandalf, but what they represent. This excuse explains why the genre is so repetitive. We're not telling new or original stories, its the same tired play with the same tired dialogue each time. Some cosmologies, like Narnia and the Golden Compass, are open about their derivation. Others are less so, a little less. Villains tend to be personifications of negative emotions, hatred and anger and pain. That's why they are always so insane. Wanting to bring about the end all things isn't the crazy part, its how they go about about doing it. Voldermort's actions only make sense if you recognize him as an avatar for hatred, because hatred is stupid and can be beaten by children. Stories are rarely written as if the characters were real people. Instead, they are archetypal fill in the blanks. I'm not saying this is wrong, but it would be nice if we could fight off the tropes occasionally.
So the good emotions beat the bad ones, and love triumphs over all. That's the world as we would like it to be, where good intentions and friendship could overcome as many dark lords as you like. In reality, emotions don't make us stronger in the sense of being able to pull the sword from the stone, but they can anneal us, after a fashion. Looking at the right photograph can be torture if you let it, if you focus on all that you don't have and never will. But sifting through that pain we find some material of use. Love is what keeps our families with us, as inconvenient as we are. It is also a reason to move, to change, to build ourselves anew into something worthy of that love. Not every writer is in a literal prison, but all people struggle, and it is those struggles that are born out in the stories we tell ourselves and each other. The sincerity of a story doesn't make it readable, but other things being equal, it helps. Seeing what we want can inform us of what we are supposed to be. And if we cannot write this world into the confines of a pleasant story, we can put more of that story into ourselves, and become a thing worth writing about, and triumphing for.
Love doesn't win everything for us, it makes us want to win.
Yours,
William Myrl
William Myrl; Letters to No One (51)
Dear One,
When I got back to green and white my spot had been taken, so I was in a new cell with two other people. Being the new man on the block, I got to sleep on the floor. I mentioned the jail was overcrowded. To combat this overcrowding, the uppity ups decided they would transmogrify the two man cells into three man cells by putting three men in all of them. It worked out pretty well for them, being that they could solve a problem without actually doing anything about it. Yay, America.
I'm a bit snarky today, and I'm going to break off from my narrative here a moment to talk about a personal point of vexation.
How many guys do you know who think miscegenation should be a crime? How many do you know who think the greatest threat to america is the Mexicans rising up from the south and muddying our bloodlines? Its like some straight up Harry Potter shit in here sometimes.
It isn't just the racism, that is but one flavor of the mental quidditch cup we've got going on. Have you ever been having a conversation with someone who seemed perfectly reasonable before they told you that cellphones were alien technology the government had been hiding from us since the fifties? Does anyone you share a kitchen with think dinosaurs are a trick of the devil to temp us away form the heavenly light of our creator? My cellmate supports Donald Trump unironically, because the Trump is going to make america great again.
To clarify, I like being disagreed with, because it gives me an opportunity to disagree in return. Arguing is fun for me, and I have found a few people over the years I can have an enjoyable debate with, even if it isn't productive. For most, however, debate is impossible. I don't argue or contradict, because the moment I do I'm being condescending or trying to make them feel stupid. Instead of contradicting, I make jokes, and divert the conversation. It works, but I can still be labelled condescending because I'm not giving serious answers to their serious questions. Aiyah.
Oh, and all prisons across America are equipped with poison gas in the ventilation systems in case of martial law when we would all be executed as enemies of the state, because that couldn't go wrong for anybody. That's a pervasive one among certain populations. And don't get me started on the homophobia.
Conspiracies abound.
So we are on lock again, my first in C building. I made it through with a minor loss, my mechanical pencil. Those are hard to come by, and I feel foolish now for begin so frugal with the lead over the last year and a half. I used it for hair, mainly. The rookie who took it came out of my cell holding that and one of my kneadable erasers. He didn't know what the eraser was. I explained that it was for highlights, and lifting graphite. He seemed less than credulous, but he took my word that it had been bought legitimately. My other one was in an unopened package on the desk. He'd searched the desk, and had to have seen it. Nice enough young man. Did he think it was plastic explosives? We'll never know. I'll miss my pencil.
It had a good life.
Yours,
William Myrl
When I got back to green and white my spot had been taken, so I was in a new cell with two other people. Being the new man on the block, I got to sleep on the floor. I mentioned the jail was overcrowded. To combat this overcrowding, the uppity ups decided they would transmogrify the two man cells into three man cells by putting three men in all of them. It worked out pretty well for them, being that they could solve a problem without actually doing anything about it. Yay, America.
I'm a bit snarky today, and I'm going to break off from my narrative here a moment to talk about a personal point of vexation.
How many guys do you know who think miscegenation should be a crime? How many do you know who think the greatest threat to america is the Mexicans rising up from the south and muddying our bloodlines? Its like some straight up Harry Potter shit in here sometimes.
It isn't just the racism, that is but one flavor of the mental quidditch cup we've got going on. Have you ever been having a conversation with someone who seemed perfectly reasonable before they told you that cellphones were alien technology the government had been hiding from us since the fifties? Does anyone you share a kitchen with think dinosaurs are a trick of the devil to temp us away form the heavenly light of our creator? My cellmate supports Donald Trump unironically, because the Trump is going to make america great again.
To clarify, I like being disagreed with, because it gives me an opportunity to disagree in return. Arguing is fun for me, and I have found a few people over the years I can have an enjoyable debate with, even if it isn't productive. For most, however, debate is impossible. I don't argue or contradict, because the moment I do I'm being condescending or trying to make them feel stupid. Instead of contradicting, I make jokes, and divert the conversation. It works, but I can still be labelled condescending because I'm not giving serious answers to their serious questions. Aiyah.
Oh, and all prisons across America are equipped with poison gas in the ventilation systems in case of martial law when we would all be executed as enemies of the state, because that couldn't go wrong for anybody. That's a pervasive one among certain populations. And don't get me started on the homophobia.
Conspiracies abound.
So we are on lock again, my first in C building. I made it through with a minor loss, my mechanical pencil. Those are hard to come by, and I feel foolish now for begin so frugal with the lead over the last year and a half. I used it for hair, mainly. The rookie who took it came out of my cell holding that and one of my kneadable erasers. He didn't know what the eraser was. I explained that it was for highlights, and lifting graphite. He seemed less than credulous, but he took my word that it had been bought legitimately. My other one was in an unopened package on the desk. He'd searched the desk, and had to have seen it. Nice enough young man. Did he think it was plastic explosives? We'll never know. I'll miss my pencil.
It had a good life.
Yours,
William Myrl
Thursday, April 28, 2016
William Myrl; Letters to No One (50)
Dear No One,
Squim was a young man of color with a rape charge. He didn't talk to me at first, and I don't make a habit of going beyond pleasantries with most people. At some point, he discovered that I was what you would call an "active listener", nodding at all the right moments and never expressing disinterest. This is a good way to collect stories. He gave me his in driblets, and we didn't work our way around to his crime until some months later. There had been a party, and he had had sex with a girl there, as had his friend, apparently at the same time. His contention was that they, or his friend, had promised the girl drugs and then renigged. Afterward, the charges has been filed. Knowing the young man, I doubted he had intended to harm the victim, but an encounter doesn't have to be violent to be rape. Like most such cases, it is impossible to say what happened in reality. Over a game of spades someone else confided that Squim must have done something really bad to the girl for her to charge him. This fellow knew her, and he said a bottle of liquor was a sufficient bid for temporary use of her mound of Venus. There's only so much stock to be put in these kinds of statements. The whole affair is not uncommon, an unpaid bill is among the most often utilized explanations for a victim's allegations. Statistically, I imagine it must be true of some cases, but only some. Rape, like robbery, often occurs without any outward sign of savagery, as the intimidated party submits. The victims are no less victims for their quiet.
I was taken to another county jail for a few days when I was formally indicted on my second robbery. I stayed in a holding cell for three days so I could meet my public defender there. Overall, my experience with public defenders has felt positive. It isn't that they don't want to help you, it is that they can't. Mr. Love (no kidding) really seemed to care. He met with me in a perfunctory fashion, going through all the relevant details and making sure I knew a plea deal was my only realistic option. His assistant came the next day, and I said some things to her that apparently caught his attention. He came back the third day, and we talked more. We talked about robberies, and I expressed my feeling that what I had done wasn't the same as taking from a person. He asked if that was because they were big corporations with insurance and I said not exactly. It was different because the money didn't exist while it was in the bank, that by taking money from the bank and putting it into circulation I was creating value. Note that I am not expressing my current beliefs on the matter, only recounting what was said by a nineteen year old to his lawyer at that time. I know there is no excusing my behavior, much as my cellmate was not excused because he did not feel like he was raping his victim. I had told his assistant about my writing habit, the first story I did was a parody of Dante's Inferno. He asked about it when he came back. I wasn't in a great state by then, I still wasn't acclimated to my incarceration, and moving and being in an empty holding cell for three days hadn't helped anything. They felt sympathy for me, which was nice.
When I was taken back to my own jail, and back into intake, sadly, I wrote them a fourteen page letter and sent it out the following day. This is how I ended up getting my first psych evaluation.
Yours,
William Myrl
Squim was a young man of color with a rape charge. He didn't talk to me at first, and I don't make a habit of going beyond pleasantries with most people. At some point, he discovered that I was what you would call an "active listener", nodding at all the right moments and never expressing disinterest. This is a good way to collect stories. He gave me his in driblets, and we didn't work our way around to his crime until some months later. There had been a party, and he had had sex with a girl there, as had his friend, apparently at the same time. His contention was that they, or his friend, had promised the girl drugs and then renigged. Afterward, the charges has been filed. Knowing the young man, I doubted he had intended to harm the victim, but an encounter doesn't have to be violent to be rape. Like most such cases, it is impossible to say what happened in reality. Over a game of spades someone else confided that Squim must have done something really bad to the girl for her to charge him. This fellow knew her, and he said a bottle of liquor was a sufficient bid for temporary use of her mound of Venus. There's only so much stock to be put in these kinds of statements. The whole affair is not uncommon, an unpaid bill is among the most often utilized explanations for a victim's allegations. Statistically, I imagine it must be true of some cases, but only some. Rape, like robbery, often occurs without any outward sign of savagery, as the intimidated party submits. The victims are no less victims for their quiet.
I was taken to another county jail for a few days when I was formally indicted on my second robbery. I stayed in a holding cell for three days so I could meet my public defender there. Overall, my experience with public defenders has felt positive. It isn't that they don't want to help you, it is that they can't. Mr. Love (no kidding) really seemed to care. He met with me in a perfunctory fashion, going through all the relevant details and making sure I knew a plea deal was my only realistic option. His assistant came the next day, and I said some things to her that apparently caught his attention. He came back the third day, and we talked more. We talked about robberies, and I expressed my feeling that what I had done wasn't the same as taking from a person. He asked if that was because they were big corporations with insurance and I said not exactly. It was different because the money didn't exist while it was in the bank, that by taking money from the bank and putting it into circulation I was creating value. Note that I am not expressing my current beliefs on the matter, only recounting what was said by a nineteen year old to his lawyer at that time. I know there is no excusing my behavior, much as my cellmate was not excused because he did not feel like he was raping his victim. I had told his assistant about my writing habit, the first story I did was a parody of Dante's Inferno. He asked about it when he came back. I wasn't in a great state by then, I still wasn't acclimated to my incarceration, and moving and being in an empty holding cell for three days hadn't helped anything. They felt sympathy for me, which was nice.
When I was taken back to my own jail, and back into intake, sadly, I wrote them a fourteen page letter and sent it out the following day. This is how I ended up getting my first psych evaluation.
Yours,
William Myrl
William Myrl; Letters to No One (49)
Dear No One,
Blinky was what he sounded like. A young man with a tic, someone who would spend most of his life doing his time a year or a few at a time. Life on installment plan, is the usual phrase. He may have been there on arson, or a probation violation, or something in between. People knew him, and there were rumors that he had been raped before, but that's the sort of thing inmates say about people like him, in the same way they say people like me are gay. Its profiling, of a kind. He probably was an abuse victim, whether it started in jail or in childhood I'll never know. My first interaction with him was being taken in by a scam, though an admittedly harmless one. They passed out razors once a week so we could shave, and they took your name down so you had to turn them hack in. I wasn't going to use mine, and he said he needed an extra one to help shave his head. I had met him a few hours before, but I had a real problem with refusing small favors then, still do to an extent. So I gave him mine, and half an hour later he gave me back the pieces. It was all there, but we weren't supposed to break them. He hadn't broken his own, because he didn't want to get in trouble with the CO. When I turned in the pieces, the CO said something about destruction of state property. I wasn't ever served with the charge (institutional infractions can be written for nearly anything, not having your shirt tucked in, for example. They usually aren't.), but I was duly flustered for the evening. Some amusement was had at my expense, being a new guy, and an obviously new one at that. I was nineteen, with a freshly shaven head and an almost beard, and that wasn't the standout issue. There have been countless conversations that began with someone observing that I looked like I didn't belong. I don't get that so much anymore, maybe because I'm older, or more comfortable with my surroundings. I've never had to live in fear in these places, not really. More it is a sort of disquiet, or anxiety, that prevails when the walls close in. There was quite a bit of that at the maximum security prison I went to after jail (technically supermax, the rating system is wacky), it was difficult to relax. Here its much easier, though certain situations can cause the old tightness in my gut to come back.
Back to Blinky. He didn't mean anything by the trick, he was just a sketchy kid. We got along well enough after razor incident. Jail time is slow time, and as the days passed I became accustomed to the routines and my place among the regulars. Intake is only a few weeks, and before I had met my first public defender I was put in green and white. It was there I had my first long term cellmate. Let's call him Squim.
Hey, I've found a new song I like. Flowers in Paradise -Ouzokuband
Tell me what you think.
Yours,
William Myrl
Blinky was what he sounded like. A young man with a tic, someone who would spend most of his life doing his time a year or a few at a time. Life on installment plan, is the usual phrase. He may have been there on arson, or a probation violation, or something in between. People knew him, and there were rumors that he had been raped before, but that's the sort of thing inmates say about people like him, in the same way they say people like me are gay. Its profiling, of a kind. He probably was an abuse victim, whether it started in jail or in childhood I'll never know. My first interaction with him was being taken in by a scam, though an admittedly harmless one. They passed out razors once a week so we could shave, and they took your name down so you had to turn them hack in. I wasn't going to use mine, and he said he needed an extra one to help shave his head. I had met him a few hours before, but I had a real problem with refusing small favors then, still do to an extent. So I gave him mine, and half an hour later he gave me back the pieces. It was all there, but we weren't supposed to break them. He hadn't broken his own, because he didn't want to get in trouble with the CO. When I turned in the pieces, the CO said something about destruction of state property. I wasn't ever served with the charge (institutional infractions can be written for nearly anything, not having your shirt tucked in, for example. They usually aren't.), but I was duly flustered for the evening. Some amusement was had at my expense, being a new guy, and an obviously new one at that. I was nineteen, with a freshly shaven head and an almost beard, and that wasn't the standout issue. There have been countless conversations that began with someone observing that I looked like I didn't belong. I don't get that so much anymore, maybe because I'm older, or more comfortable with my surroundings. I've never had to live in fear in these places, not really. More it is a sort of disquiet, or anxiety, that prevails when the walls close in. There was quite a bit of that at the maximum security prison I went to after jail (technically supermax, the rating system is wacky), it was difficult to relax. Here its much easier, though certain situations can cause the old tightness in my gut to come back.
Back to Blinky. He didn't mean anything by the trick, he was just a sketchy kid. We got along well enough after razor incident. Jail time is slow time, and as the days passed I became accustomed to the routines and my place among the regulars. Intake is only a few weeks, and before I had met my first public defender I was put in green and white. It was there I had my first long term cellmate. Let's call him Squim.
Hey, I've found a new song I like. Flowers in Paradise -Ouzokuband
Tell me what you think.
Yours,
William Myrl
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