Class was shorter tonight as the PC (protective custody) guys who have rec with my supervisor after our class were having a big bowling activity in the gym so we had to end early. Evidently there was some serious betting of commissary items about to go down for this tourney... Someone was looking out for me with the shorter class because my day job exhausts me, especially on the shorter weeks that turn out to be the longest.
Getting down to the business of class in a jail setting is not unlike a high school classroom as I've said before: the guy who shows up without his work done, the comments about my outfit ("Looking fresh, Jen." was tonight's), and the private conversations while I'm trying to start class. Save for the realization that there are bars everywhere and the fact that I'm the only one in a different threads, it's pretty similar to public school. And as a shout out to the little bit of 9th-grade boy in all of us, we even talked about urinating tonight, but without the snickers and the laughs and the physicality between boys that goes on when seemingly inappropriate comments are made in class. Instead, it was a single line in H's piece (the one that he finished at the beginning of class because he arrived unprepared!) that started the whole conversation this evening. Hang tight. I'll get to that.
"You know what I'm sayin'?" The phrase is an overused, but very popular verbal crutch amongst the guys in the class. I know it is meant as a space-filler in the most rhetorical way. But many times I DON'T know what they're saying. I am a white woman of a certain age (not middle aged yet, but no spring chicken) with economic means. The participants in my class are most decidedly not. Unlike my day job, my volunteer job sports the token white male, sometimes two, while the rest are black. Education background is a mystery (though I could hazard a guess) and not one of the guys is a man of means. If he were, he wouldn't be stuck in jail as he would have been able to make bond. So sometimes I really don't get it and I have to ask for clarification. Bring on the peeing. The conversation about peeing, that is (although every single man who spoke in answer to my question used the term "urination". Take from that what you will.)
Even though H (his name is too identifiable) had only finished his piece mere moments before he pulled himself into the group, his thoughts were clear, well-formed and beautifully put (and since I saw him writing it, I know the work was his, unlike one of the other dudes who might have lifted a paragraph or two...like I said, the comparisons!). H talked about how being incarcerated conditions a person, so much so that his behaviors are forever changed (for good or bad), upon release. He made mention of the fact that, even on the outside he continues to put cake in his oatmeal and flushes the toilet while urinating. (The reasons for this are many and varied. Suffice it to say that the act of flushing helps maintain a cleaner sink/toilet area.) Or that upon becoming angered about something beyond his control leads his mother to ask him, "What's wrong with you?"
So, in thinking like a complete outsider (which I am), I had to ask about the "flushing while" because I figured if I didn't get it, there may be others similarly in the dark. The guys are all to happy to explain to me EVERYTHING about being incarcerated. Of course there are some who have very trivial complaints such as the food or other items in the commissary or that one of the C.O.s looked at them in the wrong way, but mostly they are interested in telling their stories and providing suggestions to help a system that is so clearly broken and stacked against them in so many ways. Again I'll add that none of them, not even once, has made an excuse for his butt having landed in the facility, several on repeat visits. Like many, they would like reform and assistance to reform themselves. Happily, though, the conversations about change do not just revolve around them, but around other guys that the changes could benefit.
I had chills while H read his essay. It was good. It was powerful. And dang it, he didn't give me a copy to read tonight because he said, "Jen, I'm not done with it yet. You know what I'm sayin'?"
Yeah, H, I know what you're sayin'.
See you next week.
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