For those of you who have been following my writing and enjoy the descriptions (without having to be there) of life in prison and learn from so-called criminal behavior and views — perhaps gettng a leg up on our politicians — here’s another slice of True Crime. During my four year investigation of the prison system from the inside and programs whch touted recovery I had the pleasure of understanding how others lived and how they thought. It also gave me an opportunity to witness first hand how taxpayer money was being spent on residential drug treatment in New York State prisons.

“Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.”

— Wall Street

It’s cold. And, getting colder. Again.

My third winter in the archipelago. It’s minus eleven this morning. It’s going UP to 5 degrees for lunch. And, the air hurts to breathe.Tonight, it will be 20 below zero. Hundreds of  miles away from my family, part of a system that claims to want to keep families together, and shut away in a camp for the least likely people to create problems in society.

Since ASAT had mandatory Rec, of course, I went to the Gym in this weather. I carried  my running shoes as I wore my boots to wend my way through the ice and snow, take my watch off til I got through the metal detector after taking my hat off, to show that I wasn’t hiding anything under it, and then flashed my I.D. after getting in through the Gym door.

I avoided talking to Al for the most part. With McCoy, the Gang Intelligence C.O. on duty I did not want to have any seed planted in his dimly lit brain, that when Al decided to do his “Godfatha'” routine, he was missing some important Mob-affiliated connection in front of his eyes.

But, after Al left , Johnny “Hollywood” who was in for beating someone with a pipe, said  Hello and we spoke briefly. He brought up the subject of when he had a “Board”  coming  up and  asked  me when I  had  one. After  Al’s seriously depressing monologue the previous day I was thrilled to hear a different view that “You should  be outta here this summer.”

When I got back to the dorm I was greeted with yet another cube slip. This time it was from Massey, the program operator. And, this time, it was for having a “Dirty Radiator.” There was apparently no end to the number of things that they could find wrong with the way your cube was kept. I happened to have a section of radiator, which was along the entire dorm wall, in my cube. Who knew that I also had to clean radiators? But, of course, don’t I have to clean everything? Like the walls, the ceiling, Massey’s asshole?

I’d forgotten that Massey was a snake. She looked like Elvira. She was a dead ringer for Anjelica Huston. In fact, it was Bear, the nearly 500 pound guy in our dorm, who called himself Huggy Bear, that warned me about her.

“She put me inna Box. This’s ma secon’ time here,” said Bear, who ambled along  pushing the lint broom. The broom was about 4 feet wide and was just pushed around the entire dorm to keep the aisles clean. 

It amounted to no more than leaning on a stick and moving forward. When I asked him how long he had to do that sweeping he said “I love it, it’s my cardio.” I looked at him. All 500 pounds. This was his cardio?

“Why’d she put you in the Box, Bear?” I asked. 

“She came inta my cube an’ saw my family photo.” 

“Yeah, and so?”

“Well, in the photo, my son was flashing a V for victory, y’know?”

“Yeah, and … ?”

“Well, dey decided that this was a gang sign. So, she took the family photo an’ she reported it an’ a Sergeant came an’ took me tada Box fa dat.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“Yeah, gamme 90 days fa my son flashing a V.” Bear shook his head, “Dat’s why I’m inna program again.” He waddled  on down the aisle.

Massey didn’t come back after handing out a bunch of cube slips. But, the damage had been done. I got so pissed off that I asked Cuba how to handle this. It was my opinion that after fucking off for 4 days, they compensated for this by making life more difficult. Ergo, more cube slips.

So, what makes sense in order to avoid future problems?

Well, let’s wash the walls, wash the radiator, wash the floors, wash the walls, line up the  shoes, wash the tops of the lockers that were painted gray and had thousands of scratches, chipped paint, missing pieces and looked like shit. It’s necessary to wash these scratched, dented, damaged, horrendous surfaces? Especially the ones that had coffee stains on them. Why not wash everything? Why not?

As we moved into group, Roddy took Myers, the white crack addict, in and dragged him with her around the stalls in the bathroom and into the showers. He was being hassled for not doing his job. His detail for this week was washing  down the walls and floor in the showers. He was a pig, so assigning him to that detail was a cleaning job to a crack addict.

He was an idiot, as well as annoying. Constantly, with his crew cut, head scars, missing front teeth, sores on his nose, he would ask me, “Hey, howya doin’ Bub?”

Who the fuck was Bub?” 

But, I didn’t say that to him. Instead, I looked at him, and said nothing, and walked  away. I had to be careful talking to lunatics. Always.

You could hear Roddy screaming at him, for all the good that it did. He was a depressed, upstate crack addict.

Then group started. Today’s subject in Group was Cognitive Distortion.

Few ASAT guys could pronounce the two words. None knew what they meant. Even after they were told what it was — described in a State tear sheet written in 1977. Basically, in a roundabout way, it involved not taking responsibility for committing crimes and blaming it on the victim.

“Well, somea dese women, day go oud wid fishnets on, dey goin’  oud by ’emselves, whattadey ‘spect?” said Q, the short black kid. One of the four Q’s in the dorm.

“Don’ mean dey wanna get raped,” said another.

“Yeah, maybe dey don’ wanna ged raped. But, whattadey doin’ ‘ere den?” said Q. He was genuinely curious, spurred on by laughs from others.

“Maybe dey goin’ ta a club,” said another.

“Suppose ya motha’ was goin’ out an’ got raped. You sayin’ she lookin’ to ged it?”

“She gone. I dunno where she at. So’s it don’ matta,” said Q.

“Look, if your mother or girlfriend, or whatever, is out at night, she has a right to be. That’s her choice.

“Yeah,” said Q, but, maybe she choosin’ ta get raped too.” 

Roddy threw up her hands

“Look, it’s a cognitive distortion for someone to commit a rape and blame it on the victim. That’s the point of all of this. So, we’re talking about you guys and how you view the victims  of your crimes. If a woman is raped, SHE is the victim, not the rapist,” said Roddy.

All I could think about was, “You think they give a shit?”

“Suppose she wan’s it, doe,” said Black, “do dat mean, da dude’s a rapist? An’ suppose she sleepin’ an’ ah do her?”

“We’ve talked about this. Having sex with a woman when she’s asleep is rape. She can’t consent. And, if the woman WANTS to have sex AND CONSENTS, then it’s not rape. Got it?”

A few heads shaking accompanied this.

“So, Cognitive Distortion is you guys thinking that if you have sex with a woman who doesn’t consent, that she’s asking for it and it’s okay. You’ll just wind up back in here if you do.”

Mike the dealer started reading again from the sheets that Roddy had given out. 

The claims by criminals were read off as reasons why perpetrators distorted the crime so as not to be thought of as responsible.

“She said she’d rather be raped than killed,” said Mike. 

“WHAT?” said Black.

“Yeah,” said Worthy, “I could see that.” 

“You could see what?” said Roddy.

“I could see she ratha ged killed. Geddin’ raped ain’t good.”

The subject was getting away from them. What was being used as an example of what some said in blaming their victims, was being taken as serious comments about the guilt of victims.

“He didn’t say that,” said Roddy. “And, that was an example of Cognitive Distortion, not fact.”

“So, she wanned ta get raped?” said Q.

I shook my head. Roddy threw up her hands. Part of the group thought Mike was reading either fact or interpretation, the others thought, correctly, that the statements were the distortions attributed to perpetrators about their criminal acts.

“S’betta fa da woman if’she deyad. Who wans’a be raped. She bedda deyad.” 

“EEAAHH,” came a loud yawn.

*****

The highlight of today didn’t arrive until ASAT started at a little after noon. Roddy had been late and, as a result, the group moved on with some difficulty. There was no order to the usual reading of A.A. books, no “information” section with the paper being read. Only a few jokes were being thrown back and forth. I sat thinking about how this scene was light years away from what anyone would think prison was like. Here were a group of drug dealers, addicts, robbers, con men, wife beaters, assaulters and a journalist, telling jokes and yelling and screaming after having had lunch.

“Yo, ya mother’s such a slut she’s gotta hardware store an’ sells nails fer a nickel 10 cents a screw,” said Myers to Q, sitting across the Rec room. Uproarious laughter erupts.

“Hey, she onna walkway?” yelled someone. 

“Nah, she late.” said another.

Q pipes up to Myers, “ya motha’s so fat she can’ fiddin da Gran’ Canyon,” followed by laughter  from the others as well as Myers who it was directed at.

“Yeah,” says Myers, “Your motha’s so fat she’s like a fridgerator, she jes’ takes alla meat she kin get,” followed by wild gusts of laughter.

“An, ya motha’s so stupid, she puts quartas inna parkin’ meter, waitin’ fa the gum ta come out.” says Q to Myers.

“Roddy’s on the Walkway,” came an announcement from the C.O., a decent guy who’s made a couple of “Big Money” comments about me when I’d first come in, but afterwards was actually very pleasant.

Scurrying occurred in the Rec room and Regan, or Dan, or Trauma, depending upon what you wanted to call the young meth producer who’d been caught WITH IT but not MAKING IT — which now carried a life sentence for manufacturing the drug — began reading for “Information,” basically, reading the paper to us. That lasted until Roddy came in the door and we all started to clap.

Roddy put her bag down and started listening to what was going on and the next segment was coming up, Creative Energy.

The black/Indian guy stood up. He was pleasant, about 50, not too bright, and definitely minimally non compos mentis. So, I wondered what game he might have developed. Or, perhaps what series of interesting questions he might have come up with for today.

“Okay,” he said, standing  up, “we gonna play Duck, Duck, Goose.”

I looked at Sal, a white guy sitting next to me. He had a confused look on his face.

“What the fuck is this?” I said.

Henry, the Spanish dealer, was two seats from me, looked over and said, “We havin’ fun yet?”

“Okay, so we all ged inna circle an’ one guy walks aroun’ and taps each guy and says, ‘Duck’ an’ ‘en, weneysays ‘Goose’ dey odda guy geds up an hits ‘im afta he chases ‘im aroun’ da group a guys inna circle.”

There was no doubt. I was paying for my crimes. Even though I was innocent.

*****

Today’s ASAT was even more creative than usual. Instead of any pretense, Creative Energy ruled the day. Roddy had come late and the usual writings from the various A.A. group handbooks were read, followed by various facts, such as Hugh Hefner had a blanket with bunnies on it to inspire him in the creation of Playboy. Creative Energy was turning into the loss leader for the group’s inability to do or say anything challenging or meaningful – considering that we were in a drug rehab program in prison. 

So, the afternoon was spent in a round-robin in which everyone had to take a turn.

“We gonna name liquors,” said Darnell. “Okay, let’s start,” he said as he pointed  to the first guy in the group.

“Johnny Walker Blue,” said Henry.

“Johnny Walker Red,” I said, creatively. Having owned a bar in Westhampton Beach that was put out of business by the liquor authority as part of the D.A.s plan to destroy me helped in this game.

“Champagne,” said the next guy.

“I ain’t gotta name for it,” said Myers.

“AAHHH, ha, ha, ha, ha,” came laughter from the rest, “now you gotta dance, dance, dance…”

So, the game was, you answered right way and it went on to the next guy. You gave a wrong answer or didn’t answer and you were OUT of the game but had to do a dance as consolation.

Myers, for some reason was bummed out and also refused to do a dance.

We moved to more challenging efforts.

“Okay,” said Darnell, “name an animal, le’s start.”

The group went around and various animals were named. From horses to tigers, it became a potpourri of grade school comments and it came around to me and I had not heard it was my turn.

“Na, na na, na na, na,” and Green, the comical black guy stood in front of me, dancing a little, prancing a little, saying, “you gotta dance, muthafucka” laughing along with the  rest of the group as they stared at me.

Finally, I stood up and with Massey and Roddy, the two counselors who held my freedom in their hands, looking on as I did a version of “Walk like an Egyptian” replete with extended arms. I felt like an idiot. Like standing in front of the Hamptons court parroting the A.D.A. as I spat out the lies of what I’d had to admit to.

The guys all loved my dance almost as much as the two women running ASAT. A seventy year old rock and roller performing like Keith Richards after he fell out of the tree.

“Awright, awright,” said Darnell, his dreads pinned up on top of his head, drawing attention away from his broken and flattened nose. Q was going around as well as Green as the enforcers, watching for guys who had missed the question. Q, of course, a 6 foot tall black guy who had a sense of humor rivaling Green’s but more or less always had a straight face. And, normally, his pants were down below his ass with his bright red underwear showing about 8 inches from his waist to where the pants were located.

“Pull up your pants,” cried Roddy, pissed-off at the interruption in the game.

“Okay, okay,” said Darnell, “next subject fa the game is Porno Stars.” The round-robin started again.

I hadn’t seen a porn film in 10 years and probably not seen any so-called stars, dressed or undressed, whose names I actually knew.

Myers was still disgruntled and refused to participate OR do a dance since he was eliminated and clearly was sulking like a child.

I listened to the names of various young women who’d I’d never heard of or seen and when it came around to me the only names I could  think of were Linda Lovelace or Paul Thomas, from the old days of porn. Like Behind the Green Door and Deep Throat.

I was happy to see that round go by the wayside. And, the same was for the subject of Rap stars. The only one I could think of was RunDMC, but it got me by. I’d only know them because they were friends with a tenant in my building.

As the ASAT session wore down, Roddy started to loosen up and share some personal information about her daughter, who it seemed, was intrigued by the fact that her mother dealt with “cool” black guys in the ASAT program. I felt dissed.

“She texts all the time and you guys know the things she’s into and I don’t,” said Roddy.

“Whaddyamean?” said Green, wanting to know more about her daughter. 

“Well, like, the other day she  says to me that one of the girls in her class was a ‘Thot’ and I had no idea what she was talking about.”

All of the guys laughed, not quite in unison.

“S’a slut, Roddy,” said one guy in the group.

“What do you mean?” said Roddy, laughing nervously.

“A Thot’s a hooker, s’a ‘Pop’ or’a slut. Dey all prositudes,” he continued to laugh.

“Oh, so a Thot’s a prostitute?” she said, grinning, “well, you guys would know, I guess. Even  my daughter knows, apparently.”

“You eva do a Thot?” said one of them, directing, his question to me.

I shook my head and said, “I’ve been married for 20 years and I’ve never once cheated  on my wife,” I said seriously.

They all burst into a round of applause at hearing this. I was amazed. Even Roddy was smiling and clapping. I couldn’t figure it out. Was this prison morality?

“Look,” I said, “I love my wife and wouldn’t want to lose her. I’ve had a lot of girls.

“Whaddayamean?” said Lopez, the Spanish guy. 

“What?” I said.

“Whaddayamean?” he said again.

“Sorry,” I said, cupping my ear, “too much sex affects your hearing.

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