“Journalism is not a profession, but a mission.”

–Benito Mussolini

One can learn from absurdity, and the Catch-22 of our current reality. As we watch the reaction to our government dissemble before our eyes it’s entertaining and worth wondering whether it was always so easy to eliminate all of the controls. Did Eisenhower realize that all it would take to steal the levers by rounding up a few twenty-somethings and take over the Treasury? Why did Nixon resign? He could just have easily threatened Goldwater with a few lawsuits and told Elvis to come back and become Attorney General — then give him a badge and a gun and fire Mitchell. Well, the Democrats will fix things. They’ll protest! I understand that Rittenhouse joined the pardoned J6 group along with the people who now have 300 million guns in the midwest.

Here’s a little relaxing vignette from my stay in prison — where those in power want Democrats, Liberals, Socialists, Feminists, Blacks, Latinos and LGBTQ people all to end up. Let’s all wave from a bygone era when people believed in America and Freedom of Speech without lawsuits, character assassination, vindictive prosecutions, threats and Truth. In the land of right-wing white supremacy — the Hamptons.

Looks like we’re getting there!

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From The Gulag:

“Regret is caused mostly by not having done anything.”

— Henry Bukowski

“So, you know Joe, who’s in my dorm?” 

“Yeah, I don’ know him but I heard a him.” 

“He’s in 50 years.”

“Wha’he do?” 

“Killed two cops.”

“Ah, he never gettin’ out. You know what happens? The PBA sends people to the Parole hearin’, writes letters, gets politicians to write letters, gets the family to write letters, protest. They go all out. Once in a while a guy gets out. But, most a the time — forget it.” 

Jose, of course, had his own problem. Right out of the army, he was an unemployed sniper who needed money and assassinated two guys for the Mob on a contract for $20,000 cash.

“A guy I know WAS a cop and he killed a cop. He’s in 30 years now. Think he’ll get out?” 

I was talking about a guy I worked with in the Law Library.

“Maybe,” he said. “Hard  to tell. Maybe he has a chance.”

I could hear screams from the SHU, the two story building that was long and low with barbed wire and razor wire around it. It looked like a large concrete motel. As the weather got better the guys in the Box made themselves known and proclaimed their presence loudly by hurling obscenities at anyone passing by. They especially loved screaming at visiting families when the annual picnic was being held.

A bird landed. 

Brown with an orange breast. 

A living being in a place where it was questionable. 

It was strange to see in prison. I was sad instead of happy that it should seem so unusual. 

It was as if prison meant one could not mix with other forms of life. 

****

Benware, the CO who had obviously done too many tours as a medic in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Reserves had been on duty but I paid little attention to him. LIke his wife who had divorced him years ago. He’d again left the lights off in the dorm which was always pleasant. But when I walked in from the Yard, I passed him in the Bubble.

“Hey.”

I turned and looked at the CO. 

There were dark glasses sitting up on top of his head. He was straight-faced. 

“They find the plane yet?” he asked me.

I looked at him, realizing that he was bored and that the Malaysian plane which had recently been in the news and had been lost was one of the only ways he knew to connect with anyone. I turned and walked over to him at the Bubble.

“No. But, I think they’re still looking.”

“Do you know that the Chinese conduct environmental terrorism in this country?”

I looked at him. I had no fucking idea where this came from or what the connection was.

“What?” 

“Environmental terrorism.”

“No,” I said, “I really have no idea what you mean.”

“Do you know that we have Carp in the Great Lakes that eat everything in sight? We have giant prawns that are a foot long and mussels now that are totally not indigenous, eating everything?”

“No,” I said, “I had no idea. But, it sounds like the giant prawns might be good with about a pound of butter.”

The CO laughed. Maniacally. “Well, I guess so,” he said. “But, these are NOT indigenous organisms. It’s Chinese.”

“Well, they have the restaurants. Maybe it’s a supply issue.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Very possible.”

Then he pulled his dark glasses down from up on his bald head and covered his eyes looking like ‘Ahnault,’ The Terminator. 

“Bye,” he said, “I’m goin’ to sleep now,” he said with his feet up on his desk

I looked at him. “Oh, okay, nice talking to you. Am I dismissed?” 

“Yup.” 

I walked to my cell.

  ****

It was another painful sleep. Enough to keep me alive but not enough to promote any kind of restfulness. I had dreams which were full of violence. In one, some guys had attacked a woman and someone was finishing the job of beating one of the attackers by periodically hitting him in the head. His head would receive the blow, hit a wall and bounce back, deliriously, with a smirk on his face. Every few moments another blow would connect and it would keep happening.

  *****

It was the glasses again.

The daily comments about my ridiculous glasses were increasing.

Actually, they were now starting to bother others, mostly COs, more than they bothered me. This morning, in fact, there were several comments from the CO in charge of the Law Library.

“Why don’t you get new glasses, those are shot.”  I’d had the glasses for nearly two years now and had half an inch of scotch tape holding them together.

I laughed. “It’s a long story.”

“Why don’t you just go get a new pair?”

“Well, I’ve been down that road. I have to wait two years.”

“Talk to the Superintendent, she’s a nice woman,” he persisted.

I laughed again. “Because I’ve already written to her and SHE’S the one who told me to go to Medical.”

“So go to Medical.”

“I did. The doctor looked at me wearing the glasses on and both he and the nurse laughed at me.” 

Then, he said, “Well just go down to see the eye doctor.'”

“I did that too.”

“And, what happened?”

“That was 3 months ago. Nothing.” 

“Can’t your wife bring you a pair?”

“No, That’s not permitted. In fact, on her last visit, the guy who does the searches asked me if I was the one who’s wife brought up a pair of glasses into the Visitor’s Room. He was checking to see if I was violating the rules. 

He knew, like everyone else in the prison, that I needed glasses. So, naturally, I was the obvious suspect.”

“That’s nice,” said the CO. 

“I ordered a pair through a catalog for prison inmates and when it arrived the package room guy pulled it out and, staring at me with my scotch-taped glasses on, said  ‘You can’t have these.'”

“Okay,” I said. He just stared at the cop who was waiting for the opportunity to deliver the punchline. I said nothing.

The cop got tired of waiting and said, “because you’re not allowed. You can have glasses if you brought them in with you or transferred here with them. But, you can’t order them from here. Unless, the eye doctor lets you.”

“Okay,” I said, again. Prison logic.

“Why don’t  you just wear them when the Superintendent comes through on an inspection, she’ll  probably take a look at you and say, ‘Why the fuck don’t you get a new pair of  glasses?'”

“Yeah, well, then what?” Then I said, “What would I say then, ‘Well you wouldn’t let me have them when I wrote to you?’”

“She’s nice, I’m sure she’d help,” offered the cop.

“Maybe. But, I’m not looking to cause trouble. I think they bother other people more than they bother me. It shows how everyone cares whether I can see or not, since I work in the Law Library.”

Lamont, the drug dealer who was on his second bid and who was now in charge of the Law Library, chimed in. He was sitting at his desk near the rear EXIT door in the back of the Law Library. It opened to a section of the Yard which, of course, was inside the prison fence. But, were anyone to step outside that door, even if it had been opened by a cop to get some air and was wide open, the prison sharpshooter in the Tower would shoot any inmate. 

Since it was Saturday morning, there were no inmates or the five clerks normally using the library services. They could talk.

“Probly a good piece for a book about prison,” he said, smiling at the absurdity of the story about my glasses which I had discussed in front of everyone.

I looked at him from across the library and said, 

“Who’d write about that? It’s too stupid.”

Copyright 2025 The Gulag