Prison Place

Midnight Prison writing

It is currently 11:52pm and I was watching some NBA, college football AND college basketball at almost the same time (flipping channels), and I wondered if I could make a blog tonight. I will make a short one, just so I can say I did.

I say again that I am very grateful for the comments you make, it is very important to me as I try to figure out how to “professionally” get my works out there so that more can read it. Having a blog on two different sites isn’t bad, but at the same time, it’s not like this is a popular subject to talk about at your job, is it?

And since I am out of cookies here, I will have to substitute for a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and play some Xbox before going to bed….

(that’s right, I don’t have an Xbox 360 yet!)

Anyway, I wanted to touch on a subject that one of you asked about; showers.

What’s it like taking a shower in prison?

Now, this in all honesty is a sensitive question, because I am pretty sure many of you are curious, but you don’t want to make it sound…well…. X rated.

I understand what you mean, so maybe I can talk a little bit about that tonight.

First off, keep in mind that what I am sharing is based purely off MY experiences, so others might differ in what I share. Now, having said that, we ALL had to go take showers in prison, in fact, you can get a writeup for NOT taking one…for an extended period of time.

Now, as for me, I was very shy about community showers. I HATED that when I was in college, and it didn’t change when I was in prison. In fact, in my first book of Grades of Honor, I talked about the difficulty that I had taking a shower with a bunch of other guys around. I was NOT comfortable with that at all.

In fact, I was so uncomfortable, I DIDN’T take showers around other guys… but I knew I had to take one sometime, or else guys will start to talk. So what I did was skip the dinner meal, and while all the other guys were out of the dorm heading to the cafeteria, I could get a good shower in.

Yeah I know, foolish pride. I had to sacrifice a meal so I could take a shower. That did not hold well for my stomach, but my pride was stronger than my stomach. I just was too nervous to be seen taking a shower in a room full of about 60+ guys. So you might ask, did I do that throughout my incarceration?

No, didn’t need to. Why?

Because each prison is different by the setup, so the showers at the first camp I was at (Craven Correctional) was different from the other camps I was on. And remember, this was my very first views of prison, so the anxiety was likely quite high.

I know showers in prison can be very stressful…and sometimes dangerous, but many times you just have to be careful of when you actually take your shower. The rules of when, where and how change with every camp I have been on. Like I said, at my first camp, I was too scared to be out there with a bunch of other guys, especially if in the SAME shower room.

But on my second camp, in Elizabeth City, NC, it was MUCH better. The shower rooms were individual, not communal. It also had a big metal swing gate that can lock if you closed it. I was much more comfortable there, because I could also hang my clothes and towel over the mesh gate, creating a blind. The other three walls were just that… walls.

That’s not to say there might have been a peeping tom, but I could care less.

By the time I was moved to another camp, with communal showers, I had realized that my foolish pride is just going to have to “cowboy up”. I needed to take a shower, so when I needed to, I took one.

But there were some general rules I tried to follow, one I saw other inmates apply. One is the fact that even if there is a shower room with 6 shower heads, that does NOT mean that 6 guys can take a shower at the same time…too much humanity in an enclosed space.

I have never been in a shower where it was “wall to wall” men, but don’t get me wrong, there are very likely many prisons where this is the norm. I just never had to deal with that. Most guys will take the extreme ends of the room, and most times you don’t see more than 3 guys in a shower.

If a guy wanted to take a shower, and saw more than two guys in there, the would wait…even if there were 3 or 4 other shower heads available…just some unwritten rule that I appreciated.

Another tactic I had was timing…you had to kinda feel out the guys in your dorm, so you knew when to take a shower. Don’t try to take a shower when everybody else is wanting to take one. The most likely time was just after the yard closes, or after the road squads get back from their work. If I was gonna take a shower, I had to take one before the rush, or after.

One benefit I also had was that on a couple of camps, I was a janitor. As such, I could be the last guy to take one, because after all, I cleaned it, and prisons allowed inmates to shower after work. I benefited from this on a couple of camps. But when I wasn’t a janitor, I tried to guess when the most guys were out of the dorm, most times that was when the yard was open, or when many of the guys were watching some program on tv at night.

I almost had it down to a science.

So, when I DID go shower, was it like, run in, splash for a second, and run out? No, it wasn’t that bad, at least for me. When I did go to the shower, I had plenty of time wash up and dry myself off. But there are a few things I kept in mind…

I say the following with the upmost respect, knowing that 99% of my readers are women:

First, I never went to the shower nude…and I don’t mean “birthday suit” nude… because NOBODY did that unless they were nuts. I mean, before I go to the shower, I would strip down to just boxers and t-shirt and socks. I would carry a towel, change of boxers and t-shirt and socks, and the stuff for the shower (soap, shampoo, face rag, ect) and shower shoes (or some call, flip flops) and go to the shower.

Once there, I find one in the corner, or furthest from any other guy in the shower. You might not believe this, but most times when I took a shower, there were anywhere from 0 to 2 guys in there. So I try to find one that is either in a corner, or one furthest from the next guy, or a blind spot from the officers.

Why a blind spot from the officers? What I mean by that is one that isn’t right there in front of where most people can “eyeball” you. It’s a foolish thing, because showers have to be reasonably discreet, but readily viewable so an officer can make sure nothing is wrong.

Once in the shower, I find a dry spot to put my clothes, and within reach. I could then strip down and wash up. It’s interesting that some guys in prison actually wash in their boxers, most guys don’t. I think those who do wash in boxers are likely those that have been down for a long time, and may have been on the much harder prisons, and practiced safer methods of showering.

Anyway, I wash up, not really rushing, but knowing I can’t stay there all day. To be honest, I am always nervous about being in the shower, but under the warm water, there is a bit of comfort…not much, but there is a bit. There is also the accomplishment of being clean and smelling like it, so there is a reward for an inmate taking a shower… at least I can do that without screwing up.

(personal thought)

I know lots of you guys heard about the “don’t drop the soap” jokes, and there is obviously truth to that. But whenever I DID drop my soap, or anything else, there is a simple technique…

BEND YOUR KNEES, NOT YOUR BACK.

I mean, who wants to look at somebody’s butt all in the air?

(be careful…some do)

Once I finish taking my shower, I dry up as quick as I can, and get some dry clothes on, and get out of the shower. Once I get back to my bunk, I can put on some lotion and some clothes. Then life goes on.

I think I took a shower about 3 times a week, once I was comfortable to do it. I am not going to say there is nothing to it, because you DO have to be careful, but to me, it wasn’t as big deal as I originally thought it would be…

Wait, I take that back, I did have a problem once or twice while at Sanford Correctional, but that is for another time. Besides, I was SUPPOSED to make this a short blog!

Oh well, this won’t be posted on any prison support site, so the only places I am going to put this is on my two blog sites. Many times when I blog, I might share it with a few other prison sites, but lately I have been stepping away from a few. I see a lot of people reading it, but very few, if any responses. I have nothing against some of them, like Prisoners of Love, Prisonville and Prisonsupport, but I just feel that if no one is responding, then maybe it’s a waste of my time.

There was one that I used to share a lot with, called Mothers with Sons in Prison, but the last time I checked it, it seemed dead. Then there are other sites that I could care less about. I have very mixed feelings about Prison Talk Online, and even though I share a post every once and awhile, I don’t like contributing to the NC forum there, or the husbands and boyfriends forum. I used to contribute to the mothers with sons forum there, but I have backed off there too.

So with the blogspot and myspace, I am hoping to have people find me and read my stuff. It has been slow, since I only have a couple of people on the myspace. I haven’t really gotten into the “friends request” and stuff, and lots of times it’s from these fake emails of young women who want you to “come hither” to some other site. I mark these as spam immediately. But if I see a person who has a REAL site, I will add them. Heck, I need all the attention I can get.

The blogspot allows me to put images on the front, so you can see what I have been working on. I have not put one up lately, but I have a ton of cards and encouragement certificates. So give those a check when you can.

Anyway, I better go, that peanut butter and jelly sandwich isn’t gonna make itself you know.