Prison Place

Rainy days in Prison

What do guys do in prison when it rains? Well, I woke up this morning and noticed it had been raining here most of the morning. I was thinking about what I might have been doing when I was in prison on days like this, so I figured, why not blog about it?

I’ll get to that in a moment, just wanted to catch you guys up on a few things. I have been answering emails the last couple of days, which is really cool, because it makes me feel good to hear from people that ready my stuff.

One came from a person who wanted to buy all three of my Grades of Honor books, so that is promising. Another person asked if I was still going to do the Christmas cards or certificate package. For that reason I better touch on that now.

I can still do it, if you are interested. I mean, I already finished some Christmas Encouragement Certificates, and I do have a few Christmas Cards ready. Trust me folks, it won’t be so much of a trouble to put it together, if given time. Like I said before, I won’t turn down the money if a person asks for one of the packages. Heck, how else am I gonna buy that Mercedes….

Anyway, as I say many times, get in touch with me and let me know if you are interested. Now, today here in NC it is cloudy and raining… a great day! But just before I thought of what to write, I was thinking, if I was still in prison, what would I be doing right now, as of 11am.

Well, the answer is pretty easy, because the time gives it away. On every prison camp I have been on, at this particular period of time in prison, it is chow time. So without a doubt, right now I may very well be in the cafeteria eating, or just finished eating. Basically speaking, lunch starts after 10am and runs until about noon. So rain or not, I would be either eating lunch, or just finished eating lunch.

But on a rainy day, it can restrict how much outside time an inmate might have. This might not seem much to you, but it is critical for guys to be able to get outside, and get some fresh air. For many guys it is a time to get away from the other 40-60 other guys in the dorm. For others, it is a chance to catch up with a few other guys in other dorms, since most prisons don’t allow inmates to go from one dorm to another.

Lots of people see rainy days as dreary, but to me it is kinda relaxing… now don’t get me wrong, if it rains for the next few days, that can play tricks on you. But in prison, I find that it is cooler when it rains, and I love cooler weather.

If it is raining too hard, then of course the yard will be closed, but if it is not too bad, they will still let inmates on the yard. Like I said, at this particular time of day, that being about 11:30am, the yard would be open on the camps I was on. Lots of guys would be trying to make canteen…wait, let me stop there.

Today is Thursday.

That changes a LOT of stuff. Why?

Because on many camps, payday is on Thursday. This changes a LOT of what I was saying, because the number one priority for many guys on a day like this, RAIN OR NOT, is getting paid.

That brings up an entirely different subject on paydays and canteen, something I can’t get into now for fear of writing 12 more pages on this, but I can say that on a day like this, most inmates are trying to get their draw from the inmate accounts, and then trying to make canteen. The fact that it is raining means little to these guys. Heck, I’d walk through a category 4 hurricane to get my measly $10.

But sticking to the subject, if I was still in prison, on a rainy day like this, I would likely have just finished lunch. The yard is usually open, so I have options of going back to the dorm, maybe going to canteen if I have money, or just going out on the yard. On some camps, you cannot get in bed until after dinner. You might be allowed to lie ON TOP of the bunk, but not get under the covers.

Stupid rule, but there it is.

Lots of guys might be watching television by this time, something I did very little of in the early days or afternoons. I just wasn’t into the “Jerry Springer” stuff of the “Cops” shows. It was different when I first fell into the prison system, because I had gone 17 months with no television at all; I would have been glad to watch an hour of commercials if that was all that was on.

But on days like this, I actually like to try to get to myself and just think. When I was on the minimum custody camp at Pasquotank, I could step outside the back door of the dorm and watch the rain fall. There was just enough clearance so that I wasn’t getting wet. Nobody was bothering me, because there was almost nobody outside. I could stand there and just look out across the wide open fields, just letting my mind wander.

And NO, I never thought about jumping the fence.

To me, when I was in prison, there just seemed to be some comfort in rainy days, some gentle reminder that even though my incarceration was at times difficult, there were pockets of time where I really felt that I could make it.

Lots of you wonder if inmates think about the real world a lot while in prison, well, if you asked me, I would say, “not as much as you think”. I will be very honest with you guys, I didn’t think nearly as much about the outside world as I did about my prison world. And that might have been a good thing. If I ever get around to sharing with you all the letters, grievances, poems, short stories and journals I wrote, you will see that I spent a lot of time occupying myself while in prison, rather than worrying about the things I could not change on the outside.

And this is what days like this help me to do, get a level of focus on where I was, and what I could do to salvage the day. I don’t want to make this overly complicated, as if there was some grand scheme here, I just liked being outside on rainy days, or cloudy days.

It just seemed that if I could get to myself, and just relax, I could almost feel someone telling me, “it’s gonna be ok”. I needed that, I really did, because I knew that my life outside of prison was wrecked beyond repair, and maybe there was nothing for me outside those prison gates anymore. Either that or maybe I don’t deserve anything out there anymore.

Guys, there were times where I felt like my internal organs were being ripped from my body. Extreme to say, yes, but what I mean by that is there were times I felt so hopeless that it was painful. When I was in county jail, I could let my emotions out, because I was in a cell to myself, but in prison, I could not do that, especially when you are in dorms. You just had to tough it out.

And that hurt.

So when I found those times where there seemed to be an arm around my shoulder, letting me know that things were gonna be ok, I embraced them like a long lost friend…because I needed one.

And it’s strange that even though I did make a lot of friends while in prison, I needed someone that could encourage me to hang in there. I might have met one or two guys that resembled that, but overall, even the better guys I knew had some stress on them, which is perfectly understandable.

I kinda take pride in what some guys said about me. One guy I knew was having a hard time trying to get a transfer after he got his GED, and I kept him encouraged by talking with him and stuff. He once said to me, “it’s hard being down around you”.

Another guy I knew said of me shortly before I was about to be shipped to the hole (under retaliation circumstances at Sanford Correctional) that he was going to miss me because there weren’t a lot of guys that talked positive. I know I am not nearly perfect, but there were times while I was in prison that I believed I was doing the right thing, and maybe Somebody was smiling down on me.

And strangely enough, you think of sunshine when you think of God smiling on you…yet it is these days, the rainy, cloudy days, that I tend to think about that. So days like this may well have a different meaning for me, especially when I was in prison. Dreary, yeah, but still it was an escape for me. Maybe in some really corny way, the rain or clouds represented the life I was currently living, under condemnation and damnation, but just as sure as you can see the rain and clouds…you knew the sun was coming back.