Then, quietly and methodically, I strip my bed and, with a damp towel, gently wipe the mattress. I obtained it from a friend through his detail assignment in the inmate kitchen. First, I scrub the sink and commode unit, using a small hand towel and an industrial concentrated liquid soap normally used for washing dirty trays. My cellmate thinks I’m a little off-kilter with all the cleaning I do, but he’s an amicable fellow and, honestly, I think he appreciates having someone keep the cell clean. At six feet four and three hundred pounds, I need to navigate our cell carefully. Since I wake up so early, I have to be careful not to make too much noise and disturb my cellmate, who is still asleep. Anything left outside his property box can be considered contraband and confiscated by prison officials for noncompliance. Before leaving the cell, an inmate is expected to put away his property, with the exception of a few items such as his television, small radio, a Bible or Holy Koran, and one pair of shoes. In Illinois, every prison facility issues each inmate a large personal-property box and a small correspondence box. Before drinking my first cup of coffee, I like to get my cell in compliance. I’m referring to the boxers I purchased at the prison commissary, at four dollars and eighty cents for a single pair. The first thing I do is remove my clean underwear off the clothesline-a strip of torn sheet-that I have tightly stretched from post to post, concealed beneath the bottom of the top bunk. I like to wake up at five every morning, while it’s still dark outside and only the dim lights of the gallery illuminate my cell. So I come by my compulsion honestly.Įverything in prison is about routine. This is how we cleaned our house every Saturday morning. While my mother was showing me how to hold the mop handle-one hand at the top of the mop stick and the other in the middle-and how to maneuver it across the floor, my older brother and younger sister were each busy with a small rag in their hands, wiping dust off the few pieces of furniture we owned. There were five of us in a two-bedroom apartment. We were living on the second floor, in the back end of a four-unit apartment building. I can remember the day my mother put a mop in my hands. I’ve been cleaning practically all my life. It’s not uncommon for me to receive a compliment from other inmates who take notice of how neat and organized I keep my cell. Below is one of five of these stories that will appear on the site this week. (I continued working with him by mail and phone.) One despaired at my comments and edits, writing to me that “this must be my last draft because clearly I’m incapable of doing it correctly.” But with encouragement and gentle nudging they kept going. Another student was transferred to a different prison. One student missed class for a month because, after surgery, he had to wear a knee brace, which the prison considered a potential weapon. Sometimes, Jennifer couldn’t return my marked-up drafts because the prison was on lockdown. Over the past ten months, I have worked with them from draft to draft to draft. I was so taken by what they wrote that I suggested that they develop these stories about the space, which, for some, had been home for twenty years. I talked with the students about storytelling, and had them complete an exercise in which they described their cells._ Some will be at Stateville until they die. Her students, fifteen men, are all serving long sentences, mostly for violent crimes. I_n February, Jennifer Lackey, a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, where I teach journalism, invited me to speak to a class she teaches at the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison an hour outside of Chicago.
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