WALK! WALK! WALK! ... WALK FOR YOUR HEALTH!

PYTHAGORAS SMILES ...

DAY 32 - Dear Diary,

When Mendez - the would-be Mexican Fury (the last episode) - went to the hole, Tom was finally installed in his new cell and had his bottom bunk as he so evidently needed. He was not just overweight - but obese. His head is out of proportion to his body. It seems that his fat is concentrated almost entirely in his belly instead of being evenly distributed. He looks a bit odd and behaves very oddly as well.

People do their “time” differently. There are all sorts of phrases like “Do the time - don’t let the time do you” and “take it one day at a time”. Some just watch TV all day long. Others just think and read and scribble, scribble all day long. Some are very casual about being in prison, as if they had been there before, while others are utterly broken up. Tom was the latter. He looked like a shattered man, in complete and total despair, maybe even suicidal.

Once settled in, he came out of his cell and sat down by himself at a table, head down low, almost weeping. I approached him and asked him if he was alright. He nodded and thanked me for asking. I let him know that that he could go back in his cell anytime he wanted but he would have to go to the bubble and very politely ask to be let in. He did not seem to be aware that he could go back to his cell if he wanted.

At dinner time, he was last in line and looked around for an empty stool. There were 3 open seats in the pod, one of them at my table since Mendez had gone to the hole earlier that day. I’m embarrassed to admit that as he looked around I looked down at my tray hoping that he would not notice the (newly) empty seat. He looked befuddled and lost. I could easily have motioned him to come over to the seat next to me but did not. Such are the little ways we are seemingly tested every day. Ultimately, no one is keeping track (as far as I can tell) but it’s sometimes morally useful - or just plain humane - to act as if someone was!

Some came to call him the “blue whale” he was so enormous. The next several days were very bad for him. He was in complete denial. He kept mumbling “I’m not a sex offender, I am not a sex offender. I shouldn’t be here”, and to anyone nearby, he said, “and as far as registering, my lawyer said I didn’t have to do that.” He was on probation but needed to register as a “sex offender” but he had not realized that. Having failed to register, he was put back in jail. I could understand him thinking that. I later learned that he was caught masturbating in the bathroom of a restaurant. He was having dinner. With his wife. Someone must have seen him and called the cops. What possessed him to do that I have no clue, but is he a “sex offender” on that account? I don’t know. Yes, it’s problematic behavior, but it feels to me that maybe jail is just not the right place for this man to be.

***

Day 36 - October 30,

Tom was still adjusting and sitting at the same table writing to his lawyer. I was reading, and writing in my diary. He started a bit of small talk. Indeed, he frequently seems to talk to no one in particular, and quite possibly just to himself. Many think that he’s not entirely mentally present and seems mentally challenged and very child-like. But the minute he started the small talk I cut him off immediately, maybe even a bit brusquely, and snapped “I’m writing and trying to think”, and he meekly replied, “oh, I’m sorry.” And he returned to his letter.

I regretted it almost immediately, and confessed it to my diary, and wondered: had it been anyone else in the pod, would I have snapped back so curtly and dismissively? Or would I have acknowledged, politely, his remark and maybe even give him a considerate reply? I probably would have been more considerate. But why? In part, because even in this small group of men (28 or 29) most everyone was part of a “clique” of 4 or 5 people. There was a group of card players; a group of TV watchers; a group of Bible readers, and various other small groups. The layout of the pod naturally encouraged that as people generally sat in the dayroom at one of those tables with 4 stools. A few seldom came out of their cell except to eat. Some called them “house mouse”. But Tom, new as he was, belonged to no group at all.

What must have crossed my mind is that I couldn’t afford to alienate anyone (or any group) not just for the sake of being friendly, but for the sake of having a person to trade food with for coffee, paper, or envelopes, none of which I could afford to buy. I was given a pad of paper once a month, but I ran through that pad in a week. I was forever on the lookout with whom I could trade food for paper or coffee. He had neither (I had given him that piece of paper he was writing on!)

In any case, I was rather short with him, and it was not thought out, but instinctual and reflexive. I must have quickly calculated that he would not be of much use as a trade partner. I’m always in need of coffee, paper and stamped envelopes. And I must have thought that he had little to offer. The reptilian brain makes those calculations even before you’re aware of them. Such is human nature. We instinctively classify people as potential friend or foe - a potential trade partner or not. It’s easy to see why we have such built-in heuristics, at least from an evolutionary point of view. But we need not be slaves to those automatic programs if we also take the time to stop, think and reflect. That’s what my diary was for.

That’s why the second time around, just a few minutes later, when he spontaneously started chattering again, I deliberately closed my book and took the time to look directly at him to acknowledge his existence and his attempt to express what turned out to be his huge distress and discomfort at being in “this” place - in “this” special pod reserved for “sex offenders”. He earnestly insisted that he was no sex offender - that he shouldn’t be here - and that he doesn’t need to register, and that it’s all a terrible misunderstanding. Given his case, I could almost agree with him. He said it was “poor judgment”. Indeed it was.

He seemed ready to give details of his case at which point I cut him off sternly, but gently, and said to him “take your lawyer’s advice and DO NOT discuss your case to me or to anyone else.” He nodded and said, “you’re right; thank you for saying that.” I did not need to say why since it’s almost certain that his lawyer must have warned him about the possible consequences of talking to anyone, especially in jail, about the details of one’s case. Other inmates are simply not your friends until proven otherwise. But others knew the details already. Tom had been in the news.

***

DAY 41 - NOV 4 - THE FACE CLOTH INCIDENT

Nearly two weeks in, Tom seemed to be adjusting. But earlier today, before lunch, there was a small conflict that landed one-eyed guy (Roeper - about 30 - generally a kind of generous guy. He had a glass eye) on rack-down and sent to his cell for the rest of the day. It’s like being sent to your room for arguing with your mom. You don’t argue with your mom, and you don’t argue with the guard.

The incident seemed innocent enough. Tom, who frequently talks to himself, was helpfully wiping down a table after lunch, but one-eyed guy told him not to do that (as for why will become apparent). So Tom limped his way to the bubble and told the guard that one-eyed guy told him not to wipe the table. The guard became furious and seemed to be taking Tom’s side, just a vulnerable and harmless guy. The guard yelled across the intercom and told One-eye to leave Tom alone. He tried to explain himself, but the guard yelled back “shut the fuck up or I’ll kick your fucking ass!” Roeper acted stunned. He said, “for real, bro?” And the guard shouted back, “rack down … NOW!” So Roeper shuffled off to his cell, not understanding what had happened. I had seen and heard this from my cell, and I too was a bit confused.

So, was One-eye bullying the new guy who talks to himself? Did the new guy go to the window to complain to the guard? Did the guard take pity on the new guy and rack down the “bully”?

Things are always more complicated than they first appear. As it turns out, Tom was just trying to be helpful by wiping down the tables. The problem is that he was doing so with his face cloth! And regrettably, his hygiene is a bit uncertain. Moreover he frequently - and indiscreetly - scratches his genitals; not through his pants but with his hand in his pants! His general behavior and table manners during meals just leave something to be desired, and have put his general cleanliness under a cloud of uncertainty if not downright suspicion!

What One-eye actually told Tom is that it was not a good idea to wipe down the communal tables with his own personal (and perhaps suspect) face-cloth, but that he should go to the bubble and ask for paper towels instead. That was an eminently sensible suggestion, and not at all a case of bullying.

Tom took the suggestion in the spirit given (and his questionable hygiene discreetly unmentioned) and duly went to the window intending to finish the job with a paper towel. But something went awry with the communication when he said to the guard “he told me not to wipe down the table with this …” and the guard misinterpreted that as a complaint at possibly being bullied. With that, the guard took seemingly the right action in defense of the new guy, defending the “victim”, and chastising the would-be “bully” by racking him down for the rest of the day (though the guard threatening “to kick his ass” was probably not necessary!) One-eye understood what had happened and wisely just let it go.

***

DAY 79 - DEC 12 :

Tom has been here 5 weeks now and doing much better. He is not the only seriously overweight person here. Another inmate - Bug - is just as overweight, if not worse. He’s diabetic and gets his blood sugar level monitored every morning. Just like Tom, he also has not graduated high school (quite frequent in prison). But though they look similar in appearances, a difference between them began emerging over the weeks and months to come.

After the initial shock of being here, it finally sunk in that he would be here longer than he thought (he stayed till late Feb. He got 90 days for failure to register). He started going on a diet, trading his food like just like Bug did, but in reverse order. Bug traded all his vegetables for more desserts. Tom got rid of all the fatty meats (hot dogs, ham) and the desserts (cookies and pudding) for healthier fruits and vegetables. And in short order, despite his weight and his limp, he started walking around and around in the “day” room like a mad man possessed of some new knowledge, or a new purpose. He lost almost 30 lbs the time that he was there. There’s now always a smile on his face, and as he goes around and around he will often just bursts out with phrases like “walk, walk, walk - walk for your health!” or “must walk 2 hours today - that’s right - 2 hours!”, and off he goes notwithstanding the obvious strain on his bad leg and foot. He once overexerted himself and had to take a rest from walking for a few days.

But it was not long before he was back to his walking routine, and as usual, he was talking to himself. But he started adding some new words as he went around and around. I could hear him struggle with saying “isosceles” and “hypotenuse”, but he kept repeating it to get it right. What was that all about I wondered? It turned out that, with the help of another inmate, he was learning a bit of geometry from the many GED manuals (the General Education Degree for those who dropped out of High School) that were piled in the corner of the pod! (turned out to be useful for me as well as I was to learn at Fulton! That’s another story!) They were part of what I called our “micro-library”.

Some weeks later he added a new word. At some point, during one of my daily walks, I stopped at the table where he was sitting working on some problems. I told him that he would soon be learning a very cool and famous theorem in geometry - and I said it slowly - the Pythagorean theorem. I explained to him what it was. He said it once and mangled it. I repeated it - and he said it again slowly - “Py-tha-go-rean theorem”- and he more or less got it right. I got up and resumed my march, saying “walk - walk - walk! Walk for your health!”

For a week or so after that, when he goes walking, he will often look me in the eye, gesturing with his hands to guide his pronunciation, with a smile on his face, as he slowly says “Py.tha.go.rean theorem!” Maybe somewhere Pythagoras is smiling too!