Of barbed wire, retribution, and escape through a murder of crows...

 I guess today is a three cup morning, seems that the coffee isn't quite clearing the fog out of my head. I suppose a fourth is in order. Ironic. Considering as the sky lightens outside my window I can see that I'm not the only one having trouble clearing things away. I see the mottled sky - light trying to break through the fog outside my window. Fog thick as the steel door to my cell. I can't help but think of the old cliche' - fog so thick you can cut it with a knife; or - thick as soup. I remember as a small child actually trying to cut thru some fog once with a butter knife... just to see, ya know! It didn't work... nor could I spoon it like soup. I still remember wondering if it would taste like my favorite - pea soup.

I like days like this. Barbed wire and chain link fences not the first things I see. The fog blocking the negative reality that is mine and allowing me to think of life in the world outside. As a bonus, the murder of crows i've become familiar with are putting on an aerial production with their slow flaps and heavy bodies appearing and disappearing from so many different directions. I can't help but notice the symbolisms in the fog; the mottled sky trying to break through and the crows that come and go. The fog that is my life is starting to lift and the light of the world an actual life, not merely an existence, is becoming clearer. 

Virginia, before 1995, had a parole system. Due to politics of that time parole as well as substantial good time earned was abolished. After 20 odd years, Virginia is finally going through some much needed changes that affect most of us - incarcerated ones. We can earn 65% good time which means that for every six years I pull, I am killing ten. To make it even better, it's been made retroactive - all the way back to the beginning of my sentence. Long story short, this helps me significantly to say the least. It knocks over a decade off my sentence and has put me within two to three years at worst until freedom. Other laws are still being reviewed such as parole and 50% good time for certain crimes. Both of these, if passed, will help me to possibly leave immediately! I will finally be able to flap my own wings and get back to the land of the living. Back to life and my family. The things I once took for granted.

I can't help but reflect on my first glimpse of prison. I was being transported in a prison bus. My first view of Greenock Correctional was what seemed like miles of fences. Millions of strands of barbed wire. A yard in the middle of the compound barren of grass and hope. I remember wondering what to expect. Telling myself to expect anything. Knowing I would do what I had to do to survive. I was definitely scared; probably more worried actually. I've been scared before. The first step off a 60' platform in an air assault school, and the first drop from the back of a low flying C130 hoping my parachute would deploy properly. This was more of a dread, knowing that the first few days would be the most important in finding my place; gaining respect and deciding who exactly I would be in prison. I also remember having the song "over and over" by Alice-n-Chains stuck in my head. "well it's over now, we pay our debts sometimes" ... fitting. Me and music, my escape from this new reality!

Off the bus I was stripped naked, searched, clothed, handed a laundry bag full of prison blues - blue jeans, blue shirt, brown work boots, boxers, t-shirts and socks. "Rupe, you're in D Building", the guard said. I was hurried down the main sidewalk or boulevard as I came to call it, heading into I didn't know what Hell. As the building loomed larger I became more nervous but i also remember finding a steel calm inside me. The feeling of finding peace in the reality of facing uncertain violence and a calming voice - "let's do this", and "you've got this". I entered the building and found my way into the bowels - cacophony of voices - yelling. Loud laughs. A smell of 300 men sardined into a small poor ventilated area. I remember the smell most of all of body odor, homemade incense, tobacco, and the air so heavy with marijuana that I caught a contact buzz. It wasn't long until my mind registered the faces, most of all the eyes, of the men I would become familiar with. Their eyes empty - dead - void of life and hope. In the overall sadness I realized my fate. My fate in the pit of purgatory. It was then I realized that I no longer had a life and would not know the freedom of death but slowly dying during decades of life in hell itself. 

What's truly crazy is that even in this hell i've learned to not only adapt but to thrive. At times I've laughed and developed friendships. I've even found some semblance of happiness. But most of all, I've never given up. The one thing I remember about that first day was the song in my head as I was laying in my rack at night - Moving On - by Asking Alexandra. "I've never been so torn up in all my life. I shoulda seen this coming. I've never felt this hopeless. I don't wanna do this anymore"...

That was my first day in prison. My second wasn't as bad. I actually found a few guys that I grew up with and knew from jail. Best of all - I didn't have to stab anyone... the first week anyway... and I found out "bubba" was more joke than real! 

Thank God for the small miracles...