Some days I am not at my best.
One of the few things about prison that I like is the routine. While the particulars might not be ideal, the knowledge that there is a schedule and that by and large this great grinding machine crunching humanity into slurry all around me is going to adhere to it is deeply comforting. I enjoy variety, excitement, adventure, and stimulation as much as the next punch drunk post-justice disenfranchisee – but not when it comes to when I am going to eat my breakfast or take a shit.
For me the zen hour arrives at 6:20 AM. I've been up for a couple hours by then and I'm ready to roll; my cellie departs our seven foot by seven foot concrete box and the world is my oyster. This time is the only hour in the entire day I am by myself. This is my refuge. In this hour I steel myself for the coming day's stresses and forced social interactions, take a deep breath, and remind myself that I am OK.
Getting clean and organized are the foundations of my routine, activities that soothe me. I can perform them automatically while my thoughts do as they please. This is my nirvana. As I wash up, wash clothes, clean my living space, and get things ready for the rest of my busy day, I breathe. There is a certain beauty in my routine and the sameness of my zen hour allows me to internalize peace as a bulwark against the coming chaos and abrasiveness of my environment that ever seeks to overwhelm me.
Sometimes shit goes sideways.
The first bell rings while I'm still sloshing water around and scrubbing myself down at the sink – the birdbath, a prison ritual if ever there was one.
What the fuck? It's way too early for chow. The first bell means the other side of my building is going to breakfast. Today that occurs at least ten minutes ahead of schedule.
This is not the routine.
But I'm nothing if not adaptable, ha-ha. I shake free from my thoughts and resume normal program. I still have time, if–
–Bang!
I jump – someone at the door. It's dark in here and my blocker is up, the equivalent of a do not disturb sign that obscures roughly a foot of the long narrow window in my door that puts my lovely self on twenty-four hour display. While the blocker in fact blocks little, I don't mind. My privacy has long been a casualty of this war. Its primary purpose is to tell passersby 'go away, I'm busy.'
Above my blocker, against the safety glass, I see a tattooed hand holding a half pint of milk, the same size we used to get in grade school.
"Hey gaywad. Here's your milk."
Oh yeah, the Nuisance. That's not the name his mother gave him but it might as well have been. He gives me his milks sometimes. I give him the terrible state coffee packets.
The Nuisance looks like Uncle Fester and his interests include drawing, monster trucks, making people mad, talking shit, weirdo religious stuff, and conspiracy theories. He's weirder than your average long-term prison jackass, but not by as wide a margin as you'd think. Nobody talks to him.
"Thanks, R–." Almost nobody.
He leaves. Back to my birdbath–
"Hey, T–."
Uncle Fester's mug reappears at my window. I'm naked. Soapy. Early and late at the same time. Not in the mood to chat.
"What."
"Just to let you know, I've got two soups coming. I'm going to shoot 'em to you."
The Nuisance draws cards and trades them for a few Top Ramens each. He gets his cardstock from me. Until he says this I haven't thought about our little deal or his tab in days. At the moment I don't care about many things in the world less than what he's saying.
"OK. Whenever."
He gives me a thumbs up. Leaves. I rinse. Another bell rings. Now I'm all fucked up. Either we are going to chow right now, or someone doesn't know what they're doing. What–
"Hey, T–." I jump – that face again. He giggles.
"What!"
"D– is getting a card from me. He's gonna give you those two soups."
"OK."
"And, I got three more coming from this other guy."
"OK!"
Thumbs up. The Nuisance leaves. I finish up and dry off. I'm still tripping cause the doors could pop any minute and I'm standing here in my boxers but I can't leave a pool of water on my floor. I flip on the light and start mopping with a towel–
"Hey, T–."
I look up, and see not one but two faces. The Nuisance brought D–, like he needed to prove to me D– is going to give me two soups I don't even care about. I've know on D– for most of a decade, and it's less than a dollar, and who gives a fuck if I'm busy.
"Yeah?"
D– assures me he'll bring two soups by when he comes out later. Great. Fantastic. I'm exhausted already and it's not even 7 AM.
"OK!"
Thumbs up. Don't care. Fuck off. They leave. I finish the floor. Yet another bell rings as I'm getting dressed and the door cracks. I head out into the mix without doing my laundry and without finishing cleaning up, let alone getting anything organized. My golden hour dies an ignoble death.
Chow is a quick jaunt unworthy of commentary. It's exactly as uninspiring as 'breakfast in a state penitentiary' sounds. I'm back in fifteen minutes. I start in on my laundry, making up for lost time.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Three soups shoot under my door. The Nuisance is standing outside. I'm really getting my fill of that Uncle Fester face – this is someone I might talk to once a week for five minutes and that's a lot.
Thumbs up. He leaves. I go back to whatever the hell I was doing. I'm all kinds of out of order and it takes me a minute to find my rhythm again.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Two more soups come flying under the door. I sigh. I mentally check off D–. The Nuisance waves from outside my window. At this point it's starting to feel like he lives here.
Thumbs up. I finish my laundry. Brush my teeth. I hear the Nuisance's voice and I just cringe, but it's a false alarm. He's talking to my neighbor and he just has no inside voice. Except whichever ones he's sharing skull space with.
More soups come zooming under the door, zeroing out his tab. It's hard to complain about getting paid but gratitude feels like a ghost this morning.
I see him outside. Again. Thumbs up. Again. He leaves. Again. I put the blocker back up.
Barely a couple minutes later I'm in the middle of another cornerstone of my routine. The Nuisance bangs on my door. Uncle Fester grins in my window. Again.
"WHAT THE FUCK!!" I don't yell often, but this has been building for a while.
"Whatareyoudoing. Whatareyoudoing. Whatareyoudoing."
The Nuisance giggles and disappears.
I have the place to myself for long enough to finish using the bathroom, at least. I'm still behind. My thoughts are all over the place. I'm just grabbing stuff, on autopilot getting ready for yard release which is not that many minutes away. The routine is dead and stinking. I'm forgetting something–
Water bottle. Right. I grab it and turn to the sink to fill it–
The Nuisance is at my door, staring in my window.
I scream. Not in fear. Not in anger. This is a primal roar to vent the pressure building and building and building inside me.
"WHAAAAAT!!!" I throw my water bottle. It rebounds off the walls of the tiny concrete box which an hour ago was my refuge from the bullshit but for reasons as yet inexplicable has become my personal insane asylum, population me and this giggling nutcase. His eyes go wide, then he grins.
"So, I was wondering–"
"AAAHHHHH!!"
"Damn, it's not that serious."
"What!"
"Do you have any more of that cardstock?"
"NOT RIGHT NOW!"
I'm not even talking to the Nuisance. By this point I'm shouting at the universe, God, anything there is. I don't care, I just want the world to know I wish it would fucking shove it.
Uncle Fester is still there. Absolutely unfazed. It's a superpower, being so monumentally oblivious.
"So... do you have any?"
"FUUUUUCK OFF!!!"
The Nuisance spins on a heel and, like the roadrunner in those old cartoons, he vanishes without even a meep-meep. I pick up my water bottle. Fill it. Put it in my yard bag. Then... I just laugh.
I laugh. I laugh like I haven't in years. I laugh til my stomach hurts and I'm short of breath and people are walking by no doubt thinking I'm nuts, and as I found out later a lot of people heard me screaming so a lot of them probably do think I'm nuts, and hell maybe I am.
I can't stop laughing. I keep busting up the whole time I'm getting ready for yard. Ten minutes later I'm still laughing so hard I can barely use the phone.
I haven't felt this good in weeks.
Some days I am not at my best. But I really do try.
–ronin
