Dateline Saturday,
March 22, 2015
No one can say the
prison system can’t act fast when it wants to — witness what has happened in
just the past two weeks. I wrote “Another
Midnight Ransacking,” my wife, Libby, sent it to Loen Kelley at www.prisonwriters.com , and she
emailed Libby a few days later that it was posted on their incredible site, for
the world to see (click on link above). Thanks!
If you haven’t
read what happened during the midnight ransacking by the 21 or so stormtroopers
and the two drug dogs, click on the link above. It is also posted here on the
blogspot (scroll down).
The warden
resigned and was replaced. And on Thursday, March 19, 2015, while I was on the
telephone talking with Libby, the dorm officer told me to hang up, I was
transferring.
“Transferring?” Great. I’ve only been
here since November, 2014.
From 1998-2002, I
spent four miserable years at Columbia C.I., when it was much worse than it is
now, more violence (two murders within a four-month period in the building
where I lived then), and the guards were even more off the chain.
During that time,
they were building the “Annex,” about a quarter-mile west of the “Main Unit.”
Inmate work crews were sent out every day as a construction squad. Although
they are separate prisons, separate buildings, they are associated and the same
administration runs both places.
So on that
Thursday, March 19, in their wisdom, they swapped fifteen prisoners, one of
which was me, from the Main Unit for fifteen from the Annex. That entailed an
ordeal of several hours, including handcuffs, waist chains, and leg irons, and
sitting on steel benches, parked, from around Noon until 6 p.m.
About the only
advantage the Annex offers is that as a more “modern” prison, it is air
conditioned (built with no functioning windows), or, I should say, it is supposed to be air conditioned. When I
walked into the housing area and smelled the humid, stale air infused with the
musky body sweat of 84 men, the “odor of
the wild inmate,” as I once labeled it, I knew that the air conditioning
didn’t work. And in the modern hermetically-sealed prison, that makes for
uncomfortable conditions.
Did the
publication of “Another Midnight
Ransacking” result in my getting hustled out of one prison and into another
one? I don’t know. “Be wary of
coincidences,” I’ve been told.
As it is, another
prison (number 20 for me in 37 years), results in meeting old acquaintances and
renewing friendships. Old home week. One man I knew 35 years ago at “The Rock,” Raiford, when we both were
young, and have bumped into each other several times in the giant pinball
machine that is prison.
Instead of the
strong young black man I knew years ago, however, he is now in a wheelchair,
his legs paralyzed by a brutal assault at another prison years ago. His eyes
were gouged and damaged during the brutality, and the resulting tunnel vision
prevents his reading, except for very large print. A catheter and bag collect
urine. “I’ll tell you about it, Charlie,”
he said. And he did, a tragedy.
Another man I knew
years ago got out and came back in on a new charge. I have little sympathy for
such stories. No excuses. He had his chance. I’m still fighting for mine.
My mailing address
is almost the same, Charles Norman 881834, Columbia Correctional Institution
Annex, 216 S.E. Corrections Way,
Lake City, FL 32025.
I will keep you
posted. Please check out the www.prisonwriters.com
site, tell your friends, and read Libby’s essay about prison from the visitors’
and loved ones’ view. Loen Kelley and her inspired team are providing a rare
look inside prisons nationwide, and providing prisoners a voice. Thanks.
Charlie
