It's my bread.
They serve three meals a day, and
some sort of bread appears on every tray. It may be two dry, hard, cold
biscuits, almost inedible, or dry, crumbly cornbread that bursts into pieces
when you throw it over the razorwire, or two slices of white bread that, when
squeezed into a tennis ball-sized lump, can be thrown farther, to the waiting
seven-foot alligator, Wally, on the shore of the weed-choked pond.
So why
should there be an issue when a dozen or so prisoners filch their bread from
the chow hall and toss it to the waiting white ibises, grackles, sparrows and
sandhill cranes? It's our bread, given to us by the State.The birds appreciate
it more than we do. We can eat the tasteless oatmeal, the cold, lumpy yellow
grits, or the semi-cooked potatoes instead.
I am an animal lover. Always have been. Everyone in my extended family loves
animals. If there's a hungry animal, I'm going to feed it. Is it such a sin
that I sneaked out a chunk of cornbread to share with the birds, bread that
otherwise gets dumped into swill barrels to feed some local farmer's pigs?
This is what happened. Along with at least a dozen other men, I tossed a
handful of bread pieces over the razorwire fence to the waiting birds. The
sandhill cranes, beautiful gray-plumaged creatures with bright crimson crests,
close to four feet tall, crowded to the front past the smaller birds. Some
braver souls would hold the bread on the palms of their outstretched hands. The
cranes would reach through the chain-link fence with their fearsome pointed
eight-inch black beaks and peck at the bread. I wouldn't risk it. I threw my
bread over the fence.
A few years ago, at another prison, I saw a man hold out a chunk of bread on
his palm to an approaching sandhill crane, that promptly speared the bread, and
his hand, driving that sharp-pointed beak through the palm. Ouch! It is better
that I toss the bread over the high fence or through the chain-links instead.
Safer.
It was late, five-thirty p.m. Supper. We were at least a hundred yards from several
guards standing in front of the chow hall. We tossed our bread scraps to the
birds and alligator and returned to our dorms. Fifteen minutes later a guard
came to get me.
''Come back to the chow hall, Norman.''
''Am I in trouble?'' I asked. It's always a good idea to try to find out what's
going on before you get there, to form a defense.
''Do you know what my two pet peeves are?'' he asked, as we walked past the
scene of the crime.
''I've never spoken to you,'' I said. ''I have no idea.''
''Not wearing socks, and feeding the birds,'' he answered his own question.
Now I knew who he was, the guy who watched the line of men on their way to the
chow hall, staring at their Crocs. If they didn't have on socks, he sent them
back to the dorm to put on a pair, or miss the meal. "Sockboy," some called him.
I didn't know his name.
I always wear socks, so it must be feeding the birds.
Did he have binoculars, to pick me out of the distant crowd? Why do these
people even know my name? I try my best to maintain a low profile.
I resisted the impulse to reply, ''If I were a guard, my pet peeves would
probably be sharp knives, staff smuggling drugs, and gang activities, rather
than petty issues like socks and birds,'' but I listened to my wife Libby's
advice to keep my mouth shut. I also heeded McGarrett's advice from ''Hawaii
5-0'' in the 1960's--''You have the right to remain silent,'' and I exercised
that right. Let them do what they were going to do, and get on with it.
He turned me over to the chow hall guard to work awhile, who wasn't interested
in silly games, but went along with it, handing me a broom. I swept the chow
hall. Took half an hour.
An inmate cook was preparing a couple dozen hot grilled cheese sandwiches to
take back to his dorm to sell, along with a stack of at least a half-dozen
sandwiches for the guards. I smiled at the irony -- you can't feed the birds, but
you can feed the guards. Render unto Caesar. He offered me a sandwich for a
dollar.
I wandered through the kitchen eating my grilled cheese and drinking my iced
tea, offered by another kitchen worker, to the open back loading dock where
workers were stacking cardboard and feeding the birds loaves of stale bread
left over from supper. I counted over fifty white ibises, their long, downward-curved
pink beaks pecking away at a plethora of manna. I couldn't count all the
grackles, blackbirds, or sparrows. The regal pair of tall sandhill cranes
parted the flocks of lesser minions as they filled up on bread. They knew where
the action was. I thought, that guard would have a heart attack if he came to
the rear of the kitchen and saw this.
''You wanna feed the birds, man, just come back here after chow, every day,''
another worker said. ''We load 'em up.''
The days went by. I continued to feed the cranes. When they spotted me coming
from twenty or thirty yards away, they would stretch out their long black legs
and run to me. I had flashbacks of velocirapters in ''Jurassic Park.''
''They know you, Norman,'' someone said.
A few days later, the cranes and a dozen ibises had flown in and landed right
in front of the chow hall exit door. I walked out into the sunlight. The cranes
spotted me and ran forward, stopping right in front of me, silently demanding
some bread. Another guard laughed.
''You've been snitched out, Norman,'' he said, ''By birds. Go ahead, feed 'em.
I don't care.'' He turned around.
I tossed my bread to the cranes. Several ibises ran over, squawking. I threw
some bread to them, too.
Charlie
09-23-2021
