Letter #8: Notes From the Inside
Samourai Wallet developer Keonne Rodriguez recounts a 29-day prison transfer: 13 days in Oklahoma City’s lockdown transit hub, 18 days caged 23 hours a day at USP Lewisburg, where he learns his grandmother has died.
Despite the harsh glow of the fluorescent light and the half-mattress I had been provided to sleep on I slept fairly well all things considered - most probably due to sheer exhaustion rather than restful comfort - that first night locked in a cell in Oklahoma.
I arose around 4:30AM which is around the time I had been waking up for the 6 months prior at Morgantown. The big difference of course is at Morgantown I wasn't locked in a cell, I could make myself a cup of coffee, watch the morning news, and enjoy a few hours of solitude before the sun rose.
By contrast in Oklahoma I laid quietly on the top bunk half on bare metal desperately needing to pee, but not wanting to wake my cell mate Shadow up with the sounds of the toilet. This was a whole different kind of prison experience and a whole different way of doing time, and one I frankly was wholly unprepared for.
I laid with my thoughts for an hour and a half until the sound of metal locks clanging and heavy metal doors swinging open alerted me to the fact that we were being let out of the cells. The position of our cell on the top floor tucked in the far corner near the showers meant it was one of the last to be unlocked by the officer. I climbed off the bunk, relieved myself, splashed water on my face, and walked out of the cell onto the balcony to overlook the bottom floor of the range.
Below me was a long serpentine queue of dour looking men winding its way through the middle and down the sides of the oddly shaped room. I had wondered how meal times would work here. Would we be led in a procession to some other cafeteria style room three times a day?
I had my answer now of course, a big meal cart filled to the brim with plastic trays would be rolled into the range and all 100+ men shuffled forward one by one in ill fitting drab brown clothes. Our name and number would be robotically stated, 'Rodriguez 11404-511' and in return a sad brown tray would be shoved into our waiting hands, 'Enjoy your potato comrade'.
It was all very Soviet feeling. On the sidelines - though never to be side-lined - were the deuce dealers hard at work making side deals with the addicts jonesing for their morning fix . 'Deuce for trays!' they would furtively announce as you made your way through the tray queue.
One of course has to wonder at how little they value their product to give it away in exchange for some stale cereal and an alarmingly brown banana. No drinking cups were provided nor were any drinking water fountains, so I drank water from a lukewarm tap by cupping my hands and bringing them up to my mouth. This truly was the jungle.
Tray in hand I searched for a place to sit and eat. Most of the inmates here were coming from or going to the US Penitentiary - high security facilities - as such a very defined "car" system was innately followed. In prison a "car" refers to a group of people usually defined by race, but also sometimes by geographic location, that congregate together.
Keonne Rodriguez
"Who's Last?"
In Oklahoma, because it is a transit facility, car membership is naturally quite short lived and fleeting, but exists nonetheless. Returning to my breakfast tray I noticed several dining tables surrounding the inner perimeter of the triangular room. Each table was segregated by race: there was a black table, a Hispanic table, a white table, and a native table.
Having no interest in playing prison politics I quite happily decided to take my tray up the stairs to my cell where I could eat in peace. Shadow was holding court at the native table. I learnt later that Shadow is what is called a Chief - or a leader - of the native car so most of his time was spent outside of the cell playing the role of a politico. With breakfast concluded my next course of business was getting onto a phone to call my wife Lauren.
At around 6:30AM - the precise time impossible to tell as there is not a single clock to be found - I joined the alarmingly growing queue for the four telephones. Almost immediately after I joined a disheveled deuce head in bright orange Crocs appeared seemingly out of the ether and asked no one in particular 'Who's last?'.
Taking this odd question as the inane ramblings of a drug fueled maniac I did what any red blooded American who has spent any time in an urban setting of any kind would do, I stared straight ahead steely eyed and ignored him.
'Yo!' he barked staring straight at me now, 'Who's last?' he again demanded. 'I guess I am' I told him as I looked behind me at the empty space as if to say 'obviously you moron'. Satisfied by my response he followed up with 'Aight! I'm after YOU!' pointing a crooked finger directly at me so that there could be no mistake as to he was speaking to. He clearly didn't think I was quite the ticket.
I wondered to myself why he told me that he was after me. Am I supposed to be responsible for keeping track as to the make up and positioning of all persons in queue? Whilst considering these questions another man came up and performed the phone ritual of asking no one in particular "Who's last?".
Of course this time I was ready. I turned around to point at Mr. Orange Crocs but he was nowhere to be found. Where the hell did this infernal dog get to? As I scanned the large room I found the orange crocs I was looking for - I think so anyway, all orange crocs look the same - pointed to the man now standing in a corner hunched over swaying as if a wilted flower in a light breeze, 'he's last' I told the newcomer who immediately responded 'Aight, cool, I'm after him' as he walked off.
How I became keeper of the phone queue I have no idea, but clearly the concept of simply joining a queue and waiting patiently for their turn had never crossed the minds of any of these people. After a considerable amount of time it was my turn to use the phone.
I immediately discarded the order of the phone queue and who was after whom with some inner joy at the thought of the total pandemonium that would likely result and made my way to make the call I had been waiting for.
The phone call was a disaster. After waiting somewhere between 2 hours and 2 centuries - it was hard to tell - the receiver barely worked. Lauren could hardly hear me and I could hardly make out what she was saying to me - which turned out to be some variation of 'huh?.. I can't hear you... what did you say?" - but at the very least she knew I had arrived in Oklahoma in one piece, physically at least.
Keonne Rodriguez
"I read anything I could get my hands on, easily digesting 2 to 4 books every day."
Much like the dining tables, the three TV rooms are segregated by race. The whites had a room usually with FOX News or SportsCenter playing; the blacks had a room usually with MTV's Ridiculousness or some hip-hop music video channel playing; and the Hispanics shared a room with the Natives with Telemundo or Univision playing.
I am not Hispanic enough - despite the name - to sit in their room comfortably and I am not white enough - because of the name - to sit in their room, and in any case I was not at all interested in dealing with the inevitable conflict that arises in prison TV rooms. Finding something to occupy my time was of the upmost importance which is what ultimately led me to the creaking dusty book-cart standing lonely in a corner filled with trashy - and trashed - books that had seen much better days.
The vast majority of books on offer were of the western or romance variety - oftentimes both at the same time - neither of which are really my preferred genre but beggars cannot be choosers or so the saying goes, they would have to do.
I quickly learnt that the pages of books makes the ideal conduit for the poisonous chemicals that make up deuce, very many pages of these books are missing or torn up beyond repair. Upon subsequent perusals of the saddest library known to man I made sure to double check that my selections were the complete article as to avoid the awkward situation of not knowing the outcome of Santana's attempts to seduce that buxom vixen Brooke.
At 10:00AM we would be recalled back to the cell where the officer on duty would manually walk along and lock us in the cell. At 11:00AM the same officer would walk along and unlock the same cells so we could begin queueing for lunch.
After lunch we were allowed to remain outside of the cell to occupy our time as we pleased. Some played cards, some watched TV, some endlessly paced the halls back and forth.
For my part I thought I might try another phone call but after waiting for two hours - waiting, it must be explained, behind drug addicts calling home to badger their loved ones to send a drug dealer they just met $5.00 via Cashapp, and then that same drug dealer standing by to call his people to confirm receipt of said $5.00 - only to be greeted by the crackling hiss of a phone line and more cries of 'huh? what did you say?' that I decided the phones were a lost cause.
At around 3:00PM we again would be recalled to the cells where the officer would again lock us individually. This time we were to wait for the 4:00PM stand-up count where assuming the count went off without a hitch - a wild assumption apparently judging by the number of recounts I was subjected to, thought perhaps not surprising considering there are 100 of us and only 20 fingers between the two counting officers - we would again be let out of our cells around 4:45PM for the dinner meal.
At 9:00PM we were recalled for the final time of the day, locked in individually , counted again at 10:00PM, and then free to try and fall asleep under the bright glare of a fluorescent light, before doing it all again the next day. The only variation to the mundane routine was to be roused out of sleep at 3:00AM by a shouting officer informing you to be ready to leave in an hour. We all hoped that 3:00AM wake up would happen, we all couldn't wait to put Oklahoma behind us.
For nearly two weeks I woke up daily at 5:00AM crushed with the disappointment that I would be spending at least another day in Oklahoma City.
Keonne Rodriguez
"Over the course of several days I learnt a lot about Sandman."
During the 13 days at FTC Oklahoma City I fell into an uneasy routine. I would forgo breakfast to secure a prime position in the queue for the world's worst telephone so I may yell at my wife with the faint hope she would hear me, or at the very least know I was still in Oklahoma and still alive.
I would then prowl the hallways and scavenge the cells of the lucky souls who had been taken during the early hours. During these morning foraging missions I managed to secure better books that had been jealously hoarded by the previous occupants.
Taking my haul back to my cell I would climb into bed - the half mattress was soon replaced with a better full sized variant on one of these foraging missions, and I am happy to report that the half mattress was soon turned into a quarter mattress and its stuffing used to make a pillow - and read for the rest of the day.
Besides my morning outing, the collection of lunch and dinner trays, and a daily shower, I spent the entirety of the day consuming books. I read anything I could get my hands on, easily digesting 2 to 4 books every day. Eventually Shadow was woken up at 3:00AM with the welcome news that he was to be leaving.
I was sad to see him go because he was a great cell mate seeing as he never really said much and was more often than not outside of the cell due to his political responsibilities as Chief of the Natives.
Keonne Rodriguez
"Finally I would be out of transit hell."
You are not allowed to have a cell to yourself in Oklahoma so very soon after Shadow left I found myself with a new cellmate. Sandman like Shadow was a native, but where Shadow was a Chief, Sandman could not be lower on the totem pole.
Sandman was very talkative and very friendly but also very nervous - indeed he had been having such a tough go of it that his hair had started to fall out leaving him with big circles of bald spots all across his head, not unlike the spots of a leopard - and the badly healing black and blue swollen left eye told me that Oklahoma City was probably a most welcome change of scenery for poor Sandman.
Over the course of several days I learnt a lot about Sandman. He was arrested and sentenced to a little over 4 years at the US Penitentiary for a charge of domestic assault. Since he and his family live on tribal land on a reservation in New Mexico the jurisdiction for even minor crimes falls to the federal government.
The way he tells his story he was trying break up a particularly nasty fight between his adult daughter and his wife. Several days after the incident the daughter apparently reported the fracas and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
He tried to run and successfully evaded the authorities for several days, compounding his problems greatly. Eventually he was caught, pled guilty, and was sent to a particularly dangerous prison, USP Big Sandy. Upon arrival to the prison he sought out the Chief of the Native car.
The Chief first had to review his "paperwork" - reviewing paperwork is a common first step in the joining of a car. You produce a copy of your pre-sentence report, and any court transcripts available so that it can be determined whether you snitched in your case, you are a chomo or other variety of sex offender, or some other off color reason that would preclude you from membership in the car - and was apparently unimpressed with the charges of domestic assault.
Sandman had to plead his case to the Chief and explain the full story. The Chief accepted his version of events but remained wary. He explained to Sandman that he may join the car but that he would have to work to earn his keep within the car.
This work - Sandman called them "work calls" - was to act as an enforcer for the car. He would be told who to beat up or stab and he was expected to carry out the work expeditiously. I listened to all this as if it were all entirely normal and privately thought to myself it was no wonder the poor guys hair was falling out, he was a total nervous wreck.
I asked him about his black eye and he explained that as a means to escape the constant replaying of the work calls in his minds eye he had acquired a deuce habit. When the Chief found out about the drug use he had enough of Sandman and kicked him out of the car and sent some bruisers to make sure it was crystal clear that he would not be welcome back.
Sandman was being transferred for his own safety and he hoped to make a better go of it at a new institution. He told me with conviction that he was quitting the deuce for good as it had done nothing but get him into trouble.
Sandman spent the rest of his time in Oklahoma selling his food trays for a square of deuce, stumbling in and out of the cell in an incoherent stupor, and in his rare moments of lucidity promising he was going to quit for good this time. Before long Sandman was called to leave Oklahoma.
With only 8 months left to serve on his sentence I suggested that he immediately "check-in" upon arrival at his new prison. By checking-in you tell the prison staff that you are scared to "walk the yard" in general population and they put you into solitary confinement. It is of course a very drastic step, but I explained my reasoning to Sandman.
Because his paperwork is questionable it was likely the next Chief would have the same work call condition and it was very possible that he could accidentally kill someone on one of these work calls. That would turn a 4 year sentence for domestic assault - of which 8 months remain to serve - into 20+ years for murder. Being so close to the door it is a risk not worth taking. A side benefit is it would help him actually quit deuce this time. I often still wonder about Sandman. His tale is sadly common within the Bureau of Prisons.
Keonne Rodriguez
"A silence grew as the room filled with hardened criminals took a moment to process what they were witnessing."
On the morning of June 22nd at 3:00AM, 13 days after arriving into Oklahoma City an officer yelled through the tray slot of my cell door that I was to be ready to leave at 5:00AM. Finally I would be out of transit hell.
By tonight - I thought - I would be at my new camp. I bundled up my bedding, washed my face, used the toilet, and waited patiently for the officer to come back and unlock the door. Leaving Oklahoma is exactly like arriving, just in reverse. The same incompetence, the same indifference, the same strip search, body scan, clothing issuance, and 4 hour wait in the holding tank.
There was however one difference, something I had yet to see until this point and judging by the reactions of even the most experienced inmates around me something no one else had seen before either. Early into our holding pattern - really very early, like within the first 30 minutes - a short portly gentleman, bald headed with a thick grey goatee and an olive skinned complexion stood up from one of the few benches that line the walls of the holding tank.
I had noticed this man before as he was on the same range that I was on but he was always muttering to himself and chuckling very loudly so I wisely kept my distance. In any case this man stood up, muttered something to himself, chuckled loudly and waddled himself to the singular combination toilet-sink-fountain. The designer of this holding room had one goal in mind, to jam as many bodies inside as possible.
Neither comfort nor modesty were factors considered. When needing to urinate one would discreetly stand facing away from the crowd of face tattoos and complete the business as quickly as possible. Our portly muttering and chuckling friend reached the toilet, pulled down the elastic waisted trousers until they were firmly bunched around his ankles, followed quickly by the threadbare brown boxer shorts and turned to face the crowded room, penis first.
With a wry smile he sat directly onto the toilet bowl. A silence grew as the room filled with hardened criminals took a moment to process what they were witnessing.
I suspect had the manufacturer of the stainless steel toilet contraption been in the room with us they too would have been utterly shell shocked that anyone would consider taking a shit in one - especially considering no one ever bothered to affix a toilet seat onto the wide bowl.
The silence was eventually broken; first by the sound of a turd plopping into the water, then by play-by-play commentary by the gentleman standing next to me, mouth agape, "That nigga taking a shit!".
Our foul fellow for his part seemed entirely oblivious to the stares and commentary as he fixed his gaze dead ahead, hands folded across his widely spread legs, with a look of serious concentration across his face. An Aryan Nation face tattoo who looked to me as if he had seen a lot of things in his life turned towards me and said "well now I've seen it all..." I wasn't sure if he meant that literally or figuratively but I nodded in agreement regardless.
I shan't bore you with the details of the shackling or the con-air flight as it was largely the same as I detailed in part one, loud and uncomfortable, a plane dating from the ass-end of the cold war, and a characteristically chipper pilot announcing our descent into an 82 degree and sunny Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Of course I was a little miffed that it took two cross country flights and a two week layover in Oklahoma to make it one state over but at least the saga was ending. At least by the evening I would be settled into my new camp. How wrong I was.
Keonne Rodriguez
"I reflected that this was my first time "behind the fence"
We sat in the plane on the tarmac for hours as a parade of different officers would board and call out several names at a time. Slowly the plane emptied as those called would awkwardly stand up and shuffle down the aisle and slowly down the stairs into a waiting bus.
With 40 of us left to be called an officer down the front yelled for the rest of us to follow him towards the final bus. As we boarded the bus I noticed the mood was more somber than normal. I gathered several important facts by eavesdropping on the other passengers; first, this bus is going to Lewisburg; second, Lewisburg is a hold over facility - this was the first time I had heard that term and I didn't like the implications of it one bit; and third, Lewisburg really sucks.
With all this terrible news I gave up my self imposed vow of silence and started asking some questions. I found out that a hold over facility is exactly what it sounds like, another transit stop, another layover of indeterminate length.
I was further informed that unlike Oklahoma there are no TVs, and you are to be locked in a cell 23 hours a day. On the bright side I was told, the food is very good. As I craned my neck around to gather further intelligence I noticed way in the back of the bus our defecating friend, muttering to himself, chuckling far too loudly, and wearing an expression of total innocent serenity completely oblivious to the somber atmosphere around him.
He looked toward his neighbor on the seat next to him and loudly said "let me get by...gotta use the washroom...ha.ha.ha". I cannot confirm it but I am fairly certain he took another shit on that bus.
After several hours on the bus we passed through the decorative front gate of USP Lewisburg. A large sign ominously welcomed us to "The Big House". As we drove through the compound nestled in the rolling Pennsylvania hills we passed several residential homes.
I wondered to myself - and still wonder - who lives in these picturesque turn of the century homes. While I was thinking about not only living next to a prison but indeed on the grounds of a prison we rolled up to a second gate house secured by a high brick wall and two layers of razor wire fence. As we drove through I reflected that this was my first time "behind the fence".
We left the bus one by one where we were unshackled and directed into a subterranean entrance of the prison to begin the familiar intake process. Where Oklahoma staff gave the impression of never having performed intake before with their stunning incompetence and inefficiencies, Lewisburg was the exact opposite. Where Oklahoma took anywhere from five to seven hours to process us, Lewisburg took two. Bumbling incompetence was replaced with cold hurried efficiency.
"I was no longer with murderers serving double life sentences"
A very welcome difference immediately presented itself, we were separated and sorted almost immediately by security level into separate holding cells. I was no longer with murderers serving double life sentences, but rather with minimum and low security inmates, a welcome change indeed. After a short wait in the holding room we were directed to follow an officer to our assigned range.
I again noticed a sign in the form of a hand painted mural on the underground wall welcoming me to USP Lewisburg "The Big House" est. 1920something. These people were all about their branding apparently. We followed our escort up a cramped flight of stairs which opened up into a huge, frankly very beautiful, brick cloistered corridor.
The architecture and detailing were exquisite, though clearly run down due to a lack of maintenance and care. It was as if this was some forgotten wing of Hogwarts where all the Slytherins with face tattoos of the 'dark mark' would be sent when they uttered the unforgivable curses.
As we formed single file along the edge of the wide corridor a radio squawked that an officer was down and in need of assistance. Almost immediately several officers in full riot gear came bounding down the ornate corridor with automatic rifles in hand. We were quickly harried into the small vestibule that led to our range and instructed to "take cover". Hogwarts with rifles.
The officer followed us into the vestibule unbothered and began handing out our cell assignments one by one. With my cell assigned I pushed through the heavy double doors leading from the vestibule to the range and was immediately smacked in the face with the smell of body odor and cheap disinfectant. While the corridor was spacious, ornate, and beautiful, the range is cramped, claustrophobic, and extremely run down.
The narrow vertical hallway that the vestibule opens into is cramped. On the left side several wall phones, on the right side a dark room that I later found out was where the showers were. Further along the hallway meets a narrow horizontal hallway to make a "T" shape. On the right side of the horizontal "T" is a sink and a water fountain, on the left side is an even sadder book-cart than the one in Oklahoma.
Filling all available space in these hallways are the inmates, a sorry haggard looking assortment. I would soon come to realize that being let out of the cells this late in the day is a real treat, so taking the opportunity for a change of scenery the inmates filled every available space of common area available to them, which in this case were the narrow four foot wide hallways.
At the end of the horizontal "T" I shimmy past 4 guys playing cards using a rolling cart as a table and turn left to follow another narrow hallway where the cells line the wall. I walk past small cells, no more than 5 foot wide and 7 foot long.
The side and back walls of the cells are old cinderblocks with about 20 layers of gray paint slathered on. The front wall and door are the old fashioned iron bars affair. The conditions of these cells are abysmal, it is the sort of place you would find at a museum or as some sort of historical attraction that you would tour with your family and incredulously murmur in hushed tones "can you believe they kept people like this back in the day?".
They did, and they still do. Lewisburg is a dump, and that is putting it mildly. Finding my cell I passed through the iron barred door and might as well have passed into a previous century. The cell was dirty and cramped, a mouse, obviously disturbed by all the new arrivals, darted out from under the bunkbed through the iron bars and into a crack in the wall.
Keonne Rodriguez
"I prayed for their health and to be reunited with them soon."
Most concerning however were not the squalid conditions, nor the sweltering summer heat, nor the stewing cacophony of disturbing smells. Most concerning was my cell mate, already making himself at home, there he stood with a bemused expression on his chuckling face, muttering something to himself. He turned and looked at me and exclaimed far too loudly "Simply Amazing! Ha. Ha. Ha. Woooooweeee! Ha.Ha.Ha!".
I found myself that late June evening locked in a tiny ancient cell with Junior, the man who had no qualms - indeed he seemed to relish in it - with very public deification. If the bathroom habits weren't troublesome enough - and believe me they were very troublesome.
For one, I had to beg him to give me some warning before using the toilet in that manner, my head being so close to the commode. For two, I had to convince him to hang a sheet to give him some privacy, and give me so respite from watching this man shit forty times a day - his verbal diarrhea was intolerable.
This man was incapable of shutting up and incapable of taking any sort of hint that I was not at all interested in the banal and insipid barrage he would send my way during all waking hours. In fact, I don't think it mattered to him one way or another, he was going to say whatever came into his thick skull regardless of my being there or not.
Additionally he was quite deaf, so he either murmured quite unintelligibly or spoke so loudly that he made the entire range an unwilling participant to his inane ramblings. I spent 18 grueling days at "The Big House", spending 23 hours of the day behind the aged iron bars of a tiny cell.
For the 1 hour we had out of the cell we could make a single phone call, take a shower, do laundry - which meant taking your soiled clothing into the shower with you dousing it with the small packet of combination shampoo-body wash-shaving gel, and then hanging it to dry on the exposed metal pipework in one of the hallways - or walk around the cramped hallways to stretch your legs.
I called Lauren during this hour and am happy to report the quality of the phones were much better here than Oklahoma, and now I was an expert in the "I'm after you!" ritual by giving a convincing nod and immediately discarding who they were.
With the little time I had left after shower/laundry and the phone call I reverted to my earlier foraging sessions looking for intact books. Besides the hour out of the cell and the hours spent sleeping I read the entire time. Every night I would pray for the health of my family paying particular attention to my mother in law who was battling cancer and my grandmother who was battling age - at nearly 89 years old.
I prayed for their health and to be reunited with them soon. On one particular morning - the date escapes me as I had not had access to a calendar or clock for many weeks - I made the usual call to my wife who had the unenviable responsibility of breaking the news to me that my grandmother had passed away in the early hours of the morning.
Hopefully the reader of this letter has not yet had to deal with the grief of losing a loved one, of course death is a cruel fact of life, ideally however one is able to grieve surrounded and supported by family and friends. Grieving under the din of harsh fluorescent light, in an iron cage, with a man incapable of reading the room and determining that perhaps now is not the time to loudly explain the complicated process of waxing and sealing a floor as to obtain the popular "wet look", is an experience I won't soon forget.
My grandmother was a girl during the Blitz in London during World War II, she exemplified the British stiff upper lip mentality, and after a day or two of quiet sobs, with her example fresh in my head, I got myself together and carried on.
The days wore on slowly, as the nation celebrated Independence Day on the 4th of July I laid on the top bunk in my iron barred cage reflecting on the farcical nature of our system of justice and the tenuous nature of liberty in our country.
Naturally I am quite bitter towards the state and the plea-by-extortion Lady Justice obtained with a twisted arm, but that is a story for another time. This story ends finally on July 9th, with an early wake up, the familiar discharge procedure, and a 4 hour bus ride to my new institution of FCI McKean in northern Pennsylvania. Twenty nine days after I first set off I had finally arrived, four hours away from where I started.
Independent journalism does not finance itself. If you enjoyed this article, please consider making a donation. If you would like to note a correction to this article, please email corrections@therage.co
.jpg){kind=link}