D. R. Trumbo Sr.
Issue No. 21 • Spring 2020
Welcome to the normal world. Pleasant society. We may pass each other on the street, bump into one another on the subway, I could smile back at you as I hand you your coffee, Rueben, or the newest electronic widget guaranteed to make your life easier. Who I am is of no concern, you don't so much as blink an eye because I am cordial, presentable, and act according to your predetermined establishment of norms.
If you were to speak to me, enquire of my day, perhaps you notice that I am a supporter of your favorite team, or maybe I just have a way of always fixing your order of sunny-side-up eggs and crisp (but not too crisp) bacon exactly the way you like; we'd exchange pleasant banter and I could put a smile on your face.
Such is the way of normal, pleasant society. I am not a part of that society.
The prison industrial complex exists apart from your normal, pleasant society. The people confined within America's prisons are deemed neither accustomed to or worthy of such normalcy and pleasantries by virtue of a Court's conviction. In most situations these people's upbringing, lifestyles, and behaviors could readily be defined as being abnormal or heinous; in other's situation, they were merely the victims of their own poor choices and bad decisions. These are the people who fill America's prisons. I am one of those people, and I share a community with two-thousand other people confined to the same prison.
On my first day as a prison inmate, I was taught that the word prisoner inadequately defines those like me who find themselves restrained behind miles of razor wire topped chain-link fence lines. "Your liberties weren't taken, or even in question," we were told, "nor are you being deprived of such. You gave them up the moment you decided to live a lawless life, got caught, and were convicted. You then became inmates." Welcome to prison, and the group of lawless individuals who'll all occupy the same space as you until your sentence is up and you're free to re-enter the society you once left.
On my first day, a naked man with mental health issues evacuated his bowels onto a nest of carefully laid newspaper in the center of the floor as I walked by. He'd routinely do so, and the authorities would all turn a blind eye as long as he was a "good boy" and cleaned up after himself. I'd hear him very vocally scream and yell to be transported to a facility where he could receive proper treatment and medication. He sought balance. He sought help. His voice went unheard until someone came along and harmed him because they didn't like the way he did things. Until an individual reacted. Prison is full of such reactionaryism.
It is despicable to have to hear oneself cry out for help, for change, and know that it will not be forthcoming. To end up someplace as the result of one's own actions, as punishment, and continue to be caught up within the very same vacuum of senseless reactions that led to your being there in the first place. Crime in perpetuity. A fixed state of lawlessness as opposed to one's Court promised rehabilitation. Nor can any words express the feelings of disappointment, despair, and ultimately denial, once one faces the plain truth of their new reality. This is the insanity of incarceration.
Once the prison gates slam forcefully behind you and the shackles are unfettered, the issue of criminality and justice cease to exist. Confinement becomes one's new status quo, and such issues merely become arguable quantities of morality of the lack thereof, as the convicted must acclimate to the new normal. A vicious cycle.
I find myself continually returning to the fact that rehabilitation can best be summed up by a quote from Wolfgang Goethe stating: "When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he could potentially be, we make him what he should be."
I often wonder what we all could be, us inmates, if someone were to take such interest in what we could potentially be.
A man who could neither read nor write once asked me to help him write a letter to his family. He had neither address nor phone numbers for his loved ones. Upon his conviction he'd been treated with the mentality of out of sight out of mind and had lost all contact. Such is the case for many inmates whose families either couldn't afford the collect calls, or weren't writers, or just couldn't bear to face the shame of whatever was said to have been perpetrated. This man craved communication. He'd speak of the people he missed and would shed tears as he spoke of his family's absence. I bored his words, apologies, and well wishes for those in his family who either couldn't or just didn't wish to. I'd read him letters from blank pages to ease the burden of his loneliness. A small consolation, but it brought him closer to closure than anything else available. Over time, and with much practice, I'd eventually teach him the rudiments of reading and writing, and he'd scribble his thoughts and emotions down with a fury of purpose. The pencil, like a scalpel, was used to excise the sickness of his own inner torment, to expel the spirit of anger that weighed his soul. I'd accept his letters, and read them, on behalf of those who couldn't. Because no one else would.
I've often read of the ills called mass incarceration and can bear witness to the truth of merely being warehoused. I live it. I've spent the past fifteen years imprisoned in an institution that must use its programs and limited resources to the appease of a Parole Board based system that caters to non-violent felons, drug offenders, and petty crooks. A system that is designed to work against violent offenses and the offenders convicted of such crimes. I've seen the enactment of supposed "Clean Slate" laws that pay lip service to prison/justice reform but fail to address the underlying issue: Violent Offenders, and their basic rights concerning the quality of life, across the board, regardless of their crimes. If the Courts ruled that an offender's imprisonment is the debt to society that must be paid- when then is one's debt ever truly paid in full? Better yet, why are all of the laws (and the public's attention) focused on the very same non-violent offenders who already pass through the system like water through a sieve, and already receive the benefit of the limited resources and restorative programs the prison offers? It's a catch-and-release policy that neither addresses the issue, nor helps to offer those most in need.
One young man I mentored was a sex offender- statutory rape- who'd once been a victim himself before becoming the victimizer, he'd be subject to abuse, scorn, and the perpetual cycle of shaming that is so prevalent in today's society. He'd ultimately finish his prison sentence, be released, and have to endure another five years of restrictions implemented after he'd done his prison time. He'd be labeled, monitored, and treated as a pariah even though his victim neither died nor suffered a violent act. His victim even asked the Courts to remove the stipulations keeping him from moving beyond the severity of his conviction. All to no avail.
Though each offender's crimes, and the circumstances of the crime, are different from person to person, the incarceration and removal from society is the same: Prison. Why should the debt paid be any different? Why are sex convictions deemed more heinous than crimes such as murder? Is society aware of the stigma that applies to sex crimes only?
I share my living space with fifty-plus other men in the small open-wing dorm we all must call home for the time being. I've lived with men with every shade of crime, from every walk of life, and one truth has become self-evident: We all suffer incarceration the same, all continue to dream of a life after the conviction, all seek to one day put this dark night of the soul behind us.
My bunk mate was an older man with a family he'd left behind upon coming to prison, he was a father, a grandfather, a veteran. On Christmas Eve he died on a cold bathroom floor from a heart attack brought on by the stress of all he'd miss.
One of my neighbors is a man in his late sixties, when he was nineteen, he robbed a place, killed two people, and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after twenty-five years. He was served out by the Parole Board on his first time meeting with them. The man is a mode inmate, has never received an institutional disciplinary report, or harmed another inmate, or staff member.
The people I share my time with, those I live with, all seek to co-exist with one another, and though the argument can be made that it is purely out of having no other choice, the fact is that we've become a community. The murderers could continue to murder, the rapists could rape indiscriminately, the thieves could steal everything not tied down- if they wanted to. What do they have to lose? They're already incarcerated. Yet they mostly want one thing. The chance to start anew.
I've watched grown men fall into each other's arms upon the date of their release, not because of what they'd miss on walking free, but because they were perturbed by the fact that they were without skills, contacts, resources or anything else that could have been offered by the very system that was now kicking them out the door.
I've seen men that literally feared the society they'd face, and the stigmas attached to their convictions, more than any fearmonger could ever cause society to fear them. Every inmate knows that society has labeled them ex-felons, convicts, and their burden doesn't stop there. Next comes the discriminatory hiring practices, lack of living arrangements, and the battle of public opinion. A few questions: Would you invite a sex offender to work for you? How about with you? Or live next door? What if one passed you on the street, bumped into you on the subway, or smiled at you as he handed you your morning coffee? Are you outside of your comfort zone? Imagine how they feel. They know that they make you uncomfortable. They fear you, too.
The central question must truly become should be available for all, or just some? You know, those with charges that don't tilt your moral scale. Should prison be about punishment or reform? Should the law truly offer equal protections to all involved- regardless of race, creed, wealth, or crime? Should that equal protection extend to the prisons that hold the convicted? What responsibility does society owe to those it imprisons, and what does it expect from those people upon their re-entry to those environs? Don't all people deserve the same chance to redeem themselves? However, you answer these questions, just remember that those people are currently not offered the same equal protections. Yet society expects them to live with, respect, and abide by laws that labels them pariahs, monsters, and restricts their ability to pursue their constitutional right to happiness.
I look in the mirror and see a world of opportunity reflected back, every new day offers another chance to fix what's wrong. All around me I see hopeful faces that watch the news, read the papers, and follow the laws in the hopes that things change. Everywhere are wide eyes that take in the same details that I've detailed, that suffer the same loss, desire the same freedoms. I hold up the mirror for others to see, an effective means by which to portray myself, to reveal my truths. This writing, my words, is that mirror: neither religious, nor political. Merely truth. I write these words in answer to the questions that plague the lives of the incarcerated. I am but one of millions who all occupy the same spaces, all across America. Mine is the face of imprisonment, my voice speaks up for the voiceless. I can only hope that I've spoken loud enough to be heard. Can you hear me?
I may not look like you, share your same fashion sense, or currently enjoy the same liberties that all too many free people take for granted, but one day I will be free. I will re-enter society. And when I pass you on the street, speak to me. When I fix your order of eggs, sunny-side-up, crisp bacon, and serve them with a smile, see me. Would you know my voice if you heard it? I am you, only our circumstances differ.
Derek Trumbo Sr. has been a member of Kentucky’s Pioneer Playhouse: Voices Inside Prison Playwright Program since its inception in 2009. As a writer, he has seen his work published in The Marshall Project, PEN America, Prison Writers, Snapdragon: a literary journal, X-FelonInk, and his plays have been performed by NylonFusion Theatre, Theatrelab, and featured in The Kentucky Theatre Yearbook 2017.
As a member of the many Americans imprisoned in state institutions, he’s done everything in his power to seek rehabilitation and wishes there were more opportunities like PEN America’s Prison Writing Program available to fuel the fight for prison reform.