Saltwater Tibs Versus American Justice

"And we're worried about our rate of attrition, although we don't know what we can do about it. It's the nature of the buisness, people die, or don't want to work. Lazy bastards. We've got to turn this around if we want to remain profittable in the market place. We simply can't afford to be training all these people only if we don't retain them." - The Warden

A prison with dull gray, prefab walls. Cubical Catacombs.

I managed to get a typewriter smuggled in. A beat up, IBM machine, circa 1962. Dark gray, with five missing keys, one half smashed space bar, and a severe sticking problem. I payed 42 cigarettes for it, a small fortune. And I had to get the ribbon replaced within a week. I'm not sure if the trauma happened on route, or if its the only thing they could get, but it'll have to do for now. Whatever poor souls have touched its keys are the only thing giving me strength in this paper prison. Where memos and reports are whips and chains. Most of us in here are political prisoners, members of society the elite, tie wearing-investment bankers, are shaken up over and are thus enslaved.

It was like something out of '39. I had been writing for the "freepress", an independant news paper on the north end of town. I was one of the art and culture contributors, I published poems, and wasn't connected to some of the more opinionated, and sometimes violent, politcal voices of the paper. One night, while supervising the presses; an old devil, hidden away in a basement to prevent the thought police from cracking down. It was an old colonial-period prison cell, oh the poetic symmetry! We were targetted, and raided. I, along with two journalists, an editor and two rum-runners turned bundle carriers were arrested. We were arranged, processed and transported to a high-tech, high security, low cost prison in the same night.

The trip there, chained, sitting in the back of a prison bus, was surreal. Just hours earlier I had been sipping coffee and smoking a cigarette in my underwear on my back fire escape. What do I do now? Would I never see the rising sun again a free man? We had no idea how long our sentances were. I had regrets. Not kissing that fiery girl from down the street was high up on that list. Not playing guitar that day was up there too. Half way there, the black hoods came down. I don't know how long we were on the bus, most of the night, I'm sure, I couldn't sleep and tried to keep track of the turns and twists with the pressure that was being placed on each corresponding ass cheek. Didn't work.

I was strongarmed into a cell, no bars here, just tall plexiglass walls covered in spit and dried blood. They removed my hood. The floor had tough, industrial grade carpet and when they threw me down it cut my forearms. Meals were once a day for the first week, and then based off a work commission. I didn't realize until later that those who didn't work, and didn't work well, didn't eat. The first night there I expected to freeze, a psycological mind game trick common for intimidation purposes, but no, it was the opposite. They cranked the heat, it was swealtering, no one could sleep. The florescent lights stayed up all night. Sleep deprivation. A weary spirit doesn't make for good work, or good meals, I kept thinking.

The first few weeks was "orientation". Meeting the guards, the warden, regular beatings and avoiding some of the more pleasant inmates. It took a very special type of conditioning, bordering on complete insanity, and a loss of identity to become agreeable with this place. The rapists and axe murders seemed to be happy enough. "Better this than the chair" I recall hearing in hurried tones.

I was set a task. Chained to a desk, pushing buttons for hours (or days or weeks, you worked until you collapsed) trying to enter data, all seemingly disconnected and without purpose. I was told it was needed for "the war effort" and the guards would sneer, saying "don't you support the troops?"

My heart is on the verge of collapse. The voice of the Judge echos in my head "to be sent, for an indeterminate amount of time..."

Strength Tibs, you'll get through this on the otherside, somehow.

American justice be damned.

From tattered prison garb,

S. Tibs