In most of the places I’ve been since my prison journey began, the Yard – or Outside Rec – has been absolutely nothing like you see in prison movies, much to my disappointment, because if you’re going to be in prison, it might as well be prisony. I’m just sayin’.
Anyway. Outside Rec. at the county jail was a 10 x 10 paved square surrounded by chain link and razor wire and totally not worth the effort of going out. No amount of sunlight and ‘fresh air’ – we were located next to a dump, after all – could make up for the fact that you felt more imprisoned out there than you did in your cell.
At CRC, the vibe was more like a low-rent college campus than a prison yard. No self-respecting prison movie could be filmed there, but it’d be perfect for one of those “plucky teacher gets through to culturally challenged kids who somehow made it to college” movies that are produced with alarming regularity. Madison turned out to be a more upscale version of CRC, very much like a decent community college campus, where the student body just happened to be criminally insane in a sort of genial way. Again, no self-respecting prison movie could be filmed there…even the showers were safe.
Then I made the transition to Lebanon, and was gifted with the fully, satisfyingly prisony experience. Not only is being at Lebanon just like being in a real prison – only worse – but it has an authentic prison yard complete with honest-to-God gun towers, three tricked-out fences with piles of razor wire, motion sensors, roving patrols of armed guards, the whole shebang.
What? The inmates, you ask? Well, they’re there as well, wandering around, repetitively lifting heavy things, squatting, running, jumping, pushing and sitting up. That, of course, doesn’t include all of the various dealing, fighting, and last but not least, the stabbings. Three are also the games that the wacky inmates get up to…anything from poker to Pokemon, for varying stakes. The whole thing screams “HEY, ASSHOLE, YOU’RE IN PRISON!”, stabs you repeatedly in the kidneys, and runs off to brag to its boys about how gangsta it is.
The only thing that does manage to get in the way of the whole ‘prison movie’ vibe is when you start noticing that some of those groups of hardened criminals are playing….D&D?…and shuffleboard? WTF?? And…wait…that is a Pokemon game over there. The hell, man?
But the yard isn’t all humorous card games and stabbings, oh no. The Yard has a dark side.
My first day on the Yard, for instance, I had no fewer than four ridiculously large guys – more like ambulatory walls, actually – ask if I’d go smoke with them in the bathroom. Now, this may seem all neighborly to some of you, but in truth it is just a ploy to get at my sweet, sweet man ass. I mean, they warn you on for first day, in orientation, to NEVER go into the bathroom on the yard, for here there be rapists.
Should anyone wish to know, the proper way to decline such an invitation is to smile naturally, laugh, and clap them on their granite-like shoulder (a forearm or bicep will also work if you can’t reach – some of these guys are big) and politely say “No thanks.” You should NOT – and I cannot stress this enough – stutter nervously, look at the ground, or start to edge slowly around them while crying and clutching your buttcheeks with both hands. Totally unconvincing. Plus, it attracts other would-be butt bandits like sharks to chum. Live and learn, huh?