For as long as anyone could remember we were
only allowed a small black and white TV in our death row cells. When i
first joined the ranks of the condemned back in the early spring of '84 I
waited the better part of a month before one of the donated TVs became
available and can still remember the frustration I felt as I struggled
to get it to work. I wasn't alone as my efforts soon enough became a
community project with first my immediate neighbours offered their insight
and then just that quickly one after another jumped in until pretty
much everyone within speaking distance became part of that effort to get
that ancient idiot back to work.
Of course, they were all blind
to that elusive image I so desperately tried to capture as each of us
were in our solitary cells unable to see into the rejoining concrete
crypts in which the condemned would remain as we awaited the uncertainty
of our fate. Looking back now, most of those who were part of that
particular community are now long dead, although a few of them are free
as such as the arbitrary nature of this hell that we live in - many will
die, and some will be exonerated and walk free, while the rest of us
simply rot away in our cells until that journey we stumble along comes
to its own end, whatever that end might be.
But I digress, then I
was more naive than ignorant, knowing only too well that ignorance is
just a short step away from stupidity and especially in my little world
stupidity is contagious and from time to time, I'll catch it myself. And
on that day way back then i felt that weight of oncoming stupidity
dragging down upon me as my frustration grew and grew and all i really
wanted to do was pick that small plastic box up off its makeshift shelf
and slam it against that unyielding concrete wall that contains me. I
was still quite young back then and patience was hardly a virtue I had
yet developed.
It took a few hours before I was finally able to
accumulate enough small pieces of thread - thin wire salvaged from old
headphones to use as an antenna, running them like spider webs across
the ceiling at my cell and finally there it was, a fuzzy image that could
barely be made out as reception wasn't that good and back then both TV
and radio stations barely came in, most often with continuous static.
But when you're confined to a solitary cell being able to reach out into
that real world even if only by watching what you can through that
raggedy old TV makes all the difference.
For over 20 years,
those of us on death row, continued to be allowed nothing more than that
black and white TV. Each TV was donated by a church group as the state
wasn't about to spend money to provide electronic entertainment to
those it intended to kill. At the same time, prison staff struggled to
find those willing to donate as they knew that providing a TV was
important in maintaining discipline and order on the death row wings.
As
the world out there progressed to a digital existence those simple
black and white TVs became harder and harder to find. At the same time
the never-ending politically motivated budget cuts eliminated the
educational programs in the prison that operated various vocational
classes including a TV repair shop. Once the TV shop at Florida State
Prison was shut down they tried to send the broken TVs to other
institutions, but like dominoes falling, each of these had their own
budget cuts until none remained.
Only then, almost 10 years ago
now, did the prison system finally allow us to purchase our own TVs
from the prison commissary vendor. At first we were only allowed to
purchase a simple black and white TV even though a comparably sized
color TV would be bought for less. That's the thing all convicts quickly
learn about any prison - malice towards us will always prevail over
common sense, and the only real reason we were prohibited from having a
color TV is because the powers that be reluctantly conceded that it was
in their own interests for us to have a TV, but that didn't mean we had
to have a color TV.
But there really wasn't much of a
market out there for black and white TVs and few companies continued
to manufacture them. Despite their efforts it became harder and harder
for them (the powers that be) to find such a TV that could sold,
especially since there were only a few hundred who could purchase them
even if they were available, as other than death row I doubt many wanted
to buy a black and white TV.
By 2006 the Tally-To's (short for
the politicians in Tallahassee, which many of us came to call the
Tallahassee Totalitarians) begrudgedly conceded that if those condemned
to death go nuts while awaiting their intended fate, then the State
would not be allowed to kill them. Suddenly the prison system had its
own interest in keeping all of us mentally sound which meant that
allowing us to have that electronic babysitter (a TV) became necessary
as keeping a person in prolonged solitary confinement without
intellectual stimulation would undoubtedly result in a good number going
mad and that inevitably (and politically inconvenient) insanity would
stand in the way of killing those bastards.
Once again it was
almost humorous in a diabolically twisted sort of way to see how those
powers that be struggled to give us the absolute least they could,
selling only a very small flat screen TV that was of such poor quality
that no company dared to imprint its own name on it. But it was a color
TVand everyone who could afford it quickly bought one. About the same
time by federal mandate all TV stations were required to switch over
from analog to broadcast to digital only and for the first time we could
see what outside world in full color. Although the programs featuring
bikini-clad women were popular, a close second amongst the ranks of the
condemned were the nature programs shown almost daily on the local PBS
station (Public broadcasting System) as we would all collectively watch
these programs.
In the last few years the
politics of prison evolved as it always does and more open-minded
people decided that there wasn't any good reason to go out of their way
to play games with what TVs would be provided, and they began selling a
13" flat screen TV of far better quality and then about a year ago we
were able to start purchasing a cheap remote control to use with the TV,
as the biggest problem with these TVs is that they were not designed
to be used manually so the buttons used to change the channels quickly
wore out.
That brings us to where we are today. As I sit here in
my solitary cell, I now have a 13" flat screen that receives a remarkably
clear digital picture thanks to those individuals who so generously
donated the money to have a quality antenna installed on the roof of the
death row wing.
Even as much as I like to watch the programs,
there's one thing that means even so much more. unlike any other TV I
have ever had, this flat screen TV has a feature called "freeze" and by
pressing that one button on my remote I can instantly freeze that
picture on the screen, and it will stay frozen until I again press that
button to release that frozen image. As I write this today, only a few
feet away I have my TV frozen in place on a picture of a view of the San
Francisco bay. As I often do in the morning, i watch the PBS programs
and today I was watching a program called "Constitution USA" with Peter
Sagal, and suddenly they were showing images of the San Francisco bay
area, where I was born and raised.
As they crossed the Golden Gate
bridge heading into Marin County (where I lived) I grabbed the TV remote
and prepared to push that freeze button and my trigger finger stood at
the ready as the camera then took that left hand turn just on the North
side of the bridge that I knew only too well would wind around the Marin
headlands there at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay where it opened
out into the pacific ocean. And suddenly, there it was, that
postcard-perfect picture looking out across the bay with the rusty
reddish orange pillars of the Golden Gate bridge in the foreground and
off into the distance the gentle hills of San Francisco, and I instantly
pushed that "freeze" button to lock in that image....and then i sat
back on my bunk and put my MP3 player on a few songs that reminded me of
home ("Save me, San Francisco" by Train) and in that moment in time,
although locked away in this solitary cell on death row surrounded by
nothing more than steel and stone, and the smell of humanity slowly
rotting away around me, I had that window to the world, able to
transcend my consciousness far beyond this reality that imprisoned my
body. In that momentary state of mind, as I looked out from that window
to the world, I could imagine myself standing there upon that bluff
overlooking the San Francisco bay from a spot that I stood myself so many times when growing up and in that moment, I am free.
Monday, September 1, 2014
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3 comments:
Thanks for sharing, Mike. It's a testament to your strength that you can experience moments of freedom like this in your situation. You cannot be truly imprisoned while your mind is free. I have spent the last couple of days reading your book. Congratulations on such a compelling achievement....an eye-opener that's for sure. Thanks for educating us about the US 'justice' system. How shameful that America calls itself a civilised country. I wish you all the best and from the bottom of my heart hope that you will be set free. It is inexcusable what you have had to endure. Keep writing!! Your friend Lily
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