A Poet Dreams - A Prisoner's Search for Meaning

By Mark Crawford '079

This is my personal account of prison, and being a Lifer Convict in the Federal Prison system, struggling to not only adapt to a reality I cannot accept, but likewise searching for the meaning of my life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781794836020

Book preview

Introduction

I was born in Hagerstown, Maryland in the mid-fifties, my family however, left Maryland when I was three and moved to Brooksville, Florida, so I don't know much about the place I was born, except that it's really pretty country up there, well, that and I have a bunch of kinfolk up there. But none of that matters much now, other than bein' something' to talk about.

I guess if we think on it hard enough, we can come up with what we think is our earliest childhood memory. For me that first conscious memory was of being tired and curled up underneath a chair my folks had in this little red house they rented in the hammock country near Brooksville. I remember it vividly, even today. I don't think it was the act of being hidden which keeps this memory so vivid even after all these years as much as it is the feeling of safety that being hidden underneath it gave me. Crazy I know, but even now I distinctly remember how safe I felt hiding in the darkness under the drapery of that chair.

I bring forth this my first memory only because shortly after that I started to remember other things as well. For instance, I remembered things about the Civil War, things a soldier would know. I also remembered being obsessed with dinosaurs, so much in fact that stories are told by my kinfolk about how my Aunt Becky would sit and listen to me talk about these creatures, which I seemed to know the names of. I must have been three or four at the time. Sadly, I have to tell you that my Aunt Becky was taken from us by a drunk driver when I was that same age, and though I never said it before I'll say it now; her death shook my little life to the core, it was my first encounter, in this life anyway, with the reality that anything can be taken from you, at any time. I loved her so much that even after sixty years I'm still missing her. That my reader is the power of a love that could not possibly have been found in the short year or so that her and I spent together, which of course brings to mind the question: if I could not have found that degree of love in that short span of time, then when could I have fallen so deeply in love with her? And, by extension, the question could also be asked, why did she love me so dearly?

After those early experiences I grew up kinda withdrawn, very different from other most other kids. I was a loner I guess, but not really.

What I mean is that I would always have one or two friends, but I was not one of those kids who were popular or who had lots of friends all at once, nope, I was more comfortable being alone or in the company of the few. Still am, I suppose.

I have an older brother, half-brother actually, who was mistreated badly by my father, his step-father, and since he was ten years older than me, I don't know a whole lot about him, he lives in Hagerstown, married, and last I heard, has a family there. I guess you could say we love each other, we are brothers, but during my years of prison I've never received even a Christmas Card from him, I suppose that we just never could get past the fact that my father treated him so badly. It's a sad thing how family sometimes gets, but heck, I was just a kid; there was nothing I could do: I know what a rotten S.O.B. my old man was. Anyway, the point is, my brother left our home as quickly as he could and so I missed out on having a big brother, per se.

Shortly after my Aunt Becky died my family started moving around Florida, places I don't remember, ultimately though I do remember that they ended up in Jacksonville Florida, I guess I was nine or ten by that time. I had a little brother who was born in Brooksville right before we left; he was five years younger than me, still is I suppose. We were close growing up, still are, hell my parents always worked so we were left to look after each other most of every day, couldn't help but be close or be dead. But I won't go into all the things in-between them and the other things I'm here to talk about, because I'd turn into a whiner and I'm not gonna do that. Sometimes a man just needs to be thankful he's got two arms, two legs and two eyes, 'cause some folks don't, and sometimes what happened to you in the past just needs to die with you, 'cause it don't serve no purpose at all to keep bringin' it up, so I won't.

I left Florida in 1973 and went to Texas. After bouncing around for a while I joined the army to keep from starvin' to death; I'd been on my own by then for almost three years. It was in Texas, right after Boot Camp that I met and got hitched to this pretty little ol' gal from Mexico; she turned out to be a really good piece of luck.

It was right after this that my new wife and I were sent to Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland for military training, well I was, she went along, of course. We were there for several months and then I was given a thirty day leave before being shipped off on a three-year tour to Germany, which was a happy time in my life.

The beauty of being young is that you don't worry about anything, don't plan for anything and just live life as it comes. So, here I was with a new wife, no money to take her overseas with me, no functional family and fixin' to go to Germany for the next three years. Yet, for some reason I

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wasn't worried, so she and I loaded up my old Rambler automobile and drove to Brooksville to see my grandpa Ed and my uncle Jack like all was peaches and cream. In truth it was my grandpa who had takin' me in a few years earlier when I was close to starving to death the first time, and even though I only stayed with him for a couple of months, it was the only place I had that even resembled a home, so I took my new wife there, and she was welcomed.

Now, it was during this time, right before I was due to go overseas, that I was out riding around with one of my uncles, my daddy’s brothers who are close to the same age as me. They lived in Brooksville at that time, one of 'em still does. Anyway, it was after I left my home in Jacksonville, I was fifteen at the time, and before I left from there to go to Germany, I was eighteen then, that this story actually begins. This is how it all came together.

It was in this carefree time period of my life that the threads in the tapestry of my childhood began to unravel the convict me that I would later become. It was that year, 1975, that place, Brooksville Florida, the memories of my Aunt Becky, my crazy uncle Mike, my dysfunctional family, my upcoming tour of duty in Germany, my new wife and nowhere else to go that it all came together into a purposeful design for the present day convict me to recognize. Yes sir, yes ma'am, after all these years it's now so clear to me. The old prisoner that I have become can see how those early places and events were all a road map leading me to this exact prison and this exact time and ultimately to you who are reading this. Yep, you and I are somehow connected by a destiny of arcane events that has yet to completely reveal itself to either of us. And I don't know what else to do except to tell it from my perspective, and hope that it will somehow help you to tell it from yours.

As I said earlier, my first conscious memory in this life was of being curled up under that ol' chair, well, after that my memories are cloudy, but what I do remember about Brooksville Florida in them days was this: There were these two sisters who used to babysit me. These two sisters lived in the mountains nearby where I lived, in Brooksville Florida. In fact, they lived in almost complete isolation on the side of the highest mountain in our area. I remember that near their house was a gorge and that stretched across that gorge was a flimsy bridge, of a construction I don't remember. I do remember however being terrified of it, so terrified in fact that to this day I'm afraid of heights as a result of it.

Now these two sisters, whose name I don't recall took care of me, loved me and carted me all over the place with 'em. I even remember them carrying me down that mountain a time or two looking for herbs. But for some reason my clearest memory of them was the time we came down off

that mountain to the nearby valley to pick what I think was blackberries near a railroad track.

Later on, when I was on Military Leave waiting to be sent overseas, my crazy uncle Mike and I, were out driving around one afternoon, we'd been drinkin' and some more stuff, when out of the blue I remembered those two sisters. So, I ask him to take me out to the mountains where I used to live so that I could see the old place and subsequently see if those two sisters still lived out there; you see I still have a warm spot in my heart for the both of them. Yeah, you've probably already figured it out. He looked at me as if was a complete nut and said, There ain't no mountains in Florida! And that was that. I knew it the instant he said it, heck, I knew it before he said it; any dufus knows there ain't mountains anywhere in Florida. So, where were these mountains, those two sisters, that gorge and that wobbly old bridge? That, my friend, is the question that I have pondered ever since. Because I swear to you on my children's lives that up until that exact moment when my uncle looked at me like I was a lunatic, I believed there were mountains in Florida and that they were a part of my childhood in Brooksville Florida, but I was obviously mistaken.

Yeah, that's the way it happened, strange I know, but even stranger still is the fact I've had other in-explainable memories of times and places other than the one I'm in, but like those mountains in Florida, I could never piece it all together, until prison that is tuned me into alternative possibilities.

I will admit that yes, I have considered the possibility that these memories and these experiences are nothing more than dreams, or possibly unconsciously implanted figments of my imagination. Maybe they're shadowed memories of long forgotten books, or movies, or conversations, and I would be remiss as a biographer, were I to deny any or all of these possibilities, because they most certainly are possible. I suppose that it would also be fair to say that it is possible that I have become a madman; I say possible but in reality, it is a forgone conclusion, I am insane, because as I've said a thousand times, if the world is sane then I am undeniably insane. However, none of that changes anything, because I have seen and subsequently believe what I believe. I also know that were you to access, through meditation, the deepest regions of your own mind, as I have, that you too would proudly proclaim some degree of insanity as well.

As for myself, and those vivid memories of mythical Florida mountains, I can tell that the subject matter at hand did not come to my belief system out of choice, no ma'am, in fact I had no choice in the matter at all. I was forced by the harsh circumstances of prison to be alone with myself, and in that aloneness, I found the truth about the man I am today. This book is not a reckless endeavor; let it be known that I have been required to go through the halls of insanity to bring you this story. My name, it is not important, for I am no one of substance, I am nothing more than the number they gave me, I am Federal Prisoner I.D. # 76603-079, that is how the government sees me...that is how I have learned to see myself, and I find it sufficient in its description. Yes, I have been branded a murderer. Yes, I was thus convicted by a jury of my peers and thus I stand in the chains of that stigma with knees bloody and eyes swollen, yet I will not complain, for I know beyond all doubt that it was all part of the universal plan to open my eyes to reality. Yes, these past years have turned out to be a spiritual boon to me. I am convict #76603-079, once proud now humble, once lost, now found.

Am I insane? Maybe, but I'm not a fool...well, not a complete fool anyway. I tell you this so that you might know beforehand that what I am about to tell you is not the fancy of a dupe, but the actual experiences of a man very similar, in every way, to you. I wanted you to know that as a result of the experiences I've outlined in this book that I now know that my life, such as it is, is part of something bigger than my ego.

And under those conditions where I have lived and died a thousand times what else would expect me to do? What else would you have me do but that which I have done? With what face can I truthfully say that I do not deserve the brand I presently wear? With what voice do I cry out from the wilderness of this life that I do not deserve this Life Sentence, when the truth is, that when it comes to life, we all get what we deserve. And with what face do I ask you to believe my innocence in this life when I've worn that same brand in others. But be warned my friend, trust me my enemy, you too will get exactly what you deserve.

Yes, I am a convict, I am a man who has been reduced to being nothing more than an outcast, a leper, a hunchback, a number, but I contend that I, convict # 76603-079, who has been removed from you, cast out, taken away and deemed useless, am not.  I, who have been classified as unfit to be a man and whose face is reddened by it, stand before you in infinity exactly as I was destined to. So, here we are, you and I, and the question raised is, should I tell you this story and risk the wrath of man, or should I remain silent and risk the wrath of immortality; that my reader is always the dilemma when touching uncomfortable subjects? So, as a compromise between the two, I will tell you my truth in such a way as to both entertain you and enlighten you. After all, a truth about self is a truth about Self.

Freedom, oh yeah, I think about it, but it doesn't have the hold one it once did...I don't know how to explain it, hell maybe the simplest way is to say I've become Institutionalized but I think it's more than that. Institutionalized, no, I think I've just become comfortable with my own skin, with the life I have. No, I don't like it, but I've accepted my life such as it is. I guess I've found a peacefulness in the simplicity of things here - truth is, I'm so different from the man who came here over twenty years ago that if I were to be released from prison, I think this new me would be more comfortable in an ally than in an office.

Oh yes, I've most certainly asked why – Why me? Why those around me? Why is it that some unfortunates run afoul of the Law, while others equally culpable skirt around the consequences of their actions as though somehow immune to accountability. In my way of thinking I have concluded that every event in life has a purpose and that it is most often hardship, sorrow and strife which bring the greatest leaps in personal growth. Another old quote goes like this: Men don't change because they see the light; they change because they feel the heat. I guess I'm living proof of the verity of that one, (read the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism). And so, I have worked hard to see this personal difficulty as an opportunity to train my emotions, my thought process and to develop character. Hardship, sorrow and suffering in general are the best tools available in developing Willpower, the very thing which all of histories written and unwritten heroes possessed.

I think that the greatest use of adversity though is to turn it into something creative, something positive, something used to make the world a better place. Yes, my reader, that is the ultimate victory over incarceration, the willpower to do something purposeful, the opportunity to see and tell about a paradoxical view of life, one unseen by the masses. Yes, prison is an opportunity to learn a contrary view. What a wonderful gift. Therefore, I say the ‘we’, the unforgiven, have a job to do, a story we are bound by honor to tell, a story about how we as people have stumbled and fallen on the trail of life, and, hopefully, if we tell it true, maybe, just maybe it'll help someone else to stay upright on their own pathway.

Despite the odds, I have found a way to exist here in a kind of groove that allows me to slide from day to day without being caught up in the anger that pervades this place. I have also searched for and found some of the true worth, the true goodness that indwells my fellow prisoners, and I have found personal integrity within myself. Call me optimistic, but I continue to cling to the belief that, if I search long and hard enough, I will someday find the same measure of truth and goodness in our Legal System.

There it is, my story and my little book, may you find truth in it, as I have found truth in writing it. 

Peace be with you.

Chapter 1

It all started for me when I was first arrested and sent to the County Jail; I guess you could say that the exploration of my own mind happened because I was so miserable behind bars that I tried to pass my life away with sleep, and that after a period of undetermined time, when I had slept so much that my mind could no longer be completely asleep, I encountered a state of mind in which I was both asleep and awake. I'm speaking of my first prolonged bout with solitary confinement, this in the Nueces County Jail. Those hours in which I was unable to sleep were the punishment of a thousand lashes, the mental lashes of guilt a man beats himself to death with when he doesn't understand the principles of spiritual growth through personal suffering.

In those early incarcerated waking hours, I read constantly, but even that could not occupy all of those waking hours and so sometimes I would simply let my mind wander. However, when it did it would inevitably go to places, I did not want it to go; in those early days I was not strong enough to deal with the total loss of my family. As a result of that fact any and all memories of my family had to be limited, controlled if you will, for to remember was to dwell and to dwell was to plunge into the quicksand of depression. So, when not reading I developed things to do with my mind other than allowing it to dwell on those things that I was not emotionally strong enough to handle, things such as seeing how many breaths I could take before a thought presented itself to me. At first, I could only last for two or three thoughtless breathing rotations before a thought would come crashing through my calm. However, with practice, I found that I could go an extended period of time before my calm was interrupted.

Another thing I did was to lay on my bunk and look for faces or design patterns in the limitless stains on the walls and ceiling of my cell. Sounds stupid right, but you'd be surprised at the things you can see on a stained wall if you only let your mind search for them. Another thing I would do is to walk my cell floor in varying steps and then count those steps. If for instance my cell was three steps in one direction and four in the other, I would add the two together and come up with seven, which I considered to be a good omen. I would also count the distances in my cell in all kinds of different ways like, side of foot to side of foot, hand to hand and even finger to finger. Once (I had four different cells in Nueces County) for a time I had a big cell in solitary, I couldn't wait to map it out and I can tell you that if I started in one corner and measured out the entire cell using my finger as a ruler it would take six thousand, one hundred and forty-four of my index fingers to blanket the entire floor of that big cell. I suppose I'm telling you this to illustrate the things I did to keep myself occupied. I'm not saying that all prisoners do these types of things, but then not all prisoners were flying in a King Air one day and Con Air the next...I believe that it was this very culture shock which contributed greatly to the mindset I have outlined in this book.

Though boring to the extreme, not all was silent in the solitary confinement. In fact, in the section of solitary confinement I was held were eight, one-man cells. These eight cells were nothing more than boxes constructed out of quarter inch steel plate with an angle iron frame, so they were far from sound proof. As a result of this obtuse design, it was in fact quite the opposite, because to some of the men held there in the adjoining cells, those steel walls and doors were ideal replacements for drums. And, it served no purpose to threaten the other prisoners into adhering to a respectful silence, because they knew that you were as segregated from them as they were from you, never in that place were two men allowed to mingle, or fight. Each cell was an island, a steel island devoid of beaches, fresh air, fruit, or contentment, an island where the false lights of man were never extinguished; never were the lights in those cells turned off. The good thing however about this island of steel was that after a varying period of time the bangers and noisemakers would, like the rest of us, succumb to the doldrums of depression and begin to fill their time with outrageous amounts of sleep, reading, or, as the nut-jobs do, begin to search for faces in the wall stains or to measure out their cells using their fingers.

I will tell you though, that men would of course, talk back and forth through their doors as another means of passing time, though I seldom did. Occasionally though, someone would call me by way of, Hey, cell one, what do you thing? or something like that intending to draw me into conversation. And, truthfully, I often rail on these my confined companions for their bad manners, however, I can't help but to feel compassion for some of them, no, not all, but I found through my interaction with them that most of them, deep down, were not bad people. In fact, I firmly believe that once you isolate a bad person from their bad environment that they generally became decent folks.

For instance, while in solitary confinement I met a youngster, well, met isn't the right word, what I mean is I talked to him through the cell doors and learned that he had committed a murder, he was seventeen at the time, broke my heart. He was such a nice kid, but he killed an innocent store clerk in a robbery...at seventeen. How does this happen? What type of beast overcomes a nice kid like that and convinces him to pick up a gun and kill? The answer of course id dope, and I could elaborate on that for you, but you'd just get angry if I told you the truth about the United States Government and drugs, so I'll move on. I suppose what I'm trying to tell you is that what I'm writing about in this book is a matter of record concerning me and my story as a person. And though none of these things are the story itself, they are events reflective of the primary source of this book, so, even though I will spare you the boredom of my entire incarceration, I am still compelled to put a little dirt in the hole if this story is to have the roots necessary to make any sense, so let’s get started.

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In the year 2000, after four years of county jail and three trials, I was sentenced to serve out the remainder of my life behind prison bars. Eventually, the Bureau of Prisons designated me to serve out that sentence in a federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, a place known to its inhabitants as, The Rock. What I did not know at the time was that it was a disciplinary joint. When you can’t follow the rules at other penitentiaries, you are given a one-way ticket here as a last resort before being put into a solitary confinement prison. Here at USP Florence, we have an unholy combination of the hardest and the straight knuckleheads. In one place, behind these walls, you will find Aryan Brotherhood (AB), Mexican Mafia (Black Hand included), Skinheads, Bloods, Crips, Nazi Low Riders, Latin Kings, street gangs, motorcycle gangs, big city Mafiosos, foreign drug lords, certified terrorists, and every other form of organized outlaw known to man. Knowing eyes can, on any given day, watch them in their respective groups, representing their particular brand of politics. Here there exists a fragile balance of bête noire – men who would normally kill the other on-site yet, because of their circumstances, live side by side, sometimes for years, without speaking or acknowledging the other.

In the federal prison system, one encounters different levels of custody – from fenceless camps, to low-security facilities, to medium security joints called Federal Correctional Institutions (FCI), to high security prisons called U.S. Penitentiaries (USP). Above the level 5 penitentiaries are the (unofficially designated) level 6s of which, with the downgrading of the Max at Marion, Illinois, there is only one – this place.

Above USP Florence is the solitary confinement joint known as the famed Supermax, next door to USP Florence.

For those unfamiliar with the prison system, solitary confinement joints may be assumed to be the hardest spots. That is a mistaken perspective though, because in those joints the convicts are segregated one from the other and therefore live in relative peace, even though alone. Here at USP Florence, or any other joint for that matter, there is no such security. Believe me, I’ve done eighteen months of solitary confinement, and it was a piece of cake compared to the daily violence and drama of this place.

Hell, these federal penitentiaries are so dangerous that hardly a week goes by that one man or another doesn’t check in to protective custody out of fear for his life.

Immediately after placement behind these walls, I began to note the wide variety of characters that inhabited my cellblock. I quickly became aware of the racial divides adopted by the populace of this bastard society. Though I am proud to say that my wife is from old Mexico, and I am at ease in her culture, I concluded that here on The Rock, you stick with your own kind. Here, the fellow you played chess with yesterday will try to kill you today, if told to do so by his gang superior. Here, if a man from one race attacks a man from another race, expect retaliation. It’s the rule here: an eye for an eye, and a body for a body. Therefore, if a guy from one race stabs a guy from another race or gang, and the perpetrator is unavailable, the offended race or gang will oftentimes select a guy from that other