31 years, 10 months, 16 days. 11,643 days total, but who’s counting? My jailers have been good to me in the latter years of my confinement. Mostly, I’m looked at as an elder inmate who can help shape and mold the erstwhile and erratic population of younger inmates these days. Young enough to be useful, I can still push a mop; old enough to know the value of peace at any cost.
My position, depending on the angle you’re viewing me from, may seem slightly elevated, but my finger is firmly on the pulse of this place. My ears are on the ground. Kiss ass or sometimes snitch, the latter being more dangerous for all parties concerned. These are the whispers I hear regarding my position, whispers that ignore my tenure. A younger version of me would have said the same thing, but time—time in this place—has a way of humbling you.
I’m a lifer, with no possibility of parole. 31 years, 10 months, 16 days seems like such a long time, such a long time here. Still, I want to live much longer. So, I make myself useful. I look for ways to make the passing of time more meaningful. I learn new skills and offer my services whenever I see an opportunity. It does not buy my freedom, but it creates a sense of purpose and security, no matter how false that may be.
A line spins around my head, “a working-class hero is something to be”. It sounds like a beautiful refrain, something parents should and would tell their children before sending them off to “earn their way.” Holding back the reality because they’ve learned to smile as they kill.
I moved back to the “city” when I was 15. I was completely unprepared for the questions I was being asked. “What do you want to do when you grow up?” I wanted to be an artist, a musician, the only thing I’ve ever loved. I seemed to understand that I would get laughed at for those answers. “Foolish kid, you’ll starve to death.” No one really said that because I never gave them a chance. Instead, I said I wanted to be a firefighter. I didn’t really want to do that either, but I knew a few firefighters and I always respected them. So, that seemed like something I wouldn’t mind doing if I had to do something I didn’t want to do.
But that answer got laughed at, too. It was the start of the tech boom, and the internet as we now know it was being born. Everyone I knew had a parent riding high on the tech boom, and they thought I should want that too.
But I’ve never been a good student, so school seemed out of reach. I tried a few times, but I could never really pull it together. I do not seem to be built that way.
I’ve never struggled to learn, but I’ve struggled immensely to relate, to fit in. I spent hours upon hours as a kid talking to teachers and guidance counselors and principals about my test scores and my “IQ.” Things I’m convinced no one should know about themselves. “You could do anything, if you would just try.” I heard that same predictable refrain over and over and over. What no one understood was, I struggled to see the point.
I think about my dad a lot. I mainly see him sitting in his chair, staring out the window, struggling to see the point. It’s what he was afraid of for me, and it’s what I’m afraid of for my kids as well.
I walked into this prison on August 22, 1994. Not willingly, but I’ve been here since. I bounced around until 2002, until I finally landed in the tech field, the one I initially rejected. I really did not want those smug rich kids to be right. It’s held my interest, sort of, for 24 years now. Admittedly, however, I’ve never really applied myself. I’ve only quietly learned how to conform. To feign interest and to mask my disdain when it mattered.
I’d rather create; I’d rather write. I still do not see the point of enslaving myself and exchanging my fleeting time on this earth for dollars I can’t take with me.
I’ve quietly suspected this industry is full of my kind. It’s not everyone, that’s not even statistically likely, but it’s a lot of us. I see how we guard “what we do”. It’s not because someone will figure out how to do our job. We do it so no one figures out how little our job entails. It’s my greatest frustration with job interviews and the reluctance to allow 100% remote work. I could hold 5 positions doing what I do and never step foot in a single office and never work longer than 30 hours a week. It’s a made-up reality to justify a barely livable wage. But we do not talk about that.
So why am I here? The prison doors are open, or so they say.
I’ve identified with my jailers. A corporate American version of Stockholm syndrome, I guess. “We never free a mind once it reaches a certain age… Most of these people are not ready to be unplugged.”
Conformity is the true zeitgeist of my generation. Go to work, keep your head down, pay your taxes, and be a good citizen; the system will reward you.
But what if the reward is just another prison?
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