Request DENIED and other bad news

Reader: On February 24, Steve heard that his request for a transfer to Terminal Island in Long Beach, California was perfunctorily denied. Transferring to T.I., which is in the Los Angeles area where Steve grew up, would have meant being close to his brother, his sister, and much closer to his daughter in northern California. It would have meant visits from family and old friends that will just not happen with him in central Louisiana.

Dear Dee,

February 26, 2012

As you know by now, my transfer was denied—they said on the basis of overcrowding, but I think that is a catchall excuse. According to the census figures you have been sending me on T.I., their population is down considerably. My grief and disappointment are deep and palpable. But, thankfully, they are not lasting. At least I have developed the wisdom to know that this, too, shall pass. I also know that I set myself up for this.

Some time ago, as my revised conceptualization of god evolved, I resolved that if I were going to make prayer a part of my life, I would pray only for that which I had the ability to make happen. That only made sense because if, as I believe, a piece of god is contained within all living creatures, then that is the part of god to whom I can pray. I can pray for strength, courage, faith, endurance or a host of other qualities that I might draw from deep within. But with full knowledge of all that, I foolishly allowed myself to pray for the transfer—a result that was totally beyond my control. But I used what I had read in Lynne McTaggart’s book, The Field, about experiments in inter-cellular communication, to convince myself that I could somehow influence the outcome of this decision. This is what led me to jack my hopes up to unrealistic heights.

In my Sunday reading of Come As You Are, Rev. Fleck writes of his experiences with his wife, Ruth, in Holland as the Nazis occupied it. When I read accounts such as this or think of Anne Frank and her people, or recall stories such as Schindler’s List, it really helps to put my present situation into sharp perspective. While the loss of one’s freedom is no trivial event, my life is a cakewalk compared to what people have had to endure in this process we call life. I can only wonder if I could display the amazing strength of character that those people showed. If I can keep those people in my thoughts, this journey becomes vastly easier. Chicken Soup for Prisoners was a poem by an inmate about the recurring joy of mail call and the tiny disappointments on those days when one’s name is not called.

March 4, 2012

I am trying to do my Sunday readings, but it’s a challenge—even more of an assault to the senses than usual with the noise level cranked up beyond the norm in the TV room right outside our cubicle. The guys are watching the Knicks and the Celtics and, of course, they are convinced that the players haven’t a clue as to what to do unless they scream a steady stream of instructions to them. The screaming is necessary because they are very far away from the game. And when a basket is scored, in addition to the cheering, there’s a siren sound, cuckoo clock noises, wolf howls, monkey chatter—well, you get the picture. But I came up with an interesting way to deal with all this. I put my headphones on and off-tuned my radio to static and hiked up the volume. It works pretty well. And thanks for the new chalice lighting booklet. It just wasn’t the same last week, reading with an unlighted chalice.

This morning, my daughter, K, hit me with the news that my brother has been diagnosed with lung cancer. I called him a little later and he told me they won’t know what stage it’s at until they complete further tests. But in discussing the prognosis, the doctor used the word “grim.” He quit smoking over 20 years ago, but maybe it’s related to his frequent visits to casinos where the air is redolent with second hand smoke. I’m still coming to grips with this news. I wish I could be there to help him through this. I’m going to make it a point to start calling him weekly. I wish we had been closer over the years, but he is the only one on the planet who knows what my Dickensian childhood was like. That created a bond that can never be ignored.

K said that my granddaughter, S, has hit the princess stage. She talks about her prince coming for her. I told K that she absolutely must get her a princess dress. K said she told S that before her prince comes, she has to get her master’s degree.

My Chicken Soup reading today was short, but effective; short enough that with a little editing, I can include most of it here:

To the man, tired to the bone and having less than ten dollars in his pocket, coming home from work to a house that needs paint, a yard that needs mowing and is full of kids’ toys and screaming children…

To the man who drives an old pickup that can’t last much longer who comes home to a wife dressed in old blue jeans and is a little overweight, in a bad mood, wearing no makeup and having uncombed hair and bad breath…

To the man whose dinner will consist of chicken noodle soup and hot dogs…

from the prison cell from which I am writing this, I say “God, how I envy you!”                    

Ken “Duke” Monsi Broten

March 17, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, there was a notice that they would be having 12-step meetings every other week in the chapel. I was in a 12-step group while I was on house arrest. In fact, it was when I mentioned to someone in that group that I had tried going to church but felt like a fraud, that he suggested I give UU a try. Then I recalled you telling me some years previously that I was really a UU. So I grabbed the opportunity to attend a UU church like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver. It only took that single visit to know that I had found a home. I thought about going to the 12-step meetings here, but I am more convinced than ever that a 12-step cannot work in prison. It is missing two essential ingredients—anonymity and trust. One of the first lessons you learn in prison is to trust no one—ever. I have seen that borne out more than once as people I thought were my friends have betrayed me. So I have settled for having no friends. I keep to myself with my nose in a book.

Okay, I got to that point before the 2 o’clock move when the large group came in from the yard. But then, instead of going out and walking the mile, I took a nap. Not the best choice from a health standpoint, but I wrote the following to justify my laziness:

Here is a whimsical poem for you
To show where a nap gets its power;
An hour asleep is a moment or two
But an hour awake is an hour

Love, Steve

What was I thinking?

February 18, 2012

Dear Dee,

You asked me in your last letter about my state of mind when I committed the deed that got me in here. So now, I draw a deep breath as I revisit that dark and deeply regrettable period of my life. I realize that you have gone for a long time without asking many questions about what I was doing and thinking while I was engaged in that crap. You deserve some straight answers. First, I never paid a penny to anyone for those images. I would initially stumble on some or have some sent to me by people who I met in chat rooms. Why? Because one of the several guises I would assume was that of a pedophile. The game of “dark fantasy” that I was playing consisted of creating characters that were engaged in activities that are taboo in society.

So why did I feel compelled to do it? That was the question I couldn’t answer at the time I was arrested. So I carried it into therapy with me when I had some sessions while under house arrest. After a lot of talking and a lot of digging into my past, I began to get a picture of what sent me down that strange road. The whole time I lived with my dad between ages 11 and 18, he repeated over and over that I was “useless, worthless, and no damned good.” On a conscious level, this set me on a path to prove him wrong. But, children often take to heart what a parent says to them. A seed was planted deep within me and it was as though I was paying perverse tribute to my father when I would go online pretending to be useless, worthless, and no damned good.” It was all a stupid game and I was so steeped in the fantasy of it all that I failed to notice when fantasy ended and real-world activity began—specifically the trading of those horrible pictures.

At the time, the children in those images weren’t real to me. They were just pixels on a screen. It was only after my therapist urged me to meditate on those children and what their lives must have been like that I was hit with the full force of what I had done. I then realized that I had been guilty of prolonging and perpetuating the abuse and exploitation of those poor kids by introducing those pictures to new eyes. I’ll carry the guilt of that for the rest of my life. I have always loved children and advocated for their protection and nurturing. What I did was a complete violation of my own moral code. And I was further struck by the fact that my little “game” could very well have ended up encouraging others to harm children. That will always gnaw at me.

It was not the content of the pictures that gave me the cheap thrill. It was the hunt for them. When I look back on it all, it seems like it was someone else doing all that. There is nothing in the world that would compel me to ever repeat that behavior. The day of my arrest was an instantly sobering experience and it felt as though I had received shock therapy. People will always have questions about me—if he sought out those pictures, doesn’t that mean he would molest children? They will regard me in a completely different light.

It became an addiction, this game that I played—one that rose up and swallowed me whole. One day I was just an old man with too much time on his hands and perhaps grieving the loss of employment in a once well-respected career; the next, I was a convicted felon and registered sex offender. You said you had been afraid for a long time to broach this subject with me. Well, don’t fear any longer. I no longer harbor any secrets. A very bright light has been shined into what was a dark corner of my soul and my life is an open book.

I’d best bring this to a close before my hand becomes a withered vestigial claw.

Love, Steve

Christmas/2011-January/2012: Casting Out Fear

Dear Reader,

My friend has requested that I catch up the blog to present day and more importantly, reveal his true identity. When we started the blog, he was nervous about possible repercussions and wanted to remain anonymous. Since then, he has become aware that another inmate, also at Oakdale Federal Correction Institution in Louisiana and also in for the same crime (there are hundreds there for that reason), has had his letters published in a blog since April of 2010 with no negative feedback. That blog (http://mediarow.com/oakdale-chronicles/2010/04/) is called The Oakdale Chronicles and contains some fascinating entries, especially the early ones about how it was to be a newbie at Oakdale, a series called “A Sex Offender Like Me” (http://mediarow.com/oakdale-chronicles/2011/12/a-sex-offender-like-me-the-resilience-of-hate/,) and a series from July, 2012, called “A Necessary Intrusion.”

But back to my friend…his name is Steven Kent Marshall. He wrote to me: “My arrest and sentencing were publicized across the nation, so it is no secret. I see no reason now why readers of the blog and especially the children in the photos shouldn’t know who this is that is slowly making his way back into a state of grace. It completes the story.”  In short, I think that hiding behind a veil of anonymity made him feel less than genuine. His arrest was widely publicized because he is a former television writer and producer and that fact drew interest from the press.

So my task now is to fast-forward from December of last year to the present. For the next several posts, I will pick out pertinent or particularly interesting passages from Steve’s letters during that period.

Christmas, 2011

“They put up a few lights and a Santa cutout just outside the library. But the really interesting and creative decorating goes on in the housing units. There is a competition as to who does the best. We won last year and came in second this ear. Last year, a large chunk of the common area was given over to a winter scene of a castle with a small village outside its walls. It was all constructed out of scrap cardboard and painted by some talented artists. This year the common area wasn’t available because it is used as a TV room so they were limited to the hallway just inside the entrance. One wall was taken up by a painted manger scene. Just over it were paper mache heads of a donkey and a cow looking down on the scene. Another section of the wall had a Santa in his sleigh and some elves waving. But Santa’s face was the stern visage of the warden and the elves were associate wardens and other prison officials. Coming in first just means our unit gets to eat Christmas dinner first but last year, it also won us back our microwaves that had been confiscated for six months because someone in the unit made booze.

Christmas Day itself, apart from the meal, was pretty much a normal day. While most people got the day off, we in the dining hall were working. The meal wasn’t as spectacular as Thanksgiving, but special nonetheless: Cornish game hens, dirty rice, mac and cheese, and dessert consisting of sweet potato pie, a cinnamon roll and a chocolate chip cookie. On Dec. 22, they handed out the Christmas bags, a large plastic bag filled with chips, candy, cookies, crackers and other snacks. It makes for a nice gift, but it is accompanied by a memo stating that everything in the bag must be consumed by January 6^th. Anything left will be considered contraband and will be confiscated. As a good inmate who follows the rules, I scarfed everything down within a week. I now have an extra ten pounds to get rid of.”

January 8, 2012-Reading

“I just finished reading a book that terrified me. Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks, while fiction, is a well-researched story about a 22-year-old convicted sex offender (SO) living under a bridge in Florida in a self-created community for SOs. Because they are prohibited from living within 2500 feet of schools, parks, daycare centers or anywhere else where children might gather, there are only a couple of geographic locations where they may live: this one or the middle of a swamp. The protagonist, known only as The Kid, is a good-hearted, socially inept character who knows he made a stupid choice and will be made to pay for it for the rest of his life. The jacket says: “This book probes the zeitgeist of a troubled society where zero tolerance has erased any hope of subtlety and compassion—a society where isolating the offender has perhaps created a new kind of victim.”

An incident he found amusing:

“When I called my daughter yesterday and asked to speak to my granddaughter, she got on and said “Hi.” When I said “Hi” back, she handed the phone back to her mother saying “I can’t see him.” I guess Skype and the camera capabilities of the iPhone have rendered me obsolete.”

January 15, 2012-Transfer

Last Tuesday, I went to check on the status of my transfer, having waited for five weeks. I found out that the case manager screwed up on the application and it was bounced back to him the day after he submitted it. He threw it into a folder and did not resend it. Then he retired. The last census report for Terminal Island that you told me about was the lowest it’s been since we started tracking it, so I figured our timing was perfect. Who knows what it will be once my application goes through.

January 29, 2012 – Fear

Today’s sermon was “Casting Out Fear” from Rev. Thomas Disrud of First Unitarian of Portland. It examined situations where fear was appropriate in protecting us from real dangers. He then contrasted it with the kind of fear that develops in situations dealing with those who are different from us in race, sexual orientation or religious conviction; how fear is used to manipulate and control. It also made me think back to when I was first incarcerated and the daily fear I lived with, dealing with a world so radically different from the one I had inhabited all my life; being surrounded by some unstable personalities that could erupt at any time in response to some perceived slight or insult. But the more I learned about this world, the less I came to fear it. I learned that I could navigate it safely by observing the rules that exist in there, both those imposed by the authorities and those created by the inmates. So fear, for the most part, is really all about the unknown, just as Rev. Disrud said. I guess the real lesson here is: if you fear something, study it. Learn about it. Grow from it. (Boy, I love this religion!)