Dark Shadows
A Play About Prison
by Imprisoned People in Appalachia
Cast of Characters
A: A white Muslim.
B: An imprisoned man.
C: An imprisoned man.
D: An imprisoned man.
E: An imprisoned man.
F: A white, male volunteer.
K: A mother, age late 30s to mid-50s.
L: A wife.
M: A girlfriend.
N: A wife.
O: A mother, age late 30s to mid-50s.
Scene
Various locations in the characters’ present and past.
Time
The present and past.
Note
This play was composed from letters received from imprisoned people in states served by the Appalachian Prison Book Project. This play would not be possible without the extraordinary contributions of the imprisoned men and women whose words created and inspired it.
Scene 1
SETTING: The six chairs on stage are arranged in the fashion of seats on a bus.
AT RISE: A, B, C, D, E, dressed in prison outfits, and F, dressed casually, find seats. The bus jerks forward.
C
Damn. We’re on our way.
D
Our bus ride to the dark side.
E
We’ve all ridden this bus from the outside to the inside.
C
We’ve all been driven out of the light and into dark shadows.
D
We’re reliving it tonight—with you.
(He gestures to the audience.)
And with you.
(He gestures to F.)
We’re reliving the ride to where no one wants to go, to places like—
A
The Thunder Dome. The Wild West. The Northwest Tennessee State Penitentiary. I’d been hearing about this place almost my whole life. Inside and outside of jail, its reputation is notorious for violent killings, stabbings, gang activity, and the complete disregard for the authority of prison officials.
B
I never thought I’d be riding this bus.
C-D-E
None of us did.
F
I imagined it.
(The others turn to F.)
I’d read enough books. I’d seen enough movies. Heck, my father made me watch “Scared Straight” when I was eight years old.
B
You aren’t going where we’re going.
F
I am.
C
You’re going but you’ll be able to leave.
F
True. I’m only …
C
… a volunteer.
D
… a spy in the house of pain.
E
… our audience tonight.
C
But we appreciate you being here.
A
After a horrible stay in two of Tennessee’s worst maintained jails, I was transported from the Overton county jail in Livingston, Tennessee, in the back of a redneck version of a prison transport van to the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex. It was a whole other experience from the booking process at the county jail: there were strips searches, drug tests, STD tests.
B
Pass/fail, though even if you pass, you only pass to the same place you would if you failed.
A
New Tennessee Department of Corrections striped pants, blue TDOC shirts, and black TDOC boots were given to each inmate along with white boxers and white tube socks and two laundry bags—one for whites, one for blues.
F
(fumbling with watch, clothes, wallet, keys, cell phone)
That’s all you’re allowed?
A
A few hygiene products. A few self-addressed, stamped envelopes.
F
Nothing else?
B
Nothing except all the intangibles.
C
Like uncertainly, as in “What will my life be like?”
E
Like loneliness, as in, “Will anyone bother to visit me, to write to me, to think about me at all?”
D
Like fear, as in “Will I survive?”
A
I was placed in the 23-b classification pod with 119 other inmates in two-man cells.
F
Sorry. Classification pod?
B
Where your final destination is decided. Minimum security. Medium. Maximum.
C
Where you’re poked and prodded, analyzed and assessed.
A
The next couple of weeks of the classification process were full of TDOC policy classes, program tap tests, strike-force shake downs, and doctor, dental, and mental-health checks. Classification was nerve racking with the constant overly loud announcements over the Intercom.
B
(standing on chair, imitating announcement)
Luke, this is your warden speaking …
C
(standing on chair, imitating announcement)
This is every voice who ever scared you …
D
(standing on chair, imitating announcement)
… who ever grated on your ears like fingernails on a blackboard …
E
(standing on chair, imitating announcement)
… who ever felt like it had the right to speak down to you like an Old Testament god.
D
Even though we can barely understand them most of the time.
A
I remember the itchy feel of stiff TDOC blankets.
(B-C-D-E-F shudder and swipe at their arms.)
I remember the random person and cell searches, the cocky Robocop attitudes of classification COs, the stress of avoiding TDOC write-ups, and the threat of being thrown into unit 21.
F
Twenty-one? Like a winning Blackjack hand?
B-C-D
The hole.
E
Solitary.
A
But my experience of a worse imprisonment was yet to come.
B
You’d gone west, but you hadn’t yet reached the Wild West.
A
First, I was taken on a little side trip, a trip back to my hometown. After a visit to the courthouse, the guards who accompanied me pulled into a drive-through of a fast-food restaurant. I was in the back of the van, restrained, smelling what they’d ordered.
B
McDonald’s. Burger King. Wendy’s.
C
Fries and burgers and catsup and pickles.
E
Heaven made in two minutes.
D
So ordinary and yet—now—so exotic.
A
I was ready to be sent from classification to my permanent penitentiary, what some call the parent prison. One night, I was told to pack my stuff—I would be leaving the following morning.
E
You slept like a baby, I bet.
A
The next morning, I was rounded up with about seventy other inmates, and we were crammed into holding cages in a room clearly designed for mass separation for transportation. I was shackled and handcuffed and belly-chained and I had a black security box placed over my handcuffs, which would be the cause of great discomfort. A bus was waiting for me.
B
This bus.
C
A bus like this, anyway.
A
I remembered when I was a child and I rode the bus to school. I remembered the excitement I felt to be on such a big vehicle with its wide turns, soft leather seats, wide windows.
B
I remember my school bus.
C
I remember being young.
Scene 2
SETTING: A-B-C-D-E-F turn the seats in a manner to suggest a jungle gym.
AT RISE: Imitating their younger selves, they climb on the jungle gym like children. They laugh and chase each other around. They stop.
D
My father died when I was two. My mother gave me and my little brother up for adoption when I was six. My whole life I’ve wondered how my dad lived his life. What was his opinion on everything—on anything? The only answers I’ve ever gotten were watered down accounts from my family and his friends.
B
You don’t need to look up at the stars and wonder. There’s mystery in your own blood.
D
I have two beautiful daughters, ages three and four, and I don’t want something to happen to me and for them to be left in the same situation I was, wondering about the life their father lived.
B
They might reach the wrong conclusions.
D
People don’t really like me, so if you were to ask around about who I am and how I think and how I act, you wouldn’t get an authentic answer. I don’t want my daughters to learn about me from someone else.
B
You can’t trust anyone to tell your story.
C
You can’t trust anyone period.
E
I trusted my grandmother.
C
A grandmother is someone you can trust.
E
When I was a kid, I was placed in foster care and group homes. Before this, I loved going with my grandmother to book fairs for children. I loved getting books about zoology and dinosaurs. My grandmother came from an old way of life. She was an herb hunter. I guess you could say that when she died, I was robbed of my upbringing—the upbringing I was meant to have, the upbringing that might have—
A
Spared you this ride.
C
I go back often to the place I came from, which is never there.
B
I grew up in Newport News, Virginia. I didn’t have it easy. I lived with my grandparents since my father wasn’t in my life and my mother died when I was one. In my pre-teens, I got into drugs and gang life, which led me to getting locked up for a shooting at age sixteen. I’m still doing time for that charge.
C
Charged as an adult.
B
When I was young, I always wanted to be treated like an adult. I guess I got what I wanted, right?
C
Some wishes do come true.
A
(to F)
Are you going to tell us about your childhood?
F
I had a normal childhood
A
No one has a normal childhood.
B
What he means is, he wasn’t arrested.
F
I could have been.
B
For doing too much homework?
F
There was a private high school four blocks from where I lived. When I was eighteen, about to go off to college, a friend from my neighborhood and I climbed onto the roof.
B
You wanted to enjoy the view?
F
I don’t know what I wanted. To do something dangerous, maybe. It wasn’t an easy climb up the brick side of the building. I could have fallen.
B
I think we know what it’s like to fall.
F
My friend—Joe—had brought some weed. I’d never smoked before.
B
Never?
F
Not much.
(B gestures for F to come clean.)
Not excessively.
B
And you smoked.
F
And we smoked. And then we saw a flashlight pointed at us.
B
Damn.
F
A cop had climbed up. Flashlight on us. Gun on us.
C
A lethal how-do-you-do.
F
An old lady across the street from the school had seen us climb onto the roof.
C
Who was it said grandmas can always be trusted?
A
You did.
C
Never trust a grandma.
F
Joe knew the cop. He was his cousin or his uncle or a friend of his father’s. I don’t remember the exact connection.
B
It must be nice to have connections.
F
The cop said, ‘I don’t see anything. I don’t smell anything. But my sense of sight and smell will return very quickly if you two don’t climb down right now and never come up again.’
B
So you climbed down like Spider Men on speed.
F
We jumped. It was maybe a twelve-foot fall. We were lucky we didn’t break a leg.
B
You were lucky in other respects too.
F
Yeah, we were lucky. If we’d come another night …
B
… and hadn’t been white.
F
(nodding)
And hadn’t been white.
A
White only gets you so far.
B
If you hadn’t been white and well off.
A
And Christian, maybe? I’m Muslim.
F
Well off and Christian enough. In a month or two, Joe and I would both be heading off to private colleges. Even if we’d been arrested, we would have had lawyers.
A
Good lawyers.
F
Good lawyers. My family had money to pay for good lawyers. Joe’s, too.
B
My family said I was going to be dead or in jail by the time I turned 18. They were wrong about the dead part.
(He looks at the carousel of chairs.)
I missed out on so much. Simple stuff even. A playground.
D
We can’t live in the past.
E
Sometimes that’s all there is to live on, isn’t it?
B
Anyway, it’s back on the bus.
C
Wait. In college, you’re still young, right?
B
You’re young now.
C
What I mean is, this playground is the right setting to tell my story.
B
If it’s a college, let’s make it a college.
Scene 3
SETTING: A, B, C, D, E, and F grab their chairs and maneuver them around the stage to create a college campus of sorts.
AT RISE: They speak as they’re arranging their chairs.
D
With a dorm …
A
… a library …
E
… a student center …
C
… a bar. You better include a bar.
(He waits until the set has been created.)
I was young. Keep this in mind. I was in college. I was paying my way. I was having fun. The college experience!
B
But …
C
One night, I got a little too drunk and got into bed with a woman … without protection. It was my luck: She got pregnant.
D
There’s getting lucky and then there’s getting unlucky. Sometimes in the same night!
C
During her pregnancy, I sort of fell for her. Love, I mean. I grew up without a father, and I vowed to be there for my child—my daughter.
B
And here you are. So …
C
Both of us in school was not going to work financially. So I sacrificed my education and dropped out with the intention of re-enrolling once my baby’s mother graduated. I landed a job—two jobs, in fact—to support what I thought to be my family.
B
‘Thought to be’?
C
I was doing what I believed was right. But I got laid off from my full-time job, and it was hell trying to find another to replace the income I’d lost. So I kept my part-time job and turned to the streets for other financial opportunities.
B
Some of us know that story.
C
My daughter is born, her name is Angela, she’s beautiful. I find the three of us a nice apartment. My daughter’s mother is finishing school.
A-B-D-E
Life is going great.
B
Then?
C
I got caught up for my illegal activities.
A-B-D-E
Life stops going great.
C
And low and behold, my baby’s mother files for child support … while I’m incarcerated.
F
I’m not sure that’s altogether unfair. I mean …
C
Sorry?
F
I mean, she’s your daughter and … Sorry. Is that the end of the story?
C
Unbeknownst to me, a paternity test is mandatory with child-support cases. Imagine how crushed I was to find out that Angela wasn’t mine. All that I’d sacrificed … . And so I felt … I feel …
B
Yeah?
C
Angry.
(There is a silence.)
A
(looking around)
Any other stories to tell … about the past?
B
The bus is waiting.
(They look at each other and shake their heads.)
Scene 4
SETTING: They rearrange the chairs to look like seats on a bus.
AT RISE: They find their seats.
A
Our bus ride to the Thunder Dome … to the Wild West … to whatever synonym you have in your repertoire to describe hell … was five-and-a-half hours. If you haven’t noticed, although I’m sure you have, the bus smells overwhelming like warm piss—and God knows what else—thanks to the non-flushing hole at the back.
B
It’s a strange world when even the word “toilet” feels like too generous a noun.
A
As we’re driving, we pass my hometown.
B
(pointing)
Here?
A
That’s my exit.
B
That was your exit.
A
I want to go home.
B
We all do.
A
So much of what I love is down that exit ramp.
B
Home sweet home.
A
And so much of what I don’t love is down that exit ramp.
B
Home bitter home. But it’s ours.
C
We own it, good and bad, beautiful and ugly.
A
I wish …
B
We all wish …
C
Wishes but no birthday cake, no stars, no fountain to throw a penny in.
A
We’re past my home now. We’re past it, and it’s in the past. I wonder: Will I ever see it again?
B
Sometimes there’s no going back.
A
As I passed the exit to my hometown, I thought: What will “home” mean from now on?
B
Home is what’s in your heart.
A
Wouldn’t it be easier, from now on, not to have a heart?
B
If the system is inhuman, is it better for us to be inhuman?
E
To feel is to suffer.
C
I don’t feel anything right now.
F
I’m scared out of my mind.
B
You?
F
I know. And I’m not even … I’m not even going to stay.
(The bus comes to a halt. They lean forward, then back.)
A
We’ve stopped.
C
I don’t want to stop. I’d rather keep riding the bus. Better to live with the horrible anticipation than to …
E
We’ve stopped.
A
We arrived at Charles B Bass Correctional Complex in a giant bus circle in the courtyard of the compound. In front of our bus were placed our bags with the abbreviated names of our soon-to-be homes. I knew which bag was mine by the bright beautiful royal blue prayer rug inside.
B
(pointing)
That one?
A
(nodding)
As we watched the COs sort and place our property in pre-selected carts, my bag was carried to a cart with the letters NWCX. I asked another inmate what the letters meant.
B
‘You’re screwed, bro. You’re going to the Thunder Dome.’
A
For the first couple of minutes, it really didn’t sink in as to what was happening.
(A-B-C-D-E-F sit silent a moment.)
It’s real, isn’t it? This is where my sins will be paid in full.
B
It’s real. I don’t know about your sins.
C
We’re moving again.
D
Toward our final destination.
A
The final bus ride from Charles Bass to Northwest was the worst part. I nodded in and out as I squinted through the caged windows at the world I was leaving behind. Arrival at Northwest came … abruptly.
(A-B-C-D-E-F move forward, then back, as in a sudden stop.)
My arrival at my first true penitentiary was full of stark details.
B
I see the walls.
E
My God, they’re enormous.
C
One of the seven wonders of the criminal-justice world.
A
High-spaced floodlights.
B-C-D-E-F
Uh-huh.
A
Rusty triple, double, and single-rowed razor-wire-topped fences.
B-C-D-E-F
Uh-huh.
A
Water towers and a multitude of unknown buildings with a high rise of tan giant concrete pods in the background infamously known as The Pound.
B-C-D-E-F
The Northwest Tennessee State Penitentiary compound.
F
I’m scared out of my mind.
C
You mentioned that.
F
Whatever you’ve done to be here …
A-B-C-D-E
Yeah?
F
Maybe what I’m imagining is worse than the reality.
D
You’re seeing the reality. You’re about to see more.
F
I’ve seen a prison in real life—not on TV, I mean—only once before. I was on a train, headed from Baltimore to New York. When you’re on a train, you’re taken behind the scenes. You pass a lot of people’s backyards—you pass, sometimes very slowly, through places you might never see otherwise, through working-class and poor neighborhoods.
D
A backyard can tell you more about a man than his front yard.
F
On this particular train ride, we passed a prison. I don’t know what the security level was, but there were men, maybe a dozen, out in the yard, behind the high, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. They were in their jumpsuits, and they were standing in a straight line, as if they’d been ordered to do so, their backs to the train.
D
There’s a lot of standing around in our world.
F
One of the men—he must have heard the train—turned around. The train wasn’t going fast, and although it wasn’t a short distance between the train and the prison yard, and although the train’s windows were tinted, I was sure he could … well … .
D
He could see you.
F
Maybe no one else on the train was looking out the window. Everyone in my car seemed to be on their cell phones or their computers or they were sleeping. Maybe I was the only one who saw him.
D
And … what do you know … he gave you the finger.
F
He waved.
D
And you ducked under your seat.
F
I waved back.
D
Maybe he didn’t see you. Maybe the train was freedom and he was waving it goodbye.
F
I don’t know. No, I saw him, and he saw me—we saw each other—which—maybe—is why I’m here.
A-B-C-D-E
We’re here.
Scene 5
SETTING: They line the chairs behind them.
AT RISE: They stand in a straight line.
A
(taking a step forward)
Arriving inside the gate, we unload our stuff and carry it into visitation room, where it’s noted into a property list. As we’re waiting be taken onto The Pound, the unit manager comes in.
(He looks at others on the stage – who will enact the role of the unit manager? B steps forward.)
He asks us each about our gang affiliation, our prior prison stays, our convictions.
F
Convictions … as in what you believe in.
(A gives him a look.)
Right.
A
I will never forget what he said.
B
(as unit manager)
“Welcome to Northwest. If you don’t know how to fight or are scared to fight, go ahead and check in now. We don’t want to hear about people coming into your cell and stealing or robbing you of your stuff. Anything short of butcher—prison-shank—wounds, you’re on your own. Either click up or check in.”
A
When I heard this, I thought, Shit is about to get real. “You’re on your own.”
(B-C-D-E-F step to separate parts of the stage.)
B-C-D-E-F
We’re on our own.
A
The compound is made up of seven main pods with two units each. Units 1 and 2 are orientation and the hole overflow. Units 3 and 4 are maximum security/close security. Units 5 and 6 are mental health. Units 7 to 14 are general population.
B
If you could choose …
C
You don’t get to choose …
D
You’d choose to tap your shoes together and go back to Kansas.
A
We were taken to unit 1 and padlocked into single-man cells for three days. We were fed through the pie flaps in our cell doors by guards wearing vests and face masks.
B-C-D-E-F
(creating facemasks with their hands)
Vests and facemasks.
A
I was told that the worst units on the Pound were units 10, 12, and 14. I was taken to unit 10. I was immediately aware of the heavy tension in the room. A room where gang wars had been fought, a room where people had been raped and stabbed and killed, a room that had borne the load of thousands of fights, a room I would now call … .
B-C-D-E-F
Home.
A
Home. Are you kidding? Please, God … . But, yeah, home.
(A-B-C-D-E-F move chairs to form a square cell. A stands in the middle of it.)
F
I did some research on the Thunder Dome.
B
What’d you find?
F
Not much. There wasn’t a whole lot of information.
B
Not surprising.
A
Mystery is its mystique.
B
What you don’t know can hurt you.
F
I found more questions than answers—questions from mothers and wives and girlfriends on an online forum.
Scene 6
SETTING: The setting remains the same, but the focus is on K, L, M, N, and O, who are family members and friends of the inmates.
AT RISE: K, L, M, N, and O stand at points around the stage, at a remove from A, B, C, D, E, and F.
K
I need all the info I can get about Northwest. My son is done with the classification and they are sending him there. Is there a lot of gang activity? My son has a lot of health issues. Do you happen to know how effective the medical staff is?
L
Don't know anything about the medical but my husband has been there for about a year and he says they do not have any gang members to speak of and when one comes about they transfer them. They do not tolerate it. He also says the food is great. He was in the main compound for a while and now he is in the annex, which he likes much better. For me it is a long drive, which is the worst of it.
M
I don't know what your husband told you but gangs are rampant there. There’s always some gang war or fight going on. My boyfriend has been there almost three years now. The food sucks ass, especially on the main compound. Medical care there is alright; they are okay about passing out medication. However, this is by the far worst of the Tennessee prisons that I know of and the most violent.
N
Is that the one they call Thunder Dome?
O
Hello, I am a new mother here to the forum. What town is Northwest in? We are in Tennessee and I was trying to find out all I could on this area and where my son would go first and then where he’d end up. He self-surrendered and is looking at 2-5 non-violent. I had hoped to suggest a possible place, but I don't know much at all.
K
My son is in NWCX. He hasn’t been there but a couple of weeks. How many stamps are they allowed? I know nothing about this. I need all the help I can get.
N
My husband is in there, and I live in South America. I can’t visit him. I’ve talked to him a few times, but the calls are so expensive. He told me the food is not good there, and there is violence. I know my husband doesn’t want to say much to me so as not to worry me. Please tell me … is the place violent?
O
It’s me again. Hope everybody had a good day. It’s been one thing after another around here. I just want to cry. I got a call from my son today. I ordered a cap for him. They told him today that his points are too high. They sent it back. They told him that he could get it next month. Could someone tell me what that means?
K
I send my son money. And they keep taking it and putting it on a DNA test. Could someone please tell me how much a DNA test costs? My son don’t understand. What they are talking about?
L
Hey you guys, thanks to my incessant bitching to the warden, holding hands is now allowed in visitation! WOOHOO!
(K, L, M, N, and O hold out their hands. A, B, C, D, and E reach for them.)
A
What do you call the space between two people who want to be together?
B
The cruel chasm.
C
The electrified wall of longing and lust.
D
Unrequited love without the possibility of parole.
(K, L, M, N, and O exit.)
A
Yeah. All that, I guess.
D
Come on, man. Pick a winner.
F
They all sound like winners to me.
D
Prepare the medal ceremony. Cue the national anthem.
(They all stand at attention, hands over hearts, before laughing.)
A
I’m on my own now. I’m all alone.
B-C-D-E
We all are.
Scene 7
SETTING: A, B, C, D, and E rearrange the chairs to suggests a different, but equally oppressive, prison.
AT RISE: A, B, C, D, and E put on different colored T-shirts to indicate they are different imprisoned men than before.
A
Whoever I am, in whatever prison, I feel like I’m—I am, aren’t I?—I am all alone.
B-C-D-E
We all are.
(A exits the box.)
A-B-C-D-E
And there are so many of us.
A
(singing)
From California …
B
(singing)
… to the New York Island …
C
(singing)
… from the Redwood Forest …
D
(singing)
… to the Gulf stream waters.
E
Damn. And not a good singer among us.
(They laugh.)
F
I did some research.
A
On what scholarly subject?
F
On what to expect when you’ve been imprisoned.
A
You read The Autobiography of Malcolm X?
F
I read … the Internet. Here’s something from Wiki How called “How to Deal with Being in Prison.”
A-B-C-D-E
We’re dealing with it.
A
You couldn’t find a copy of Prison for Dummies?
E
Go ahead.
F
“Walking into prison for the first time, no matter who you are, is a frightening experience. The mixture of adrenaline, fear, anxiety, and confusion is deafening. After the cell doors are slammed shut behind you, it is time to deal with your situation and begin planning your survival.”
A
I was hoping you’d say “begin planning your vacation.”
B
I hear Hawaii is nice this time of year.
E
Go on.
F
Well, it’s kind of long.
E
Give us the highlights.
F
(reading)
Section 2: Steer Clear of Solitary Confinement.
E
Easier said.
F
Which is why section 3 is How to Endure Solitary Confinement.
A
Endure is right.
F
(reading)
Break processes down into their basic parts. This is an excellent mental exercise that will keep you challenged and thinking logically. If you like baseball or football, think about explaining these sports to an alien who has no concept. In this way, you have to describe and give examples of every small step. This should take you an entire day.
B
Let’s see you do it.
F
Do what?
B
Explain baseball to an alien.
F
I don’t know if I can.
(A, B, C, D, and E give him a look.)
Okay.
(B steps into the box with F, pretending to be an alien.)
Hello, Mr. Alien. I’m going to explain to you the great American pastime of baseball. Excited?
B
Thrilled.
F
This is a ball.
B
I’m an alien, right? So I have no idea what a ball is. And there’s nothing in your hand, since you’re in solitary.
F
Right.
B
What’s a ball, earthling?
F
It’s a round object, about the size of my palm.
B
What’s a palm?
F
(gesturing to his palm)
This.
B
Go on.
F
Second you have a bat.
B
What’s a bat?
C
A bat is a mammal who lives in the dark.
F
(looking around)
It’s dark in here. Jesus, I’ve always been … well … a little afraid of the dark. Claustrophobic. I’m starting to feel it.
B
Thanks, earthling, for the information about baseball. I’m ready to sign my contract with the New York Yankees.
(B steps out of the box.)
F
(reading)
Solitary confinement is generally a cell that gives you little room to move about, no contact with other humans, 23-hours-a-day lockout with minimal exercise, and will, most likely, cause some form of mental illness, even for the most hardy. If you get sent to this isolated hell you better have a plan in place to keep your sanity.
B
Give it to an alien for safekeeping.
F
(reading)
Although solitary confinement might sound attractive when living among some of the world’s most … heinous, it says … individuals, it has been linked to torture and mental disorders.
B
Damned if you do, damned anyway.
F
(stuck on the phrase)
‘Heinous individuals.’
(F looks around at the others on the stage before exiting the box. E steps into the box.)
E
When my grandmother died, I knew my life would never be the same. I loved her greatly, and she loved me greatly, and when she died, my life became dark shadows. They are here, in my thoughts — dark shadows. I have thoughts of doing things to people that a normal person wouldn’t ever think of doing. Yet I’m smart—I’m kind, generous, helping, wise, loving, if I’m given the chance. I want to be more enlightened.
(E exits the box and D steps in.)
D
I’m in prison for capital murder, robbery, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. I’m serving a life-without-parole and 53-year sentence and I’ve been incarcerated almost six years now. In August of 2010, my then-fiancée, Sandy, told me she was pregnant. Within a week, she told me she’d miscarried after my friend, Allan, punched her in the stomach. After ten months of stewing, I lured Allan out into the woods … .
(D exits the box and E steps in.)
E
I fight with good and evil. I feel no one can help me. I feel that I will have to fight my dark shadows on my own. Despite my ups and downs, my flaws, my past life, I’m only human. I seek and want. I look for change. I look for love.
(E exits box and D steps in.)
D
I lured Allan out into the woods and shot him multiple times—avenging my unborn child’s life. After several days of lying to investigators to avoid arrest, I finally confessed and was charged with my crimes.
(D exits the box and C steps in.)
C
Sitting here, thinking of my many foolish mistakes. So many choices I made took me away from home. I’ve felt, lately, so completely lost, so completely alone.
(C exits the box and D steps in.)
D
My father is a police officer and my mother is a registered nurse. I graduated from a community college with an associate’s degree in criminal justice. Before my arrest, I served as a 911 emergency dispatcher.
A
Where a second can make all the difference.
D
Now I have all the time in the world.
(D exits the box and B steps in.)
B
Not long ago we used to sit in your daughter’s wading pool during the dog days of Norfolk summer nights, smoking, drinking, drawing on conversation to cool, grown men-children soaked to the soul with ghosts who received us as a sea of wheat receives the winter wind.
(B exits the box and C steps in.)
C
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain and the record of bitter moments. A lot of us have nothing else to think of. Suffering is the means by which we exist.
(C steps out of the box. Thinking better of it, he holds up a finger and steps back into the box.)
I’ve been in prison almost twelve years and I won’t be able to go up for parole again for another four years. I could have gone home seven years ago but … .
A-B-D-E
But?
C
But the system has me trapped in this conspiracy to screw up my quality of life —to screw up my mind — so as to make it impossible to be “reformed.”
A
It’s hard to be an angel in hell.
C
I’ve done nothing besides try to be a good person, and they’ve used the inmates who aren’t trying to be good—who might have drug issues, who might have other issues—they’ve used them as pawns to attack me—and it’s impossible to impress the parole board when I’ve been written up for fighting.
D
And if you don’t fight … .
F
(tapping the paper)
It says here that, as a last resort, you have to fight … or you’re seen in a certain way … as vulnerable … .
C
Fight or flight. But there’s nowhere to fly.
F
The other day, I was at the gym, riding a stationary bike—going pretty fast, thank you, but, of course, going nowhere.
C
I know where nowhere goes.
F
There was a show on the TV above me. A sit-com. I don’t know which one. But a father—an older man, in his late sixties, maybe—was talking to his son about his new girlfriend, a married woman.
B
Married and dating.
F
The son was criticizing his father, saying, You shouldn’t date a married woman. Her husband will find out and hurt you. But the husband … .
B
… is in prison.
F
You’ve seen it?
B
I have.
F
The husband’s in prison. Besides, the father says, the husband, too, is dating someone. In prison.
B
Uh-huh.
F
Then the father says, smiling, ‘Although it might not be 100 percent consensual.’
B
And everyone laughs.
F
And everyone laughs—the two characters, the whole TV audience.
B
Prison rape. Ha, ha, ha.
A-C-D-E
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
(A-B-C-D-E-F assume vulnerable positions.)
A-B-C-D-E-F
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
(Their laughter becomes pleas of “Stop” and “Please, no” and “Someone, help me. Please, help me.”)
(There is a pause and they stand straight.)
F
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, every year around 80,000 men and women are sexually abused in American correctional institutions. Half of prison assault complaints are filed against staff.
C
It isn’t hard to abuse authority.
D
Especially in a remote fortress behind high walls topped with wire. Especially when no one’s looking. Especially when the abuse happens to people who’ve been forgotten. Systems can make sadists.
F
I was reading The New York Times the other day.
(A-B-C-D-E pretend to flip open newspapers.)
I came across this story: According to a report released by a state watchdog, male inmates at a state prison in Alaska were stripped naked in front of female prison staff members, walked naked on a “dog leash” and left without clothing or cover in cold, filthy cells for hours at a time.
E
Many monstrous deeds and unforgivable atrocities have been, and will be, committed by well-meaning governments and government employees because the people did not stand up as a united front.
F
The story said that some of the correctional officers were told they would be fired if they intervened.
A
It’s hard to be an angel in hell.
F
There are more than 2.3 million people imprisoned in the United States.
B
The population of Dallas.
C
Uh-huh.
B
Plus the population of Boston.
C
I’m not surprised.
B
Plus the population of a small city or two. Morgantown, West Virginia, anyone?
F
All told, the United States has a thousand more prisons than hospitals.
B
The word ‘sick’ does come to mind.
F
More than 50,000 people are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole—or are on death row—or will not outlive their sentences. Even so, this means the vast majority of imprisoned people will, one day, step out from behind bars and back into … .
(He opens arms to include audience.)
F
… your world.
B
After living in …
(opening his arms to include the stage)
… this … this …
A-C-D-E
This … .
B
(to audience)
You fill in the blank.
Scene 8
SETTING: They sweep the chairs aside.
AT RISE: A, B, C, D, and E stand in a straight line. B snaps his fingers, C taps his foot against the floor, D pats his thigh, and E claps his hands together. This is intended to indicate the passing of time.
A
Quiet, please.
(B-C-D-E continue.)
Quiet, please.
B-C-D-E
Why?
(A opens his hands to indicate he’s holding a book and reading.)
A
I’m reading.
B-C-D-E
Yeah. We see that now.
A
Every book is a seed of hope in an otherwise hopeless environment.
B
What’re you reading?
A
The Bible.
(B opens his hands to indicate he’s holding a book.)
A
(looking over at B)
What’re you reading?
B
Long Walk to Freedom. The autobiography of Nelson Mandela. It gives me inspiration to be a leader, to be a role model. It reminds me to stay positive, to look toward the future with some hope.
(C opens his hands to indicate he’s holding a book. He holds it up.)
C
Follow the River by James Alexander Thorn—the true story of Mary Drapes Ingles, who, after her family is massacred and she escapes captivity, walks the Ohio River for months.
(C smiles.)
I like the escapes captivity part.
(D opens his hands to indicate he’s holding a book. He starts to laugh. A-B-C-E-F stare at him. D holds up the book.)
D
Humor.
(A-B-C-E-F stare at him.)
D
This place can be so dark and gloomy, I’ll take any book that will make me laugh.
(A-B-C-E holds out their hands.)
I’ll pass it on when I’m done.
(E opens both his hands to indicate he’s reading two books at once. His eyes move back and forth between them. A-B-C-D look at him.)
E
Cosmos by Dr. Carl Sagan and Death by Black Hole by Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson. I’d want others to learn from reading these books that one should love mankind because we are sentient beings confined to this one planet and are so rare in our grand universe.
(E puts down one of the books and picks up another. A-B-C-D look at him.)
E
The Brain by Dr. David Eagleman. It’s kept me on point in defending my brain in the toxic, dangerous environment that is prison. It’s helped me become a better man.
A
The Gulag Archipelago.
B
1984
C
Les Miserables
D
Lone Survivor
E
Of Mice and MeN
(A-B-C-D-E put down their books and show their empty hands.)
When I was in the mental health unit, we couldn’t go to the prison library. We had to depend on an officer to bring us books. Sometimes he did. But the books were always his choice. If I could have chosen … .
A
I’d like any medical-reference book.
B
I’d like a children’s book for my daughter.
C
I’m writing two stories about Vietnamese orphans. The second language in Vietnam is French, so I could use a French-English dictionary. A Vietnamese-English dictionary would also help.
D
This burden I’ve carried for years. Maybe there’s a book you know of that relates.
E
Maybe you could write it.
B
Maybe we all could.
F
Great idea!
Scene 8
SETTING: A, B, C, D, E, and F turn their chairs to create a classroom.
AT RISE: They write for a minute.
F
Okay. Who’d like to share?
C
Someone have a happy story?
B
This is happy and sad.
C
Can you give us the sad part first?
B
This is a West Virginia story.
C
I know a theme song for it.
B
I used to drive a high-vac truck, and one excursion found me on a two-lane road to Ripley, West Virginia.
A-C-D-E
Believe it or not.
B
The road was being repaired and the northbound lane was stopped for about half an hour. The flag girl approached my truck, mouth open in amazement. High-vac trucks are odd-looking, which accounts for her question. “What kind of truck is this?” I explained, then she said, “It looks like something out of Dr. Seuss.” She was beautiful, a mountain girl, and had no shy anywhere in her. She hopped up on the step and shot the breeze with me the whole time. Then the unexpected happened.
C
Traffic started moving?
A
Aliens came down to play baseball?
B
She said, “I’d like to see you again.” I fell flat on my face in love right there on a two-lane road to Ripley, West Virginia.
A
And you both lived happily ever after.
B
Then I had to go.
A-C-D-E
You had to go.
B
I lost her address and phone number. I never saw her again. I never forgot her
(They allow this to linger.)
F
(to audience)
I once asked the men’s writing group I was working with here to write—in fiction or fact—about a life-changing moment. One moment you’re this, the next moment you’re that; one moment you’re here, the next moment you’re there. Most of the men wrote about the time they’d been arrested or the first time they stepped into prison. I wrote about what it would be like to walk into this prison and lose my visitor’s badge—to lose, in other words, my proof I wasn’t an inmate. I imagined what it would be like to have to stay.
B
I wish it was something I’d only imagined.
F
It was a luxury to imagine it—an indulgence, a venture into the horror genre, a nightmare I’d induced and could wake up from any time I wanted. But no matter how powerful or accurate my imagination, I couldn’t know the experience of living behind bars, of spending days and days and months and months—of spending years—in a cage, couldn’t know it in the way these men knew it, not intimately, not viscerally.
B
Like I said, I wish it was all my imagination.
(F leaves the stage and walks through the audience.)
F
There’s this strange feeling I get every time I leave the prison. I’m a visitor, I’m only a visitor, a volunteer, and you might think, after stepping out of these gates, out past these electric fences and walls, I’d feel a little relieved.
A-B-C-D-E
But?
F
But after being inside, even only as a visitor, the world outside never feels exactly free. It’s as if the air outside contains elements of its counterpart inside, stuffy and stagnant. And it’s as if the space outside, no matter how vast, suggests, if only in the way trees are aligned in a distant forest, a long, high wall.
B
What I’d give to see trees instead of walls.
F
I think often about what it would mean to lose my visitor’s badge—metaphorically, I mean. To have been born with a different temperament, to have grown up in different circumstances, to have been discovered on the rooftop of that private high school, smoking weed, by a different police officer.
B
We were all discovered by a different police officer.
F
Nowadays it’s hard for me to think of prisons and justice in the same sentence unless … .
A-B-C-D-E
Unless?
F
Unless it’s with a question mark.
(F sits at the back of the audience. A-B-C-D-E arrange the seats to face different members of the audience.)
A
Justice?
B
Justice?
C
Justice?
D
Justice?
E
Justice?
B
I go back often to the place I came from, which is never there.
C
Curiously, eternity awakens new, like mud on a tire to spin around a time or two before becoming dust, like me, like you.
(BLACKOUT)
(END OF PLAY)
Mark Brazaitis is the author of nine books, including The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, The Incurables: Stories, winner of the 2012 Richard Sullivan Prize and the 2013 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Prose, and the novel American Seasons. His stories, essays, and poems have appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal, Guernica, Michigan Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Poetry East, The Sun, and elsewhere. A former Peace Corps Volunteer and technical trainer, he is a professor of English at West Virginia University, where he directs the Creative Writing Program and the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop.