Tag: prison

A Blurry Image

November 2nd, 2026

“It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds”

from the song “Sarah Said”, by Death Cab for Cutie

The young woman wanted a picture of herself and her five-year-old son. That seemed like a simple enough request, but it wasn’t. Due to the fact that the woman is incarcerated, nothing is simple. Everything becomes complicated very quickly.

Women in the prison frequently want to have their photos taken with family members, especially with their children. During visiting hours, there is an inmate assigned to snap pictures and make hard copies for the women and for the visitors. Of course, like everything else having to do with the Department of Corrections, there is a fee involved. Each picture only costs two dollars, but there is a convoluted payment process involved.

Upon entering the visiting area of the prison, friends or family members are allowed to bring with them a credit/debit card or cash, but not both. I prefer to bring a credit card to use in the vending machines. They operate sometimes like slot machines in that you might put in money and not get anything back out, or you might hit the jackpot and receive two items for one payment. If I get burned buy a machine, I can always dispute the charge on my card. If pump cash into the machine and get nothing back, I’m kind of out of luck.

To get a photo, a visitor has to use cash (and that has to be in singles), so a person has to bring in sufficient paper money to purchase a picture and any snacks that the inmate and others might desire. I brought in $25, and that was barely enough to satisfy all demands. Now, I could not pay the inmate with the camera directly. No, I had to pump two singles into a machine that gave me gold-colored tokens that I could then offer to the photographer. The woman wanted a picture for herself and one for her boy to take home, so I had to use the machine twice. Fine, whatever.

When we came to visit the young woman, she informed us that the pictures had to be taken within fifteen minutes of arrival. Why? Who cares? It really doesn’t matter. Just get it done. I paid the tokens and the woman and her boy got up to be photographed. They stood in front of a backdrop that looked like a Winter Wonderland scene. The prison also has a backdrop that looks like the beach of a tropical island. I guess the idea is for the people in the picture to appear to be enjoying life absolutely anywhere that is not that facility. The vacation effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that the young woman was wearing drab green inmate clothing. The boy gave his mama a big hug and a matching smile. They looked happy together.

We eventually received the two photos. They kind of sucked. The images were blurry. That annoyed me. The mom was okay with it. She just wanted a picture to hang in her locker to remind her that she had actually been hugging her boy. She does not plan on keeping the photo after she gets released. She doesn’t want it as a memento of good times. She wants it as a promise of a future reunion with her son.

I am looking at our copy of the picture now. It makes me think of my memories, in particular those from my childhood. I can only conjure up a few images from all those years ago, and they are as blurry as this photo. What will the boy remember? Maybe it would be best if his memories are fuzzy too.

Playing Chess in Prison

September 27th, 2026

Yesterday we took the little boy to visit his mama. She is doing time at the Milwaukee Women’s Correctional Center. It’s a minimum-security facility, and the guards are actually quite friendly toward visitors, but it’s still a prison. The visiting area is in the cafeteria. There are two vending machines available. They do not consistently cough up snacks. Trying to buy some junk food is a little like playing on a slot machine. There is a table in the visiting area that has a pile of old board games. Those games are all there is for entertainment. They get a lot of use.

The visits can last up to three hours on a Saturday afternoon. The time goes by quickly during the first hour. After that, we run out of things to say, and that is when the board games become necessary. The five-year-old is learning a number of new ways to play. He has become adept at checkers (he beat his mama once without any help from me or my wife). He knows how to play Sorry. The boy has not yet learned how to lose gracefully. He is not shy about flipping the board over and scattering the pieces. He likes to win and he is easily frustrated when he can’t. He takes it all too seriously.

Yesterday he got bored with the usual games and we brought a chess set to our table. My wife and his mama do not know how to play the game. I attempted to teach the lad. I hadn’t played chess in years, maybe decades. I still knew the basic rules. The boy and I played a game. We were at it for at least 45 minutes. He caught on quickly. He understood the need to protect his king, and he figured out how to use the other pieces. He did quite well for his first game ever.

A long time ago, I was fascinated with chess. I don’t know why. When I took metal shop in high school, I made my own chess set on a lathe. Half the pieces were made of brass. The others were aluminum. It took me nearly the entire semester to make all the pieces. I don’t have them anymore. Like most things in my life, the pieces have been lost and forgotten. Every once in a while, I find a stray pawn, but I will never get the whole set together again.

I was never very good at chess. I liked to play, but I couldn’t plan my moves far enough ahead. It’s odd that I have spent most of my work life planning and organizing operations, but the game was beyond me. I guess I just lost interest during a chess match. It stopped being fun.

I lost interest in most games and sports once I got into my late twenties. Part of that was due to the fact that I went to West Point for four years. At the military academy we had to participate in sports almost the entire year, every year. We had to attend (and stand at) every home football game. Mandatory fun is an oxymoron, and it was part of the culture at the school. Also, the sports, along with everything else at West Point, were relentlessly competitive. We fought every match like it was the only thing that mattered in life. We hardly ever just played a game. It was never just for fun.

As I got older, I forgot how to play. I was busy with work and family. I became a boss, a husband, and a father. Life became serious, and I forgot what it was like to just screw around. I lost part of myself, perhaps the best part.

Being with the little boy has helped me to bring back that part of me that went dormant. The kid likes to play. It pains me to see him get intensely competitive so soon in life. We have to remember that chess or checkers are just a game. Maybe all of life is a game. Maybe we should just play at it.

It’s only Two Years

July 23rd, 2026

She called this morning to talk with her son. The young woman also took a couple minutes to explain some things to me. As usual, it was all business.

She told me, “I got some bad news.”

I braced myself, “Okay…”

She went on, “I talked to the staffer (DOC official) and she said that I don’t qualify for ERP (Early Release Program). So, my release date is February 4th, 2028.”

Then she said, “The good news is that I will probably be rated for minimum security.”

That’s all that she wanted to tell me. It was more than enough. I am still emotionally sorting through the ramifications. The judge gave her full credit for time served in jail for her two felonies. I mentally added up her time already spent inside and applied that to what she has yet to serve, and it comes up to two years, which is exactly what the judge gave her for a sentence. Because one of her offenses is a violent crime, “truth in sentencing” comes into play. Whatever amount of time the judge gave her is precisely how long she will sit.

It’s only two years. Depending on your perspective, it isn’t really that much time or it is for-fucking-ever. I’m sure for the young woman it is a long time, especially since her five-year-old son will be different in many ways when she is released. She told him on the phone, “You’ll be seven when I get out.” A lot can happen in two years. He will mature a great deal during that time, and she might also change significantly. It’s hard enough keep up with the changes in a small child if you are with him every day. Being away for two years makes it far more difficult to maintain that relationship.

Being designated as a minimum-security inmate means that this woman will most likely be transferred to the prison close to our home. It is only a half hour drive from our house to that facility. We can have more frequent visits with her. Also, the minimum-security prison is far more user friendly than her current location. The visitation area is actually kind of nice, if you can ignore the tall chain-link fences with the razor wire on top. She will be able to do more with her son if she gets sent there.

Somehow, I just can’t wrap my head around all this. Every step in the process feels surreal. My wife and I have been through all this before. The boy has not had this experience. So, in many ways it’s painfully familiar, but it is also alien to us.

We just deal with it.