Raped in the Prison Shower of Friendship

Life is a little like prison. It’s isn’t always hard time but it isn’t always easy either. We all showed up here and we don’t always understand why. We are thrown in with a lot of people we don’t like and a few we do. Some make the most of it others cry, “why me?” to the heavens the whole time. If we are lucky we meet a few other inmates and form a friendship. Friends are necessary in “the joint” to get us cigarettes and watch our back lest we get shived by a pointed cafeteria spoon. There is a lot of trust in The Joint because you need it. We need trust more than water. With out trust there is no love, no friends, and we spend hard time cursing the walls and waiting to be moved to the Chain Gang so at least we will be forced to be with other people.

The hardest time is in “The Hole” Middle School through High School. Some of the hardest screws you will ever meet are in the Hole. But through this tribulation we form, in some cases, lasting nearly permanent friendships. Then, we go to Work Release, collage. With a sigh of relief we meet the new inmates all at the same prison by choice. We drink contraband hooch together, some fall in love, and we feel like we can make it on, “the outside.” After all we have friends with whom we have heard the chimes at midnight. And if we all stayed on good behavior the warden would let us be cell mates for a good long while.

I turned 36 two weeks ago. I’ve been on the outside for along time. The outside has been good to me over the last few years. I have learned a lot, meet new inmates I love and adore, and my cell mate and I made a third to share our Brooklyn cell with.

But as I stepped into the prison shower this summer my friends turned on me and I got rapped.

I thought at 36 I was beyond this shit but I’m not. Trust doesn’t have to be the largest component in a friendship on the outside. Trust turns to respect and that respect breeds love and understanding. We don’t judge and we stay in touch over thousands of miles waiting for that brief moment every few years were we can meet in the yard and say, “isn’t this just like the old days.”

I hate writing about friendship because of my old friends from The Hole I’m down to one, Barry, and he lives in Istanbul. From Work Release I am also down to one, Mike. I love them both and would be devastated if I lost them. I know this because for my birthday my friend, Jeff, from collage broke my heart. Oscar Wild once said, “A true friend stabs you in the front,” and that’s what he did. I loved Jeff and I’m mourning his loss. Ten years ago Jeff and I went on a cross country trip and back packed in The Grand Canyon. We said we would go back in ten years to celebrate all our travels and so many years of friendship. Jeff moved to LA about eight years ago and we of course stayed friends. We spoke less, emailed a lot, then it all slowed down and it got harder to talk with him. As this year approached I was sending him ideas for our trip to Utah. I never really heard back from him and after I broke my foot I figured I wasn’t going anywhere. But I still had respect for Jeff and though he had the same for me. Until last week when I opened the mail box and out came a post-card with Jeff’s handwriting on it. I turned it over, “Zion National Park, Utah!” it read. Tears rolled down my face. Jeff no longer had respect for me. We had been friends for more than 13 years, and now it was over…he had gone without me.

I emailed him telling him I was hurt that he didn’t even tell me he was going but that too was a week ago and I haven’t heard from him.

All this on top of my friend from The Hole disappearing after my daughter was born, I think in an attempt to deny that he was getting older, turning up in Queens living with my ex-girlfriend. And a “friend” from collage I was trying to reconcile with reminding me why I cut him out of my life to begin with.

I have more love and respect for the people in my life now. That is usually the group of folks who read my tirades on this blog. Thanks for having my back in the shower, and I’ll see if I can trade my smokes for some Green & Blacks chocolate for you.

9/5/07 Post Script. Thanks for all your cards and letters. The night I posted this my wife came home with some G&B chocholate for me.