Roaches.

Prison really was a disgusting place.  It would probably be safe to say that it still is.  After I got out I showered several times a day, every day, for months.  I couldn't get the disgusting off of me.  Any time any dirt got on me at all; I took a shower.  Taking a shower all alone is a glorious freedom.  It's a luxury unlike any other. 

Roaches are a real thing.  Roaches live up to their reputation.  Roaches were everywhere.  They fly.  They had a city under the prison.  Their headquarters was under the chow hall.  The prison had a tunnel system under it for the plumbing.  These tunnels weren't tall enough to stand up in.  The kind where all the pipes ran along one side near the top.  The top of it was arched, so it had that really creepy feel, made of bricks and was really old by my standards.  The plumbing crew guys were the only inmates that went in those tunnels.  No one really anyone wanted that job either because of the roaches.  Near the chow hall the walls would be alive with them.

It's just like the movies they said.  The entire surface would be crawling with cockroaches.  A moving wall of scuttling, clicking, sometimes three inch long cockroaches doing what they do.  I saw some huge cockroaches outside of that chow hall flying around.  It was like there was a war going on.  The prison was being invaded from the inside and was moving out. 

They really were everywhere.  The civilians who worked the kitchen were big women except for the head guy who was a weird looking white guy.  I never saw him really, except for across the yard.  The women though were walk funny big.  Scary looking big.  They couldn't have run if they had to.  They had terrible attitudes. How could they not hate their lives? Who as a kid, was like, "I want to work in a prison kitchen when I grow up." No one.

The food was as gross as the roaches.  I had to be really careful about what I ate.  I would always investigate, hitting up other guys who were already eating trying to figure out if it was safe or not. I couldn't starve, but there was a limit to what I would willingly eat. 

I saw it with my own eyes one day working for maintenance.  We were going around cleaning out all the AC units.  Most of the time no one was ever behind the chow hall; it was off limits to general population.   Lying on the ground getting ready to go in the back of the kitchen managers personal truck were boxes labeled not for human consumption.  I always wondered why that guy was allowed to bring his personal vehicle into the prison itself.  No one else ever did that.  He was probably just fattening his paycheck. 

There was meatloaf one time that had a glossy shine to it where it was sliced.  Chicken bone casserole was a no go.  I almost broke a tooth once biting into a bone. I was starving that day, but never again. There were beans on the plate every single meal except breakfast.  One of my favorite meals was hard boiled eggs.  How could they fuck that up? I would always trade commissary items or something from a future meal for the extra unadulterated protein.   

I knew people in 4 House.  All the inmate kitchen workers were in the same housing unit. Word on the street was that cats sometimes poked a hole in the meat and sexed it.  They would have someone watch out for them while in the cooler alone.  There were some nasty freaks in that house.  Word on the street was that 4 House was where the freaks went because they always had plenty of opportunity to do their thing.  At work and in the house itself there were lots of opportunities to be alone.  There was always at least one bay in that house that had its lights out because they all worked different shifts.

I had to be really careful about what I ate.  I doubt very much I made it out of there without eating something disgusting.  I doubt anyone did.  When people who obviously do not care about themselves are preparing food it's never going to be good food, and it never was.  Never not once.

In the corner of the chow hall where the trays are picked up there is a long narrow window that runs horizontally at about waist level.  One of the kitchen managers is always sitting right at the window on the other side of the wall to make sure no shenanigans are occurring.  Running along the kitchen side of the wall was a counter with big long food pans in heat sinks.  There was an inmate at each pan, and they would fill the trays military style.  The whole prison ate in less than an hour and half.  One day as I was walking up to get my tray a roach was just running around on this ladies arm.  She never even moved to shake it off or nothing.  It was just running around doing its thing easily crawling over the fat folds in her arm.  I didn't eat much.

The only reason I was eating at all was because I was lifting weights so much.  I played a lot of hand ball too.  That is a very active sport, and we were quite competitive.  I can’t stand for people to be better than me.  If I had extra money on my commissary I would buy protein powders.  They had a meal replacement powder too.  The only other thing to eat was ramen.  I still love ramen, but ramen is not nutritional at all and it does not sustain a person.  Compared to prison food ramen is absolutely delicious.  I had to go into that disgusting chow hall though.  It was that or starve.  I couldn't afford to lose any size.  So much of my power in there depended on my size and strength.  I got to where I was benching over 300 lbs. and could squat 450. I simply couldn't do that starving all the time. 

When I tell people this part of the story they always ask me, "but why?  Why was it that way? With all those inmates why wasn't it cleaner?  Why wasn't the food better?"  To me it is pretty simple.  When there is only one guard, who doesn't have a real weapon other than a radio and some mace, per hundred inmates, that guard couldn't really make us do much of anything.  Those guards were always walking a fine line and they knew it.  They were quick to call for help when it got sketchy.  They didn't have what it took to make us do much of anything other than obey the rules. No one in Booneville wanted more time. 

There are so many fixes to this problem it's not even funny, yet it still persists to this day.  It is the case even outside of prison. The people in charge are always changing the rules inside the prison, but never changing the reasons for which a prison is even needed in the first place.  They never change the culture.  Cats could have been learning to legitimately cook in there, but instead it was a circus.  They could have been leaving prison with a way to provide for themselves.  The people in charge didn't care about them any more than they did me.  That's really what it all comes down to; if the people in charge don't even care about themselves, how can they care about others?  They didn’t care about us at all.  That means they didn’t care about you either. 

Using those civilian women in that chow hall as an example, they brought the entire prison's food quality down to their level in life.  Through their actions they ruined it for us all.  Their lives were in a state of ruin and they reflected it out into the universe accordingly.  I'm sure they had their reasons in life for being what and who they were, but I don't really like making excuses for apathy.  They obviously didn't care about me.  They didn't care about me at all or they would never have put that shit on my tray. 

I still have this thought to this day; if I could at nineteen be at least trying to get my head out of my ass, what was stopping them?  They were much older than I.  They had their freedom, couldn't they at least try?  It is the golden rule after all; do unto others.  I prefer saying the golden rule another way; thou art thou brother’s keeper.  I wouldn't have served that disgustingness to anyone.