INSOMNIACS

                                         

                                                  INSOMNIACS



        It is 4:30 in the morning – I’ve been up since 2:30 – and I’d say that already about 10% of the Unit is already awake. Sleep is a strange thing in prison, for some it is a past time and an escape; while for others it is a time for our mistakes and regrets to haunt us. And lots of us have things we regret, especially in here. You’ll find on any given morning that a big portion of the guys had trouble sleeping the night before. It’s one of the reasons we all are such caffeine junkies.



      Of course it’s also not easy to sleep in a room with 160 snoring, farting, and sleep talking men. Ear plugs help, but only a little. I’m lucky if I manage 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, usually I’m up every 2 or 3. Many guys choose to solve this problem by sleeping (or trying to) about 18 hours a day. They just lay under the covers day after day after day. I don’t know how they do it. We call them Marathon Sleepers. It just seems like such a waste to me.



      My recent problems have a lot to do with my cellmate. On Wednesday evening he got a letter informing him that his 11 year old daughter had been killed in a car accident weeks earlier. His ex-wife, his siblings, his other kids all didn’t bother to let him know. Granted he was basically disowned by them – which I took as “we don’t get along” when he initially told me of his family – but even still to not tell him is just wrong. He found out through a niece – through – marriage about the accident and even then the letter was blunt and unsympathetic.



      My cellie was devastated. For the last 3 days he’s been up all hours just staring out the window and crying or aimlessly pacing the cube. I know he’s made a lot of mistakes and is a very hot tempered man, but he has a great heart and certainly doesn’t deserve this twist of fate or slight from his family. Myself and our friends have been trying our best to support him and he has been to the psych department, so I know he’ll get through it. We all just have a very long road ahead of us.



        What keeps me up at night is imagining what kind of people could turn their backs on someone who obviously has issues and needs help. It seems monstrous to me. My family is so different from his it just boggles my mind. I certainly don’t get along with them all, especially my sister but nothing could make me leave them to rot alone in prison. My cellie, even before this, would have even appreciated a letter from his brothers or sisters telling him what a dumb ass he is – any contact at all would have at least confirmed he wasn’t forgotten. The idea of being  that  alone in the world terrifies me so much. I use to think things like that only happened in soap operas, but prison has shown me it is a very real possibility for some. I now really understand the saying, “There but for the Grace of God I go.”