I’ll Never Get Out of Here with Two Life Sentences

Andrew Krosch describes a recent parole board hearing he attends, knowing full well there is nothing he could say to get out of prison given he has two life sentences.

I’ve been locked up for a quarter century. All in the same stretch, in the same state. I have two life sentences. The facility I currently call home was actually a pretty big deal when it first opened in 1982. State of the art. Shaped like a donut. Built in a hole in the side of a hill. One way in. No way out. They called it a supermax at the time. All these years later it’s still in the same hole in the same suburban hillside but there’s little to suggest that anyone still thinks it’s super, or even max anymore. Just prison. Home. For over a decade now. I’m going to see the board today so they can tell me what I already know — that I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

The meeting takes place in a small utility classroom directly across a narrow hall from Control Two. The Bubble. The hub of a small hive; less than five hundred prisoners total. Inmates going about their day travel the central corridor. They pass every few minutes. They can see into the Control Two classroom with an effort. It’s an odd angle, through a window, the security bubble in the way.

The lifer review board is seated behind a narrow folding table with their backs to the door when I arrive. They are the associate warden, a program director, and my case manager. They know me. I know them. We all know I’ve got a smart mouth that gets me in trouble on a regular basis. They’re casually dressed: slacks, faded jeans, polo shirt, cozy sweater, low heels, sneakers, sensible flats. I’m wearing the same thing I always do: a pair of gray sweat shorts I bought off canteen a couple years ago, a state issue blue button up shirt and state issue white tennis shoes — Rawlings. I really should break down and buy a decent pair of shoes one of these days.

“Come in.” One of them points to the lone chair across from them. “Please sit down.”

I sit. Bounce my foot.

“We’ll be with you in a moment.” There are folders, a couple pens, and a leather day planner on the table between us.

I’m here for my twenty year review. It’s my first time. I’m a couple years late. Covid. We’re a small state, with a small prison population, somewhere around ten thousand, less after Covid. Which explains why these reviews are still a relative novelty, even though the “new” life sentence with its thirty year minimum has been around almost as long as this hole in the hill. Today’s mostly a formality. It’s the twenty seven and thirty year marks that will determine if and or when I’m ready to start my second life sentence.

My caseworker kicks things off. “Any plans for yourself?”

The only thing that comes to mind is that I hope I don’t look as stupid as I feel. I’ve known this was coming for a while but I also knew there was no way I was ever going to be ready. When your life is on the line — theoretically anyhow — what the hell are you supposed to say? To paraphrase the late great Bruce Lee, the plan is to have no plan. I.e fuck it, just wing it.

What’re they gonna do, kick me out of prison?

I address the floor. The one under my feet. “I’d like to buy a vowel.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head. (A pardon, wouldn’t that be nice.) I bounce my foot some more.

“How about resources?” My caseworker frowns, shuffles folders. “Contacts?”

The chair I’m in is not uncomfortable. My caseworker is easy on the eyes. The questions are basic. Simple. So why are they impossible to answer.

The associate warden smiles. “Support systems play a huge role on the outside.”

The outside.

The Great Outside.

I’m still bouncing my right foot. I put my hand on my knee to stop it.

Outside resources, outside contacts, outside support.

I open my mouth. Let rip. What sounds like nonsense is all that comes out. I talk about how the “outside” is just about the last thing you want to spend any time thinking about when you’re doing double life in prison, all of it measured out in neat little thirty year blocks. Thirty. How old I was when I caught the case. Plus a thirty year sentence for first degree murder. Plus a second thirty year sentence for a second first degree murder. Then I’m saying something about how no matter what, it always adds up to ninety. Ninety. Ninety. Ninety. About how the whole thing, how my whole life has begun to feel like an elaborate farce. A reading for a role I never wanted. One big joke, just a joke, if not for the cost in lives lost and ruined. A wild left turn and I’m speaking about the psychological impact of fast food culture and iconography on learned helplessness, social mores, values and emotional development; diving into detail, no relevance, coherent point, or pathway back to the matter at hand anywhere in sight. Things only get worse.

My mouth eventually stops. I can tell by the looks on their faces that I’ve been rambling, even worse than usual, that I lost them somewhere near Neptune and they no long have the slightest clue what the hell I’m talking about. My foot is still bouncing, oblivious.

Calling what follows an awkward silence doesn’t even begin to cover it. Someone sneaks a look at the day planner on the table.

Someone else mentions “skills”. An attempt to put us back on track.

Skills.
Education.
Being prepared for life after prison.

So I start babbling, again.

About skills.

About how it took me weeks to figure out how to operate something as basic as our JPay tablets with ” Android” format.

About education.

About how I do read. About how I read somewhere that the brains of livestock, sheep, chicken, cattle and the like have, shrunk exponentially over generations. About how this is because they never have to think about how to survive and provide for themselves. (Sound familiar?) About how I know how much my own brain has shrunk. About how easily I’m overwhelmed when my routine is jarred even a little. About how I have to fight to hold onto what little sanity and stability I do have. About how the chaos of the Covid actually helped, a little. Sort of. About how it made ANY dependence on a set routine established over years into a daily roll of the dice. A crap shoot. About how these years long routines that kept me stable suddenly became a routine. A routine of broken routines. About how I’m still a mess. Adrift. About how I probably need to shut up now.

And about being prepared for life after prison.

About how, more often than not, it takes everything I’ve got left just to make it through another day in here. To prepare for what? About how every day in here I need to be prepared so I don’t lose it. About how every day I need to be prepared so I don’t snap the fuck out at any second. About how every day in this fucked up place I need to be prepared so that I don’t go and do something else. Something else really, really fucking stupid… Again. And what about how they can prepare to take this meeting and shove it up their ass. About how they can go ahead and prepare to go fuck themselves silly.

But, for once in my life, I’m prepared to keep my own council and keep my mouth shut. I keep these last, closing thoughts about preparations to myself.

At least my foot isn’t bouncing anymore.

The board looks bored. They stack up the files and folders scattered on the table in front of them.

We look at each other, at the clock, around the empty room.

They’ve run out of questions.

And that’s okay — we all knew coming into this meeting that I was never going to be able to give them the kind of answers that they’d want to hear anyhow.

###

 

Andrew Krosch

Minnesota

 

The post I’ll Never Get Out of Here with Two Life Sentences first appeared on Prison Writers.