Historical Summer 2015 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Dear Uncle Zeke, I’m sorry that I’ve been so remiss in writing. One would think that I would be needing distractions in my cell, but the time passes quickly. Given that I only have an hour outside each day, I have a routine that lets me keep some semblance of sanity.
In a way, being in solitary confinement is easier because I don’t have to listen to cellmate’s bad jokes or intervene if fisticuffs break out.
It does get lonely, I’ll grant you, so thank goodness for my portable radio and Rush Limbaugh.
Now there’s one smart, fair, middle-ofthe-road commentator!
I wish he’d run for president.
I developed my daily routine in year four. Or maybe it was year five?
The years sort of run together, Zeke. Honestly, I never thought that I would get sentenced for 20 years simply for making small pieces of art! Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Why does some art get put in museums and people pay to see it, while my art gets put on the evidence stand and I pay a score of years for producing it?
To be fair – and working at being fair is one of the ways I keep my sanity – I recognize that people’s opinions of art vary. What you may think is beautiful or provocative, I might think is trash.
In my case, what I considered my art – tiny portraits, printed over and over again – the feds considered postage stamps.
They admired my depiction of the Statue of Liberty but refused to see the 49 cent phrase as a humorous statement. And for the life of me, I can’t explain how the adhesive got on the back of my pictures! Mom told me that you weren’t going to be able to make it to the trial, and I understood. You were at my previous two trials – I still don’t know how a pile of counterfeit $100 bills got in my copying machine! – and I appreciate that effort. Besides, you didn’t miss much; this trial was almost over before it started. How could I have known that the guy who wanted to buy my stamps, I mean my art, was a fed?
He was wearing jeans and a Rolling Stones t-shirt, for Heaven’s sake! Is nothing sacred? Back to my routine.
After breakfast, which truly doesn’t take long, gruel goes down pretty quickly, I’ve been working on doing headstands. Rush was talking about the importance of getting out of comfort zones, and I thought, “I’ve never done a head stand, so why not?” Well, it turns out that there’s a good reason I’ve never done a head stand.
First, it’s hard. Second, when you finally do succeed, everything is upside down!
The blood rushes to your head, your hair feels like it’s buzzing, and your feet start swaying the wind, even though there’s no wind.
After getting this down pat – or maybe it’s up pat? – I’ve learning to walk on my hands.
I can make 17 trips around the perimeter of my cell without getting tired. You know me, Uncle Zeke, I can get addicted to foolish things pretty easily – did I tell you how great it is to listen to Rush Limbaugh? – so I limit myself to 60 minutes of head-standing each day. Since there’s not a whole lot do to in my 12×12 cell, I’ve become pretty good at this.
Some days I can spend more than 50 minutes standing on my head. You know, there’s no real reason why Canada is above us.
I mean, who says that north is up?
After my bodily-kinesthetic head-standing, the rest of the morning is devoted to trying to train the ants that are in my cell.
With the help of my trained ants, I have a tiny 3-D printer at my disposal. It’s pretty quiet so I use it from midnight until about 6am, ’cause that’s when the guards are sleeping. I’m working on making a body-double, a doppelganger for me so that the guards won’t miss me when I slip out through the loose bricks and escape through the narrow corridor leading to the prison Starbuck’s. I’m also making a replica of the secondshift guard’s head.
My plan is to walk on my hands with his plastic head on my feet, and no one will take a second glance.
I hope to make the break on July 4.
I figure there will be enough distractions then that no one will see me leaving and the plastic body in my cell will give me a day’s head start.
I feel badly about abandoning my friends, the ants, but with me gone, they will have more gruel.
After a stop at the Starbuck’s, I’m heading directly to the Limbaugh for President Headquarters. Is this a great country, or what? See you on the streets, Zeke, and let me know if you want to buy any cheap stamps. – Hawkeye
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, Summer 2015.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2015_06.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
