"Spiz" Gillispie

I made a guesstimate in my last post about the number of innocent people in prison, and I said it was small. Many people in prison are innocent of the specific crime for which they were convicted and so they complain about the miscarriage of justice that has put them where they are. But it's also true that many people are guilty of SOMEthing if not the crime for which they serve time. To adopt a lifestyle that places a person in the wrong place with the wrong people is a dangerous choice, and many prisoners will admit to that if not to the crime that cost them their freedom. However, were no one ever wrongfully incarcerated, there would be no Innocence Project.

The Visiting Room where I spend time with my son used to display art work done by inmates, and occasionally I would admire one or another painting or collage. I eventually asked about purchasing one. It's what I would call a multi-media piece that was named "America Plastic Wasteland" and it was signed by "Spiz Gillispie."

This man is currently serving sixteen to fifty years for three rapes that happened in August of 1988 and of which he has been found guilty at two trials. A third hearing of his case was recently rejected. According to the Dayton Daily News, "His first trial ended with convictions in February 1991, but he won a new trial after untested crime scene hairs were found at the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory. He was convicted again after a second trial, also in 1991.

No physical evidence tied Gillispie to the crimes. Much of the case hinged on testimony from the victims, who picked Gillispie out of a photo lineup nearly two years after the crimes.

Montgomery County prosecutors and officials with the Miami Twp. police department, which investigated the crimes, are adamant Gillispie is guilty. They point to the convictions in both trials, as well as the identifications from the victims.

For the past five years, the Ohio Innocence Project, a legal clinic at the University of Cincinnati law school that has freed other inmates, has researched Gillispie's case. Former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, now an attorney in private practice, is also working for Gillispie's release from prison, but is charging no fee. Petro has said repeatedly that he believes Gillispie is innocent.

According to Petro and Godsey, Gillispie does not match the descriptions originally given by the victims, who picked him from a flawed photo lineup two years after the attacks."

I have no way of knowing what is the truth in this case, but I know my prayers are with this man and with the woman I saw sitting with him in the Visiting Room. My prayers are also with the women who were victimized, whoever hurt them, because no one is questioning their suffering. It's a sad situation all around, as many are that result in incarceration.

Women Behind Bars

Last night for some reason that I don't quite comprehend, CNN's Larry King did a show from a Maryland women's prison. He featured five female prisoners, a former inmate who is now an actress, and the warden of the prison. I watched the program because I often think ahead to the days when David will be free to have a life partner. He has occasionally said that one of the things he has done right is not to have reproduced, but I am hopeful that one day he will fall in love and be loved back and that at least one child will result. It's a nice daydream, but as I think I said earlier, dreams can cost and for me it's probably not wise to get ahead of today.

Anyway, I do sometimes think about the kinds of women who might love my son. I know very little about those who were in his life in years past so am not sure who are his type. What I am hoping is that he will find a woman who has grown from her life experiences, and if she has spent time in prison, has made good use of the time while not embracing the institutional life. Of the five who were featured on the King show, only one impressed me with that kind of presence. Of course, tv doesn't always represent people accurately and I can only imagine the pressure of appearing on tv as a convicted felon in a prison, so I am aware that I don't really know enough about ANY of these specific women to make judgments.

The one who impressed me the most was Maria, a blonde woman who is serving a fifteen-year sentence for multiple burglaries accomplished with a male who is also serving time. As she and Larry King toured her "crib," and he asked about air conditioning, she said, "No air conditioning. It's a place to get yourself together. When you're here, you realize, hey, I've done something wrong." To me, that's where it starts: with an understanding and acceptance of who is responsible for the fact that one is incarcerated. I'm guessing that only a small percentage of prisoners are wrongfully convicted, even though of course it does happen, and if you're among that group there is no way to make that right.

Several of the women offered "reasons" for their incarceration, including one that amounted to "I have no recollection therefore no responsibility." That woman happens to be very beautiful and has married during her time in prison. She met her husband in the Visiting Room. The women represented convictions for murder, conspiracy, assault and burglary. Substance abuse seems to have played some role in all of these women's convictions.

Later in the program, Maria was asked whether it was true that she didn't feel ready to be released, and she said it was. She went on to say, " Not yet. I know everybody looks at that question and they think, wow. But I think in here you come to a point where you have to rehabilitate yourself, and you know what you need to do to get yourself right. I still have a few things to get right before I'm ready to walk out of these doors." To which, King responded: "Wow. A pretty enlightened position." Maria then went on to say, "Well, I mean, I don't want to ever have to do this again. So you get it right the first time." If that's how she really feels, then that's the kind of woman I hope my son meets, whether she's ever been in prison or not. And I wish for all the women I saw last night a better life and the personal power to make that happen whether they ever see "outside" or not.

Ya Gotta Laff

The life of an incarcerated person is not all grim, even though I'm sure that's what some on the outside are hoping. In my son's case, there are 2,400 human personalities to make life interesting and sometimes funny.

Last week David told me about "the commissary panhandler." Now since I don't know all that much about the actual commissary setup I may not be able to describe the situation well, but what I understood I thought was very amusing. Most people do understand that "commissary" is very important to prisoners. It's where they can purchase those things that ease life, like Little Debbie cakes and other food and sundry items. There is some kind of accounting process where the minuscule pay that prisoners earn is held on deposit, minus whatever is deducted for restitution or other judgments, and the actual shopping takes place about every two weeks or so on specified days. So planning and budgeting skills are learned, although we know that's not necessarily the intent of the system.

As I understand it, the inmates scheduled to shop line up and go past a window where their orders are filled in buckets, behind the glass of course. So one particularly creative and probably impoverished individual showed up at the line with a note. I'm picturing this man saying something like, "Pssst, read this." The note asked that the reader buy extra popcorn for "ONLY 35 cents" and give it to the panhandler. As the line moved and no one was of that charitable a mind, the panhandler just kept on trying every third or so person in line, to the amusement of all who admired his creativity. This is not at all the picture that most people have of prison life, where shanks and gangs and violence and force are the stereotypical norm. But it's human and, in my mind, funny.

The other thing I found amusing that day was the scene of the visitor who apparently wasn't all that welcome by the visitee. This woman sat steaming with her mother-in-law for probably an hour while their loved one could not be located. This is a prison! I'd be agitated too if I were told that David couldn't be located. But what probably happened is that the prisoner who had likely been given a visitor pass and therefore knew he would be paged, thought he could evade an angry and scary spouse by hiding out in some corner of the yard where he could legitimately claim not to hear the page. At the very least he knew he could shorten the visit. As this woman became more noticeably agitated, and as I admired her shoes but hoped they wouldn't double as weapons, the prisoner finally appeared. After suitable recriminations and not more than fifteen minutes later they were all smiles as the obligatory visiting picture was taken. A good time was had by all?

Truth or Consequences

So two visits to David later, I'm back here. The first week in May was a wonderful time to drive through the mountains and valleys and along the rivers and also a wonderful time to reconnect with my son in a way that letters just can't accomplish. At that time he was winding up a series of Hepatitis C treatments but looked very well to me. I do think, and this was borne out by last week's visit too, that his capacity to consume junk food is less. And I was totally amazed that he actually requested a vending machine salad both last time and this.

In between visits David has turned forty. My baby, my youngest child and my only son, is forty. This time we talked some about what was going on in the world in 1968, and I shared with him a little about what I remember about that year. Of course I was pregnant for part of it, but he was born in May, after the murder of Martin Luther King and before the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, both shocking events but especally shocking to a person lke myself who admired those men a lot. There has been quite a bit of public discussion about that year, and most people who were old enough to remember it, do remember it.

1968 was smack dab in the middle of one of the favorite periods of my life. Yes, I was busy, maybe too busy, but it was a good busy and a fearless busy. Although the world and the country were in the midst of turmoil, I never thought that anything bad could really happen to anyone I knew. I was twenty-eight, a mother of four already. I lived where I wanted to live in a house I had visited on my own childhood Hallowe'en nights, one block away from where I had grown up. My children were beautiful, my then husband and I were healthy, our marriage was about what I expected. I had no clue.

Forty years later I am still probably clueless in some ways, but I have lost the ability to trust very deeply. Losses and thefts over the years have taken from me the confidence in my own ability to judge people and situations. That's not just about David. He is only one among many people who have not always deserved my trust. That simple fact is, I think, one of the things that connects me to others in my and similar situations, doing time with a loved one. We hope our current trust is not misplaced, no matter how limited it might be. Personally, I feel reasonably confident that when David tells me something, even something trivial, it's the truth. I know he is motivated to live with rigorous honesty by his own spiritual health. He has come to understand that piling up deceptions just walls one in, sometimes in a place that is hellish.

One other prisoner that David and I often see in the Visiting Room is about as prolific a liar as I have ever seen. I first noticed this young man about two years ago, and he was explaining to his parents about the privileges he had earned: among other things, a plum job and a bunk where there was a 24-hour cereal bar. Really. Few people could make that up, but given prison budgets, it takes more naivete than even I have to believe the part about the cereal bar. In my state of South Carolina, it was recently reported that the daily food allowance for each prisoner is $1.43. That's about the lowest in the nation, but Ohio's budget issues are not different enough ever to have permitted round-the-clock buffets of any kind.

Since I first noticed the "cereal bar liar," I've paid attention to the body language of his parents, and last month I thought to myself, "Even his Dad can't take it any more" as the man got up and took a walk in the aisle. Last week I noticed that his mother had her arms folded across her chest for the entire three hours of the visit. But these people love their son, whoever he really is and whomever he presents himself to be, and they visit faithfully. My prayers are with them and with all those who are doing time, inside the bars or outside.

(t)he (b)ox

Four times a year, David is allowed to receive a sort of CARE package, not to exceed 30 pounds. The number of boxes is decided according to security status, and they each can contain only food items or only what are considered "sundry" items. Initially, he was not allowed to receive anything, so when he was tranferred to a less secure status facility a number of years ago, so long ago that I don't remember exactly when, he gained that privilege.

The first food box contained a lot of cheese, some pizza makings, some chips, some canned meats and fish and ravioli, some microwave meals, some cookies and some candy and the all-important-to-David flavored coffee and creamer. Over time, David's requests changed as we learned what shipped well (the potato chips, not so much) and as he became more conscientious about his diet. I think too that the overwhelming temptation to eat too many sour Skittles resulted in mouth suffering that he decided just to avoid altogether. For me, it was a pleasure but also a challenge to assemble The Box, written with initial caps because it was so important. The restrictions as to weight but also as to carton size and to limits on numbers of products and to type of product package (plastic versus glass, see-through versus foil) created some anxiety. I usually bought too much and had to calculate and substitute, more than once in the parking lot of the post office. And one time the entire thing was returned to me because it was overweight by a few ounces. Then it was a scramble to put together another box and get it mailed by the last day of the month because boxes could only be received during certain months.

The early sundry boxes contained audiotapes (because at that time CD players were not allowed), clothing, slippers, pens, blankets, towels and I forget what else. Again, subject to strict rules about numbers of certain items, color of clothing items, etc. It took several tries to get an acceptable pair of "shower shoes" through. One pair were considered "sandals", which are not allowed. Along the way as David got more into school and had to have a typewriter, it became a thing to find ribbons and correction tape. And many times it was just impossible to get new audiotapes. When see-through CD players were finally permitted, it became easier to find the music he requested.

So with all the rigamarole involved in assembling The Box, you might think I'd be happy that the whole process was changed last year to eliminate the home-assembled packages. The way it works now is that there is a corporation, Keefe, that supplies many prison commisssaries and now is the sole provider of food and sundry boxes to inmates in many states, Ohio among them. Obviously, this eliminates a lot of security issues for prison administrators and staff since they know the source of the package and its contents and the limitations are built into the ordering form. It's a lot easier for the sender of the package too because the corporation website is very easy to navigate and there is no need to worry about finding the size box that will fit through an x-ray machine. The thing is, though, that I miss the ability to give my son a chance to choose what he likes from a wide variety of items, and I resent feeding what is very much a prison-industrial complex.

It was bittersweet fun to walk the aisles of Wal-Mart and Target looking for the right style and color of t-shirts and shorts and underwear and shower shoes and linens. It was a loving challenge to seek the unusual music David requested, which he now buys through a catalog when he wants to treat himself. And it was satisfying to get The Box on its way once I was fairly sure that the weight and everything else would meet approval. And then there was the enjoyment I could imagine David having and sharing as he made outrageous pizzas in the day-room microwave.

However, I always knew the day would come when I couldn't physically lift the bulky package in and out of my car and so ordering (t)he (b)oxes, no longer worthy of initial caps, with a few keystrokes and a credit card is probably an improvement, I still wish I could send David some Boboli pizza crusts or the special blueberry coffee creamer he covets. Typical of the way he thinks these days, he says that at least now he doesn't have to hurry and overeat perishable cheeses before they spoil. Sometimes he has a much better attitude than I do.

And then there is fear.

A disturbing part of doing time with a family member is that there is fear involved. The person you love is locked up with some very dangerous individuals, even if he or she is not particularly dangerous at this time. To some, my David would seem dangerous. His conviction is for multiple armed robberies, and it doesn't matter that he did not use a real weapon. He intimidated his victims with the threat of one. They were undoubtedly terrified. So now he lives with men who have used all manner of force to get by in life. That reality terrifies me, and so I avoid watching most movies and tv shows about prison life. Recently, though, I saw a series that was shot at Holman in Alabama, and I found it more like what I have seen than some of the very dramatic depictions of incarceration that are out there. The reality though is that my son lives with more-than-average danger every day and night.

This week's local news brings that reality to the forefront of my brain. There are two terrible stories of criminal behavior. One concerns the rape and murder of a 78-year-old woman, so goodhearted she was known as "The Angel Lady." The young local man who killed her has pleaded guilty and will likely spend the rest of his life in some prison. The very fact that a human being can behave in such a bestial way is very upsetting. That a human being with such capability might share a dorm or a cell or a shower or a toilet with my son is beyond anything I want to contemplate.

The other terrible story is that of a man who was already incarcerated in a medium-security prison, as David's is, and who apparently couldn't take it any more and so victimized a female prison employee for hours, raping her at least three times. He says he was hoping that the guards would kill him. "Suicide by cop." Never mind the negligence of the prison for allowing her to be in a positon where an inmate could find her alone or where an inmate, like my son, would be trusted as this man was, the man himself took the action.

Who of the men living with David might take similar action today? My hand is over my mouth to stifle my scream. And yet I know, and have said here, that nothing in life is guaranteed. That's the terror of violent crime: you usually can't see it coming, and while we know it's out there, we aren't ever ready for just how bad things might get. Father, take this cup from me and bring me thoughts of a sunny day. Fear and faith cannot live in the same space.

"Hon"

Finally success in the reservation department. Yesterday I got through on my first try just after 10 a.m. And I got two all-days together. I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that the Visiting Officer who answered the phone obviously recognized me. She even called me "hon," as in "You're coming from South Carolina, aren't you, hon?" But this is part of my journey: to learn to look at my life as it is not as it started out to be.

In the many Al-Anon and Nar-Anon and Families Anonymous meetings where I have tried to rearrange myself into an accepting and serene person, I have learned that "The Dream" is the hardest thing to give up on. I fought it every step. And finally I came to the understanding that substance abuse by other people is a reality in my life and that I chose it. At some level I always knew that David's father was a reckless person and that he drank too much. He was a poor choice to be my children's father. I was too young and naive and, yes, prideful, to face what I was doing. My father didn't speak to me for months after I said I wanted to get married. I was just twenty then. He said, "A million bucks worth of brains down the drain," and then went silent.

I've had plenty of time to ruminate on all this, and to learn not to judge, not to blame but instead to pray for acceptance and humility. I've also learned to look for the lessons in life. So it's fine that they know me at the prison, and it's even better that there is mutual respect between me and the prison staff. I know their jobs are not anyone's dream either.

Two days to be with my son. Yes!