Scenes from a Prison Dream

*Recent dream recreated from notes and memory and punctuated for narrative effect. Any resemblance to real people or actual events is purely coincidental*

I was sent to prison on a technicality. Apparently the now defunct college I was working for last winter was involved in some dubious financial practices and when it folded, all of us former employees were convicted of insider trading. Ouch.

I bore my incarceration as stoically as possible. Taking a page out of the Avon Barksdale book, I resolved only to count the first day and the last day; no use worrying about what you can't change. Prison wasn't so bad. I seemed to spend most of my time wandering around the common areas (cafeteria, exercise yard, etc...) and trying to avoid any confrontations with my fellow inmates.

The food was terrible. At one point an inmate who bore a striking resemblance to this kid Matt I had 10th grade gym with offered to make me a sandwich out of some substance he called "yurt." I was grateful and offered to supply my own bread. He looked annoyed and made me a sandwich using his own bread.

Dream yurt tasted just like tuna fish. I don't eat tuna fish and ended up throwing the sandwich out. I rummaged through a refrigerator looking for something else. I couldn't find anything, so I picked the yurtwich out the trash and ate the soggy bread. Being a vegetarian in prison is hard.

At some point I was raped by a short, unshaven man with long, greasy hair. It wasn't so bad, just another unpleasant but inevitable part of life inside - the prison equivalent of paying taxes or getting a cavity filled.

I think the rape even broke the ice with the other prisoners. I heard a rumor that the greasy guy was planning to rape me again. I went to his cell to get it over with and he was face down on his bunk with a shiv in his back. I had friends, apparently.

I stood watching some inmates steal a basketball from the juvenile inmates we shared recreation space with.

"That's terrible," I said to my friend, who looked like Portland Trailblazers center Greg Oden, only with beaded cornrows.

"Hey, man, you know you'd do the same damn thing if you was out there," dream-Oden replied.

"Half those kids are bigger than me," I gestured at my skinny, suddenly shirtless chest for emphasis, "If I was out there, I'd be the one getting robbed."

"Hehe, you right, boy, you right," dream-Oden chuckled, "Fuckers'd be ON you."

Inside, I smiled. His approval meant a lot to me.