From Fed Med

     On an early fall evening in 2022, I was sitting in the corner of the backroom of indoor recreation, catching up with my friend Mike, the drone of the overhead air vent creating a sound shield around us, or so I thought. I must have made a passing reference to a college memory to him, one I have now forgotten. As we packed up to leave, a man, bespectacled in dark rims and moving with the aid of a walker, approached me. He said “Excuse me, I overheard you mention you were in college. I'm looking for someone to help me with a final project I have to write.” Upon entering prison, I had promised myself to help others with the skills I have as a former English teacher; I agreed immediately. That chance encounter began a collaboration and friendship with Donnell Harris, a man with a radiating smile, a talent for storytelling, and a drive for self-improvement. As I've helped him with his G.O.G.I. project and listen to his story, I recognize a man who has walked down and thro...

     Fed Med, the U.S. Medical Center for federal prisoners, is filled with the sounds of stories. They circulate in the air of the yard, the chow hall, indoor rec, dayrooms, hallways, and dorms. Some tales take minutes, others seemingly hours, to unfurl for their audience. Guys recount events from just hours before; others retrieve and dust off experiences decades prior from memory’s vaults. A few are solicited. Most are freely shared without prompting. Like all of humanity across the millennia and continents, the men at USMCFP are homos narrativus at their core. We tell stories to teach, to impress, to injure, to create, and to fill the voids of endless time. Guys enter prison as tabula rasas, blank slates, their true pasts. only known to themselves.      For those who've been down a while and made the rounds at other compounds, their story isn't fully theirs to tell. Others they've bumped into in the system can weave as many threads into their public nar...