Foreword from Fishkill

"How squeezed are you by its strictures?"

Institutionalized. That’s one of the words prisoners use to insult one another. A lowest common denominator put-down. It means that one has lost a part of oneself, is somewhat less than, machine like, enslaved to, broken. But here’s one thing, as anyone who’s done a serious amount of time in any serious place can attest, we’re all institutionalized. Not just prisoners, staff as well. Where people’s through the institution’s vast bowels, according to a schedule of it’s making, inline with it’s regulations lest we become disregulated… our prison who art in prison, yada, yada,  yada.  (And,  if  you  want  to  get  technical,  you’re institutionalized, as well: school, work, military, marriage.)

Ain’t no machinery like this one, however, the greatest show on Earth. In concrete pits that capture time—that elongated, contort, and compress it—we learn the decades-old jargon in stale cell-block stink, but also on faded wall signage, and in memorandi from the warden. The vibe/institutional osmosis into our viscera. These are “total institutions” (someone much smarter and well-known, if ill remembered at the moment coined that): providers of all services and provisions, and everything not forbidden is compulsory. Think The Matrix, but without the nice gear.

So, once you grant all that, the choice—and there’s always a choice—becomes what do you do within the machine’s confines? How squeezed are you by its strictures? Or are you the one who engaged in a bit of squeezing? Whatever the whatevers look like, no one leaves here unscathed, of that you can be certain.

At this very moment, there are roughly 2.2 million people confined in prisons throughout the United States. You’ve seen the movies—what do you picture that these men and women are doing as you read this? Pumping iron in a crowded outdoor weight pit? Slowly walking in a dusty yard encouraged by gun towers? Playing cards in a dayroom, eating in a cavernous messhall, or working in a steaming, industrial-scale laundry? Maybe it’s something darker than you see: impoverished weapons, gang assaults, rape.

Yes to all of the above, but so much more. And nuanced, too. We—and here’s where I enter this fray—are living our lives, pursuing interests, planning for our future, and freeing over things that go bump in our mental night, much the same as you. The chief difference being that our prison is literal. This, exercising agency is a trickier proposition, but maybe more rewarding, too.

At the heart of the American prison, the more interesting stories are not found in dark corners, but in the light, the beacons of hope that appears as fellow travelers, outside advocates, and transformative moments of self-discovery.

All of that, dear reader, by way of introduction. Since 1999, I have been in prison for murder, a debt the state says is to cost me at least 25 years (my earliest parole date is November 2024), but my conscience assures me that I’ll be paying that off until the grave. Along the way, I learned that the only way forward for me is to serve others, where-, when-, and however possible. Starting in 2010, when I was transferred from New York’s Attica prison to Great Meadow, I began work as a peer counselor and educator. I came in contact with my fellow prisoners with a depth and scale previously unknown for ol’ Adam. I’m that time, I have facilitated (that’s the word we use) 8-week workshops on community re-entry, anger management, pro-social skills, harm reduction, and healing through arts. That has been in good part in general population as well as with those sequestered in the mental health unit. But the thing that has really gotten me in touch with so many is my work in the weekly orientation for new arrivals, a job I’ve performed in three prisons (including current). Tour guide, concierge, and field support are all descriptors I’ve come to use for myself as mental shorthand. In the process, I have learned about the state- and federally- funded program components, “corrections” (a word that should only be deployed with quotes in this context), gained profound insight into the human condition by dint of a modicum of empathy and sheer volume of contact, and experienced tremendous personal growth as a result.

The Squeeze Machine is your peek over my shoulder as I maneuver about several maximum security prisons in New York, and keep time with, to mildly put it, characters of all stripes, classes, cultures, and creeds.

There chapters are populated by young gangbangers, old and infirm prisoners, a trans woman, a man charged with rape, and several men on the mental health caseload, including a twenty-something seemingly on the Autism spectrum. And, because I love him like a brother, included chapters are excerpts of letters from over there years to Anthony, a good friend from our boyhoods in Attica.

I have changed the names of some who appear on these pages. However, I have secured their consent form need to include them, and given then the chance to read over the chapters in which they appear. I am unendingly grateful to them for entrusting me with the stories that form their lives.

My hope for The Squeeze Machine is that it finds an audience wider than my current crew of generous close readers inside prison and out, and that the lives on these pages are. Yes, this is my writing, but it’s more so their story, and I know from experience how much they thrill to seeing themselves on the page.

But what’s in it for you? For starters, upward of 95% of those 2.2 million incarcerated people will be released at some point, coming to a community near you, and maybe it’s a nice little tidbit to learn something of our lives. And for an all-politics-is-local thing, you are likely not more than two degrees of separation from someone who lives in a cell.

If you’re an academic, journalist, or content maker for any streamer, I’d love if you spread this Gospel According to My Friends.

New chapters will drop each Friday. I hope you get something of your time on these pages. Remember, stare long enough and the abyss will stare back.

AR

Fishkill Prison, 2023