PICKLED
BY ENRIQUE BAUTISTA
Prison preserves! I have heard that same statement for years. Only recently, I’ve come to realize that those words have been spoken directly to me for a reason — I look younger than my years (sometimes anyway.) Underneath the head, face, and neck tattoos, I look about 25, or 30 years old depending on who’s judging. When I look in the mirror, I really don’t know what I see. I know I see me, but I really don’t feel like a man pushing 40. I still feel 18, though I don’t carry myself that way anymore. The weight of adulthood in prison wrapped heavy arms around me from my first day, making me grow up hard and fast. Some say I’m serious and quiet. Others think I’m funny, but dangerous. Most agree this makes me hard to read: Is he young or old? How old Is he?
I’m still me, but I’ve evolved. I’ve changed. I’ve matured, that’s all. I like to think of myself as good wine, I get a little bit better every year. I’ve been deprived of my freedom for twenty consecutive years yet, my body and my face would give anyone reason to doubt that amount of time, call me a liar. I once heard the term “arrested development” and it caught my attention. It spells out the dilemma of my age, or rather the age that I’m supposed to be. Arrested development means that those of us who led a certain lifestyle stopped growing emotionally at the age we got arrested or came to prison. Little Brad is a prime example. He’s been inside for almost 25 years. Sometimes I’d look at him and see a 15-year-old boy, but his hardened convict reputation proceeds him. He will be 40 when he finally gets to go home, and I wonder how soon or how easy he will adjust to life in the free world. Inside the pickle jar, he still lives in the 90’s. I wonder If outside if he’ll still be a kid — Little Brad frozen in time. Before I got out, I wondered if I would remain 18 years old until the day I released. The spell would be broken and I would be liberated from the nightmare that is prison life.
This doesn’t answer the question: Why do I look younger than other guys my age? Was I stored away like a new toy in its original packaging or preserved like a pickle in a jar labeled D.O.C? To start, I’ve been spared the cursed drug-addicted mentality that enslaves so many young minds and bodies in prison. The place Is flooded with every type of intoxicant anyone can imagine. In many ways, it’s just like the streets, an underworld, a fucked-up community. And yet, there is potential and opportunities. My mind and my body used to be nothing more than a little pile of rock, that the sense of time slowly shaped into a humble, but modest-looking temple. Yoga and meditation … prison preserves, indeed. One chooses to make a different reality. I ate even when the food was no-good vegetables, boiled beyond recognition. Beans and rice so undercooked that it hurt… and overpriced tuna from canteen every other week. It was survival. Nourishment, fuel! I slept while people partied and stayed up in the real world. I had responsibilities in prison, not because they were forced upon me, but because I chose to stay mentally and psychically active. I took pride in my fitness and accomplishments in general, no matter how big or small or remarkable. They mattered to me. Crossfit.
Take note. Not everyone in prison lifts weight, not everyone reads books all day, just like not everyone plays cards and dominos to pass the time and do nothing else. I didn’t eat desserts or eat any soda for three years straight. When I first began my set, I didn’t know that this was a form of discipline. I figured that if I waited for as long as possible, a piece of cake or a nice soda would taste that much sweeter once I was closer to the gate, close to going home. Delayed gratification.
Along the way, I discovered that I didn’t need sugar to survive. Water became my elixir (at least that’s what I jokingly told myself to make light of the situation when I was alone in the hole, hungry with no food to eat.) I hoped and wished it would sustain me. Water became a healthy habit for me, and I see it on my skin. I used to smoke, but I quit. Tobacco kills. It says so right on the label and everybody knows, even if the stuff people smoke inside is mostly A-B-C (already been chewed) from the bottom of a trash can. I guess you could say that it took me long enough to quit, but I did learn my lesson. Why must I do things that are harmful when I already know the outcome?
Sometimes new or older convicts on their second or third trip (back in the system after a short break on the streets) looked at me and thought I was green (new to this penitentiary game, inexperienced.) Soon they discovered my age and found out that I’d been there all along — while they were in and out of prison. Their wrinkles and sunken cheeks, the dark circles and bags under their eyes deceive them. Freedom eroded any trace of youth from their faces. Meanwhile, I’d been preserved by the way I did my time. A man told me with a smile on his face that in prison one must fight to survive or die. He had forty years in and forty more to go. He died of a heroin overdose just a few cells down the way. I wish I could tell Doc that I found another way. I discovered that I could thrive in prison, that I learned discipline and self-respect. It shows in my face and in the way I carry myself. Sure, it wasn’t easy for me but I made it to the finish line — pickled.
