Newsletter #39 June 5, 2000
©2000 Richard Keech
Editor’s note: This was written a couple of years ago while
Richard was in
the L. A. County Jail awaiting sentence. Due to heavy load of
mail to answer
and working on his childhood memoirs, he will be writing Trip
Reports on a
bi-weekly basis. I will fill in with excerpts from letters he
has written to
friends. Also I discovered too late that I had numbered the
previous letter
incorrectly. My apologies. Joan
A MODERN MONASTERY
I have discovered an interesting facet of American life here in
the county
jail. It has tremendous social significance, yet as far as I
know, has been
completely overlooked by the nation’s sociologists.
I find, as I talk with my friends here that I am not talking
with the men for
whom this facility was designed (i.e., criminals). The men I am
talking to
are here because they have voluntarily entered into a monastic
way of life.
They are acolytes in a twentieth century version of a monastery
of the middle
ages.
Much like the monks of the middle ages, these men have
recognised that they
can fulfill no useful function in their own world. So, rather
than be a
burden on their families, they have of their own volition
selected life in a
Monastery as an alternative.
The Interesting thing is, it is not a bad life.
Here in the county jail, their monastery, they will for the
first time in
their lives be treated as equals. They will live as equals,
sleeping in the
same beds, wearing the same clothes and eating the same food. In
Jail there
are no rich or poor.
They will receive excellent medical care and will be well fed.
The jail menu
is nutritious and dietetically well balanced. The food Is
reasonable tasty.
They will spend their days in quiet idleness, eating, sleeping,
reading and
talking and playing cards with their many male friends.
So that all of this does not become too boring they will
occasionally be sent
home, usually after a stay of from six to 36 months.
Back home they will want to help some needy mother add another
child to her
Aid-to-dependent children’s file.
They will want to briefly enjoy their life of freedom, albeit a
short one.
Their “stay on the street” will be mercifully short. If
their stay were to
last for any length of time they would sooner or later be faced
with the
shame that there Is no way they can the handle the
responsibilities of a
normal adult male (a husband or a father).
The fascinating thing here, yet its a bit sad, is that their
women
understand. They know their men can never compete in the real
world.
They are happy for them when they are once again arrested. Their
man can
again stand with pride among his peers. He has returned to the
monastery.
As I talk with my friends I see that they and their families
have quietly
built up a new American sub-culture around this way of life.
The men will come and go throughout the jail systems and prisons
for the rest
of their lives. They can be proud of themselves, though, because
they have
voluntarily stepped out of the race. They are a burden to no one
(except the
state).
The women and children can be proud too.
Since there is no husband or father looking out for them, their
survival is a
credit to their own ingenuity and strength.
When I hear the politicians say “We need more police.’ I
want to say: “You
fools. If you didn’t arrest them these men would turn
themselves In.”
“You are running a Monastery for unemployable males. The
problem is you make
them commit a crime to qualify for acceptance.
Richard Keech
semper fi
http://table.jps.net/~chez/rc/
