Throughout these next few posts, I am going to talk about the bunkies I have had throughout my incarceration. I have little funny things about each, with a side story here and there.
I’ve had 15 bunkies all together in my six years in the BOP.
The first one I mentioned in the last post, when I first got released onto the compound they told me to report to B unit.
I only lived in B unit for about a month, but right when I got there, they informed me that I would eventually be sent over to F unit as that is my designated unit, they just didn’t have room at the time.
So I was in B unit for about 30-40 days and I lived with a gentlemen who slept all day and stayed up and read all night. He was a Vietnam veteran and he had done at least 25 years of the 60 plus years he had been alive incarcerated.
He had stories from war to life in the BOP, which of course, I enjoyed listening to because I was newly incarcerated, and I figured I could learn a thing or two from someone who has done it for so long.
He had crazy stories and plenty of paperwork to verify much of the information which he showed me persistently. Most people in the unit thought he was a nut, but I enjoyed his company, and he was very friendly to me.
When I moved over to F unit, we exchanged information and talked a couple more times during the rare sightings of him outside his unit.
When I moved over to F unit, I was directed into this back room that must have been a pool room at one time as the signs on the wall indicated so, but it had been converted into a room for eight more cubes, which housed 16 inmates.
The room was a little more secluded than the rest of the unit of which was very open. Many people who lived in the unit for multiple months didn’t even know the room existed, so we felt privileged to have a little added privacy.
I lived in this back room for a total of 15 months and had four different bunkies in that time. The first was Dave, an old farmer from Iowa. The back room was filled with ten brothers and six white boys from all over the country, and most of them had a decent amount of time under their belts and were a pretty wild bunch. And when Dave first walked in, before I moved in, he received a very cold greeting.
He later knew why, they thought he was a sex offender since most of them are profiled to be old white men with no tattoo’s, which described Dave to a T.
So I guess Dave said…”I see the way you guys are looking at me, and I want to let you know I have news, paper articles about my case, I have white-collar charges, and I am not what you think I am. I will have my paperwork sent in immediately.” And I guess the guys were relieved they didn’t need to act further.
When I moved in, Dave said the same to me as I was guilty of giving him the same look.
He was a great guy, though, and did what he could to fit in with the wild bunch that occupied that back room before he moved to the RDAP unit.
One funny story about Dave is the countless times I almost kicked him in the head when I would be woken up for standup count. For months I would fall asleep before count, which was at 9 pm eastern time, and when they would wake me up, I would barrel roll off the top bunk and almost kick Dave in the head and shoulder my locker violently before coming to a stop.
The backroom loved this, of course, and thought it would be funny if they started doing it to me at different counts like the midnight count that doesn’t require you to stand. So the cops would round the back corner, and all the lights would be out, and the guys would wake me up, “NOAH, NOAH, GET UP IT’S COUNT TIME.”
Sure enough, I engaged in their new favorite party trick, and they would erupt into laughter. Usually, cops included. I finally freaked out, as I grew tired of it, and they decided not to do it again.
The next bunky I got was a random and probably the only one I disliked, and maybe I just didn’t give him a chance. However, the one thing I will not put up with is bad hygiene, and this one stunk.
He was also sick when he moved in, so that didn’t help, but after a week of him not showering, I had had enough, and I let him know it. I told him he is a grown-ass man, and I shouldn’t have to tell someone much older than me how to take care of himself. I told him you need to get in the shower, you need to wash your bedding as you have been laying and sweating in it for a week straight, you need to wash your clothes, I shouldn’t have to smell you, and if you can’t do that you need to talk to the counselor and get moved.
He was on the change sheet by Monday, and I never spoke to him again.
I probably could have handled it in a better way, but I let the frustration build-up, I didn’t manage my emotions, and I reached a boiling point, and I snapped.
After that was Mook, and I’m not sure what his real name was, but he was a nice enough guy from Ohio or Indiana, and we got along just fine. One funny story about when I was living with Mook was an underwear incident. I had just got out of the shower and I came back to the cube threw my underwear on the floor and had to run somewhere quick. I wasn’t gone long, but when I got back, my underwear was missing.
So after a little while, when by bunkie Mook came back, and I asked him if he had seen them and he said oh shit, I thought they were mine because I was doing laundry and I thought I dropped them on the floor.
I said no big deal, can I get them back, he said sure, the problem was he was wearing them. I laughed, of course, he was embarrassed, and I didn’t mention they were dirty underwear, as that would have made his skin crawl.
Eventually, a bottom bunk in the back corner opened up, and I decided to move back there, it was just kitty-corner from my old bunk. My new bunkie’s name was Shaggy, as he had long hair, and what do you know, so did I.
Some people called me Shaggy as well as I usually kept my hair somewhere around Justin Bieber’s old length, and people also called me Justin Bieber’s older drug addict brother. So the two Shaggys were now living together, and they also called us Laverne and Shirley. (Which I just recently saw a picture of those two in a magazine, and I also realized they are females, and our haircuts were very similar, so that made me laugh).
Shaggy laid in bed all day reading Jack Reacher and Lucas Davenport novels and ate fried rice every other day. A month before I left for Yankton, I was moved to E unit, which was the gate pass unit.
The gate pass unit housed inmates that were out custody and eligible for camps; this meant they could go outside the fence during the week to work on the outer compound and staff housing.
I never went out on gate pass in the month I lived in E unit, but I did enjoy the unit very much. The bunkie I had there I enjoyed a little less, but he didn’t smell as bad as the one I had in F unit. Right when I moved over there, however, he came into the back room, where I had just lived for the previous 16 months and complained to a homeboy of his, not knowing that they all knew me.
That conversation obviously made it back to me in the form of, “Hey Noah, how is your new bunkie? I think he is a little racist, watch out!”
I guess he used some colorful words to describe me, referring to not wanting to live with a white boy.
There was tension in the cell for the first week, and I finally just asked him if he had a problem with me? And he told me he did not and that he just wanted someone else to move in, and then they moved me in. I told him I wasn’t going to be there long, and if he could just put up with it for a short time, we can both go on our ways, and after that conversation, the tension was reduced and my month in E unit went on without any major issues.
That is it for my bunkies in Milan; I will talk about the ones I have had in Yankton next.
The thing about bunkies is you don’t always pick them, and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t. You might not get along or vibe with them at all, and that is okay. You just have to find one you like and ride it out as long as you can until the next move is forced upon you, then you start over again. After a while, you know what kind of person to look for and what kind of person to look out for, so that is probably why it was all smooth sailing for me after a while.
Thanks for listening!
Noah
