The prison of the mind is a familiar catch-phrase, but what happens when the bars are steel? Jeff Dietrich’s spiritual journey took him into a real cell; his story, Reluctant Resister (Unicorn Press, 1983), takes us with him.
Dietrich, a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker House, was arrested in October 1979 for participating in a non-violent protest outside the Military Arms Bazaar in Convention City, Anaheim, California, and sentenced to an unusually harsh, six-month sentence in the county jail.
These letters from prison, to his wife, Catherine, document his thoughts and experiences during the 59 days he actually spent in confinement, first in the county jail, then on “the farm.” (The judge, who had originally doubled the jail time recommended by the district attorney for Dietrich and fellow-protestor Kent Hoffman, finally relented, moved by their sincerity and commitment and by the enormous public reaction to the sentence.)
We’re thankful to Unicorn Press (P.O. Box 3307, Greensboro, N.C. 27402) for permission to publish these excerpts from Reluctant Resister. In an afterword to the book, Daniel Berrigan writes:
“The crime of the author is precisely that he chooses to remember. He is arrested for possession, so to speak, of . . . memory. His memory forbids the great refusal. He refuses, that is to say, to forget — who he is, where he comes from, what his task in the world is, what traditions, symbols, sacred beliefs, community ideals and ikons press on him. Such a refusal, in a culture dedicated to instant forgetting, is of course misdemeaning, if not positively felonious.”
— Ed.
November 2
Dear Catherine,
This evening I washed the smell of fear from my undershirt, even as I tried to wash it from my own body. Furtively and quickly I washed, not out of modesty, but out of fear that someone would observe my small, spare frame. I feel like a tiny rabbit among so many hungry hounds.
The clanging of metal upon metal, my heart jumping each time — will I never have courage? The cold cement against my feet; the piercing draft working its way through thin blankets; the swaggering braggadocio of the inmates — life is indeed cold and hard and brutal. At this basic level, any act of kindness is an act of courage, a gift of gold, like water in the parched desert.
Today while I was working (I am a “runner,” or errand boy, for Deputy Jones), Jones gave me a cup of coffee. I was profoundly grateful, not just for the coffee, but for the recognition of our shared humanity. So I waited until no one else was around and shared with him my apprehensions about new living conditions.
“Oh, you’ll be O.K. in Tank D. Don’t worry. If you were a young kid or if you were black, you might have some problems, but you’ll be O.K. If you should have any problems, though, let me know on the sly. I know the deputies up there and I’ll try to fix things for you without the other inmates finding out.”
My apprehensions stem from the sudden realization that I am very obviously the smallest and weakest guy in a tank with 40 others.
Very little in my past experience has prepared me to deal with the raw, brutal, macho lifestyle of the jailhouse. “If they talk shit, just talk shit right back to them!” Can you imagine talking shit to guys with 20-inch biceps? That’s how I measure the relative security of my environment — by the average size of the biceps and forearms. As I progress into the upper levels of the jailhouse social strata, I am convinced that there is a definite criminal morpho-type, and it’s big and wide at the shoulders! Definitely not the Bill Rogers or Frank Shorter type that I strive to emulate.
I deliver food to the men in the hole and those in isolation cells. I smile at them and try to say something to them like, “How’s it goin’?” or “How are you?” It sounds so inane, considering the starkness of the environment. But no one has spurned the proffered kindness.
So far, the weight of the sentence has not borne down upon me. I’ve been too busy being scared about each new change in the environment and whether or not I would survive. I continue to survive one day, one hour, one minute at a time. I pray unceasingly, I pray continuously. Not for world peace or social justice. I pray for survival. I pray for mercy. I pray for courage and strength, a touch of kindness, an inkling of compassion. My life has never been so completely out of my control. I have never been so completely in the hands of the Lord. I am closer to the poor and powerless than I have ever been. It is not a position I relish. I would not choose it freely. Clearly, I am insane, or under the influence of grace. I pray ceaselessly: Lord stand beside me.
November 3
Dear Catherine,
“Do you have a degree or something?” asked Tim. “I mean you don’t seem to fit in here. You look smarter than everyone else.”
Found out! Well, I try. God knows I try, but I can’t get the swagger down. Somehow, it doesn’t look right on me anyway. The shoulders are too narrow, arms too small, no tattoos. A Chinese dragon, anyone? Or a swastika, or perhaps the Virgin or a skull?
I try to make myself small, so I won’t be seen, blend in with the environment. (No, just trying to melt into the wall.) But my job puts me right out where everyone can see me on the way to chow.
I can’t talk in the low conspiratorial whispers, unintelligible grunts between clenched teeth, lips not moving so the guard won’t notice. “Whatcha say, Ramon? ’S happenin’, hombre?”
I am doing it all wrong. I smile when I hand out bedrolls: “Welcome to the County’s free hotel.”
“How about a little chef’s salad?” I say when I help hand out food to those in isolation cells. “They just forgot to put in the ham and cheese, but the lettuce is guaranteed to be fresh, about two weeks ago.”
I threw out the Merton book. Too pious and Catholic. It does not nourish me. I’m reading Berrigan. Some of it is O.K., but much of it is dated, very rhetorical, and full of grandiose hopes for youth and resistance and Simon and Garfunkle. Nothing to get your teeth into. But Niebuhr’s Beyond Tragedy! That guy is deep, uncompromising, without illusion. The world will always crucify goodness. Every movement that takes power will ultimately oppress. Even the poor are not exempt.
If we ever have illusions that love and non-violence will carry the day, then all we need to do is go to jail to have those illusions shattered. The world is based on power, coercion, force. It is hard to see this on the outside because we think that men’s lives are directed by reason. But here, most pretensions of civilization are stripped away and the fist and the club rule. I do not believe we can change it. The human heart is corrupt and deceitful. Only by God’s grace will the world be transformed. I continue to pray.
For years I have prayed for humility, a virtue which does not come easily to me. But this process of stripping away leaves me with nothing. The years of study, work, travel, aesthetic sensibility, organizational skills, leadership abilities, openness, enthusiasm, count for nothing here. I can’t even perform a simple task like serve food the right way, or make my bed properly, or keep from losing my towel.
I am without virtue, without ability, without any other resource but God. Thus I pray: God give me strength. God have mercy on me for I have sinned.
I think of you constantly, Catherine. I know that my life is full of grace. Otherwise, I would never have found you. I would have moved through life without purpose or direction like so much flotsam and jetsam.
If we ever have illusions that love and non-violence will carry the day, then all we need to do is go to jail to have those illusions shattered. The world is based on power, coercion, force. . . . The human heart is corrupt and deceitful. Only by God’s grace will the world be transformed.
November 7
Dear Catherine,
Taking each day as a separate event is not so bad. It only gets bad when I think of all the days all together; the weeks, the months become oppressive. Four months — that was almost as much time as I spent in Europe before I came to the Catholic Worker. That was such a long time. So much happened, so much changed in my life. Four months — a lifetime!
Funny that before now writing has always been a chore to be avoided. But now there is nothing that gives me more pleasure. When there is nothing else to do and no one with whom to share your thoughts and reflections, there isn’t much choice. Also, the enforced discipline of the situation, which is virtually monastic, almost requires that one become more focused and introspective.
Each event that happens becomes more significant, bathed as it is in the light of reflection and introspection. The other day some fellow inmate was riding down the escalator, singing “Day by Day,” as it echoed and reverberated off the walls of the stairwell. Even though he couldn’t sing at all, it seemed a profound, almost holy experience.
Speaking of holy experiences, part of my job is serving lunch and dinner to the “In-Cells,” those in protective custody — sex offenders, gays and snitches — the rejects of the rejected. We also serve soup and two slices of bread to the guys in the hole. Today there were seven of them. I thought I would at least try to smile and be cheerful while I served this meager fare, as I am the only human contact they have. But the door doesn’t open. A small rectangular window below waist level is pulled down and the bread and soup are set there. A single hand reaches out and the food is gone. No hello, no thank you, no contact, no human warmth, no communion. Surely, man does not live by bread alone. Never have I been moved so passionately by the sight of a single hand. All I could do was silently pray, and the words “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others” took on a new significance. I had finally reached, within the secret recesses and labyrinths of this jail, the silent center and perfect still point of human suffering. Behind those thick steel doors, entombed in concrete, curled in a tight fetal position on a cold metal bed, lies the suffering body of Christ.
Where, in God’s name is his compassionate and faith-filled Church? Where are the priests to minister to his wounded body? Who will bring the sacraments to the wretched and rejected? Who will roll back the stone and enter the tomb? Who will bring the Good News of the Resurrection and Christ’s eternal love to rekindle lost faith, lost hope?
Do not the cries of the suffering and rejected ones pierce the very concrete and steel? Have you ears that do not hear, eyes that do not see? Is your heart turned to stone? Do you stand before us as the judges do — cynical, haughty, powerful — and deem us unworthy, unfit to be a part of his Church?
It’s scandalous. Half of the people in here must be Catholic, yet there is no priest, no Mass, no sacraments! Woe to you who minister only to the rich and are unmindful of the poor, the sick, the prisoner.
November 11
Dear Catherine,
“As long as we remain sheep, we overcome. Even though we may be surrounded by a thousand wolves, we overcome, and are victorious. But as soon as we are wolves, we are beaten: for then we lose the support from the Shepherd who feeds not wolves, but only sheep.” (St. John Chrysostom from Thomas Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)
Yesterday, three or four guards were asking me if it was worth it to be in jail for so long. “It’s not gonna make any difference, you know, No one cares.”
There was no pragmatic answer that I could give them. “I honestly don’t know if it will make any difference. But is seems important to do the right thing no matter what the consequences.”
“You don’t know? Hell! I’d sure make sure that I knew before I gave up six months of my life.”
I thought about saying more, but how could I talk about something as ephemeral as God acting in our lives, or intervening in history. At such times, these sentiments ring too loudly of foolishness and absurdity. These men want to hear about results — mass demonstrations, political candidates, election returns, not the “foolishness of God that is wiser than the wisdom of men.” How do I speak about the necessity of making personal sacrifice? Man is so hardened, so barbaric that only the spilling of blood, the sacrifice of human life can move him to change. Change does not come from the barrel of a gun or the decrees of the legislature. It comes out of suffering and sacrifice. And so it goes . . . the ancient ritual is played over and over again. Birth, death, resurrection. The light shown in the darkness and the darkness overcame it not. Only the sacrifices of the innocent victim will suffice.
In small measure, I am now participating in that ancient drama that is both immanent and transcendent, both in history and out of history, and finally makes history. I am completely conscious of the fact that I have taken on the archetypal role of “innocent victim.” I am being punished, but I committed no crime. In fact, I have done a service to mankind. I am a prisoner, but I have no guilt.
It is a game that is both exciting and frightening. It is the ultimate game, because at its more intense levels it doesn’t allow for any “time-outs.” It’s not often that people in our culture have the opportunity to immerse themselves totally in an experience, to become one with that experience. In fact, our way of life is designed specifically to prevent us from having anything close to an authentic experience.
We are so afraid that we might experience suffering, misery, poverty, death that we have built buffers against these things that keep us from experiencing joy, happiness, satisfaction, transcendence, life and ultimately keep a lot of psychiatrists employed.
My father left $40 for me which brings my account up to $47.35. I have trouble spending that much money on the outside. If I don’t smoke or buy candy, there’s nothing else to buy here. Oh well, I’ll take you all out to dinner when I get out.
Catherine, I love you.
This only have I learned: Risk all things for the truth. Risk love, happiness, security, and public esteem. Nothing else matters but the truth.
November 23
Dear Catherine,
Yesterday, we had a big Thanksgiving dinner. It was good, too much sage in the dressing and too much ginger in the pumpkin pie, but everything tasted fine and there was a lot of it. We were given extra time to eat it, and if you liked to smoke there was a big cigar waiting for you as you left the chow hall.
But it was a very sad experience. I wasn’t depressed or anything. It was just such a poignant reminder that a celebration is more than just material abundance. Celebration comes from the hearts of the celebrants. It is more than sharing food and drink. It is sharing each other. When there is no community, there is no celebration. To break a dry crust of bread with loved ones is a greater celebration than sharing a banquet with those whose hearts are closed.
This does not mean that community cannot happen among strangers, merely that an atmosphere of oppression and alienation does not readily lend itself to effective community. It was a hollow holiday.
I haven’t really come to terms with how I feel about jails in general. When I was younger and a more faithful adherent of anarchism, I was totally opposed to jails and police. As I grow older and recognize my own shortcomings and failings, I am much less critical of the imperfections of our society. I think most people in here probably should be on the streets. About half or more are here for drugs or drug-related crimes. That’s a conservative estimate. Certainly I feel the need to remove from society those who commit violent crimes — armed robbery, murder, rape, and drunk driving. This is not the environment that I would choose for such people. It only reinforces their alienation, negative self-image, and brings further education in criminal techniques. However, I don’t see that the answer is building better jails.
At one time, I thought that the emergence of a utopian classless society wherein the wealth would be equally distributed was the answer. But even in Utopia, there would still be some rules governing basic acceptable modes of human conduct, in other words, laws. Further, there would be sanctions against breaking these rules. The sanctions might be less oppressive, more socially productive, less alienating than the present ones. But ultimately, force would be required and some type of segregation would be necessary for social deviants.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to think that I am a pessimist and deny the efficacy of building new institutions simply because they will also be corrupt. Certainly I think the relative justice of our system could be improved. Along with murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and drunk drivers, I would include in the jail population bankers, politicians, military officers, landlords, corporation executives. There I go building more jails which is the beginning of the end of my utopia. We must begin with the recognition that all human justice is arbitrary, relative, imperfect, and tends to reflect the prejudices and power of the ruling elite. We can and should continue to struggle for a more perfect justice, recognizing at all times that we suffer from the same myopia as the rich, powerful, and oppressive. We think we are right. It is more important to be humble. Righteousness breeds pride and pride breeds contempt.
We continue to struggle for a more just society knowing that it will not be perfect. Which is why we must stand always with the victims — the poor, the imprisoned, the oppressed. We cannot build the Kingdom. We can only offer a vision, a symbol of the perfection that is to come. The victims are not perfect; once they attain power they become the oppressors.
There I go philosophizing again. I don’t even know if what I just said is at all coherent.
There are two doors leading into the chow hall. One at the bottom of the stairs and one at the top. In order to get into the chow hall, one must wait for the deputy sitting in the guard bubble at the end of the hall to open these doors from his electronic control panel. When he “pops” open the first door, there is a sharp crack as if a pistol had been fired. It is echoed and amplified by the cold, hollow emptiness of the stairwell. This sound is immediately followed by the much louder exploding sound of the upper door blasting through the empty still air. These two sounds are for me the very apotheosis of the jailhouse experience. The icy hollowness produces a sensation pregnant with dread.
I never really was cut out to be a criminal. I guess it was my upbringing. The depth of my honesty is not nearly so great as my fear of being caught. I am basically a “scaredy-cat” and a “kiss-up,” which makes it difficult for me here in jail because the main occupation is “getting over on the guards.” “Getting over” means smuggling past the guards anything you’re not supposed to have, which in here is just about everything. Most everyone is expected to “play” to some extent. Well, of course, being a “scaredy-cat” and embarrassed at the prospect of being caught, I would prefer not to play. However, I do try to fit into my social milieu.
As I think about it, I am actually much more suited to civil disobedience than criminal activity. In c.d. one sets out to get caught, so there is no fear or embarrassment.
I also give some thought to being a “trustee.” Which means that I am actively supporting the jail system. If I were a better anarchist I would not participate in this form of slave labor. On the other hand, Gandhi always said that the civil disobedient should be a model prisoner and further should gladly accept the lowliest job in the jail. In many ways I am not really anti-authoritarian, so the Gandhian approach appeals to me.
December 3
Dear Catherine,
. . . Lately, I have had this premonition that we would be getting out of here sooner than we think. Maybe not, it could be just another fantasy. While this thought makes me very happy, it also gives me some cause for concern. There seems to be some process at work within me, a purging, a deep growth in understanding, a separating of the wheat from the chaff. It is as if an enormous search light has been turned on within me and so much that was obscure is now bathed in light. I wish with all of my heart to be out of here and reunited with friends and family, but I do not wish to truncate that process. And further, I fear that the intensity of my realizations and perceptions will diminish considerably when I leave this place.
The experience is much like fasting. If one does not eat, one is obsessed with food and even the thought of a simple crust of bread produces ecstasy. But after a few days of normal eating, our sensitivity to the joy, mystery, and power of food is diminished. Our senses are inundated by the sheer volume of the possibilities.
So it is with jail. I know that the joy, mystery, and power that I have perceived in the world beyond these walls will quickly recede before the onslaught of daily existence. I feel such a clarity of vision that, at times, it gives me an almost physical sense of excitement. This gift of sight is only occasionally imparted to us. The muddied waters of our life are made clear for a brief instant only to be just as quickly obscured in the tumult and turbulence of our daily lives. On the basis of that brief insight, we are invited to act. Do we have the courage to act out our visions?
Last week there was a young man in the hole for about four days who came most clearly to my attention because he was such an anomaly. Most of the people in the hole at any given time are Chicano. Probably about 95%. Mostly they are hard-core tough guys who are relatively stoic about their condition. Mr. Branstader was another story entirely. He was a tall, thin guy who distinguished himself by his constant whining and “sniveling.” Every time the deputy was around, he complained about being too cold, having nose bleeds and seizures, not getting his medication, going crazy, and on and on. Certainly not your typical tough resident of the hole.
Then one day he wasn’t there. I later found out that he had been transferred to an even deeper hole that I have yet to see but is famous in jailhouse legend — the Rubber Room. The Rubber Room is a padded cell with a hole in the middle for relief of bodily wastes. No toilet, no sink, no bed. The prisoner enters without clothes. It exists primarily for therapeutic purposes, preventing the inordinate from harming themselves. However, it is apparently used on occasion for purely punitive reasons. While I thought that Branstader may have been something of a neurotic “mama’s boy,” his behavior didn’t seem to warrant such action. One day I finally asked Chips how such a guy like that ended up here, much less in the hole. “Didn’t you know that Branstader is charged with murdering his mother?”
Behind those thick steel doors, entombed in concrete, curled in a tight fetal position on a cold metal bed, lies the suffering body of Christ.
December 14
Dear Catherine,
. . . On Monday my prayers were answered in a manner of speaking. On Monday Sonny came into our lives. Sonny invaded the kitchen, the dorm, the jailhouse itself. He touched our drudgery-filled, loveless lives and filled them with joy and jive talk and song, quiet and bluesy like Ray Charles, most appropriate to our present environment. Wherever Sonny is, he fills the room with his presence. He is a giant of a black man, six feet five inches high, with arms bigger than most people’s thighs and a chest like a 50-gallon drum. At 40 years old, he is a little past his prime, his gut sags a little and his pectoral muscles have drooped into small tits. But he is still a large, powerful man. His laugh is loud and his smile a yard long. Though he is always talking about his life and his experiences, I feel that he is deferential and considerate of others, not at all the braggadocio street dude that we so often encounter in our work. On his right arm is an amateur tattoo. It says, “Mr. Clean, quiet and mean.” “My partner put that on me while we were doing time in the South Island brig. Toughest brig in the whole Marine Corps. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it. Makes this place look like a Sunday school. I used to shave my head so I looked like a black Mr. Clean. That’s why my buddy put it on there.
“Joined the Marines when I was 16. I started young.
(Apparently he started young in a number of areas.) I got nine kids and sixteen grand-kids. Not all by the same woman, of course. It was four different women. Messes a woman up to have too many kids. Sure enough. It does.” Now that’s what I call a considerate man.
Sonny said that at one point in his life he used to be a con man. “You know, the three-piece suit and briefcase number, where they thank you for takin’ their money. None of this strong-arm shit.” I can certainly believe that. After the first 10 minutes in the kitchen, he was running the place. The deputy in charge was taking orders from Sonny as he whipped up some “Louisiana stew.” “You ain’t got any oregano. Man, you gotta have oregano. It brings out the flavor. This stew gonna make your mama cry. You ain’t never gonna wanta go home again. This ain’t no jailhouse stew. I put my feet in this stew. It got soul, man.”
Everyone in the kitchen heard over and over that his stew was something special, and soon the word spread quickly throughout the jail, until we had 10% more than expected for dinner. Sonny served the stew and sang its praises to each and every inmate. “This ain’t no jailhouse stew. I cooked this stew. Here lemme get you some meat.” I tasted it myself. It was O.K., nothing special. But such an aura had been created by Sonny that people were actually coming up afterwards and thanking him and complimenting the stew.
One day while looking at his enormous arms, I asked Sonny if he had ever been a fighter. “Oh sure. I was Battalion Champion in the Marine Corps.” Sonny still makes his way by virtue of his physical prowess. “My last job? I owned my own collection agency. Now don’t get me wrong. I didn’t go after the small flakes. I only bought accounts of over $25,000. It was a pretty good living. I just tell the flakes that I have an 85% collection rate. I don’t threaten them. That’s against the law. I just tell them that I don’t go to court. But I always collect. The ones that don’t pay don’t have the money.”
The thing that I most appreciate Sonny for is that he rescued us from the dreaded “Gang of Three.” I also call them “Los Tres de Barracks.” They are recent graduates from the Orange County Youth Authority camps, where they majored in the three R’s — rowdiness, rudeness, and roughness. They have decided to do their postgraduate studies here at the Theo. Lacey Institute. Every evening they practice their lessons in a very loud and unruly manner here in our barracks, disturbing the otherwise tranquil environment. No one really wanted to challenge them because it meant taking on three at once. On his first night here, Sonny was very tired, so he just said, “Hey man, pipe down. Some people have to get up at 3:00.” Total silence. I watched the whole scene, smiling inwardly, looking out from under my blankets like a little gnome. “And justice shall triumph.” Generally the barracks has been calm ever since, except when Sonny takes a shower and sings “Cryin’ Time.”
December 14
Dear Catherine,
I just finished my journal entry and mailed it. Went to take a shower. Standing under the hot stream of water, my body felt rejuvenated. Sonny’s strong baritone bouncing off the white tile wall, he sings a concert of songs for me: “Moonlight in Vermont,” “Stardust,” “Misty,” all of the old big-band songs. What a rare gift to be standing naked in the shower next to this great bear of a black man listening to his beautiful voice, while steam swirled around us and the water beat on our bodies. I felt such a sense of brotherhood. “Oh sure. Music is my life. I sing at all of the local clubs around here. But here, this is my theme song: ‘Mama may have, Papa may have, but God bless the child who has his own!’ You know, that’s true. When you got it, everybody is your friend. But when you ain’t got it, nobody is your friend.”
Sonny just got dressed in his blues and splashed on some aftershave before going “out on the town.” That means you are going to watch TV. Before he went, he just gave me the most incredible lecture on his philosophy of life, for about 45 minutes. I won’t give you all the details. It was basically that if people are fuckin’ with you, then you be nice to them until they figure out that they are being assholes. “Like when the deputies start pushin’ me around, saying do this, do that, I just say yes sir and run and do it and then I ask ’em what else they want me to do. They expect me to rebel and when I don’t they just stop messin’ with me. It’s the same thing with that judge. If you hadda yelled at him and called him an asshole, he woulda kept you in here. But you didn’t. You were just nice and quiet and took it and just gave him time to think about what an asshole he was being.”
December 17
Dear Catherine,
Each new day is a victory. Each new day a challenge and a joyous struggle. I feel stronger than I have ever felt before. On a purely personal level, this has been such an emptying process. One thing only remains to be confronted. I pray for the courage to face this thing in truth. I pray constantly that truth will guide me for this is what I have found within. After stripping and stripping away layer after layer, at the core is God — the light of truth. It is what I have called that cold hard place — where we are totally alone, totally empty, totally dependent upon God. It dispels fear and weakness. It sees all things clearly, risks all for this alone: the Truth.
I almost fear what awaits me beyond these walls, beyond this barbed wire. Oh God, I pray, let me walk in humility and truth. This only do I know. This only have I learned: Risk all things for the truth. Risk love, happiness, security, and public esteem. Nothing else matters but the truth. We cannot know the truth except in humility.
Copyright © 1983 by Unicorn Press, Inc.
