For, Richard, Nick, Brian, Mike, Gus, Kelby, Randall, Zucca, Brent, Joel, Damon, Fabian, Tyler, Daniel, Dave, Javier, Derek, Hawk, Joe, GiGi, Derwin, and many, many more.

    “Judge no one, the problem with judging others is all we can go by is their actions. On the other hand, when we pass judgement on ourselves we give ourselves a break, we know our intentions, our own heart, we know nothing of that depth in another.” (Richard usp#25969)       

“You must be finger boy,” the Sargeant said as he looked through the bars at me. “I guess so,” I replied. “Next time keep your hands away from the cell door when you rack in, but I guess you figured that out, right?”  “Yes sir,” I said as he opened my cell and told me to come with him. This guy was a real jerk, but no way could I tell him that. As we walked down the block to the guard shack, I noticed the cell next to the showers was empty. Just the day before a young kid (probably 18 years old) had been in that cell. He gassed another inmate, so they called in the goon squad to drag him out and take him to P.C.  Sometimes inmates will fill a shampoo bottle with feces and urine and spray (gas) it on an unsuspecting passerby. Down at the guard shack we were met by 2 other deputies. One says to me, “hey, I hear the other inmates call you doc, what kind of doctor are you?” I’m a dentist, I replied. The other deputy chimes in with a crooked smile, “so what brought you here mr doc? Did you drug some little kids up and molest them?” As all 3 of them laughed, I proudly said, “no way boss, I’m just a drug addict.” After that he went on to tell me how much he loved opiate painkillers and the buzz he got from them.

Two days earlier as I racked in my cell after putting together some bed rolls for new inmates, I didn’t quite get my hand out of the way of the slamming cell door. These were the old cell doors of wasatch A-west. When they shut and latched there wasn’t much room in between door and steel. Certainly not room for my finger that was now stuck in between. I guess it was a blessing in disguise that the guards left all the windows open as well as the door to the rec yard straight across from my cell. My hands were cold enough that the pain was minimized as I pulled on the door as hard as I could and pulled my pancaked finger from the jam. It was the middle of January and everyone on the block was freezing. The guards were too hot in their heated shack with their Jackets on, so to be more comfortable they left all the windows and the rec door open when everyone in the block was locked down. For 3 or 4 straight weeks the chorus of offenders all around me rang out. “Close the windows!” The answer from the shack was always a loving, “get under your blanket!” “I don’t have a blanket, you only gave me a sheet and I’ve been here for a week, close the damn windows!” This was hell, I was sure.

At night the block came alive, the ear plugs couldn’t block out the wanna be rappers thumping out a rhyme all around me. I’ll never get out of my head the words of the poet ‘Bigfoot’ who’s cell was right above me. I’ll spare you the lyrics, the nastiness still etched in my cerebral cortex 15 years later, over and over and over as he banged on the steel desk attached to the wall of his cell. Finally I cracked, “Bigfoot if you don’t shut up you won’t be getting any clean underwear!” Silence, followed by, “don’t be messin with my chonies doc.” “Then shut up.” The whole block had my back yelling to Bigfoot their displeasure. You see, the laundry man holds a lot of cred in the unit, everybody likes fresh chonies.

The morning after the finger slam when they opened my cell door, I went to work folding the bins of jumpsuits they brought in. My finger was swollen and changing color but I didn’t want to say anything for fear of losing my job. I was a tierman with my own cell, getting out of that 6X9 for a few hours extra everyday was vital to my borderline sanity. If I asked for a medical visit they might fire me and send me back up to tier 2 with a celly. Having a little shred of privacy in this hell hole was something I wasn’t ready to give up. I wrapped my finger tight with toilet paper and then put on a rubber glove. I tore the glove off leaving only a makeshift splint on my damaged digit. Now I just had to keep my doctored finger out of site when the deputies came around.  After a few days the pain and color in my finger was getting worse. I decided I better request an X-ray and exam from the medical staff. After showing one of the deputies, I waited until the sargeant came to get me that morning.

As the Sargeant followed me down the main corridor, he reminded me to stay on the painted line. Lost in my thoughts of hate for this place as we walked toward the infirmary, I forgot I was suppose to keep my hands behind my back, “get your hands behind your back finger boy,” he sharply scolded me. “Yes sir,” as we continued toward the medical unit. When we arrived the clinic seemed to be empty. He cuffed me to one of the bolted rings on the bench he told me was reserved for me. “Sit here and someone will be here shortly.” I sat there waiting and wondering in the lonely silence for a couple hours. I began to wonder if anyone even knew I was there. If you ever find yourself incarcerated you’ll find that not only do the “wheels of justice” move slowly, but so does everyone in charge of your daily fate. Compassion and understanding are non existent, at least this was my experience at the prison in particular. After 4 long hours of waiting I was finally greeted by someone in a white coat. A deputy came in and moved me from the cement bench to an examination table where I was cuffed again. After a quick look with no X-ray, my digit was deemed fine and I was sent back to the block.

I was relieved to not lose my inmate worker status and continued on in another long day in hell. That night I reflected on my new nickname, “finger boy.” These people knew nothing about me. To them I was just another loser, a criminal, someone who deserved exactly what I was getting. They seemed to enjoy the opportunity to attempt to humiliate me and the other inmates whenever possible. They knew nothing of who we were or are, nor did they care. At times the anger would boil up and you want to attempt to explain yourself and how you came to be this person they think they know. “You don’t know me! You don’t know where I’ve been, the good in my heart, the pain of emotion and spirit I deal with daily. I’m a father a husband a friend. I’ve done some good things in my life you know. I’ve made lots of mistakes but I’m human like you and for that reason I wish you could at least treat me with a small portion of respect. If the roles were reversed I hope I wouldn’t act the way you do. I’m not your finger boy punk!”

8 months later I stood in front of judge Hadfield in Brigham city awaiting what would be my last sentencing hearing. It was a relief when he decided to join the judge in Logan as well as Davis county and give me one more shot in the halfway house. This was the final hurdle for me to cross in my journey out of the system. A lot had changed in those 8 months. My days as finger boy were long behind me. I’d found peace through prayer, meditation, repentance and a firm footing in the strength of a solid relationship with Jesus Christ. The stranglehold of addiction, depression, anxiety and sin was loosening. My eyes were finally opened to the goodness of a life lived without these companions I’d ventured with for too long. As I was taken back to the courthouse holding cell I felt free. I knew that with God in my everyday, I wouldn’t fail. It was the best I’d felt in a long time, maybe ever. The claustrophobia inducing holding cell didn’t even bother me, so much that I hardly noticed the disheveled looking fellow sitting in the cell when I arrived. He looked low and worn out, and I avoided his gaze. “Hey Rod, you don’t recognize me do you?” I had no clue, but I said, “I remember your face but I’m horrible with names.”  It’s me, Brent. We worked in Yagi’s onion field together in high school. We reminisced for awhile and he eventually opened up to me about our shared past. I’ve wanted to tell you guys for a long time that the way you treated me out there really affected me, affected my life.”

My summer job during high school was hoeing onions for the Yagi’s out in Corrine. Me, my brothers, some football teammates and a few others made the trek every morning in the back of an old pickup. We’d bring blankets to stay warm and hopefully catch a few more winks on the drive out to the farm. Brent joined us the last summer I was out there, right before our senior year and I think he was a freshman. New guys in the onion field had to go through a bit of an initiation. These days I believe they call it hazing. We all had to deal with it when we were rookies, it was just how things were. Dirt clods can leave a pretty good mark, especially when the varsity quarterback hits you with his rifle arm. Being stripped down to your APG’s and thrown in the canal was part of the ritual as well. We all accepted it as a right of passage, but with Brent it was different. I think this kid got thrown in the canal daily. I remember a snake being involved one of the times. Im sure Brent went home most days with welts on his body from the constant barrage of dirt ammo he absorbed. In retrospect I don’t know how he hung on. We picked on Brent not just for initiation, but ultimately we did it for the worst reason of all, simply because we could. He was an easy target, and I guess we all just thought we were better than him. What we didn’t know was that this mouthy pain in the butt was hurting. He had things going on in his home life none of us had any idea about. Brent was fighting to be respected, but He was just our little “finger boy.” Someone to laugh at, judge and abuse, simply because we could.

Back in the holding cell my feelings quickly changed. The peace and happiness I’d experienced leaving the courtroom was replaced with guilt as Brent shared with me the events in his life over the last 15+ years. He’d been in and out of trouble/jail. He was an alcoholic. He wasn’t trying to blame his mistakes in life on me and the onion crew. He took responsibility, he just told me how it hurt him and how he wanted so badly to be accepted as part of the group. I apologized and wished him well as they came to transport me back to cache valley. I remember that day wrestling with the fact that me and the Sargent at the prison had a common characteristic, we elevated ourselves at the expense of another. It was wrong, ugly, sinful and I wanted to divorce myself from any behavior even close to resembling that gross practice. From that day forward I’d do my best to search out and serve the countless “finger boys,” all around me.
My days at the prison were some of the worst experiences of my life. It was all so foreign to me. The constant barrage of profanity (that eventually became part of my vocabulary), the unbelievable stories of criminal deeds, the disrespect for women, public advertisement of lewd sexual behavior, it seemed as if it was all just normal everyday life experience for these guys. What I realize now as I go and work with inmates at the county jail, is that for many of them, this is how they were raised. Dad’s, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters were doing time in other facilities. This was life as they knew it. These so called, “scumbags,” came by it honestly. I came to a harsh realization, and that was the thought that maybe I’m worse than any of them? I know better, I was shown a better way and yet here I am in the cell next to these guys. They’ve never been shown a better way.

I never heard from or saw Brent again until the summer of 2015. It had been over 30 years since our time in the onion fields and 13 years since our chance meeting in the holding cell. My wife and I were busy building a new house when I received a message from him through Facebook. He’d seen that we were building and wondered if he could help. He was in between jobs and dealing with some probation stuff and needed to make a little money. Our foundation needed some finish work so I ran it by him. A couple days later I was surprised when he showed up with his tools ready to work. Brent spent about a week working on the foundation and anything else he could see needed attention. On my lunch break I’d grab him some tacos and a drink and go out to check on him. We spent a few lunch breaks together catching up on life and most importantly, we became friends. We talked about the onion field, the good and the bad. I was able to ask forgiveness and Brent was kind enough to extend it. We sat there in the dirt again, just a couple of former drug addicted finger boys laughing at life. I felt the sweet satisfaction of forgiveness and love coming from this guy I never would have known I’d hurt so bad. Thanking God again for second chances. I’m just so amazed that the good lord keeps pouring blessings out upon me. This wonderful opportunity to connect with Brent and feel the peace of God working between us. But, how come my life is so good and Brent can’t seem to catch a break?  I feel so blessed and yet it all just doesn’t seem fair.

The changes I’d experienced in my life helped me to see how my actions could negatively effect another. I’d been on the receiving end of this type of treatment while incarcerated. That was just one year of my life, I can’t imagine being raised in the midst of this kind of hell. I think back on all the guys I met on my journey through the system, people who are labeled losers, trash, and rejects by the rest of society. They all have a story, they have good in them, and a whole lot of hurt. I want this type of reflexive  judgement exorsized from my character. It’s something that must be worked at daily, the same as I work on my recovery from addiction. As hard as I work at overcoming this defect of character, it seems it’s a work only God can do. As C.S. Lewis once said, “After the first few steps in the Christian life we realize that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God.” Pray for a miracle I guess, burn it out of me, just like my desire for drugs and alcohol was torched by a power much greater than my own.

I’ve been taught from a young age that everyone who ever lived, or will live on earth chose to follow Christ’s plan before the world was created. That we are ALL spirit children of a loving, eternal God. That would even include all these people I met along the way. The sargeant, deputies, rapists, child abusers, thieves, drug addicts, murderers, even the annoying jailhouse rapper Bigfoot. They all chose the plan presented by Christ. I may have known some of them in that premortal paradise, YOU may have known them. Some of them were born and raised in an atmosphere so totally opposite of what I and others like me were blessed with. Do we avoid them because they scare us? Because they are wicked? Because they use words that make us uncomfortable? Why is my life so easy in comparison to what they’ve endured? Did I earn that in a previous existence as a spirit? I think not. I don’t have answers to these questions, but I do know this, if we only seek out and serve those we are comfortable around, we may never find that person who may need that something special that only I, You, We can offer.   That spirit brother or sister we may have promised to seek out and find while here traveling  through our earthly experience.

We are all essentially products of our life experience. Some of those experiences we choose and some are chosen for us. Some of us humans are born into unthinkable ugliness. Some of us, me included, hit the birth lottery. We end up in places and with people that are good. We are raised with a very definite sense of right and wrong by people who love us, care for us, and want nothing more than to see us grow and be happy. Each of our lives is a story uniquely our own. Stories can change, they can start out beautiful and turn ugly, or they can start out ugly, like this one, but if we choose God, and STAY IN THE STRUGGLE, and by this I mean never quit,never give up, that story can change. I love these men I’ve met along the way, I feel in so many ways that I’m one of them. When I enter the walls of the jail on Monday nights I feel the cares of my world lifted. I feel at home in this place that has become a bit of a sanctuary for me. It’s where I found God and got to know him and his desires for me. I hope my fellow finger boys can do the same.