May 10, 2011

The following post -- dated December 19, 2010 -- was something I typed up that very day with the emotions flowing. Writing has become an occupational therapy to combat the depressive ennui of solitude, and calm the restlessness in me. A lot of inmates are on edge and very easily unnerved. Stoicism is not a common trait, they vent any way they can. Juvenile notions of masculinity run like a contagion; almost like some bizarre quasi-religion, complete with its own terminology and rituals. Creating a paradox of being forced into violence,by violence. Adapting to prison life has been a culture shock for me, I was never the criminal type. But, I'm doing well I think....

I try not to sound so embittered in my prose, but it leaks its way in. The depraved environment does it at times, all the continual noise.

The following post, in retrospect, to me seems both embittered and contemptuous. Since then I have completed an 8 week anger management course (voluntarily, I might add), read several books on psychology, and a massive stack of classic literature. Today I started "Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky". With each month that passes I grow both intellect and understanding. The December entry was not posted because of the blog being temporarily pulled; and when restored, I had the decision of whether or not to send it in.

I decided to send it... annotated!

December 19, 2010

Days like this one are the roughest; it's my estranged wife, and my youngest daughter's birthday. All I can do is try and keep busy, so that my emotions don't crash down too low. Another blog entry seems a reasonable thing to do at the moment.

I've actually given the blog some thought over the past few days. What should I post, and in what way? Questions upon questions. I've never been much of a diarist and the whole idea of baring all in an attempt to understand all, was never a part of my life -- as I led a somewhat secretive personal life. So I apologize for my digressive and rambling entries as I search for just the right combination of words that can properly contextualize my feelings and experiences.

What I've decided to do is treat this blog as if it were a column for a newspaper or magazine, I'll even answer reader questions. I can be written directly at:
Johnny Mahaffey
BRCI-323863
4460 Broad River Rd.
Columbia, SC 29210

* As a prisoner of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, SCDC, my address is always subject to be changed. You can however confirm my location at the SCDC web site using my SCDC # 323863.

My financial impecuniousness, legal ignorance, and the immoral collusion between my own court appointed "Public Defender" and the prosecution, resulted in the most ineffectual legal defense I could have ever imagined. A more illustrious "attorney" was appointed, but not until the last minute, and the judge refused her a continuation to prepare for trial. The prosecution, out of fear of a real attorney, pleaded for the judge not to honor my handwritten motion for an unbiased attorney, because the Public "Pretender" was instrumental for the showman-prosecutor's plans. I ended up with both lawyers, and the "pretender" tried to put on a better show in front of the real attorney.

The trial was this terrible, exposed sort of feeling where I was forced to endure an image of me -- that wasn't me. Over ninety percent of what the prosecution claimed, wasn't even true, while most of the remaining ten-percent was made of misconstrued facts and rumors twisted against me. The prosecutor did his best to present me as some inhuman demon of a being void of both moral and emotion, with no right to exist. My side of the story was never told because no one seemed interested in the truth. A demon was in trial for what they claimed to be an unmitigated murder in the highest premeditated degree with malicious intent; all that mattered was a conviction.

My experience has recalibrated something inside me. It's as if I always knew my purpose but tried to ignore it, and now.... I don't know, it's hard to explain. It could just be my stubbornness. But I feel it's something much more, and maybe through this blog, my short stories, poetry, novels, and screenplays, I'll figure it all out.

The thing is, after a situation such as mine: you're still you. But you'll never be the same person, and can never go back. The realization that the life you had is gone sets in hard: I'll never go home, never again kiss my wife, or see my kids come running to me with open arms. My kids -- all five -- are growing at an extraordinary rate as I stay imprisoned, my house has been sold and now belongs to someone else, my estranged wife also belongs to someone else (October 4th of this year, I finally filed for a divorce from her....).

I have no doubt that I will be given a new trial, and be released from prison. I did not do the things the prosecution claimed that I did, and eventually the truth will be realized. At a future date, maybe my next posting, I will explain an issue or the three main ones, that arose during the trial which caused my conviction and brings my case up for a new trial that will have a jury that was not influenced by an outside source on the last day of trial. The wait is because I wish to post actual copies of the appeal, but first must check to see if that can be done. The best way for me to inform you is, I think, to show you actual court documents -- I'll post them all, including the actual trial transcripts if I'm allowed.

My blog/column may seem at times no more than self-scrutiny on the verge of psychoanalysis. While at the same time being no more than a simple juxtaposition of thoughts and reminiscence. A majority of inmates remain perpetually enraged at their imprisonment: I've taken a more logical approach to my situation as I've realized my aptitude for writing and the opportunity to do it at this time while awaiting my new trial. M.I.T. and this blog could not have found me at a better time.

Although extemporaneously written, my entries are not without moral purpose. I believe that a true writer has an obligation to morality (e.g., Salinger, Orwell, Vonnegut).

Think of a college-kid in his dorm room surrounded by cinder-block walls and one small window, buried deep within textbooks and copious notes; that's me. And it's how I view my temporary expulsion from society: an opportunity. I may not be able to leave my dorm -- the prison ironically even refers to them as dorms -- but I have the time to study twenty-four hours a day, which is pretty much what I do. If I'm awake, I usually have a book and a pen in hand. No longer can I remember a day since my arrival to prison that I have not studied and written. I've taken a few different college courses through a correspondence school: Business Management, Creative Writing, and High School Diploma.

Upon being sent to Broad River Correctional Institute, BRCI, I applied to take the test for my GED; but I scored too well on the practice test -- which was an actual GED test -- and they realized that I had some college education. So instead of being put into the GED program as a student, I was hired as a teacher. I was given a classroom with a group of students with about a fifth to seventh grade curriculum. The subjects of focus being English and Math, with a touch of my own: Science.

I had even on one occasion given -- before the entire student population -- a lecture on Cognitive Learning Styles, and presented the students with various study strategies.

Right now I've taken a short, extended break from teaching in order to finish up the final drafts of two of my novels, a short story collection, and a poetry collection. Which have all proven to be a lot more work than I'd originally thought. I'm determined to make what I do matter. I'm a father, I love my children, and I'm not about to leave them empty handed.

Many in my situation would use this blog as an outlet of extenuation, or to pass blame. That's not my intention.

I'll close this entry with a poem of mine entitled:

Inflatable Toilets and Plastic Roses

There's a financial strangulation going on
in THIS very country, and it's
by our own hands.
We inadvertently hand control to billion-dollar
companies that push and kick their way into our wallets.
We don't stop to think: to stop and "smell"
the roses. (As the cliche goes.)
We don't stop to consider Dana's granddad.
The one who runs the old Adam's Hardware --
over on Main and Millgate.
(My examples fictitious? Yes. But serve the point.)
We don't stop to really taste the fake food we buy.
We just buy, buy, buy. As the commercials, and
the ads command us. We don't question Big Brother!

We follow the big lights, the big buildings,
and the big parking lots.
Like flies to a zapper!
Our instinct tells us not to, but our want overpowers
our actual need. The neighbor's TV is bigger;
The new American Materialist can't allow that.
You make how much? You own what? It's not enough.
You need more. You must make more. You must
buy more. Buy. Buy. Buy! America needs you!
You must buy.
We all must buy. Borrow if you must.
We're American, that's what we do.
We consume. It's all "a-okay", there's plenty more.
We push, we pull, we kick, we lie, we now die slowly.
Just make sure to stop and smell a rose --
even if it is fake like a rubber.
You're American, and it's a "Made in China" American Rose.

Notes to Page 1

1/1 Most inmates try to just sleep through such times. My mind races too much to simply ignore it.

1/2 I was pretty excited about the outlet of a blog. Seeing it as an opportunity to establish what publishers call a "platform" for my writing. The inclusion here of my address was before MIT offered to do an actual profile page -- something I'll soon be sending in.

1/3 Embittered and contemptuous prose galore. But still true. I'm still in shock at how cops lie and manipulate in court.

1/4 This goes back to what I was saying in my opening about growing in both intellect and understanding. The scope of my worldview is growing wider and more enlightened.

Notes to Page 2

2/1 My three oldest children are allowed by their loving mother to write me regularly. Their letters are priceless to me. I did file for divorce on October 4, 2010. I did so really more for her -- to set her free. I want her to be happy. It would be good if she'd allow our son to known me, but so far since his birth and the past four years....

2/2 An appeal takes generally one year, and I've seen inmates come in and get one in less. If you have no grounds for an appeal the state will quickly deny it; but if you do have grounds they drag it out for as long as they possibly can. I've been waiting for four years, and am about to enter into the fifth. The state has ordered my case to be briefed; and in the brief it's been found in need for a new uninfluenced and unbiased fair trial on evidence and supporting law that shows the original trial to have been legally a mistrial. MIT does not wish for me to post actual court documents, but in a future essay I will quote from them the crucial parts.

2/3 I'd just read a new issue of Psychology Today, and it shows.

2/4 I just can't sit around and do nothing -- I won't let my kids down like that. They need me out of prison and in their life.

Notes to Page 3

3/1 I'm still working primarily on my novels.

3/2 I just want the whole story out. No more Prosecutorial edits.

3/3 The poem has a connection; Anderson greed.

3/4 $869.30 value, for $89.99? Seriously?