We had a (P)roblem.

From the beginning the fight against Covid-19 felt akin to many I've had in prison; up close, intimate, deadly, and unavoidable.

I know plenty about these fights. I've been a prisoner for over 25 years. When Covid-19 first snuffed Fishkill Correctional Facility, I led my people people as the Chairman of the Inmate Liaison Committee. The pressure to step up and advocate was crushing me and hurting our community. Despite being a hurting people, we persisted onward.

We were a people that was use to fighting while engaged in constant struggle. I couldn't promise my people a cure. But I could damn sure give them a feast.

The (P)eople

Covid came to kill my people almost a year ago. As I write this, its 2021. Time aren't any better. I had stumbled into the ILC Chairman spot. Then the pandemic fell into my lap. I did what we do at the bottom. I shook out for the people.

2000 people live and work at Fishkill. The overwhelming majority are prisoners. They elected me to represent our community issues and concerns to the prison administration.

(P)romises were made.

The administration typically authorizes the ILC to provide at least one special meal for the population annually. Covid brought that custom to a sudden and complete stop. It wasn't personal. It was a policy fueled by panic about the pandemic. The prison's pandemic response had depleted the resources that had been set aside for that purpose. Still, it was yet another thing taken from the prison population. Yeah, it hurt.

(P)olicies

I understood the administration's stance on fiscal responsibility. That was their sworn duty. My oath and obligation isn't aligned with a policy. I was moved by the hurting of an already oppressed people. I took action to keep at least one promise made to us.

I convinced the administration that the pandemic had already taken too much away from us. Visits with our loved one were suspended and commissary items was rationed out. I knew it wasnt personal. We wondered why we still felt like punks?

My victory with the administration came with a caveat. They allowed me to provide a feast for the prisoners, but the ILC was broke. The committee's funding comes from the proceeds of the visitors food and beverage vending machine. With visits suspended until further notice, the ILC had very little left in our fund and absolutely no money coming in.

(P)ower, I had some. They gave me some more.

I refused to believe that I was powerless. My favorite educators had taught me better than that. These people invested in me because they believed when this moment came I would use everything they taught me. I summoned my courage and pressed the administration. I made them feel the hardships of my people. At this meeting I furthered the physical distance between us in respect for our common enemy Covid. I then disrobed my prisoner's persona, including my mask, and presented just me, the man to them. I showed them the common prisoner's truth.

In seeing me, they were denied the documents, photos, and reports that they used to shape their opinions about us prisoners. Instead, what they saw was a man trying to do the right thing by everyone the best way I knew how. I showed them the personhood of every prisoner in Fishkill. I wore a ragged beard, worn out flesh, and eyes too far away to see any hope. I showed them what we see at the bottom every day, and more vividly since Covid.

They were career prison administrators. I watched some of them become bosses over the decades. Yet, at that meeting we were allies trying our best to save ourselves and our Fishkill community. I wouldn't be lying if I told you that some of us sipped on tears of compassion and empathy before the decision was made.

The administration sat me down and cracked open the books. I saw almost everything. They carved out a piece of the budget just for me and pushed it across the table. It was more resources than I've ever had at my disposal.

"Here, this is yours. Now be gone and get busy. Feed your people. Oh, one more thing, Mr. Arthur, don't play with us. We'll smoke you." One of the administrators said.

(P)romises, I had some of my own to keep.

If my people were just fighting Covid alone, the pressure to provide relief wouldn't have seemed so intense. The sudden social and behavioral switches pressed us. Social distancing is nearly impossible in prison, so we feared contamination. We feared not having the means to fight for our lives on a biological level. There was also the mandate of ultimate dominance over a vulnerable population of prisoners, through pain and control, that existed long before the pandemic began. These factors, along with radical new safety constructs in place, made the entire situation psychologically brutal.

Meanwhile, our collective consciousness was clapped on by news feeds, volatile politics, and historical global protest. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many others who looked like us were being assassinated in free society by law enforcement. We couldn't help to wonder if we were next. The prisoner population needed a win. Or, at least a win to keep fighting for. My supporters layed in the cut. They were watching to see if I would rise to become an agent of change. Or, would I continue to keep falling into my dark past?

(P)ersonal (P)ressure, that's what I felt to keep a promise that a good man had already died for.

A man who had kept his promise to help me see my potential was killed. I'm serving a 25 years to life sentence for his robbery and murder. I am ashamed, so sincerely sorry for my actions. It was his promise to me that strengthened my continued promise to him, to not let his legacy die with the bad choices I made. I would make things happen in honor of Jonathan Levin. I had some questions though.

He was a young (P)rophet.

One answer I needed come from the mouth of a young goon. I looked at the young prisoner with gratitude and wonder. I imagined it was how I looked when Jonathan offered his friendship to me 29 years ago.

"We want curly fries and ice cream", said the young prisoner.

His child-like request moved me. It was perhaps the last bit of his youthful innocence he had left. And he had just forfeited to me. In his plea I saw the youth I once had when I first came into the wastelands.

The buck fifty scar on his face, still too young for a razor, made me curl my fist with anger. I would keep the promise to provide a feast especially for him. Jonathan would understand why. Hopefully, the young prisoner would too. From compassion I committed my sins. The bosses would probably ask me some interesting questions. I didn't break any rules or regulations. I definitely toed the line, maybe even tight roped it, but never once did I cross it.

(P)ast (P)problems, I learned from them.

"Let them eat cake."

In saying this, Marie Antoinette had basically said fuck the people. The people responded. They promptly rose up and killed her in October of 1793.

In April of 2020, the ILC was as broke as the court of Marie Antoinette. That's about where the comparison stops between her and me. Who would imagine that during a pandemic in 2020, prisoner like me would do on the micro level that which Marie Antoinette, with all her poise and privilege, failed to do in the macro.

Calamity provided an opportunity for me to act, and I did. Another powerful woman would show me how.

My former mentor, life coach, sometimes harshest critic and forever friend Sarah G, rescues food and repurposes it to food insecure people. She's a policy woman. Finally hours of listening to her lecture about policy , food pantries, and politics paid off. I easily understood the power dynamic and the labor involved. I needed help. I chose to empower the people to help themselves.

(P)risoners are (P)eople and not (P)roperty.

I gathered some goons, hustlers, and thugs. Let's just say, they're good at their day jobs. I recruited people who could figure things out. In classrooms they teach you things. In cells we learn how to get what we want by getting around those things.

We assessed the money situation and schemed on all of it. One of the hustlers broke it down like this.

"We have enough to barely feed the prisoners. Or we have more than enough to feed everyone. That's your two options."

I only had to consider the math from his perspective for a second before I agreed. We brought in the swindlers and spinners and told them to start spending. I figured if anyone could get us the best deal for our money, it would be professional cheats and scammers. I was right.

We made (P)urchases with dignity and (P)ride.

We brought curly fries, sheet pan pizzas with extra cheese, 20 oz snapples and chocolate sprinkle sundae ice cream cones. We had enough to feed "every person" in Fishkill that day. We trimmed the budget so fine and got the best deals that we were able to do it twice. Just a month later, we provided another feast. That time around, we brought subs with all the trimmings, chips, cookies, half pints of ice cream and sodas. The ILC had provided food in abundance for the entire Fishkill community.

Covid was still kicking our ass. Our prison was pressed on all sides by social unrest. However, on those two days we were able to put all that on pause. On those two days we remembered that we were all the same people fighting a common enemy. We enjoyed our communal feast as a community, although six feet apart. Somehow we had grown closer despite yet another social barrier placed on us prisoners.

The (Ph)east

No, its not spelled this way. Okay, I bent the rules of grammar just a bit to make it work. Great chefs do it all the time. Plus, by bending the rules, we fed "everyone" at Fishkill twice during my first ILC Chairman term. Now I'm back for a second term to do something better.

(P)olitician. Not quite.

I keep my promises.