Matthew Mendoza was awarded third place in Drama in the 2020 Prison Writing Contest.

Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population.

This piece is also featured in Breathe Into the Ground, the 2020 Prison Writing Awards Anthology.

WHAT’S PRISON LIKE?

PROPS
3 plastic chairs
3 pairs of handcuffs
3 belly chains
3 ankle shackles
3 canvas jumpsuits

Rope can be substituted for the cuffs, shackles and belly chains.

CAST
Bannon – Woman
Inmate Lincoln – Black Male
Inmate Wald – White Male
Inmate Rodriguez – Brown Male

SETTING
Three chairs on an empty stage
The lights flicker.
A woman, Bannon, stands.

BANNON
Excuse me?

Suddenly, three inmates in ankle shackles, belly chains and wrist restraints quick-step down the center aisle. One of the inmates is Black. One of the inmates is Brown. One of the inmates is white.

It is important that the play starts with confusion and urgency.

The chained inmates race down the center aisle. RODRIGUEZ tumbles. The other two inmates, LINCOLN and WALD, weave around the fallen inmate and hustle up onstage.

Onstage are three chairs: one red, one white, and one blue.

Wald slides into the red chair, Lincoln into the white chair, and Rodriguez finally makes it to the blue chair.

BANNON
What’s prison like?

RODRIGUEZ
S’OK. Not too big a deal. Just time. It ticks.

BANNON
What’s prison like?

LINCOLN
You ever been to prison?

BANNON
No. But…

LINCOLN
(Sharp.)
No. But. What?

BANNON
Nothing. I just meant, what’s prison like?

LINCOLN
Right. Prison is everybody’s against you. Just like in the world except no pillows. Understand me.

BANNON
What’s prison like?

WALD
I’ll tell you what prison is like. Prison is like Christmas. Remember the Christmas when your mind still wanted Barbie or a bike or whatever-the-fuck game system but your body was socks and underwear and clothes for school. Prison is a box full of shit you don’t want and can’t do anything with. A routine that dulls you down into a slow burning stupid. Fuck prison.

BANNON
Oh. What’s prison like?

RODRIGUEZ
S’OK. Some big motherfuckers.

WALD
Big motherfuckers.

LINCOLN
Big. Bad. Motherfuckers.

RODRIGUEZ
No tamales, though. Or tacos al pastor.

Bannon, Lincoln, and Wald all look at Rodriguez.

LINCOLN
Right. Tamales.

RODRIGUEZ
What? Christmas means tamales to me. Fuck prison.

BANNON
Prison is a chance to make something of yourself.

LINCOLN
Prison is knowing what’s right for you and not being able to do anything about it.

WALD
Prison is, I’ve been locked up so long, I can’t even remember my victim.

LINCOLN
I’ve been locked up so long I don’t even remember my homeboys.

RODRIGUEZ
I’ve been here so long I don’t even remember my victim.

Lincoln and Wald nod.

BANNON
Is that what prison’s like?

RODRIGUEZ
Prison S’OK. I don’t understand the classes. I don’t understand the teachers. They said ESL. I thought she said d’esel. I thought I could be a mechanic or a plumber or an electrician. Something for my hands to do.

WALD
Prison is lies and hurt and humiliation and more time. You know what there was to do where I grew up? Be poor and watch everybody on TV be rich. Hollywood is glamour and boobs and lies about we’re just like you. The closest thing to Hollywood for us was: get drunk, smoke ice, and fuck. Thirty-eight percent of my county is on probation, parole, or in prison. Twelve points off half. What? Tell me I’m lying. Fuck. I love sex, drugs, and rock & roll. It just hasn’t worked out for me.

LINCOLN
I don’t want to just get by. Sit in my house and wait to die. I’m a nefarious-ass dude.

RODRIGUEZ
I want to watch TV with my wife. Rub her pregnant feet. Get an American job like cut grass or cook in a restaurant.

BANNON
What’s prison like?

WALD
Prison is knowing you’re going to come back.

RODRIGUEZ
Prison is knowing you’ll never get to come back.

LINCOLN
Prison is knowing I won’t come back. I can’t. On everything I won’t.

BANNON
I don’t know if I know what prison is like.

WALD
Prison is knowing your old lady is fucking somebody else but being cool with it because she sends you money for ice cream and root beers and shit.

LINCOLN
Prison is knowing that the lady guard you got putting money on your books is broken and crazy and dangerous but not really caring because sometimes everybody needs a pillow.

RODRIGUEZ
My cellie has green eyes como un traffic light.

LINCOLN
Right.

RODRIGUEZ
(Counts fingers.)
No soy un sorrio. No soy un jakal. No soy una puta. Comprendes? Everybody needs a pillow.

WALD
I got a pillow. My memories. If I didn’t have my memories, I’d put vaseline on the bottom of my shoes and a sheet around my neck and kill myself. I would. What? You thought I’d say my kids, right? Nah. They don’t even know me. At a visit, when she was little, my daughter asked my old lady, “Is he my daddy, too?” I just sat there. I ate my chips, drank a cold soda. Finally, I said, “Yeah, baby. I’m your daddy too.” I don’t get a bunch of cold sodas.

LINCOLN
I don’t get a lot of visits. I got too much family locked up.

RODRIGUEZ
Mi familia visita. I told them, “Usa el carro, not the coyote!”

BANNON
What’s prison like?

WALD
I run around here like a clenched fist.

LINCOLN
Everybody’s against you. Nobody’s for you. But I have dreams. I’m gonna change the world. Have businesses. A thuy in a suit. Nefarious MFA. The Art of War. Laws of Power.

WALD
Prison Rules.

RODRIGUEZ
In my country, there is this place que tiene las mariposas. How do you say, the mariposas? The little insectos con the colores wings?

Rodriguez thinks on this.

BANNON
What’s prison like?

LINCOLN
Sports and gambling. That’s how I do my time.

BANNON
What’s prison like?

WALD
Books and sleeping. That’s how I do my time. I’m really into Karen Russell right now. She’s… I don’t know what she is, but she’s what’s up.

BANNON
What’s prison like?

RODRIGUEZ
(Remembers!)
Butterflies! Every year. Billiones de butterflies!

LINCOLN
Butterflies. Right.

WALD
Butterflies feast on shit.

RODRIGUEZ
And are still so beautiful.

BANNON
I still don’t know what prison is like.

LINCOLN
Here’s what you do. There’s this dash-n-ditch on Ledbetter run by this little Asian man. Walk in there with a gun. Any gun. They all look big in your face. Tell him, “Sir, I’ve had a bad fucking day. I came here to shoot you but if you give me your money and your lottery tickets, I’ll slide up out of here.” Make sure you wave the gun around and make your eyes like big crazy moons. Grab the money and the tickets and run away. Make sure you keep them lottery tickets and try to cash the winners, cause if you throw them things away, the cops won’t catch you. They won’t even look for you. They’ll wait for you to cash them tickets. Cash them winners and you’ll find out what prison is like for 10 years.

BANNON
Yeah. See, I won’t do that.

WALD
Do this then. Get some scrubs so you look like a nurse and go to an assisted living center. Go door to door and tell them that the administration sent you. Go inside. Make small talk. In the medicine cabinet are codeine and oxys. Pour the syrup in your water bottle. Dump the pills in your fanny pack. Five bucks a mike wholesale. A thousand pills. Forty, 60, 80 mikes. A home run you can talk about in here for 40 years.

RODRIGUEZ
I only brought people to los estados. Trafficante. Si. Coyote. No. The desert es duro. Estiempo duro. Viente anos aqui y diez mas in the fed. If I never see another man for the rest of my life, it’s too soon.

BANNON
I still don’t know what prison is like.

WALD
A dentist broke my nose.

LINCOLN
The laws read my Vibes before they give them to me.

RODRIGUEZ
I like Nacional Geographical. The pictures.

BANNON
What’s prison really like?

WALD
Lonely. But I’m afraid to go home.

LINCOLN
Scary. I don’t want to die here.

RODRIGUEZ
Empty. There are no colors. No butterflies anywhere.

The lights flicker.

Bannon sits down. The men stand. As they leave, Rodriguez looks around. He digs a slender tube out of his pocket, opens it. He holds it to his lips and blows. He watches something fly away.

The end.