At Fort Dix inmates are housed in what were once brick army barracks. Each building has three floors of mostly twelve man rooms with one room at the end of each floor marked: "Quiet Room." I'd just been assigned to building 5852 when I sought one of these bastions of solitude to catch up on some letter writing.
The first was to my sister Patricia, who with her husband Doug had left their life in NYC behind to come to Boston and care for Kyera and Anthony after my demise. I owed them my life and I was giving them a letter.
Staring at the paper, I was having difficulty finding the right words when an inmate, who's name I'd later learn was Shekstein, walked in and asked: "I won't disturb you if I use this table over here?" Being new to the unit, obviously the quite room didn't belong to me: "Don't be ridiculous, of course not, why would you?"
The room was a modest size with just two tables. This made it impossible to ignore Shekstein place down the leather bound case he carried and slowly open its wrap-around zipper. He removed first a shiny black circle and fasten it to the back of his head. I knew this to be a yamaka only because one of my childhood friends was a Jew. Next he took out a large book with long cloth page markers and opened it to the middle.
Turning back to my letter I managed: "Dear Tricia, I hope all is well. I realize I owe you my...." This is when Shekstein took out the first scroll. From the top he drew it down like a shade, gazing as though hypnotized by its contents, before placing it to one side of the grand book and repeating the process with a second.
Next he withdrew a multi-colored scarf: gold, black, purple and red with some green, that he draped around his neck to hang on either side of his chest. This was followed by a rope sash he tied around his waist with additional strips hanging down the outside of each leg.
"That's it!" I told myself, realigning my focus squarely on the letter. Shit, I had at least three more to write after this one; all equally as difficult to construct. No sooner had I touched the tip of my pen to the page, out came the whip.
I'd seen one like it before at club ManRay; used on me by a dominatrix while shirtless and clad in leather pants I was held fast in a stockade. Approximately three and a half feet in length, the lash was handcrafted from black leather with a braided handle.
Having gained my full attention Shekstein put the whip on the table and picked up the book in both hands to begin something I would later see him do for hours each day, in between checking the stock ticker on MSNBC. During this ritual he would stand in the hallway, stairwell, utility closet or yes, in the Quite Room, swaying back and forth chanting at the top of his lungs in I what I guessed was Hebrew; holding the book so close to his face it impacted his beard in an out like an accordion with each syllable.
I was so captivated by this that it took the entrance of the Muslims to tear me away. Pulling back my table to accommodate their group of about twenty, I knew they prayed together each day, I never have guessed they did it here in the Quiet Room.
Leaving a pile of shoes in the hall, each member carried his own prayer rug to kneel on. Shekstein was also forced to move but he didn't miss a beat; pushing the table forward with his pelvis in perfect rhythm to his chant.
I also knew the Muslims sung a prayer when they worshiped, and for a moment I feared a conflict, but before one could materialize the abs class showed up. Carrying white towels that they spread on precious unoccupied portions of the floor around me, I was so happy there were only six for at that point we'd reached capacity. In addition to floor work the abs inmates had wrist straps to assist their grip on the red painted pipes overhead for leg raises. I couldn't help notice some of them even snuck in some back work in with chins ups
It was at that moment; with my Muslim brothers at full volume on their knees, bodies lifting overhead curling and grunting out reps at my feet, that Sheky slipped out of his shirt and went to work with that whip. He received no massage or follow-up feather treatment between blows as he would have at ManRay. Nevertheless, his chant held its passion while he let himself have it; over one shoulder, around, and off his back: "SMACK!" Then around over and off the other side: "SMACK!" Sitting there with my eye balls dangling inches from the floor on the end of slinkys, what amazed me most was no one else seemed to notice.
Between the repetitions, genuflection and masochism I'd just about thrown in the towel on my letter writing. Then I realized: I hadn't come this far to quit. For Chrissake Jesus didn't tap. Even sobriety is for quitters. I'd become many things and a quitter wasn't one of them. So I painted a picture of everything going on around me, and put it in the letter to Tricia.
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