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The "Good Stuff"
By D.P. O’Keefe
An inmate approached me with the question, "How come you don’t write something good [sic]?"
Being that the feedback I get is generally positive, I was a little taken aback. "Ah, what do you mean, ‘good’?" I asked.
"You know—like how the C.O.’s [corrections officers] all be [sic] a—oles and how we got them [sic] worms in the shower. You know, good s—t like that."
I paused, then blinked a few times to do a reality check. I told him, "Anyone could do that." I also said that, "Not all C.O.’s are a—oles, and in my two years here I have never seen the dreaded and probably fatal shower worm."
Anyway, there were some heated words afterward and the subject hasn’t been broached since.
But since the argument, nee discussion, I’ve been thinking about exactly where I’m going with Welcome to Hell. "Oz" it’s not, nor is it a documentary, although at times it can be. This isn’t "The Big House." It’s just a prison, and I thought I’d let the readers "see" what life is like here—good and bad sans melodrama. It’s part of life in the United States (for about 1.3 million Americans). It doesn’t need melodrama. It’s just life nested somewhere neatly between college football and the Mob.
When I first arrived, I figured I’d get the basics down before I started cranking out copy. I waited six months … After six months of quiet observation, I had a feel for what was expected of whom, what was taboo (like security issues), who (and this was important) could take a joke and who could not.
As news in the prison started filtering down that I was a writer, people would tell me one of two things: (1) that they wanted to be a writer; or (2) what I should write about (i.e., shower worms, annoying C.O.’s). As far as their writing, I’m not at the level to offer any worthwhile critique. As far as "what I should write about next"—well, a lot of my better stuff was written when I sat down with a pen and paper without an idea in my head.
I have no agenda—political, social, aesthetic or otherwise. I write because I love English and life equally. As for my love of English, that is a lifelong courtship. It is a language that I don’t think even our best schools’ professors can lay claim to knowing perfectly.
And that is the good stuff.
One thing my annoyed inmate friend neglected to address is that I like being funny. My first editor told me I was funny, but I needed to learn how to write. He also said, "You can learn how to write; you can’t learn how to be funny."
I did stand-up for 18 nerve-racking months until I decided that the one minute of laughter was not worth the five minutes of sheer panic.
So to me, "the Good Stuff" is life that can be laughed at. And I don’t care how serious the issue or how pitch dark the humor—it’s all good stuff.
Occasionally I write from the heart—about things that are bittersweet. But no matter what, it almost always gravitates towards a slice of life with a scoop of double chocolate humor on top.
As for the shower worms: they leave me alone; I leave them alone.
D.P. O’Keefe is a humorist incarcerated in a Connecticut maximum security correctional facility.
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