March 1 - First Birthday By Video

Sunday, March 1

When Clayton's family visited him today, one of the members who came to the visit was celebrating a birthday.  The family had a small party together earlier in the day, and then a couple of them had packed up to visit Clayton at the facility for his own well wishes.  Once again, the visit would have to be shared by video - the only form of visitation allowed for inmates in the administrative segregation unit for protective custody.

When the family arrived, Clayton informed them that their visit had ended up right in the middle of dinner, so the guards had brought his dinner in with him.  They could see his tray sitting behind him on the desk; bright orange plastic, divided into sections, and around 2 inches tall.  He held up his meal so they could see it through the screen.  It was some kind of meat and potatoes, served with: bread, salad, and a cookie.  He was given a sad-looking broken yellow spork as his only utensil.

Commissary 

Commissary was delivered for the unit today.  Clayton didn't have anything delivered to himself, and learned that there would be a 2 week delay between a commissary order and its arrival at the facility; so it would be quite a while before he received the soap he longed for from his initial order.  Also, the new form for this week had surprisingly already come by; much earlier in the day than last time.  He explained that you had to fill it out and turn it back in quickly.

Clayton ordered stamps, envelopes and paper this week, but the delay means that it would be two weeks from today before he finally received supplies to send return letters to family.  Clayton described the commissary arrival like Christmas morning with a bunch of excited children.  'Fishing' between inmates in various cells had become crazy, and Clayton had actually constructed a little barricade to prevent fishing lines from getting too far into the room.

While it was not part of commissary, Clayton noted that some of the inmates several cells over from him are receiving newspapers and magazines regularly.  Clayton discussed with his family the types of magazines he would be interested in receiving.  Unfortunately, if Clayton was in a general population mod in the facility, family and friends would be able to order books and magazines for him.  However, being in protective custody - in any of the segregation areas - made this impossible for his family now.

Clayton could only obtain these items by ordering them himself, and he had to provide all of the ordering information on his own.  He would have to provide the completed order form, required internal forms authorizing payment from his account, the envelope with appropriate postage attached, and have adequate funds in his account for the full purchase before the item would be ordered.  Therefore, Clayton's family discussed with him which magazines and other options to track down order forms for; and his family planned to mail them to him.

Wrapping up the Day

Clayton informed his family before ending their visit that he had received a response to a cop-out form he had submitted earlier in the week.  On a prior day, he had been visited by a guard and informed that the men who had threatened to knife him when he first arrived at the facility would soon be moved into the same segregation area he was in.  The guard left, and Clayton had been concerned about whether any of these men could end up stuck in a cell with him.

Inmates who were taken into protective custody or sent into segregation for punishment were taken to the same area in the facility, and this had panicked Clayton.  However, the response to the cop-out form clarified things.  It explained that the facility would not pick-and-choose cell mates in segregation, but they put like with like; PC with PC, and punitive with punitive.  This confirmed for Clayton another thing which he had already begun to suspect.  Andy was in segregation for PC, just like Clayton was.

After updates, Clayton spent the majority of his visit catching up with family who had not had the opportunity to visit with him at GCCC before, and chatting with the birthday person.  He had tried to call the house the birthday party was being hosted at earlier in the day, but hadn't gotten the chance to get access to the phone before family arrived for his visit.  He promised to try again after his visit was over, and did manage to get a call out to his family that night and connect with other family members who were not able to attend the visit to see him.