A day in the Pen

It was free museum day in Boise today.  My husband and I decided to take a tour of the Idaho Old State Penitentiary.  The walls of the prison are built out of sandstone, pried from the hillsides around the site.   Building the walls took years of inmate labor.  I always felt there was a certain morbid poetry to the idea that the prisoners were building their own personal hell.

As I walked the long halls with cell after cell, stacked four stories high, I tried to picture what it was like to live in the confines of a stone prisons.  I was able to crawl into one of the cells and lay down on one of the bunks for a moment.  Looking directly to my right I could see a bucket shoved into a corner.  I realized the bucket was for the inmates to use as a toilet.  In the hall was a bank of barred widows, exposing the inmates to view the outside world.  I stood for a moment, my fingers grasping the cold metal, and tried to imagine how they felt.  Inside the buildings it was cold and clammy but outside it was warm and the sun was shining.  I could only imagine the angst prisoners felt as they walked between buildings to shower, work in the various buildings or to the mess hall.  Did they relish the warmth and fresh air or did they dwell on the dread of having to return to the tiny, multi-residential cells?

The day provided plenty of "scope for the imagination" and I gleaned lots of imagery for my next few novels.  I hadn't been on a tour of the prison for years.  I don't know why I was so fascinated by the stone walls housing such violence and despair.  These details will stick in my mind and translate in my writing.