A Letter after Being Released from the Kitsap County Jail

By Brian E. Watson
August 9, 2006

61st Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki

To my friends and family,

I would have written a letter from the Kitsap County Jail, but I didn’t know how to acquire a pen or paper. So I’m writing this letter on a computer from home, after being released last night at 7pm. I had so many thoughts while being in jail, and so many life-changing experiences, that it is now difficult to gather them all together, but I’ll do my best.

Some of you may not even know that I was in jail at all. Some of you may not know why I was in jail. Most of you don’t know what being in jail is like. I’m even guessing some of you, even if you admire my convictions, don’t really understand why I would voluntarily put myself at risk of going to jail. Some of you are wondering "Was it worth it?"

• • •

I was arrested in front of the gates of the Bangor Trident Nuclear Weapons Base in Kitsap County at about 6:15am on Monday August 7, 2006. I was with a group of about 40 people from the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, conducting a solemn commemoration of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which happened on August 6 and 9, 1945, 61 years ago.

As part of the commemoration, a total of 10 people carefully and deliberately entered the roadway leading to Bangor, enacting a symbolic "closure" of the base, which is the home port for 9 Pacific Trident nuclear-armed submarines. Four of them did so on Bangor property, and were released a short time later with "Ban and Bar" letters, forbidding them from ever entering Bangor again.

The other six entered the road on the Kitsap County side of the "blue line" that demarcates Bangor property and County property. I was one of those people. I entered the roadway with my friends and fellow peaceworkers when there was a large gap in the traffic. I held a large sign that said "Stop" and stood in front of CarolAnn Barrows, who sat down behind me holding a poster of the destruction from Hiroshima. The others—Shirley Morrison, Brenda McMillan, Liz Goldstein, and her son Rob Goldstein—did the same in other lanes of the road.

I hadn’t stood still in the road for more than 10 seconds when an officer from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office approached me, took my sign, and marched me off to a waiting police van. Other officers descended on the other people in the road with equal swiftness. The road was clear of any obstruction (us) in less than a minute.

As I was being handcuffed with giant zip-tie plastic cuffs (which are really uncomfortable at best and painful at worst), an officer came up to me with a memo in hand, referred to a list of names on it, and asked me if I was Brian Watson. I said I was, and she told me that I was going to be held unless I posted bail. This was a total surprise to me, as protesters had always been booked and released on personal recognizance. I shouted the news out across the lanes of traffic to my wife Liz as I was being escorted into the van. The look on her face said it all: "Oh."

• • •

I soon learned that three of us—myself, CarolAnn Barrows, and Shirley Morrison (an 83-year great-grandmother toting a cane)—were all going to be held on $5000 bail, which meant that we could get out of jail by posting bail (a $5000 cash deposit) or waiting till a bail and arraignment hearing on Tuesday afternoon. The other three were booked and released later on Monday morning.

The three of us were singled-out because we three had also been arrested in an almost identical nonviolent direct action on May 15, 2006. I didn’t know until Tuesday that the prosecutor was filing charges against us not only for our arrest on Monday August 7, but also for the arrest in May: two counts disorderly conduct, each with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and $1000 fine.

As I awaited my turn to go through the booking process, I was mulling over the decision as to whether to ask my wife Liz to scrape up $5000 to bail me out, or whether to wait until a bail hearing the following day. I was flatly outraged by the bail condition, as none of us has any of the factors that would make us a "flight risk." Bail is not supposed to be punitive, and is only supposed to be used when someone is at risk of not showing up for a trial. But the bail requirement was clearly being used by the prosecutor’s office as a chilling effect, to try to deter people from doing the kind of nonviolent civil resistance we had done.

As I considered my decision, I watched as Shirley Morrison, cane in hand, was led from a changing room, clothed in Kitsap County Jail’s wardrobe of choice: loose green pants and shirt, and silly pinkish rubber flip-flops. Shirley was going to jail. If Shirley wasn’t going to post bail, then I won’t either, I said to myself. CarolAnn made the same decision. The bail hearing is tomorrow, I said to myself. I can spend a night in jail. It won’t be too bad.

And so I, too, refused to post bail, much to the bewilderment of the officer processing me. I gave over my driver’s license, my clothes (except the socks and underwear I was wearing), assorted scraps of paper, and my beloved wedding ring and was issued my own green pants, shirt, and too-large flip-flops, that had an annoying habit of "wheezing" whenever I took a step, probably from a tiny air hole in them. I was given a bed roll of sheets and thin blanket, a towel, toothpaste, and miniature toothbrush, along with a small hard plastic cup and an oversized plastic spoon.

As I changed into my "prison pj’s" the guard watching me change asked me "So was it worth it?" I replied "It’s always worth it." But his question hung in my head and haunted me for the next 32 hours. Was it worth it? Little did I know at that point just how much one can consider a question of this sort in jail.

We three were then marched down a long-dark corridor past many gates. At the end of the hall, CarolAnn and Shirley went one way to the women’s section, and I went another, to the men’s.

So far, so good, I thought. I can do this.

• • •

I walked down another long hallway, past a bench-full of fellow "inmates," as we are called, to a guard holding open a door for me. He looked at a clipboard and told me to go to 19B. I looked around at the cavernous cell block and saw a door on the upper floor labeled D19. I figured I’d just misunderstood him and took my bedroll up to my "room," decided to take the bottom bunk (as both were available, apparently), and tossed my bedroll onto the bunk. I’ll make my bed at bedtime, I thought.

As I turned to leave my cell, the doors to the other cells automatically clicked open and fellow inmates started to emerge from their cells. I glanced at the clock. It was about 10am. A man with long hair and great enthusiasm stopped to shake my hand and introduced himself: "I’m Fred. Pleased to meet you, Brian. I wish it was under better circumstances, but…" and he shrugged his shoulders and went downstairs to the common area to start a card game. As others came out of their cells, I felt utterly uncomfortable. What do I do? Where should I go? Who should I talk to? Who should I stay away from?

Not knowing any of these answers, and feeling like the new kid at school, I decided to just stand at the railing outside my cell and try not to look as awkward as I felt. I quickly learned that about all there was to do was right in front of my eyes: play cards or board games, read from the pile of tattered pulp fiction on the floor, do "laps" around the perimeter of the cell block, sit on my bunk, lay on my bunk, watch the blaring TV, or just stand somewhere. That’s it.

As I was surveying my options at the railing, Fred called to me. "Hey! Don’t stand there or they’ll yell at you, get you in trouble!" No one told me that, I thought. How am I supposed to know all these things? I descended the stairs and took a seat at the table where the card game was being readied. "You can’t sit there," Fred said emphatically. "You have to give up your lunch tray to sit at this table, man," he continued with a laugh. "But you can sit over here for now." As the cold, steel stool I had occupied was identical to the one I was offered, except in a different place at the cold, steel table, I couldn’t see what the big deal was, but went with the flow of the situation, grateful for the scrap of inclusion being tossed to me.

As a few other men arrived at the table for the game, I quickly learned what the big deal was, and is, in jail: when you have absolutely no control over the most basic things in your life, you take control over the few little things you can control, and you guard your tiny winnings with vigilance.

As the game began, I saw very soon that I ought to find another place to hang out. These guys are a little too serious about cards. I found a torn-up copy of the Kitsap Sun from August 1, 2006 and read it, even though I had read it already a week ago. Then I read it again, this time in a different order. Then I folded it up neatly, pushed it to the center of the table, pulled it back, opened it up, and read it again.

Then I made my first real mistake: I looked at the clock. 10:25am.

Oh my God, I thought. It feels like I’ve been here for hours, and it’s only been 25 minutes.

This was a mistake I kept making the rest of my first day in jail. One time, the hands on the clock hadn’t moved at all and I thought for sure it must be broken. Then I came to realize another truth about jail: that one minute in jail is equal to 30 minutes in the real world. All of a sudden my bail hearing at 1:30pm tomorrow seemed as far away as 10 years from now. It was inconceivable.

I learned that I had better just hunker down, lower my expectations, and no matter what, don’t look at the clock.

Before lunch, Fred showed me some of the ropes of jail life. "Did you make your bed, man? No? Well, let me show you how, or else they’ll get you in trouble." So Fred helped me make my bed (a 2" thick, vinyl covered mat that has long since stopped pretending to be soft, laid out on a steel bunk anchored to the cinder-block wall). He gave me a book from his room (Brian Jacques’ Martin the Warrior, which I couldn’t get into at all, and abandoned for another book), and informed me to be downstairs with my cup and spoon in hand. "You get in trouble if you don’t have your cup and spoon with you," he warned.

• • •

Mealtimes were about what you’d expect in a jail. The cuisine was at best unremarkable, and at worst was a diet that would slowly degenerate the body through malnutrition. As a vegetarian, I soon learned that I was in an excellent bargaining position: I had something on my tray (a meat dish of some kind) that I truly didn’t want that I could exchange for an item that was less disturbing. So my ham salad earned me two more slices of bread at lunch the first day. Later at dinner, my meatball was exchanged for a piece of cake, a trade that was of dubious value. My sausage at breakfast the following morning (at 5:45am) was worth some orange slices, and my ham-n-mac at lunch the next day was worth another inmate’s withered, gray "green" peas.

As I exchanged an item on the second day, my table mates asked me if I was a vegetarian or something. I said that I was. They were astonished. "What do you eat?!" they wanted to know. "Man, you’re gonna starve in here," said one while the others nodded and chuckled. I didn’t tell them that I didn’t intend to stay any longer than I had to, and hoped to be out later that day. But I’m sure he was right. Meals are Spartan anyway, even if you’re able to trade your animal byproduct for some extra beans or bread. I didn’t notice many overweight people in my cell block. Given the diet, I could see why.

• • •

After all meals was "lockdown," when all of us had to return to our cells and close the door behind us. We’d be inside for 2-3 hours then, so it was a time to read, nap, or think. I did a lot of reading and napping, but I did even more thinking.

Like any extreme experience, jail time can be a crucible for transformation. After you’re tired of reading (in my case, a completely battered copy of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010 without its covers), and you’re tired of napping, and you’re tired of everything about being in jail, you have nothing left to do but think

The guard’s question Was it worth it? kept rolling around in my mind. Contrary to what you might expect of a committed peace activist, at times my answer was an emphatic "no." I didn’t like anything about being in jail…at all. I wanted nothing more than to be with my wife and my daughter. I imagined them and yearned for them and the familiar universe of my home. The minutes sluggishly passing, the lack of anything to do, the intimidating atmosphere of the cell block to a newbie like me, the bland colors, the hardness and coldness of everything there: it was as alien a place as I’d ever been and I didn’t like it one bit.

But then the question would arise again in a new form: Was it worth it? Hmmm…Was what worth what? When asked this way, I could gain a greater perspective on my situation: Was spending time in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable environment for a couple days worth the possibility that my action has helped, even in a most insignificant way, eliminate nuclear weapons from Earth? Was my boredom and awkwardness worth the hope that my witness had moved someone, somewhere to begin to ask the question: What can I do to help make the world free of nuclear weapons?

I realized that the question itself is not usually a serious inquiry, but is a back-handed put-down. It is meant to make those of us who do such things feel dumb, because the assumption is that, of course, nothing is worth spending a minute in jail for. How stupid can you be, to think that your arrest and jail time will matter, it seems to say.

As I turned these thoughts around in my mind I recalled that most of my heroes have done exactly what I was doing right then: Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rosa Parks among the well-known ones, and Bonnie, Jackie, Carol, Ardeth, John, Phillip, Daniel, Mary, Peggy, Bernie, Sallie, Karol, Marya, Anne and many more among the lesser-known ones.

I began to understand that the question Was it worth it? probably also comes from a place not just of derision, but of fear. I realized, staring at the concrete ceiling in my cell, that many people ask this question, either aloud or in their thoughts, because they are afraid that the answer really is Yes. Because if it is Yes, then it compels us to act, it forces us to choose whether to be complicit or to do something. And doing something, I realized, is possibly even more terrifying than jail (even if your actions don’t put you at risk of being put in jail), because it means risking the safety and comfort of a "normal life" for the ignominy of standing up, speaking out, and sticking your head above the herd. People ask this question as a put down, hoping that the answer will be No, but just underneath the question is the knowledge that, yes, it is worth it, and if it is worth it, what am I doing standing by?

• • •

"Lights out" is actually just a dimming of the lights, and it happens at 10pm, after everyone is locked into their cells. Thankfully, I slept, even with the lights still somewhat on, although I tossed and turned a great deal.

Earlier in the day, I got a cell-mate, named Jim, who was now sleeping in the bottom bunk. He had been here since mid-June and was going to be in until mid- January. He had written out a calendar on lined paper with the days he’s spent in jail neatly marked-through with a single, diagonal line and the days yet to go marching along, seemingly into infinity, from my perspective. I simply could not comprehend how anyone could make it through 180 or more days in this place. I was bored out of my skull after 16 hours. I later learned that this was one of Jim’s shorter sentences: he had done 5 plus years at the state penitentiary. Jim’s age: 34.

Jim was a lot like many of the men I met and talked with in jail. He had had drug and alcohol problems, unstable relationships, very fragile self-esteem (despite all the brave posturing), difficulty managing feelings, little education or training, few resources, and grandiose plans for what he’d do once he was out. As we talked and got to know each other, my compassion for this man grew. He had done some truly bad things to other people and to himself, but that was not the total of his being. I realized that Jim, like most of the other prisoners, has a deep yearning to be known as a whole person, and not just as a sum of his crimes.

Everything in jail conspires to make you one thing, and one thing only: a criminal. Yet, there is more to all these men, even the truly scary ones (and there are a few of them). I think that a good many of these men probably do need to be separated from society for the sake of public safety. But a great many more of them need more than jail time. Their needs are so huge it is overwhelming, seemingly: counseling, treatment, education, training, resources, health care, mentoring, and on-going supervision. The list is enormous and it is tempting to throw one’s hands in the air and just say Throw away the key. But the truth is that all of the men I was in jail with will get out. We would do well to ask ourselves what kind of men we want them to be when they do.

At dinner, I discuss this with a man with tattoos completely covering both arms. He expressed immediate and genuine support for my act of civil resistance to nuclear weapons and Trident, as did nearly everyone who I told. He expressed more insight on the problem of his fellow prisoners than any politician I’ve ever heard speak on the subject. He said that the reason "these guys," gesturing around the room, would go back to the streets and do the same dumb things they did that landed them in jail in the first place is because we spend our money on things like Trident and the gargantuan military machine, instead of on the things that would work great wonders to keep many of these same men from ever entering the "justice" system in the first place.

• • •

After the lights come on in the morning (4:45am), I make an eye-mask from the corner of my sheet and fall back asleep until breakfast (5:45am), after which I return to my bunk and sleep till 8:30 or so.

My big hope today is that I’ll go to my bail hearing (the whole reason I’m here), at 1:30pm, make my case before the judge that I should be released on personal recognizance, and then be set free. So I’m in a better mood. An African-American man asks me if I want to play Scrabble with him. I say sure. I quickly rack up points with strategically-placed words like "achieve," "opine," and "children," while my opponent struggles to spell "doom" ("dume") and correctly add up our scores. I sure like winning at Scrabble, which I hardly ever do when I play with my wife, but I am saddened and embarrassed for this man who is at the margins of literacy. To his credit, on our second game, he does much better, and our scores are competitive.

Our game is interrupted a couple times when a guard hollers my name. "Watson! Attorney." My friend, and possibly the best lawyer in the world, Ken Kagan has shown up unexpectedly to consult with me about my case. Ken is amazing, and has a really generous heart. He’s done work like this for Ground Zero activists pro bono many times, and here he is, again, despite being overworked at his law firm. I am so filled with relief at the sight of him that I walk six inches off the ground to the small interview room.

He gives me a lot of encouragement. He is "pissed off" (his words) that the prosecutors are using bail as a deterrent and as a punishment. Bail is only supposed to be for people who pose a risk of not showing up for a trial. I feel justified in my decision to fight for release on personal recognizance, and Ken is confident that the judge will agree with us.

We both agree that the bail requirement is an effort on the part of the prosecutor’s office and the Sheriff’s office to try to put the lid on protests at Bangor. What they seems to fail to grasp is that such heavy-handedness has the exact opposite effect, galvanizing, rather than deterring people from risking arrest. I later learn that people are already making commitments to risk arrest at the next action on Martin Luther King Day.

I tell Ken that I don’t like it in jail at all and that I want to be bailed out if the judge maintains the bail requirement of $5000. He tells me not to worry, that I’ll be out soon.

As I walk back to the cell block, I feel buoyed and I know that he’s right.

• • •

I can’t wait for the bail and arraignment hearing at 1:30pm. I start watching the clock again, but this time it’s so I don’t miss the hearing. I’m afraid that the bureaucracy of the correctional institution will forget about me, so I’m ready to push the call button and tell them I’m supposed to be in court if it gets too, terribly late, not that they would care a whole lot.

My faith in their system is restored when, sure enough, I hear my name yelled out. "Watson!" I positively trot to the door. I’m placed in a line with other inmates and we’re all handcuffed together with red-painted metal handcuffs to be marched down to court. We file into the jury box, hands shackled together to await our hearing. I’m handcuffed to Shirley Morrison on my left and she is handcuffed to CarolAnn Barrows. It’s the first time we’ve seen each other since yesterday morning. They look radiant, ebullient, even. I think the women’s detention area has a slightly warmer, more nurturing atmosphere than the men’s, which doesn’t surprise me. They’ve already made fast friends, while I am still wary.

Several Ground Zero supporters are there in the courtroom to give us a morale boost. I see them and even risk a smile to them, but I try my best to ignore them. Not because I don’t appreciate them, but because the guards warned us that any communication to anyone in the audience or with each other would result in another day in jail. I sure don’t want that!

The judge is Dan Phillips, who has heard Ground Zero cases before. He deals with other cases before he gets to ours. Ken does a magnificent job presenting our case, and the judge sets us free on our personal recognizance. Whew! We all plead not guilty, and a pre-trial hearing is set for 10:30am on Weds. Sept. 13, 2006 in District Court, Port Orchard. Ken also does a delicate job expressing his displeasure with the way the prosecutors are treating us, in the most diplomatic language possible.

• • •

Now, if only they’d just un-cuff me, I could go home! But no. Back to the cell block we all go, to wait for booking to call for us. It’s 2:30pm when I get back. I share my good news with a few guys. They congratulate me and say, not to worry, I’ll be out either before dinner or after.

I hope it’s before. But, alas, I get to enjoy one last supper before I am told to bring down my bedroll. After dinner, there is lock-down time and my "celley" Jim and I have a really heartfelt talk. I try to do what I can to minister to him and to give him the compassion and dignity he craves, but does not receive, in jail. He opens up to me and shares some of his darkest fears and highest hopes. He digs through his papers to find a song he wrote recently. He sings it to me. I am moved and touched by Jim’s courage to share something with somebody he barely knows and who is about to leave.

When lock-down ends, I take a moment to look him in the eye and shake his hand—the same hand that has done meth, broken things, and hurt people—and I thank him for letting me know a small part of him. I make sure I have his gaze when I tell him it has been an honor to know him.

• • •

Finally, they call my name. "Watson!" I gather up my bedroll, cup, and spoon and make a dash for the door. I weakly wave to the crowd in the common room. I don’t want to rub it in, but I feel like shouting "Hooray! I’m outa here!" as I take a bow on my way out. But I don’t. I deposit my sheets and blanket into a hamper, and my cup and spoon in a tray on the floor.

I walk with other inmates, including Shirley and CarolAnn to the booking area where we were transformed from people into prisoners yesterday morning. We go into the changing room and put on our real clothes. I’m so happy to get out of my prison pj’s and those ridiculous flip-flops. The only other thing I really want is my wedding ring. It is with my other property, and I start to feel like a human being again as I put it on and have my ID bracelet cut off.

We are led to an elevator, go down one floor, turn a couple corners, to where there is a door that is not locked. People who haven’t been in jail cannot appreciate what that means. Just beyond the door is my wife Liz and daughter Katherine, who skips to me shouting "Dada! Dada! Dada!"

• • •

As I sweep my little girl into my arms and embrace my wife, I realize in a new way how precious their lives are to me. Words cannot describe it.

Liz, especially, has been a pillar of support. She spent hours and hours on Monday and Tuesday doing email, making phone calls, and spending time at the court house, marshalling support and resources on our behalf. Gee, her job was more work than mine! I had time to take a nap. But Liz worked well into the night to get us out, as did several other people: Mary Gleysteen, Lynne Greenwald, Jackie Hudson, and Ken Kagan, as well as Jennifer Atwood (another attorney called to our defense). In addition there was in-person support from many others, and loads of phone messages and emails of support to boot.

My gratitude to all these people—and to you—is overflowing as I write these words. Such a community of love—an agape community—is stronger than the walls that kept us locked inside. That love went right through those thick walls and welled up in my heart many times over my 37 hours in custody.

• • •

I bury my nose in my daughters auburn hair and inhale her little girl sweet smell. I feel the softness of my wife’s body in my arms. I didn’t know how much I could miss such things, but after being in a place where nothing is soft and nothing smells sweet, I broke down in tears.

The thought occurred to me then, and does now, that the answer to the question Was it worth it? is a complicated one to answer. In many ways, no, it is not. But in other ways, it becomes profoundly clear that the softness and sweetness and fragility of life, everything that we take for granted on the "outside," is exactly what Trident and nuclear weapons threaten to annihilate with every passing minute. Jail is the analogy to Trident in more ways than one. The sailors on board a Trident live in an environment uncannily similar to the one I lived in for 37 hours: it is made of metal, it’s all men, you can’t go anywhere, you only have so much to do, there’s precious sunlight or fresh air, and you’re away from the ones you love, and you count the days of your "sentence." The main difference, I suppose, is that the food on a Trident is much better.

So, Was is worth it?

I’ll answer this way:

Ralph Waldo Emerson went to visit his friend Henry David Thoreau after Thoreau was imprisoned for not paying taxes to fund the Mexican War. Reportedly, Emerson asked his friend, Thoreau, "Henry, what on earth are you doing in there?"

Thoreau, as only he could say it, looked back at Emerson and asked, "Ralph, what are you doing out there?"

So the answer to Was it worth it? is, ultimately, not in my hands. It is in yours, and in the stirrings of your heart, and in the voice of your conscience. All of us, together, as we build a world without nuclear weapons, or as we continue to allow the threat of their existence, will be able to answer that question.

Love,
Brian