The Blotting Out Of Time

"Think so, man. Think so this time."

"Hey, you're looking good."

"What say we lift a few weights, babe?"

The men are proud of their physiques, proud of their biceps and lats, their squats, benches and dead lifts. Their excitement indicates as much. But since there are no posing mirrors in Stateville, and no one to show off for and few enough fans to congratulate one after a good day, the prisoners internalize their weight training the way they internalize everything. There is community on the Stateville team, certainly, but in the end each man is alone and knows it.

One of the lifters gestures at his teammates and explains, "I'm doing time. He's doing time. We're all here together doing time, but, man, it's all your own. Ain't nobody can help, ain't nobody gonna stick around with the bros when their gig's up."

The prisoners and the outside lifters continue to chatter as they begin warmups. Snowflakes drift in through the cracked and missing windowpanes. Crashes of iron rise above the talk like missiles over clouds. There is no rage on any of the faces and there is no threat and no mark of Cain, yet there is something in the furrows of the brows and at the corners of the eyes that hints of suppressed things. A great blotting out has taken place. "It's anger that'll kill a man in prison," says a lifter. "Make him sick and crazy, and then they'll break you."

The Stateville team captain is called to the crude lifting platform in a corner of the room for his final bench press. This is one of the last matches for the prisoners in the gloomy basement; a slick gym is being carved out of the dining hall. But this day the competition is lit by two yellow bulbs dangling from the overhead pipes, and it is not until the prisoner lies down on the bench that his face becomes visible through the shadows. Viewed from the other end of the basement, the weight lifters resemble hunters gathered round a campfire, a group of men resting after a long day by telling stories, pondering the day's bag, laughing, fixing their weapons.

The captain stares at the bar and adjusts his hands. The men watch. The only sounds are the dripping of water from an unseen pipe and the wind toying with the numerous holes and crevices in the building.

The spotters lift the 485 pounds off the rack and rest it on the captain's hands, staying tense and ready to assist, knowing that with this much weight a wrist can buckle and snap or a man's will can crumble and the quarter ton drop on his chest.

Jesse Vail, the Stateville Supervisor of Recreation, watches. Like everyone else, he is aware of the many problems and unavoidable ironies involved when a prison tries to imitate life on the outside. It irks Vail that for a long time his lifters' totals have gone down instead of up. Yet how else could it be when all his men were confined to their cells for months because of the disturbances—a punishment made all the harsher because the weight lifters were not involved in the trouble.