Remembering Gary Greaves: Peace Warrior, 1951-2009

Gary Greaves was friend, mentor, husband, father; lover of music and basketball, and the ideals of equality and fairness. In Raven Chronicles Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 2: Architecture In Literature, 2009, we published a few tributes to Gary written by writers who had been privileged to go with Gary to Monroe Prison to talk to the Concerned Lifers Book Club (Jon Nelson Book Club). We have reprinted a couple here, and one of Gary’s poems, on the 15th anniversary of Gary’s death in Marrakesh (Feb. 12, 2009).

How Gary Greaves got a Claustrophobe to Go Into the Monroe Federal Penitentiary.  Twice.

By Kathleen Alcalá

Several years ago, as time flies by, I was writer-in-residence at Hugo House. I got a wonderful office in Maddy’s former room. It had a fireplace and a bay window overlooking the Porta Potties across the street frequented by drug dealers and hookers. It was fascinating. It was distracting. It still had a paper maché whale hanging from the ceiling

Gary described the Lifers Book Club. I didn’t mind the inmates, I said, as much as the locked doors. He and Jon Nelson, he said, would be there with me the whole time. Gary did not mention that we would be screened to within an inch of our lives, that my name on the manifest would be spelled differently than on my driver’s license, causing delays. He did not say that we would go through several locked doors and gates into an interior, windowless room with a few tables and chairs, a few inmates, a few books donated by my publisher. He did not say that the time would suddenly be over, that two or more hours would pass just as I was forgetting where I was.

This is a frequent problem. I forget where I am. I forget where others are. After not talking to a college friend for fifteen years, I said I didn’t miss him because I could always imagine what he would say in a given circumstance. He didn’t like that.

I forgot that Gary and Frances were physically in Morocco. Instead, I imagined them in the dusty red streets, the cold hills, too much material around Frances and Maddy to be truly comfortable. I saw them sitting on the floor for dinner, Maddy fidgeting with her headscarf, noticing everything, Frances charming the other diners, Gary smiling benignly.

I imagined Gary striking up conversations with people who spoke no words that Gary knew. It would not have mattered. I knew that he could take a basketball out into the street, and begin the slow ballet of leaping and throwing, and that soon a crowd of little boys would form, leaping and throwing along with him, then men on the edges smoking, not sure whether or not to join, standing in awe and confusion as they watched this bear of a man leaping and throwing and running and grabbing for the sheer joy of movement, the joy of being alive.

Even in the cold cold rooms of Monroe, Gary radiated this joy. He understood that he made a difference, that his mere presence helped to negate the shrill buzz of the lights, the blank horror in the eyes of some of the Lifers. Time passes for us: It does not pass for them, because when I returned seven years later, there were the same people. The Lifers is a book club you can only leave one way. Gary understood this, and smiled his benevolent smile. He understood that we are all one bad decision away from joining them.

Gary was a Peace Warrior. That is the only way I can describe him, and I don’t even know what that means. He could see a better world, right here, right now. Most of us make it too complicated, give excuses for not being better people or trying to improve the world: we don’t like to be confined. We don’t like to be cold or hungry or earn less money. We like our comforts, and we convince ourselves that we will do more good by earning money and giving some of it away. Gary was direct. He wanted to be with people, perhaps because he knew, innately, that his very presence was a comfort. He embodied peace.

Gary’s work was to repair the world—Tikkun olam. And it is a better place because of him.

In Memory of Gary Greaves

By John Olson

I love telling people I’ve been to prison. They always look so shocked. They don’t know how to react. They always look so relieved when I elaborate on the particulars. And I love to elaborate on the particulars.

The day I rode out to Monroe State Prison with Gary and Jon Nelson, a retired Lutheran minister and advocate for prisoner’s rights, it was a lovely June day. Bright sun, blue sky, warm air. Such days don’t come often in Seattle, even in summer, and choosing to spend such a beautiful afternoon behind bars might be perceived as an odd thing to do, but I wouldn’t take it back for anything.

When we arrived at the prison, I looked up and marveled at the formidable edifice looming over our heads, “a washed Roman façade, at once ornate and institutional” as Gary described it in his introduction to The Endless Sentence, the anthology of writing produced by the Concerned Lifers Group, and which Gary edited. Gary told me I had to empty my pockets, keys, wallet, belt, change, everything. This is when Gary assumed his role of Virgil to my Dante entering the nether regions of the punished and penitent. His sweet-natured affability provided strength and assurance. I was a little more nervous than I thought I’d be.

I had heard stories about visitors who sometimes have tremendous difficulties getting back out. This happened to my brother-in-law, an electrician doing work at the prison once. There had been a shift change and he lost his visitor’s badge. It took some time before he convinced the guards that he was there to do electrical work, and was not part of the prison population. I kept checking the badge clipped to the breast pocket of my shirt. The prisoners must have thought I had a fetish for badges.

I was actually quite amazed at the cordiality of the Concerned Lifers group. I was anticipating hardened criminals. They were all so gracious and welcoming. I was shown a list of authors they had read, all very conscientiously chronicled, and felt touched at such a high level of interest in writing.  Not because they were prisoners, but because such evident respect for the written word is rarely encountered anywhere now, so cheapened has it become by a greedy,  profit-obsessed book publishing industry and a foundering public education system. The prisoners, approximately the same age as me, complained about the deteriorating ability to hold an intelligent conversation among the younger inmates.

I have grown despairing and cynical over the years. This may be a common malady among those of a certain age. But after eight years of Bush, thousands of deaths in two stupid unnecessary wars, and bailouts for the negligent and irresponsible, I have a right to feel a little than less dazzled at the spectacle of humanity. There are so few people like Gary. Good people. People of compassion and intelligence. I will really miss this man.

To the Family & Friends of Gary Greaves

By Bill Pawlyk, & the Jon Nelson Book Club Members

Gary Greaves is very special to a group of men at Monroe’s Washington State Reformatory and we miss his greatly. As testament to Gary’s open-mindedness, compassion, and willingness to give of himself, he, along with Reverend Jon Nelson, founded a book club at WSR over a decade ago. The book club is an outgrowth of the Concerned Lifers Organization (the CLO), and is officially titled “The Jon Nelson Book Project.”

Gary’s, and his wife Frances’s association with the Richard Hugo House in Seattle provided the support for the CLO Book Club, artistically through authors and advisors, and financially for books and authors’ stipends. The Hugo House connection twice enabled publication of book club members’ writings in the Raven Chronicles and the Hugo House held readings for those works. Frances and Madeline graciously shared Gary with us every month. Frances also graced the book club with her presence.

Gary sustained his gracious commitment, overcoming obstacles and many frustrations in dealing with the DOC [Department of Corrections] bureaucracy. In a memorable SNAFU, DOC threatened him with “theft” when he innocently agreed to carry out a gift ceremonial drum from a Native American prisoners group to a Native American author [Arthur Tulee]. While we inmates appreciated Gary joining us on his monthly visits, we didn’t want him to join us as a fellow felon. Fortunately, DOC was bluffing. Incidents such as this just served to strengthen Gary’s resolve to help us.

Gary’s tenacity and dedication kept the book club viable for more than a decade. The book club provides a “Window on the World” for a grateful group of incarcerated men.

Gary’s initiative and network of contacts introduced the book club to Abe Osheroff, a noted social activist and Spanish Civil War veteran. Through Gary and Abe, the book club’s circle expanded to include an on-going exchange with graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Social Work, called “Words Beyond Walls”—also generating a U. of Texas faculty symposium based on inmates’ papers, and resulting in faculty visiting Monroe for further discussions. “Words Beyond Walls” produced a book club meeting that involved faculty from Washington University at St. Louis, Missouri, coming to Monroe. Gary also initiated visits to the book club by University of Washington and Seattle University faculty.

Gary was able to connect the remarkable variety of his experiences, not only to the many authors he introduced us to, but also to us as prisoners. The warmth and generosity of his intellect and his passionate presence will be deeply missed. One of the last books Gary selected for the book club was Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, set in North Africa. Gary’s spirit lives on in our thankful memories of his caring. His enthusiasm and initiatives have broadened our horizons beyond measure. Please help keep the spirit and memory of Gary’s love for literature, knowledge, and life, in its fullness, alive.

—Concerned Lifers Organization

Monroe Correctional Complex (MCC)-Special Offenders Unit (WSRU)

Nightwalk

I never tire

at the sight of streets

I’ve never seen.

And in this haze of twilight

I’m getting heady.

The rust curtains

trail out the windows

like kitetails.

I walk past those rooms,

those kitchens

and look inside past

the curtains and yellow walls

to routines balanced

on the back burner.

In my head I watch

the onset of darkness

turn on the light

over the table and chair.

Beams for the man

and his paper I saw

every night on my

way home from work

at two in the morning.

Dead asleep, plopped over the table,

still grasping the edges of the news.

—Gary Greaves

(from Fire In The Sock Drawer, 1981)