Excerpt from Sins and Needles...
If there was a downside to being the cellblock embroiderer, it was in terms of my image among my fellow prisoners, more than a few of whom began speculating about my sexual orientation. One inmate, who vaguely resembled my junior-high school nemesis, Charlie Larsen, delighted in referring to me as “Betsy Ross.”
Long before I took up embroidery, I had come to realize that prison was a world controlled by the law of primitive survival. In many ways, it was like being plunged back into adolescence. It was seventh grade bullies all over again. But the bullies in this world were bigger, more numerous and far meaner, and they generally lacked a very basic ingredient for growth: Hope.
Sustained by a renewed faith, I had found hope again. I had forgiveness in my heart, and the embroidery provided the mental focus I needed. Still, not a day passed when I wasn’t instinctively on guard and even frightened by most of the people I saw every day. I avoided confrontation whenever possible, because I had seen the most trivial arguments between inmates erupt into bloody brawls that brought swift, harsh punishment from the authorities. I had no desire to be maimed or killed in prison; nor did I want to be sent to the hole. And I certainly didn’t want to parlay my already formidable sentence into an even longer term, as I’d seen other inmates do by participating in fights that brought about injuries and further court cases.
Standing in line for lunch one day, I found myself between two arguing gang members. Whatever the fundamental subject at issue might have been, it was quickly lost as the tension and anger escalated. Taunts between the two men soon turned into threats of violence, and one of them pushed me aside to get in the other’s face. The next thing I knew, a fist was thrown. Like ripples on a dismal pond, the ugly energy in the surrounding space began to spread out. I don’t want to be in the middle of this, I thought to myself. Then, quite out of nowhere, Miguel – the Puerto Rican guy who had given me my first embroidery commission – stepped right into the center of the escalating violence.
Spouting a few commands in Spanish, he grabbed one of the brawling men by the collar.
“Yo, this man here” – he pointed directly at me – “he did work for me!” As the combatants directed their attention toward me, Miguel explained in a threatening tone, “I don’t want anything to happen to this guy. Comprende?”
The fight was over as quickly as it had begun. I breathed a sigh of relief and whispered a prayer of thanksgiving. Embroidery had some far-reaching benefits, I mused to myself as I returned to my place in the chow line.
From: Sins and Needles: A Story of Spiritual Mending, by Ray Materson and Melanie Materson; Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2002.
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