September 4, 2009
A Visit With Michael
In my previous post I stated my assumption that Wayne Bent aka Michael Travesser was on his full fast, having been put in solitary confinement and cut off from contact from his family. Yesterday evening I learned he had been moved (again) to a non-medical isolation unit. This afternoon I felt compelled to go to the state prison in Los Lunas to find out the facts of where Michael was being held and whether or not he could be visited by his family. Wendy came with me and upon our arrival we were permitted by the prison to visit with Michael.
Michael told me he is not on the full fast at this point. He said even though he has been moved to segregation, he has not been mistreated. To the contrary, the prison staff have shown him respect and treated him well. He did not feel it would be appropriate to begin his complete fast right away, but to follow the plan he announced in his letter.
The prison staff explained to Michael that he is being kept in segregation where he can be monitored more closely. When he begins to deteriorate physically, he will be moved back to the prison hospital.
During previous visits, Michael and I would sit across from each other at a table in a large visitation room. Today he sat behind a plexiglas window in a diamond mesh steel cage. We talked through a small porthole. He was wearing a yellow nylon jumper that said “CNMCF PRISONER” on the back. This was different from the dark green slacks and light green button-down shirt he wore while living in the geriatrics section of the prison. He has been moved to a non-medical segregation unit where he is allowed two hours of visitation a week, and one 15 minute phone call. He will not use this phone call because of all the hoops he must jump through to make it.
Since Michael was moved to segregation, his one meal a day has been from a meat tray. Being a vegetarian there is very little nutritional value that he can glean from it. The prison has agreed that he is entitled to a vegetarian tray, but it takes time for the paperwork to catch up with moves and changes. He is already experiencing weakness from the lack of nutrition, but he said a number of times that he is not hungry, and that he is not suffering at all, physically. The only suffering he is experiencing is heartbreak for us (his people), and not for himself.
It was obvious to me that Michael is being treated differently now that he has entered his fast, and he feels he has been moved to segregation as a form of punishment for fasting. He is isolated in a room about 16′ by 8′. He said it is very quiet, and he has a Bible and is able to pray aloud privately. There is none of the screaming and mayhem he had to listen to in the mental health unit at the beginning of his incarceration. He has a window that overlooks an open field, and he can see the Valencia County Courthouse a couple of miles away. He prefers it there over geriatrics, where there is constant cursing. Now he lives alone in “a prayer closet”, as he calls it. He has no complaints.
Michael said he is still eating one meal a day — until Sunday — as originally planned. After that, he will drink juice for a week if it is delivered to his cell.
I told Michael a newspaper reporter asked me how this fast is different than previous fasts. I asked Michael how he would respond to such a question. He replied that “there would have to be movement in the direction of justice” for his fast to end, or his family would have to feed him. He has already accepted that neither will occur. Concerning the latter, he said that the state is bound by its own policies and will not break them to help someone, as love would do. Without one of these two conditions being met, he is resolved to continue with his fast to the end. He said, “I started talking about this a year ago, before the trial, that I would not live in prison over a lie. Now, I’m going to follow through with what I said.”
Michael said he has prayed a lot to the Father about this fast and the only answer he has received back is to stay the course, and not turn aside. He said he would be compromising his moral conscience by ending his fast without the answer he requires.
He said he wrote a letter to the warden, stating in so many words, “Love would help us” and asking, “If you have love, why do you not help us?”
Michael asked me to tell you he loves you. He pushed both his index fingers through the steel mesh, as though he would reach through the plexiglas barrier to connect with us. With tears, we put our hands on the glass to “touch” him back. When our visit ended he blew us a kiss as they took him away.
