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Inmates you live closely with can either make your time better or worse.

I live in a housing unit consisting of six sections. Inside each section are four areas referred to as pods. There are six cubicles inside a pod with two bunks in each. This setup is considered dorm living. The person you live with inside your cubicle is your “bunkie,” or cellmate, while the other 10 members of your pod are your next-door neighbors. The section overall holds 48 inmates, all of them your neighbors.

I spend the majority of my time inside the section and consequently am almost never more than a few feet from the other inmates. In these conditions one is bound to gravitate toward certain individuals and build friendships; while on the flip side, there are those you do your best to avoid.

These last four months I have spent much of my time associating with one individual in particular. We come from similar backgrounds and have a lot of the same interests. We were partners in a card game called Spades. We won the two section tournaments held thus far this year and were hoping to defend our title over the Christmas break.

It’s kind of sad when I think about the things I really look forward to. He and I also play basketball together whenever possible. We’ve become pretty good friends and push each other to better ourselves. We go to church together and are in all of the same higher education classes. We’re trying to learn Spanish. He’s who I choose to associate with, so naturally about three months ago, we requested to become bunkies.

We were told by the powers that be that they would try. In this housing unit, moves are done at the end of each term. In Gunnison, the year is split into six terms for programming and education. When the move didn’t happen at the end of that term, we were told to hang tight, and if we rode it out for another term, we would definitely be allowed to become bunkies. We figured that would work perfectly because that’s when the football season would start. Since we are both BYU and 49ers fans, we would be able to watch the games together.

Well, moves were made, and again we weren’t bunkies.

It was disappointing. We were obviously not moved in for one reason or another. I told my buddy we should just accept it and go with the flow; better luck next time. He said he wanted an explanation as to why we were told one thing and got another.

In his defense, he has it worse than me, because his new bunkie was a “biker.” A biker is a term for someone who lives in a messy or dirty manner here. In this case his bunkie has a reputation for skipping showers and having a funk. There’s that, and my friend is just not a go-with-the-flow kind of guy; so of course he went and spoke with the officer in charge of our section.

The explanation the officer gave was that he “tries not to have friends be bunkies.” My friend pointed out that we have been good influences for each other. As perplexing as the policy is, I think I would have left it at that, but my buddy went on to say that the policy made no sense to him. Then he asked the officer why, if he knew he wasn’t going to allow us to become bunkies, were we told that we would.

Now I know this friend reasonably well, so I can be pretty sure he was respectful and used tact; however, I also know he overstepped his bounds. I know this because the next day he was told to roll up his stuff because he was being moved to another section.

I see this experience as a reminder of my place in here. In the past I may have been discouraged by such an event, but I don’t really let things that I have no control over bother me. That’s just something you have to learn, or your time could be pretty tough here.

Brian Wood, formerly of Layton, is an inmate at the Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison. He pleaded guilty to nine felony charges for offenses from 2011 to 2014, including counts of burglary, drug possession and prescription fraud. He could spend up to 35 years in prison, depending on parole hearings.