Prison Noir

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Officer More, I’ve taken care of Mr. Dorsey for the night. He’s asleep and probably won’t wake until morning. I’ll be back around seven thirty. He shouldn’t be any trouble during the night.”

  “Okay, Ali, first shift will be here when you return. Good night.”

  I didn’t particularly care to be sent to Coldwater. The word among inmates is that you’re sent there to die, or assist the dying. The whole facility is geared toward making sure that prisoners die in the least costly and most efficient way. The prison has five buildings set in a crescent formation. When an inmate walks out from any of the buildings, he is faced with a three-acre grassy yard. The yard is huge by prison standards; it has a small pond with ducks, and trees for shade. If it wasn’t a prison, it would be a wonderful spot to picnic.

  The facility was originally an industrial park. But during the 1980s recession, Michigan surrounded it with three fifteen-foot fences and draped them all with layers of barbed wire. Even so, Coldwater is a pleasant place to do time. The only complaint a prisoner may have is being surrounded by so many sick people. The officers are humane and abide by the philosophy that a person is sent to prison as punishment and not for punishment.

  Prisoners, the world over, are conspiratorial and very superstitious; things never go their way. But because of my belief in Allah, I have avoided these two character flaws. Nonetheless, my initial thought upon being sent to Coldwater was that it was an omen that death was approaching me. I prayed to Allah to help me get transferred to another prison. When I was first assigned to help Red, he said: “I wish God existed so I could send Him a message that I need His help.”

  Red’s words played at the shadows of my mind and the doubt in my heart. It was then I realized that ending up at Coldwater was a sign from Allah. Like the Holy Land once upon a time, Coldwater is filled with God’s messengers. I was humbled, but still sought confirmation of a sign in my five daily prayers to Allah. You cannot be arrogant when it comes to God’s signs. The next revelation came when I asked to work as a GED tutor, but was assigned to the critically ill and disabled unit.

  As I began my job with the sick inmates, I knew that helping them die in prison, without family or friends, would not be a sign from Allah in and of itself. It’s a known truth that Allah’s signs are never explained in the acts themselves. The signs are always explained by circumstances; there is no randomness to Allah’s signs in His three Holy Books. The Old, New, and Holy Koran testaments.

  When I committed my crime, at nineteen, I was convinced that Allah wanted me to confess and go to prison. The purpose of my imprisonment was to spread His message, and thus earn His pleasure. The years added up, but I did not hear from Him. I began to think that maybe there was neither reason nor sign in the long duration of my imprisonment. I became so distraught that I wrote a letter to the warden of the Lapeer prison facility, asking:

  Why are you taking care of me? In fifteen years I’ve contributed nothing to society. Yet you house me, feed me, clothe me, and provide me with medical care. Why?

  I received no reply.

  In my twentieth year of imprisonment I began to believe there was something blocking my prayers, and that was why Allah wasn’t answering me. I realized I had to change my method of reaching Him. Prayer, by itself, was no longer working, if it ever had. It couldn’t be me—I did my five daily prayers religiously, did not gamble, drink prison alcohol, steal, or commit homosexual acts. I was an ideal prisoner to Allah and the prison administration. Then suddenly the idea of messengers began to make complete sense in religious belief.

  * * *

  After sending Red with my message to Allah, the following morning I reported to his cell as usual. I stood for fifteen minutes looking at his face, and then approached a guard. “Officer Thompson, I believe Red is dead.”

  He looked up from his newspaper. “Mr. Dorsey? Are you sure, Ali? I checked on him when I came in at six o’clock. He looked fine.”

  We walked down to cell 66, and except for a pained expression on Red’s face, he looked asleep. I said somewhat apprehensively: “I checked his pulse, and he didn’t have one.”

  Officer Thompson turned to me. “Maybe you’re right, you know the policy. You don’t touch a prisoner you think is dead.”

  Red was my first messenger, and I feared I’d made a mistake. To cover, I said: “Officer Thompson, I’ve been taking care of Red for over a year. He’s my friend. I was hoping he was still alive.”

  In a whisper, because you always whisper around the dead for they can hear you, Thompson said: “I’m sorry Ali, I know he was your friend, but the rule is you don’t touch him. Don’t do it again.” So I never touched the dead again.

  However, Red’s pained expression stayed with me. I knew Allah would not accept my message. I was taught that you returned to Allah with a smile on your face, because you’re about to meet your Lord. A pained expression shows a lack of faith. I had to better prepare my messengers for their meeting with Allah, and I had to somehow limit the number of questions that would arise on my messengers’ journeys. The limiting of questions is Allah’s greatest gift to strengthen faith. In all His Holy Books He admonishes against too many questions asked of Him or His messengers.

  The medical staff and the warden were called to confirm Red’s death. They too were disturbed by his face. Luckily, the attending nurse observed, “He must’ve died in his sleep. Poor guy looks like he was in great pain with his last breath to God.” This particular nurse was very religious. She always tried to bring the dying prisoners to Christ. But she wasn’t my rival, because everyone knows Christianity is a man-made religion—unlike Islam, which was revealed directly from Allah to mankind. And yet her observation forewarned that I cannot completely depend on people not caring about what happens to prisoners when they die. It would be helpful to everyone if those witnessing had a positive impression of the messenger’s body after he’s left with my message.

  The prison staff did a cursory investigation and ruled that the death of prisoner Dorsey, #1954-44, was natural. He was twenty-one when he came to prison in 1962. After forty-four years behind bars Red had no children, but was survived by two brothers and a sister, all who had lost interest in him long ago. The prison was able to contact one of the brothers concerning Red’s remains. According to Officer Thompson, the brother sarcastically said, “You must’ve loved my brother very much to keep him for forty-four years. So why don’t you keep the body?” To reduce prison costs, John Dorsey was cremated and his ashes were scattered on the Coldwater yard. The only part of Red that left prison was my message to Allah.

  I had sent the message on Friday, a day that is holy to both Islam and Christianity. Jesus was crucified on Friday night and rose Sunday morning; that’s three days and three nights. Actually, it’s only two nights and one day, but with the signs of God you don’t hold math accountable. With no beginning or ending to God, He can’t be put on a number line. It’s humans who created numbers, who can begin counting with one and end with infinity. It just seems ironic that most of Allah’s signs deal with some sort of numerical combination when He doesn’t.

  * * *

  Three days later, I was ordered to Deputy Warden Engle’s office. He’s the one charged with the dead-men-walking unit, as it’s known among staff and prisoners. (I reverently called the unit “the messengers’ home.”) Originally, because of my laid-back demeanor, I was assigned to help dying prisoners. I didn’t mind because a dying prisoner is much easier to help than, say, a prisoner you wish would die. That’s an inside joke among helpers that always gets an unmaliced chuckle. The messengers’ home sits in the middle of the five units at Coldwater prison. It holds 157 prisoners and employs fifty-two helpers, housed separately. Only one helper is assigned to each dying prisoner.

  Deputy Engle’s office was situated in the messengers’ home. “Come on in, Mr. Ali. Please sit down.”

  I sat in a chair by his desk. The deputy likes to think of himself as a regular guy; he’s always q
uite informal. I, like every other prisoner, worry about informality but go along to avoid unwanted attention.

  “Ali, I called you in to see if you’re all right, because the officers’ daily reports show that you and Red were friends.” I immediately got nervous and silently prayed that Red would not be my last message to Allah. “I called you in ahead of the seven days required by policy before being assigned another prisoner to ask a favor. Do you know Mr. Jackson? His cell is two down from Red’s.”

  I knew Twin—Mr. Jackson—who has a twin brother also in prison. I knew he was very sick, hard to keep company, a devout Christian, and blamed everyone but himself for fifty-two years in prison. Mr. Jackson thought his interpretation of Christianity was the only way not to be a nonbeliever. When assigned to Twin, the majority of helpers had declined unless ordered. His last helper quit the assignment, which is unusual for a job that pays a hundred dollars a month. The most any other prisoner can earn on assignment is forty-five, and even that’s considered high pay.

  “Yes, Deputy Warden, most of the other helpers know him, but we’d rather not help him. He’s very abrasive.”

  Smiling, Engle said, “I’ve heard that, Ali, and that’s why I’m hoping you’ll take the assignment. I think both of you being so religious would help you get along.” If I played this opportunity right, Twin could be my access to a steady stream of messengers. I had to make sure the deputy remembered that I didn’t want the assignment.

  “Deputy Warden, you know I’m a Muslim, and I’m sure you’ve seen the news. We Muslims can hardly get along with each other, let alone with a fanatic Christian.”

  Deputy Engle sat back. “If you’re refusing to be Mr. Jackson’s helper, I’ll understand, but that will leave an open slot for me to fill. I’m sure I can find someone who would like to earn a hundred dollars a month.”

  I knew his implication. At present I had no assignment, so I was the open slot. “All right, Deputy Warden, I’ll be Mr. Jackson’s helper. But I want it understood that he’s very temperamental.”

  He got up to shake my hand. “I’ll note in your file that Mr. Jackson is a difficult assignment and will even request that payroll gives you a one-time bonus of fifty dollars.”

  I never got the bonus, but I did get something far more valuable: that day it became much safer for me to send my messengers to Allah.

  There is a commonality between Allah’s messengers and mine. Both of us choose men who are reluctant to be messengers and are despised by the people. Our messengers also share the trait of believing they are not special until they’ve been separated from the people. They don’t feel different, but they are different.

  * * *

  “What incompetent person made you my helper? Plus, aren’t you a Muus-limb?”

  I smiled. “Twin, we’ve known each other since 8 block in Jackson Prison. I came to prison as a Muslim, so let’s just have you believe what you believe and I believe what I believe.”

  He gave me a long look. “I don’t need a Muus-limb’s help, so you can leave my cell. Don’t worry, they’ll still pay you for the day.” I agreed to leave and told him that if he needed help he should alert the officer, who would get me from my unit.

  The following day, Twin had a callout to see the doctor. He had been waiting six months for approval to have an operation to remove cancerous cells from his lungs. I got a wheelchair and took him to the doctor’s office. I waited in the hallway for only about five minutes before I was told to bring him back to his cell. I said nothing as we made our way back.

  Twin was peering vacantly down the walkway when he said, “The doctor told me I was denied the operation because the cancer has spread to other parts of my body. It’s in Jesus’s hands now.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I offered to help him write a grievance against the medical provider, the warden, and the Department of Corrections.

  “Ali, how many grievances have you won in your time in prison? I’ve been in prison for fifty-two years and remember when we had no grievance procedure at all, and now that we do, I’ve never won one.”

  I knew he was right, but I wanted my next messenger to have hope. Hope is Allah’s sign that your message is close to being accepted. I didn’t need another pained expression on the face of my messenger when he stood before Allah.

  For the next two weeks, Twin didn’t want any help. I would come to his cell and find him reading the Bible or saying his prayers. “Twin, do you need anything today? I could take you to the yard.” It’s strange making such small talk with a dying man, but I wanted him to be peaceful, and hopeful.

  “I’ve been in prison yards since 1960,” he replied. “If you’ve seen one prison yard, you’ve seen them all.”

  An inmate’s greatest fear is dying in prison. In prison you have no control. You wake up, eat, go to the yard, come back in, and sleep when told, only to do the same thing all over again the next day. I knew with only twenty-four years in prison myself how Twin felt about being told to go to the yard. He thought that, in not being able to control his life for the last fifty-two years, he could at least have some control over where he died. With great sadness in my heart, I went to the yard by myself.

  * * *

  It was Easter and a mildly warm sunny day when I showed up with a wheelchair at Twin’s cell door. “I thought we’d go to the yard, and you can tell me about Jesus.”

  Twin was in bed reading the Bible. “You don’t even believe in Jesus.”

  I looked hurt. “I believe in Jesus as a messenger of Allah, God.”

  Twin looked doubly hurt. “If you don’t believe Jesus is the son of God, you don’t believe in Jesus.”

  I sat down in the wheelchair and asked, “Don’t you believe Jesus was a messenger who brought God’s message to the Israelites? If you do believe this, then maybe you can convince me that Jesus was also the son of God.”

  He took my challenge and asked to be helped into the chair. I wheeled Twin to the back of the yard, where I could sit in the shadow of the trees, and he in the sun; I had to be careful to not upset my messenger. There were plenty of others in the yard, but they didn’t approach us. When inmates find out someone is dying, they tend to avoid him as an evil omen of their demise in prison.

  I made sure Twin faced the garden outside the greenhouse. The prisoners working the grounds provided a sense of how Allah gives life to a land after its death. I knew this scene would give Twin hope, because life being prepared to come forth always gives hope. Who has not seen a woman with child and not had hope for his own life, her life, and the life of the child?

  After twenty minutes of silence, Twin asked, “Ali, do you really want to hear about Jesus as the son of God, or were you just trying to get me out of the cell?”

  I pretended to be giving his question some thought. “I do want to talk about Jesus, but in stages.”

  He looked at me. “In stages? Like what, His parables?”

  “No, not His parables, but the stages of being a messenger to John the Baptist, then a rabbi to the disciples, and finally rising from death as the son of God. I’m really interested in His message.”

  Twin smiled and let his body relax under the sun and the blanket on his lap. “You want to know about His ministry, and how He was a messenger of God.”

  I knew that those who have ministries are not messengers of Allah but messengers of prophets, and actually receive God’s calling and not His message. Only messengers come with Allah’s message. “Twin, have you ever tried to send a message to God? And has He answered you? And if not, why not?”

  Twin, pleased with my skeptical expression, said, “Ali, are you in doubt that God hears you? That’s why Christians speak to God through Jesus. God will always hear Jesus, so Christians have no doubt.” If Jesus was a messenger, this was yet another sign that Allah would hear a message sent through him without a doubt. “You see, Ali, God hears me because I’m a messenger myself. I send the message of God to your ears.”

  The sign was complete!
Twin was a messenger, and tonight he would leave with my message to Allah. “Twin, you give me hope.”

  I spent the next two hours listening to my messenger speak about how he fully understood Jesus’s words. A messenger understands the message. Unlike Red, Twin believed in God, if wrongly, and Allah would correct his belief at their meeting. The yard would close at three forty-five in the afternoon for four o’clock count. After count, I would bring Twin his dinner and, if he allowed, get him ready for bed. I hoped, after our talk in the yard, he would let me help him get ready for bed.

  * * *

  I delivered Twin’s dinner tray to his cell and helped him sit up. He did not argue and was in fact very cooperative. I watched the Christian channel with him as he ate a grilled cheese sandwich, oven-baked potatoes, and a salad. He gave me the oatmeal cookie because it was too hard for him to eat in his condition.

  “Twin, let me help you get ready for bed tonight. Our talk in the yard proved that you can help me.” I needed him to feel obliged to take my message to Allah.

  He didn’t protest, but rather took on a childlike posture on his bunk. Twin was willing to be my messenger!

  I helped him put on the state-issued orange shorts that he liked to sleep in. His sickness had created a caricatured, doll-like figure, who looked up pleadingly like the pictures of the godly men in Christian books, their faces and bodies always appearing anorexic. I lifted the sheet and blanket.

  “Twin, tonight it’s going to be very cold. Would you like me to place a second blanket over you?”

  He nodded. I tucked the blankets tight on his left side and sat down on the mattress to secure them with my weight.

  “Hey, it’s okay to be in my cell, but don’t sit on my bunk. Get up—or better yet, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I inched closer to his shoulder. “Twin, I’ll move soon. But I need to ask you for a favor. Can you take an important message to God for me? God listens with more interest to those who know they’re dying. I’ll leave the cell as soon as you leave with my message.”