If He Hollers, Let Him Go

by Beth Harden

  #

  June 2014

  The sign above the mainline door leaves no room for personal interpretation. It is a sobering slap in the face to the sheepish cadets who see it for the first time and pull up short to consider the ominous greeting. The groggy double-shifters pay it no heed and push on past. In their veteran minds, what is going to happen will happen with or without caffeine. It always gives me momentary pause if only for a few lean seconds, enough to wonder why a smart girl with promise hadn’t just chosen the comfort of a cubicle job where the inspiration placard might be a patsy motivational phrase like: ‘Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ Instead we are warned daily that our lives depend upon our vigilance. We are not here to love our job; we are here to love our lives enough to do our job well. It is us against them. When you report for duty on prison property, there are only two colors: blue and tan. Nothing in between.

  I circumvent the metal detector and scan the opaque shield of the glass bubble to see who’s on shift. The shadowy figure with generic features purposely delays getting up from his seat. He might as well be a body double for every other guard with the colorless eyes, shaved head and swarthy frame. I rattle the heavy door once, twice in quick succession. Finally I kick it hard with the heel of my boot. The audible echo of impatience would be a flagrant breach of etiquette anywhere else but rudeness is a way of life here. It’s first come, first serve. Eventually he swings to his feet and pops the door. I slide my chit in the slot. As it turns out, it is a friendly face behind the glass today.

  “Number eighty-eight,” I say, exaggerating the diction of each digit as I bend my head downward and try to deflect my raised voice through the horizontal opening.

  “Hey, Miss A! You know how it’s done around here,” the officer says with a grin.

  “How’s that?” I say. The body alarm slides out on the stainless steel tray.

  “You’re moving much too fast for a Monday. You gotta pace yourself. Build up nice and slow. It’s only the first day of the week. Save some for tomorrow and then hit your stride on Wednesday. By midweek, you level off and then it’s all downhill from there. Didn’t anyone at the Academy teach you that?”

  “Not my style,” I laugh. “Take care, Stanley!”

  I punch in the code to deactivate the lock on the key box, pull key set #35, and slam the metal door shut hard, rattling it to make sure that it is latched tight. Convinced that the alarm has been disarmed, I snap the keys onto the belt clip. Though I’ve never been one to be impressed with the swagger of authority, there is something powerful about the swish and bustle of keys at the hip. The door buzzes and I am set loose into a world that is both run on time and run out of time. It is a kingdom of counts and codes: the code of silence, the code of brotherhood, and the multi-colored codes barked over the signal radios to send a stampede of adrenaline into the fray. It is all about counting, every man tallied in place shift after shift, each one knowing in his sleep the exact number of digits that will equal time served or time remaining. It’s an unholy and unsynchronized calculation decreasing years down to months down to days until that final moment of release. The date set for a parole hearing sits in front of them like a chisel and a wedge poised over a granite headstone waiting to etch its indelible mark. It’s either the day they are born or die. Staff is equally as fixated on the moment when they are released into the freedom of retirement, that moment of rebirth when they are propelled out of this grimy tunnel into the fresh air of new life. How you doing, buddy? shouts a fellow member of Local 448. In two hundred and seventy-nine days, I’ll be a helluva lot better, echoes the answer. Time ticks down in a clicking microcosm of numbers. Brave men count on each other for protection, for respect, and for the chance to walk out with more than they came in with; disappointed to discover that for most, they are less a human being on the far side of that gate.

  #

  The plastic wrap didn’t do shit to keep out the overnight freeze. The thin film has bubbled and puckered with condensation and pulled away from the metal frame where the Scotch tape did little to hold it. It’s certainly not worth getting a Class A ticket for. Chulo rouses up from his single-cell bunk and steps on the cinder block floor. The temperature is that of a tomb. He slept in his boxers and sweats with two mealy blankets tucked under his feet. The advantage of being a convict over a prisoner is the perspective, the ability to average out the extremes of ungodly heat and humidity with bone-numbing cold. If calculated over a continuum of twenty-two years, his conclusion is that the climate in Southern New England is temperate and survivable.

  I watch his routine from the privacy of my office. He does his grips off the table edge and tucks in his tans. Count is underway and then the block will be released to the chow hall. Chulo gathers up the stack of class lists that he carefully arranged by unit the night before so that his steps can be efficiently exacted in a sweep around the massive concrete floor plan of this fifty-year old penitentiary. Anyone with half a child’s brain can see how nonsensical it is to flip a sheet of paper into the hands of the same apathetic officer each morning knowing that he will lose it, or claim to have, by the time the school call sounds. But an inmate who holds the privilege of a clerk position in the school wing does as instructed whether or not common sense tells him otherwise. And Chulo’s no dummy. Killing time as a clerical in the Education Department gets him out of the mayhem of the blocks;even better is the known fact that it is almost all female staff up there. Getting paid in scenery is an added benefit on top of the one-dollar and twenty-five-cents a day wage; plus the windows drop open on ancient hinges to allow a bulk of farm breeze into the building. Along with fresh air however, come the free-wheeling mud wasps and yellow jackets who take full advantage of screen-less openings and sweep up to the moldy twenty-foot ceiling to begin the arduous chore of nesting in the light filaments. Guys who are Medical 3’s because of bee-sting allergies are sent to this facility since it is a closed compound with indoor tier rec. But the bees don’t discriminate among the increased configurations of razor wire and persist on invading the place. It is not uncommon to hear grown men shrieking like grammar school kids and hopping up on rickety desks at the sight of an insect.

  Though his original assignment was to move chairs, erase chalkboards and to step and fetch an oscillating fan or a VHS player from the storage pile in the staff restroom, Chulo has gradually branched out. His expertise at picking up typing skills finally granted him use of a secure computer in the business education class to help draft up resumes for the vocational grads. That privilege affords him more movement, increased access to other inmates and a chance to rub elbows with the educators here. He is regarded as a trustworthy reliable inmate and given looser rein as a result. It didn’t take Chulo long to notice that the three staff members who run programs are hard-pressed for time with only a half-hour between end of roll call and start of class. During that short span of twenty minutes, curriculum materials need to be copied, housing assignments checked against the computerized housing locator, and a series of sally-ports and sliding gates maneuvered around. He quickly volunteered to be the runner for us as well. Why not? It’s the same lap around the perimeter of the pods whether it’s four lists or one. He does it for the teachers because they want to do less work; but he does it for me because I am trying to do more.

  Chulo knows I am neither a rookie nor a push-over. A quiet strength of will keeps me squarely on the right side of the boundary markers. But unlike most of the other female staff, I allow the inmates to creep ever so close to my personal space without shooing them back to their bunks, figuring I can better manage what is visible and within earshot. If you spook these guys or shut them down, they take cover and run their games from the far corner of the cube. It’s dangerous practice to appear disinterested or distant. And it works for him. Having a woman within reach is a rare treat in a male facility. Story has it that the females Chulo ran with in his early years were street chicks and hood rats all p
laying for his money and tagging along on his reputation. But when he caught his case, they all scattered and ran. Not a one was sending him money or signing in at visiting hours. In his eyes, I represent all the women he had forfeited in his life. The mother who migrated back to Puerto Rico the day her oldest son was sentenced to thirty-four years for dropping two bodies, the sister who struck his name from her rosary list and the holy Madonna who had seen his sins and withheld her absolution. Once his conviction was sealed, they all fled and left him. For decades, his fiercesome reputation has buoyed his iconic standing among his boys but Chulo dismisses all that hype and attention. He has something far more valuable than notoriety in hand now. It’s a prize that he does not want to jeopardize. Chulo is supremely grateful because I view him as something he has longed to be from the moment his fate was stamped in blood. I see him as a simple and ordinary man.

  Chulo stands off to the side of the metal detector waiting patiently underneath the oversized clock. His feigned snarl lets me know I am two minutes late. He dips his head respectfully and falls into stride beside me as I walk the corridor towards the far end. Since counselors are not part of the educational union, the school personnel reluctantly granted me use of the unclaimed classroom at the rear. The walls there are flat gray, the color of dead seawater in the advance of a northeaster. The chalk board at the back of the room had been painted over with rocket ships, misguided meteors and a lop-sided Saturn on its ear. The mural was likely done about the time Apollo 8 was thrusting off its launch pad. A wall of windows faces east which promises a warming as the sun rises above the chapel wing. Depending on the season, the room is either insufferably hot or unbearably frigid. There is no tempering the extreme fluctuations. Air-conditioning was not in the budget for this space and since the room backs up to the northerly winds, whatever miniscule amount of heat creeps through the barriers of dust, mold and rodent nests never makes a spit of difference. I like to believe it builds character; although it is difficult to convince a dozen men in threadbare tee shirts that it is worth the shivers. The indigent are hardest hit. With no funds to purchase kicks or boots, they slide around in shower shoes with no socks.

  “You need anything copied?” asks Chulo. His eyebrows are raised in striking arches that made him look perpetually skeptical. I leaf quickly through the pile.

  “Well, it’s possible I’m short one,” I reply. “I want to make sure I have enough hand-outs for tomorrow’s discussion.”

  “No worry. I got you!” Chulo reaches for the document and purposely grazes my knuckles. He winks and sets off down the corridor to the secretary’s office. His charisma has worked on her too. I set my briefcase down and decide to re-order the desks that seem to have scattered overnight. Across the barren yard stands the gatehouse and just beyond it, the entrance sign to the prison. The stark purpose of this structure is cloaked in more user-friendly terms as a Correctional Institution. It’s a warm handshake to throw public perception off the track like a pack of simple-minded bloodhounds hot on the wrong scent. More accurately, it is a house of confusion, chaos and constant clamor and one that is haunted by birds like an Alfred Hitchcock film. A stray turkey with a running start and a stiff wing has cleared the corner fencing and now drifts around the perimeter looking for an escape. Black crows leer and hop sideways over the coils of razor wire that snake across the roof line like jagged Slinkys. In the foreground, placid Canada geese toddle about unabashedly nipping for grass shoots. This time of year with the earth hard as brittle and pocked with dried boot heels, pickings are slim. Tar-green droppings deck the paved walkways, a fitting gift to the inmates that tread these lines every day and track the mess of the world behind them.

  The cement housing units once sported a coat of proud military gray, but the winds have worn down the paint on the northern walls to the colorless shade of lint. Not much grows here. Even in the height of summer, the prison grounds will remain barren and sprout little more than a Styrofoam cup or pen barrel. The changes are almost imperceptible from the passing of the golden-eyed orb of August moon to the clipped lunar crescents of winter that dodge and peek above a charcoal smudge of tree line. Once in a blue moon, something happens to interrupt the endless hours of monotony and boredom - a moment of sheer terror or unspeakable joy. Otherwise, there is the unavoidable acceptance that nothing will be different by sun-up.

  #

  “That’s guy’s a real shitbag. You know what he’s in for?” asks Hastings. He leans over my shoulder and peers at the name at the top of the class list. He scans the profile photo that accompanies it with disgust. I shake my head.

  “No clue,” I answer in a neutral tone.

  “Don’t you want to know?” he asks.

  “No. I never look at the master file before I run my group.”

  “It’s in your best interest to learn what kind of crap these guys have done. You gotta know what you’re up against.” Hastings has been on the tiers for over fifteen years and has cultivated his own peculiar crop of bitterness, a blend of civility and realism.

  “I don’t want it to color the way I do my job. I give the same service to each, regardless. What they choose to do with it is their call,” I respond diplomatically.

  “He diddled a little kid,” sneers Hastings. I shrug and show no sign that his comment registered with me. I have my own general cataloguing system in play. For example, the persistent young bucks that whine, manipulate and loudly voice their discontent are almost guaranteed to return over and again, skid-bidding from one drug and burglary charge to another despite the resources they soak in. They are a wearisome challenge. Or the middle-aged guys with infrequent requests who have been down a long time and are rarely seen in my office. They keep to themselves quietly reading on their bunks and usually carry the fading stigma of one rash act of extreme violence perpetrated in the impulse of late adolescence.They are no trouble to manage. And then there is the group of sheepish older Caucasians who are typically overweight and sport thick-framed eyeglasses. These men refuse to speak in group and will not keep any legal paperwork in their trunks for fear of being found out. They are sex offenders, the bottom rung, lepers of a harsh caste system that is brutally intolerant of those that deviate off-track to pillage the pre-pubescent. All things considered, murderers seem to be my client of choice these days.

  “But that’s just good safety practice. These guys are capable of flipping at any time,” Hastings says. He stands at attention as if he’s still in boot camp.

  “Don’t worry. Counselors are the good guys. Not like you,” I tease, winking.

  “Well for your information, there was a counselor here before your time that got pelted with batteries. They broke her cheekbone.”

  “And I bet it was no random accident. These guys know exactly who they are after.”

  “Are you saying she asked for it, Elise?” Hastings looks around to see if any prisoner is near enough to hear his gaffe in using my first name.

  “I’m just hoping if anything bad ever happens in here, the inmates will be my allies not my enemies. I’m banking on that.”

  “That guy’s a maggot, regardless.”

  “He’s decent enough to deal with,” I conclude. My expression clearly lets him know I don’t condone criminal behavior; but we are not the courts, nor are we appointed to be judges. Their sentence has already been determined and the punishment exacted in daily increments. It is not for us to heap further misery on the guilty and potentially rupture this already precarious peace.

  “That’s right, Abrams. You’re young yet. You still believe you can change the world,” Hastings jokes. His respect for my dedication is tempered by what he perceives as a glaring flaw of misguided empathy.

  “Least I’m not a bitter bastard like you. Yet,” I tease. Class is due to start in ten minutes and the list of participants still need to be walked up and handed in to Main Control.

  “I’ve got to hustle and get going,” I say.

  “Do your homework, rookie,” says Ha
stings. As I turn to gather up the copies of today’s handouts, he softens. “Hey, let me walk you down.”

  “Sure,” I reply. I know this about Hastings. He is awed by the breed of woman that can navigate the military culture of law enforcement and still maintain the gentleness of a feminine and knowing spirit. There are plenty of broads in the system who have rubbed up against the friction of negativity long enough to grow callous skin and chafed hearts, but not this girl. He sees me as someone who carries herself with the refined gait of a thoroughbred thatsteps carefully, judiciously distributing its weight on delicate hocks. To him, I am a filly that is either prone to injury or recovering from one; someone not easily herded off course but one who could be spooked into a mad retreating gallop by the slightest wrong move. He has told me how he feels; not just once but on numerous occasions with bubbling praise over my most unusual eyes of grayish lavender with fractured streaks of black like the marbles he dropped into the smooth grooves of his Mancala board. And he has spouted excessive admiration for the waves of dark chestnut hair that resist barrettes and clips. Though the administrative dress code dictates that hair be cut or held above the collar, I have given up trying and just let the knot of loosely-corralled strands tumble down my back. Because I am so pale, people assume I am sickly or have a natural born fragility to my constitution. I am the type of woman men feel an urge to protect; but unfortunately, one who does not need them.

  I accept his offer if only for the safety factor. Hastings has a super-hero mystique about him with his fastidiously-developed triceps that strain the fabric of his tactical jersey to maximum torque. His torso is cut into perfect grids and like an action figure his height is disproportionate to his cranium. He has a serious face and sports wire-rimmed glasses that might tempt some people to mistake him for a computer tech or an accountant, but the stereotype ends there. His towering trunk of a body takes bystanders on a roadmap of muscle that derails into ham-size calves tucked neatly into a pair of black sniper military boots. He is an intimidating if not handsome specter, especially on a dead- run to extract a resistant inmate. We head out into the corridor, two mismatched colleagues that merge into the main thoroughfare of mass movement. Down by the gym, my friend suddenly detours to the left.