by Beth Harden
A stack of requests rests on my desk with return answers to be distributed to the men. I can’t go back out there and face them. I should sign the logbook and tour the unit, but I don’t want to be harassed. I decide to wait until they clear out for chow and then run the requests to their bunks. I listen for the radio dispatch as they stagger the units by sending fifty first, then the remaining men at fifteen- minute- intervals. The volume of voices decreases and fades. I think they’re gone now but as soon as I step out into the common area, I see that only half the unit has been dismissed. I begin the rounds anyway looking straight ahead, refusing to engage them. I’m on a mission to make it through all fifteen cubes and get this mail handed out. One guy steps up and begins to explain his predicament. I need to keep going, I tell myself. Another one blocks my way, disappointed that I won’t dawdle to hear his tale. “You need to step back, sir. You’re too close.” Others have come back in the unit and the floor is beginning to fill with bodies milling around me. One figure approaches at a diagonal. My senses go on alert.
“I’m doing my tour now. You can drop a note to me in the box,” I say. I take the defensive route.
“Did you call my girlfriend and let her know about my GED graduation?” this young man asks, ignoring my tactful approach.
“That’s a matter to take up with the school. I don’t make personal calls,” I reply and continue walking around the perimeter.
“You said you were gonna. Don’t say you’re gonna if you know you’re not.”
“Are you telling me how to do my job?” I ask, gritting my teeth but without looking back at the insolent young buck.
“You lied,” he hisses, seething mad now. I stop dead in my tracks, turn and look at this cagey, young black man. He’s both defiant and derisive. I see the evil that compels him to hate me without provocation. I glance at his compatriots who stand blank-faced waiting to see what will happen. Not one of them intervenes on my behalf. These are not my friends. They never were.
“You need to step away, Mr. .?”
“Baker!” he spits out, as if I should automatically know who he is.
“Mr. Baker. We’re done here,” I add. “All of you. Back down!”
As I turn away to continue the mail drop, I hear him say it under his breath. You fucking bitch, that’s what he says with utter distaste. I have two choices. I could ignore it and pretend I didn’t hear anything, shut the door on his brash behavior and leave him to swelter in his own nasty attitude. But suddenly I see red. I could be anywhere but here, stressing myself out on a daily to mother these bastards and clean up the mess of their lives. They expect me to, and once they drain me to the point of collapse, they’ll step over my hapless form to get to the next fool.
“Fuck you, you ungrateful little shit!” I hiss. It comes out with a vengeance that surprises even me. Mr. Baker looks like he’s been shot in the gut. One hand jerks up and clutches his stomach. His eyes widen with alarm. Dozens have witnessed this encounter including the guard on his post who has been rattled awake by the commotion. Baker starts to spool off an explanation in the officer’s direction when he sees me heading towards the desk.
“She lied. I never did nuthin',” he whines. The same smokescreen of excuses he’s thrown in the face of the police, the judge, and the warden all along his dishonest little life. He is not allowed to make any contact with his baby mama so this was his round-about scam to get to her and jam me up. His girlfriend is his victim, but I will not be.
“Chapman, bag him up!” I shout. The others pull back and away from the female who has transformed in front of their eyes.
“Don’t fuck up a good thing, asshole!” someone shouts at Baker.
“Done,” answers Officer Chapman who needed some kind of adrenaline to get his second wind. He calls Main Control and then directs Baker to his bunk that will now be stripped down and assigned to one of the inmates in the overflow population on the gym floor. I sit at the desk in plain view and write the ticket that will send Baker down to the hole. It feels good recounting the incident verbatim while it is still so fresh. …” And then I, CC (Correctional Counselor) Abrams felt threatened by Inmate Baker # 351972 when he said in a hostile tone and I quote: “You’ll pay, you fucking bitch.” It was that easy. I had this bastard’s balls in a mole wrench and I’d chosen to lock the grip down hard even if my aim was a slight bit off.
#
Twenty-eight percent is the going rate; in this case, the number of prisoners who will be able to desist from crime and fall off the law enforcement radar. There it is in fine print in the latest recidivism statistics. That means that only three and a half of the twelve men in my charge are slotted for success. A smidge down from what I had guessed last week. I’m no psychic. I make my predictions based on the depth of soul or the lack of one I see behind a man’s eyes. All will graduate from the program but I scan the roster carefully to dredge up the winners. Bowman, Serge, Willis and the Rev are the candidates who get my vote for Most Likely to Succeed. That’s forty percent; we’re defying the odds here. Guys like Noble and Ortega have had the street handed down the generational ladder. Violence is so thick in their bloodstream, it circulates its viscous poison like a sluggish drug. They both have a few more bids left in them. Dent is an entertaining character but his limited reasoning skills and faulty trip switch will be his downfall. Anger is his only language. The pressure from multiple ex’s, bawling babies and the money to keep them all quiet is just not in his favor. Zimmer’s the guy that luck pisses on. No matter what he does and how affable he is, that man is doomed to come up short. Gemini will stamp, pout and cry but somewhere written in his genetic code is the name Victim and a future foreshortened by the wrath of ignorant people. Euclid will be shipped out to Rushfork, last stop for the criminally insane and hopefully before he accumulates any bodies. And who’s left? Crespo, a fugitive and an unwanted encumbrance on our welfare dole. Perhaps if he made it back to his mother-land, he’d assimilate back into being a goat-herder or a pan flutist. Granted, if no drug lords or political coup have razed his herds or raped his women by then.
At times, it makes me want to gather them all in my arms say ‘there, there,’ and squeeze each with an it-will-get-better hug. What are you, some kind of bleeding heart liberal? These are convicted killers, rapists. Let them hang. I know. I know. But it won’t get much better for most of them. Like sedimentary rock with its layers and layers of sludgy build-up, the deficits pile up one on top of the other: substance abuse, poverty, neglected educations, dysfunctional family groups, mental illness or marginal health. The crust grows and hardens. We treatment-minded folks pick away at solving the issues but it’s like trying to dislodge diamonds encased in a mountain of trouble using a butter knife. Show me an inmate who has only one problem, the Commissioner stated in his challenge to the lawmakers. Not a single case was produced. No surprise, since among the twenty-eight thousand, six hundred and three offenders in the State system, not a single man or woman qualifies. That statistic alone is more than enough for some people to jump off the rehabilitation bandwagon and climb on board the anti-recidivism float. In the parade of politics, the latter one spouts harmonious music, gaily colored banners and diverse participants waving grandly from its broad platform. It’s a subtle shift in policy, but one that grants permission to correctional treatment workers to care only between the hours from eight o’clock a.m. to three fifteen. Seven hours and fifteen minutes of a paperwork chain that proves they did their job of keeping these bad people comfortable and safe until time’s up. After that, it’s anybody’s guess what happens. The house of correction is in truth a hotel of contradiction. We can only help up to a point. We can publicize an altruistic mission statement that’s no more than an advertising pitch to a reluctant public. We can give a prisoner a bar of soap but not expect him to clean up his act. We can temporarily house him with mediocre service, strip his bunk and toss his valuables in the trash. His identity matters not the least. If he returns, it’s on him.
<
br /> The blank evaluation forms are ready to be completed. I stare at the empty white comment box and neat series of squares aching for a checkmark. I want to be wrong. Maybe this will be the first class of matriculating magicians who disappear before our very eyes and reappear off-stage as real live fathers, sons and husbands.
#
There was a report on NPR about this split-brain thing and how schizophrenia frequently sets in at puberty. The study proposed that an afflicted person often outgrows the dueling personality disorder in middle age. What I’m wondering is, can someone grow into it? The fractures and hematomas on the right side of my head had caused intractable panic and neurological paralysis on the left side of the body. The two halves could no longer communicate in concert. They were always quibbling like a hard-of-hearing couple and the discordance in this cerebral dichotomy was getting worse. The lobe on the left keeps insisting: Listen, linger, and learn. Let go. This man has evolved. The former person, Mr. X is as good as dead, laid out on a silk lining six feet under or incinerated and left to the wind. The right shrieks in opposition. Terran Willis is a murderous deceit artist. He’s run his game well to win over any doubters. A Bible-touting rapist with a carefully assembled tool kit of charm and accolades that will get him out of this pen better than any wire cutters. And once he strolls out with his two hundred dollars of gate money, he’ll order up that first round of Patron and bag of White Rhino and toast the saps on the Parole Board who let him walk at sixty percent of sentence served. He had even duped her ass, the trusting counselor who like any other bitch could be played to get what he wanted.
Easy. Flunk the bastard. A failed program evaluation would jam him up and force him to discharge off his end of sentence. He would be automatically denied for early release. The assessment had five distinct areas of competence: attendance, initiative, productivity, attitude and responsibility. Poor! Poor! Poor! The frenzied checkmarks jump to life, cutting the small paper boxes with the force of the pen. I am in control now. Other counselors type a formula statement in the comment box, something to the effect of ‘Inmate So-and–So has met the requirements of the program and successfully completed the group,’ followed by a recommendation that the individual take advantage of voluntary resources in the future. It is one thing to make a generic pencil mark, there’s nothing too difficult about that; turns out it is quite another to actually write out a lie in grammatically correct sentences. Shit! Elise. Even I am surprised at what you might be capable of. Total fabrication. No worse, it’s slander and defamation of a man who has been a stellar student in all respects. Call it what it is — outright perjury on paper.
The truth is Willis hasn’t missed a beat. His humble confidence has quietly encouraged his comrades to reach for better. He is the one student that asks for extra sheets of lined paper to attach to the hand-out instead of settling for a few bare-boned sentences. I can’t do it. The paper flies into the shred box. Here’s the problem. If I jam him up and he is denied early release, he stays here for the duration of his bid under the same roof with me. With his inherent craftiness and access to the legal library, he will have both the time and the know-how to plan a counter-attack with legitimate grievances of staff misconduct, appeals and formal litigation. Even more frightening is what he might do to sabotage me. More than any other living soul on earth, I know what this man is capable of if he is who I believe he is. Hell, just take a look at his criminogenic and hostility scores when he first landed in assessment. If provoked, there’s no telling what his wrath might look like, especially if he realized who I really am to him. These prisoners have people on the outside who do their bidding. Hits are ordered from within the walls and executed on the outside. I would be at risk no matter where I went.
As inconsequential as it seems, I worry equally as much about what the fall-out will do to my reputation. My credibility is at stake. Talk seeps faster behind bars than the torrents of rain that tumble through the frail seams of caulking in this old ark of a structure. Phenomenal and exceptional are rare compliments in this dark place and yet these adjectives had been granted to me verbally in gloomy corridors or scribbled on the back of commissary slips. These are the evidence of respect gifted from men who pitted life and death on a reputation. It is praise that has been hard won over years of putting the brakes on impatience and pushing back against the heat and hatred. If I choose this act of vindication and then remain on the job, the tide will turn against me. The other inmates will hear his claims and know the truth. When push comes to shove, they are all in cahoots. I would be in danger. Tan versus blue. Remember, Elise? Calm down. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. As the pulse of anger slows to a level beat, the words come reluctantly in terse phrases. One by one they add up to a written portrait of a man who appears to be the sum total of transformation. I examine the finished form. All the excellent boxes are now checked. Excellent is what he gets. In truth, though, there is a looming gap in his testimonial that has yet to be accounted for.
#
I call Willis down to the Interview room which is centrally located in the hallway down the main line with officers nearby and traffic on the move outside the door. It’s a safer spot to confront difficult issues or individuals. The security camera leers from the left-hand corner where it is bolted out of reach of even the tallest of prisoners. Peering down from a height of ten feet or so, it blinks its watchful eye day and night and tattles its secrets on spools of videotape. These voyeuristic devices are everywhere in the facility. The chair is positioned just so. The desk pushed forward and angled so that my profile is what will be seen. No chance for a crafty lip-reader to get a full peek at our conversation.
Willis comes in and bends slightly as he always does in a common curtsy caused by the length and breadth of him. He has a written pass in hand and looks a bit confused at the nature of this visit.
“Sit dowm, please,” I say, waving to the second chair in the room. Willis hesitates and then lowers down onto the blue plastic chair. I smile. He brings in the dusky odor of men who have been in close quarters together in a swamp of humidity. His skin shines with a mist of perspiration. I yank the string attached to the pull chain on the wall fan and it begins to swivel nervously. A flutter of air brushes across the table between us and freshens his face first, then mine. The motion repeats. He is grateful for the relief.
“I wanted to give you this in private. It’s your evaluation which is one of the very few perfect scores I have ever given out. Usually I praise in public and critique in private, but I didn’t want the others to feel slighted. And I added a little extra in the comment section specifically for Parole’s eyes. Go ahead, read it.”
Willis looks over the document thoroughly and beams. He appears to be a bit flushed with genuine self-consciousness.
“It’s more than I ever expected. Or could have hoped for,” he says finally.
“Go do something great out there, okay?” I say.
“You can bet on it,” Willis says. “I don’t know how to thank you for having my back in this way.”
“The thanks is in the doing,” I reply. “The world is waiting for your contribution.”
“I’ve never met a woman like you,” he replies. Something buzzes in one ear. Simple tinnitus or a warning? What sounds like a benign compliment echoes with an insidious ring. I look directly into Willis’s eyes, something I just now realize I’ve been avoiding doing by always focusing just left of center. I wonder who I’m really looking at.
“There are good women out there. You need to find the one who has your best interests at heart. Anything’s possible after that.” Willis lowers his head for a moment, and then brings his gaze up to meet mine.
“You’re one of those women, Mizz Abrams,” he says, almost timidly. Rejection of any interest or advance is automatic. The book of my life is closed and padlocked here. I give them no clues, no hints. I wear a generic ring on the wrong finger and assume a vague title that reveals nothing about my marital status. I never l
et on what car I drive or which direction I come from. A rustle of shyness filters over my face.
“Good luck, Mr. Willis,” I say, ending the telling pause between us. He interprets that remark as a dismissal and rises to his feet.
“I’d like to repay you for all your help. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’d like to invite you over and introduce you to my Moms. Are you on Facebook?” Willis says. A cold knot of indigestion roots in my belly. A flare of alarm sets off into circulation by this false pretense of a happy family seated around the Sunday dinner table when I know full well that he is alone in this world. Has he forgotten that he shared the sad tale of his mother, Berea’s unfortunate heart failure when he was just a belligerent boy, that he has no siblings and his foster-aunt is also deceased?
“Do you think we could see one another outside of here when I’m free and clear? I would treat you like the true lady you are,” he continues. He has crept over the boundary line with no warning shot from my side. There’s a subtle smugness in his tone like he knows more about me than he lets on and that I should be flattered he has chosen me to set his aim on. Did he just ask me out? If so, it’s a pretty twisted reversal on the usual dating schematics. Rape, violate, and then date?
“You know me better than that, Mr. Willis,” I say, closing the folder in front of me, sliding it into my workbag and snapping the leather case shut. My back faces the interior wall. I must circumvent the bulky metal table to extricate myself from the room. A bad design I now note. Staff should always be nearest the exit. Willis stands motionless as I scoot around the cramped corner with briefcase bumping the cabinet and my portable cup tilted just enough to dribble coffee on the floor. In case of emergency, it would never be too difficult to track the whereabouts of Counselor Abrams. A signature spill-trail of medium cappuccino marks my movements from first stop at the ladies room to the Outer Control check-point at end of day. I bet the hallway janitors curse my comings and goings.
