by Walter Marks
After cutting me off in his office, it was exactly the right thing for him to say and do. And because he knew exactly what to say and do, Ben had the potential to be a real tough customer.
CHAPTER 3
Before we saw Rasheed Harris, Ben filled me in on the patient's history. He’d been taken to the hospital for observation after attempting to hang himself with torn-up bed sheets. When he came in he was deeply depressed and just wanted to end it all. Ben put him on the antidepressant Sinequan, 150 mg per day, and let him rest for a while. After a week, Harris seemed to respond to the medication, and Ben put him into one of the daily group sessions. By the end of week four, Harris said he felt better and wanted to return to the general population. Ben had approved the move, and was now checking him out before he left.
Harris lay on his bed, reading People magazine. He was a tall, emaciated black man with his hair in braids. Ben introduced us and then asked Harris how he felt. The prisoner sat up and smiled. "Dr. Caldwell," he said. "I'm real fine. Thanks for helpin' me git my shit together."
Ben nodded. "You been feeling drowsy?"
"No."
"Is your mouth dry?"
"No."
"Any constipation?"
"No," the prisoner said grinning, "Everything be comin' out a’ight."
A look of suspicion flickered across Ben's face.
"Lemme check your pressure," Ben said, bringing out a blood pressure cuff.
"That's cool," Harris said, offering his arm.
Ben pumped the rubber ball. "130 over 80”.
He went to the foot of Harris's bed and picked up his chart. After reading it carefully, he glanced at me with a faint smile on his face. Then he spoke to the prisoner.
"Rasheed. Gimme your jerky bag. "
"Say what?"
"Gimme your damn jerky bag."
"What you talkin''bout?"
"Don't be playin’ me, muthafucka," Ben shouted. "I ain't no fish."
"I ain't got nothin'," Harris protested.
"Drop your pants and yank it out for me," Ben said. "Or I'll do it for ya."
Shamefaced, the prisoner undid his belt, reached back and pulled a plastic beef jerky wrapper out of his rectum. It was stuffed with pills.
"Drop that stinkin' shit in the trash," Ben ordered. Harris obeyed. Then Ben called for a guard.
After the inmate and garbage can were taken away, Ben explained he’d had doubts about Harris all along. He suspected Rasheed had faked his suicide attempt to get into the psychiatric section and steal pills. Prison, Ben said, is a drug culture, and inmates know more pharmacology than your local Walgreen druggist. Harris figured he'd be getting tricyclic antidepressants, which sold for big bucks because they enhanced other drugs of choice — narcotic analgesics and amphetamines. He faked taking his pills and later stashed them up his ass so he could smuggle them out and sell them.
"Where did he get the plastic bag?" I asked.
"Vending machine," Ben replied. "Raisins, Jelly Beans, Jerky, they all come in plastic. Jerky is preferred for stashing because of its elongated shape."
Crash course on prison life.
"How did the blood pressure tip you off?" I asked.
"His readings were the same as the day he got here."
I thought for a moment.
"Of course," I said. "You had him on Sinequan, but he showed no side effects — no constipation, dry mouth, drowsiness, or...low blood pressure."
"Exactly," Ben said. "He was on a maximum dosage. He hadda have some side effects." He gave me a big grin. "You slick, man."
I tried not to look self-satisfied, "One more question, Ben," I said. "What's a fish?"
"What?"
"You told Harris you weren't...a fish."
"Oh," Ben said, laughing. "Actually, you're a fish. A new arrival. Fresh fish. Someone who don’t know da drill."
Ben started moving towards the door. “Next on our list is Bobby Sanchez. He's a full-time resident of Paranoia-ville."
"Does he hallucinate?"
"Yeah. He hears voices that get beamed down to him from a TV satellite. These days he says Lieutenant Columbo is telling him what to do."
"Columbo?" I said. "He must be hearing old re-runs."
Ben laughed. It was the first time I'd heard him laugh. But then, this was first time all day I'd felt comfortable enough to crack a joke.
Ben got serious. "We're watching him very carefully," he said. "Sanchez is trouble."
We went to see Sanchez, who was in bed and appeared to be sleeping.
"Oyé, Sanchez," Ben said softly. "¿Está dormiendo?"
When Sanchez failed to respond, Ben whispered that we’d better come back later. He explained Sanchez was in a constant state of fear, feeling people were planning to kill him. If Ben woke him suddenly, he might panic and get violent. Or maybe he was pretending to be asleep, which meant he didn't want to talk. We left quietly.
Next we visited Nigel Penrose. I recognized him as the guy who’d spit at me from his wheelchair. Mr. Penrose was now calm and amiable. Ben told me he’d just gotten a session of electroconvulsive therapy. Ben asked how he was feeling, and the patient replied in a Mayfair English accent. "After all that electric current passing through my system, I feel shockingly good."
Ben said some encouraging words, and we moved on to the group therapy room. The guard who’d taken Harris away was now leaning against the door. He introduced himself as Brian O’Mara. He carried a police baton carved with numerous notches. When I inquired about it, he responded in an Irish brogue, “Kinda like a shillelagh. One notch for every bone I’ve busted in a disciplinary action. Keeps order, believe you me!”
When we entered the group therapy room, Ben said he kept the guard stationed outside, to give his patients privacy. But he could summon O’Mara with his wireless pager if he had to.
"Does that happen often?" I asked.
"Not if I'm doing my job right."
When we sat down, I saw why Ben was pushing so hard for a new air conditioner. This unit was snarling instead of humming, pumping hot, then cool, then hot, then cool air into the room, as if it were having mood swings.
The patients began to straggle in. They took seats on folding chairs, in a circle. Ben addressed the group, “This is Doctor Rothberg, the newest member of our staff. He will only be observing today, so no need to be nervous. Now, who wants to start us off?”
Nobody spoke. Ben just sat back. The six patients avoided all eye contact. Finally, one man stood up.
"You're all assholes," he proclaimed. "You're pathetic, paltry assholes because of your despicableness, which has been propagated not only on the premises but also in general."
The speaker was clearly schizophrenic, his delusional thinking expressed in pretentious and disorganized speech.
A morbidly obese guy shouted him down. "I'm onto you, Fart-breath," he said. "I know you're just a mouthpiece for the warden. You and him are in cahoots..."
"Oh, please. I'm sick of your tiresome conspiracy theories."
"Ain’t no theory. A theory is somethin' that might be true and might not. I happen to know there's a plan goin' on, a plan to get every guy in this room feelin' like turds, like we was lower than insects. But lemme tell ya somethin', Fart-breath. Ain't nobody gonna grind me down. Not you, and not the warden."
"What you guys don't realize," a pasty-faced man said quietly, "Is we're fucked. Don’t matter what we do or say, we're fucked."
It seemed much like the group sessions I'd run at Bellevue. The usual dynamic was at work — the complex mix of hostility, compliance, imitative behavior, humor, rage, and catharsis.
I’d expected the men to act differently because they were criminals. But they didn't. I couldn’t tell from watching them which one was a murderer, a rapist, a burglar, or an arsonist.
Still, there was one profound difference between them and my Bellevue patients — these men were not free. All the patterns of character — drive, desire, fear, defense — were distorted
because they had no control over their lives.
If a man is caged up, is he paranoid for feeling his keepers are against him? Is he a pathological depressive because his life in prison is grim and dispiriting? Can he be called phobic because he fears something terrible is going to happen to him?
I’m going to have to change my mind set. And I know it’ll take some time to learn how to help these guys.
By the time the group session was over, I’d made myself a promise — This time I’m going to do things right.
CHAPTER 4
After work, I went down to the parking lot and got into my car — a restored 1972 New York City Checker Cab. When I bought the old taxi at a Newark car auction it was bright yellow with a black and white checkerboard pattern around the moldings. Printing on the door said 50 cents First 1/4 mile, 10 cents Each additional 1/4 mile.
When I went to register the car, I learned that in New York City only working taxis can be painted yellow, and if I wanted to drive it I’d have to change the color. So the vehicle was now robin’s egg blue. But I kept the checkerboard trim and the price advisory. For old time’s sake.
I got in and savored the aged cab smell — musty with hints of Texaco fumes, dime-store perfume and nickel cigars. A million fares picked up and dropped off in the Big Apple.
I left the prison and drove through some dense woods, punishing my rebuilt suspension on the pot-holed road. Then I turned left and followed Route 7 leading into town. The view was like a color photo in an I ♡ NY brochure: rolling, verdant mountains rising along both sides of the nearby Hudson River. About a mile before the village, the road widened to four lanes, and I passed a small shopping center. It had a food mart, a sporting goods store, an auto body shop and — my pulse quickened — the yellow plastic arch of a McDonald’s. The sign was an eyesore, but I was happy there were Big Macs within driving distance. I’d scarfed them so often at Bellevue the head nurse said the MD on my nametag stood for Mickey D.
The sun was setting behind the mountains when I got to the center of town. Main Street, Vanderkill looked like Main Street, USA — circa 1930. The business district was a block long. One side of the street was straight out of an Edward Hopper painting, a row of two-story red brick buildings. The amber sunlight turned the bricks orange, and created dark, slanted shadows under the cornices and windowsills. There were stores in the ground floors, offices above.
Across the street were private homes converted into shops. They had cutesy names like "Perc's" (a coffee house) and "Hair-do-well" (unisex beauty salon). One yellow house with a mansard roof had a sign saying "Vanderkill Obstetrics and Gynecology Center”, displaying the shingles of nine — count 'em — nine OB/GYNs. Go figure.
Telephone poles lined the sidewalks, tilting at odd angles, many hung with distribution transformers. The sky above was crisscrossed with power lines, phone wires, and other loose-hanging cords.
No underground cables. Nice. It wasn't the prettiest town in the world, but Vanderkill kept the look and spirit of an older, mellower America.
Ten minutes later I pulled up at my motel. I'd forgotten to take my room-key so I stopped off at the office.
The Hospitality Inn was a Mom and Pop operation. Pop was manning the desk. He was a shifty looking twerp with a ferret face. He leaned back in a swivel chair, watching TV — “America’s Funniest High Speed Car Crashes”. On the wall was a diploma from the American School of Motel Management, with Ray and Gina Incaviglia inscribed in Olde English lettering.
“Forgot my key.”
“Room number?”
“Seven.”
Ray reached in a mailbox and flipped me the key, without missing one second of “...on the Pasadena Freeway...Burbank cop car in a triple rollover...followed by a 360. Nobody was hurt."
I walked over to my room, in a row of dilapidated units facing the parking lot. When I reached the doorway, I heard an angry, buzzing sound, and looked up to see the motel’s neon sign flickering to life. For a moment it read only "SPITALITY INN". Then the "HO" went on. Truth in advertising.
Once I got inside, it felt good just to be in my own space. It was cramped, dingy, and furnished with Salvation Army rejects, but it was okay. I was used to close quarters; back in the city I lived on a small houseboat permanently moored in the Hudson River Boat Basin at 79th street. I’d bought the 30 foot Sunseeker with money my mom left me when she died. Most people said I was nuts, especially since it was so far away from the hospital. But when I saw an ad for it in New York Magazine I couldn’t resist. Living on a peaceful river in the middle of the frenetic city was way cool. And it was a short distance from Zabar’s and so many Starbucks I lost count.
When I left, I rented the boat to my boss Ed Sorenson, who lived in Scarsdale and wanted a Manhattan pied a terre. I think he really needed it for this psychiatric social worker he was shtuping, but hey.
Ed said he wouldn’t be there that much so I could use it when I came to town — just call first.
There was no closet, so I hung my jacket on a hanger permanently attached to a rod on the motel room’s coat rack. My first order of business was to feed Ninja. Ninja is my pet three-toed box turtle. Well, she’s not really mine. She belongs to an autistic kid named Henry Simpkins I looked after at Bellevue. His mom said the turtle was the only thing that made her son smile, so we kept Ninja by his bed. Henry finally had to be moved to Anson/Packwell in Palo Alto for long-term care; no pets allowed. I told the boy I’d mind Ninja till he came home. It’s been two years now.
I dumped some Kibbles ‘n’ Bits into her vivarium.
“Madam, dinner is served.”
Ninja poked her head out of her shell and shambled over to the food. She looked up at me with her red eyed, sharp nosed face. I scratched my fingernails over her high-domed carapace. She loved that.
I went to the mini fridge and popped a Heineken I’d bought the night before, then stripped down to boxers and t-shirt.
I plugged in my laptop and set it on the nightstand. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I began typing up my notes on the day’s events.
The process felt alien to me, and after a few moments I realized why. This was the first real clinical work I'd done since Melissa.
I closed my eyes and flashed on her face, her mouth really. Melissa had a way of biting into her lower lip as if it were soft candy. I shook my head. I am not going to think about Melissa.
When I finished my notes, I took out Victor Janko’s folder. Since Janko had received no treatment at the penitentiary, there wasn’t much in his file. At the time of his admission, Ben Caldwell had done a psychological evaluation of the prisoner.
Janko’s personality type is Obsessive-Compulsive, with components of Passive-Aggressive style. Appears quiet and well-mannered, but shows evidence of repressed anger below calm surface. Has potential to act out violently.
There was no mention of psychosis.
The file contained a report on Janko's avid interest in painting, with a notation that two years ago, one of his works had been reproduced in a Newsweek article on prison artists.
The only other data was a chart similar to a school report card, rating Janko's conduct over the past fifteen years. He’d gotten all A's. The name of his cell block was listed as Ad Seg.
Each year under Visitation there was the word None. But in the last year there were regular visits from a Ms. Daisy Leszczynski...
Suddenly my mind and body sagged with exhaustion. It had been a long day.
I got up and went into the bathroom, thinking a shower might revive me. I took off my underwear and shirt and got into the shower. Of course there was no soap.
CHAPTER 5
At noon a guard escorted me through a narrow corridor leading to the Ad Seg Unit, which directly abutted the hospital building.
Aaron “Stevie” Karp was a veteran of twenty-something years working in the slammer. He said he got the nickname "Stevie" because he idolized Steven Seagal, who played rogue cops that were Above the Law, Hard to Kill
, and recently Direct to Video. Like Seagal, Karp wore wraparound sunglasses, and a meager pony-tail that belonged on the ass of a Chihuahua. The area in which he outdid even the out-of-shape movie star, was his beer-belly. I guessed it was one of those guts that look soft and flabby but is actually hard as a cast iron soup kettle. This was a phenomenon I didn't understand. I furtively pushed a finger into my belly and the flesh gave way like the Pilsbury Doughboy. Truth be told, I was putting on a smidge of weight myself. I sucked in my gut and vowed to start a regimen of daily stomach crunches. Then I thought about going vegetarian. (I also thought about humpin’ Scarlett Johansson.)
Stevie Karp found a key on his key-ring, which was attached by a lanyard to his belt. He unlocked the door.
"Why is Janko being kept in Ad Seg?" I asked.
We entered the building, and began to ascend a metal stairway.
"'Cause from day one he couldn't get along in Gen Pop," the guard said. "First of all, his personality’s very irritatin’ — you'll see what I mean when you meet him. But the main problem was — he was the Baby Carriage Killer."
The guard handled the stairs without effort. My breath was coming in wheezes.
"See," Stevie went on. "Killin' a mama in front of her little baby, that goes against inmate morality. Victor took a couple o’ kick-ass beatin’s, so we decided to transfer him. If somebody whacked Victor, it woulda been looked on like he got what he deserved. Even here, we've kept him in a separate area, away from the other men. He's in a cell that used to be the old Discipline Room."
I was sucking wind when we got to the top. The guard didn't notice. He was boasting that he was head muckle-dee-muck of the ASU.
“I believe in treatin’ each man with respect, long as they respects me back.” he said. “Between you and I, I think solitary confinement is — whatdya call it? — cruel and inhuman punishing. 23 hours by yourself, 1 hour exercise. What the fuck? Still, these jamokes gotta be kept in line. Know what I’m sayin’?”
