by Neil White
I glanced over my shoulder to make certain I had heard correctly.
“Bend over,” he repeated, irritated, “and spread your cheeks.”
I bent over and placed my hands on each side of my buttocks. I slowly pulled them apart. As I held my position, I felt blood rush to my face. I felt humiliated. I looked at Kahn through my legs. “You know,” I said, “I won the DAR Citizenship Award in high school.”
Kahn remained expressionless. I had hoped to disarm him, make him laugh so he would see I was not like the other men here, but he wasn’t interested in my attempts at humor. He finally turned away and tossed a green shirt and a pair of green pants on the floor. I straightened myself up and examined my new uniform. The pants were too small, and the shirt was horribly wrinkled.
The suits and shirts I had worn on the outside were always professionally pressed. A perfect outward appearance, I believed, would accurately reflect the quality of my work and assure clients that my attention to detail had no boundaries.
“Do you have an iron?” I asked Kahn as I held up the shirt, examining its poor condition and missing buttons.
Kahn didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me. Instead he opened my bag, turned it upside down, and emptied the contents onto the table. He quickly sorted through my belongings, tossing to the floor items he said would be sent home. The items he kept on the table would stay with me. He held the stack of books I’d packed and told me to pick two.
I’d brought along some southern classics I had never made time to read—A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, Good Old Boy by Willie Morris, and The Moviegoer by Walker Percy—but two other books were more important to me.
Every year, beginning with my eighth birthday, I could count on one Christmas gift from my father: a copy of The Guinness Book of World Records. From the world’s fastest human to the tallest radio tower, from the wealthiest family to the largest blue whale, from the most consecutive jumps on a pogo stick to the world’s biggest pancake, the people in the pages of the Guinness book were not ordinary. These individuals had status and prominence and immortality. They were one of a kind.
More than anything else, I’d wanted to be listed in the book. But I had a few early setbacks. My pogo stick got stuck at jump 2,009 when the oil burned off the pole. My growth spurt hadn’t taken off like Robert Wadlow’s, so I had to face the fact that I might not grow to surpass eight feet, eleven inches. And while practicing to break the world-record discus throw—a record I just knew was within my reach—I sent a two-pound weight through the back windshield of my mother’s car.
For me, everything was a race. I raced against a clock when I mowed our lawn or held my breath underwater or scarfed down food. I was completely unconcerned with the exact record I would break, as long as I ultimately accomplished one act, one conquest that no other human had ever achieved.
I told Kahn I would keep The Guinness Book of World Records. I chose the Bible as my second book because I had hidden photographs of Little Neil and Maggie in the back.
With a metal-tipped vibrating device, Kahn etched something on the back of my wristwatch—a Christmas gift from Linda and the kids. Kahn tossed the watch back to me. “03290-043”—my inmate number—was scratched on the back.
“Do you have any money?” he asked.
I had a $20 bill in the side pocket of my bag. “Paper money is contraband. Inmates can only have coins,” he explained and handed me two rolls of quarters. He started toward the door. I couldn’t let him go without asking about the sign on the door. “Research and Development?”
Kahn looked confused and annoyed. “Receiving and Discharge,” he answered.
“But I saw a patient earlier,” I said. “What kind of—”
“Hansen’s disease,” Kahn interrupted, walking toward the door. Without looking back, he added, “It used to be called leprosy.”
Kahn left the room and locked the door behind him.
CHAPTER 2
Leprosy. Kahn had to be wrong. Surely, healthy people—even inmates—would not be imprisoned with lepers. But that would explain the man with no fingers. Everybody knew lepers’ body parts fell off. Or maybe Kahn was just beginning the mind games I’d seen guards use in movies to break prisoners.
A nurse rushed into the room and opened two folding chairs. She told me to sit at the table, and she asked me a series of routine questions about drug use, smoking, chronic diseases, and depression, to which I answered no.
“Any family history of mental illness?” she asked.
I hesitated. “Define mental illness.”
The nurse suggested I tell her about any family members who might fall into that category, so I explained about my great-aunt, who bought seventy pairs of shoes in a single day before she was committed, and about my grandmother, who did a couple of stints in the state mental hospital and then ran for president, twice—
The nurse interrupted. “Of the United States?”
“Yes,” I told her, “but it all happened when she was off her medication.” Then I mentioned that my mother sees auras and claims to have been Mary, Queen of Scots in a former life.
She interrupted again. “I’m going to mark this yes.”
When she finished, I asked if there were really lepers living here.
“They prefer to be called Hansen’s disease patients,” she said. “But, yes, about 130 live here.”
I asked if they were contagious and if we ever got close to them and, if so, was there some way to get transferred to another prison. The nurse cut me off and said I’d hear all about it at admission and orientation.
My mind raced as she collected her paperwork. I could recover from a year in prison, but I couldn’t put my life back together with a missing hand or a deformed face. That would be like a life sentence. If I caught leprosy, I would lose my family, never be able to get close to Neil and Maggie. I was frantic, but I had no way of letting anyone know what was happening to me. I was completely helpless.
I gathered the two books and the few clothes Kahn let me keep. Then the nurse escorted me to a hallway and gave me directions to my room. It seemed strange that I’d been left to wander around without a guard or escort.
The hallway smelled like my grandmother Richie’s farmhouse, that earthy scent of dust in a closet that had been closed up for years.
Arched windows lined the elevated hallway that went on as far I could see. The sunlight, tinted by thick screens, threw bands of symmetrical amber light against the wall, like dozens of sepia tombstones waiting to be engraved.
The hallways formed a quadrangle, and inside was a lush, almost tropical, courtyard with banana trees and mimosas, oaks and azaleas. It was not at all what I imagined a prison would be like. It felt tranquil, like a beautiful island paradise I’d expect to find in Hawaii.
Through the screen I saw inmates shooting basketballs, tossing horseshoes, and walking around a concrete track. I heard soft chatter and laughing and the sharp snap of dominoes hitting a table.
I walked out into the courtyard. The crowns of the buildings were contoured with extravagant sculptured designs and plaster cornucopia scrolls. The pungent smell of fresh-cut grass reminded me of the slow summer days of my childhood.
Men were lounging in the shade. Some were dressed in khaki uniforms, others in green like mine. Some of the men were old; others looked not much past their teens. A few were in wheelchairs. There were blacks, whites, and Hispanics. At one table sat four of the most obese men I’d ever seen in person. They were playing dominoes. They didn’t look much smaller than Robert Earl Hughes, the world’s fattest man, whose photo I had studied at night in The Guinness Book of World Records.
Three men were sunbathing on a shuffleboard court. Another man was zipping around the grass on a small, motorized four-wheeler pulling a trailer full of garbage bags. He drove the vehicle in my direction and stopped in front of me. He turned off the engine and let out a loud howl like a coyote.
“You know they got lepers here, d
on’t you?” he said.
“I’ve heard.”
“And you’re a convict, right?” he asked.
“I guess so.”
The man smiled and said, “Then that makes you a lepercon!” He laughed, threw his head back, and howled again. Then he cranked the engine and drove up a ramp and into a hallway.
I noticed a few inmates looking my way, so I hurried up the ramp and into the hallway that led to my dorm.
As I walked down the corridor, holding everything I now owned in my arms, an elderly black woman in an antique, hand-cranked wheelchair rolled toward me. Two long, vertical chains ran from the handles to each wheel. She cranked the wooden handles like a child pushed pedals on a bike. With each crank, the wheels on her chair turned. The skin on her hands was shiny and cracked. She wore a turquoise striped dress that hung from the seat of her chair like a wrinkled curtain. She had no legs.
With each churn of the handle, with each rotation of her hand, the wheelchair moved closer to me. The woman’s eyes were bright in contrast to her dark sockets. Her hair was silver and black. Her fingers gripped tightly around the wooden handles. With each crank the wheelchair wavered. Her earrings swayed with the tempo.
This was a prison for men, which meant she wasn’t an inmate. And she certainly wasn’t a nurse or a guard. I made eye contact and smiled like I might have to a beggar in the French Quarter. I took satisfaction in being polite to the down-and-out. Had I encountered this woman on the street, I might have stuffed a few bills in her cup, but here, I was wary of getting too close. She smiled and looked me directly in the eye. I stepped to the side of the walkway to make room for her to pass, took in as much air as possible, and held my breath. I had perfected a technique in elementary school when my teacher, Ms. Cauthen, who had terrible halitosis, would lean over my desk. I would hold my breath and put on a tight-lipped smile. When she moved away from my desk, I would cover my mouth with my shirtsleeve to filter the air and escape from the particles I imagined she had left behind.
I held my breath and smiled at the old woman, hoping to mask my apprehension. Slowly, she cranked her way down the corridor. Passing me she chanted, “There’s no place like home.” Her voice was worn-out, but sweet. I stood perfectly still and said nothing. Once she passed and could no longer see me, I put my belongings on the floor, covered my mouth with my shirtsleeve, and exhaled. I stood in the hallway with my mouth covered. She chanted again, “There’s no place like home.” I watched her slowly roll away and disappear around the corner.
CHAPTER 3
My building was called Dutchtown, named for a neighboring community on the Mississippi River. Inside, Dutchtown looked and smelled like my freshman dormitory at Ole Miss. The hallway floors were shiny and polished and eight doorways lined each side. The prison cells were really just rooms with linoleum floors and stucco walls, but all the doors had been removed. The frames still had screw holes from the hinges. As I walked to my room, I saw a man in a bathrobe and flip-flops walk across the hall and into another inmate’s room. Obviously, I wasn’t going to have much privacy.
Upstairs, I found number 204, my assigned room, and peered through the entrance. There were three small cots, a desk, a chair, metal lockers, a small closet, and a sink with a mirror over it. I didn’t expect to have a mirror, but I was glad to see it. If I had to wear wrinkled clothing, at least I could keep well groomed and take some pride in my appearance.
In one of the beds, a man lay on his back reading. An open magazine entitled Cutis, a medical journal of some sort, was propped upright on his chest, hiding his face. I stepped into the room, and the man let the magazine fall. He took off his reading glasses and squinted to get a good look at me. He looked distinguished, even in prison attire. He was in his midfifties, with a slightly receding hairline and a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He stood up, held out his arms, and said, “Thank God, you’re white.” He introduced himself as Victor Dombrowsky. “But everybody calls me Doc,” he added. “Welcome to Carville,” he said, “where they quarantine lepers, where the petrochemical companies discharge their waste, and where they send the likes of us. You’re now officially part of a human garbage dump.”
Doc picked up an armload of magazines from the cot next to the window, explaining that he’d been using my bed as a desk.
I placed my shirts, shorts, books, and quarters in an empty locker, and Doc went back to reading his medical journal. As he read, he asked about my family, my hometown, the length of my sentence, and my crime. I could see Doc’s profile as he read, but he never looked away from his magazine.
“Did you testify against anybody?” he asked.
“No,” I said, moving to make up my bed.
“Good,” he said after a beat, “’cause I hate fuckin’ rats.”
I put the coarse, government-issued sheets and gray wool blanket on my bed. I would miss the Egyptian cotton sheets that felt so good at home.
As I struggled to put my pillow into its case, Doc said, “Tell them you’ve got neck trouble. They’ll give you an extra pillow.”
I mentioned to Doc that I had been in the magazine business. He put his journal down, sat up, and showed a touch of enthusiasm. “Maybe you can help me,” he said. “I’ve invented a device, and I need a good marketing man.”
I asked him about the invention. Doc hesitated. “Well…it’s an injection device. When it’s loaded with a certain drug combination, it cures…impotence.”
“Where do you inject?” I asked.
“That’s my major hurdle,” Doc said, like he’d been over all this a thousand times before. “There’s this stigma about giving yourself an injection in the base of the penis.” He paused and took a deep breath. “It doesn’t hurt. I’ve done it. With clever marketing, I can get around it, don’t you think?”
I stared at the man who would sleep a few feet away from me and tried to shake the mental image of him injecting himself in the penis. I wanted to tell him that I thought he was insane and no amount of marketing would ever overcome the horror of his invention. But I told him I probably needed to learn more about his product before I could offer an opinion. The last thing I wanted to discuss on my first day of prison was erectile dysfunction.
“Yeah, hell,” he said. “It’s your first day. I’ll have plenty of time to fill you in later on.” He started reading again. “I’ve got a prototype,” he said, “but I can’t find anybody on the outside who will test it.”
I wanted to change the subject. “What are the other inmates like?”
“Idiots,” he said, “complete, total idiots.”
Doc said more than four hundred inmates were serving time in Carville. About half of them suffered from some health disorder like heart disease, cancer, or AIDS. Some were in wheelchairs from gunshot wounds, degenerative disease, amputations, or congenital deformities. Since Carville had a hospital, most federal inmates with serious health problems were sent here. But Doc said Carville also had drug dealers, Mafia guys, even murderers. I thought Carville was supposed be a minimum-security prison, and Doc’s description of the other men was unnerving, especially since our room had no doors.
I opened the small closet door looking for a place to hang my pants, but the floor and every shelf were filled with stacks of medical journals on dermatology, clinical oncology, metabolism, and other medical specialties.
“I’ll make some room in there if you need to hang up some clothes,” Doc said.
“You subscribe to all these?” I asked.
“They’re free,” he said.
Pharmaceutical companies sent complimentary subscriptions to any physician who requested copies. After Doc’s conviction, his medical license was suspended in every state except Tennessee, where he’d attended medical school. Since the subscription cards came from a federal medical center, the publications assumed Doc was practicing medicine. He received more than sixty journals a month.
“You read all of them?”
“I may be the only doc in America who
actually has the time to read them all,” he said, sitting up on his bed. “I’ve learned as much about medicine in here as I did in med school.”
I figured Doc must know about leprosy so I asked about the patients.
“Grotesque, aren’t they?” Doc said. “They used to live in this very room.”
“Is it contagious?” I asked.
“Not supposed to be,” he said, pausing, “if they take their medication. Nobody really knows how the disease is spread.” He added that the mystery surrounding it made him nervous. Doc explained there were a number of theories about how leprosy is contracted, including intimate skin-to-skin contact or eating an infected armadillo. “The most likely theory is inhalation of an infected droplet,” he said with a shrug. “Who knows?”
I wasn’t worried about eating armadillo, or even skin-to-skin contact. Those, I could avoid. But if breathing in a droplet could cause infection, a sneeze or a cough might be enough.
This just kept getting worse. I could be outside doing something worthwhile—paying creditors, taking care of my family. I would gladly have accepted a fine or home confinement or work release or all of them combined, but I didn’t deserve this. Not a leper colony.
Just then Kahn stepped into the room. “You got a job assignment,” he said. “Follow me.”
“Where?” I asked.
Kahn snapped back, “You don’t get to ask questions anymore.”
CHAPTER 4
The walk took about five minutes. I followed Kahn, winding through the old corridors. After Doc’s remarks about leprosy, I was careful not to touch anything. We passed a manicured garden enclosed in a small courtyard. Tiny shrubs and patches of yellow and blue flowers bordered brick paths. It looked like a place where an English family might gather for tea. We turned a corner, and I caught a glimpse of four or five nuns as they hurried into one of the buildings. Through a corridor window, I saw a small monk riding a bicycle through a pecan grove. This place was bizarre, like something out of Alice in Wonderland or The Twilight Zone. Nuns and monks. A leper with no fingers. A man who howls like a dog. A doctor with an impotence injection device. Inmates fat enough to be in a carnival. A guard who squelches my questions, but seems just fine with prisoners sunbathing. And a legless woman chanting like Dorothy in Oz. How the hell did I end up here?
