Corruption Officer

by Gary L. Heyward

  Then he says, “I don’t know what’s going to happen if I can’t get some help.” Now I’m looking at this fool sideways. You get locked up. You suggest that I snitched on you to make me feel guilty that you’re in here, and then you hit me with the need for money for a lawyer! I sum all this up and come to the conclusion that this fool is trying to extort me. I say to him, “Look, I didn’t snitch on you. I don’t have anything to do with why you’re here and I am not giving up money like that. Period!” He gets up from his bed and says, “Well then, get used to these cells.”

  CHAPTER 44

  FELONIES

  I’m heated. I’m nervous. I’m scared.

  I feel I have to do something about this Trent situation. I get off work and retrieve my weapon from the arsenal. I go outside and get on the route bus, but before the bus takes off, the 3:00–11:00 p.m. tour captain gets on the bus. She claims she needs someone to stay for overtime. Out of everybody on the bus my name happens to be next on the list.

  I reluctantly get off the bus, but before I go to my post I detour back to my locker and start sipping and thinking about what happened earlier. I can’t let this muthafucka extort me. How did he get caught and not me? Are they going to eventually catch me, even if he doesn’t tell them? Damn, I am messed up right now. The more I think about Trent, the angrier I get. That fool knew the risk just like I did. I took a chance with him and now he’s trying to make me pay. Hell no, I’m going to deal with this dude tonight.

  I go upstairs to take the corridor post. I’m a little intoxicated when my meal relief comes. He tells me to take my time because he’s bored and just waiting to go home. So I head down to the officers’ kitchen. When I get inside, there is a small group of officers sitting at a table watching television. I see Officer K. Johnson, one of the three amigos. She’s leaning back in her chair in a relaxed position. I say to her, “It’s weird being here without both of your partners, right?” Officers Bryant and Z. Jones are both out due to two separate inmate killings. She just nods at me as I walk past.

  Then I hear her ask one of the officers sitting nearby to wake her up when it’s time to go back to their posts. I sit down a few tables away from them and try to shake this feeling of nervousness. I’m close to dozing off when I hear an officer tapping Johnson on her shoulder to wake her up. It is time for her to go back to post. The officer shakes her gently while calling her name, but she’s not responding. Now a sense of urgency comes over the officer as she frantically tries to get Johnson up. Other officers come over to assist.

  They determine that she’s not breathing. The officer who came over first to wake Johnson now gets on the phone and calls the clinic while the others lay her down on the floor and begin CPR. I get up and come over as an officer does the procedure. Under my breath I’m counting with him, “One one thousand, two one thousand . . .” The clinic staff arrives and takes over while the rest of us officers stand by watching and praying.

  I get out of the way and watch the scene from a distance, as I know all too well from my military training, from my experience in here, and most of all from my experience with death in the streets that it is already too late. Officer K. Johnson is gone. Officers start crying. Then everyone is asked to leave until the ambulance arrives. I’m distraught. I can’t believe what just happened. I go to my locker and sit and think about Johnson. She, along with Bryant and Jones, broke me in on this job, taught me the dos and don’ts. She was a very good officer and, most of all, a good person. She did her job by the book at all times and you never heard of her getting involved with any of the BS that goes on around here. I think about the three amigos and about life in general. It’s crazy to me how all three of them are no longer here. I know that when her partners find out, they are going to be devastated.

  I retreat to the locker room. I’m there by myself, replaying what just happened in my mind. And I’m sipping. Some officers come in and without a word being said pull out cups and join me. After a while it’s time for me to go home. My tour is over and I am real tipsy. I’m on my way back to my post to log out when I remember Trent. I’m hurt because I just lost a friend, and angry because of what Trent’s trying to do to me. As I stand up to leave my post I check myself to make sure that I am not leaving anything and that’s when I feel it. Oh, shit. I must have rushed and forgotten to check my weapon. I had it on me the whole time.

  I feel desperate and I need to get to Trent. I need to let him know I’m not just going to lie down for his shit. I make my way to my housing area and the officer, who is my steady relief, lets me in. She’s crying because the news about K. Johnson has already traveled through the jail. I tell her that I’ll stay and hold her down until her relief comes. She agrees because she is eager to go and find out about what happened. The inmates are already locked in for the night and all the lights are cut off.

  I know that I didn’t have much time to get at Trent. I go to his cell. I flash my light in there and see that he’s asleep. I take the bar that we use to open the cells manually and open his cell as quietly as I possibly can. I stand over him as he snores. I take out my gun that I had forgotten to put back in the arsenal from earlier when the captain pulled me off the bus for overtime. I tap him on his forehead with my weapon. His eyes open wide when he sees me and he’s about to yell. I quickly put my gun in his mouth so that he’ll stop and see that I’m not fucking playing. I see sheer terror and disbelief in his eyes as he looks at me. I’m stone-faced. I put my finger up to my mouth, indicating that he should remain quiet. He nods. I pull my gun out of his mouth and he takes a deep breath. I look at him in his face and with a cold, calm, nonchalant attitude I say, “Do you still want to play this game with me? I commit felonies every day in here and in the streets. So do you think I’m going to allow you to come in here and fuck up what I worked so hard to build and just extort me like I am some lil nigga? Huh!?”

  I raise my gun and put it on his forehead. He tears up and he has the not-knowing-what-to-expect-next look on his face. I say to him, “Don’t fuck with me, Trent, because if I pull this trigger, your family might get some money but you won’t know it.” He looks at me, terrified, and tears are rolling down the side of his face and he stutters when he says, “Gee, it don’t have to be like this. I’m sorry for what I was trying to do. I only did it because I am fucked up right now.

  “As for this bid, I’m finished. They got me red-handed for murdering this kid over a year ago. Me being here ain’t got nothing to do with you.” He looks at my face to see if I believe him or not. He continues, “I am serious, Gee. Check my file. It will tell you what I’m here for and it will show you that it has nothing to do with what we did.” I put my gun away, realizing the time, and say to him, “I’ma let you rock this time, but you better ask around here about me because anytime I feel like it, you can be touched. And just so I can sleep at night, as long as you’re here, one of my peeps is always going to be watching you. And I have your name and numbers, so I will always be able to track where you’re at and touch you if I have to . . . remember that.”

  I walk out his cell, slamming it shut. I return to the officers’ station when the other officer shows up. I leave, and on my way out I see all the officers are coming in for the change of tour and are just now finding out about Johnson’s death. I don’t stop to talk to anyone because I don’t feel like answering a thousand questions. I get to my van and just sit there for a minute and reflect on my life. I feel as though I am too caught up in that jail and I am losing it. I question myself: “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”

  CHAPTER 45

  INMATE LOVER

  A week later . . .

  “Yo, Hey, one of your boys got into it last night in my area,” an officer says to me as we line up for roll call in the morning. I give him a puzzled look like, “Why are you saying ‘your boy?’ ” I ask him, “What are you talking about?” He says, “One of your homeboys, your mate, you know, one of th
e inmates that you’re real friendly with.” Now I look at him seriously, because he’s trying to play me in front of all the other officers lined up for roll call. He continues to act a fool by saying, “Don’t have shame in your game now, we all see how chummy-chummy you are with some of these losers in here.” Other officers nod in agreement and he goes on, “I myself have seen you slapping five and shaking these nasty jerking-off twenty-four-seven inmates’ hands. These muthafuckas are the scum of the earth and you be talking to them like they’re your boys from the street.” Another officer chimes in and says, “They probably are.” I hear a few of the other officers chuckle. Then the first officer says, “These mates ain’t your friends, they’re just a bunch of lowlifes, especially the ones that keep coming back in and out of here like a revolving door.” Yeah, those are the ones that I like; the ones that are too stupid to make it on the outside; the ones that will sit there and tell you that this is a good jail to be in, or that jail is better; the ones that know how to bid; that know all the rules, as if this place is their home. Yeah, those are my niggas and I mean that literally. My niggas! I step on their necks every chance I get to let them know that when they come through those gates I own them and that they are my property now.

  “Those ignorant fools keep my mortgage paid and my kids’ tuition paid. Hell, I wouldn’t know what to do if they wised up and decided that their life was worth something and did something for themselves.”

  I stand there with absolutely nothing to say. He clowns me some more and says, “They’re not your friends, and the minute one of them can bring you down he will. You’re my boy, but the shit that you do with them is stupid, and we see it, so stop being so dumb with ya inmate-loving ass.”

  After roll call I’m about to head to my post when I’m stopped by Officer Patterson. She asks if she can talk to me for a minute in private. I’m wondering why she’s here because I normally work the three-to-eleven tour. When we get to a place we’re secluded, she tells me that she purposely got her tour switched with another officer so that she could catch up with me. I give her a look of concern like, “What’s so important that would make you do that?” She explains that she didn’t know how to tell me this, but ever since that night that we made love in the bathroom she and her husband have been inseparable. As a matter of fact, when she got off work that night he was home apologizing with a dozen roses. They made love all night until the morning. I’m happy for her but what does that have to do with me? I never said that I wanted to be her man or anything like that. She then says that this brings her to her point. I look at her like, “Yeeess?” She continues, “I really don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it . . . I am pregnant.”

  Oh, shit, here I go again!

  I look at her but I don’t say a word. Her eyes begin to tear up and she looks at me, searching for a sign, a response, something. I just look back at her. I already know what I need to ask her and I know what I want her response to be.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  She puts her head down and begins to sob. I want to hold her but I catch myself, remembering we’re at work. She says, “I’m going to keep it.” My jaw drops.

  “What?”

  She says, “I don’t know what to do. Things happened so fast that night and then with him the same night, so I don’t know who’s the father.”

  I just look at her, shaking my head. I don’t know what to do or what to say. She starts talking again and says, “I can’t get rid of it. My husband has been trying to get me pregnant for years and he came with me when I got my checkup, so he knows already.”

  I’m puzzled now, wondering how this is going to play out. I really don’t need some jealous or upset husband beefing with me over this. She sees the worry in my eyes and she says, “The baby might be yours or it might not be. So I am asking you not to ruin my life by putting this out there. My husband would never understand and would probably kill me.” I rationalize what she’s saying. What if, at a later date, she decides to come after me for child support? Can I live with knowing that I might have a child walking around in this world and not know it? But what choice do I have. I’m scraping and clawing my life back together. I can’t afford this kind of drama in my life right now.

  So I tell her that I can deal with the situation if she can. Then she breaks out in happy tears and we hug—at that point it didn’t matter where we were. She dries her eyes and we both take off to our post.

  When I get to my post I go through my normal routine. Moe comes up and wants to talk to me. I’m okay with it, so we do the usual. He goes into the utility closet and I stand outside like I’m giving him orders on how to clean it up. He says, “Yo, Hey, I was in the pens yesterday coming from court and I overheard your name ringing bells in the jail. Some dudes from the dorm side are talking about you. They were saying how you’re the connect inside the jail and how they got you on smash.” I question him: “Out loud right there in the pens?” “Yep, and they had a crowd around them. So you know if I heard, some CO done heard it, too.”

  I begin to sweat and I feel a little panicked. A million thoughts are going through my head. I knew that this would happen sooner or later. Inmates can’t keep shit to themselves. I’m surprised that I lasted this long. I had a long run mainly because Flocko was here fighting his case but now I’ve been put on blast by dealing with these other inmates.

  Damn!

  Either it was an inmate bragging about my hustle with him in order to make himself look important, or it was an inmate that I decided not to rock with who is mad about it. Either way, the word is being spread, and it ain’t no telling who knows or how long they’ve known.

  After our conversation I let Moe go back to his cell and I go back into the officers’ station. My cell phone rings. It’s Officer Rains. She tells me that she got some money for me and she gave it to Zepa because she’s not at work today. Then she says, “Oh, yeah, I have to tell you something. I was in the hotel with Captain Rogers and when we finished this fool gets to pillow-talking about the jail and guess whose name came up . . . yours. He starts saying all kinds of shit that he heard about you and other officers in the jail. He said that he heard that if you want to get rid of all the drugs in the jail, get rid of Heyward. You know I backed him down, saying that he was wrong and that you don’t get down like that, and guess what his smart ass said? If he can be in here tricking on me then that Negro can be in there getting money.” I’m silent. She continues, “Hello, hello.” I say, “I . . . I’m here and I hear you. I’ll get in contact with Zepa. Thanks.” And I hang up.

  I can hear my heart is beating. I’m trying to take in the fact that the jail is talking. Who else knows? I have to shut this shit down right now. I get the phone call to bring the inmates in my housing area to the mess hall for chow. I make the announcement. They line up and I bring them down the corridor toward the mess hall. When we get to the door the captain tells me to hold them up and then he informs me that he will watch my house and for me to go assist the captain on the inside of the mess hall.

  When I go inside, a new captain who I didn’t know is having a hard time controlling the inmates. They are up talking and walking around, just doing whatever they want. Then two of them square off about to fight. The captain doesn’t see me come in. I walk up behind her and the other officer just as she is about to press her body alarm. Then all of a sudden everything stops.

  The inmates stop running around, the two who were about to fight stop and sit down. Then everything calms down. They’re just mumbling among themselves. Some of them start pointing. The captain turns around to see what they are pointing at and all she sees is me. The inmates are now orderly and manageable. Some of them even say what’s up to me, even some I’ve never seen before. With things under control I turn to go back outside to my house and the captain who kept staring at me asks, “Who are you?” I look at my badge with my name under it and say, “I’m Officer Heyw
ard.” Then she asks me again, more intensely this time, while she looks at me, then to the inmates, then back at me, “No! Who . . . are . . . you?”

  CHAPTER 46

  THE TOMBS

  As the weeks pass, I’m stressing because the situation seems to be getting worse. I shut down all my hustles and I’m trying to be a model corrections officer but the inmates keep trying to pull me back in. I’m now being openly approached every time an inmate who thinks I am cool sees me alone. I feel that I’m handcuffed, and I can’t bark on them like I want to for fear that an incident may occur that will bring attention to me, which is the last thing that I need right now. I see now how easily and how quickly inmates can make your name hot. I now have inmates committing offenses in the jail in hopes to raise their classification so they can get housed in my area. My area is notorious, and nobody in their right mind would want to be housed here. I’m petrified every time I see an unfamiliar officer at our roll call in the morning. I feel that everybody now knows what I’ve been doing and that it’s just a matter of time before I’m arrested at roll call in front of everybody. How crazy would that be? What will my coworkers think? But I know they would need a lot of proof to just come and get me like that and I feel that I’ve covered my ass well by only dealing with certain individuals. Most of the inmates that I dealt with primarily have gone upstate and whatever I brought in has already been used, so there is no evidence to be found. The only way for me to feel safe is for me to get out of this jail. So I make a phone call to Assistant Deputy Warden Benson, whom I’d known since he was an officer. He made his way up through the ranks quickly and we remained good friends. He had connections.

  He tells me that he can help me but doesn’t know how soon it can happen. I feel a little relieved because if I can make this move I can put all this stuff behind me. A week or two goes by and I get the notice that I’m transferred. I clean out my locker, say farewell to my friends, and on the way out the door I see an invite to the jail to attend Officer Patterson’s baby shower. I think I’m going to put that behind me as well.