We were both silent for a moment. I looked at him. He was looking down, which is what he did most of the time. He was old, with solid gray hair, except for the bald spot. He seemed feeble. His brown lips protruded and his nose seemed to spread across his entire face. His eyelids twitched occasionally-probably wishing they had been closed more often throughout his painful life. His hands were very large and his fingers all came to sharp points at the ends.
“You said that some inmates use the services of a punk, but are they not considered to be punks themselves?”
“Nosuh. They straight on the outside. It’s just they can’t get none in here. In here they a big difference between pitching and catching.”
We were silent again, and I mused about the moral difference between pitching and catching in the social order of Potter Correctional Institution. What a strange world I had entered.
“The punks,” he began again, “wear women’s stuff.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Panties, pantyhose, perfume. Shit … I mean stuff, like that.”
“What?” I asked truly amazed. “Where in the world do inmates get women’s clothes and perfume?”
“Get it from one of the female officers.”
I gave him a look that said, No way.
“Yesuh,” he said with a world-weary smile. Some of these womans who work out here are lonely. They do lot of stuff for inmates they likes. If they like one, nobody better mess with him.”
“Do any of them actually have affairs with inmates?”
“Some do, not many. Not really affairs, but they have sex. Get an inmate to come into the laundry room with ’em late at night when ’most everybody’s asleep. Some of the black officers get white inmates. They chance to have a white man. But this don’t happen a lot. Too hard in open dorms. But a lot of them let inmates gun them down.”
“Gun them down?” I asked as if I had been born yesterday, and in this world I had.
“They jack while they watch the officer in the control room of the dorm. Control room glass, and you can see everything in the bathroom. They got a squad that get together and gun down the female officers, especially the fat ones. Some of the officers encourage it, and some even expose themselves to the inmates. Some don’t even know it’s goin’ on.”
“Who all knows about this?”
“’Most everybody on the ’pound.”
“Officers too?”
“Some. Not too many. Everything that we do, somebody know about. Everything.”
“So if an inmate does something, it’s because some officer or staff member allows him to do it.”
“Yesuh.”
“Most of the inmates trust you, don’t they?”
“I got respect. Not the same thing. Inmates don’t trust no one. They life say they can’t trust no one, not even the chaplain.”
“Really? So I have no hope of real acceptance and trust from them?”
“Nosuh. You got mine. You probably get others, not many though.”
“I see. What’s the overall feeling about the officers and staff?”
“Nobody give ’em much thought ’less they mess with us. The jits are not smart enough to be cool so that the officers don’t get in our business. They so stupid.”
“The jits?” I asked.
“Jitterbugs. Young inmates. They not convicts like us. They inmates. A true convict don’t get in no trouble. ’Cause if you stay clean or look like you do, officers stay away from you. Convict wants to do his time quiet with no trouble. Jit ain’t got the sense God give a dung beetle. ’Sides, most of them don’t have a lot of time anyway, so they do it the hard way. But, they be back. Eventually they learn.”
“If an inmate-or a convict-wanted to escape, could an officer be bought to help?”
“Nosuh, probably not. They sell you dope, maybe turn they head when you beat up a punk, but they wouldn’t help you get out.”
“Did you know the inmate that tried to escape yesterday? Johnson.”
“Nosuh, not really.”
“What about an inmate named Jacobson?”
“Yeah, I know of him. Watch your back around him. Some people say he crazy, but he ain’t. He’s dangerous. Lot of inmates say they killed before; most of ’em ain’t, but Jacobson’s a killer for real. I bet he’s lost count of the number of people he’s offed.”
“Is there anybody else I should talk with?”
“Yesuh. They’s an old homosexual on the ’pound. He say very little, but he know a lot.”
“What’s his name?”
He started to speak and then stopped. “I don’t know his real namesuh. Everybody on the pound call him Grandma.”
I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate it.”
“Yesuh. Thank you for what you do. You the first chaplain I seen who really care and don’t act like he any better than the rest of us.”
“Mr. Smith, I’ll tell you a little secret: I’m not.”
Chapter 6
John Jordan’s first rule of detection: start with what you have, even when what you have isn’t much. I knew that Johnson spent his last night in the infirmary and that Jacobson was there too. So I went to the medical building. The medical building, like every other building at PCI, was gray. At least everybody referred to it as gray; I felt that it lacked sufficient color to actually be classified as a color, even a color as colorless as gray. The medical building, which actually housed dental and classification also, was always filled with inmates lined up waiting for service. Some of them were there to see their classification officer, others to see the dentist, and still others to see a doctor or pick up medication.
Just inside the building there was a small inmate waiting room where inmates sat in silence staring at the front wall until they were called in by the particular official they were waiting to see. To the left was dental and classification, and to the right was medical and pharmaceutical, all of which were behind locked doors. I turned right-the opposite direction from Anna, whom I would rather be visiting.
After unlocking the medical department door with my key, I walked down the long hallway leading to the infirmary, wondering how many other staff members had a key to the medical department. It made sense that the chaplain did; I spent a great deal of time in the infirmary.
Along the way, I passed the nurses’ station where two nurses-one white, one black, both elderly and overweight-sat. Each had an inmate seated across from her and was laboring to check his vital signs. The inmates’ slightly amused slightly fearful looks said they wondered if the nurses had a vital sign between them.
I also passed by two exam rooms. In one, Dr. Mulid Akbar, PCI’s senior health officer and my personal advisor to the Muslim religion, was examining the knee of one of the inmates, who seemed to be in a great deal of pain. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just trying to get out of work, and then I felt guilty for being so jaded. It’s just that in the few months that I had been at PCI, I had been lied to more than the entire rest of my life. However, I vowed again, right then and there, not to become so callused that I expect to be lied to.
At the end of the hallway and to the left, I entered the officers’ station for the infirmary. There I found to both my surprise and delight Nurse Strickland, whom I had briefly met the day before. She was seated on the officer’s desk swinging her legs back and forth and chewing bubble gum while warmly conversing with Officer Straub.
“Well, hello, Chaplain. Jordan, isn’t it?” Strickland said.
“Yes, John. Hello. How are you two today?”
“Never better,” she said in an upbeat voice, but she was looking down. “By the way, my name is Sandra, but everyone calls me Sandy.” When our eyes finally met, she glanced at me and then looked away. She was that not-so-rare combination of beautiful and insecure. At that moment, I wished for the chance to help make her more secure. She was beautiful and I wanted to tell her so.
“I’ve never seen you here
during the day before and now I’ve seen you two days in a row,” I said. “Have you been transferred to day shift?”
“Oh, no. I’m too much of a night owl. I wouldn’t be much use around here most mornings. Just with everything that happened yesterday and all, I’m trying to lend a hand. We also have an ACA inspection coming up soon, and I’m putting in a lot of overtime to whip things into shape.”
“We keep trying to get her to join us here on day shift,” Officer Straub said, never taking his eyes off her, “but she just won’t do it. I think she’s a vampire.”
She slapped at him in mock anger and then opened her mouth just enough to expose her vampire teeth and started toward his neck, but then got embarrassed and stopped. She looked down and then back at me to see if she had made a complete fool out of herself.
I tried to think of something to say that would assure her that she had not. “If you want to drain his blood, I can wait in the other room.” And then I laughed, but soon discovered that I was laughing alone. She looked upset and a little pale.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot all about yesterday. I know you were the first to check Johnson. It was very insensitive of me. I’m really sorry.”
“It was just so horrible. So much blood … everywhere. It really got to me. I didn’t think it would, but it did. I think I’m going to walk outside for a minute and get some fresh air. Would you like to join me, Chaplain?”
“Sure,” I said and then turned to say good-bye to Straub, but could feel the intensity of his stare immediately. I had interrupted his play and he made no attempt to hide his anger. I simply nodded and turned and walked away.
Outside, the fresh air was far too hot and humid to be refreshing, but it did restore Nurse Strickland’s color. Or perhaps it was the super slim Capri cigarette she was inhaling the way underwater swimmers take in air when they finally reach the surface again. We were standing at the back right of the medical building where the smokers normally congregated, but, for now, we had it all to ourselves.
“I’m really sorry about that. Are you okay?” I said.
“Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it. It was no big deal and any other time would have been funny. It’s just …”
“I know. Did you know him very well?” I asked.
“Who?” she asked as if I had just awakened her.
“Johnson.”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, as well as you can know any of these men, I guess.”
“Was he in the infirmary a lot?”
“Not a lot, but still a lot more than most of the other men,” she said.
“What can you tell me about him?” I asked.
“Why so many questions? What are you, an undercover cop?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s just that I was involved and I’m curious,” I lied.
“Well, let’s see,” she said, looking at me only for a moment and then back down again. “He was kind of small, so he got picked on a lot. He was a little effeminate. I don’t think he liked girls very much. Probably hated them.”
“Really, what makes you say that?”
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to me. I’ve had a few psych courses, and I like to see if I can read people, but I don’t really know.”
“You may be right. I’ve heard that he had a pimp.”
“Really, who?”
“An inmate named Jacobson. Do you know him?”
“Not very well, I’m happy to say. He’s been in to see us a few times, but I try to avoid him. He’s crazy. That really pisses me off,” she said bitterly and then looked up at me in shock. “Oh, shit, Chaplain. I did it again. Excuse my French, please. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. What were you saying? I want to know what makes a pretty lady like yourself that angry.”
“It’s just what this place does to people. People like Jacobson turn sweet little boys like Johnson into monsters, you know. I’m sick of it. If you’re not a criminal when you get here, you’ll damn sure be one when you leave.” A single tear cut a path through the thick makeup on her right cheek.
I was moved with compassion for her. She was right. Oftentimes, the merely misguided became the cunningly criminal inside facilities like these. “It sounds to me like you really care,” I said.
“I do.”
We were silent for a few minutes. She puffed away, and I waited for the silence to pass while a single drop of sweat trickled down the center of my back, tickling as it did.
“What happened Monday night?” I asked finally. “How did Jacobson get thrown in the hole and Johnson in the back of that truck?”
“I really don’t know. It was a relatively quiet night. They were the only two we had in the infirmary. In the early morning hours of Tuesday-five maybe, they started yelling at each other and, before too long, Jacobson was on top of Johnson punching him in the face. The officer on duty, Officer Hardy, wasn’t at his desk, so Captain Skipper and I broke them up and separated them. He told them to go back to bed and he would forget about it. I’ve never seen Skipper do anything like that before. I figured he was up to something. He told them if they did it again, he was going to write them a disciplinary report and send them to confinement.”
“Where was Officer Hardy?” I asked.
She shrugged. Her expression said he was often away from his assigned post. “I really don’t know. Could’ve been anywhere. He was not where he was supposed to be.”
“Really?” I said. “I’ve heard he’s an excellent officer.”
She shrugged. “Don’t believe everything you hear around here, Chaplain.”
I smiled. “What days does he work?” I asked.
“Hardy? Thursday through Monday, but Monday night was his last night for two weeks. He’s on annual leave now. Pretty convenient, huh?”
“Why was Captain Skipper here that night?”
“I think he came to take a statement from one of the inmates involved in an incident earlier that night, but he wasn’t here.”
“Which inmate?”
“Thomas, I believe.”
“Anthony Thomas?”
“Yeah,” she said defensively. “Why?”
“I’ve worked with he and his wife some,” I explained. “Where did he find him?”
“I really don’t know, but he did find him eventually and locked him up for not being where he was supposed to be.”
“How long did he stay?” I asked.
“Not long at all,” she said. “He left when he couldn’t find Thomas.”
“What happened next?”
She gave an elaborate shrug and a took a deep drag on her cigarette. “They must have started fighting again. Obviously, Officer Hardy had Jacobson locked up. I went back up to my desk to finish some paperwork, and that was the last I saw of either one of them. Until the truck,” she said, turning pale again.
“Who else was in the building at that time?”
“Well, let’s see. There was Nurse Anderson, and our inmate orderly, Allen Jones, was gathering the trash and cleaning the exam rooms.”
“What about the trash? When is it picked up?”
“Early in the morning usually. I’m not really sure. Our orderly always gets it ready and puts it out here to be picked up.”
“Is that orderly here now?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” she said.
“Can I talk with him?” I asked.
“Sure. Let’s go back inside,” she said taking a long final draw on the stub of her cigarette and tossing it into the ashtray.
We found her orderly, the same old black man that I had denied a phone call to earlier this morning, in one of the storage closets near the back. She told him that I wanted to talk to him and that we could go into the staff break room, which was just around the corner.
I could tell he didn’t want to talk to me, but he swaggered toward the break room nonetheless.
“This won’t take long,” I said when we were finally seated at the table in the break room. “I’m sor
ry I couldn’t let you use the phone this morning.”
He shrugged as if he didn’t care, but didn’t say anything. I continued.
“I just want to know how you normally gather and take out the trash down here and if you did it any differently on Monday night or Tuesday morning.”
Without facial or verbal expression he said, “I gather it all up before I leaves every night and puts it near the back door were you’s just standing. Then, in the morning I picks up any new trash and sets them outside the door. The officer and inmate who pick up the trash then come around and pick it up.”
“Is that how it happened Tuesday morning?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly. “I already told the inspector. I gathered it all up and put the bag in the back hall, then Miss Anderson come say she need me to clean up a spill in the exam room. When I come back to load it on the truck, the bag was gone. Miss Anderson was with me. She can tell you. The trash wasn’t outside the door neither, and the truck was gone.”
“Did you see the inmates in the infirmary that morning?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” he said nodding his head. Each time his head went down I wondered if it would come up again. In addition to seeming old, Allen Jones seemed weary, as if every year he had lived was a hard one.
When he didn’t elaborate, I added, “Anything unusual about them?”
“No, sir. All three were lying there in they beds sleepin’.”
“All three?” I asked, the surprise in my voice obvious. “Who else was there?”
He wondered if he had said something wrong. Then after a long pause, he said, “Johnson, Jacobson, and Thomas.”
“You saw Thomas in an infirmary bed that morning?”
“Yes, sir. Well, I thought I did. I could’ve been … maybe I didn’t see him. I don’t know,” he said.
“What time were you in there?”
“Can’t say, sir. Don’t wear a watch. But I come in at four. It wasn’t too long after that,” he said.
“Did you see Jacobson and Johnson fighting around five?” I asked.
“No, sir. I’s still gathering up the trash and cleaning up. I’s all over the building.”
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