Reading behind Bars

by Jill Grunenwald

  Three Strikes, You’re Out

  It is the policy of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) that each institution establishes and maintains a recreation and leisure time program for inmates. Recreation programs shall include outdoor exercise depending on climatic conditions. The availability of interaction with the community through recreational activities and leisure time programs shall be limited based upon the security level of the facility and shall be made available in proportion to the inmate population.

  —ODRC Policy 77-REC-01

  The crack of the bat making contact with the baseball was so loud I could hear it from my desk in the library several yards away.

  The slush of March had gone out like a lamb, making room for the fury of warm weather that was April. I had propped open the door of the library, hoping to encourage a warm breeze to blow through. The cliché of librarians wearing cardigans as uniform is not incorrect. We pretty much buy stock in them, as libraries are notoriously cold and drafty. This included my own and while it was warm outside, where the rest of the camp was out in the yard enjoying the first sunshine in months, the library was still struggling to shrug off the last remaining vestiges of winter, leaving a lasting chill.

  With the warmer weather came sanctioned outdoor recreational activities and the prison, making a rare surprise move, allowed for the return of baseball.

  “There was an ‘incident,’” Stephanie explained one day over lunch after the memo about baseball had been sent out. I had taken to eating lunch in her office a couple of times a week, our meals spread out across her desk, while the rest of the Education department ate down the hall in Nancy’s classroom. Stephanie was, it turned out, a fellow nerd and while she had not yet given Doctor Who a try (despite her husband’s, and now my, insistence), we shared a love for Star Wars and the Twilight series, although our passions diverged at the hero of the tale. (She was head over heels for Edward, while I was a Jacob gal and could not be swayed. Having discovered Interview with the Vampire in middle school and shortly thereafter devoured the entire series, I was of the opinion that “Vampires don’t sparkle.”)

  Puzzled, I asked, “What kind of incident?”

  “The kind that involves a bat and another inmate’s head,” Kwame quipped from the other side of the room.

  Horrified, I stared at Stephanie. She nodded in agreement. “So they shut it down. No baseball. That was a few years ago; I guess they decided enough time had gone by they could bring it back.”

  Bats and balls were checked out from the recreation center, inmates leaving their badge behind like they did here in the library for newspapers. Today was the first game of the new season and if I managed to ignore the neon green jumpsuits on some of the inmates, and the officers in black patrolling the diamond, I could almost forget it was being played inside a prison.

  Today, the library was nearly empty, most inmates outside enjoying the first true warm day in months. The baseball diamond was full, with inmates not playing filling the adjacent stands, and even a few correctional officers snatched a few minutes to join the spectators.

  I did not have that luxury. I was stuck in the library. Thankfully, I had a large window right next to my desk and all of my attention for the past twenty minutes or so had been focused on the baseball diamond right out in front of my view. I was so caught up in the game—even though I wasn’t close enough to be able to get any sense of the score or who was even playing—I didn’t notice the inmate hovering by my desk.

  “Almost make you wish you were outside, doesn’t it?”

  I turned my gaze from the window and looked at the kid standing in front of me. “Kid” is somewhat of an exaggeration, although I couldn’t be sure he was even old enough to legally drink yet. He had shaggy brown hair that he didn’t even attempt to control, which framed his pale face and dark brown eyes. Although not wearing glasses, he reminded me a little of Harry Potter, exuding naive innocence and trust that gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.

  I vaguely remembered him from orientation just a week or so ago, but he’d been in the library every single day since. He would seek out the quietest corner he could find—not an easy feat in a room the size of a shoebox—and spend the afternoon reading and writing letters.

  Slyly, I shifted my eyes quickly to his name badge then back up to his face. Inmate Connor. He really was so young. What had he done to land himself here, I wondered, although I knew statistically it was likely drug related: generally speaking the younger inmates were in on drug charges, while the older inmates were in on drunk driving charges. It wasn’t a hard or fast rule, but it was a quick generalization that usually veered close enough to the truth.

  When Connor asked me about being outside, I wasn’t sure which one he meant, because “outside” has different meanings when you’re inside. Not indoors, but inside.

  For me, of course, it meant the opposite of indoors. Because that’s where I was: indoors, in a freezing library on a bright, beautiful spring day when I would much rather be outside, sitting on the metal stands with my colleagues and the inmates watching a baseball game.

  To Connor, though, outside meant more than just outside. It meant going home to his family, if he was lucky enough to still have one. (Not all inmates did—many parents, siblings, and significant others were not emotionally or mentally equipped to handle a relative behind bars.) It meant exiting through the front door of the prison rather than being brought in through the back. It meant living a life outside the razor wire.

  For both of us, it meant a form of freedom. I was chained to my desk and Connor was chained to the prison, both of us yearning to be outside. The difference was, I had the option sooner rather than later. Just a few more hours and I’d be able to exit through the front door and go home and see my family. If I wanted to, I even had the luxury of going to a real baseball game, where there were hot dogs, and crackerjacks, and even beer; where I could stand and sing during the seventh inning stretch, and raise my arms during the wave, and share in the warm glow of comradery that comes with watching a beloved team. After, I could leave the ballpark slightly happier than when I had arrived and go home and fall asleep tucked into my own bed, all of my personal belongs within arm’s reach.

  For the men sitting in the stands outside my window, the choice to watch the baseball game was one of a limited number of options they could have made. But after this baseball game was over, they’d have to go back to their strict regimented lives, where they were told where to sleep and when to eat and where to go. Their own bed was miles away, often clear on the other side of the state, and their personal belongs were whatever state-sanctioned items could fit into a small metal locker box that sat at the foot of the metal bunk beds they slept in.

  Looking at Conner, I turned up a single corner of my mouth and nodded. “Yeah,” I said, “yeah, it kind of does make me wish I was outside.”

  He pursed his lips together into a small smile. “Have a nice afternoon, Miss G.,” he said, waving goodbye as he exited. I watched him cross the grassy yard and slip into the stands, settling in to watch the baseball game. He disappeared into the crowd and I resumed my window gazing.

  I’d been at the prison for a few months and by now, the bright green jumpsuits no longer fazed me, although the strictly regimented time still threw me sometimes. Bunk restriction meant all of the inmates’ movements were limited and heavily scheduled, even more so than the general population. The library time was also heavily regulated, with a very strict start and end time, but it was a small pocket of freedom in an otherwise structured day. The inmates on bunk restriction were known to show up before they were allowed in, in which case I would make them wait outside, but they were also known to take their time leaving. Lollygagging, as it were. Slowly folding the newspapers up, making sure all of the corners aligned and the folds were recreased.

  Having a set routine while on restriction meant that some inmates I only saw when they were in trouble and in that bright green jumps
uit that designated bunk restriction. They were a deviation from the standard inmate uniform of dark blue pants and light blue shirt; a garish shade of neon green specifically meant to differentiate those on bunk restriction from those in general population.

  Inmate Brown never set foot in the library when not on restriction, but he broke rules often enough that he was constantly in and out of the green suit. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if the Quartermaster just kept a designated jumpsuit set aside specifically for Brown. As such, Brown was a regular patron of the library, although not by choice.

  “Brown,” I said as he breezed past me. “Sign in.”

  He stepped back and swiveled on his heel, signing in without a second glance at me. Still silent, he gestured to the newspaper he wanted and the porter made the exchange with his badge. One of the tables up front was open and he took a seat directly in my line of sight.

  About fifteen minutes later, I looked over in that direction. Brown stared intently at me, the newspaper abandoned on the table in front of him. At the back of the room, Washington was staring at the back of Brown’s head just as intently. He had an inmate in front of him who seemed to be trying to find a particular passage in a legal text, but Washington held up his index finger, indicating he needed a minute, then removed himself from his post behind the law library desk and walked down the aisle.

  Washington stopped when he reached Brown and leaned down, whispering something in his right ear. They were too far away for me to hear but whatever Washington said evoked an immediate reaction.

  Brown froze, his body jerking with a sudden halt. His hands appeared from under the table and laid flat on the newspaper. With Washington still standing right behind him, Brown slowly rose from his table, gathered the newspaper, and went to the circulation desk to retrieve his badge.

  He left the library without a single glance in my direction. It was the first time he had ever left the library early.

  When I turned my eyes to the library looking for Washington, he was back behind the law library counter, seemingly hard at work. I went back to work myself.

  A few hours later, I was gathering my stuff, the shift over. Washington walked slowly behind the other inmates exiting the library. He lingered in the vicinity of my desk. Only after everyone else had left did he approach me.

  “I’m sorry about earlier, Miss G.,” Washington explained. “That thing with Brown.” He held his familiar stack of file folders close to this body like a shield.

  I put down the papers I’d been gathering and looked directly at him, eyebrow raised. “You wanna tell me what that was about?”

  Washington hesitated, shifting uncomfortably on the balls of his feet. He was significantly older than most of the other inmates, a majority of whom were in their twenties and thirties. Washington, on the other hand, straddled that line between Boomer and Greatest Generation. Younger than my grandparents, but most definitely older than my parents. Whatever he was about to tell me was not something he wanted to tell a woman young enough to be his granddaughter.

  “He had his hand in his pocket.” Washington said this with such finality, the period a dead stop, as if it explained everything.

  I continued to stare at him, uncomprehending.

  He cleared his throat. His eyes shifted around the room as if to make sure nobody could overhear him even though just five minutes ago I had watched him wait until everyone left. “He cuts holes in the pockets. Inside the jumpsuit.” Washington whispered this last bit.

  I started to shake my head, still not understanding. “Why would he want holes in his . . .”

  Then the penny dropped.

  Oh.

  “Oh. Oh, okay.” I repeated his words back to him, walking my way through the logic. “He cuts holes in the pockets. Inside the jumpsuit. So he can . . .” I made a vague gesture with my hand and my voice dropped off as I looked to Washington for confirmation.

  Washington nodded imploringly. His eyes gave way to his discomfort at having to be the one to explain the complex realities of prison life to me and the lengths some inmates would go to in order to pleasure himself in public without getting caught.

  Choking the chicken. Spanking the monkey. Shaking hands with Dr. Winky. Insert euphemism of your choice, but whatever you want to call it, masturbation was most definitely against the rules. Inmates of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction were not, under any circumstances, allowed to masturbate and, if caught doing so, could be written up and punished.

  Necessity is the mother of invention and in the case of Inmate Brown, habitual masturbator, that means cutting or tearing (as it was unlikely he had frequent enough access to scissors) holes in the interior pockets of his pants and jumpsuits so as to have better access to his own bat and balls. This was the kind of game that didn’t require an outdoor field—he could do it just about anytime, anywhere.

  And apparently anytime, anywhere included the library during his brief time slot. While staring at me, the only woman in the entire room.

  In this current age of the #MeToo movement, we have a better understanding of what sexual harassment in the workplace looks like and, make no mistake, having a man masturbate while staring at you as you are trying to go about your job is sexual harassment, regardless of the location of employment. But I didn’t have the words for this at the time. I didn’t even know what to do about this.

  Public libraries have policies in place to deal with indecent exposure and inappropriate actions of patrons (and, yes, this sort of thing does happen in the public library sphere. When I worked in the public library in my hometown, I cannot begin to tell you how many copies of Cosmopolitan were found tucked behind the toilet of the men’s room, and we also had to keep a careful eye on the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated). But I wasn’t in a public library and I didn’t know how to respond to this, or if I should respond at all. After all, I hadn’t seen anything and was only being told about it hours after the fact. Writing conduct reports was still fairly new to me and I was still figuring out when were the appropriate moments that called for one to be written.

  This was not going to be the first time I’d have a man masturbating in the library and eventually I would get so used to writing conduct reports I could whip one up within minutes. But for now, all I could do was be glad I didn’t see anything and just shiver with the grossness of it all. Because as much as I appreciated Washington telling me, I really did not need to know.

  “Right. Okay, well.” I forced a smile. “Thank you for telling me, Washington.” I nodded towards the door. “You better get going, don’t want to be late for count.”

  With one final, mournful glance back in my direction, Washington left.

  Well. That wasn’t awkward or anything.

  I had spent the past month just getting used to the security element of this job and I was finally starting to maybe sort of get a handle on it. But now I had to worry about secret spankers in the library, too?

  A few weeks later, I found myself standing in the parking lot of the prison, shivering in the early morning air. My eyes widened at the white behemoth parked next to my car. Compared to my Honda Civic, the white van was gargantuan.

  Kimberly appeared from the other side, moving towards me away from the lobby. She held up a closed fist but she was too far away for me to be able to see what she was holding.

  “Got the keys,” she called out as she narrowed the gap between us. When she reached the driver’s side door, she opened it and popped the locks. I pulled open the passenger side door and clambered up into the van.

  Looking at the spread of a dashboard, I was so glad that a) Kimberly was coming with me, and b) she felt confident enough to drive this because there is no way I was going to manage. This was going to be like navigating a tank down an alley.

  I had been forced to wake up at 4 a.m. this morning and requiring to be awake that early for work purposes definitely fell under the “other duties as assigned” portion of my job description. Kimbe
rly and I had to drive down to Columbus together and we had to be there fairly early, which meant meeting up together at the prison earlier than that, and with my hour commute, waking up really early.

  The van was the prison’s official vehicle of choice for prison business. I would have preferred to just drive myself down in my own car: from my apartment it was a quick two hour drive, but with both of us going, Highland wouldn’t allow it. Hence, the great white whale we were driving.

  Twice a year, the prison librarians from across the great state of Ohio gathered together in the state capital of Columbus for an all-day in-service. While we’d be going over any policy changes that had happened in the past six months and discussing any issues anyone had dealt with, a lot of the day was really just about all of us getting together.

  Up until now, I had led a very insular job existence. I was a solo librarian and while Kimberly managed the library during my Monday absences, she mostly just babysat. Any inmates with library-related questions were directed to return the next day when I was there.

  I knew there were other prison librarians out there. Ohio alone had thirty institutions, which meant at least as many librarians. Some were big enough to require more than one full-time librarian. But the only ones I’d had any real contact with were Grace, the state prison librarian who oversaw all of us, and Connie, the librarian at our sister institution a couple of hours away. Even then, though, all of our communication had been over email. Connie had introduced herself to me via email shortly after I started, and Grace mostly wrote emails strongly reminding people to send in their monthly statistics report (how many books were checked out, how many visitors came to the library, etc.) in a timely fashion.

  Today, however, I’d get to meet them in person. And not just the two persons with whom I’d had somewhat regular contact, but all of the librarians and library assistants that worked within our system. I had no idea what to expect. New people make me nervous, as there’s so much pressure to socialize and make a good impression. I always feel awkward and out-of-place in these types of settings. At the same time, though, while I was anxious, because mine was such an insular job, I was also excited to meet my colleagues in the field.