Reading behind Bars

by Jill Grunenwald

  Even if the officers knew an inmate needed to be at the library for work, they didn’t have to let them out of the house. Not if the yard wasn’t open yet, which it usually wasn’t until the end of the entire meal service.

  On my way in that morning, I had stopped at Administration to pick up my mail. I didn’t get interoffice mail that often, but I still made a point of checking a few times a week.

  This day, I only had one official looking document: a notice from Job Coordinator Sarah Becker, the woman in charge of classifying inmates for their jobs around the prison. The corner of my mouth turned up in a small smile as I glanced over the name of the inmate who was being classed to the library.

  “Booker,” I said, reading down the page for more information. “We have a new inmate being assigned to the library on Monday.” I lifted my head and looked at him. “Would you be interested in training him?”

  He looked at me, wary. “Who is it?”

  I suppressed a grin. It was a fair question. Like any small group of individuals, bringing another person into the mix changed the energy and group dynamics.

  “Woodson,” I said. My request for him to be classed to the library had been approved. Booker nodded, satisfied. Apparently, at least according to Booker, Woodson’s addition to the team of library porters wasn’t going to disrupt the energy.

  “Sure, Ms. G.”

  My decision to allow the current porters to train the incoming ones was something I’d been contemplating for a few weeks; it was just a matter of waiting for the right inmates to test it out. Not only did I have to pick the right inmate joining our crew, but I also had to identify a current inmate who had the right temperament to instruct a peer, without being overbearing or taking advantage. Being good at the job and knowing the ropes wasn’t enough: Hoskins was good at his job, but he was too easily frustrated, too easily flustered to properly guide another inmate. Booker, on the other hand, was far more mellow and patient. I knew he was a good candidate for this first try.

  The door opened and a cold crosswind blew in from the yard. I suddenly noticed how dark it was outside, the impending storm even closer than it was an hour before. Carlton walked in. He stuck his pick into the halo of his afro. “Happy Halloween, Ms. G.!” I smiled in response, grateful that this Halloween was turning out to be more treat than trick.

  A few hours later, the library closed for the morning shift. I picked up the basket near my desk and headed into the shelves. Yesterday, when I had visited Segregation, several of the inmates had requested “scary” books and I was determined to find books for them to read.

  Granted, I don’t know what they had in mind when they asked for scary books, but for me, the answer was easy: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And, of course, the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe.

  Along with the chilling weather that comes with the season, I also love the macabre books that feel as if they can only be read this time of year. One of my favorites is The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. A book that expands on the mythology of Vlad the Impaler and Dracula, The Historian is an atmospheric novel that only fits in this time of year. Oh, I’ve certainly tried reading it during other seasons, but the magic is lost when the sun is shining and flowers are blooming. Something about the mystique of the book, of the legend of vampires, is tied to autumn.

  I pulled the books from the shelf, examining each one before dropping them into the basket. The books were old, the pages yellowed with age. But when I flipped open to the back covers and pulled out the checkout cards, I realized they were blank.

  Really? Nobody had ever checked out Frankenstein? Or Dracula? I mean, I realized that the classics of English literature canon maybe aren’t exciting and, okay, a little dry, but how had nobody checked these out before?

  I pulled the checkout cards out of the books and put them on my desk: my way of knowing which books were down in Segregation. If the inmates down in Seg wanted scary books, I was more than happy to oblige, and I was going to take advantage of the situation to expose them to the classics. Besides, who doesn’t love vampires and monsters and haunting hearts beating beneath the floorboards?

  The books selected, I piled them into the former grocery store basket that now acted as my book basket and carried them down to Segregation. The metal bookcase in the far corner looked the same as it had yesterday. And the last time I had visited. And the time before that, worn paperback books growing dusty with neglect. With CO Bolton trailing behind, heavy key ring in hand, I began passing out the books to the men who had requested scary titles, handselling them as I went along in an effort to encourage them to at least try the English canon: Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado is about a man who enacts revenge on his enemy while Frankenstein is about a doctor who creates a monster. Dracula introduced readers to vampires long before Twilight (an immensely popular book in the library) and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House was one of the more terrifying books if there ever was one.

  I knew the men in Seg were probably expecting more mainstream and popular horror novels, like Stephen King, but because hardback books were forbidden in the unit, I was limited in what I was allowed to offer. Old school horror books were a dime store paperback a dozen, and literally paperbacks, making them easy to recommend as they were the only books I was able to bring in to the unit. Unfortunately, when I returned a week later, none of the men had read the books I brought but by then, the holiday was over and the desire for scary books had passed.

  Happy Halloween indeed.

  Chapter 14

  Gangsta’s Paradise

  It is the policy of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) to give two-step tuberculosis skin tests to all new direct care staff prior to job assignment. Tuberculosis (TB) symptom screening conducted by DRC nursing staff shall be completed annually thereafter as an integral component of the Department’s TB surveillance and control program.

  —ODRC Policy 31-SEM-09

  Out of the corner of my eye, the nurse leaned down close to my arm. The tip of the needle brushed against my skin and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  My body stiffened, bracing for impact as the needle went into my arm.

  “All done!” the nurse said cheerfully.

  I opened my eyes and examined the small bruise already starting to form on the inside of my arm.

  “Two days,” she instructed. “We’ll be here checking.”

  “Thanks,” I said, standing up. I glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall of the entry room and frowned. This detour had thrown off my entire morning and now I was running behind schedule.

  Along with the mandatory tuberculosis testing that came before being hired, staff also need to be retested annually. It was a big production, the nurses from the medical unit administering the tests. They set up shop in the entryway during the 11 a.m. count and lunchtime. I got lucky, arriving for the day while they were already set up, so I was able to get it done and out of the way as I made my way into work for the day. Others would have to find time in the afternoon to come up to the entryway to have their test done.

  I gathered my belongings that had been sitting on the floor beside my chair and headed towards the security desk, dumping my items onto the counter to be searched.

  Just another day in paradise.

  A few days later, I was sitting at my desk reading when Toth walked up. I was so fully engrossed in my book—John Grisham’s An Innocent Man—that I didn’t see him right away. Just that morning I’d been reshelving some of the books that I had picked up from the Segregation unit on Saturday, and hadn’t gotten a chance to check back in yet, when I came across the John Grisham title on the shelf.

  I’d read a couple of Grisham novels in the past: he is one of my dad’s favorite authors and while my parents are readers, they don’t own that many books, choosing instead to take advantage of the local public library. That said, Grisham was one of those authors whose books had made the cut, and were in the house. As I grew older, when
I was at home and in need of something to read I always knew I could count on finding a John Grisham novel on the bookcase.

  The Innocent Man was different, though. This was non-fiction, the story of a man who had been falsely incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit. Long before the podcast Serial exploded onto the public conscious, Grisham explored the criminal justice system and the exoneration of a free man.

  I found the narrative so compelling, helped by the same writing style that made John Grisham a runaway bestselling thriller author, that I didn’t realize Toth had been standing there, patiently waiting, until he cleared his throat.

  “Oh!” I looked up and quickly shut the book. “I’m so sorry, Toth. How can I help you?”

  Toth pushed the shaggy blonde hair out of his eyes as he leaned across the desk that separated us. “Hey, Ms. G.,” Toth said, voice bright as the Tuesday afternoon outside. “I need a book.”

  I glanced up from the paperwork at my desk to meet his blue eyes. They perfectly matched the heathered blue of his state-issued uniform. and in any other situation I would have believed he dressed that way on purpose, carefully curating his closet to best suit his own features.

  Smiling, I nodded. “What book are you looking for?”

  “Well,” he said, ducking his head slightly, “that’s the thing. I don’t know. I’m hoping you can find me one.”

  I was intrigued. Most of the time when an inmate asked for help with a book, they knew what they wanted—they just didn’t know where to find it in the library. Or, perhaps more to the point, they thought they knew what they wanted, but some information had gotten lost in translation. Like the inmate who came in looking for a copy of The Silence of the Lambs, but he wanted the version written by the other author. He and I went in circles for ten minutes: I was trying to determine if he wanted a book that was like The Silence of the Lambs while he was quite sure he wanted The Silence of the Lambs, even breaking down the plot for me, but he was utterly convinced that some other author had written their own version of the book. Even when I patiently explained that’s just not how books work, he was not entirely convinced, and also rebuffed my offer to give him the book as written by Thomas Harris.

  Then there was the inmate who specifically wanted the Oprah Winfrey edition of The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. We didn’t have the special edition with the updated cover image and Oprah Book Club seal, but we had an older version of the book. No, the inmate insisted. It had to be the Oprah edition.

  “Why?” I asked, curious at his refusal of reading the exact same book with a different cover.

  He stared at me. His intense gaze indicated a belief that I was highly overpaid for my position here and had no business calling myself a librarian.

  “Because,” he said speaking slowly so as to make sure I was able to comprehend, “Oprah rewrites the books and makes them easier to read.”

  I bit back a smile. I’ll admit that to a casual viewer it does seem like Oprah has some pretty amazing superpowers, but that isn’t one of them.

  Even John Grisham got caught in the mix when an inmate came in asking for a book but he was unsure of the author’s name. “Quisham?” the inmate offered. “Or Shisham?” It wasn’t until he explained that the book was The Testament that it clicked.

  With Toth, though, this was a new opportunity. I hadn’t been able to flex my librarian muscles in this way in, well, in the entire time I’d been working at the prison.

  I pushed my copy of The Innocent Man to the far side of my desk, giving Toth my undivided attention. “Okay then. What kind of book are you looking for?”

  Toth bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet, his face lit with excitement. “So, I’m in the GED program, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, so, I dropped out of high school, right? And I’m realizing there are all of these, like, books that I never read. But now that I’m back in school I want to, like, do better and make better choices for me and my kids outside. I’ve wasted too many months here just getting in trouble and I don’t want to do that anymore, so I was hoping you could help me find the books that I should have read in high school, but didn’t.”

  My eyes widened, delighted at the prospect of Toth’s request. He had, unknowingly, opened a Pandora’s box of literature. Before me was the entire English literature canon, available for the picking and recommending.

  Granted, I knew that schools offered more than just classic literature. My own high school English classes introduced me to Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, a science fiction book about an elite school in space that trained young children to become soldiers against an impending war with aliens. Certainly not your traditional, standard fare of assigned reading.

  But I could also tell from the way Toth framed his request, that he really was looking for the traditional standard fare of assigned reading. While a few weeks ago I had to force the classics like Dracula and Frankenstein onto the guys in Seg (none of whom read them), Toth wanted and was willing to try his hand at all of the dry, boring books he had shrugged off back in school.

  I had to be careful, though. Pick the wrong book as a starter and I was going to turn him off completely. Because as much as he said he was willing to read them, once he started, he may decide it was an error. I had to be thoughtful in my choice and recommendation.

  I leaned back in my chair, analyzing Toth. Here was a man in prison. He was close to my age, in his late twenties, maybe even early thirties. He didn’t have to participate in the GED program: he was well over the required age that would automatically place him there. This was a choice he was making. Wanting to use his time here productively was a choice. Seeing this as an opportunity to make himself better was a choice. Wanting to better himself was also a choice. Not all of the inmates I saw pass through here viewed prison through the lens of opportunity, but for Toth it absolutely was.

  I then thought about all of the books I had read in high school and even college. All of the assigned texts I read (or, admittedly, in some cases, didn’t read), and studied, and analyzed, and took tests on, and wrote reports on.

  My smile broke wide. “I have the perfect book for you.”

  Eager, Toth followed me into the stacks.

  Work in a library long enough and any librarian or library employee can read the shelves like a map. We are cartographers of our own making, the books touchstones that guide us on our path. Standing at the end of the shelf, staring down the corridor of books, I knew that the Left Behind series was to my left on the very top shelf, filed under LaHaye, Tim. The book I was looking for would be under the Fs, so I turned to my right and took a few steps down the row, my index finger skimming the row.

  Ah, Fitzgerald. There he was.

  I pulled the copy of The Great Gatsby off the shelf and held it in my palm for just a moment. This edition was the same as the one I had read in high school, with the iconic blue cover and forlorn eyes staring up. The small rosebud of a mouth hovering above the fiery delights of a fair.

  In school, I was always one to read ahead, never satisfied with the slow pace of studies set forth by the class syllabus. One chapter a night was never enough for me, especially not with a book as short at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel. I was hardly an industrious student, often ignoring homework altogether, or doing the bare minimum required for a passing grade. But English class . . . English class was always the exception. In English, I was always ahead, finishing the books days or even weeks before required. I was the student who had to carefully guard her tongue to avoid spoiling the end of the book for any of my classmates.

  I remember reading The Great Gatsby in particular because a week or two into the section on the book, my English teacher had the class watch a short video on F. Scott Fitzgerald from an A&E Biography series. A true teenager, I was always game for a movie in class, especially when it is interjected with clips from the film adaptation starring Robert Redford.

  What my teacher didn’t realize, most likely because
she hadn’t screened the video in advance of class, falling under the assumption that because the school board had already pre-approved it and several other English teachers had shown it in their classes, was that the episode covered the plot of The Great Gatsby. The entire plot of The Great Gatsby.

  There I was, sitting in my English literature classroom, neck craned awkwardly to be able to view the television screen. On the big black television anchored near the corner of the ceiling, there was Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby . . . getting shot. And dying.

  My eyes darted franticly around the room. Did anyone else notice? Was anyone else even paying attention? The teacher certainly wasn’t, her focus on the computer in front of her as she read through some of her emails. Holy hell, we’d barely started the book and A&E had just given away the ending. Was I—possibly the only student who had already finished the book—the only one aware of what we had just watched? WHY WAS NOBODY ELSE FREAKING OUT ABOUT THIS? It was one of the ultimate shockers in classic literature.

  I shook my head, erasing the memories of high school from my mind. Raising my eyes from the cover, I handed the book to Toth. He held it in front of his face. “The Great Gatsby?” He lowered the book and met my gaze.

  I nodded. “It’s about gangsters in the 1920s. There was a girl Gatsby, the main character, loved, but he felt he needed to better himself before trying to win her. There’s Prohibition and bootleggers. It was one of my favorite books in high school.”