Reading behind Bars

by Jill Grunenwald

  It was a simplified version of the plot, sure. But all I needed to do was give him a hook, something to make him at least want to give it a try. As a man trying to also better himself, I figured that part of Jay’s motivation would appeal to him. Plus, well, if I had learned anything over the past nine months, it’s that criminals loved reading about other criminals.

  Apparently it was enough, though, because Toth beamed. “This is perfect. Thanks, Ms. G.!”

  Quickly spinning on his heel, he went over to the circulation desk and immediately checked it out. He was still smiling when he exited the library.

  I turned back to the bookshelf and arranged the books to minimize the gap left by the absence of Jay and Daisy.

  Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed an inmate standing down near the Cs. In his hand was a copy of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. He looked at me, single eyebrow raised. “What do you know about gangsters?” he challenged.

  I smiled. “What do you think the G in Miss G stands for?”

  With a wide grin, I turned and headed back to my desk. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t that.

  Chapter 15

  Deck the Halls with Boughs of Folly

  Meal variations from the cycle menu may be allowed during major holidays and emergency operations provided that basic nutritional goals are satisfied.

  ODRC Policy 60-FSM-02

  I ran my finger down the clipboard on my desk, comparing the daily worker schedule to the handful of inmates currently sorting that day’s newspapers. “Where’s Willis?”

  Woodson and Lincoln shared a glance. Their hands busy with the newspapers, neither said anything. While they looked at each other, both strategically avoided my gaze.

  I narrowed my eyes and put my hands on my hips. “Where. Is. Willis?” I repeated, enunciating each word.

  Willis was new to working at the library. He had been classed here a few weeks ago and so far had shown himself to be a steady and predictable employee, and he got along well with the other porters. Lincoln had trained him and Willis caught on quickly. So him not showing up for work was, at least as far as I could tell with what little information I had about him, out of character.

  In front of me, Lincoln and Woodson held an entire silent conversation with their eyes. You. No, you. My own gaze flickered back and forth between them, a veritable tennis match. Their eyes widened and narrowed, each imploring the other to break the bad news. And make no mistake, whatever was about to come out of one of their mouths was most definitely bad news.

  Finally, Lincoln gave a sharp sigh and looked at me. “Willis is in Seg, Ms. G.”

  Seg?

  In my mind, I had predicted maybe Willis was sick, or had gotten a midnight transfer to another facility, or something like that. But Segregation? He had a clean record inside, what could he have done to land himself in Seg?

  “Yeahhh,” Lincoln continued, extending the last syllable out. “They made hooch back at the house.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Drugs and alcohol were forbidden in prison. Not, of course, that it stopped anyone from attempting to bypass the rules. Drugs could be smuggled in via visitors, but alcohol was a bit trickier. Okay, alcohol was a lot trickier. A bottle of beer wasn’t something that could easily be tucked into the bottom of a shoe.

  But, necessity is the mother of invention and given that this was a prison with a substance abuse program, we had men incarcerated who liked drugs and drinking. Not that drinking on its own was an issue: like many independent adults, I was known to imbibe on the weekends (and, sometimes after a particularly bad day, during the week as well. I live in Cleveland, after all: home of Great Lakes Brewery. My fridge could always be counted on to have a bottle of Eliot Ness red ale waiting for me after a grueling day). No, the inmates who were at our prison weren’t there because of their drinking problem. After all, alcoholism isn’t illegal. Instead, the inmates at our prison were there because of their drinking and driving problem.

  As the entrepreneurs of the Prohibition era learned, alcoholic beverages are fairly easy to make with a simple ingredient list: fruit, water, sugar, ketchup packets, and bread. (The ketchup adds acidity, while the bread introduces the yeast that is necessary for turning the rest of the ingredients into a refreshing alcoholic beverage.) These items all get dumped in a bag and are left to sit and ferment somewhere warm and well-hidden. A few days later, voila. A noxious bag of fermented fruit and sugar that most likely tastes terrible but will, if nothing else, get you drunk. It wasn’t exactly moonshine or bathtub gin, but more of a cousin to the illicit spirits of the 1920s.

  Almost all of the items required could be collected from the chow hall. It took planning and coordination, but if a couple fellas were determined enough and used the pockets on their coats to their advantage, they could easily smuggle out the necessary ingredients.

  Fruit on the other hand . . .

  Fruit was not allowed out of the chow hall under any circumstances. It was frequently served with meals—an orange with breakfast or an apple with lunch—but if an inmate wasn’t hungry, saving it for later wasn’t an option. Fruit was use it or lose it, and if an inmate was seen walking out with a piece of fruit—even if he had absentmindedly tucked it into his pocket—he could be written up if the officer on duty wasn’t feeling particularly charitable that day.

  A couple weeks before the hooch incident, a local church came by the prison with some donations. They had very generously put together care packages for the inmates, consisting of toiletries and some snacks, including oranges. As generous as the donation was, Highland had to inform the church that all oranges would need to be removed from the care packages. The toiletries could say, but the citrus was out.

  Maybe some of the oranges had been missed. Or maybe some had made it off the breakfast trays and into the cargo pockets on the heavy winter coats that were back in circulation for the season. Either way, the inmates had been creative enough to not only smuggle fruit of some variety back into the house, they had collected all of the other ingredients, and managed to let that shit sit and ferment in its dark happy place, all without any of the correctional officers finding out until after the fact.

  And my porter had gotten drunk off of it and thrown into Segregation. Well, former porter, I should say. He was going to be in Seg for a while for this one. He was only a few months away from being released as it was, so chances were he wasn’t going to be making it back to the library anytime soon.

  House-made hooch wasn’t the only homebrewing that happened in prison. The other drink of choice was a Foxy. This brightly-colored drink, usually pink based on preferred Kool-Aid flavors, was non-alcoholic but still packed a punch: it was basically pure sugar and caffeine. The prisoner’s version of Red Bull.

  Inmates threw anything and everything in there: sugar, coffee, soda, coffee grounds, candy of any and all varieties. Anything that would give them a sugar and/or caffeine rush. No two Foxy drinks were the same, although the men had their preferences and recipes down cold. They knew how many scoops of Kool-Aid to add to how many cups of coffee. The flavor profiles changed depending on who was making it, some liking this flavor over that one or preferring more sugar and less caffeine.

  After throwing everything into a water bottle, they would add some ice cubes, then screw on the lid and shake it to make sure everything dissolved. Throughout the day, they would keep shaking it to make sure the ingredients didn’t separate or settle. Shake shake shake. It was like listening to bartenders with cocktail shakers.

  Trust me, it sounds utterly disgusting to me, too, but desperate times, man. It was desperate times and, at least for Willis, desperate times called for risking time in Seg in order to have some prison-made hooch.

  With gentle fingers, I peeled open the layers of paper, holding my breath. For the past few minutes, I had been making careful cuts into the precisely folded paper. Sharp angles and discarded triangles covered my desk.

  I gingerly pulled the layers apa
rt, holding them out in front of me. The paper was still all attached, so that was a good sign. Once the whole thing was unrolled, I held it up and looked closely. Damn. I had cut a bit too much and instead of having snowflakes, I had butterflies. Given it was the middle of December and there was three feet of snow outside, not exactly what I had been hoping for. But, then again, I’d never been good at making paper garland.

  It was Tuesday night and I was bored, hence the attempt at holiday decorations. The library was nearly empty, the frozen tundra that had previously been the green yard, keeping everyone back in the housing units.

  Jackson swaggered past my desk, two friends trailing behind him. Swagger was the only way to describe the way he walked, that characteristic dip in the hip, the swing in his shoulders. He was a scrawny kid, like a baby bird. The state-issued coats didn’t come that small and he disappeared into it, the hood falling over his face.

  “Where you going, Jackson?” I called out, not looking up.

  He paused, looking over his shoulder. “Rec.” His eyebrows came together, confused at my confusion, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, of course he was going to Rec! How could I think anything different?

  “Yard’s closed, Jackson.” I looked up with a smile. “Have to stay here for . . .” I looked towards the clock high on the wall in the law library then back at him. “Another fifteen minutes.”

  Jackson tilted his head up towards his followers in a simple nod. A flash of understanding passed between all three of them and Jackson swaggered up to my desk. His arms rested on top and he stretched his neck to peer down over the counter top.

  “This is my last night, Ms. G.”

  “That’s great, Jackson.” I gave him another smile. “Don’t do anything stupid while you’re out there, I don’t want to have to deal with you again.”

  He snorted his amusement. On the outside, Jackson was a drug dealer, who ran the local streets on the east side of Cleveland. This was not his first time behind bars, and it certainly wasn’t going to be his last. For Jackson, dealing was the ideal profession: he was an entrepreneur, ran his own business, made his own hours. He had a steady stream of clients probably already waiting for him out there. Sure, every once in a while, if he made a misstep, he’d be caught and sent to prison, but here there was the “three hots and a cot.” There was also, inevitably, a few inmates he knew. Inmates that would follow his lead, like the two trailing him this evening. For the most part, he put his nose down, did his time, and waited until it was time to get out so he could get back to his regular, and preferred, routine.

  Jackson wasn’t a troublemaker, although he did have an attitude and bravado that belied his small stature. Think of it as the Napoleon Complex.

  “What time you get off work, Ms. G.?”

  Oh. So it was going to be like that. I made a joke about Jackson doing something dumb after he got out, apparently I needed to be worried about him doing something dumb twelve hours before he was released.

  I forced a neutral expression on my face. My lips formed a hard line, my eyes a steady stare. To be fair, my version of a neutral expression is Resting Bitch Face, although it has served me well while working behind bars. “Why are you asking?”

  He grinned. “’Cause I’m going to be outside waiting by your car when you get off tomorrow night.”

  I internally face-palmed myself. Not just at the comment, but at the fact that he even considered it safe to say. Maybe some of the prison employees were willing to overlook minor transgressions when an inmate only had hours left, but I was not one of them.

  But, okay, if Jackson wanted to play, I’d go ahead and play along. “Really?” I asked. “And how do you know which car is mine?”

  “Oh,” he said with a knowing smile. “I know.”

  The conduct report was practically writing itself.

  This was not the first time an inmate had made reference to the type of car I drive. A few months prior, I was gathering my personal items at the end of the evening and had taken my key ring out of my purse to put into my coat pocket. Later, an inmate who had been in the library at that time made reference to my Honda Civic. I was startled, but logic told me that if I can identify inmates out in the yard from the employee parking lot, the reverse would also be true.

  I looked at the inmate standing in front of me. “Jackson,” I repeated, “the yard is closed. You cannot leave the library for another fifteen minutes.”

  Grinning, Jackson just gave me a wave and exited.

  I immediately picked up the phone and called the officer next door. “Hey,” I said when he answered. “I’m just letting you know I’m writing Jackson up for establishing.” This was short-hand code for violating rule #24 from the Ohio Inmate rules of conduct: Establishing or attempting to establish a personal relationship with an employee. When I repeated the story, the officer sighed.

  “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

  After hanging up the phone, I rolled my chair over to my computer and pulled up the conduct report template I kept saved on my desktop. I typed quickly, fingers flying over the keyboard. Facts. Just the facts.

  Just as I hit print, Officer Warwick walked in. I handed him the conduct report.

  He read it over, standing there. As his eyes traveled down the page, he kept shaking his head.

  “I suspect you’ll find him at Rec,” I said.

  Warwick nodded. He gave me a wave and left. Ten minutes later, I took count of the inmates, called up front with the numbers, and closed the library down for the night.

  “Yo,” Greene said, leaning over the circulation desk. “You hear what happened to Jackson?” It was the next morning. This early in the day, there was only a small scattering of inmates seated at tables, deep into reading the newspapers from yesterday they couldn’t get to.

  Lincoln’s fingers flew as he organized the recently returned checkout cards. His hands moved so quickly, it was like watching a Vegas dealer at work. He shook his head, but didn’t look up, not wanting to break his concentration.

  “Spent his last night in Segregation.”

  Huh. News travels fast in a place with limited communication.

  With the limited number of inmates in the library, Greene didn’t bother keeping his voice low and quite a few of the seated inmates had heard. His statement caught their attention, a few heads raised in response.

  The hum of cards paused. Lincoln looked up. “What?”

  A small crowd had formed around Greene, hoping for more information. Because of the limited communication, the men lapped up whatever bits of gossip they could. “Grabbed him in the evening,” Greene continued, “and took him down. He was released right from Seg.”

  “Who wrote him up?” Lincoln asked.

  Nobody answered. Glances were passed as everyone hoped someone else knew. I smiled to myself. Turns out, the gossip mill only provided so much detail.

  After a few seconds of silence, I finally spoke up. “I did.” Other than those two words, I didn’t acknowledge their conversation at all, the book in my hand by far the most interesting thing in the room and the recipient of my full and undivided attention.

  Greene scoffed. “You, Ms. G.?” He peered at me through his Buddy Holly glasses, tilting his head, as if the angle would provide him a different view, a different perspective. Dissatisfied with what he saw, he turned back to the others and lowered his voice. “Yeah, right.”

  I frowned. What did that mean? Was there something about me that said I wasn’t the type to send a guy to Segregation? Never mind the fact that I didn’t send Jackson to Seg; he sent himself. I just wrote the conduct report that got him there.

  “No, really,” I said. I turned in my chair to face them. “I wrote Jackson up and sent him to Segregation on his last night.”

  Greene’s eyes went wide. He turned to Lincoln. As my porter, he was the one among the group who was apparently able to read me best and, therefore, the only one who could administer the lie-detector test.

 
; “What did you write him up for?” Lincoln asked.

  “Establishing.”

  The clot of men all looked at each other. Raised eyebrows moved between them, silent words spoken. The takeaway was a group of genuinely puzzled men, the unspoken message being “Her?”

  Okay, well, now I was feeling offended. I realized that, to most people, I would perhaps not be considered traditionally attractive: on the prison librarian spectrum ranging from The Real Housewives of Cleveland, to the weirdo loner who hangs out at a table by himself without any friends, I would like to think I’m somewhere in the middle. I try to dress at least reasonably fashionable, while still maintaining the professionalism dictated by the prison. If nothing else, the inmates were probably mentally imagining Jackson and me together. Not, like, together-together, but just picturing us standing side by side and found the image absurd. I couldn’t blame them. Jackson was a petite man, the Kermit to my Miss Piggy.

  The night of the incident, Jackson was just hours from his release, where he probably had a woman waiting back home for him.

  “Establishing, Ms. G.” Lincoln repeated. He put the circulation cards down on the counter. His gaze was steady but there was a slight glint of amusement hovering at the corners.

  “Yes,” I emphasized. “Establishing. He came in last night and started asking about what time I get off work tomorrow, and that he’d be out by my car waiting. So, I wrote him up.”

  Now the men couldn’t hold it in anymore and started chuckling.

  Lincoln’s smile was patronizing as best. “Ms. G.” I got the sense that if he could pat me on top of the head and call me adorable, he would. “He didn’t mean it. He was just kidding.”

  I refrained from rolling my eyes. “Yes, Lincoln. I am aware of that. I didn’t really think he was going to be out waiting by my car. But when you are still incarcerated here, you have to follow the rules. It doesn’t matter if it’s the night before your release. If you break the rules, I will write you up, even if that means sending you to Segregation on your last night.”