Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian (28 page)

“What’s your name?”

“Franklin,” he said, “Chudney.”

“Chutney?”

“Chu
d
ney. What’s yours?”

“Avi.”

“Javi?”

“No,
Avi.”

We shook hands and I expected to never see him again.

The Ides of January

Meanwhile, Shakespeare month was not going well.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. There was plenty of Shakespearean foreshadowing. As usual, young Dumayne—recently back from yet another trip to the Hole—played the role of the truth-telling average Joe, the “saucy fellow” of Julius Caesar, whose streetwise cynicism portends problems in the universe.

Typically, when Dumayne came into the library his mouth was already in motion. He had little use for pauses between words. One afternoon he entered the library, mouth a-running.

“Yo-what-the-movie-this-week?”

“It’s a Shakespeare play that was made into a movie,” I said. Then added, with a touch of masochism,
“Macbeth.”

Dumayne flashed me a snapshot grin. He really looked like a larky kid when he smiled.

“You-kidding-right?”

“ ’Fraid not.”

“Aw-man-that’s-some-corny-ass-shit, man.”

“Since when is murder and revenge corny? And it’s got one of the great crazy bitches of all time. You’ll love it, Dumayne.”

“Shakespeare’s-old!”

“You mean
old school?”
I said, fully aware of how lame I sounded.

“No-old
, cuz. Like boring.”

“Did you know that Shakespeare’s characters call each other ‘cuz’?”

“No-but-I-do-know-that-Shakespeare-is-whack.”

This was, more or less, the consensus around the library. Unfortunately Shakespeare was the theme for January’s film group, held each Friday morning. I wasn’t surprised by the negative reaction. So I held my ground, hoping for at least some endorsements from certain key inmates. But nothing. I turned to Fat Kat. But the big man just sat there, arms crossed, shaking his head.

“Nah, man,” he said. “Not this time. Nobody here wants to watch a bunch of British dudes waltzing around in pantyhose speaking old English. C’mon, Avi. Whaddayathinkin’?”

“It’s Shakespeare,” I reasoned. “Don’t be afraid to admit that what’s best is best. Every wannabe rapper in here wishes he had Shakespeare’s skills.”

But Fat Kat just waved me off. My teacher guy routine wasn’t flying. He was right, of course. To make Shakespeare relevant to this crowd would require more time—and a group smaller than thirty. We were digging ourselves a hole.

The first week was a bust. Ignoring my pleas, Forest screened the 1940s Orson Welles
Macbeth
. The combination of British dudes waltzing around in pantyhose and ancient film production was a death knell. An audible groan went up as soon as the opening black and white credits appeared on the screen. We had done nothing but reinforce the notion of Shakespeare as outdated.

Dumayne approached me later that week. “You better have a good one next week, Harvey,” he warned, “or there’s gonna be trouble up in here.”

The next film,
Shakespeare Behind Bars
, a 2005 documentary of a group of inmates putting on
The Tempest
, was slightly better received. This was the advantage of having set an astonishingly low bar. Even so, the abundance of sensitive/effeminate characters in the documentary put off most of my inmate audience. The fact that one of the strongest characters in the documentary was a sex offender was a major turnoff—particularly to a certain vocal inmate who just happened to be a sex offender. But at least the film was in full Technicolor. I could tell that some of the audience enjoyed the movie, but were too afraid to admit it.

Dumayne remained unmoved. His dark prophecies for what would happen if I showed another corny-ass Shakespeare movie had become distilled into a wordless shaking of his head and wagging of his index finger. His message was clear enough. Trouble was on the way.

But that Friday, we triumphed.
Othello
, starring Laurence Fishburne, had just the right combination of blackness, Laurence Fishburneness, Hollywood slickness, and raw sex appeal to go over well. Even Dumayne conceded that the library had finally done right. But his warnings remained in place.
Othello
would be long forgotten if we attempted another
Macbeth
.

But our final Shakespeare screening continued the hot streak. In retrospect, this should have been my warning. After screening the 1996 Baz Luhrmann film,
Romeo + Juliet
—starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as “contemporary inner-city gang rivals and star-crossed lovers”—the inmates kept to their seats. Usually they’d check out the moment a film was over, often sooner, and try to escape the library before the discussion of the film began. But not that day. Even Dumayne conquered his notorious ADD.

James, a young staff teacher and theology student, led the discussion. I took a perch in the back of the space, eager to hear the inmates’ reactions. The film’s themes of gang violence, love, and loyalty during conflict—and the urban, though somewhat unconvincing, American setting—resonated with the men. The conversation got off to a dizzying start. Hands were going up in every corner. Everyone had an opinion. Romantics lined up against cynics, young inmates united against old veterans. It was a rare occasion that one of these film discussions actually went well.

I asked the class how they thought costumes affected their experience of the play. I gave a quick crash course in theatrical costuming, in the construction of identity through clothing, of Shakespeare’s affinity for identity confusion, the distinction between uniforms and costumes. For a group of men sitting in the shadow of uniformed officers, themselves in variously hued prison uniforms, this topic had a particular immediacy. Many of these men had traded gang colors for prison colors. Again, everyone had something to add. There were so many hands up and loud voices trying to talk over one another I hardly noticed a man walk past me.

This man was outfitted in the uniform of an officer. He was one of the many who routinely hung out at the post outside of the library, loitering in the hallway during the day shift.

Some of these officers were members of a SERT team—the Sheriff Escort and Response Team—a squad that could be dispatched quickly to prison trouble spots. When they weren’t in action, they’d sit around gossiping, talking pussy and Patriots football and concocting union discord. SERT was a more desirable job than a harrowing post on a cell block—many of the SERT members were vets and saw SERT as their hard-earned right.

Though many officers were fit, some were simply fat fucks. Their years in the department could be measured in waist size, their fates on earth deduced from piles of prison cafeteria sausage on their lunch trays. Healthy young cadets sometimes grew into shuffling lardaceous blobs. The union ensured that the fitness test remained a onetime event, given as part of an entrance requirement and then never again. The sight of the SERT team mobilizing was sometimes a Keystone Kops affair. As a young cadet, a Marine, once noted to me, the SERT guys were “supposed to be a crack squad but are actually more of a butt crack squad.”

The man who walked by me was a member of SERT. Or maybe a friend of the squad—I wasn’t sure. What I did know, at a mere glance, was that he passed his misfortunes onto his hair and that his face, tormented by male pride, alternated three expressions: smug, constipated, and blank.

That day, he walked by me with purpose, without offering the slightest acknowledgment. It was strange that he was in the library. He wasn’t a regular, as far as I knew. But random officers sometimes appeared like this, making rounds, sweeping for contraband, making their presence known. I noticed him as a shadow but quickly got distracted trying to help run the class.

The officer didn’t look at or speak to any inmates, but instead disappeared into the library’s book stacks. A moment later, he emerged. Retracing his steps, he walked right by me again, this time on his way to the door. Again, he ignored me.

And that’s when it happened.

It started modestly enough, but grew with ferocious speed. Within seconds, there was no ignoring it. A foul, sulfuric smell overwhelmed the library space, no small feat. Inmates, who had their hands up to ask questions or to say their piece, instead covered their faces with uniform shirts. Some ducked their heads between their knees. Dumayne was jolted out of his seat, as if suddenly waking from a nightmare of attentiveness.

“It stinks like
shit
in here, dawg!” he announced, as if this wasn’t completely obvious.

“Somebody farted,” sighed an old-timer. “Bad.”

The class devolved into pandemonium. The once orderly discussion, which had been contained to the main clearing, instantly disintegrated. A few inmates ducked out of the library. Those who remained took advantage of the chaos to do their dirty business: slipping notes and other contraband into favorite hiding spots. I stopped an inmate in the process of pocketing the library’s newspaper, only to see another walk off with two magazines. At the other end of the library, an inmate quickly, surreptitiously, passed something to another. Another inmate who had been pestering me throughout the class to use a typewriter finally got his way. Inmates were streaming into the stacks, into the back computer room—doing everything but sitting and talking about
Romeo + Juliet
.

I was trying to understand what had happened. Did an officer just come into the library in the middle of a class and pass a massive gas bomb? Easily the worst and most tragic I’d ever encountered. Had he, a grown man, actually come into the library during the class with the sole intention of doing this? It seemed too crazy to be true.

Meanwhile, the detail workers held court at the library’s counter. A small group of library regulars had gathered around. These inmates were fuming. Some were clamoring for revenge.

“Motherfucker better
watch
his back.”

“He better hope he don’t run into me on the outs.”

“That ain’t
right!”
said a small man with a large ’fro. “Right in the middle of the fuckin’
class
, man!”

“That’s how it goes around here,” said Fat Kat, as he flipped through a
Car & Driver
. “Get used to it.”

“That’s fucking
dis
respect, right there,” said another.

And Dice: “I’ll tell you what that is:
demeaning
. Man shit on your fuckin’ head and you expected to take it? Naw. Un-uh.”

I looked out the library’s large windows, out to the hall, where a group of officers were trying to contain their smiles, trying to stay casual. Strange that they weren’t coming into the library to help restore order.

“Can someone explain what just happened?” I asked the inmates.

As usual, Fat Kat was completely in the know. Without looking up from his magazine, he said, “Dude came in with one of them fart sprays you can buy. And I think you know the rest.”

“You saw this?” I asked.

“Yeah, man, they did it yesterday too. During Forest’s shift, when 3-3 was in here. Cleared out the whole room, same as today.”

On one side, there were gleeful officers; on the other, furious inmates. In between, me. I was responsible for this space and for the chaos it had become. Unless I implicated myself into this situation I was teetering on the verge of irrelevance. Somehow, I had to save face with both groups, inmates and officers. In a macho environment like prison, that meant one thing. Absurd as the circumstances were, the library, its mission, and its guardian (me) had been openly disrespected. If I couldn’t restore some public dignity to the library and establish some deterrent power, the space would be undermined again and again. If the sheriff’s officers weren’t going to defend the space, I would. The spirit of Don Amato descended on me once again. The Sheriff Librarian persona bubbled up.

I marched into the hallway, trying to maintain my calm. The corridor was busy with inmates and staff. I spotted the offending officer. He and some of his crew were roosting on a bench next to the officer’s post. When they saw me approach, they stopped talking, and again attempted to suppress their grins.

Trying hard not to accuse him—as I lacked evidence—I asked what he had been doing in the library. His face went through its various registers: blank to constipated to smug, and back again. He didn’t make eye contact.

“I was getting a sports book,” he said. “Forest lets us check them out.”

The baldness of this claim, and the awkwardness of the officers’ behavior, was all the evidence I needed. He hadn’t gone into the sports section. Nor had he looked for anything. He had walked purposefully into the stacks, where he remained for less than ten seconds. And as Fat Kat had said, I knew the rest. Everybody did.

“Well,” I said, “maybe you can explain this: there’s a pretty nasty smell in the library and you were just in and out of there. Any connection between these two facts?”

“That smell’s been there for days. It’s got
nothing
to do with me, guy.”

Now he was glaring at me. His lips fully retreated into his head. I just sighed.

“We both know that’s not true,” I said.

“Are
you
here every day?” he shouted.

The implication of his statement was that I was a college volunteer, a notion I never quite dispelled. Now he was standing. He walked toward me, chest puffed out.

“Yeah,” I replied, also raising my voice—hoping it wouldn’t crack—trying not to back down from a guy trained to tackle and subdue violent criminals.

“I work here full time,” I said. “Every single day. Same department as you. Member of the union. I see you here every day, even if you don’t see me. This,” I said, indicating the library, “is
my
spot and
my
responsibility. The question here is why did you come into
my
space, in the middle of
my
class, and screw everything up?”