“I’m sorry to heave that on you,” he said. “I removed it from a notebook. In this environment, there’s obviously some taboo subjects. Gang symbols. Violent fantasies. Pornography. This crosses a couple of those lines. I have an arrangement, fully known to my students, whereby I forward anything I confiscate to Keeper Wallace. But I thought you might rather destroy it yourself.”
“Did Josh do this?” I could not help but feel the flush of shame.
“You know him?” he asked.
“Somewhat.” My day with the girlfriend killer had inspired a few fantasies. There was nothing surprising about that, but the thought disgusted me, and it was embarrassing
to be sitting before Brother Mike with the drawing in my hand. I closed the folder. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’d rather you did.”
I stood, the folder under my arm, and shook Brother Mike’s hand like an insurance adjuster. Then I tossed out one last question.
“How did Jon Crowley finish his project with a broken arm?”
Brother Mike looked surprised, and there was something gratifying in the way I threw him off balance, however unintentionally.
“A good point, isn’t it?” he said. “Lawrence Elgin asked Jon that in class. ‘How did you do it?’” Brother Mike let out a ragged sigh. “I wonder, would you look in on them for me? I’d like to know their condition, and nobody has been willing to tell me a thing.”
I promised I would do that, and felt the entanglements grow.
But I did not get the time to check in on Elgin or Crowley. Four hours after I got home that evening, I was summoned back for URF duty. Disturbances on one of the blocks, they
told me, and the news felt like a delayed tremor following the fight in the yard. Sometimes it happened that way, a little thing leading to greater confusion, and you wondered if it was all connected or just random reactions or even the full moon.
I felt amped up driving back to the prison, a little overtired and adrenaline pushed, but excited to put on the battle rattle and do some actual emergency work. The gate camera was hooded over with snow when I got there, but they buzzed me in anyway. I stomped my boots off on the mat, adding to the dirty slush.
Tony Pinckney—Nosepicker to his closest friends—sat at the receiving counter in the cage behind the metal detector. Though five years my junior, we’d joined at the same time, so our work lives had often overlapped. We’d done rounds together many times, spent two weekends shooting guns, squirting chemical agent, and tasering each other at training courses. He’d once invited me to a minor-league baseball game—whether as a date or a guys’ night out I never learned, because I turned him down. Now he was all business.
“I need a piss break and a coffee,” he announced, as though my arrival were long overdue. He asked me to man the station for five while he relieved himself. That meant a further delay in my URF response time, but what could I do? I took off my parka but remained standing in the booth, all the video monitors in the world for my entertainment. I could see the blurry commotion on a stretch of D block, some inmates in their cells like good doggies, some sitting quietly on the floor grinning and chatting to show they were tough, a
few shit disturbers pacing drunken angles and occasionally throwing up their arms at the camera to shout unheard rebukes about terrible injustices. I felt my heart tick up a notch, seeing the brutal undercurrent come to the surface, the rage that some felt was their God-given right to express. It was just for show, a make-believe fantasy of revolt, but it could easily go too far. I’d seen men commit violence and look bewildered about it later, as though they’d been forced to go through with something just to live up to the expectations of the situation at hand. The last thing I wanted was to be trapped inside some sick fuck’s private delusion.
“Don’t you wish you could have had a hot bath and stayed in bed?” Pinckney said behind me, calmer now, less burdened. He was the type of tall man whose striking height is apparent only when he’s standing next to you.
I ignored the innuendo that came with his emphasis on the word “bed.” “Overtime suits me fine.” With a reasonable number of emergencies to attend to, my salary promised to jump from fifty-two to sixty-five plus a year. That was all right by me.
We both caught sight of the fight that had erupted in D—one of the men inexplicably dragged out of his ground-level cell by two others, dropped into a huddled heap on the open floor, and subjected to a drawn-out performance of stomping and kicking in full view of the camera. Like fake wrestling, except these guys thought fake wrestling was real.
“Looks like Felix Rose,” I said. Rose was gang affiliated though none too special, making it likely we were watching a little fringe-level payback.
“What I wouldn’t give for some tear gas and high-powered rifles,” Pinckney said.
“Just give me a fire hose,” I added, sharing his frustration. The COs couldn’t do a thing while the range was out of control. Rules were absurdly strict in handling crisis situations. You needed to negotiate for calm, practically beg the men to stop. You even had to keep providing their meals. Forgoing brute force or hunger as a deterrent, you were left only with boredom—eventually, having nothing better to do, the inmates allowed you to resume control of the situation. For the COs it was humiliating because it clarified the degree to which the inmates were truly running the asylum. Pinckney told me to have fun.
In the lockers behind Keeper’s office, I got my gear on, a chest protector and fireman-type gloves, a helmet with a visor like some outer-space welder’s, a spool of extra zips, a spare fuckstick, but no guns, no Tasers, no shield, nothing fun. All dress-up and no party.
In a full-scale riot I would have been on the front lines from the get-go, but this business was contained to one range, and there were plenty of URF COs on hand, so Keeper Pollack asked me to do normal rounds and check on the calm ranges. This was thankless shit. The inmates were on full lockdown, probably glad to be out of harm’s way, though acting feistier than normal, especially when I was in the vicinity. I withstood more than the usual laughs and calls of abuse.
By midnight it was my turn to join the activity on D block and pretend to be in control of the situation behind the gates. An assistant warden stood halfway down the tunnel,
talking on his cell phone. Of course, no one reminded him that he couldn’t have a cell phone inside. Three administrative cronies hovered near him. I didn’t glance at them as I passed. Six COs huddled at the front line, including Keeper Wallace, the officer in charge. He looked plumper than normal in his vest, his eyes dark with the usual exhaustion. My arrival got Keon, another URF CO, a free pass to the lockers. He looked at me gratefully. “Hope nobody’s sleeping on my bench.”
Wallace asked me how things were in the other blocks. I had nothing outlandish to report. Everything was restless but under control.
Ray MacKay was there, too. He lifted his visor and grinned at me like a kid out for Halloween. We backed off the cellblock entry so he could brief me, meaning fill me in on all the fuckups and hilarious shit encountered thus far.
“D-one refused to comply when we ordered all ranges into lockdown. Or Hadley and Vargas refused, and the rest of their tier mates followed suit. Couple hours back, Hadley took a nap right in the middle of the floor and asked for a bedtime lullaby. Said it felt like he was camping outside and looking up at the stars.”
From the range, Hadley yelled out, “Yo, Lieutenant Wallace, you got yourself an improved situation there. I wholeheartedly appreciate you bringing in cheerleader Williams.”
Even in a helmet and body armor.
A few laughs from other inmates. “Send
her
in for negotiation. Promise we won’t bite.”
“Much!”
I’d once caught Hadley with Vargas’s dick in his mouth. I wanted to remind him of that fact right now, but not in front of Wallace.
“How did those two ever end up on the same tier?” I asked. “Didn’t they transfer in here together?” I spoke quietly. I did not want the assistant warden or any of his people to hear my complaining.
“For the same crap as this,” MacKay said without any discretion. “We’re just full of forgiveness.”
Wallace shook his head. “They’ll get tired eventually.” He raised his voice. “You just let us know when we can get treatment for those men in there, Hadley. Every minute that goes by is making it worse for you.”
“Fuck you, you fat fucking pig!” Vargas yelled out.
“That’s a write-up, Vargas,” Wallace said. “I’m taking note of everything.”
Vargas and Hadley laughed like orangutans inside a cage at the idea of being written up for bad language.
“Don’t think I won’t,” Wallace said, as much to himself as anyone else.
An hour and a half later, at two-twelve in the a.m., Hadley agreed to let Felix Rose be taken to the hospital. “I am
tired
of this sorry motherfucker whining and crying all the
goddamn time
,” Hadley said. “You think it’s so tough losing your precious kidney? That ain’t the worst way you can piss blood, you hair-icle cocksucker.”
I looked to MacKay. “What does hair-icle mean?”
“Don’t ask me,” MacKay said. “I thought Felix Rose was bald.”
I tried not to laugh.
“He’s saying heretical,” Wallace explained, impatient with our joking. “He keeps calling him heretical.”
“Jesus Christ,” MacKay muttered. “Religious intolerance is at the root of all conflict these days, isn’t it.”
“You two quiet down and get ready,” Wallace said.
Wallace informed the assistant warden and was told to proceed. He opened the gate and let me and MacKay go through. I was surprised that Wallace would ask me to step into a crisis situation, given his reluctance to have me on URF at all, but I was sure as hell not going to turn down the opportunity. I kept my riot mask up. I wanted full eye contact with everyone. I wanted Hadley, Vargas, and every other shitbag to know I was not afraid to be walking among them. There were syringes and homemade knives on the floor, tossed out from every cell in preparation for the inevitable shakedown after the reign of glory had passed. Hadley kept his distance, but he held a metal pipe in his hand with a duct-taped handle. A few of the inmates hooted and whooped to have two COs in their grasp, but nobody made a move forward. They’re as worn-out as we are, I thought. When it came down to it, all inmates craved routine. It was their comfort blanket and their teddy bear. Mini-riots launched by sadistic assholes like Shawn Hadley were disruptions to the natural flow.
The range smelled sour and grim. Unwashed bodies. An acrid odor that reminded me of cat piss. I wondered if Felix Rose really was having kidney failure. He lay in his cell on the
floor. He’d pulled a sheet off the cot to cover himself. The sheet was wet and sticking to his body. He wasn’t moving. “Felix?” I called. He still didn’t move. I stepped in closer and pulled back the sheet, fearing the worst. His face was drained white and drizzled with sweat. There were serious contusions on his forehead, purple mounds that stuck out like erupting volcanoes. Between and beneath the bruisings I saw something that startled me, a triangle deliberately burned into his skin like a brand, all welted and seeping. His eyes opened, a frightened rabbit staring. He started breathing rapidly, like a woman in labor, and muttered a few “please Gods.”
“We’re going to need a stretcher,” I told MacKay. Felix groaned at my touch. “I’ll stay with him.”
MacKay backed out of the small space. I kept my fingers on Rose’s neck, checking the weak pulse. “We’ll get you out of here, Felix,” I said. Back in the world, Felix was a drug-addicted break-and-enter lowlife who’d started a house fire to destroy the body of an old woman he’d clubbed to death. In here, he was just another sorry sack of shit. Despite it all, you care about the human life. Time on my hands, I looked up and around. Besides the usual amenities I noticed a postcard-size drawing taped to the single shelf above Rose’s desk. The same pumpkin face, the same stack of pyramids.
Were they everywhere? I remembered that Rose was a friend of Crowley’s. Did that put them together in some common cause? I thought of the Beggar walking across the desert toward the towered city, the many minions there who knew him.
“What a sweetheart you are,” Hadley said behind me.
I whirled around, almost kneeing Rose in my haste.
“Couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present.”
I was used to being in intimate contact with thugs and fuckheads, but I had never been trapped inside an enclosed space by one before. Hadley blocked the door, the pipe in his hand, his shirt wide-open, his free hand dipped into the top of his sweatpants. Of course I imagined the worst. The last time a female staff member had been raped—a nurse in the howler ward—the URF team, unwilling to break in and risk the nurse’s life without negotiating a stand-down first, sat outside the door and listened for hours while the son of a bitch sodomized her. There was no way I would ever let that happen to me. I had my fuckstick at my belt and figured I could get it before he came down with the pipe, but then it would be hand-to-hand combat, and I had no illusions about any certainty of outcome there.
“You ready for a shit kicking, Hadley?” I asked.
He stared at me, the same stupid smile weakened ever so slightly.
“Go ahead, Ray, fuck him up,” I said.
Hadley bit and looked around for Ray. I whipped out and down with the fuckstick as hard as I could, snapping the outside of his knee. He dropped like he’d been shot, rolled onto his side curling both hands over his kneecap, and called me every name I’d ever heard.
My breath heavy, I watched him for sudden movement, any sign that he was just waiting for me to step closer.
“You okay in there?” Wallace called out.
I didn’t answer, and I couldn’t will myself to walk past Hadley.
MacKay appeared, the stretcher under his arm.
“What the fuck?” he said.
“He made a move,” I told him.
MacKay’s face twisted into a sneer, and he pulled out a stun gun the size of a penlight from his waist belt and pointed it down at Hadley’s groin.
“I’ll cut your fucking balls off,” he promised.
Don’t, I thought, and turned my head away. The stun gun arced its electric jolt across the foot of space toward Hadley’s crotch. Hadley’s back arched for a frozen second, then released, and he lay on the stone floor moaning like a sick puppy, little spit bubbles specking the corners of his mouth. MacKay reached down and grabbed him by the sack, slowly but lazily, the way you’d pick up a bowling ball before a meaningless shot. “I bet you can’t feel anything down there right now.” And Hadley moaning no, no, no. “I bet it’s all numb, like you sat on your foot for the last half hour, like you got a novocaine shot in your lip.” Twisting hard, talking gentle. “You let me know later how it feels when it wakes up. I’m curious.” The fat knuckles on his hand blotching white and pink.
Needing to get away, I stepped over Hadley and squeezed by MacKay, picked up the piece of pipe and walked over to the gate. Vargas watched me from the middle of the range, pissed off but not moving. “You fucking bitch,” he said with as much hatred as I’d heard in a voice in some time. I passed the pipe through the bars to Wallace and kept my eyes on Vargas. MacKay released Hadley and let him crawl away from the cell. He twisted painfully along the floor, wishing us slow,
horrible deaths. It would have been easy now to tag him and drag his ass out, but the order was not given, the protocol so extra-cautious it boggled the mind. A CO named Davidson came through the gate to help load Felix Rose onto the stretcher. I leaned against the bars, trying to get my breathing under control. Goddamn lucky, my racing heart told me. I avoided any glance back at Wallace, wondering how much he’d seen, whether they’d heard MacKay’s Taser. Lucky, lucky, lucky. When Davidson and MacKay huffed back with the stretcher, Wallace told me to take Davidson’s end and get out. “I can’t look at you right now.” So he had noticed. My first time with a little danger pay on URF, and already I’d been involved in a fuckup.