to the staff dining hall. It’s 9 a.m. It smells like meat. Get some. You want two jail hamburgers? Hamburgers for breakfast? Take them. It’s steak-fast. Take four. They’re free. Grab fries. Bump into every guard you walk behind on your way to sit. Wait until they’re drinking, then give them a push. Look at the table: sixteen guards grinding burgers. If you sit at another table, they’ll give you shit. Don’t get a sausage to eat unless you can take the dick jokes. Which you can, man.
Wipe your mouth with your tie. Head back to the block. Walk into the inmates heading to the yard. They’re six hundred deep. Punch through the middle. Say, Make a hole. Yell, Make it wide! It’s six hundred against one. This is when they measure you. Hear one yell, “Rent-a-cop.” You don’t know who it was. You don’t care. He wants you to crack. Don’t. But say something back. Tell the six hundred, the whole six hundred, to Rent a dick.
Walk to the fence by the chapel before going back to A block. Shake the fence with the vibration sensors. Shake it hard. Look up at the camera. Wait until the camera-room operator moves it toward you to check for escapees. Then flip him off—with both hands—and walk away.
Climb the stairs again in the block. This is where you’re at until inmates go to lunch. Slam doors. Rest on trash cans. Say No to the inmates. Say it over and over. Look at the dust in the air. Know that it’s skin cells. Breathe those inmates in. Catch the same loudmouth twice on the wrong range. Tell him that you know him. Tell him that there are 477 inmates on this block and that you know all their names, that you know his name, his number, his cell, his celly, his celly’s homies, his celly’s homies’ honeys. That will shut him up. Yours is bigger. Show him. Slam doors. Slam his. Lock him in.
Listen to Loudmouth still running his loud mouth. He says he can take you, that without the uniform you’re nothing, that you’re ugly, that you’re pathetic, a punk, a pussy on a power trip. He’s a cell warrior. He only talks tough once he’s behind the bars of his cell. Listen to him talk about your mother, and, because he sees your ring, your wife, too. That’s okay. Keep making rounds until you see him doing something in his sink, like dividing up a bag of BBQ chips into bowls. Be patient. Wait until you see him almost done: one bowl for him, one for his celly, and one for his celly’s homey’s honey. Now go to the back stairs and unlock the door to the maintenance space that runs behind the cells. Walk through the plumbing and dead roaches. Find the back of Loudmouth’s cell. Pull the rods that turn the water on to his sink—full fucking blast—to spray the hell out of his chips. Then listen to him him yell, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Go ahead and laugh. You win.
Brag to the other guard running the ranges. Tell him how you took care of Loudmouth. You can trust the other guard. Maybe. Listen to him laugh. He won’t rat. Maybe. He’s got your back. Maybe. He’s a guard too. He’s the same as you for eight hours a day. Maybe. You wear the uniform. It affects you. Let it. You like it. Be a man, you can. Strap on a big one.
If you leave the “I” in the car, there’s no “I” to hurt. There’s just you. And you’re a gate warrior. Inside the gate you’re the Institution. Life is simple inside, systematic, stab-resistant. But only if you act right, speak right, sit and eat your fries right.
Relieve the guard working the showers. Hear him say that the burgers are running right through him. Watch the inmates showering, all forty of them. Look at them wearing their boxers. That way they can do laundry—double duty. Some have their T-shirts on, too. It’s not allowed, but let it slide, they’re just T-shirts. Look at the soap: yellow bricks, state-issued. Smell the steam. Smell the soap. It’s industrial, extra strength, extra potent. It numbs your nose.
Stand in the door of the showers. It’s almost lunch. Give the inmates a ten-minute warning: Ten minutes. Yell it. Hear one of them yell, “Fuck your ten minutes.”
Fine. Teach them.
Wait just two minutes, then give them a one-minute warning: One minute. Yell it. Then turn off the water right away. Look at them trying to towel their suds off. Listen to them bitch on their way out. Then step out and slam the door behind them. Bathe in the conquest, man.
Watch the inmates run to lunch. Grab the clipboard with the count sheets. Go up the cage. Know that they get counted as soon as they come back. It’s a long lunch. Know that most inmates eat in the dining hall on hamburger days. It’s a rare meal. Because it’s good.
Count them up. They’re back. Check off each cell. One, two, check them off. Keep moving. Go fast. Cell 501: one, two. They’re still mean-mugging you. Mean-mug them back. Cell 502: one, two. They’re standing, looking tired. Cell 503: one. There’s still just one, he’s pissing again, holding his dick again. Hoping, no doubt, for a female guard to see. You’ll fix him tomorrow, the predator. He’ll see who’s bigger when his mattress disappears. Walk on by. Cell 504: one, two. Their backs are turned. Keep moving. Check off cells.
Give the count to the sergeant. Play cards with the guards in the station. Talk shit during the game. Table-whack, card-slap, and cheat until second shift kicks the door.
It’s time to go. Walk out without saying anything. Hear them say, “Fucking first shift.” Head to the gate. Line up at the time clock and fingerprint scan, single file, no pushing. Pushing slows down the process. The scan can be tricky.
Flow out the gate. Hold it for the guy behind you. Don’t let it close. That’s serious. That could start a fight. Everyone’s ready to leave. Walk into the locker room past the tighty whities and hairy ass crack. Open your locker and gear down. Unstrap.
Shut it nice and slow because you’re done slamming. Look at your phone. You have a text from the wife: “Need whole milk & size 3 diapers.” Get in your car and go ahead and drive. There are no more gates, just a short winding road through a wide-open field to get you off the property. Watch the jail in the rearview mirror getting smaller. Turn left and drive the speed limit. You can’t smell anything. Grab a tissue and blow your nose. The crust is black, but it’s out.
And home is where your wife says, “You’re on duty” while walking out the door, and your son doesn’t do the funny scoot in his pajamas on the hardwood floors anymore. He can walk. And when he’s naked and spotless from his bath, not even wearing a freckle yet, he yells, “Run freeeee!” while sprinting around the house, taking corners blind and at full speed, looking for somebody, anybody, to show his little booty-shaking dance to. You catch him because you know that he’s going to take a header down the stairs or dive into the dirty laundry, but mostly you catch him because you have about forty-five seconds to diaper him before he pees on the floor. Something he’s proud of. The punk.
Gravity
WHAT drew four women wearing matching cat T-shirts to Rockview was a handsome man who murdered three. The oldest said, “We’re here to visit Ricky.” They stood inside the locker room with smiles. I stood outside with a revolver on my belt, a shotgun in the truck behind me, and a response: Please follow the signs to the visiting room. You’re not even close.
What drew a family right next to the main block was their son’s bad directions to Penn State. I chased them down, blaring the truck’s horn. Their car loaded with pillows and laundry baskets. The mother asked, “Is this East Halls, the freshman dorms?”
I asked back, Seriously?
What drew a grandmother to the flowers around the Rockview sign was a flat tire. But I didn’t know it was a grandmother with a flat until I pressed on the gas, sped down the hill, and jammed the brakes behind a silver sedan.
An elderly lady stepped out and waved. She pointed to the tire. A boy in the backseat looked up at the jail.
I radioed Control to say that it was a flat and I was going to change it.
Control said, “Stay in the truck. We can only offer to make a phone call.”
I said that it would take ten minutes, tops.
“Stay in the truck,” Control said again. “Ask if she needs a tow.”
I said I could do it