by Beth Harden
“One of your students needs help in the bathroom. He’s asking for you,” he says.
I can’t leave the group unattended so I lift the phone and summon the school officer who is posted at the entrance to the unit. He agrees to walk down and supervise the men so I can “make a personal trip to the ladies room.” There is a staff bathroom that serves both men and women but I bypass that door and head around the corner to the toilet area by the entrance to the library. This restroom has a door that is always partially ajar for security and safety reasons; an aperture I usually avoid peering into since only a half-wall stands between the urinals and the sink area. I can immediately see a man’s body half-slumped against the far wall.
“Oh, Jesus Christ! Gemini?” I shout. Without checking to see if there is anyone else in the room, I rush over to where he is crouched. There is a fist-sized hole in the plaster just above the radiator and a film of white powdery debris and insulation paper on the floor underneath. A clutter of broken egg shells with dark gray centers sit atop his lap. I can’t fathom what has happened. I lean in and peer more closely at the scrambled mess, which turns out to be the tiny deceased bodies of nearly-formed baby birds still tucked down in their incubators with wings glued tight to their sides. Gemini is holding a pen which he used to pry open the nesting place hoping to rescue the brood that had somehow become trapped inside the wall. Birds fly through this old ark of a building all the time, flapping up in the bowers of the high hallways and chittering from wire perches; but how any grackle could have gotten in here and chosen that tiny niche for a nursery is an unsolvable riddle. There are six dead and dehydrated fledglings on his lap and a seventh baby in his right hand. Its eyes bulge from its bald face. Its beak slowly opens and closes, opening again and snapping shut as it looks to his rescuer for life-saving support. Tears are running down Gemini’s face and his big breasts jiggle from the force of his sobs.
“Oh, this is so sad. How on earth do you think they got in here? And how did you find them?” I ask. His grief is so great he can’t answer. I put my ungloved hand on his shoulder, ignoring the Universal Precaution of avoiding exposure to HIV or MRSA or any other infectious diseases that run rampant here.
“You did your best to try and save them all. They would thank you for that! Give me the little guy and we’ll give him a decent chance.” I take the dying bird from his hand and wrap it in a few layers of paper towels. Gemini stands to his feet and wipes his face with the heel of his hand. I’d like to know what brand of foundation he’s wearing since not a single blotch of it has smeared during this breakdown.
“I nominate you for a special humanitarian award and induct you into the Audubon Society’s Hall of Famers,” I say. Gemini sniffs and then giggles. His perfect doll-shaped lips reveal lovely white teeth. “I’ll give you some more alone time. If the officer comes by and gives you any hassle, tell him to come see me. Alright?”
He nods, grateful not to be dragged back in the room with a bunch of homophobes who detest weakness and who react to tears like sharks to blood.
#
Serge is immediately skeptical when his name is bellowed out from the officer’s post and his cell is popped. A summons like this can be either good news like a visit or bad news in the case of a disciplinary investigation. But when he sees the friendly face of his counselor, Serge brightens considerably and gladly joins me in the tiny concrete cubicle tucked beneath the upper tier. He is visibly remorseful and immediately apologetic.
“I’m sorry for my behavior, Miss Abrams. I really am serious about changing my ways. But I have a bad temper and a lifetime of acting a certain way is a hard habit to break.”
“I understand. That’s why I’m here,” I reply. “I saw that in you from the first day.”
“I’m so pissed at myself. I know better. I shouldn’t have treated that kid like that but he reminded me of my own self at that age. An insincere piece of shit. His ignorance just set me off.”
“I’m sure there were people that were patient with you when you were at his stage in life.”
“I didn’t get much time to grow up. I was always bouncing between New York and Danbury, Connecticut. My mom was in the suburbs and my Dad was into organized crime. I’m not a good person, Counselor. I ran clubs where women dance. You know, strippers. And I feel awful now about these young girls that looked to me to lead them. I was twice their age and I took some of them in. But it was always about what we could get out of one another like drugs and sex. I’m tired of that life. I can’t do it anymore. Thirty years behind bars is enough. I’m fifty-three years old for Christ sake.”
This tough guy sits in front of me with more gun fights, beer brawls, drug busts and money handling than the number of Hollywood blockbusters made in my lifetime and yet he is beginning to cry. He drops his head in his hands in the posture of a truly contrite man. In any other world, I would reach out and brace his shoulder or offer him a tissue but I am kept away by edicts that categorize us as human beings in different stations of life. It’s always been that way. People looking for what separates us, —always herding the sheep away from the goats, the wheat from the tares, and the good from the bad. All I can see is what binds us together, the remorse of being born with flaws that crack under pressure and send us splintering.
“I’ve lost the respect of my son and his mother. I have no one left to call family. Last time I was released, I had just enough money to get myself an apartment and hook myself up with some video games and a TV. I never left the place. I was too afraid because there was no one out there who cared. I had no purpose other than dabbling in fantasy games and watching reality shows about other people’s lives. I couldn’t stand the loneliness.” A few minutes later, he shakes back his head and wipes his cheek with his sleeve.
“Do you want to come back to group?” I ask. He nods his head and then straightens up to full height. Stripped of his temper and the terrible past that has created a permanent scowl, he is quite a handsome man. Shame on you for thinking that, Elise. He’s a ruthless and persistent offender just like all the rest of these shitheels.
“I do,” he says emphatically. “Don’t give up on me yet.”
“No chance,” I say with confidence. “It’s time for chow. I’ll see you tomorrow, Serge.”
As I depart the unit, a cat call of hoots and whistles goes up. Men are waving papers through the bars and banging to get my attention. It’s like a dog pound in here, loud and reeking of urine. Not many unfamiliar faces come through this place so all vie for a look, a handshake or a scrap of a kind word, each one hoping that they’ll be the one chosen to go to a new home.
#
On Tuesday, Zimmer is missing from the class. His handicapped spot closest to the door is empty. Though he’s skinny as a matchstick, he demands a double space the width of two desks to fit Bertha, his wheelchair bitch in. Without him, the atmosphere is noticeably different. There is less levity in the air and no snappy side cracks to keep everyone at ease. Whether or not he knows it, Zimmer is a pivotal player in this twelve-act production; maybe not the lead role, but the guy who keeps the action moving and the audience entertained. He has a knack for filling in the blank spaces with improvised monologue. The other men have come to really appreciate his wry insights.
“Anyone know where Zimmer is at?” I ask. The call down to the officer in the old-timer’s unit turns up a snippy, three-word explanation. ‘In the hospital.’
I know more than I can tell. Zimmer is a decoy of sorts planted voluntarily in the marsh to make the real targets feel comfortable enough to land next to him. He has no domestic violence in his history. Arguments with his long-ago wife never amounted to more than a few short words, but he unwittingly ruined another happy marriage. Somebody else’s wife was plowed under by the wayward steer of Zimmer’s big white Caddy which he was driving while drunk. That car was both his home and a means to a livelihood. His last known residence was in Tent City under the railroad bridge spanning Waltham River. He peddled his p
roduce from the trunk of that beauty; Spice, K2, Meth, and Puppy Chow, fatal drugs with flirty names that caught the eye of high-schoolers; but Zimmer had a conscience. His own son was barely twenty years old and was now running loose with no home-sweet-home since his ex-wife’s house had literally gone up in smoke during a five-alarm insurance scam. But the true tragedy, the gut-ripping heartbreak that placed this whole man’s spirit in lockdown, was the chapter that he edited out of his daily monologue. He had a freight train-sized load of guilt over his daughter who in his prolonged absence was taken in as ward of the State and then committed to the Merrimack Institute. Desperate to be with her boyfriend, she leapt from a third-story window and suffered severe head injuries as a result. For the past two years, Juliana had existed in the nebulous world of brain injury, unable to speak or walk or move except two fingers on one hand. Up until his motor vehicle accident, her father, Ezra Zimmer, had been her unflagging advocate and nightly bedside companion. Whether drunk or sober, arriving as a hitch-hiker or pedestrian, he never missed a single day. Her mother was unaccounted for, her boyfriend had bailed and fair-weather friends had moved on but Zimmer stayed. In a tragic turn of events, this horrific catastrophe had finally defined his purpose on this planet. He knew without a doubt that he was meant to be the caregiver to his only daughter. But then he fucked up and went weaving down the roadway going too fast. He missed the intersection. Frustrated at his oversight, Zimmer navigated a wobbly U-turn, adjusted the wheel recklessly and gunned the accelerator. Next thing he knew he found himself strapped upside down in his seat gaping at a wall of crushed metal. On the far side of the twisted hood was a knotted red and black chassis with unhinged doors and shredded rubber all braided together into a deathtrap. The rest was a blur of ambulances, police and then jail. He didn’t know until day afterwards that there had been a woman trapped inside.
When her father ceased to come, Juliana Zimmer languished in her routine. She stopped eating, cooperating, and responding. It was clear she was holding out for him. Zimmer thought of every calculated move he could make to get his sentence reduced or commuted. He even considered jumping out one of the windows to join her, but being that he was housed in a maximum security prison, that plan had been thwarted from the building’s conception. He tried to get his sentence modified and his parole date moved up, but nothing doing. He requested a hardship transfer closer to the location of her rehab center. Negative. His latest scheme was the disability scam he had concocted to earn him a settlement pay out from the State, which he would then use to leverage a court-ordered early release. Time would tell, but time was running out. In another eight years, a reunion between father and daughter was highly unlikely. One or both of them would be dead.
After class, I walk to the sour-smelling hospital wing and find Zimmer corralled in a large holding pen waiting on his name to be read from the sick call roster. His injury is a hoax, but his pain is real enough. His liver is pickled, blanched white and rubbery like the texture of firm tofu from two pints of straight Majorska a day. His endocrine system is giving out. Zimmer looks jaundiced. A yellowish hue has overtaken his dry skin, mellowing the sharp contrast of flashing dark eyes and his baby-pale epidermis. He is tired, not from age but the un-ending string of escape plans that plays out in his head. He doesn’t mind coming back to prison, once his daughter is better and he has found an apartment where he can have a hospital bed set up and has sufficient capital to pay for twenty-four hour care. That’s what he was in the business of doing when everything fell apart. His pug, Cricket, has been displaced from her royal purple princess bed with plush velvet padding. He’s afraid the other dead-beats under the train trestle have stolen the little mutt’s diamond-studded collar and hawked her bling for booze. No one knows about the unauthorized call I had placed to the chronic care floor at his daughter’s rehab hospital. What a sweet sight it was to witness this broken-down man humming nursery-rhymes into the receiver, and joy of all joys! just before we had to hang up, seeing his face when the nurse told him that Juliana’s index and pointer fingers had twitched to life at the sound of his scratchy lullabies.
I wait with Zimmer until the disgruntled nurse shouts out his number. He has to keep up the artifice, the faux limp and excruciating discomfort. This is just a required check-in to keep his grievance at the forefront of the litigation pile.
“I hope you find a way to be with your daughter,” I say as the nurse repeats his name in a pissed-off curtain call.
“Thank you, dear,” he says to me. His hands wobble on the rubber wheels as he starts to roll in her direction.
“You got my martini ready, hon?” he replies. The battle-axe gives him a stink-eye glance as he glides over the threshold into the dirty exam room.
#
Ten more minutes to recall. I sense the group is drifting today. Perhaps it’s because of the brilliant sun and shimmering sky that teases through the panes. Twenty-three hours of confinement is bad enough, but there’s always the possibility that that one precious hour of recreation could be yanked away for any number of reasons such as a staff shortage, rainy weather, icy walkways, lock-downs or just because. When that happens, the twenty-fourth hour is spent circulating around the perimeter of the windowless gym with numbing headphones on, imagining the bustling breeze that is winnowing the acorn hulls from leaves deadened by drought. I decide to wind things up a few minutes early and allow them to enjoy the fresh scent of cut field grass and sweet corn fodder that’s come streaking in the windows.
Suddenly our shared calm is shattered by sounds of distress. A woman is shrieking. My gut goes instantly cold.
“Go, go. All of you can go!” I yell. I flush them out ahead of me forsaking my duty to secure those under my charge. If there is any error to my alarm, it is on behalf of the unidentified victim who is screaming in terror. I rush blindly forward with my ears wide open to her alarm.
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop!” she screams repeatedly, her voice shrill with panic. The terrifying cries come from a classroom on the opposite side of the hall. The teacher in there is a petty middle-aged woman who, despite being unpredictably bitchy, has a big heart for these guys. I am the first staff member on the scene. Several inmates are milling about in the doorway staring at whatever grisly scene is playing out in the room. I push past the big bodies that block the door and they give way under my frantic hands. Mrs. Frank is still standing, red in the face, shaken and hoarse but apparently unhurt.
“I should have called a code, shouldn’t I? I’m not doing the right thing. I was just trying to get them to stop!” she wails.
An inert inmate is face down on the floor with his arms at right angles to his body. Papers are scattered around and underneath him. Large splotches of blood have dripped all over the hand-outs and the folder that neatly contained them before this whirlwind blew in and upset everything. One desk is overturned and other nearby ones have been kicked out of the way. My first instinct is to run to the fallen man who is dazed and rolling side to side trying to get his bearings. Apparently he was knocked out cold either by a hit to the temple or the fall. A deep gash below his eyebrow is pumping blood down his cheek.
“Stay Down! Stay down!” I tell him. A small utility sink and a dispenser of paper towels are at the back of the classroom. I grab a handful, run them quick under the faucet and force them into his hand.
“Put pressure on it. You’ve got a good wound there,” I urge him. The injured inmate continues to try and sit up, despite the fact that there are several officers and teaching personnel now on the scene encouraging him to lie flat. They tell him medical is on the way, but no one comes closer than a healthy ten foot distance away. I keep putting the batch of towels back in his hand and lifting his arm up towards his face. He finally responds by dabbing at the laceration and wincing.
“Thank you, Miss!” he mumbles, bewildered. After the medical team arrives and kneels down to assess the damage, I turn and focus my attention on the harried teacher.
“Are you alrig
ht?” I ask. My nerves are pulsing wildly.
“Yes. Just scared to death,” Mrs. Frank answers. While all hazardous duty staff is well trained to anticipate fights, it is still terrifying to be on the front line when brutality erupts. We walk on tiptoe with our steel-toe boots knotted tight and sharpened pencils clenched in our fists. Always ready but never prepared.
“Who did this?” I ask.
“It was Pisano, the newest school worker. He completely flipped out,” she blabbers. No, not Tommy. He’s done so well. My compassion goes out to the rattled woman in her petite lemon-colored blazer and black pumps. Her knotted hands are shaking and perspiration has dampened her fringe of bangs. She looks like someone's grandmother. This is not a place for ladies.
“Out of the blue, you mean?” I ask. It’s not beyond Tommy to do such a thing, but the new man that has been on display for the past few weeks seems genuine.
“Well, after I fired him and told him to leave my room immediately,” Mrs. Frank adds.
“What did he do? Or not do?”
“He was in here putting the audio-visual cart back in the closet and all of a sudden he blurts out. ‘Hey, did you see who won The Voice?’ I’m shaking my head and put my hand up to stop him from spilling the ending. And just as I’m telling him to keep quiet and not spoil things, he announces the name just like that. Like it’s no big deal. And I say, ‘Are you serious? I’ve been waiting an entire season for this finale. It’s all recorded just waiting for Friday night when I can sit down to watch it. Can you believe it? This idiot just blurts it out. So I ripped him a new one and kicked him out.”
I want to slap her, standing there all self-righteousness with her foul-mouth flapping and a man’s future riding on her small-mindedness. A goddamn television show. Are you kidding me? The shallow bitch should be the one groveling on the gritty tiles. Did I say that out loud, I wonder?