Corruption Officer

by Gary L. Heyward

  CHAPTER 52

  BULL PEN THERAPY

  Getting out of here in six months has lifted my spirits. I have a different pep in my step when I’m escorted down a corridor back to the holding pens. I am placed in the last pen by myself to wait for my ride back to Nassau County Jail. I notice that the pen next to mine has four people in it. One guy is facing the bars with his hands hanging through them. He is talking to another inmate in the adjacent cell. I can tell that they’re gay by the nature of their conversation. The CO, as he escorts me, yells for them to keep it down. I sigh heavily because I know that I’m in for a long day of bull pen therapy. That’s when Corrections has you sitting in the pens all day and all night, spitefully making you wait until you’re the last one left before you’re sent on your way.

  Some time has passed when I hear a voice say, “He’s back there, last pen.” I hear footsteps, more than one person. I look up to see Officer Jackson, who I worked with before. I don’t know the other officer. Jackson has a confused look on his face like, “Hell naw, not my dawg!” He asks me what happened. I can’t face him. I put my head down. He doesn’t let it go. “This ain’t the Heyward I remember before I left that jail,” Jackson says. “You was the fly uptown Negro from Harlem cracking all the jokes, getting the chicks, playing basketball, and all that, so what happened?”

  I try to answer.

  “The child support,” I say. My voice cracks.

  I figure he understands, since damn near every male officer is getting hit up for it. He goes in on me, saying, “You know what you’ve done to yourself? Yo, check it, people are busting their asses out there trying to be where we’re at doing a job like this. This job has a lot of opportunities for people, especially people from the hood. You know they don’t want us to come up like this. Look at the things we get with this job. We get benefits. Our family members get benefits, too. Can you imagine a muthafucka running around here with no benefits? Look at our job, hey. We sit around all day babysitting just in case something happens. That’s all we do. And you fucked that up. Now that they done raised the bar as far as qualifications to get this job with that college or military shit, you got all kinds of people trying to work on the Island, crackers included. You have officers really doing it. I mean going to school, getting degrees, owning businesses, and all of that. Not to mention buying houses and really getting their families up out the hood. Now that’s what this job is about! That’s what you were supposed to use this opportunity for. Now look at you.” I hear anger in his voice now. In a low tone he says, “Do you know how you’re making us look as black people right now? All in the paper, all on the news. They’re thinking, I told you that you can’t give them nothing—look at this.”

  When he finishes he stands there out of breath and looks at me with anger and disgust. Then the CO who I don’t know starts talking. “Six. I have six kids and I love my babies to death; that’s why I couldn’t do what you did. I’ve been through it all. I have child support right now. I have a restraining order against me that stops me from seeing my kids right now. I have not seen them in months and when I did get to see them it was at a police station with a cop standing there supervising. All of this because she said that I threatened her and them with my gun. Even though this incident that she claims happened, happened in a building lobby and the video shows that she’s lying, they still will not let up off me because of my outburst when the judge still denied me visitation. Even though the evidence says she made it all up! Brother, my check right now is sixty-three dollars every two weeks. I survive off a second gig off the books. I see her all the time with her new man around my kids and it just hits me in my gut.”

  He pauses and I can tell that he’s getting emotional just talking about his situation. He continues, “As an officer right now my weapon has been taken away from me and even though the Firearms Review Board knows that I didn’t threaten her with it, I still may not get it back for years. I’m saying all of this to say that child support should never be an excuse. We took an oath to be an officer. We swore that we would do this job. All that stuff that Officer Jackson said you lost as far as the perks of this job is true, but in time you can get that back. The one thing that these inmates took from you that you may never get back is your integrity.”

  They stand there for a moment to see if they have done the damage that they came to do, to see if I absorbed what they were saying. The way that I’m feeling, I would have rather they just beat me. Then the other officer says, “You’re a big dude, so I know Corrections used you in the past to whip ass and I hope you realize that it’s a small world up north and that you will run into some of the inmates that you beat down, so I hope you know how to fight. There’s a difference when you don’t have one of us with you jumping one of them.”

  They leave and I don’t say anything. I feel like a carcass that a pack of wolves has left after a feeding. I sit back and think about everything they just said while I wait for my ride back.

  A few hours pass and I must have dozed off. I wake up hearing a scuffle going on in the pen next to me. It has something to do with the gay guy. I can’t see it but I can hear it. I can barely see the expression of shock on the face of the gay guy across the hall. No one screams for the CO or nothing. Then I hear the gay guy say, “Nooo, stop it.” He says it in a low voice as if he doesn’t want to alert the CO. Then I hear another dude say, “Come on, maaan, you got to do that right here, right now.” A third voice says, “Shut the fuck up. Gay or not, you’re next.” I hear a slap and a thud as if someone hit the floor. The gay guy in the pen across the hall says, “Don’t fight him. Girl, he’s gonna take it anyway.” Then I hear a flopping sound and the gay guy moaning. I can’t believe that this shit is happening right here in the pens! I look across to the other pen and the other gay guy backs away from the bars and out of my view. The rape goes on for about ten or fifteen minutes, then ends with the assailant taking a shit in front of everybody and the gay guy whimpering.

  A short while later I hear footsteps and my name being called. It’s time for my ride. As I get shackled and walk out of my pen, I look into the cell where the rape happened. I see the gay guy sitting with his head down, very close to another inmate. The other two are sitting away from them on the other side of the pen. No one says a word.

  My sentencing and what just happened in the pen next to me give me much to think about as I sit in the van on my way to Nassau County.

  CHAPTER 53

  DOWNSTATE

  After I spend two weeks at the Nassau County jail, I arrive at Downstate Correctional Facility. I have handcuffs around my wrist and shackles on my feet. I’m escorted inside by a city CO, who then turns me over to a state CO. My sentence begins at that moment.

  A short CO grabs me by my arm after my handcuffs are removed and leads me toward a wall, then yells, “Put your fucking head in that wall and don’t move.” Here we go. I do what I’m told. Then the city CO that brought me up from Nassau pulls him over to the side and says, “He’s one of ours.” Then the state CO comes over to me, looks me in my face, then pats me on my back and tells me to hold my head in there.

  They place me in a cell by myself. I’m there for hours and in that time I hear ass-whippings being handed out left to right. I start thinking about when I was the one dishing out the ass-whippings. Then I hear a CO say, “Put him in the cell with the big black guy with the big dick.” My cell opens and a stocky white guy walks in. I recognize him right away because his face, like mine, was all in the papers. The “big black guy with the big dick” statement now makes sense to me. He’s in here for a hate crime against black people. No matter where he goes from this point forward I know COs will give him their own kind of justice.

  The holding pen that we’re in is tiny. There’s a bench, which is barely big enough for me. I can tell the white guy knows why he’s in here with me. I’m black and twice his size. He stands against the wall on edge as if he’s waiting
for something to happen. This is some bullshit. I don’t need this and I hope this fool don’t pop and try to fight me thinking that I want to do something to him. I’ve seen this scenario what seems like a million times now. An inmate will start a fight with a stranger just to get moved to a different area. I decide to defuse the situation before it even begins. I say, “Check this out, I know who you are but you don’t know who I am. I’m the corrections officer that got in trouble for hustling drugs inside the jail.” He raises his eyebrow and lets me know that he’s heard about me. I continue to ease the situation by telling him that I don’t want any problems. I’m here to do my time and that’s it. He nods and I move over as much as I can so that he can sit down. He tells me his name is Rick, but I already know that from the news. We don’t speak after that. A few more hours pass and we’re taken out of the cell to get processed.

  They have us go through the whole thing together. We’re issued our green clothing, which all inmates wear, and they give us everything else we need. Then a sergeant comes over to me and asks me to sign some paper saying that I want to be placed into protective custody. I refuse. Then he tells me to sit on a nearby bench while inmates arrive for processing. When it gets good and packed, he yells out, “Hey, Heyward, how long were you a corrections officer on Rikers Island?” Everyone looks at me as if I was E. F. Hutton. I stand up and look back at everyone that is looking at me and say, “For nearly ten years.” All you hear after that is mumbling and pointing from the inmates. I know I’m going to have a rough road ahead of me. Then the sergeant comes back over to me and says that because the inmates now know who I am, I’m a safety hazard for the facility and they are placing me involuntarily into protective custody so that they can better protect me. I really don’t want it, because I know that PC inmates are locked down for a large portion of the day, in some places for a whole twenty-two hours.

  We go through more processing. The white guy continues to get harassed by the COs. They tell him to put his feet on the black line on the floor or put his fingers on the black ink pad to get fingerprinted, always emphasizing the word “black.” Then we go to get our medical checkup. Six COs escort us to a large room about the size of a gymnasium. We sit on one side of the room. We’re by ourselves, while on the other side about a hundred black inmates are getting processed. The looks and stares are crazy and with the number of COs escorting us, they know that we’re high-profile. Rick is recognized right away. I can overhear some of their conversations. The CO orders them to stop talking. The inmates settle down, then the COs start talking shop among themselves. I look into the crowd across from us and I see a few inmates making hand and facial gestures toward me. They worked for me at Rikers. They bump their fists together, then mouth to me, “Hold your head.” Some of the inmates who don’t know are looking at me and putting their fists to their jaw like, “You know who that is?” I guess they’re thinking that since I’m close to Rick, I should pound him out right now. I look at them, then look at the barrage of COs around me and Rick, then look back at them as if to say, “How can I?”

  Really, I’m not even entertaining the thought of doing anything to anybody. I just want to get processed so that I can find out when I go into the Shock Program and get the hell up out of here. After we finish our processing, we’re taken to our cells and locked in. Then one by one they let us out to use the telephone to call home. I call my moms and get yelled at. “Where are you?” I tell her and she calms down, because she knows this means that we can finally get some answers as to how long I’ll be in here. I tell her that they told me the counselor will come by this week to see me. She tells me that she will be up here later in the week. We say “I love you” to each other and hang up. Then I can hear a voice recording on the line, “You are talking to an inmate incarcerated at Downstate Correctional Facility.”

  CHAPTER 54

  EL STUPIDO

  The next day, I go see the counselor assigned to me. I’m a little hyped because I’m hoping I’ll find out how long I’m going to actually be in prison. The counselor sits me down and goes over my crime and my charges. After looking over my file, he takes a deep breath and says, “These charges don’t fit the crime. You’re lucky that they didn’t get you for all the charges that they put on you.”

  He sounds a little disappointed that they didn’t.

  Then he reads my charges out loud: “Attempted drug sale, and bribe receiving.” And there’s more. Then he says, “Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that since this is your first offense you qualify for a number of early-release programs, and the bad news is that I can’t tell you which one of them they’re going to send you to.” I’m puzzled, so I ask, “Why is that? The judge gave me the Shock Program.” He tells me that he’ll look into it, because the officials up in Albany that run the prisons ultimately decide when and where an inmate gets housed. They don’t give me or him that information for safety reasons.

  “Safety reasons?” I ask.

  “Yeah, if you and your people know when and where you are going to be moved, you could plan an escape,” he says.

  Sounds like BS to me. “You do realize that you’re talking to a CO?” He says, “Well, believe me or not, that’s the way it is.” And just like that, our meeting is over. No answers whatsoever. I go back to my cell frustrated. I should have known that because of my high-profile status, I would be rejected for these early-release programs due to “safety reasons.” A few days go by and I’m getting to know how things work here upstate.

  You only get visits once a week, and you only get to call your family once a week. A lot of inmates write letters. I’m getting to know a few of the youngsters who are housed here with me. Amazingly, they also hang out with Rick, although they know all about his charges. One of the youngsters is Chris and the other is Junie. Chris is nineteen years old and acting like he’s having the time of his life here in jail. He’s always scribbling on his notepad, and when I ask him what he’s writing he tells me that he’s writing raps for his album that he’ll put out once his appeal goes through. Okay. I’m all for being positive.

  After lunch we all talk on the jack to one another, since our cells are right across from each other. Talking on the jack is lying on the floor and talking to each other through the bottom of our cell doors, which are about half a foot off the ground. This way we can see each other’s face clearly and our conversations are more personal.

  Junie says, “No disrespect, but how does it feel to be on this side?”

  I shrug and say, “It’s crazy but I made my bed and so I have to lie in it.”

  He says, “True.” At this time a female CO walks by our cells to do a count and Chris sings out, “I’m in love with a stripper / she can pop it she can lock it.” Junie just looks in his direction like he’s crazy, shakes his head, then looks at me and says, “I don’t know how this fool does it.”

  I ask, “What?”

  He says, “Remain cool like we are about to go for a walk in the park. I’m stressing about all my shit and this fool over here is singing.” I ask why he’s stressing and he says, “I’m finished. I got fifteen to life for a body and guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  I just gave him a nonjudgmental look and he continues. “I ain’t going to lie, I ride for my set, but this shit ain’t panning out the way it’s supposed to. I’m here for taking the heat for my set and these niggas are supposed to be taking care of me and doing shit for my daughter on the outside but they ain’t. I been down only a year and after I got sentenced I ain’t heard or seen nobody from my set.”

  I ask him, “If you didn’t do it, then why are you here?”

  He says, “I ain’t no snitch. I could have walked and all of that, the DA was going to cut me a deal if I told him who really bodied that kid, but I ain’t no snitch.”

  I ask, “Have you heard from your family?”


  He says, “Only the ones that I ain’t shit on when I was out. My momma writes every now and then and I don’t really get any visits or packages.”

  I can see the pain in his face; then he looks away from me as if he’s thinking about his situation.

  Chris looks at him and says, “Suck it up, nigga. You knew what it was when you decided to ride. I am a soldier for me and my niggas and I’m going to rep my hood till my casket drop.”

  Junie looks in his direction again and says, “Man, I have a four-year-old daughter!”

  Chris comes back and says, “And? You knew you had her when you was outside rolling, so now what’s the point in dwelling on it? Shit is done.”

  I look at Junie and can tell that he doesn’t want to hear what Chris is saying even though it is the truth. Junie then lays into Chris. “Nigga, you sitting there like this is some kind of joyride. These fools out there living it up at mine and your expense. They ain’t riding for us. They ain’t doing what they said that they were going to do. Look at you; the only one I see coming up here on a visit for you is your stressed-out moms. Where is all them other niggas at? Where they at?” He pauses for a response. Then Chris asks him, “Yo, what’s good with you? Why you breaking down like this?” Junie flings him a letter that he just received and Chris reads it then flings it back. Chris, referring to the letter, says, “That ain’t about nothing. You knew that bitch was going to fuck as soon as you got locked up. That’s a part of this jail shit. Some chicks just ain’t built for it. My chick ain’t fucking, she’s sitting there waiting on Daddy.”