Sweet Hell on Fire

by Sara Lunsford

  A quiet night was too much to hope for.

  Although that was my own fault.

  A Segregation position was coming open soon, and I wanted it so bad I could taste it. I’d already applied for the position, but there would be a lengthy screening process with interviews and reviews of my employee file. It was a lot more work, more intense all around, but it was what I’d always thought prison should be like. It would also look great for promotions. So when I found out shift was overstaffed, I asked if I could be sent to Segregation to help out.

  There was always something to do down there, even with all the inmates locked up and four officers on duty: property to be distributed or taken away, cleaning, something. I wanted to talk to the Seg OIC (First Sergeant) and show my interest in the position. I wanted him to see I could handle the job and I wouldn’t cry over the bitch work all newbies get stuck with, nor would I demand he watch his mouth like some of the people who worked there and forgot they were in a prison. If you’re someone who is easily offended, you don’t belong working behind the walls.

  The Captain asked me why in the hell I wanted to work down there. I couldn’t explain it. From seeing the Seg officers’ interactions with each other both inside and outside the walls, it seemed like a closer-knit group, and most everyone who worked the post promoted quickly. If this was going to be my career, I wasn’t going to half-ass it; I’d go for the throat and pay my dues.

  I shrugged and said it sounded fun. So he sent me and another officer down to train. The other officer was young, early twenties. He had a baby face, shoulders like a linebacker, and a mouth that wrote checks his ass could cash maybe 50 percent of the time. He’d worked Segregation before, and as we were walking to the cell house, he told me I wasn’t going to get the post because he had more experience. He worked as a bouncer on his off time. Bouncing was a far cry from corrections, although a lot of the guys moonlighted as bouncers at some of the local clubs and bars.

  I didn’t bother to tell him this was my second stint of employment with the prison and I’d been doing this job when his mom was still wiping his ass and putting his food in a blender. I’d worked there the first time at nineteen as a single mom. I was still too young then to have the temperament to be any good at it. But now I had the experience and knew what I was doing.

  “Hey, I see you finally nagged him into putting you down here,” the OIC said when I walked through the extra set of doors that gave Seg an additional feeling of security.

  “I’ve been married. I can nag the spots off a leopard.”

  “Yeah?” He smirked. “Why don’t you go see if you can get 304 to give up his earphones? He’s not supposed to have them.”

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  I didn’t get a chance to try. As I passed the first cell on the lower tier, I saw that the inmate inside had a razor or some other sharp instrument. He’d cut superficial strips down his arms and had smeared blood all over himself. He’d painted his face too. He looked like something out of a Clive Barker movie. I consoled myself with the thought that at least it wasn’t feces. Some of the inmates, either legitimately mentally disturbed or just looking for a diagnosis to get meds or different sentencing, would cover themselves with their own feces, make little Claymation animals out of it, or even eat it. A cutter sounded infinitely easier to deal with in my book.

  “Hey, man. You okay?” I had my hand on my radio, ready to call a medical emergency as I peered inside the darkened cell. It stank of sweat and prison food, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “I’m okay. You okay?” He licked his lips, slid his tongue over his teeth in a repetitive motion.

  “I’m doing great, thanks for asking.” My gut told me then he was just looking for a reaction, so I kept calm and cool.

  “My TV has been talking to me.” I relaxed the hand on my radio. In my experience, if he’d really wanted to hurt himself, he wouldn’t have tried to keep me there talking.

  “Oh yeah? What’s it say?”

  “It’s just talking. Told me to cut myself.”

  I personally thought he was full of shit. Sounds callous, right? But not on closer inspection. His cuts were only superficial. They hadn’t bled much and he’d made it a point to smear it all over himself where it was the most advantageous to being seen. I’d known girls in high school who were cutters and they’d cut deeper than that if the vending machine gave them Coke instead of Pepsi. I could cut someone deeper and with more purpose with my fingernails. I’d still be calling mental health. Protocol.

  “That wasn’t nice of them and it sounds distracting. You want me to take your TV so they can’t talk to you anymore?”

  He looked at me and narrowed his eyes.

  Yeah, sell your crazy to the nurse.

  “Nah, they’d get mad.”

  “They would? Okay. How about you give me the razor so you can’t cut yourself even if they want you to?”

  “I can’t do that either.”

  “Well, you’re better off if you give it to me because they’re going to be really mad if the blacksuits have to take it. And you’ll lose your TV anyway. If you have the razor, they’ll consider you armed and may use the shock shield. I bet the voices would like that even less.”

  I know. It sounds like I’m saying “just wait until your father gets home.” But they’d either come spray him in the face with pepper spray until he handed it over, or they would break out the shock shield—think the polymer shields cops use for crowd control, but electrified—to incapacitate him so he couldn’t hurt anyone else, including himself.

  “Put out your hand,” he commanded.

  Oh, hell no. I didn’t know where his blood had been. He had long enough arms; he could reach out and cut me if I put my hand out.

  “Drop it on the floor and I’ll get it.”

  “You don’t trust me?” He sounded hurt.

  I almost snorted out loud. I didn’t trust anybody. “You can’t be trusted right now.” As if he could ever be. He was an inmate. Now that doesn’t mean I thought they were all dog shit, but if the voices really were talking to him, his behavior and reactions were going to be unpredictable. And if he was trying to pull some kind of con, then I had to be especially wary. “Would you trust someone who told you they heard voices? I’m just trying to help you.”

  The razor clattered to the floor and I picked it up gingerly, careful not to let the edges come in contact with my skin—even though I wore gloves, the razor could easily slice through both the latex and my flesh. I called the OIC over the radio to send another officer to come watch this guy while we called mental health.

  As I walked back to the officer’s station, an inmate in another cell yelled out my name. I turned to look and a skinny black inmate with long braids motioned for me to come over.

  “Not right now, guy. I’ll be there in a few minutes after I handle this, okay?”

  “It’s an emergency!” he demanded. His forehead was sweaty and his eyes were wide and from what I could see of his body, it looked like he was jumping up and down.

  What now? I took the stairs two at a time and came to stand in front of his cell. It was definitely not an emergency. He was jacking off.

  “Really? Are you kidding me?”

  He grinned really big, as if he was proud of himself, and held his cock out with one hand while he continued to stroke with the other. “Nope.”

  “Well you should be. That little thing is a waste of anyone’s time.”

  I trudged back down to the office. I wasn’t embarrassed or horrified that he was naked. I saw upwards of six hundred dicks a day, and one more wasn’t a big deal. No, it pissed me off that he interrupted something so urgent to show me his dick. Which looked like every other dick I’d ever seen. Black, white, yellow, brown, blue—it was all still penis.

  What w
as that supposed to do for me? Was I supposed to fall over on my back like some turtle and gasp at the amazing wonder that was his cock? Sorry. Not going to happen. I wasn’t impressed.

  So then I not only had the ton of paperwork for the mental health guy, but then I had to write a disciplinary report for the dick smacker.

  Why did I want to work Seg again?

  Holy Hell.

  I drank way too much, but honestly, I’d needed it after the week I had.

  My temples pounded like a bass drum and my eyes didn’t want to open. Christ, it was bright.

  I thought about rolling over and going back to sleep. I hadn’t come in until after four. It was only eight. But today was kid day. I was taking them to the zoo.

  One-hundred-degree heat, tired animals in cages licking their own nuts, and bad food. Just like work.

  I rolled over and looked at my girls sleeping in the bed next to me. They were so sweet when they were asleep. Their narrow chests rose and fell slowly. The sweet baby curve to their cheeks was smooth in the bright sun. My oldest was nine and she’d lost the toddler chubbiness to her hands. Her fingers were splayed on the pillow and I petted each one softly, wondering what those hands were capable of doing. What she would do with her life, what she would become.

  My youngest, her hands were still dimpled and soft. Her bow mouth had fallen open and she sounded like a baby bear; her light snores endeared her to me even more. This one was only a child when she slept. When she was awake, her very old soul was in the driver’s seat and she looked on everything with a very adult detachment and disdain. I wondered too what she would mold out of her life.

  And I wondered when I’d get my own shit together. They deserved better than living in their grandparents’ house with a mom they hardly ever saw. The little one had told me she wanted to go live with her dad because there was more room and she missed him. I said yes and when she asked me if I was upset, I said no. I told her I’d miss her, but it was okay. Then I’d gone to take a shower and I bawled until the hot water ran out.

  My oldest’s eyes popped open and she still looked like Boo from Monsters, Inc. with her large, chocolate doe eyes. “Zoo!” she half-whispered.

  I nodded with a grin, even though shaking my head like that made my eyeballs roll around my head and my stomach roiled.

  Oh, what the hell? I ran to the bathroom and puked up the cupcakes I’d eaten yesterday in a pungent brew of Hostess and beer. I realized with horror I had a hangover. I’d spent my teen years drinking like a fish, I even drank some in my twenties, but it was like as soon as I hit thirty, someone flipped a switch and it was time to pay up. I’d never had a hangover before.

  “You okay, Mommy?”

  “We don’t have to go to the zoo if you don’t feel good. Are you sick?”

  No, I’m not sick. I’m just an asshole. I wanted to lie back down and go back to sleep until my head stopped throbbing and my stomach stopped protesting, but I didn’t.

  “No, babies. Get ready. How about breakfast at the Awful Waffle?”

  They shrieked with joy, and I puked again as the sound echoed through my head.

  I was sick again at the Awful Waffle, as we had come to call the local all-night waffle place. This time from the other end. It was so loud, I’m sure that the other patrons heard me. I’m sure that people on the interstate heard me.

  I didn’t know then it would just get worse. I didn’t discover until two years later that I had celiac disease. I was allergic to wheat, barley, and oats. So those pitchers of Boulevard Wheat were literally killing me.

  I’m sure the waffles didn’t help.

  I spent more than I meant to after we got to the zoo. I never got to see my kids while I was working the second shift, two in the afternoon to ten at night. They were always asleep by the time I got home. We’d gotten more time because of the summer, but I knew when they went back to school I’d only see them on my days off.

  Sometimes, when I think back to this time, I wonder how I ever got through it. How we ever got through it.

  The husband and I staggered our days off so it was never an issue of who had them when. He was good about that too. He never ditched them, never forgot, never chose to do anything else than spend time with his kids when it was his turn. He never balked at taking them when it wasn’t his turn, like when I had to go to the hospital with my mother. No matter what was wrong between us, he tried to be a good father.

  And I tried to be a good mother. We ate again at the zoo because they wanted funnel cake, corn dogs, and slushes. We did every little extra thing there was to do: we took the train, rode the carousel, and I bought them everything they looked at longingly with their big anime child eyes in the gift shop. Except for the live crabs. The husband had taken custody of the cat and my parents had a dog. The poor crabs would be harried until either the cat or the dog succeeded in getting to them. All the while, I made discreet stops in the bathrooms after every time I ate.

  I swore I’d never drink again.

  I spent a little bit of time online talking to friends who I didn’t seem to have a connection with anymore. One friend in particular though, I’ll call her Sunshine here, seemed to just accept me and the mess that was my life. She wanted to hear about it and I found myself talking. I didn’t open up the floodgates and dump on her, but I told her about the separation. She tried to be encouraging, had a lot of good things to share, but I wasn’t ready to hear them yet. Rather than be angry I wasn’t ready, she did what good friends do. She let me know she’d be there and she was ready to listen whenever I needed her. I thanked her, but I didn’t take her up on it. Not for a long time.

  That’s part of The Job, as I’ve said. Isolation. We’re supposed to keep the gritty dark away from the outside world. We’re supposed to be two people. But it’s infinitely easier to be one. So, we tend to slowly sever our connections with people outside our world.

  Not with any malice or intent; it just happens.

  I had an email from a tower rat friend of mine who wanted me to go to the country bar with him and a few others that night. I hate country music, for the most part. I’m a metal head. But I was lonely and patently unhappy with my life. I thought maybe a little fun would help.

  And I vowed I’d only have one beer.

  I didn’t know Aqua Net could melt.

  Of course, I knew it was flammable. When I was a kid, I used it and my mother’s lighter as a mosquito repellent. Flamethrower. Whatever.

  I spent summers in Minnesota, and their state bird is the mosquito. Loved visiting my grandma, but at night, when I had the window open and a swarm of them that looked like something out of a Japanese horror movie clung to the screen, I had my doubts about if the screen would keep them out. Or if it did, I was sure their long suckers could squeeze through the little holes in the screen and suck me dry. So I toasted them all. They crackled like Rice Krispies.

  On a bastard summer day when I volunteered to get some more experience in Segregation, I suddenly knew what they felt like. The temperature roasted at one hundred degrees outside, and inside, it was twenty degrees hotter. I didn’t do much to my hair for work. I put it up in a bun or used a jaw-clip so it was off my collar, but I did curl my bangs. I secured them so even a tornado wouldn’t ruffle my appearance.

  That took a lot of Aqua Net.

  Which promptly melted from my bangs and slid down into my eyes.

  My eyes started burning worse than when we’d had to get sprayed with CS gas and take a shot of pepper spray to the face in training. Tears are your eyes’ self-defense mechanism, so they just started pouring down my cheeks.

  It looked for all the world like I was bawling.

  “What’s wrong, Sarge? Somebody hurt your feelings?”

  “Look at the girl crying on the tier,” another inmate hooted.

  “Shut the fuck up. I
got hair spray melting in my eye,” I growled.

  “Sure you do. We understand. Even a hardass like you has to take a day off.” Laughing ensued.

  “Hey, don’t rile her up. It’s too hot for this shit.”

  “No shit. Why don’t you guys grieve this?” I asked them, referring to their complaint process. They would grieve anything as “cruel and unusual,” up to and including their incarceration if the state would let them. I’d say slowly baking to death in high summer in this kind of heat was cruel and unusual. Not just for them, but for me too. The prison was more than a hundred years old. It was made out of brick. Summer time turned it into a big oven.

  I’d seen an inmate grieve standard operating procedure that’s there for his safety—and win. But I’d seen reasonable grievances fail. Like one inmate who was allergic to fish and soy. All he got every single day, every meal, was peanut butter and lettuce. That’s not a reasonable diet, which he is entitled to, but he lost. Or the practicing Satanist denied his right to freedom of religion. The prison pastor argued it was a hate group and not a real religion. No matter that most of the religious groups in prison are fronts for sex, dealing and trading, gang activity…this guy only wanted to be free to have a Baphomet icon in his cell. He wasn’t asking to hold a religious callout or any special treatment. He just wanted to be able to order religious paraphernalia like any other group.

  But this rejection was from the same bastard who refused to show Harry Potter on the prison TV channel, not because it might incite the pedophiles but because he deemed it anti-Christian. Hey, where’s the separation of church and state? Not seeing it here. If I was an inmate, you can bet I’d grieve the violation of my religious freedom. You lose a lot of rights when you go to prison, but your freedom of religion isn’t supposed to be one of them.