Reading behind Bars

by Jill Grunenwald

  My words just hung in the air, the inmates stunned silent. In that moment, whatever impressions they had of me had been stripped away. The quiet, meek librarian they had come to know was merely a costume. The real librarian was hiding underneath. Up until then, I had apparently looked like an easy target to them, but not anymore.

  In the words of William Shakespeare, “Look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under ’t.”

  Greene was the first to break the silence. “Damn, Ms. G. That’s cold.”

  I grinned. “No, boys, that’s gangsta. And don’t forget it.”

  And with that episode, I had finally made it to year’s end. Incredibly, 2010 was just around the corner. I had been working for close to a full year.

  A year ago, I was a recently graduated librarian with no idea what the future held. I certainly didn’t predict I’d find myself working in a prison of all places. But here I was: almost a year into the gig and liking it far more than I thought I would when I first started. It wasn’t easy and it was still surreal knowing that there was a constant threat level I always had to be aware of, but overall I enjoyed working with the men.

  Now all I could do was wonder what 2010 was going to bring.

  But, if nothing else, I could celebrate the fact that I had made it to 2010.

  For the entire second half of 2009, I was battling a daily fight. It was particularly bad in the final weeks of the year, winter and snow driving me inside to an empty and lonely apartment. The tide threatened to pull me under every single morning and every single morning I had to force myself to get out of bed. Because of my cat.

  Chloe needed fresh water and food every day and if I wasn’t going to do it, there was no one else who could. I couldn’t let my feelings, my choices, cause her to starve. Whatever shit I was dealing with, that wasn’t fair to her.

  So every morning, even on those when I couldn’t move for fear something catastrophic was going to happen if I moved a single muscle, I dragged myself out of bed and into the kitchen so I could get her food and water. And then I decided since I was already out of bed, I might as well take a shower. And after showering, I might as well eat breakfast. And then go downstairs. And get in my car. And drive to work.

  This was my pattern every morning for the last few weeks and months of 2009.

  Perhaps it sounds overdramatic to say I owe my life to my cat. But now, ten years later, I can all but guarantee that without Chloe this story, this year, would have had a very different ending.

  PART III

  THE SAME LITTLE CORNER OF SKY

  “ . . . and then you would think that whole years would go by, and you would still come to look through the cracks in the fence and would see the same ramparts, the same sentries and the same little corner of sky, not the sky that stood above the prison, but another, distant and free.”

  —Fyodor Dostovesky, The House of the Dead

  Chapter 16

  Ghost in the Machine

  No prisoner in a private correctional facility, county correctional facility, municipal correctional facility, or correctional institution under the control of the department of rehabilitation and correction shall access the internet through the use of a computer, computer network, computer system, computer services, or information service, unless the prisoner is under direct supervision and is participating in an approved educational program that requires the use of the internet for training or research purposes, and in accordance with this rule.

  —Ohio Admin. Code 5120-9-51

  Born in 1981, I straddle that fine line between Generation X and Millennial. These days there is more and more literature and research about the particular microgeneration that I fall into. This “microgeneration” is not yet widely accepted and so for those that support the concept (myself included) there are multiple names that are given to us, including Xennial and Generation Catalano.

  My personal favorite is the Oregon Trail Generation.

  That old pixelated computer game where you choose oxen and manage supplies and hope your best friend doesn’t die of dysentery? Yes, that Oregon Trail.

  The necessity for needing to learn computer skills cannot be understated. When I was in graduate school in 2007 and 2008, so many of our classroom discussions centered upon the concept of the digital divide: the very real gap that exists between those people who have easy access to computers and technology, and those who don’t. Often based on gender, education, race, and/or income inequality, the digital divide means those people who have ready access to a computer and use it on a daily basis have an advantage over those who don’t. In a rapidly growing technological world, this gap grows larger and larger with every passing day.

  For me, this was never more apparent than when I worked at the prison.

  Back on my first day, now almost a year ago, I came across typewriter ribbons and wondered who would use a typewriter. Turns out: lots of people. At least lots of inmates at my prison.

  The typewriter was familiar and safe, and inmates—especially the older ones—understood the technology involved. It didn’t require mouse skills or knowing how to manipulate screens in order to type something up. While the idea of searching on the LexisNexis software was intimidating, searching through the law library books was not.

  That said, there were inmates incredibly fluent on the desktop computers kept back in the law library. One of those inmates was Monroe.

  Monroe was one of those inmates that had set himself up as a jailhouse lawyer. He wasn’t a lawyer—I’m still not entirely sure what his background was prior to getting behind the wheel of the car while inebriated one too many times—but he fancied himself educated enough on all manners of the law that he could aid inmates who weren’t as educated or familiar with the legal texts. Every day, Monroe would be waiting outside the library door, anxious for me to unlock it. Waiting, loitering, hovering, whatever you wanted to call it, he was there. Didn’t matter what time of day, he had the library schedule memorized cold. Morning shift, afternoon shift, evening shift. There was always Monroe.

  In many ways, Monroe reminded me of King Henry VIII. Just a few years prior, I had read Philippa Gregory’s historical-fiction bestseller The Other Boleyn Girl, about ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary. While I later learned that Gregory played fast and loose with the facts, the portrayal of Henry as this young, arrogant, brash king anointed to the throne by God himself, wasn’t too far off.

  Every day, Monroe would arrive at the library and set up court at one of the back tables. Not just any back table: always the same back table, right by the law library counter, much to the annoyance and frustration of the law porters. The porters couldn’t offer legal advice—they weren’t, after all, lawyers—but they were instead forced to watch Monroe attempt to poach inmates that headed their way.

  He walked around with a Walkman, a single earbud tucked into one ear. In his hands were stacks and stacks of papers, his own legal narrative stuffed into as many file folders as he could carry. Generally speaking, he was the first one to arrive and the last one to leave.

  Once, Monroe was running late, as he got stuck in the daily rotation of the lunchtime lineup, and by the time he arrived someone else had already claimed his table. He appealed to me, asking me to make them move so he could have “his” table back. I had to politely, but incredulously, inform him that it was not “his” table but the library’s table. It was, for all intents and purposes, my table, and my tables were first come, first served and he had to go sit somewhere else.

  When he wasn’t sitting at his table, Monroe could be found on one of the computers.

  The rules of the law library computers were simple: legal documents and legal research only. The computers were also first come, first served, and could only be used for thirty-minute increments. Monroe, more of a “letter-of-the-law” kind of guy, would come in first thing and sign himself up over multiple time slots. Frequently, other inmates would come to me complaining because they couldn’t get on
a computer: Monroe had signed himself into all of the spots. When I would tell him he needed to give someone else an opportunity, he’d push back, angry. He’d followed the rules, he said. He’d signed-up in thirty minute increments, not understanding why I was focused more on the part where he had been sitting at the computer for four hours.

  The law library computers were connected via an internal network to a computer in Dr. Harald’s office. If an inmate had something he wanted printed, he would save it on the law library computer and fill out a cash slip to cover the cost of the printed pages. During the breaks, I would go to the office computer and print out all of the documents that had been requested. Then, at the next shift, inmates could come and pick up their printouts. I viewed each document prior to printing, and had the discretion to not print if I felt it wasn’t a legal document.

  Legal document was a somewhat flexible term, although, in that instance, most inmates followed the spirit of the law and only used the computers to type up letters to their judges or attorneys. Other inmates, well, not so much.

  Along with Monroe, another inmate frequently seen hovering around the law library was Gardner. When Monroe wasn’t signed up for the computer, Gardner usually was.

  One day, my law library porter, McDougal, came up to me, complaining that Gardner was using the computers to type up a personal document. The inmates saved all of their documents onto the network, which was how I was able to access them to print, so during a break I went and looked at what Gardner was working on, which appeared to be a novel of some kind. Definitely not a legal document.

  I went to Dr. Harald, who called Gardner into his office and explained that he was no longer allowed to continue working on his book.

  Gardner, furious, complained all the way up the chain to Warden Garcia, who told both Dr. Harald and myself that Gardner had his personal permission to work on whatever he wanted. It was infuriating, watching Gardner manage to sweet-talk his way into having special permission directly from the Warden himself. But my hands were tied. Gardner was allowed to type up whatever the hell he wanted, while all of the other inmates were forced to comply with the rules.

  One afternoon, when I was going through that day’s computer printouts and came across a rather large file that belonged to Monroe, I assumed he, too, had decided to write his Great American Novel while incarcerated. He and Gardner would hardly be the first: Oscar Wilde and Nelson Mandela had both published books taken from the writings they made while in prison.

  But the more I kept reading, the more I realized this wasn’t a novel. It wasn’t even anything coherent. This read like the ramblings of a madman; enough to make the character of John Doe from the movie Se7en seem sane.

  It was a letter to, presumably, Monroe’s judge. The one who had sent him here to our prison. Letters to judges are not uncommon, the inmates often attempting to appeal to a judge for a lighter sentence. Most inmates, when writing someone in a position of power like that, choose to take the polite, tactful approach.

  Not Monroe.

  Monroe had . . . well, Monroe had gone off the rails. He was wishing upon his judge the most vile, grotesque acts I could imagine. No, wait, they were so vile and grotesque that even I, with my infinite imagination, couldn’t have imagined the things Monroe wrote about. It was like wishing he could send his judge into a Stephen King novel as punishment.

  When I showed Dr. Harald the document, he sighed and shook his head, disappointed in Monroe. He instructed me to not print it off, and if Monroe had any questions about his document, I could send him to Dr. Harald.

  That evening, when Monroe came to pick up his document I explained that I hadn’t printed it out because the library computers were for legal documents only. “You know that,” I said.

  Monroe frowned, confusion dancing across his pink face. “That was a legal document. I’m sending it to my judge.” His tone was flat, sincere.

  “You—” I started, but stopped, completely thrown off. “You were actually going to send that document to your judge? The one where you said you hope he gets raped in prison. That one. That’s the document you are going to send to your judge.”

  The tips of Monroe’s ears prickled pink. “I admit, it’s a little risqué . . .”

  “Yeah, that’s not quite the word I would use. Regardless, I don’t have it. You’ll have to go talk to Dr. Harald if you want a copy.”

  Monroe turned and exited the library, looking over his shoulder at me, as if he still wasn’t entirely sure why I wouldn’t have printed it out for him.

  He did, however, convince Dr. Harald to print it out. If Monroe followed through on his plan to mail it to his judge, I never did find out. Although I seriously would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the judge’s chambers when that document arrived.

  Almost a year into my job, and I was still tediously working my way through the donated books, adding them to my collection when I could. It was insufferable work, mostly because of that Excel spreadsheet. That stupid, ineffective, inefficient spreadsheet.

  The Excel spreadsheet provided multiple challenges, the least of which is that I wasn’t entirely sure how accurate it was, or the last time it had been updated. Because of that, if an inmate came in asking if we had a book, I had no way of knowing if we owned it or not. Even if I knew it was a title that was in our collection, all I could do was check the shelf. With our checkout system, the cards were filed by due date. I had no way of working backwards to see if a title was checked out.

  Like I said: ineffective and inefficient.

  The spreadsheet was only one half of the problem, however. There were also the cards. The library cards and the pockets in the back of the books. It was an antiquated system, but I knew there was a better way.

  Highland was in on her weekly visit to the library when I decided to first present my suggestion. At this point, I thought I had earned myself enough clout to make a proposition so as she was finishing up her visit and leaving, I called out her name.

  “Um, I’ve been thinking,” I said.

  Highland turned back to face me. “Mmm?”

  “Well,” I said, extending the ell sound. “Would it be possible to get an ILS—I mean, a computer catalog—in here to keep track of the books? The current system is an Excel spreadsheet, which is not the most efficient.”

  Highland’s eyebrows shot up at the word computer. I may as well have just suggested smuggling drugs in.

  “It’s just . . . I’m trying to catalog these donated books,” I gestured behind me to the tall metal bookcase, “and add them to the current collection. Some are duplicates of books we already own and there’s no good system of knowing which books we have, which copy is checked out. A computer catalog would be the best way.” When she didn’t stop me, I took it as a sign that she was at least considering the idea and plowed ahead. “The porters could check out inmates based on their ID number and we’d always know who had what out.”

  I was venturing into delicate territory here. The library had four computers: the three computers in the law library and the one at my desk. The inmates were not, under any circumstances, allowed to touch my computer. My computer had full internet access and while the prison’s filters blocked all social media sites on my computer, there were other ways to communicate with the outside world, such as email. We worked on a closed network, so I didn’t even know if what I was asking was technically possible. But if the word processing software on the law library computers spoke to each other, why not a cataloging and circulation software?

  Introducing a new computer into the mix posed security risks and it was just one more thing on top of a million other things that would have to be monitored and carefully watched.

  What I didn’t tell her was that, down the road I hoped there would even be a computer dedicated for searching books. Ideally, an inmate would be able to go to the computer, look up a title, and know if we owned it, or if it was checked out.

  Highland gazed at me for several minutes. I stood still,
waiting. Waiting and more waiting. It was a battle of wills, neither of us wanting to be the first to flinch.

  “Do some research on software,” she finally said. “Send me a proposal to look over.”

  She was gone before I could say thank you.

  Chapter 17

  I, Too, Sing America

  Whenever an inmate is being considered for a program/work assignment in a sensitive area the Program/Work Assignment Committee shall complete the Sensitive Work Area/Job Assignment Screening Review (DRC2087)

  —ODRC Policy 54-WRK-02

  I stood in the dark library, staring at the small collection of encyclopedias that lined the bottom shelf. This bookcase, isolated from the others, made up the library’s paltry reference section. Alongside the encyclopedias were dictionaries and a thesaurus, a few World Almanacs going back at least five years and a Guinness Book of World Records that was even older.

  Somewhere in here was the making of my new project.

  Hanging on the wall to the side of the reference bookcase was a bulletin board that I had passively used over the past year to highlight various monthly events. Due to our puppy program, back in October I had a bulletin board highlighting Adopt a Shelter Dog Month. Prior to that, I built an entire bulletin board around the theme “Go Anywhere with a Book.” On the American Library Association’s website I had found a set of bookmarks with either a retro looking airplane or cruise ship with that slogan. I purchased a set to keep on hand at the circulation desk for inmates as they were checking out their books, but with the bulletin board, I wanted to highlight all of the books within our collection that were set in places other than Ohio. Or even just the United States.

  All of my previous bulletin boards had been passive. The inmates would come into the library and hopefully look at the board and maybe it would encourage them to check out a book or two on the subject presented on the bulletin board. But this month, I wanted something more engaging. I didn’t want them to just look at the bulletin board, I wanted them to look. I wanted them to see and engage.