What I needed was an ILS, or an integrated library system.
A big behemoth of a database, an ILS is what allows libraries to function and perform basic tasks, including managing the collection. From all of my years working in libraries, I knew there were some big-name ILS out there, but there was no way I needed, or could afford, the Cadillac of ILS available. Thankfully, there were smaller technology companies who realized that equally smaller libraries needed a different service when it came to their own information management system. After researching all of the options that would have met both my needs and my budget, I put together a proposal for Highland that outlined why it was necessary and how it would help automate the library.
After not hearing back, I had assumed the proposal was still sitting in a pile on her desk somewhere, but apparently I had so successfully outlined the need for an ILS that she had gone ahead and ordered it. Hall was here to install it on my computer.
“That one?” he asked, pointing at the desktop tucked into the corner behind my area of the circulation desk. I nodded. “You’re the only one with access to this, right?”
I nodded again. “Just me.”
Hall sat at my computer and opened the book, pulling out the CD-Rom. I lingered by as he went through the set-up process, watching over his shoulder. After a few minutes, everything was installed and he stood up. “All yours,” Hall said, gesturing that I should sit in the chair.
“Thanks!” I said.
“I know this requires a second computer,” he told me, “for your porters. But I don’t want to bring it down here quite yet. We still have to figure out the network side of things.”
“Okay,” I replied. “It’s going to take me a while to catalog everything anyway.”
After he left, I logged into the new ILS, not entirely sure where to start. There was just so much I could do and so much that needed to be done, but I also wanted to be efficient. Work smarter, not harder, and all of that.
Despite having spent a couple weeks researching and writing up the proposal, I had still forgotten just all of the functionality the software I had chosen offered.
Make no mistake, there was a ridiculous amount of work ahead of me. Once the system was up and running, the library would be automated and the inmates would be able to check books out with just a few clicks of a mouse. But before that, though, I had to input everything into the system. All seven hundred inmates needed to be in there, along with all eight thousand books that made up our collection. Plus, I still had several hundred more donated books to go through. There was no efficient or easy way to do this. I’d just have to start at the As and work my way down the list. And then just keep repeating that over and over again until everything was captured. There were no barcodes, scanning wasn’t an option so I needed another system for tagging books and it was going to take months.
None of that mattered, though, because my library was finally out of the dark ages.
Despite the sheer amount of work ahead of me, I couldn’t stop grinning.
“You Irish, Ms. G.?”
I looked to my left, where Woodson stood, a pile of books in his hands. “What?”
He nodded towards the new bulletin board I was putting together. Despite originally considering putting up a Women’s History bulletin board, I opted instead to introduce the inmates to all of the authors in the world who can claim an Irish heritage: James Joyce. Oscar Wilde. Maeve Binchy. My research into the subject surprised even me, not realizing that Bram Stoker was Irish (or that Bram was short for Abraham. Totally made sense after discovering it, but I hadn’t known that was a nickname).
“Oh!” I said. “No, no I’m not. I’m German.”
Woodson nodded thoughtfully, chewing this over. “You going to go out for St. Patrick’s Day?”
I mentally checked myself, trying to remember if I knew what Woodson had done to get incarcerated at our facility. Last year, both St. Patrick’s Day and 4/20 happened just a couple of months after I arrived, but I still distinctly remembered all of the inmates who made casual comments about both days, often in a self-referential way.
I was pretty sure this was just Woodson making conversation. “No,” I responded. “I’m not. I don’t really get into the whole St. Patrick’s Day thing.”
Woodson nodded. “Me either,” he responded before turning away and heading towards the shelves.
On the other hand, my other porter, Conway was in on drunk driving charges. He was also getting out on St. Patrick’s Day, a Wednesday this year.
A few days before his release, on Saturday, I had one goal for the day: do not lock my keys in the library staff bathroom as I had done the previous two Saturdays. Doing so always meant, embarrassingly, having the call the officer next door in the Education department—overseeing the AA and NA meetings that happened throughout the day—and asking them to come over just to unlock the door for me so I could retrieve my keys. It was always just absentmindedness. A matter of unclipping my ring of keys from the belt loop on my pants and, after unlocking the door, putting them aside momentarily on the sink, or on the shelf that held the cleaning supplies or miscellaneous office supplies. I’d finish my business and step outside, back into the library, and shut the door behind me. As it was closing shut, just as the lock clicked, I realized I’d left the keys inside.
The first time? Okay, a reasonable mistake. It happens. But a second time? Two weeks in a row? It was mortifying, having to call the officer back. I really did not want to have to make that phone call again so I had to be extra careful with my keys this morning.
Conway was working that morning, his last Saturday before being released.
Inmates, for the most part, get a little bit of the prison version of senioritis in the days leading up to their release. They know the end was in sight, and, unless they were like Jackson back in December, they weren’t going to do anything dumb to risk their last few days before freedom.
“Just four more sleeps,” Conway said. The inmates counted down their time not by days, but by nights. How many sleeps they have left in the uncomfortable metal bunk beds back in the dorm rooms. “I can’t wait to go out and get a nice big green beer.”
I sighed. “Conway.”
He turned to me, grinning. His smile had missing teeth, his joy shining through the gaps. “Don’t worry, Ms. G.! I have a designated driver.”
“Just don’t do anything dumb, okay? I don’t want to see you back here.”
Conway’s face turned solemn. “I don’t want to see me back here either.”
The following Tuesday evening, the night of Conway’s last sleep, I had just opened the library for the evening shift. It was still quiet, the men working their way through the dinner line when the door of the library opened and a tall, imposing figure walked in. I did a double take, not entirely trusting my eyes. Then again, how many men out there pass a striking resemblance to Taye Diggs?
As he made his way back behind the circulation desk acting as though not a day had gone by since he was last there, I knew my eyes weren’t deceiving me:
Jefferson was back.
Chapter 19
Last Dance with Mary Jane
Rule Violation: (40) Procuring or attempting to procure, unauthorized drugs; aiding, soliciting, or collaborating with another to procure unauthorized drugs or to introduce unauthorized drugs into a correctional facility.
—Ohio Admin. Code 5120-9-06
When it came down to it, the thing of it is, only one thing really separated me from the men at the prison: they got caught for their crimes. It was like that for all of us staff members. We weren’t any better than or superior to the inmates—we just got lucky. I may not have done or sold drugs like some of them, but I certainly had driven slightly inebriated. I just had managed to get home in one piece and without hurting anyone else or myself. In other words, I got lucky.
Prison can become part of a cycle. The guy gets out, goes back to his habits, gets caught again, comes back to prison again, and th
en eventually gets out again. The cycle continues. For some, doing time is just a necessary evil. Something they have to do sometimes to maintain their lifestyle outside. They see no need nor have a desire to break the pattern, so they continue to behave in the same manner, to engage in the same activities that got them in the first time around—or the second or the tenth—and they keep catching cases.
The facility did what we could to keep the recidivism rates down, but we could only do so much. Part of my role was maintaining a Reentry Resource Center in the library. This tiny collection of reference books had titles related to writing resumes and cover letters, specifically tailored towards inmates. I had a list of halfway houses in the area for those inmates who didn’t feel confident enough to go straight out into the big world, and wanted a period of transition first (some were also mandated per their sentence). There was information about Ohio University’s college-degree-by-mail program for inmates in Ohio, meant for those that wanted to extend their education while incarcerated.
We did what we could, but it wasn’t always enough to reduce recidivism, which is how Jefferson ended up back at our facility. Because he’d been at the library before, the Job Coordinator just reassigned him to that same position.
For me, it wasn’t enough of an issue to fight or try to have him classed somewhere else. He only came in twice a week, a maximum of about six hours a week. Besides, it was hard to get porters to want to work the evening shifts on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, so if I had someone who did want to work then, I might as well take advantage of it.
Jefferson maintained the status quo that had been enacted the last time he’d been here by not talking to me or addressing me in any way. Once he knew he couldn’t charm or flatter me into giving him favors, I was considered persona non grata, which was fine by me. As long as he did the work, he could think whatever he wanted about me.
“Hey boys.” The door into Seg slammed heavily behind me.
Bolton and Lopez lit up. “We’ve been wondering when you were going to come see us.”
I grinned and scanned the whiteboard above their desks, taking in the names. I stopped short halfway down the list, my smile fading. “Why is Lincoln here?” In all the time I’d known him, his record had been spotless. No incident reports, let alone anything severe enough to book a room in the Segregation motel. Then again, if I had learned anything from Willis’s surprise stay back in December, it’s that I can’t discount the possibility of any of my porters, or in this case former porter, landing in Seg.
Lopez raised an eyebrow. “Oh, his baby mama left him some drugs. In the lockers up front.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh yeah,” Bolton said with a nod. “There’s no way he’s getting that job back up front.”
There were only so many ways to get drugs in and out of the prison, and while it didn’t happen very often, it did happen. Routine and random drug tests were given several times a year, and inmates often had a test come back hot for some drug or another.
Lincoln and his baby mama had apparently figured out one of those methods: when she came for visitation she’d use one of the brown lockers in the back to keep her personal items in while she was visiting him. Included in that collection of personal items were drugs that she’d leave behind. As the foyer cleaning porter, part of his job included going back to those lockers, where he could just grab the drugs and slip them into the pocket of his uniform and go about his day.
That idiot. I was going to kill him. I was not thrilled to lose Lincoln as a porter, but I came to terms with it knowing that, if nothing else, Captain Gerry had seen something in him that showed promise and trust. But now that idiot had gone and thrown it all away for a fix.
When I got to Lincoln’s cell I stood there, one eyebrow raised. “Lincoln.”
I didn’t bother hiding my anger, mixed with a dash of disappointment. And I was angry. Despite the whole “not playing favorites” thing, Lincoln was one of my favorites, since he was someone who was motivated enough to make changes once he got outside. He had kids, he didn’t want to continue the cycle of selling drugs and spending time in prison. And he’d just wasted it.
It went beyond just Seg. Oh, sure, he’d spend a few days in there and get out and get reclassed to another position and hopefully not make the same dumb mistake ever again. But by bringing drugs into the prison, he’d risked his sentence, too: if the prison administration was feeling uncharitable towards him, they very easily could extend his time for this.
He lowered his head to one side. “I fucked up, Ms. G.”
A short burst of laughter escaped my lips. “Uh, yeah ya did.”
Lincoln shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking, Ms. G.” After another pause, “I have a favor to ask.”
I hesitated. I know he probably didn’t really mean favors in any kind of exchange way. Like I would do something for him and he’d owe me. Inmates traded favors inside as means of payment, but when staff got involved, things got tricky. Still, Lincoln didn’t seem like the type to risk asking staff for favors. Even if he was, doing it right here in Segregation with officers just a few yards away was about the dumbest thing I could think of.
Then again, I wouldn’t have pegged Lincoln to be the type to try and smuggle drugs into the prison, so what the hell did I know?
“Okay,” I finally said, wary. “What is it?”
He lowered his head, shy. “After I get out, can I come back to the library?”
Like with everything else, I couldn’t make any promises. But good library workers were hard to come by, so I promised I’d do what I could.
That weekend, I found myself doing something I hadn’t done since childhood: roller skating.
I never learned how to properly roller skate. Not officially. My form of roller skating is a variation on skateboarding: I plant one foot and use the other for movement and momentum. But here I was, a late twentysomething, pretending she knew what she was doing on a rink. Because I love my friends and sometimes I put myself in really awkward, uncomfortable situations when it’s their thirtieth birthday and all they want to do is go roller skating.
Despite spending most of the night people watching—or, perhaps, because of that—I decided I wanted to finally learn how to properly skate. To be fair, what I really wanted to do was learn how to roller skate so I could live out my dream of being a roller derby girl. In true cart-before-the-horse fashion, I already had several Roller Derby Names selected, even though I had no idea what I was doing when it came to rolling around on shoes that had wheels attached. (These included Kink Floyd, in an ode to one of my favorite bands; Quiver Strong, a play on River Song from Doctor Who; and Hatelyn Snark, in honor of one of my favorite characters from Game of Thrones. Of course, after the HBO adaptation came out I learned that Catelyn Stark’s first name is pronounced Cat-lyn, not Cate-lyn, but whatever.)
I was at my local thrift store the next day and wandering around when I came upon a pair of Rollerblades in my size. Rollerblades aren’t exactly the same as roller skates and this pair had a missing brake on one of the skates but it was a good start, especially at thrift store prices.
My apartment had hardwood floors, so for the first few days I just skated around my dining room, bracing myself against the wall or table or counter when necessary, which, admittedly, was often. After several days of this, though, I was confident enough in my non-abilities to take it outside.
Don’t try this at home, kids.
In all my excitement to go skating and buying Rollerblades, I forgot one thing: pads. As I was soon to find out, roller blading on uneven city sidewalks in an industrial part of a city, where there is gravel everywhere, is a much different experience than roller blading around the safety and comfort of the hardwood floor of my downtown apartment.
I fell a grand total of three times in my brief jaunt: as soon as I stepped out the main door of the building (who knew thresholds could be so treacherous?), half a block down, and then at the end of the block
. That last one, where my arm slammed into the concrete, was the one that convinced me to take the Rollerblades off and walk back upstairs in just my socks, gravel be damned.
That night, my arm ached. My wrist in particular had limited movement and felt like it was sprained. As a child I had broken my wrist ice skating while attempting to live out my dreams of being a figure skater (I’m starting to sense a theme), but I didn’t think the wrist was broken this time around. I’ve had few broken bones, but multiple sprained ankles, and this felt like a sprain, so I propped it up and iced it overnight.
The next morning, however, I couldn’t extend my arm back far enough to clasp my bra, and I realized the situation may be a little direr than I had originally thought. I could get the arm itself back there, the shoulder rotated just fine, but when I tried to lift my hand up towards the line of my bra strap, pain shot down the length of my arm.
I am not a woman who can function in the world outside my apartment sans support system, so this was a bit of an awkward problem.
“This is Jill,” I said as soon as Dr. Harald’s voicemail picked up. “I’m not going to be in today. I had a fall last night and I’m going to go to the ER to make sure my arm isn’t broken.”
I had no intention of going to the emergency room, but “I can’t put my bra on” wasn’t the most eloquent way of describing my situation, accurate as it was.
A few minutes and no progress later, however, I thought maybe I should go to the emergency room. Just in case. Mostly, though, to cover my ass, knowing that Highland would without a doubt be asking for a note from my doctor regarding this. Especially since I said that’s where I was going.
There was a hospital less than a mile away from my apartment, so I gingerly carried my arm out and drove myself to the hospital, much to the combined horror and amusement of the receptionist: since moving back to Ohio, I hadn’t yet updated my driver’s license, which still showed me living an hour away in my hometown.
Reading behind Bars Page 22