Reading behind Bars

by Jill Grunenwald

  “Did you really drive here all the way from Hudson?” the intake nurse asked, staring at my driver’s license. With a smile, I said no and explained I lived just a couple of blocks away.

  The emergency room was empty—I seemed to be the only patient this Friday morning. The nurse walked me back to the spiderweb of rooms, turning on the light in one as she went through the intake process. Handing me a cup, she gestured to the sad sterile bathroom with the harsh yellow light, requesting a pregnancy test before conducting the necessary x-rays. I sat on the toilet several minutes before, yet again, offering to sign any and all papers that would let them off the hook for liability if I ended up being pregnant (although, with my relationship having ended almost a year ago and no bedroom shenanigans since, I knew I was fine).

  After gingerly twisting my arm this way and that so x-rays could be taken, I was taken back to the room. I cradled my arm gently, waiting. My legs swung beneath me as I sat on the edge of the hospital bed.

  The door opened and a slightly older woman with short copper hair walked in. I hadn’t seen her before but she was the only one not wearing a lab coat or scrubs, which, oddly enough, seemed to lend her an air of authority in a hospital. “I’m Dr. Hornby,” she said, shaking my good hand.

  I smiled brightly, prepared to be told it was sprained, here’s a prescription for mild painkillers, give it a rest for a day or two, and be on your way.

  Dr. Hornby rolled a stool over. On closer inspection, she looked like a vintage French movie star, with her auburn hair pinned back, and her ivory limbs, lithe and delicate, stark against her all-black clothes. Perched on the stool, she clasped her hands between her knees and leaned forward. All that was missing was a jaunty beret and a slender cigarette perched delicately between her dark red lips.

  “Your elbow is broken,” she said. Stated, really. So precise and finite. Just a simple statement, like it was no big deal.

  Still smiling, I nodded. My elbow is . . . wait. What did she say? Did she say broken? My elbow couldn’t be broken. First, it didn’t feel broken. But even if it did, the pain wasn’t in my elbow, it was in my wrist. My wrist was the issue. How could my elbow be broken?

  But, more to the point, nothing was supposed to be broken at all. I had only come here so I could get a stupid doctor’s note to excuse me from my job for a day or two. It wasn’t supposed to require any medical attention beyond resting, ice, compression, and elevation.

  Oh gosh, if it was broken, how long was I going to be dealing with this? When I was a kid and broke my wrist I was in that ridiculous bright green hard plaster cast for months. I couldn’t be in a cast for months! HOW would I work?

  Female correctional officers who were pregnant or injured could be rotated to the security booth upfront, away from inmates. As the librarian, I didn’t have that option.

  There, in the emergency room of Lutheran Hospital, with my anxiety-prone mind moving into worst case scenario mode, I promptly burst into tears.

  Chapter 20

  Them’s the Breaks, Kid

  It is the policy of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to provide medical services and continuity of care to incarcerated offenders. Continuity of care is provided from admission to transfer or discharge from the facility, and shall include referral to community-based providers when indicated. These services are to be accessible to all offenders, include an emphasis on disease prevention, and reflect a holistic approach in accordance with approved levels of care.

  —ODRC Policy 68-MED-01

  CO Price’s narrowed eyes followed me as soon as I pulled open the heavy glass doors into the prison lobby. It was a Wednesday, my late-start day, which meant I thankfully didn’t have to wait in a long line of coworkers to go through the metal detector and have my bags searched. Of course, this also meant that Price didn’t have anywhere else to focus her attention as I slowly made my way across the faded yellow linoleum.

  After my impromptu visit to the hospital, I hadn’t been to the prison in nearly a week. Armed with a doctor’s note and a prescription for Tylenol with codeine, I went home and spent the week nursing my wounded arm.

  I went over to the control center and dropped my name-tag into the drawer, then went back over to where Price stood. Using only my right arm, I slung my purse over the side of the lobby desk and waited for her to start going through it.

  “Does she know about that?” Price asked, overly emphasizing the second word. Her gaze focused on my left arm, which was fixed into a ninety-degree angle, wrapped in ACE bandages, and supported by a blue sling.

  ‘She,’ of course, was Highland.

  The anxiety from my coworker was justified: while I’d like to think it was care and concern about my broken elbow, I know it was really about how my broken elbow was going to affect my ability to manage within the four walls of my little library.

  “Yes,” I said, “Highland knows.”

  “Uh-huh,” Price retorted, eyes still narrowed behind her glasses. “I need to see the sling.”

  Right. Because if diapers have to be checked in case baby mamas are using their infants as mules to sneak shit in, then I very easily could also be sneaking shit in with the lovely, cheap blue vinyl fabric supporting my arm.

  I removed the sling and handed it over to her, using my other hand to support my splint. My elbow was broken, but the break was miniscule enough that I didn’t require months in a plaster cast. Instead, a half-cast—plaster molded to the bottom of my forearm—kept my arm braced in place and the whole thing was wrapped up tight, making the arm immobile.

  I could say that this was all my fault, because I was the one who bought the Rollerblades from the thrift store, and I was the one who decided to use them without elbow or knee pads even though I had never, ever properly learned how to skate. I was also the one who decided to take them outside onto my very uneven city sidewalk and attempt to skate without said pads, knowing full well that my balance was not where it needed to be. I, of course, was the one who fell right on her ass, slamming her elbow down onto the concrete.

  Satisfied I wasn’t attempting to smuggle in any contraband, Price handed back my sling and allowed me to go through the metal detector, which stayed silent. Once on the other side, I grabbed my purse.

  The phone rang. Price picked up then gestured for me to stop. “Yeah, she’s here.” Her eyes cut to mine. “Yup. Bye.” Placing the handset in the receiver, she said: “Highland wants to see you.”

  Of course she did.

  Highland’s office was located in Administration. I found her seated behind her desk, waiting for me. Outside her window, the summer sun coated the green grass and empty yard. Soon, the inmates would be filing out of their housing units for lunch, and I was impatient to get down to the Education building because there were always copies to make and books to file before the afternoon shift. Plus, y’know, there was that whole being gone for a week thing, and wanting to find out what, if anything, I had missed in my absence. Prisons run on order and routine and this meeting, however necessary, was a kink in my carefully planned schedule.

  “Take a seat,” she offered when I walked through the door.

  I sat down across from her, anxious and nervous. I hadn’t been in her office since she made the move to Deputy Warden, and as a means of distracting myself, I let my eyes wander. Family photos were displayed on the bookshelf in the corner. On the wall behind her was a cheesy motivational poster lauding the value of teamwork.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, clasping her hands together and leaning across her desk towards me.

  “I’m okay,” I said with a shrug. “It’s a small fracture, should only be for two weeks.”

  She nodded. “I’m not really sure what to do about this.”

  Not sure what to say, seeing as how I wasn’t entirely sure what “this” was, I simply sat and waited.

  “Well,” she continued, gesturing towards my sling, “you’re down an arm. If something were to happen in the library, you’d hav
e no way to defend yourself. How important is the sling?”

  I furrowed my brow. Did she think I was wearing this as a fashion statement? “Um, very?” I tried to keep the annoyance out of my voice, though I wasn’t entirely successful. “I mean, y’know, I need it. For my elbow.”

  Highland sighed. “Right, of course, it’s just . . . it’s not a breakaway sling.”

  Ah. Now I understood.

  When an inmate broke a bone, or injured his arm in some other capacity that required a sling, they were given one that had a breakaway Velcro strap, so if another inmate pulled down on the sling, the strap would break apart.

  Mine didn’t do that. Mine was your standard hospital-issued, non-breakaway sling. If someone decided to pull down on my sling . . . well, basically Highland was trying to save me from possible strangulation at the hands of an inmate.

  I knew I worked in a prison. I knew I worked with men who had been convicted of crimes. I knew I wore a panic button for a reason. But I didn’t really understand what that truly meant until that exact moment in time.

  “My elbow is in a fixed ninety-degree angle,” I told her. “When I’m sitting down at my desk it won’t be a problem, but walking around the yard, I need the sling.”

  Highland’s head bobbed in understanding. She studied me, eyes intense. I could practically see the cogs working in her brain, trying to figure out how to accommodate my injury while also reducing the risk of ending up with a dead librarian. “Okay. Okay, here’s what we’ll do. When the yard is closed during count and meals, you can wear the sling. But anytime you are around inmates, including in the library, no sling. Got it?”

  I nodded. Because, really, what choice did I have? If nothing else, at least when I was sitting in the library I’d be able to rest my arm on my desk, and wouldn’t even really need the sling.

  Thinking the conversation was over, I started to rise.

  “One more thing,” Highland said. I paused. “We are going to reassign CO Gardein to the library for the next two weeks.”

  I sat back down. That was unexpected. Over the course of the year that I had been working at the prison, I’d never had a CO in the library with me. The only times they were there was when the officer assigned to the Education building next door came on their once an hour rounds (or, depending on the officer, once every three hours), or when I needed them to come over and watch the inmates while I took a restroom break. The rest of the time, it was just me and the inmates. That was sort of the thing when it came to the library. It was the reason I had inmates waiting outside before I opened, and the reason I had to force inmates out when I closed. The library was the one place on the camp that didn’t have a guard. The one place the inmates could go and not feel like they were in prison.

  “Gardein,” I repeated. It was nothing personal, I liked Gardein. If I had to go so far as to pick a favorite correctional officer, she’d probably be at the top of the list. But I was also slightly territorial when it came to my library, and I was concerned that having an officer in there would disrupt the atmosphere I had carefully cultivated over the past fourteen months.

  Highland nodded. “Just for the two weeks that your arm is in the splint. If something were to happen, you won’t be able to defend yourself appropriately, and even with a panic button it might take too long for them to respond.”

  “Right. Okay, sure.” I looked at her expectantly. “Anything else?”

  With a wave of her hand she silently dismissed me.

  By the time I got down to the Education building, my coworkers were finishing their lunches. I’d been absent for four work days, so there was a lot of business to catch up on as I quickly heated up my leftovers and joined them. Even then, though, most of the conversation focused on my arm, with me rehashing the experience and going over Highland’s new rules.

  A few minutes before 1 p.m., Gardein poked her head into the classroom we used as a cafeteria. “Hey, Ms. G. You ready?”

  “Yup!” I stood then gave a heavy sigh. “I forgot to grab the newspapers from up front.”

  “No worries,” she said. “I got them for you.”

  I gave her a grateful smile then followed her out of the building, remembering at the last second to remove my sling and tuck it into my bag.

  The inmates had already started filing from their housing units down to the chow hall and Gardein positioned herself between me and the inmates for the duration of the short walk from the Education building to the library. Once inside, Gardein settled herself at my desk while I sat down at my computer behind her. True to her word, the stack of today’s newspapers were sitting on top of the circulation desk.

  Soon after our arrival the library door opened and my porters Lincoln and Carroll walked in. Apparently my request to have Lincoln reclassed was approved while I was out. They both nodded polite hellos to Gardein and started to walk behind the circulation desk but stopped short as soon as they saw me.

  “Ms. G.!” Lincoln exclaimed, a wide grin on his face. “You’re back!”

  “I’m back,” I replied and then, without missing a beat: “You need to tuck in your shirt.”

  Behind him, Carroll guffawed. “Damn, Ms. G.,” Lincoln said, making a big show of tucking the tails of his state-issued light blue shirt into the elastic waistband of his pants. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”

  “I don’t. And don’t you forget it, either.”

  Carroll smiled. “Glad to have you back, Ms. G.”

  I smiled back at him. “Glad to be back, Carroll. Thanks.”

  Gardein walked over to the rack of magazines, eventually setting on Entertainment Weekly. She took it back to her spot at my desk at the door, and opened the cover to the first page. After over a year, I was finally going to learn what it was like to have a CO in here all the time. Admittedly I was not happy about it. Having an officer stationed in the prison library was going to make it feel like, well, a prison library. The success of this room depended on the absence of security. Or, perhaps more accurately, the illusion of a lack of security. An officer was always a phone call or panic button away, but it was easy to suppress that thought.

  I sighed, resigned to my fate. I wouldn’t be surprised if attendance dropped over the next two weeks once word got around that Gardein was going to be here every day.

  But, as with every situation, there are silver linings. If nothing else, because Gardein was here and could handle most of the day-to-day elements that came with running the library, including making sure inmates followed the dress code and signed in, that gave me an excuse to focus entirely on my cataloging project.

  I turned to the pile of books that had been left over from last week, before my decision to spend less than $4 on a pair of thrift store Rollerblades, and got started.

  Two weeks later, my arm was free of the splint and Gardein was free from her mandated library post. In truth, I think she kind of liked her stint in the library. She got to read magazines all day and issues between inmates was minimal.

  On one of the first Gardein-free days, I was continuing my never-ending cataloging project when an inmate approached my desk. “Hey, Ms. G.,” he said, holding up a book. “Do you want this?”

  Turning my head, I gaped at the familiar black cover. A pair of hands clasped a bright red apple. “Seriously?” I asked, taking the copy of Twilight from him. I cradled the thick paperback in my palms, as if he had just handed me a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, fresh off the printing press.

  He shrugged. “Eh, my sister sends them to me. I don’t read them.”

  “So you’re just . . . donating it.”

  “If you think you can use it, sure.”

  Was he kidding? The library didn’t own a copy of Stephenie Meyer’s blockbuster supernatural romance, but it was one of the most frequently requested books through the ILL system. Every week I was putting in request after request for Twilight and the rest of the books in the series. This was a hot commodity.

  “Yes,” I said, smiling. “Yes, I can
definitely use this. Thank you.”

  The inmate just turned with a small wave, not fully realizing the popularity of the book that he handed me.

  Hoskins, who was sitting nearby, came over. “We’re going to have to watch that one,” he commented, nodding towards the book.

  I agreed. Until I could get this cataloged and on the shelf, we were going to have to keep it locked up, so it didn’t go missing. Even then, after it was out in circulation we were going to be vigilant about making sure it stayed in circulation and didn’t go missing.

  Still, it was a quiet afternoon and I quickly finished my daily book quota. I could keep going, get ahead on tomorrow’s numbers, but there was that donated copy of Twilight just hanging out, locked in the bathroom until I could put it in our system. It had been a few years since I read the book, it wouldn’t be so terrible to steal a few minutes reading it myself, right?

  Chapter 21

  The Spider and the Fly

  All inmates shall be afforded access to institution library services. No inmate shall be restricted from the inmate library, unless approved by the managing officer or designee.

  —ODRC Policy 58-LIB-01

  Gardner slammed a piece of paper on top of the counter at my desk. “I need this notarized,” he demanded.

  So it was going to be one of those days with Gardner. Not that there was any other kind of day with Gardner, as he moved through the world like a tornado. A very angry tornado set on destroying anything and everything in his path. The guy had a lot of rage stored up, his veins pulsating beneath the skin of his bald head any time something didn’t go his way. Some days, though, I got lucky and the tornado would completely bypass any interaction with me. On those days, he’d blow past my desk and camp out at one of the computers, banging furiously on the keyboard. When all the computers were full, he’d sit at a nearby table and wait, seething until it was his turn.