Reading behind Bars

by Jill Grunenwald

Today, unfortunately, was not one of those lucky days.

  I pointed to the piece of paper taped to the top of the counter just a few inches to the left of his document. “I don’t notarize on Thursdays. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” My plastic, plastered smile took up the entire lower half of my face as I beamed politely.

  “But I need this notarized right now.” He jabbed his finger into the document, punctuating every word.

  Dealing with Gardner was a lot like when I was a kid, and my younger sister and I would get into a fight. Amy was far more outwardly emotional than I was, so she would scream and yell with rage, and I would just sit there and not react because I knew that her end goal was to get a reaction from me. I certainly wasn’t going to give her what she wanted—that would take all of the fun out of it. My non-reaction only infuriated her even more, so she’d scream and yell louder, eventually alerting our parents to the situation. Our dad would come down into the basement and find my sister screaming and me just playing silently with Barbies. Punishment was swift, with Amy being sent to her room, while I was left in the basement to play all by myself, just the way this introvert wanted it.

  As the older of the two, sure, I was supposed to be the mature one and it was a little petty of me to be consistently setting a trap she was always destined to walk into, but I’d argue that, really, as the older sister it was my job to do such things.

  (We’d both always scoff when he would tell us that we would grow up to be best friends. Twenty-five years later and well, okay, Dad. You won that one.)

  I like to think that those years of passive-aggressive fighting with my sister served me well as I moved into the world of library service. Because anyone who has worked any kind of front-facing role can tell you that there are always those kinds of patrons or customers. The kind of customers who make you hate the “customer-is-always-right” philosophy. Patrons who want to get a reaction out of you, as long as you react the way they want you to that is. Customers just itching to start a fight.

  Gardner was one of those kinds of customers.

  With enough experience behind a counter or cash register, I knew that giving into a patron’s frustration served no one, especially not me. Kill them with kindness, flies and honey, and all of that. Of course, the kindness applied was probably supposed to be genuine and authentic, and not a means of me pissing them off even further, but potayto-potahto.

  I scrunched my shoulders up near my ears and gave an overly exaggerated shrug. “I’m sorry, but I don’t notarize on Thursdays. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think you understand.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, mustering an overabundance of fake sympathy. “I understand. But, see, just an hour ago I had to turn away another inmate who wanted something notarized, and told him he’d also have to come back tomorrow. It wouldn’t be fair for me to then turn around and notarize this for you when I wouldn’t notarize his document.”

  Gardner stared at me with open hostility, his eyes drilling holes into me. It was so intense, that I imagined from his perspective, Gardner was glaring at me through a gun-sight trained right at my forehead. Fairness apparently didn’t exist in his world, at least not unless it somehow always, and only, benefited him. “Fine. I’ll just go next door and ask Kim.”

  I forced my eyes steady otherwise they’d roll back so far into my head I’d be staring at the interior of my skull. “She won’t notarize for you, either. You know she only does it on Mondays.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll just see about that,” he snapped.

  As he snatched his document back up, I had a split-second epiphany. For most other inmates I’d have a moment of guilt-laden hesitation at the plan brewing in my head, but Gardner had pissed me off from day one, and if I had learned anything from my years listening to the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, it’s that opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.

  That, and have enough talent with a razor and your victim will voluntarily sit right in your waiting barber chair.

  Gardner didn’t like me—that much was apparent—but he especially didn’t like taking orders from me and I was 99.9 percent certain it was entirely because of my gender. Men like Gardner don’t like taking orders from any woman, and they certainly don’t approve of women being in any position of power. I knew from his file that he was in on a domestic abuse charge, his anger manifesting itself physically to the point that he landed in prison.

  He couldn’t lash out at me without risking extending his sentence at a higher-security prison, so he had to take his frustration out on me in other ways. Inmates had limited power within the prison walls, but they had still had some level of agency. By design, he was forced to hear what I had to say, but he didn’t have to actually listen to me.

  This meant that no matter what I told him to do, Gardner was guaranteed to do the exact opposite.

  “Gardner!” I yelled after him. “Do not, under any circumstances, go next door and ask Kimberly to notarize that for you.”

  The door slammed shut behind him. I looked out the window and watched him stomp his way next door.

  Welcome to my parlor, Mr. Gardner.

  With a smile, I picked up the phone and dialed Kimberly’s extension. “Hey,” I said as soon as she answered. “So, Gardner was in here wanting to get something notarized and I told him no. He said he was going to come over there and talk to you.”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m notarizing it for him. It’s bad enough I have to do that shit on Mondays.”

  “No, I know that, and I told him that you weren’t going to do it for him, but he doesn’t care. As he was leaving I directly told him do not go over and ask you.”

  “Ohhhhhh,” she said, catching on. “I see. Okay.”

  There is a fine art to writing incident reports. During orientation, it was repeated, over and over again, that incident reports were to contain facts and only facts. This served me well, because while we were to report only facts, we didn’t necessarily have to report all of the facts.

  The facts:

  1. Gardner had come in wanting something notarized.

  2. I said no because I only notarize on Thursdays as outlined by the schedule I keep taped to my desk.

  3. Gardner insisted.

  4. I repeated no.

  5. Gardner said he was going to go ask Kimberly.

  6. I directly ordered him not to do that and he did it anyway.

  Those were the facts. They maybe weren’t all of the facts, because I failed to mention that I had purposely directed him to not go ask Kimberly, knowing full well that was exactly what he was going to do. I also kinda fudged the conversation I had with Kimberly, where I mentioned the interaction with Gardner and she told me that he had disobeyed me by coming over to ask her to notarize his document. It wasn’t exactly a lie: she and I did indeed have the conversation but only because we concocted it over the phone. It wasn’t a spontaneous, casual conversation had over lunch, but a deliberate means of making sure I had the knowledge that he had come to Kim for notary work, in direct violation of my order. Was it petty? Sure. Was I following the spirit of the law? Probably not. But I also wasn’t going to allow Gardner to circumvent the rules just because he thought he was above the rules. Nor was I going to react in any way that would also get me into hot water. As Don Corleone reminds us in The Godfather, “Revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold.”

  “Did you write me up?”

  Gardner’s face was flushed red with anger as he waved the piece of paper in my face. It was a few days later. From what I could glimpse, the piece of paper he was furiously waving was a note from his case worker requesting a meeting with him. I stood up from my seat to face him at eye level.

  “Gardner.”

  “Did. You. Write. Me. Up?” The paper cut through the air as he shook it.

  I sighed. “Gardner, I suggest you just go speak to your case worker.”

  “It’s a simple question. Did you write me up?”

  �
�Just go talk to your case worker, Gardner.”

  He narrowed his eyes, dark with rage. “Bitch,” he spat as he turned and stomped out, bumping into Dr. Harald in the entryway.

  “What was that about?” Dr. Harald asked, coming up to my desk.

  Rolling my eyes, I shook my head. “I wrote Gardner up for disobedience of a direct order, and just now he called me a bitch.”

  Dr. Harald’s head dropped in disappointment. He always had far more faith in the goodwill of the inmates than most other staff. Dr. Harald recognized Gardner as an annoyance, a pesky little fly who buzzed around incessantly, always trying to curry favor with the men in charge. It’s how he managed to get approval to use the computer from the Warden—a man—when the rest of us refused. For the rest of us, Gardner was an infestation.

  “So, about Gardner?” Donnor asked. She was calling from her spot down in Segregation. In the background I could hear her shuffling papers, probably the incident reports I had written up. As head of the Rules Infraction Board, she had final say over punishments. “What do you want to see happen?”

  Kim had given me a head’s up that Donnor might want my opinion on repercussions, although I was still surprised to receive the call. For every other conduct report I’d written, as soon as I turned them in, they were out of my hands. I’d only know what happened if an inmate happened to mention it, or if the punishment was Segregation, in which case I’d see them when I went on my weekly visit. But other than that, I never knew what happened.

  This time was different. This time I had swiftly written two different reports in close succession. Whatever punishment that would have been doled out for the original disobedience would probably have been fine, but this was probably the only time I can say that being called a “bitch” was a bonus.

  “Can I have him temporarily banned?”

  There was a pause. This was a big request. The library, by design and by law, was there for the availability of the inmates. But whatever punishment Gardner had been given in the past for his issues never seemed to deter him from misbehaving.

  Even if Gardner was given bunk restriction and forced to wear a bright green jumpsuit, he’d still be allowed to visit the library for one hour every day. I needed something more severe to get the point across.

  Honestly, though, I also just wanted a respite from having to deal with him.

  “Yeah,” Donnor finally said. “I think we can make that happen.”

  A few hours later, Kimberly triumphantly brought in a formal document outlining Gardner’s punishment. “Thirty days,” she proclaimed, handing it to me. “He can’t come here for thirty days.”

  Damn. I’d been hoping for like, a week or two, but a whole month? It was going to be like a vacation. It was like Christmas in July.

  Chapter 22

  Check Mate

  Board games may be purchased through approved vendors by recreation staff, unit staff, or through inmate [Industrial & Entertainment] funds. Dice must be removed and replaced with spinners or cards.

  —ODRC Policy 77-REC-01

  When I was in middle school, Field Day was both the best and the worst day of the year. It was the best because, well, it was spent outside. Despite being relatively intelligent, school was extremely boring to me.

  Field Day, however, was a respite from all things academic. I could hang out with my friends outside, and we could stuff ourselves silly with hot dogs and chips, while we watched classmates make fools of themselves in ridiculous competitions like Hula-Hooping. Of course, Field Day could really be called Track and Field Day. So while, on the one hand, Field Day was a vacation from the classroom, on the other hand, it was kind of an all-day gym class, which was my least favorite of all classes. A day-long gym class that I would inevitably get a five-alarm sunburn from, regardless of how many applications of sunscreen I used.

  Sometimes, everything is a tradeoff.

  Yard Day is the prison equivalent of Field Day.

  Yard Day is similarly structured: the inmates, excused from all other regularly scheduled activities, are able to participate in a variety of games. Activities are both physical, like baseball or basketball, but also mental, including board and card games. For lunch, staff fired up the grills and had a cookout, serving hot dogs and hamburgers to the inmates.

  Yard Day was held on Wednesday that year and because it was an all-day event, my scheduled changed for that day. Instead of working my usual 11 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. schedule, I got to come in early and leave after 4 p.m., along with the rest of my coworkers. Sure, it meant having to wake up early an extra day that week, but, at the other end, I had equally earned a bonus evening off. All about those tradeoffs.

  In the days leading up to Yard Day, Highland came down to the Education department, clipboard in hand. “Grunenwald,” she said, scanning down the list. “You will be supervising the chess tournament.”

  Chess? I get to spend the afternoon, presumably indoors, watching guys play chess? Apparently, as an adult, my sensibilities related to Field Day hadn’t changed much. I’d gladly take it.

  Yard Day was also a bonus dress-down day for staff. We were allowed to wear jeans and tennis shoes without having the pay the usual money for charity. Given the sunny forecast, I opted for denim capris and layered on as much sunscreen as possible, to hopefully mitigate any sunburn I would get while outside.

  The library was closed for the day, so when I arrived, I headed down to Education and waited around with the rest of the Education and Recovery Resources departments until the official 8 a.m. start. The rest of the day’s normal activities were maintained: breakfast and count happened on schedule, but the rest of the time the staff was out at our various posts monitoring the activities we’d been assigned.

  For me, this meant the chow hall. Not only did I get to sit inside all day, I got to sit inside in air-conditioning.

  My job was simple: keep track of the chess tournament bracket, and maintain order in case any disputes broke out. But I wasn’t really too worried about any fights or disputes because these were chess players. To borrow a sentiment from the movie Wet Hot American Summer, they were indoor kids, like me. When given an option to go outside and play sports, or stay inside and play board games, they all opted to stay inside and play board games.

  In other words: these were my people.

  Many of them were also library regulars. The kind of regulars that showed up when the library opened and stayed all through first shift, only to return and do the same thing for second shift. Day in and day out. This shouldn’t have surprised me. There is a certain overlap between the individuals who prefer to stay inside on bright sunny Saturdays, and the individuals who spend all their free time in the library.

  But while I was excited to have been given the indoor post for the day, my expertise in board games didn’t expand beyond CLUE. So a game as intricate as chess? Not my forte.

  I had tried to teach myself years before, when my dad first brought home our personal desktop computer for the house. It was a Windows machine and while now the technology seems ancient, back then it blew my mind away. Included in the small collection of preinstalled games was an electronic version of chess. I knew how the pieces moved. I understood the Queen was the most powerful, the pawn the least. I understood the mechanics of chess.

  What I always struggled with was seeing far enough ahead to predict any level of game play from my opponent. My brain just didn’t work that way. I could easily puzzle out the logic of deciphering who killed with what weapon in which room of the mansion, but knowing where my companion would move their piece next? I couldn’t see that far ahead.

  Watching the inmates play their games of chess on Yard Day blew my mind, the same way that old computer did twenty years before. These were men who knew chess. They understood the mechanics and the techniques, their brains seeing every possible combination five, ten, twenty steps ahead.

  The cavernous chow hall was silent except for the click click click of chess pieces as they maneuv
ered across the boards. The tournament started during the morning shift, with twenty inmates spread out across ten tables. The recreation coordinator had drafted the initial pairings based on who had signed up in advance, and my job was to write down the names of the winners and guide them to the next game as the players advanced.

  One of the inmates playing chess was Tucker. Tucker was a library regular, one of the few inmates who had a long sentence: five years. Long for our prison, I should say. Most were in only for a year or two. Tucker had already cycled through all of the available job postings and the classes he was eligible to take. The Job Coordinator was constantly struggling to find something for Tucker to do. He was bright and not very talkative, and always looked as if he was seriously deep in thought. As if his mind never really stopped thinking.

  His latest assignment was as one of the inmates involved in the Puppy Program. Since my first day, when I was greeted unceremoniously by a full-grown St. Bernard, I’d gotten used to the canine visitors that came with their handlers every day. I kept dog biscuits behind the desk for visitors and on really hot days, put out a bowl of water.

  Tucker’s dog was a black pug named Tug. Tug the pug loved me. Loved me—this dog would not leave me alone. When Tucker first kept bringing him in, Tug would run around the desk, tugging at his leash for more slack, so he could come over and say hi. Then Tucker would have to be the one to tug on the leash to redirect Tug back into the crowd of tables and chairs.

  The dogs were supposed to stay with their handlers at all times, those were the rules. And Tucker always seemed to feel bad about Tug’s behavior, often apologizing for the dog. However, I found it adorable, in fact, which is why, one day, when Tucker started to tug on the leash I said, “You know, he can just stay back here with me while you’re in the library.”

  Tucker looked at me in disbelief. As if he didn’t honestly believe that I sincerely wanted to watch a dog that wasn’t my responsibility. But I did, which surprised me more than either of us. Tucker handed me the red leash and went and found a seat in the back of the room.