Chapter 1: A Favor

Wanda’s Donuts, is a converted brick cottage sitting just off the thoroughfare on the road to Tonopah Prison. I unclipped my ID which read Peter A. Cleary, Qualified Mental Health Professional, set it on the passenger seat and entered the eatery to chimes.

Two local policemen dressed in uniform black and weighed down with their radios, mace, and weaponry were in line in front of me. They nodded with pleasantry.

Wanda’s charcoal colored hair with streaks of gray drapes her blue blouse which is unbuttoned boldly showing cleavage. Her booming voice greets each customer with a hello, followed by, “We’ll be right with you.”

Jasmine is her helper. She is quiet, has short cropped dyed red hair, and non descript tattoos which run the length of her skinny arms. She was hired after she got out of the women’s correctional center.

Wanda herself has done a stint in prison and knows where I work. She is a testament to what can be done, regardless of one’s past. “Hello Doc,” she called out to me attending the drive-through window. “Your usual?”

I gave her a thumbs up. She always addresses me as doc, because I am a mental health counselor. Doc” is the generic title all inmates use when talking to someone who works as a prison psychiatrist, counselor, psychologist or social worker. Even though I don’t have a doctorate and have told Wanda to call me Peter, she persists with the title of deference. My last trip to the bakery she said she has a favor to ask of me.

I wait, checking my cell for any messages.

The two policemen ahead of me take their small bags and cups and leave, nodding again at me.

At the cash register, Jasmine sets my order down, two boxes of assorted pastries. “No charge, Doc.” Taped across the top of one box was an envelope. Wanda beams a smile at me from her station. A favor? Oh boy. I exit to the door chimes and three city workmen entering.

The sunlight breaks.

Check-in time for me at the prison was still an hour away. I set the boxes on the car seat and napkin out a honey bun, sipping the coffee. A sticky note with folded paper is attached to one box. It reads, Please give to: Inmate Franklin. A Department of Correction number was written after the name.

Wanda knew she crossed the line asking me to forward the letter onward. She also likely knew somehow I had an inmate named Franklin on my caseload. The prison network runs both ways, behind the walls to outside and from the free world-in.

I chomp on the honey bun and unfold the paper. It read: Coco, Sissy say closet needs cleaning, neighborhood getting loud, auntie wants to move.

My guess: the message was a code to Mr. Franklin. Except for the name Franklin and the name Coco, along with the prison number, the note had no alarming information.

The correct action for me is to tell Wanda I can’t forward her letter to Mr. Franklin. My cousin Pat Riordan, a communication professor and sometimes unlicensed PI, has a friend Issac, an artist, who gave me a chiseled wood piece with lettering reading, Just Say No. It hangs in my home study.

I placed the note back in the envelope atop the boxes of donuts on the passenger seat and headed out for the Prison.

My dawn drive into the facility takes a little less than an hour from my town and is usually pleasant. In rural America, or fly-over country as the coastal people called where I live, highway traffic on Interstate 70 is minimal compared to the congestion of cities. In harvest season corn stalks bump against the access roads.

Tonopah Prison is just outside the main drag in the small town of Fairway and is home to two private liberal arts colleges. In the days before the onset of the corona virus and before online learning had surged, both schools in Fairway had healthy on-campus enrollments of over 3000.

One college, Westerfield, had been all male, the other, Whitton, had been female. In recent years both schools have become coed. The schools have a 19th century Gothic and Tudor collegial atmosphere. Buildings are red brick, ornate, with stone archways. Many are on the historic register.

When I can break for a long lunch, my cohorts Mr. Downey and Dr. Fordham and I eat the buffets at the schools and soak in the memories of our college life of yesteryears. In prison protocol, staff members address each other with titles of mister or miss, or officer, so it becomes second nature to always address each other by our last names. I take the boulevard thoroughfare which connects both schools.

Minutes later, down some miles, east and away from the colleges onto a chuck hole road called Prison Row, I take a small hillside road upwards to the Tonopah prison parking lot.

The graveyard shift is getting off. Correctional officers are lighting up smokes, exiting the main gate. Being an early bird for my 8 hour shift has parking benefits.

I snuggled my old Escape under the Maple at the far end of the lot and breathed deep as if I were readying for some race. I placed my cell phone, not allowed inside the prison, under my car seat, grabbing my boxes of treats and coffee. The weather is cool. I leave my lunch packed by my wife Nora next to my cell.

I put Wanda’s note inside the pocket of my coat, a weathered Irish tweed I got in Donegal, Ireland, clipped on my name ID, then locked up.

For people in the free world, October is a good month. The leaves are hues of gold and red. A crisp breeze is about.