Chapter 2: The Walk

Just inside the prison gates, parked in a small circle drive, two gray transport vehicles spew exhaust. Faces, mostly white, youthful, now disenfranchised from America stare outward from behind the wired bus windows toward the booking area. The men just arrived from their county where they had been sentenced and will soon be processed inside. Another chapter begins.

Inside the small lobby, I dropped my coffee cup in the large institutional trash can. The administration offices are off to the left. An inmate trustee, thin arms painted with tattoos, sprayed down plastic chairs where family and friends sit, awaiting to be processed into a visitor area.

Beyond, down the hallway there is a security check, which consists of a conveyor belt and a walk-through metal detector.

“Got your favorites, Officer Wells.” Pause. “Sorry about Maggie,” I said to the well-formed 50ish year-old woman, with a pinkish complexion and short cropped blond hair. I was sure she was grieving over her 25 year-old mare she had to put down.

I handed over one box of donuts from Wanda’s to her. She smiled, breaking her usual glower and set the box behind her on a small desk. “You're a sweetheart, Doc.”

“Don’t let her keep them all to herself, Doc,” a female voice called out from behind plexiglass in the office, dubbed the Bubble, just across from security. I smiled at the young officer over my shoulder, setting my car keys in a tray and the other box of donuts on a conveyor belt. “Doc Amman has already picked up the key to your place,” she said.

“Thanks.”

Through the metal detector, I nervously checked for the note from Wanda. Technically, I am violating protocol by bringing in mail from the outside that is to be given to an inmate. A pang of fear. I had visions of a squad of correctional officers in swat garb throwing me to the ground and pulling out Wanda’s note.

I picked up my car keys and the other donut box off the conveyor belt and headed toward the second security Bubble, yards away.

Two parole officers, Ms. Curley and Ms. Cawkins, wait their turn to be passed through. Both smiled back. “Nice day,” Ms. Cawkins said.

“It is.”

“Too nice to be stuck here all day,” Ms. Curley said.

Our IDs were held up in unison to the Bubble corrections officer, known as a CO. We waited until the metal door cranked itself open. All the metal doors throughout the prison grind and rattle as they open.

We stepped through to the other side to a short hallway which leads to the prison courtyard and the buildings and housing units. The door behind us clacked shut.

The concrete path which connects everything in the courtyard is called “The Walk.”

I followed Ms. Calkins and Ms. Curley who were dressed in blue jeans and low-heeled shoes. Wearing dresses and high-heels is against institutional rules, the common belief being such clothing is too provocative and enticing to the men.

An early lesson one has to learn when working in a prison is that they are paramilitary organizations. Rules are followed. In my five years as counselor I’ve seen nurses, carrying their small box of belongings, accompanied by correction officers, escorted to the gate of the prison for fraternizing with inmates, a mental health counselor escorted out due to losing her antidepressant medication and a plethora of other staff fired on the spot for insubordination. The process is called “a walk out”on The Walk. It wasn’t a policy started by Bulley Knox, but a protocol that is consistent with most prison systems.

The Walk forks outward toward all the eight housing units and other buildings. A prison in some ways can be described as a little city, complete with a library, a school, chow hall, chapel, hospital and more. Parole and mental health share a building.

Two trustees, in their blue jumpsuits sweep debris off the concrete. The men stopped talking as the women walked by. Both men nod.   “Gentlemen,” I said.

I checked for Wanda’s note again, half contemplating what I’ll do with it. Even though bringing in the note in the scheme of things seemed harmless, my better self said I’d gotten away with a small crime. For all anybody knows I’d found it on the ground on the way into the prison. I am far too jittery. But my paranoia, I’d come to understand, is somewhat normal. Most staff live a “walking on eggshells” existence for fear of being Walked Out.

My building, like all the buildings inside the yard, is a predesigned metal structure, commonly referred to as a Butler building. It is reasonably new. The downside is the AC system, which is too cold in winter and too hot in the summer.

Four House, a housing unit where some 200 men live, lies across the Walk directly in front of our building. Although it is early, I see faces staring out of the second floor. Tobacco in cells is prohibited in the institution, but a smoke ring bellows out of one window. From several other windows men stared down. Whistling at female staff was once something that staff had to contend with. But swift consequences (placing an inmate in the hole for abusive behaviors) made any such gesture long a thing of the past.

An inmate picking weeds just outside my building, hopped up and opened the door. Ms. Curly and Ms. Calkins said thank you.