Chapter 3: The Job is Front Line

Inside the building, Officer Babcock, the correctional officer in charge of keeping the peace in our building, which mostly results in calling out inmates to talk to parole officers and mental health, perked up from behind a counter and warmly said, “Good morning, ladies.”

“Cleary,” he said to me in a curt tone, returning his eyes to his desk, “Call outs are going to be half-an-hour early today. Let your people know.” Calls out is the term for the request mental health, parole and medical make to summon an inmate to their office.

“Aye, aye, captain,” I said, with a twinge of sarcasm.

Babcock does his job well, but makes it known with his gruff tone, he thinks mental health is the step child in the institution and not part of the correction family. In part, I understand, given our salaries are very healthy compared to his. Babcock is a lifer in the system, once being a death row CO, he now is spending his last assignment in a less traumatic post.

Among the many hats I wear is to assess whether a man is a danger to himself or others, both when he is processed in and throughout his stay at Tonopah. If he is crying, has a despondent manner, or is hostile, or claims any signs of suicide he can be quickly confined to what is called the “hole.” There, he is stripped of his prison clothes, given a smock to wear and left until later evaluated for eligibility to be housed in the general population.

The job is as front-line as one gets. I am one of six mental health therapists. When asked what I do by outsiders, I say I am a prison counselor. All in all, the work is a good fit for me. Except for being called into the facility for emergencies, it is a Monday through Friday job. And I count my blessings that I was hired. By standards of counselor salaries, the job pays well.

Getting along with the men on my caseload, most repeat offenders, is as simple as giving them respect.

The job is a busy one. And there is no time to swat flies. If you don't have the ability to move fast and make quick judgments then the company I work for hands you your walking papers. In some states mental health prison counselors are state employees. But in my state, the job is contracted out to an out-of-state company in Virginia, who does the hiring and firing. The department of corrections is the overseer and ultimately has the final say in matters of the budget or any prurient behaviors presented by staff. Hiring is always occurring, because so is firing.

The smell of the morning coffee, some vanilla extract, was brewing in my wing. Mental health has two large rooms with a metal wall dividing one from the other. One area office is relegated to cubicle work space for Dr. Amman and the other psychiatrist, Dr.Yamum, and their nurse, Karla Whiting, a tall, slinky looking RN with Emmie Lou Harris gray hair falling onto her shoulders. She has consistently been advised to keep it tied in a bun. It is believed long hair, like high heeled shoes and dresses, is too arousing for men behind bars.

I detoured before taking a turn to my office area and peeked in to say hi to Dr. Amman. He is an early bird too. He sat at his desk sipping coffee out of a large ceramic mug with a big black cat on its face. A National Geographic magazine laid on the desk is opened to a colorful photo of a waterfall. Dr. Amman has a small streak of gray in a full head of hair, despite still working and nearing 80.

I knocked on the metal partition of his door. He lit up, “Peter.”

“Planning your next vacation, Dr. Amman?” I said, gesturing at the magazine,

Nurse Whiting slid into the room behind me and handed Dr. Amman a note. “Your first emergency,” she said.

The doctor looked at the message, nodded and said, unperturbed, “OK.”

“For you,” I said, handing my box of donuts to Nurse Whiting.

“You certainly know how to win friends, Peter. Or, is it influencing enemies?”

“Both.”

Since our staff shares a coffee room with parole, she reminds me of the last time donuts were brought in parole absconded with most of them. “I am going to write a no trespassing sign and stick it on the box today,” she said.

“Good idea.” She left with the box.

I took a seat in the chair across the desk from Dr. Amman, which is the only other piece of furniture in the small cubicle. A DSM V, which stands for Diagnostic Statistical Manual, the bible for mental health workers, is the only book on his desk. “Yes, my wife and I hope to do an AARP bus trip to Yellowstone. So many things to see in our country. Thanks for asking. Have you been?”

“Years ago when I was in college, a friend of mine and I went out there to get jobs. It was June and snow was still on the ground. I remember a bear attacked some campers when we were there.”

“Oh my. We better stay in the bus.” Chuckles.

“So did you get jobs?”

“No. It was more of a vacation than a job hunt I think. We were 19.”

Babcock announced over the PA, that callouts will be one-half an hour earlier this morning.

Dr. Amman looked at a copy of his callout sheet. All ten spaces are filled in. “This very busy job, Peter. But you are like me, I think, like to keep busy.”

“I do.”

Dr. Amman is from Syria. He has a slight accent, English being a second language. He has not told many people in the prison where he is from, preferring to say instead he is from Lebanon, where he went to medical school. In an earlier conversation he said he believed some people still discriminate against persons from Syria. He is a devout Christian and if asked, makes certain one knows that. He is also a devout anti communist and advocates a hard stance toward any radical middle eastern leaders.

For a moment we sat silently, then briefly chatted about the push by Buelly Knox and staff to curtail the prescribing of psychotropic medications. He has been working as a psychiatrist in the prison system for over 40 years. Recently he has scaled down his work load to three days a week. He showed me nurse Whiting’s note and asked me if I knew the name of the man on the message.

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Seems he is in a panic in Three House.”

“Well, I better let you get to it. Busy morning. Let me know about your bus trip plans.” I tapped the desk three times and said the best I can,ila-liqaa, which is the Arabic word foruntil we meet again.

Dr. Amman repeated the word.