Everyone Is a Suspect—Franklin's Bennies Installment 3

Chapter 7: Franklin

Babcock gave me the once over while he talked on his phone, as I called out loudly, “Mr. Franklin,” letting me know that he believes something is up between me and the man. I am paranoid and over reacting. I remember Wanda’s note is under my desk calendar. Franklin almost skips over to me, a gentle smile cast. I followed him into my cubicle which he is familiar with. 

He placed a frayed legal folder on the small table next to the client chair, unclipped his name tag and placed it carefully in his jacket upper pocket. “PO PO’s write you up if you lose this,” he said, sitting, scanning my office. 

He is back for a second visit in recent days and wanted to share something with me, other than just engaging in the typical counselor to client talk. Does he suspect that I have something for him?

“Gonna go there one day, if this ever ends,” he said, eyeballing the worn wall cloth image of The Great Wall of China which hung behind my desk. "You ever been?" 

"No.”

"That's just one of the pictures to get your patients talkin, right?"

"Actually, you are the only one who has ever said anything about it."

Chuckle. "Figures. Half the people in here can't read, much less know where China is? Heard they tryin to take us over.”

He stacked some loose papers on my desk atop one another, even though he knows it is against prison policy for an inmate to touch any property of prison staff. I realize it is his way of establishing familiarity with me. At a prison seminar put on by the correctional staff, we are warned about inmates trying to get too close to the staff by asking personal questions and seemingly being too inmate in conversation. “You should make me your trustee.” 

“That’s an idea.”

“Don’t guess no Buck Roger can stay in this camp though.” 

“Probably not,” I answer to his description of a man doing long prison time.

He stares at his shoes, then stuck up one foot. "They give us dog scraps for clothes in here. PO PO screamed at me in Receiving. Said I was taking too long to get a jacket and shoes.”  

“Look at these..” He groaned, sticking up the other foot. “Think they are tens. I wear elevens. My toes are almost sticking out. Slavery… man.”

I know he’ll get to the meat of the matter about what brought him here today. 

“Can't even get over to laundry to get a new issue without sending in some fuckin kite to the caseworker. Sorry,” he said. “Bout the cussin… not bout wantin shoes that fit.”

“Easy to be upset in this place.”

“I know. I know. Don't bitch, unless I am gonna do something about it. 

“And there’s so very little you can do much about in here, unless you plan to work on acceptance,” I say, throwing some counseling lingo.

“Yeah. I know Doc. You said that, acceptance and all.”

“Easy for me, right.”

He smiled. “Thought you was gonna get me some books to help me with my insanity."

I scooted the paperback entitled A Purpose Driven Life over to him from the corner of my desk. He flipped through the pages, then looked at the author's picture on the back cover. "White dude."

"He is."

"Guess that's alright."

"See what you think."

He carefully puts the book atop the folder. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"How come you don't write a book bout all this? 

"Something to think about, I guess. Can I use you as one of my characters?"

"Only if you put this face in it somewhere," he chuckled, taking off the stocking cap. "Nah. Don’t do it. Look. This place makin me bald." 

I smiled. "I know the feeling… Fits you well, though."

He bobbed his head several times."Seriously. Or are you just tryin make this poor brother feel better?"

"You have a distinctive look."

"So you saying I couldn't be mistaken for some other negro in a line up."

"I doubt it." 

"Cops don't care. Day already knows who day want fore some fuckin lineup… Sorry for the cussin."

He looked around my cubicle some more and fidgeted with the legal folder now in his lap. For the past two months since he'd begun his sentence he'd been coming in for visits, usually weekly. Soon he’ll be transferred to a maximum security prison. My job is only to get him ready, if possible, for his next residence, offering some counseling and groups which he can continue at his new camp.  

In our time together he’s told me he'd begun to feel comfortable with me. But the reality of it all, he said, was he didn't trust anyone. 

Chapter 8: So What About the Feds

We sat in silence for some moments. I scooted up in my chair, putting my elbow on the note under the calendar. "So what's on your mind?"  

He put the book atop of the legal folder, looked outward at another inmate being walked down the small corridor, followed by Ms.C.  "Last time I didn't tell you; Feds put a snitch in with me. Some little shaky negro who paces.”

I adjusted my readers, slightly down on the bridge of my nose. "Go on."

"My old cellie left; old white dude who talked to himself and stunk.He got transferred up. Probably to the chomo camp."

I nodded. 

"Don't get me wrong. I don't care about those convicts, like the young peckerwoods do. Always pressing them to give them this or that cause they sick. I figure we all the same in this place, whether you a chomo or not."

"So what about the Feds?" There is a queasy feeling in my stomach as I quickly associate Wanda’s note to the word, feds.  

"But now I got this young brother in with me. Been in my cell past five days."

I nodded and kept the dialogue going, knowing Babcock might call anytime to speed along the session. “Young brother. And."

"He comes in after the old dude left. Something not right about it. So right away I am suspect. And I am reading my book, the last one you gave, the second time, caus you ain't given me nothing new. And I'm up on my bunk. And this kid right away starts talkin, shit. How he got busted in the city, with this and that. And that some bitch turned him in. Talking real fast, like he's going somewhere, even pacing, grabbing his pony. I first think he needs to come down and talk to you, thinkin he's some bipolar. I know he's not comin off somethin caus he says he'e been locked up a while before they brought him down. Got no meds in county. Then he settles down, gets quiet. And he finally sleeps. And that's what he has been doing the past couple of days, until last night, when he starts up again. This time he begins nudging me about where I’m from. And asks me do I know this brother back home or that sister. Then he hits on some of my ladies, who I did the gigolo shuffle with, then I know he's a plant." 

"Gigolo shuffle?"

"You know, it's what I do."

I nodded. 

"You know. I give them what they need. And I get what I need." Smiles.

"I know what you are thinkin. It's the black man way. Live off the ladies. No wonder we's all here But…”

"Go on. The Feds… Young brother."

"Now Doc. You say it like that, make me paranoid that you are in on the set up." He stops, puts his stocking cap on and ruffles it.  

"Well paranoia might be the issue we need to talk about."

He took off his hat and laid atop his left knee. 

"So you are thinking this new cellie is a plant from the Feds. Right?"

Babcock rings. I let it go. After three jingles he stops.

From Franklin’s front coat pocket he took out prison issue glasses, put them on, then took out a sheet from his legal briefcase and pulled out one sheet, soiled from apparent handling. 

"It's like this, Doc. And I know you got hundreds of us convicts crying to you about how we didn't do it. Or, that we need more meds. Or, that the PO PO in here doesn't treat us right. But that's not my rhyme." 

"Go on. I am waiting." 

"This sheet Classification gave me says that I don't have an out date, until, 2040 "Mother fucker, that's years away. And all for this sales case. Not even a sales beef. Fuckin crazy. Prior and persistent, it says."

“Feds.” I said, pushing him back on track. 

"So, then last night this hyper little suspect tells me he's from the city and asks do I know this bunny, or have I been to that booty club. I let him go on, caus I know that the percentage of him being from the neighborhood, and knowing my people and being celled with me at this big camp is manufactured by somebody. That’s what I am thinkin. He keeps runnin his mouth bout how this Betty, who I just happen to know, set him up and that's why he is here. Then he jumps from talk of the city to OKC and then I know, someone been talkin to him. Caus just before I got busted to here, I was down at OKC."

“OKC?’

“Oklahoma City. From KC to OKC.”   

I nod to what I supposed is what those in the business of drug trafficking call highway 35 from Kansas City to OKC.”

"You see what I am sayin?" 

I wiped off a smudge on my spectacles. "I understand that the coincidence of it all makes you feel like this new cellie is, as you say, a plant."

Babcock rang again. I answered. “Almost done.” 

“Hurry up,” he gruffly answers. “Chow is approaching.”  

"Doc, now listen. I know you thinkin I'm a schizo and that I think that everyone's out to get me, but this is real shit. I been on the streets all my life. And I done some bad things. But I can read people good. And when this little youngster comes and starts askin me about OKC all of sudden. And I just come back from that oil crank place, that's too much for me to think some, what do you say, coincidence is happening; of all places in some 8 by 12 in this god- forsaken town. 

We sat for a moment in shared silence. He scratched his head, nodded to himself. “I know you say when you step inside the circle of crime, which leads to this place, that you livin a suspect life, then everyone becomes a suspect. I understand that." 

He re-straightened the pens on my desk and blankly stared at me, then down at the floor. 

"So,” I said. “What this seems to me to be about, or could be about, is simply that you have lived a life, all your life, a life of crime. And everyone who lives that life knows they are living that life. And while honor among thieves is a nice saying, it doesn't exist. Can't exist. Because you start out with a negative, breaking the law, which leads to ongoing fear. And that lends itself to anxiety and yes, lack of trust and often being paranoid." 

He stared into me, as if he absorbed my theory… "So you saying this little dude I am thinkin is a plant, that just my crazy criminal mind talkin?"

"That seems more logical." My response contradicted suspicions I have about my own thinking.

"But what I haven't told you, or even my people, is somethin else,” he said. 

Chapter 9: Askin Me bout OKC

Babcock called again telling me I have two more men to see. I told him to send the other two back and I will call them in the afternoon. “Don’t get too cozy Cleary,” he said.  

Franklin and I took in the chatter between the cubicles, which are not designed for confidentiality, but for safety, the plexiglass windows allowing anyone to see in. 

Across the four-foot hallway, catty corner to my cubicle, Dr. Fordam, who arrives later-to-work than the rest of us, sets up an anxiety hierarchy for his client about how to tackle simple fears. Mr. Downey listens to a young inmate, all of 18, talk about how the crime he committed, armed robbery, just, “got out of hand.” And Ms. C, Ms. Challice, whose rich tone for some reason can be heard over all of us, even though her cubicle is out of sight from my cubicle, is going over a homework assignment she’d given to an inmate in an anger management group.

Franklin listened with his eyes to the sounds. He sighed, readying himself to unload his troubles. "Ain't no privacy here. Mean Doc, listen out there, you can hear all them poor pity me stories of everyone.  

"I know,” he continued, “this is not the best place to talk about anything. It can get me in a jam with the PO PO in here. But I got to tell you somethin though. Cause, I come to like you. You don't seem to judge me. I mean you are different from the other cracker counselors I have had. At least you listen, not always talkin." 

He drew himself closer to me across the desk. Just as he does a white shirt CO peered inside my cubicle. Franklin leaned back in the chair. The CO, with sergeant stripes, stared down at us, a brimmed Stratton hat tilted some, then made his way down between the cubicles.

“Now Doc, don’t that, all want-to-be bad PO PO bother you? I mean… fuck… Sorry.”

“Let’s, let it go,” I said, fuming a little myself at the CO, who for whatever reason decided to do an affront on Franklin, as well as me. 

Franklin took off his stocking cap, scratched his head and placed the cap back on, this time pulling it down over his brow bridges. He shuffled some papers in his legal brief, restraightened pens on my desk and looked deep into me. 

“So the hazards of living here,” I said.

He said, almost tearfully, “You don’t know the half of it. I got no one to tell my story to, and today, tomorrow, soon I know, I‘m goin to be shipped out. And all before I got to tell you what I need to”

“Go on. Seems you have a lot you’re thinking about. Feds planting somebody in your cell, but something else.”

Babcock calls. “Getting close to chow.”  

Franklin sat back and flipped through the book, A Purpose Driven Life, still avoiding what it is he wants to get to. ”So, you think this book going to hep me.?”

“Just start reading it. And let me know… Hey, I wanted to ask you, how are your meds doing?”

“Makes me plugged up. I’ve been cheeking them. You’re not going to snitch on me..”

“You're supposed to take them.”

“That’s another thing I want you to fix. That little bitch in with me now makes me stressed. Don’t need no meds for voices. I told that ol foreign doctor that. I don’t hear no voices. I’m just stressed. And now with this little youngster in with me, askin me bout OKC, I am really getting tight. Just to clarify.” 

“Your sheet says you are taking Lexapro, and Risperdal. The Risperdal is for the voices, the Lexapro for any depression.”

“That’s what I mean. I seen those ol timers who have been on meds since they were young and are all shaky and hollow looking. I can’t afford to get that way, specially since they are sending me to that Nazi Camp down south. How am I suppose to do my time there with the cracker motherfuckers with Hitler tats scratched into their foreheads? How come you can’t get C and A, uh Classification to put me in JCCC, where a lot of brothers are?”

He looked out the plexiglas to Mr. Downey still listening to his client unwind about the armed robbery episode he was sentenced on. “That Doc over there, he’s cool too.”

“Mr. Downey. Yes. He is a good guy.”

“You and him listen to us. Not always jabbering on. Those ladies Docs talk too much, like school teachers.”

“They have their ways.” 

“See. You don’t want to say nothin bout them. But you know.”

“Back to the issues.”

Franklin moved up some toward the edge of my desk, still clinging to his legal folder. Just as he is about to get to his business, the sergeant makes his way back to my cubicle and stops. He gave another dagger stare through the window and motioned Franklin to sit back in his chair. “Sit back and sit up inmate,” he hollered. He looked at his watch as if to tell me to call it quits. 

Franklin sat up; his coconut complexion turned crimson. 

The officer walked out the mental health office, radio yoked to his belt, blaring. I hear him holler at another inmate sitting in the waiting area, that he’ll be written up if he doesn’t quit talking. 

“This isn’t your momma’s home, inmate,” he blasted out. 

Franklin stared at some papers on my desk. The toughest aspect of being a mental health counselor is the cowboy attitude of some of the correction officers. Most are respectful. But some of the old timers, as the inmate population calls any staff, who are older, have their own techniques, which are far from nurturing. 

“So, it’s rough being in here.” 

Franklin looked at the Kleenex box on the corner of my desk. I scoot it to him. He watches the young armed robber leave Mr. Downey’s. “Almost chow, Doc.” He gets up, tightly holding his legal folder, adjusts his stocking cap, takes a tissue and softly dabs his eyes, then drops the Kleenex into my trash can by the door.

I opened the door and tapped his backside. “I will call you out tomorrow. And just to be safe, you also put in a MSR once you get back to your house. We need to finish our conversation.”