Sentence Pending: My Time in Jail

By Mary Sharry
Sun contributor
Buzz. Click. A security guard whom I cannot see unlocks a steel door. He does this electronically. There is no clank of heavy keys against metal bars as you might hear in an old Western.
I hear the lock bolt slide through the channel into its housing. I pull the handle and enter the next passageway. A heavy “click” sounds behind me, and I weave through the cubicle-lined maze. An overwhelming sense of relief for my own freedom and pity for those confined rises in me as I walk past dark, solitary cells.

Every door and corridor is scrutinized on television security screens by guards at a main console. I think of air traffic controllers, but these are not radar screens. Nothing moves on these screens, the pictures are of dull, monotonous hallways. The locks for every door are controlled right here at that panel.
The disinfectant smell of Lysol hangs in the air. In a few weeks it will be a trigger mechanism for the county jail. Every time that heavy odor hits my senses, I will be carried back to this institution.
Click. Here are the visitation booths, four of them, side by side. They remind me of confessionals in a Catholic church, but here sinner and confessor are face to face through a partition of bulletproof glass. They communicate via telephone. The conversations I overhear, they are allowed 15 minutes on their phones, are mainly damnations of their particular situation, requests for money, and strategies for getting out early. Most of the visitors are women. I surmise they are probably girlfriends, not wives, and an occasional attorney — young, probably court appointed.
I have volunteered to be a reading tutor here at the jail. The coordinator of the literacy program was so eager for help that she called the day after my name was placed on the tutor availability list. I was told there was an inmate who had requested reading assistance.
Elaine, the white-haired coordinator, introduces me to some of the security staff who politely greet me. This first visit to the jail is merely to get acquainted with the building and my student. Elaine tells me she has been involved with the tutoring program here for more than a decade. She moves slowly and tells me she would like to find someone to carry on the program. She is arthritic and finds it increasingly difficult to leave her home to come down here to the jail. She reminds me that this is volunteer work. There is no pay.
We walk through the corridor maze to Room B — a small classroom. There is a long folding table, chalkboard and locked file cabinet to which I’ve been given a key. The cabinet contains teaching tools — dictionary, tape recorder, Scrabble game, and a variety of graded reading materials.
I am to meet Brian, my student, here. I’m not sure what my expectations are, but I’m not prepared for the slight 20-year-old who walks into the room. His stride doesn’t match his diminutive stature. Elaine introduces us in her warm, friendly voice. “Brian, this is Mary. I understand you’ve asked for a tutor to help you learn to read, and she has volunteered to help you.” He looks sideways at the wall as he extends his hand to my outstretched palm.
His soft hands seem delicate and remind me of hands I’ve seen in paintings by David and Ingres. Fragile blue veins lie under porcelain-like skin, the fingertips pink and tender. These are the hands of a fine artisan — perhaps one who holds a narrow-pointed sable brush and paints sweet-peas and curlicue vines on Haviland china teacups — not an angry felon.
I smile at Brian. His dark eyes search the empty wall. When we drop hands he rapidly shifts his weight from side to side. I need some words to break this tension and ask him what day is best for me to come to work with him.
“Any day,” he says. An uplifted twist slides from one corner of his mouth. “Hell. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
In a green, jail-issued top and trousers he stands before me, my same height. He’s a high-strung tension wire. He brushes his hand across his forehead at some wayward strands of black, oily looking hair. As if to quiet his body, he places his hands behind his back, rises on tip-toe and rocks back on his heels. I ask if Wednesday would be all right. He nods and says, “Fine. Just don’t bring no panic button.”
The panic button is literally what its name implies, a device to quickly summon a guard. I had been told that I could take a panic button with me if I wanted. Elaine had said that in all the years she has been involved with the tutoring program, none of her tutors have ever needed to use one to call security. She told me she carried one when she first started working here and one day accidentally hit the button. Two guards came immediately, she said. She felt embarrassed and had to explain what happened. She said she no longer carries it with her.
“You don’t want me to bring that with me.”
“BLEEP no! That stupid forensics guy carries one all the time. What a weenie! Just don’t bring it. Okay?”
“Hmmm-m-m,” I breathe out, audibly. “Okay, Brian. I’ll see you Wednesday.”
As we leave the facility, I tell Elaine that I’ll probably feel more comfortable with the panic button. She gives me a grandmotherly smile and acknowledges that she understands. During the next few days I wrestle with the thought of that device. I have mixed feelings.
I think of Brian’s request that I not carry the alarm; maybe he finds it intimidating. … All right, I tell myself. No harm can come to me with all those guards at that console. … But the room I will use with Brian has no hidden camera. What a strange request from an inmate, I think. If a man, a forensics specialist, feels a need for that precaution, why shouldn’t a 120-pound woman carry one? I imagine a horrible scene of my demise right there in the jail, but then I think of Brian, fairly frail-looking. … But his request troubles me. … Still, I don’t want to erode a feeling of trust. In order to achieve that effectiveness, I don’t want an element of doubt to prevail. … But, why did he specifically ask me not to bring it? I opt for the panic button.
Buzz. Click. On the day of my solo visit, probably because my thoughts are on small details — don’t lock my keys in the car, do leave my purse under the car seat, don’t forget a pencil, Room B, after the first corridor turn right, press the buzzer for the first door on the left, Room B, go to the bathroom before I check in with the security guards, don’t lock my keys in the car — I forget to ask for the panic button.
Now I’m alone in Room B and hear the buzzer and opening of the door to the hallway outside. I realize I’m alone without the alarm. My mind races through thoughts of hurrying back to the guards for the device, but I sense these are Brian’s footsteps I hear outside the door. How would I explain my need to return to the security center? Too late now!
“Hi Brian. Come in. Here, why don’t you sit here?”
I place my metal folding chair nearest the door and pull another one out on the other side of me for him.
He bends his elbow and raises his hand up against his shoulder, his palm flat out. “How!”
“How!” I smile. He sits down and jiggles one knee up and down, drums his fingertips on the table surface. His right hand sweeps hair off his forehead and the staccato drumming resumes.
Thin arms protrude from the sickly green jail uniform. The color makes the transparent flesh of his face appear sallow. I want to tell him that green is not a good color for him. I want to shatter the ice of this fragile encounter.
His breathing is shallow and I comment, “Sounds like you’ve been running.”
“Volleyball. I’m playin’ volleyball and the friggin’ guard says I got a tutor and I gotta come here.”
“I’m sorry I interrupted your game.”
“BLEEP, man. I don’t like no volleyball. You got a cigarette?”
“No,” I smile. “You can’t smoke in here anyway.”
“Just testin’,”
I am thankful there is no smoking at the jail because the sharp smell of cigarette smoke combined with the heavy odor of Lysol would be overpowering.
His knees bounce wildly and he slides his hands and elbows forward and collapses his head onto the table.
“Are you exhausted from your game?” I ask.
“BLEEP, man.” I’m always exhausted. “Can’t get no sleep in this friggin’ place. We sit up all night. Play Monopoly.”
“Who do you play Monopoly with?”
“My cell mate. BLEEP. He’s leavin’. I’m gonna get another one. BLEEP it, man.”
“You like Monopoly?”
“You bet.”
“What token do you like to use?”
“Whatdaya mean, token?”
“Doesn’t the Monopoly game have a little token? You know, a car, a dog, a little wheelbarrow or something you move around the board”
“Oh yeah! They won’t let us have none of those. We have to use plastic chips. You gotta cigarette?”
“Sorry. I’m here to help you with your reading.”
“Yeah.” He pushes himself back to a sitting position, rounds his back and drops his head forward. The shock of hair falls over his forehead and he mops it back. Now he turns and looks directly at me. I see one eye is slightly crossed and I wonder which eye to look into, which one really sees me. “You got books?” he asks.
“I’ve got a workbook here for you.” I slide it out from under my notebook and teacher’s manual along with a sharpened pencil.
“What’s that other one?” He points to my manual.
“That’s the teacher’s manual.”
“Oh. Okay Teach. So teach me. Naw, I’m not callin’ you that. You’re too pretty. Can I keep this pencil?”
“I think that’s okay. Do they let you have pencils here?” I think of the pointed, metal monopoly tokens which, I suppose, could be used as weapons.
“BLEEP. What do you think I write with? My finger? Duh?” He makes a motion of writing in the air with his finger.
“What do you write? Letters?”
“BLEEP, yes. I write so many letters. I’m up half the night. The guard hates that. BLEEP the guard. That bastard! That’s why I’m so tired. Got nothin’ else to do.”
He tells me of violent fights, heavy drinking, cocaine. He begs for a cigarette, dope, a drink. After my negative response his request becomes, “Got any gum or lifesavers?”
“You want me to bring you some gum next time?”
“They won’t let you give me anything like that,” he laughs. “Try it. Go ask them. See what they tell you. I’d sure like a cigarette.”
I lay a workbook in front of him. A page from my first French lesson of 40 years ago flashes in my mind.
J’entre dans la sale de classe.
Je regarde le professeur.
Here, I am ‘le professeur’.
My teacher’s manual tells me to say to the student, ‘read the title of your workbook.’ I say that to Brian.
He reads. “Skill Book 5. The new streamlined English series. Hey, tutor. I can read.” His shoulders shake with his derisive humor.
Okay, I think. Ignore it. “Look at the inside cover to find out what the book is about. You will recognize two of the words. The first word is ‘special’. Now read the title.”
He reads, smoothly, then asks, “Hey, you gotta cigarette?”
“Would you just like to talk for a while before getting into this workbook?”
“Yeah. Talk. Talk. Talk.”
He then tells me about his pending sentence, says he hopes he doesn’t get 10 years. “If I plead guilty, I might get four years instead of 10. So I plead guilty. What’s I to do? Plead guilty. BLEEP it, man. You gotta cigarette?”
“Does your sentence seem hopeless to you?”
“Hopeless. Yeah. BLEEP, man. I’ll probably die in prison. You ask me if I’m scared.”
“Are you scared?”
“BLEEP, man. I don’t wanna die in no prison.”
“You won’t.”
“I don’t want to, man. I got me a girlfriend and a baby.”
“You have a good reason to want to be out then.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna take care of them. See. I’m not gonna screw up like my old man. I’m gonna take care of them.”
“Would it help you to know you can get a job when you get out of here?”
“Sure I want a job. I got a baby, I told you, to take care of.”
“Would it help you to get a job if you could improve your reading?”
“Yeah. Let’s read.”
We begin again, but instead of reading charts with key words and letter sounds as the teacher’s manual suggests, we move to the story.
I ask if he wants me to read out loud along with him. Yes, he’d like that. I keep my voice low, just at a level that boosts his words along. He reads quite well, and I tell him so after we’ve read the story. He is able to answer questions about the story. When we finish the lesson there are some true and false questions to be answered in his workbook and a page titled ‘homework.’ He takes his pencil and crosses out the word ‘home’ and writes ‘jail’.
“BLEEP, man. This ain’t no home.”
“It’s your home away from home.”
“Yeah. Jail, sweet home.”
I laugh.
“You like that? I can’t wait to get outta this BLEEP hole. I ain’t never gonna get in no trouble. Man, I don’t wanna do life. All I gotta do’s control my temper.”
“Do you have a bad temper?”
“Ha! You never seen me get angry and you don’t want to.”
“Pretty bad, huh?”
“Yeah, man. BLEEP, man. Last time I got drunk I punched my old man. Man, he was too drunk to know what hit him, though. Couldn’t even remember it next day.”
“That’s no good.”
“You know why he pisses me off?”
I’m reluctant to continue this conversation because I’ve been told not to get involved with an inmate’s ordeals. An advisory letter on rules for service providers says if an inmate begins to share intimate details of his life, it can be part of a ‘set-up’ process. All the same, I want to find an avenue to provide whatever help I can, if it is part of his ticket from recidivism.
I look at my watch and suggest we have time to take a look at Lesson 2. As if I’ve said nothing, he continues his harangue.
“He pisses me off ‘cause he’s a BLEEP drunk. My mom died when I was five. Did I tell you that?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t ask me about it, ‘cause it pisses me off. It pissed me off then.” He pauses. “She had cancer. Actually, I’m glad she’s dead. She’s not hurting now.” Another pause. “What you want to do? You say, lesson 2. Why not?”
We go over the lesson. The story is about a man who runs a gas station. I ask him if he ever worked in one.
“No,” he says, “but my dad did.”
“Do you think you might like to work in one?”
“Maybe. I dunno.”
“Maybe you will someday. Why don’t you go ahead and read this story by yourself this week and do the true and false questions.”
He turns the page and again substitutes the word ‘jail’ for ‘home’.
I put on my jacket and tell him I’ll see him next week. We leave the room together and stand at the door in the hallway. I press the button and listen for the voice on the intercom, give my name and Brian’s, and wait for the guard to buzz open the lock. We pass through and make our way back to the security center.
A guard stands ready to escort Brian to his cell. I want to ask the guard a question about working with Brian on another day, but he raises his hands in the air, shows me his walkie-talkie, sternly shakes his head and self-importantly says, “Not now.” Is he dealing with an armed and dangerous criminal?
I watch Brian. He seems docile as he is escorted to his cell like a puppy to a kennel. I call out, “I’ll see you.”
The security men at the desk lift their heads and look at me. Even though I give them my firmest smile, there are no returned gestures. I suppose that was a security breach, too — calling out to an inmate. I decide I’m not very good at this business.
Over the next few weeks I learn that Brian likes National Geographic magazines, so I begin to bring him some. I also discover he writes poetry and keeps a journal. He shows me some of his poetry. Not great writing, but maybe no worse than some of my own. At least he writes.
I give him a book of Robert Service’s poems and he seems taken with some of these Yukon rhymes. He particularly likes “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” He makes requests for more poetry. I provide Longfellow and John Masefield. I read “Lone Dog” to him. He loves it, and reads it back with real gusto.
“I’m a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog and lone;
I’m a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own:”
He enjoys some short stories I bring. One day he asks for a copy of A Tale of Two Cities. I tell him that’s a pretty long book. “I can handle it,” he says. I’m certain he can.
We read a great deal together during our one-hour sessions. He appears calmer than when I first met him. Perhaps he’s had a change of medication; perhaps he’s more settled into a routine. Sometimes we do word circle puzzles. We each take one to see who can finish first. He beats met, hands down. I doubt that he really had much of a reading difficulty. The issue of self-esteem or just plain boredom comes to my mind.
He tells me he completed the tenth grade in school. I ask if he’s interested in taking a GED test. He definitely would like to do that, but is afraid he’ll flunk, he says.
“Why?” I ask.
“’cuase I’m no good at math.”
“Can you add?”
“Yeah. I can add real good.” I write some addition problems on a sheet of paper. Before I can slide the paper in front of him his hand reaches over and he begins to fill in the correct answers.
“That’s good,” I say. “How about subtracting?” He looks quizzically at me. “Take aways. Can you do take away problems?”
“I guess so,” he says. I put some subtraction problems on the paper and he begins, but starts the problem from the left column instead of the right. He seems to know about borrowing, but obviously gets an incorrect answer because of his approach. After I explain the columns and where to begin subtracting, he catches on and writes the answers. He says he guesses he didn’t know how to do those.
“Maybe no one ever showed you.”
“Yeah. I don’t remember ever doing that before.”
He seems pleased when I tell him that I’ll see what can be done to get him enrolled in a GED program, which I know the jail can make available.
The judicial wheels grind slowly. At the time of this experience, Brian was awaiting sentencing. After his sentence was handed down, he probably was transferred to a state prison. He suspected that.
I would just like to think I might have helped one person by introducing him to a more positive side of his own nature. That was all I could do.
I’ll remember Brian. The sights, sounds, and smells of the jail will haunt me now and then. For a time afterward, I’d hear a voice in my head say, “BLEEP, man.” Not my kind of language, but it struck a chord and made me smile.
Buzz. Click.