Running The Books : The Adventures Of An Accidental Prison Librarian Part 20

After the conversation in the library had ended-or rather, after I had dispersed it-Jessica quietly approached the corner where I was shelving books. I could tell she had something to say. I figured it concerned the situation with her son. In a way, perhaps it did.

"I've been doing some thinking," she said. "You do have a girlfriend, don't you?"

"Yes," I said.

I was open because I knew and trusted her.

"You serious with her?"

"I am."

"So why don't you get married?" she asked.

I laid out my highly speculative cultural criticism. She cut me off somewhere during the Oprah oration.

"Awright," she said. "But at some point, when push comes to shove, remember what I'm telling you now: it matters." it matters."

I shrugged. "I don't know-"

"That's right," she said. "You don't know. You got no idea what it's like to lose everything that matters to you, okay. I do. That's why I'm telling you."

I wasn't going to argue.

"I'm telling you this 'cause I know you listen. You take everything so serious. Too serious. I know. I can tell. So take this serious. And listen to what I'm telling you: it matters it matters. Take a vow and mean it. Don't listen to those stupid b.i.t.c.hes in my unit. Put it down on paper, sign that dotted line. Say it in front of your family and G.o.d-"

"I get the point," I said.

"I'm serious, Avi," she said. "Look at me, in my prison PJs. Why should you listen to me, right? It's true. I don't know nothing worth knowing-but that."

A few months later she was dead, the letter and drawing for her son ripped up and discarded. She had nothing left to say, and left no words of counsel, except those two: it matters it matters. It had been the single piece of advice for which Jessica broke her silence. Perhaps she wanted urgently to convey this message to me because she knew she'd never deliver it, or anything, to her own son. Perhaps I was the only person available to receive her single sc.r.a.p of wisdom.

But what had she meant by it matters it matters. What matters? Why does it matter? I hadn't asked. Frankly, I hadn't wanted to know.

After Kayla's emotional outpouring the night of the mugging-the question of our relationship weighing heavily in the background-I couldn't fall asleep. Why had I thought it was a good idea to call her late at night, while she was alone hundreds of miles away, to tell her my "hilarious" story?

Male pride. Couldn't admit that I'd felt scared, that I'd just been in very real danger. I couldn't even admit it to myself. It took her sincere, emotional reaction to shake me into seeing, into feeling, what had actually just happened. I'd just encountered an armed, possibly intoxicated man. A knife-wielding ex-con with the upper hand and a motive to attack. It was not hard to imagine that this man might want to take revenge against a card-carrying agent of his imprisonment. I could have been hurt or killed. I'd decided to jump ahead, to use humor to deflect this discomfiting experience, to ignore the fact that my decision to work in prison had possibly just put my life in danger. My life life.

Lying in bed, wide awake, I could see it. The mugger's knife. I could feel it. The chill of steel against my skin. The knife was inanimate, but the force behind it, the pressure of it, was not. That was alive. A human will, not my own, an outside agent whose motives were unknown to me. A stranger who could make the most important decision of my life. In that knife, I was given a hint of something more than fear. The sorrow of loss: for everything that my life could be, for me and for those who loved me, but wouldn't, if this man, by some inscrutable calculus, made that decision.

This was what Jessica had meant by it matters it matters. There are things we don't control, decisions that are not ours to make-sometimes even the most important ones. For those we do control, Jessica had advice. Sign the dotted line Sign the dotted line, she'd said, put it down on paper, take a vow, say it put it down on paper, take a vow, say it. She wasn't evaluating the theory of modern marriage but was speaking to something primal. The need to protect one's most fragile possession, to put love into words, to commit those words to paper, to read them aloud, to store them for safekeeping.

This was something even a man with a knife could not take away-what Jessica herself, facing death, had tried but failed to accomplish for her son. As she had said to me, "You don't know, but I do." Life had imparted to her the knowledge of the knife. She'd tried to pa.s.s it on to me, but it took seeing the knife for myself to understand why it matters it matters.

There had been something emotionally lacking in my attempt to spin the story to Kayla as a mere comedy. The more honest moment came in my impulse to call her. Instinctively I knew whom to call, even if I was confused about what needed to be said. But she was not. She wasn't afraid to bare her most vulnerable emotions. That was why I loved her, why I'd picked up the phone and dialed her number.

I turned on the reading light next to my bed. On a piece of paper I scribbled, Listen to Jessica Listen to Jessica, folded it up and stashed it in a book. Only then was I able to fall asleep.

Don't Know What I wasn't able to say goodbye to Chudney in person. This was how it often went in prison: people seemed to appear and disappear at random. An inmate might think he was being discharged in a week or a month, only to get a knock on his cell at 5 a.m. and be told to pack it up immediately. Comings and goings happened at the whim of faceless, external forces. And it was usually in the interests of those forces to keep inmates, and nonessentials, in the dark.

Perhaps in antic.i.p.ation of a sudden departure, Chudney wrote a note, which was delivered by his cellmate to the library. It was typed and formatted as a formal business letter.

Dear Avi,Next time I write I WILL have good news. Don't know what it's gonna be but it's gonna be GOOD. I'm gonna start working construction or something soon and get in my applications. I got my plan. Pray for me. Just wanted to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!! Here is a recipe. Don't steal it or I WILL find you.He signed it:Chudney Franklin 2006 I waited for word from Chudney. It arrived one late-winter day. I was working with the library detail, entering books into our handy new database. Forest had just ordered Pitts to shelve books in the Gay section, as punishment for calling him "chunky" and for advising him, loudly and in front of a dozen inmates, to "get on that treadmill, man, get on it immediately." immediately." The inmates and I were all very pleased with Forest's creative punishment-and in an odd way, it helped the inmate librarians warm up to the newly inaugurated Gay/Lesbian section. The inmates and I were all very pleased with Forest's creative punishment-and in an odd way, it helped the inmate librarians warm up to the newly inaugurated Gay/Lesbian section.

When we announced the addition, they'd argued that it diminished the credibility of the library; though really, they felt it compromised their status among their fellow inmates.

"What are you trying to do to me, man?" Odum had pleaded during his brief stint on the library detail-Odum was let go after a few days when it was determined that not only was he incorrigibly lazy but he also didn't maintain a reliable grasp of the alphabet.

Everyone was having a good time heckling Pitts as he gingerly handled the gay books, mournfully reciting t.i.tles like, Mondo h.o.m.o: Your Essential Guide to Queer Pop Culture Mondo h.o.m.o: Your Essential Guide to Queer Pop Culture and and Talking c.o.c.k Talking c.o.c.k while Fat Kat entered them into the database. Everyone, myself included, was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. while Fat Kat entered them into the database. Everyone, myself included, was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.

Dice appeared from the back room and tapped me on the shoulder.

"I've been meaning to tell you," he whispered, "your friend from 3-1, the guy with all of the school applications-he got shot."

I was in the midst of laughing at Pitts and in the lightness of the moment, Dice's words didn't register.

"What?" I said, still smiling.

He repeated himself.

Officially Gay, I heard Pitts recite. The inmates burst out into a fresh peal of laughter.

Now the words settled into my mind. He got shot. Chudney was shot He got shot. Chudney was shot.

"I heard you the first time," I said.

"I'm sorry, Avi. That's some f.u.c.ked-up s.h.i.t, man. I know."

"Is he dead?"

"Yeah."

Queer Theory: An Introduction, Pitts bellowed, to more catcalls. "What the f.u.c.k-they got theories theories now?" now?"

I became suddenly exasperated at the inmates' loud, crude laughter. I told Pitts that he was done, and retreated into my office.

CHAPTER 4

Delivered

There are various reasons to cry in prison.

Crying as initiation rite. Dice claimed that any inmate who tells you he didn't cry when he first came to prison is a liar. As he said this, the three inmates standing around us nodded. One of them confessed he was so stressed his first day in prison he could hardly breathe. When he heard the door of the cell bolt shut for the night, he panicked and began pacing, beating on the door and shouting.

"It's hard to explain it," he said. "It's not like I wanted out. I just wanted the door unlocked. Just knowing that the door was locked made me freak out. I'd never been locked in." His cellmate was an old guy who took pity on him. "He just said to me, 'Get into bed, son. Let yourself cry. There ain't no shame in that. Just do it, and then you'll be done with it.' And so that's what I did."

Thus he joined the club.

Bored to tears. A woman inmate told me this can literally happen.

Crying as a nightly sleep aid. "You can ignore s.h.i.t during the day," a woman inmate told me, "you can just go about your business, pretend this is normal. But in bed at night, you do a lot of thinking." The only way to stop the thoughts and fall asleep is to give in and cry. She laughed and said that she'd developed the same habit as her baby daughter. "I can't fall asleep without crying first."

Crying to mark a season. "I cry every Christmas, Easter, birthdays, you name it," Jessica had once said. She thought she would cry on these days even when she got out. "This place gets you pretty well-trained."

Crying on cue. Prison life is full of Oscar-worthy moments. Some inmates become proficient at crying miserably at will, a skill they employ at various crucial moments: in court, in caseworkers' offices, to officers, to the parole board, to the prison librarian. A prison teacher who got fooled by one of these actors came to the library just to tell me the story. "I've been doing this for a long time now," she'd said, "I'm pretty hard to fool. This guy was good." good."

And just what is a good fake cry? The teacher explained: a professional sobber will: 1. generate real tears, not simply bury his face and begin heaving 2. not overdo it by moaning and wailing and the like 3. not just begin sobbing but rather "try to hold it in," until, finally, he is simply overcome. This the Academy loves.

In defense of crying on cue, Martha the gossip explained that she legitimately cried all the time, but no one was there to see it. So when she fake cried, she was just showing a person something they weren't around to see for real. Her tears were a replica, not counterfeit.

"And once I get going," she said, "I feel it for real."

"But," I asked, "you are crying in order to get something from someone, right?"

"Well, yeah," she conceded.

Crying when it rains. "Just seems like the thing to do," a suggestible woman inmate told me.

Crying in your office. After Dice informed me of Chudney's death, I sat down at my desk and composed an email to my former obituary editor at the Boston Globe Boston Globe. For some reason, this had been my first reaction.

"I have an interesting, slightly unusual candidate for an obit," it began. I saved the email in my Draft folder.

Later, during my dinner break, I called the editor to make the pitch. He didn't respond immediately. I heard some typing. Then I heard him mutter, "yeah, hmm." He politely declined the obit.

"Looks like we already ran a piece on this story," he said.

He read the headline. Yes, he said, he remembered this article: local man shot, some vague details, a five-year-old boy left without a father, police investigating. I had read it, too.

Forced to make some small talk, the editor paused.

"How's, um, prison," he asked with a touch of irony.

"Fine," I said, suddenly regretting that I had made this call.

"See any crazy crazy prison stuff?" prison stuff?"

But before I could answer, he excused himself to take an urgent call. I was relieved to say goodbye.

After I hung up the phone, I Googled Chudney. There were exactly two hits. Twins, as it turned out: a notice of the murder on the Boston Police Department's website and the Globe Globe article. article. We already ran a piece on this story We already ran a piece on this story, the editor had said. I focused on that phrase-this story. What, after all, was this story this story, the story of Chudney? To a coldly pragmatic newspaper editor, the answer was clear. The story Globe Globe readers needed to read was the story of this person's murder, not of his life. Perhaps it was the correct editorial decision. readers needed to read was the story of this person's murder, not of his life. Perhaps it was the correct editorial decision.

In writing obituaries for the Globe Globe I always tried to include the subject's voice. I would try to read something he or she wrote-a letter, novel, essay, book, poem-and quote it in the story. For some reason, a recently deceased person's voice takes on strange properties. His words are finite and instantly more valuable. Sometimes they take on completely new meanings. This was certainly true of Chudney's last kite to me: I always tried to include the subject's voice. I would try to read something he or she wrote-a letter, novel, essay, book, poem-and quote it in the story. For some reason, a recently deceased person's voice takes on strange properties. His words are finite and instantly more valuable. Sometimes they take on completely new meanings. This was certainly true of Chudney's last kite to me: Next time I write I WILL have good news. Don't know what it's gonna be but it's gonna be GOOD Next time I write I WILL have good news. Don't know what it's gonna be but it's gonna be GOOD.

I looked at the doleful Google search page: two hits, one story. This story This story, the story of the murder, would be his story. That's it. There would be nothing else.

I got up and did something I hated to do. I locked the library. I did it instinctively, perhaps as a protest, a small labor strike. And then I continued shutting things down. In my office, I turned off the light. Locked my door. Exited the Google search page. Turned off the glaring monitor. Then I closed my eyes and was initiated into an ancient club: those who cry alone in the darkness of prison.

Stories on Walls I walked into the prison Friday morning for the early shift with a copy of Newjack Newjack by Ted Conover tucked under my arm. The moment I'd discovered it in a used book store, I knew it had a place in the library. In the book, Conover, a journalist, tells the story of his year working as an officer in Sing Sing. As I walked through the sallyport, the long hallway, and the yard, I got all kinds of reactions to the book from pa.s.sing officers. Some smiled, some gave me a wink or a thumbs up. More than one asked to borrow it. A few officers gave me dirty looks-though these particular guys always gave me dirty looks, so I didn't read anything into it. by Ted Conover tucked under my arm. The moment I'd discovered it in a used book store, I knew it had a place in the library. In the book, Conover, a journalist, tells the story of his year working as an officer in Sing Sing. As I walked through the sallyport, the long hallway, and the yard, I got all kinds of reactions to the book from pa.s.sing officers. Some smiled, some gave me a wink or a thumbs up. More than one asked to borrow it. A few officers gave me dirty looks-though these particular guys always gave me dirty looks, so I didn't read anything into it.

When I caught a member of the Angry Seven looking at the book as I paused to unlock the library I seized the moment to reach out and resolve our lingering hostilities.

"It's the story of a year in the life of a CO in Sing Sing," I said. "It's supposed to be pretty good. Want to read it? I'll lend it to you, if you want."

He looked at me in disgust.

"Why the h.e.l.l would I want to read about that?" that?" he said. he said.

As I walked into the dark library and flipped the light switch, letting loose a wave of fluorescence, I considered his point. Why the h.e.l.l would an officer want to read about those things he knew so well? All too well. The stuff that had vexed him day in and day out for the last twenty years? Getting feces thrown at you, being cursed out, twisting your ankle and not getting enough time off to recover, not being able to afford living in the city in which you're a public servant. This was the last story he wanted to hear.

But I suspected that many officers were interested in the book for precisely that reason. For them, telling their story was essential. For many officers in South Bay, Sgt. Richard "Ricky" Dever, a colleague of theirs, was the hero of that story.

One night in late March, Dever had intervened in a bar fight. It was shortly after midnight at Sullivan's Pub in Charlestown. A drunk, abusive man named Francis X. "Kicka" Lang, recently released from prison, was making a big scene and hara.s.sing a bartender, a friend of Dever's. Lang was told to leave. Dever, trained to deal with violent a.s.sholes, gave the man an ultimatum, then escorted him to the door. Outside, Lang became enraged. Soon they were scuffling. Lang pulled out a knife and slashed Ricky's face. Then stabbed him repeatedly. Then bolted. Ricky staggered back into the bar. He was taken to Ma.s.s General. Shortly after 1 a.m., he was dead. The next day, police found Lang hiding in a bas.e.m.e.nt crawls.p.a.ce.

When I learned about Ricky's murder, I immediately thought of my own encounter with a knife-wielding ex-con. The officers, too, had their own personal take on it.

A veteran officer summarized it to me thus. "Ricky was a CO; the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who killed him was a con. Far as I'm concerned, it don't matter if neither of them was wearing their uniform. That's what it was: a good guy officer versus a s.h.i.tbag."

Their confrontation could very well have been the resolution of an old prison beef. But it made no difference if it was or not. To them, Dever was the good cop, doing the right thing; Lang was a worthless con, a coward who would savagely kill another human being over the pettiest issue. Ricky had principles, Lang did not. There was no disputing that.

For a group of soldiers doing a dangerous, underpaid job-a line of work so routinely disparaged in society that some officers tell strangers that they "work for the city" or the state-this murder carried a great deal of meaning. The experience of victimhood cut to the core of their professional ident.i.ties. They do right, toil and suffer, only to get s.h.i.t on by society. It was unjust.

After Kicka Lang was handed his life sentence without parole, the harshest sentence in the state, a courtroom packed to capacity with Dever's family, friends, and hundreds of fellow officers erupted in cheers and applause. Given a chance to speak, a bespectacled Lang smiled broadly and was quoted as saying, "What I got is still better than what Ricky got." These remarkably inflammatory comments, unusual even for a murderer-and possibly indicative of clinical psychosis-made blaring front page headlines in the Boston Herald: Boston Herald: Twisted Killer Taunts Victim's Family in Court. Twisted Killer Taunts Victim's Family in Court.

As one enraged officer put it to me, "It was like a perfect ad for the death penalty. I mean this guy is Satan, for crissakes. No kidding. It sent shivers down my spine."

The Herald Herald article featured a photograph of an off-duty prison officer jumping out of his courtroom seat, pumping his fist in celebration of the life sentence. But, even amid the feeling of vindication, none of the officers forgot what the murderer's statement had implied. article featured a photograph of an off-duty prison officer jumping out of his courtroom seat, pumping his fist in celebration of the life sentence. But, even amid the feeling of vindication, none of the officers forgot what the murderer's statement had implied.

"What I got is still better than what Ricky got"-in other words, that life in prison is better than death. Some officers took this comment as something of a challenge.

An officer in the prison cafeteria told me that if Lang was under the impression that he had a fate better than death, he'd find out the truth soon enough: "The COs over there will give him what he f.u.c.kin' deserves. You can be sure of that," he told me, as we waited in line. "And I know guys in here who wish they could help out with that themselves."

The prison organized a giant memorial for Dever. It was held in the inmate visiting area, which doubled as an auditorium. The same s.p.a.ce where, months earlier, the entire prison staff had been warned against behaving like Miller, the teacher who'd aided an inmate in disposing of a weapon-the meeting in which we were told to honor the two names on our ID cards: ours and the sheriff's.

Dever's prison memorial was a dizzying array of lapel pins. The visiting area was filled with people from all strata of local politics. City pols in fire-sale suits, state officials wearing imports. Full refreshments, fruit platters, veggies with ranch dressing, cheap diced cheese, cookies, brownies, coffee. The honor guard was present. Union heads, representatives of city and state cop outfits. Prison guards in dress uniforms. You could identify the members of Dever's family by the grim expressions of the people speaking to them.

I thought of Chudney's memorial. It had taken place months earlier during a poetry reading I'd held in the library. These open-mic-style events were often used by inmates as an improvisational platform to memorialize various people, friends and relatives, whose funerals they were unable to attend. Dumayne had stood up and offered a tearful eulogy for Chudney, his friend from childhood. "We all know you had big dreams, brother," he'd said. "We all know you wasn't able to finish your work here. There was stuff you wasn't able to accomplish in this world. Big cuz, I know you in heaven. I know you hear me when I say: I promise to be a better man because of the example you gave me. I promise to use my gift of life to finish some of your work. And I'm gonna take these words," he concluded, shakily holding up the paper from which he read, "and I'm gonna tape them to my wall, so I don't never forget." He ended by reading a poem Chudney had liked, something we'd read in cla.s.s. thought of Chudney's memorial. It had taken place months earlier during a poetry reading I'd held in the library. These open-mic-style events were often used by inmates as an improvisational platform to memorialize various people, friends and relatives, whose funerals they were unable to attend. Dumayne had stood up and offered a tearful eulogy for Chudney, his friend from childhood. "We all know you had big dreams, brother," he'd said. "We all know you wasn't able to finish your work here. There was stuff you wasn't able to accomplish in this world. Big cuz, I know you in heaven. I know you hear me when I say: I promise to be a better man because of the example you gave me. I promise to use my gift of life to finish some of your work. And I'm gonna take these words," he concluded, shakily holding up the paper from which he read, "and I'm gonna tape them to my wall, so I don't never forget." He ended by reading a poem Chudney had liked, something we'd read in cla.s.s.

Speaking at the official prison dais, an officer told the story of how Dever was the only person in the prison infirmary, which had been his post, who'd been able to calm a certain terrified inmate. He'd established a rapport with her; she'd trusted only him. And he gained her faith, said the officer, "by speaking to her as a person, human heart to human heart."

All around the visiting area, fellow officers were nodding their heads. This was a rare opportunity to be known and understood on their own terms. The telling of this story was made a permanent prison fixture, nailed directly onto the inst.i.tution's walls: the sign outside of the infirmary would now read, This Place of Medical Care and Healing is Dedicated to the Memory of Sergeant Richard T. Dever. This would be followed by a quotation from Andrew Jackson: "One man with courage makes a majority."