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The Professor's Punishment Chapter 2
Our line of cuffed and shackled cons was soon halted at a barred door which was just in front of a steel door. The officer in charge talked into his little microphone. "New delivery."
I heard a rattling inside the steel. Then the thick door swung back and another officer appeared this one holding a key. He opened the barred door and we entered our new home--which would be our home for years...at least seven and a half years for me.On the other side of the doors was the cellblock. I saw a concrete deck running off into the distance between two walls. The wall on the right was concrete with barred windows about three feet wide going from about ten feet above the deck to almost the height of the top cells. These windows began about twenty feet from the corner and were evenly spaced along that wall with about ten feet between each tall window.
The wall on the right was concrete with barred windows marching along every thirty feet or so. The walls on the left was bars the bars of cages--floor after floor of bars rank after rank of cages stacked on top of each other. We were ordered to stop and the guards began removing our shackles uncuffing our wrists and removing the belly chains to which our cuffs were attached.
"All right drop your gear. Face the cells. Assume the position."
We knew what that meant without being told. Hands behind our backs. One hand grasping the opposite wrist. Feet shoulder length apart. The windows were now at our backs and we were staring at the cells 15 feet away. The space where we stood was open all the way from the concrete deck to the steel roof. I counted four tiers of cells. From the second to the fourth the walkway in front of them was steel meshed. No inmate was going to throw himself over. Or get thrown over. The officers who escorted us waited behind and two others arrived to stand in front. The head officer gave us a slight look of disdain. It was like I could see myself reflected in his face. What he saw was a scared white smudge of face trapped between a brown convict shirt and a brown convict cap. The same as every other smudge down the line.
"Another line of mud " he said. "Well by now you know the rules. You will acknowledge any instruction or order given to you by a correctional officer by stating Sir yes sir ' or rarely if appropriate Sir no sir.' Got it?"
"Sir yes sir " we chorused. We knew this stuff. It was automatic.A slight smile crossed the head officer's face but the smile was almost imperceptible and very fleeting.
"All right then listen up. I'm not gonna say it twice. Each of you fish is goin into a cell and that cell ain't empty. It's already got an older con inside. A con that's been here a while. He'll tell you what to do. If you don't do it he's responsible as well as you are. You'll both go to the hole."
"Sir yes sir " we muttered.
"When I say something to you cons I want to hear you back. The hole is big enough for all of you."
"SIR YES SIR."
"All right like I say I'm not gonna tell you again. Your infractions will accumulate and at the end of the work day you may be subject to corporal or other punishment. Any questions on standards expectations rules and whatever your new cellie can fill you in. He ain't got much else to do at night.
"With that greeting the head officer who had not even bothered to give us his name turned on his heel and walked into the distance of the cellblock where there must be another barred door that let him out of our zoo.But another corrections officer began. "Eyes on me cons!"
"SIR YES SIR!"
"At this point I'm gonna be issuing your cell assignments. Soon's you hear your assignment an officer will escort you to that cell and you can begin acclimating to life here in the hard labor block. "
I spaced out until I heard my number. "117213! Cell 423.
"I bent over assembled my set of state-issued possessions and turned to face the officer. I stayed in position because I remembered that an offender does not move until told to do so. "Pull up get your gear and follow me."
"SIR yes SIR."
I said half expecting a blow across my butt because I had not been told to talk. However I got away with my statement. Somehow I felt good at this small (perhaps miniscule would be a more accurate appraisal) good decision.He was a young officer and he had a sense of humor about older convicts. He looked me up and down. "Your room is on the fourth floor " he smirked. "How many keys would you like for your room sir? Zero or zero?"I knew this was not the kind of joke I should reply to.He pointed toward the steel staircase that twisted its way in eight flights up to the fourth tier. The steps were steep and narrow. By the time we got to the second tier I was huffing. "Boy "he laughed "you are gonna be one sore ass con on this hard labor block."
"SIR yes SIR " I replied as I tried to suck in more air. My soft university muscles were going to undergo a sudden transformation. I amused myself by thinking that I was already lifting my weight of 185 pounds up those eight flights of stairs plus all those pounds of standard issue uniforms and materials I kept banging against the steel walls of that staircase.A black number 4 stenciled in two-foot paint signaled the top of the stairs. "Right turn " the officer said. "Boy."
The right turn put me on the catwalk of tier number 4. It felt very much like a narrow tunnel if tunnels are ever built entirely of steel. On my left was the steel mesh at the edge of the catwalk the barrier between me and a leap or push onto the deck below. Forty feet is a long way down. On my right was a matching set of steel mesh welded over the old steel bars of the line of cells. No crazy con could get a knife or a pack of feces through that mesh and onto some passing officer. Behind the mesh I saw moving objects bulky but dim. I knew they were convicts. Over every individual sheet of mesh was a black stenciled number. 401 . . . 403 . . . 423. My new address. The officer fished a ring of keys from his pocket clicked through them briefly then inserted a large key in the lock. As he turned the key he yelled to the inside of the cell: "Fish entering 423."
The barred door swung out and the officer stood aside. "Inside convict."
Then I and my pile of earthly goods entered my home for possibly seven and a half years. At first I saw darkness darkness whose source was the naked light bulb prisoned in its steel cage on the ceiling shedding darkness outward from all the shelves and projections of the cell. Darkness and claustrophobia the smell of men who had lived in this little cage during the almost one hundred years in which it had punished men for their crimes.How big is this place? Six feet across I guess and maybe eight nine feet deep.
Steel walls painted green--either a dark green or a green darkened by years of use. The most distant thing I could see was a toilet-----a white porcelain toilet like you would see in a house a very old house. I could see no toilet seat. In the foreground on the right there was a tiny white sink attached to the wall. I guessed six or eight inches wide. On the left a set of steel bunks. The bottom bunk was neatly made.
The top had only a mattress if a two-inch piece of worn bedding could be called a mattress folded in half at the end closest to the bars. I knew I would be sleeping on top staring at the green steel ceiling three feet above my head. Finally reluctantly I concentrated on the most important item in the cell--my cell mate. Early twenties. The same age as some of my students in the pre-law class I taught every fourth year as a signal that I was not above teaching these neophytes who were subjects of disdain to some of my colleagues. I actually got all sorts of credit for teaching students whom I actually enjoyed. Suddenly I caught myself. I was thinking of a former life. That life no longer existed. Now my life was 117213 Cox two-time felon who had been convicted of trying to scam that man who no longer existed and had been caught in his con. This young man was now my superior.
It had been made clear to me that the experienced inmate into whose cell we had been assigned had the responsibility to acclimate and educate me into the life of the hard labor convict.What was the protocol? Did I speak first? Introduce myself? Offer a handshake? Or stand at attention at the entrance to the cell until the door was closed and noisily locked? Suddenly I felt a degree of discomfort I hadn't known since I was a new freshman in college and came into my dorm room to find that someone was already there. Someone who by virtue of being in the room had authority over me. Behind me the officer slammed the bars and locked them. Automatically I turned toward the sound. Through the mesh I saw his shadow marching away.
"Don't just stand there convict."
The young man was talking to me and I had to pay him respect. "Put your shit on the top bunk and stand at attention while I explain a few things to you."
I put my shit on the top bunk and turned to face him. "I'm the owner of this cell " he explained. "And you're a fish...which means that you're a piece of shit that I'm supposed to turn into a functioning member of what they call the hard labor unit. Now let's see your hands."
"My hands?"
"Fuck! You better get over that kinda shit right now. Gimme those hands!"
I showed this man my hands which he took and rubbed.
"You sure as hell haven't done any manual labor. What the fuck did you do?"
Remembering my biography from the sentencing hearing I had the reply. "Sir I was a manager and supervisor. In a warehouse sir."
"You call screws `Sir' numbnuts. You call me Boss."
"SIR...I mean Boss yes Boss."
"Well you are going to get those little hands of yours plenty dirty and earn some honest muscle in here."
"Yes Boss."
"Your responsibility in my cell is to keep the house clean and ready for the screw's inspection. You never know when so that means always. You can see how my bunk's made up. Both bunks will be made up that way every morning after the bell. You're permitted to use the sink and the shitter--AFTER I do. And then clean them. There will be no shit smudges or piss trails on the shitter and the sink will be as close to sparkling as possible for a one hundred old sink. You will keep the floors wiped. You will make sure our uniforms are hung straight on these two pegs. Mine are hung correctly now. That's the way it's going to be every night you're in here. My uniform ever falls on the floor I'm gonna fuck you over. Got it fish?"
"Got it boss."
"You'd better. See this shit?"
He pointed at two little squares of steel that looked like doors lying flat on the wall across from the bunks.
"That's a table and a seat. They're folded up right now. They get opened when I want them opened. They're my property. If I want you to occupy them I will let you know. Got it?"
"Yes boss."
I was dying to sit but I guess I couldn't. Not unless he told me to.
"I don't like noise. I like respect. You will speak when spoken to and otherwise you will keep your lip buttoned. When you speak whatever you say will end with Boss. If you got any questions you'll wait till I look at you nod at you notice your existence. Then you can get it out. Otherwise no."
Here the Boss looked me over and almost a beginning of a smile crossed his face. Then it vanished. Listening to my new boss I realized that my experiences at R&D would come in handy here and perhaps I should be thankful that I had already experienced a type of subjugation of one inmate by another and so knew that my survival depended on this kind of arrangement. The authorities accepted it as a way to allow some inmates to keep the other inmates in line and of no concern to the guards. It was a classic case of one hand washing the other. The tougher and more experienced offenders were given the services of an almost slave to make the horrible life of an offender in prison a bit less horrible. A man who is owned by the guards gets some of his self-image back by owning another inmate. I of course fulfilled the role of the bottom of the social structure of the prison. I was a sub prisoner to another prisoner. That was a function that would allow me to survive. I suppose that down in the inner part of my being I accepted this role. It was part of the fantasy life I had imagined for many years.As always of course the difference between fantasy and reality is that when you are done with your fantasy adventure in play or in your imagination the real personal life returns. It was always there waiting for you. But in Princeton there would be no relief.