Professors Practicum

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CHAPTER 18

I spent a lot of time cleaning the tower of stainless steel. I thought to myself that stainless steel was a misnomer. This tower of steel was definitely stained.

I began with the sink portion, because the toilet was really gross. I sprayed the cleaner on and rubbed and rubbed. After several sessions of spray, rub, wash, and repeat, finally the stainless steel of the sink really shone.

I felt some real personal satisfaction at my achievement. Also as I worked I did not have to think about my body wrapped in those crude, demeaning, black and white stripes. I seemed to feel the stiffness of the material that encased me began to yield a bit. I do not know if it was my sweat, or the fact that as I rubbed the sink, and as I moved up and down getting the spray and picking up the rag and the other materials I was using, all that movement made each successive trip less of a battle between me and my zebra stripes.

I caught myself humming. I was proud of my work. I smiled at myself. I was person who had always looked at those doing menial tasks as beneath me, as people who I knew could not appreciate how I felt as I lectured my students, as I worked on committees and commissions doing what I could to ameliorate the lives of those less fortunate than myself. I had the achievement of brains; they had only the satisfaction of brawn. As I looked with real pride at the shiny sink, I had to admit that my good feeling about something that I had physically transformed was very satisfying. I could see, touch, and use my achievement.

"Shit, you are a pompous ass!" I actually said out loud. I smiled and thought that one result of my six months in this hell was that I would become more of a real person and less of a snob. I would know to appreciate the work and the service of others who had so regularly made my life easy. I had left money for a lady who had cleaned my house. I had paid a service to keep my lawn up in the summer. I had paid a company to clear my driveway and sidewalks of any late fall snow and ice. I smiled at my clean and shiny sink, and thought about what a better person I was changing into.

With nothing else to do, and certainly with a different attitude, I looked at the sides of the tower. They also were stained and dull. They certainly were not caked with piss and shit as the toilet bowl was, and to a lesser extent the sink, but shiny the sides were not. I immediately got to work.

As I was smiling and working away, I heard a latch on the door of my cell being manipulated, and I turned and automatically sat on the floor so I could take advantage of the probably momentary chance to see outside the concrete box that contained me. The little shutter on the door opened up.

"Sound off!" I heard.

"SIR, COX 117213 SIR," I said loudly, almost shouting.

The shutter folded down and made a shelf on the outside. A styrofoam tray slid onto it. On that tray was a rainbow of colors. Why had I never appreciated the beauty of food before? Boy, was I a self-centered shit, I thought to myself.

There was something white and something red on top of the white. In one corner was something kind of green, and in another corner a dab of brown. In a little niche there was a paper cup with some liquid in it.

"You are allowed to keep the cup. The tray is to be placed on the shelf in ten minutes."

I thought to myself, how was I to know when ten minutes were up? Never mind.

"BOSS YES BOSS!" I responded in my best approximation-of-convict military-like response.

"Shit, Harry," I heard. "We got a little buttlicker here."

The statement was made in a humorous and friendly manner.

I picked up my tray, moved it to my magnificent sink, then decided I would put it on the concrete shelf that was my bed, and sit on the floor. There was a thin plastic spoon on the side of the tray, and it went to work on the white and red concoction. To my amazement I found that there was a hotdog split in two beneath the mashed potatoes and under the tomato sauce. The green was overcooked green beans, and the brown dab was supposedly apple sauce. I went at the meal with real relish. As I gobbled down my food I laughed at myself. Just a few weeks ago if someone would have offered me this meal I would have had trouble being polite in my refusal to eat crap like this. Now crap like this was a treat of textures and flavor, as opposed to the bland pap I had been allowed to eat at R&D.

"I'm being fattened up for the kill," I thought, and laughed about it.

I had no sense of time, so I made sure I was done with my meal before the bell rang, and I placed my tray back on the shelf. I wondered if I could keep the spoon, and then I remembered I was allowed to keep the cup. I reasoned that if I were allowed to also keep the spoon, it too would have been specifically mentioned. I kept my precious cup and placed it on my concrete bed shelf. The tray disappeared and the shutter slammed shut. I returned to my cleaning task.

I looked at the sink and the sides. Both now shone, I thought to myself with pride. Now I faced the real challenge, the toilet. I weakly started with the seat. It was just the top of the bowl; there was no separate seat to put up and down.

I went at this seat with gusto. I had a task, and I had a purpose. This was so much better than sitting at the back of the cell and just awaiting some order.

After a while . . . and time really had no more meaning to me . . . with no clocks and with no outside reference with which to judge time, the period of cleaning might have been five minutes, or twenty-five . . . the seat also gleamed in the light of the fluorescent bulbs that always seemed to be on.

I sat on the toilet and reached down. There had to be something you did to flush the thing. I felt around. I was thankful I had cleaned the outside. Then I found a square piece of steel that clearly was separated from the rest of the tower.

I pushed, and was rewarded by a rush of water. It filled the toilet below me, and to my horror began to fill the space between. The dried shit in the bottom of the bowel seemed unwilling to let the water escape. I was momentarily frozen, then knew what I had to do. I pushed my left hand down into the mulch and made an opening for the water. Some of the shit was flushed down, but much remained.

I thrust my shit smudged hand into the sink, pushed the button for the spigot to send its little stream, wetted my hand, and used soap to vigorously rub the brown from it. Soon, all too soon, the stream ended. I mindlessly pushed the button to flush again, and more of the dried shit broke off and disappeared. I was just ready to push the button again, when the thud of boots coming across the concrete stopped me. Sure enough the boots stopped at the door to my cell, the cover on the window disappeared, and a very angry face of a CO appeared.

The head disappeared only long enough for the slot to open.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING CONVICT?"

"Boss, the convict was ordered to clean up the tower Boss. Boss the toilet was filled with dry shit Boss and I was trying to flush it down so I could clean the toilet bowel Boss." I was in terror. I was already in the Segregation unit.

What more could be done to me? I feared there was actually something even more horrible than where I was now.

"OPEN 16!"

I knew I had to get my butt back to the shelf and stand at attention.

The door opened, and in pounded an officer. He looked at the still shit-filled toilet. He looked at me.

"Convict, you have a real problem. Toilets are allowed six flushes per day, and you just had your sixth."

"BOSS yes BOSS!"

He turned, and the door slammed. Almost without conscious thought I unrolled my thin mattress, unfolded my thin blanket, retrieved my little pillow, and plopped down to go to sleep. I have no idea how long I slept, but I was awakened by the viewing shutter slamming open again.

"BOY, convicts sleep in boxers. Get outta those stripes, fold them neatly, stow them at the foot of the bed, and give me 20 pushups. Then get back on your rack."

"SIR yes SIR" was my automatic response. I chided myself. I should have remembered we were required to get down to boxers in R&D, which should have given me a clue. When my shoes and socks, and then my zebra shirt and pants were removed and folded, I got down and gave him 20, as best I could my dick flopping in my boxers and my arms and legs bending like the thin things they were. Then I struggled back on my feet and stood at attention at the side of the concrete bed.

The shutter slammed shut.

I turned, picked up the blanket, and returned to the comfort of the inch-thick mattress, under the thinnest blanket in history.

I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep, but I was out of it until I heard the familiar bell ringing from outside the door, and knew that I was to be awake, dressed, and waiting for some sort of inspection, after what, as far as I was concerned, was 15 minutes of sleep.

As I anticipated, I heard movement down the walkway outside the cells. Soon the observation window opened, and the food slot also.

"REPORT!"

"Cox 117213."

"Cox 117213, counted."

Then the two openings from my cell to the outside world (if the cellblock could be considered the outside world) slammed shut. I was alone in my concrete box, with nothing to interest me but my stainless steel tower.

As proud as I was proud of the shiny sink, I did not want to look at the toilet part. I began to think of how I could use my six flushes to the best advantage.

I was busily thinking over strategies when I heard my door lock click. I knew the door was going to slide open, and I had better not be too close in case some being from the other world would want to enter. I scurried back to the cement shelf and assumed my best standing-at-attention stance. I kept my eyes downcast.

I knew that staring at an officer at the door would be considered confrontational, and my tenderized butt would pay.

As I looked toward the door I saw shiny boots, and the blue uniform pant leg of an officer. Behind the boot and the leg was another boot and another leg—a scuffed black convict boot and a brown convict trouser leg. The officer stood aside and the convict porter dropped a toilet brush on the floor, followed by a pink plastic bottle. He didn't make a sound, but I could see that I was being scoped out, and not with admiration. More of a sneer.

"That's all right" I thought. "So you cons think I'm a brown-noser, cleaning my fucking toilet. Piss on you. I have to survive in here for six months. Why should I be branded a troublemaker by persons who for absolutely no reason locked me in this hell, just so I can try to get along with a bunch of cons I'll never see again?"

"You've got three extra flushes," the CO said, "to clean this toilet with.

You've got a toilet cleaning brush. You've got a dirt softener. Get to work. I want to see it gleaming when I stop by the next time." He paused, staring at me.

I seemed to sense that a reply was expected.

"Boss yes Boss," I barked.

He turned, with the convict following, and the door closed and locked shut. I was alone again in my concrete box, but now armed for my task for the day.

I moved over to examine my gifts. The brush looked new, and was clearly made for heavy use. I decided I would start on the task. I marveled that I did not need to shit or piss which, at least the pissing part, had almost always been my first task for a day. I smiled to myself. When you get just a little food and water, not a lot is left over for elimination. I picked up the spray bottle and read on its sides that it was a solvent made to dislodge caked-on dirt. Well, that I had. I started to work. As I sprayed the stuff onto the metal, I caught myself humming, and I once again thought how much of a transformation the state had managed in this offender in a relatively short time. I had started out thinking that I would go through this experience very clinically, and do as ordered while analyzing and codifying my reactions for a treatise about the socialization of the prisoner into an inmate. But my detached point of view was gone. I was no longer observing the life of a convict; I WAS a convict. I had adjusted to a different set of priorities and perspectives.

I knew now that I had to satisfy the officers who had control over me. I also knew that so far, I didn't have a clue about how to fit into a larger group of convicts. My experience with my two cell mates at R&D had shown me that there wasn't one way of life that convicts lived, but as many ways as the system paired one convict with another. While shining the toilet I thought about whether I might almost like the hole over a normal dorm or two prisoner cell.

But in the end none of these conditions were my concern. Other men controlled all aspects of life—formerly my life--in the hole, in a dorm with hundreds of other inmates, or in a cell house with a cell mate. I hoped for a cellie who would make my time in this totally different world passable, perhaps even interesting. The other extreme possibility was one so terrible that I would be permanently changed and damaged. I could even see that what one inmate had told me, and I had thought to be prisoner hyperbole, was that I could end up becoming a slave of a convict gang. Maybe it was only a gang of sadistic or indifferent officers that stood between me and that. And in here, was there any difference between sadistic and indifferent?

As I awaited the softening of the shit, I heard the clanking of the feeding doors, and so I was ready when mine opened. I retrieved the same styrofoam tray as before. After I picked up my tray the little door to the slot slammed shut and again I was back by myself in the concrete box.

I sat on the concrete shelf that was my bed, and my desk, and my table. In fact there were only three parts of this concrete box that were not just concrete – the door, the stainless steel tower, and the light above, but even the light was caged in steel. I set the tray down and looked at a blob of yellow that I suspected was described as scrambled eggs, a brown square of something that I suspected was called hash browns, two little brown fingerlike items that were undoubtedly called sausage, a brownish thin dab of something that resembled apple sauce, and a cup of something that was black and might be called coffee.

It was not quite as close to the real things as last night's dinner was. My mind wandered to the analogy of Plato's cave, in which the real was seen only as a shadow reflected on a wall by a fire behind the real. In this case the fire must almost be flickering out, because the real was only a dim remembered origin of what I was seeing. Well no matter, it was eat or starve, so I consumed the items on the tray. I looked again at the solvent and the cleaner I had been given.

Time to get back to work.

I finished my breakfast, and moved the tray next to the door to be ready to return it when the little slot opened. I returned to the items that had been delivered earlier. There was a cloth that I supposed was to clean the tower. I picked it up. It was actually a wash cloth, and in it I saw a bar of soap.

Damn! The captain had even allowed me a decent sized bar to clean myself with. Was that an act of humanity? Perhaps the book I was planning would need a small chapter on some of the free persons who controlled the subspecies of humans known as convicts, but showed a surprising humanity in all this gratuitous degradation. With this partially renewed faith, I went back to the toilet.

Looking at it, I realized it was the only feature of my home that was even slightly interesting. But the shit had softened. I poked at it some more, and with some serious scraping dislodged about half of it. I had made real progress, and I thought that a second application of solvent and another rinsing might just clean that horrible mess that had once confronted me.

I repeated the process. Spray, sit on the floor and contemplate not my navel but the stainless steel tower, and after going into a sort of trance let the solvent work. I snapped out of the trance just in time to hear the food slot being opened. I immediately crawled over and had my tray ready when the shelf was lowered. I placed it on the shelf, and it rested there only for a moment as it was grabbed, disappeared, and the door slammed shut again. After the second cleansing the toilet was basically clean, but I went after the insides with my brush and then with my hands. Now I did not worry about swishing around in toilet water. It was sparklingly clear. I used the toilet for my own needs as something in breakfast had gone through me rapidly. I contributed some runny shit to the toilet god and flushed it down.

I was sitting on the floor again beside my achievement when I heard the food slot opening another time. Surely I had not been in a trance so long that it was time for dinner already. I scooted over and picked up a piece of paper, a pencil, and a little green booklet. A pencil—great! Even though it was only a short stub, like the one you use to mark the scorecard for a round of golf.

When I looked at the paper, I discovered it was a commissary order form. Then I noted that my commissary account now listed $100 as the beginning balance and $90 as the current balance. I thought that perhaps I had become too cynical about Henderson. He had indeed used my money for me. Then my suspicious mind remembered how much money I had in my savings account. It amounted to several thousand dollars. I remembered that I usually had at least $200 and often $300 in my billfold just to go to the grocery and get gas for my car. However, after being reduced to a convict with zero funds, $100 seemed pretty fine to me.

I looked over the sheet that showed what I could buy. One item was already marked. For $10 I had already bought The Princeton Reformatory Official Offender Handbook. That would explain the green booklet. Yes, that's what it said on the cover. I almost threw it down--either this was an elaborate joke, or Henderson thought I should get to know all the rules. In either case, I didn't think it was funny. Then I remembered that I didn't have anything else to read. Well, I could read that. I picked up the form again. The words at the top said: "Commissary for Offenders in Disciplinary Segregation." Apparently offenders like me had severely restricted options. The form showed only a few items. I could buy another bar of soap. I could buy another washcloth, and to my joy I could buy a pencil and a tablet. The prices were exorbitant but I felt wealthy with my $90. I then noted that there were limits on quantities. I could buy only one of each item. So be it--I blew another $15.50 on the other washcloth, the bar of soap, the tablet, and the pencil. I hastened to put my order blank by the slot so that whenever I might be allowed to submit my request for luxuries, and my invoice for the required reading, I would be ready.

I was still sitting there, thinking how exciting it would be to have a tablet and pencil, and even a change of washcloths, when the slot re-opened.

"Commissary order now!" was the polite request.

I put my order form on the shelf, and watched as it was snatched away. But not for long.

"Hey, dumbass!" It was the convict's voice. "Put your fuckin ID's on here. Name and number dude!"

The paper came flying back through the slot.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" I almost cried. I hoped he would let me have my second chance.

"Remember this in Unit 12B, and you're in number 16."

"Thanks . . . thanks!" I exclaimed as I quickly turned the order blank to its back side and found the spaces labeled Number-Name-Unit-Cell. With the pencil stub I told the form who I was. 117213 COX 12B 24. That was me. Then 117213 handed the sheet back through the slot.

Without a comment the slot slammed shut. Rattled, I looked at the Offender Handbook. First order of business was to cram. I had to be sure I could pass any test on the rules. I felt certain I would be quizzed, and incorrect answers would receive not just an "X" but probably a swat on the ass as well, to help the convict brain, lodged in the convict butt, do a better job of remembering.

I read and re-read all the rules. I finally decided that they boiled down to one idea. Offenders were in the custody of the state. They were state property. The officers were there to "provide security" for the state's possessions. The possessions were therefore required to obey any order given by any officer at any time. The power distribution was state 100%, offender 0%. No rule contained any phrases like "An offender is entitled... an offender is guaranteed..."

In all the times I had worked with offenders, I had never really come to grips with this total power differential. Now that I was one, I guess I understood.

But how could a free person really understand what it means to be totally under the control of others? I sat on the floor and looked around. For absolutely no reason I was in a solitary cell, under the absolute control of "correctional"

officers. If they brought no food, I would not eat. If they decided I would have no clothes, I would be naked. If they decided I would live in the dark, I would be left in the dark. I was in a concrete box. I had one accommodation to normal life, the stainless steel obelisk by which I could get life giving water, and eliminate my animal waste. Then I thought that even this was not really in my control. The authorities had decided that I was allowed only six flushes per day, so that was all I could have. I sat there and for the first time in my life, I truly realized how dumb I was. I wondered whether there was any possibility that there were any other men in this place who had volunteered to be here. No, no one could possibly have been that stupid. I thought I knew all about prisons. God was I stupid . . . in terms I was now coming to realize.

That strange half smile, that bemused condescending look that my neighbor had given me when I reacted to his suggestion that I experience the reality of incarceration. He knew that I was what the conservatives always called a stupid bleeding heart liberal who didn't understand how the world really worked. That smile was what Jim permitted himself to show when he recognized I did not know what I was asking for when I asked for reality. I thought about the movie "A Few Good Men" where the Jack Nicolson shouts at Tom Cruise, "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" That was me. I'd wanted the truth, even though I didn't want to handle the truth. But now I had no choice.

With these thoughts I went through lunch and dinner. Then I was told it was night and was ordered to bed. I knew I had to do as told because the little window would be opened periodically and a face would see that I was still there.

At night about half of the fluorescents would go out, and I would hear a loud clank as the lights outside were turned off or on. As I fell asleep, I realized that the officer hadn't even bothered to inspect the toilet I had worked so hard to clean.

After what I guessed from the sequence of meals was the beginning of my third day, I tested myself on my memorization of my rule book. There were 88 rules, and I was testing myself on No. 39 when I heard my door slot clicking open. I dashed over to see if I could get there in time to look out when something was delivered. It was my commissary coming in. "Sign the receipt dude,"

said the convict voice. I realized that the person "serving" me was also an inmate, but a superior inmate to me. He could move around in an outside world that I could only catch fleeting glimpses of. I signed 117213 COX on a piece of paper, and the door shut me into my box again.

I looked at my precious new notebook, and immediately know what I wanted to use those pages for. I would try to write down all the laws I could remember about prisons and the treatment of inmates. I would create from memory my own legal resource. WOW. I was thrilled. NOW I had a mission, a purpose, and a job.

I saved several pages for notes, and began. It was great. Time didn't drag. It was even better than cleaning the toilet. I found that I needed to leave some lines for when I remembered some code and in some cases a court decision that pertained to prisons and treatment of offenders. The sequence of meals and sleep on my shelf was now secondary to my PROJECT.

Then on what I believe was my seventh day in the hole, the routine was interrupted.

I was writing as usual when the window cover was opened and a face appeared. I shuffled to the back of the cell and stood with my hands grasping my elbows, and my eyes looking at the floor a foot in front of me. The door opened, and I heard the now familiar sound of chains.

"On your knees. Face the shelf."

I scrambled to obey. A chain was locked around my waist and padlocked tightly.

My hands were locked into cuffs on short chains dangling from the belly chain on my body's two sides. Then my legs were shackled together. Once my limbs were secured, I was ordered to stand. It isn't easy to comply with these simple orders when you have been restrained, but no CO seems to care about that. As I moved my knees to give myself leverage to stand I got a hard swat to the back of my head.

"Move it, asshole. We don't have all day." The officer voice was calm, bored.

The abuse was routine.

I got myself on my two feet. I could feel the excess chain dangle down between my butt cheeks, sort of like a tail, which made me smile--as usual smiling inwardly. No offender wants to be seen smiling, because he can only be smiling if he is breaking a rule, and is therefore ready for punishment. The chains on my ankles meant I was going someplace! Was I being transferred? But I hadn't been told to pick up my personals. As the guard pulled me out of the cell, I glanced back anxiously at my notebook and pencil, lying forelornly on the shelf.

I was turned left and headed toward the door out of the cell house. On my left were the steel slabs of doors, each of them presumably marking the residence of other men in stripes. I couldn't see them. They couldn't see me. Even the convicts on the upper tier, the ones with steel mesh on their doors, couldn't see who was shuffling under their catwalk. All they could see was the walkway, then a space, then the tall blank wall on the other side. Maybe they could see that group of officers, lounging by the desk, watching a striped bug being extracted from the cell house. Then the bug got to the security door, and was gone.

From the bug's point of view, the door was an entrance to another door, and that door led—outside! The outside of Seg, anyway, which was the Big Yard. After all that time in my box, the Yard looked like a vast prairie, running on forever.

There was nobody in the Yard right then—and no trees, no lawn, no flowers--but it looked amazing. I squinted in the sun, trying to make out the features of the buildings on the other side of the Yard, but that wasn't where I was going. I was going to the Cages.

Close to Seg was a cement slab, with ten cages standing on the cement. They were separate cages, ten feet apart. Each cage was a cube, twenty feet tall, wide, and high, and the cube was made of steel mesh. When you were in the cube, you had a concrete floor beneath you and steel mesh around you, and steel mesh even above you. Each cage had a basketball goal (no net, just the steel), and a basketball on the floor. These were the exercise cages.

A second officer followed us to the cages. Now I had an officer on each side of me, in case I decided to run for it, I guess. I knelt between them, and I heard my chains clanking off. Then they swung the gate open and put me inside a cage.

The gate locked behind me. "You got half an hour," one of them said.

Then they stood in the shade, smoking and watching me.

I do not play basketball. I did however begin walking around the perimeter of the cage. I enjoyed seeing the sun. I never realized that seeing the sky, sun, and clouds, and even the weeds that grew at the edges of the slab, might be considered a great privilege, but now I knew that it was. Since I had been in the courtroom, the only growing things I had seen were at a distance as we drove by in the prison van. Those weeds by the cages were so close you could really appreciate them. Then, on the other side of the slab and the weeds, I saw the door of the Seg block open again. To my absolute amazement out strolled Jim Henderson, smiling.

I was thrilled! Why was he here? Why else than to ask me if I had learned my lesson, and tell me that for good behavior I was going to be released? You had to admire his calm and self-confidence as he strode across the prison yard and stopped at the gate of my cage. Even through the steel mesh, it was great to see his tanned, ruggedly handsome face. I dropped all my suspicions and rushed over to greet him. I couldn't shake hands, but I grasped the mesh with my fingers, to get as close as I could to the smiling form on the other side.

"Learning anything offender?" was his opening comment.

I realized that there could be microphones, even out here, and so replied carefully, "SIR yes SIR. SIR this offender cannot believe how naïve he was and how much he has learned in so short a time SIR."

I kept my speech polite, as Jim was in his full police officer uniform down to his highly polished shoes. I thought how different I looked, dressed in my stripes and heavy boots.

"Well, offender," he said, "I wanted to let you know this information personally from me. I have been going over your case, and found that you failed to mention--and for some reason it did not show up until early this week--that you had a certain prior arrest that resulted in informal probation. That prior conviction, although handled so informally that it did not pop up on priors, has now surfaced. I was obligated to bring this prior to the attention of the court.

The judge is now considering whether the sentence he gave you is justified or whether he should move you into the Extended Sentencing program. You know, the new corrections procedure. If he does, you're probably looking at a life sentence."

He shrugged. "Won't know for a while. You know how these cases stack up."

I was speechless for a moment. Then I caught my breath. "You knew this all along!" I blurted out. "You just waited for me to be locked safely away and helpless. But I will have my day in court. I will appeal. I will expose this, and you will be here in stripes and I will come here to gloat."

"Brave words offender. Just how do you plan to launch this appeal?"

"I know about habeas corpus! I'll write to a judge right now. Even in . .

. even in . . . "

"Seg," he reminded me.

"Even in administrative segregation," I spelled out.

"Nothing's happened yet, convict. No judge will bother to read anything you write. I'll read it though, when it gets to the censor and they notify me. And I'm not gonna appreciate spending my time reading that shit. If you want me to keep this little six-month jolt from turning into the forever plan, I'd advise you to be nicer to me."

I was silent, trying to process it all. But Jim was still ruminating.

"I never liked us both having the same name, you know. I think it's better that one of us is Jim and the other one is 117213. Yeah," he continued, inspecting my stripes through the wire mesh. "That works for you."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"Just a joke," he said. "Well, anyway, I asked for some time from the judge to evaluate this new information, and to make a police recommendation. I guess I will let you know. Keep your nose clean, convict."

He walked away from the cage. At the last moment he turned. "And offender Cox,"

he said, "if you don't value your time out of doors, as it appears you don't, I think I can have it canceled for you." Then he was gone.

The sun was out; the sky was clear. It was a beautiful day. But for me, a lowly offender, bald, striped, and caged, who had just learned he might spend the rest of his life that way, it was a beautiful day on some other planet.

My feeling of being an animal in the zoo only increased when a group of normal inmates came walking past. They were straggling in a loose line with an officer behind, and they were pointed toward a block far in the distance. They all looked like high school kids. I then remembered that on one of my visits here as a distinguished professor, I had been shown pictures of the building they were walking toward, and had been told that this was the place where the state was running a new "young adult program." They were 18 or 19 years old, and they went to school and were treated as young people who could be rehabilitated. They were sporting brown shirts and trousers, with their numbers stamped on the front and back, and of course they had been shaved bald.

"Hey dude!" one shouted. "One of the monkeys is out in his cage." At this several began making monkey noises, and scratching their armpits as people do to pretend to be monkeys.

"Climb up in your cage, monkey."

"Know any tricks?"

"Show us your tail, monkey! Show us that front tail of yours!" Gesturing with his hand on his crotch.

"Nah, this is one a them faggot monkeys. Nothin' to show."

"Hey, can we take him back to the block and play with him?"

"Awright, punks!" The officer sauntered closer. "Shut your faces!"

They shut their faces, but somehow the monkey noises went on till the last numbered back was out of sight.

I was almost sorry to see them go, because then I had no excuse not to think about Jim Henderson. What should I do? How could I get a message out without its going to him? And who would I write to, anyway? Who could help? He was right about the judge. There was nothing to appeal. Then I remembered that law again, the one I kept putting out of my mind while I scrubbed the toilet or wrote in my useless notebook. The new law about Extended Sentences. The one that gave judges the power just to increase your sentence "indefinitely" . . . to life if they wanted. Life! If they were advised to do it . . . .

I was completely confused. I still hadn't come up with a plan when I heard the Seg door open again, and the clanking of my chains in an officer's hands.

Seeing Jim reminded me of the times I had put on my leg shackles for play and sort of hobbled around the house. The jangling of those chains was pleasant . .

. arousing . . . yet comfortable . . . secure. Now I was going to be "secured"

again. When the guards opened the cage I would get on my knees, and once again I would experience the overkill of being locked into a belly chain, with my hands cuffed to my sides and my ankles shackled. Then I would be guided by two tall, bored strangers in uniform toward a door that waited to be unlocked. After that I would stand with the one guard to manage me until the second door opened, so I could be returned to my concrete box inside the concrete building. . . .

Desperate, I took a chance. "SIR," I said, when I was standing with the one officer, between the two doors, "I know there's a rule against sending letters out of Seg, but maybe sometimes a letter goes out by mistake . . . . SIR . . .

"

I was waiting for the swat. I didn't dare to raise my eyes to his face--which left me looking at his crotch. And that was where I needed to go. From what I'd heard, there was always a chance . . . .

"Well, convict," he said, "that letter might go out--with an extra labor detail.

Boy." I saw one hand slide down from his belt and onto his crotch. I'd guessed right. "You can pay when we've got you back in your cell."

He pulled me through the second door, into the block. While he was pulling, he leaned down and said, "You stink, convict. You stink too much."

"Hey Gunderson," he yelled at one of his colleagues, passing by.

"Gimme a hand for a second."

"Sure, Sarge."

"Kneel down, boy."

I knelt down while Officer Gunderson unchained me.

"Now strip outta them stripes," Sarge said. "Hang `em on the peg."

I saw a line of pegs on the wall of the block, and a pipe jutting out of the wall. A shower pipe. Naked, I stood under the pipe, then danced under the water that sprayed out of it like a firehose. You can't get used to a shower like that; you just endure it. Luckily they wouldn't waste much time on my hygiene.

In two minutes I was directed back to my stripes, hanging from the peg like the skin of some dead animal, and was told to crawl back into them. I was put back in my chains, Officer Gunderson was thanked, and Sarge led me back to my cell.

"Kneel," he said, and my belly chain and attachments came off. But my shackle stayed on, and Sarge clicked off another set of cuffs from his belt and locked my hands into them.

He swung the door shut. "Suck me," he said. I would have to suck him off, kneeling and in cuffs.

"Boss yes Boss," was my reply. I had sucked cock before, of course, on some of my b&d adventures. I wasn't very good at it. I gagged a lot. But I would do my best.

The officer was already unzipping and fishing out his cock. When I saw it, I was thankful. It was not a monster but just a normal six incher. As soon as it was out I went to work. He jabbed his cock in all the way and I began tonguing and sucking it. I also began bobbing the cock up and down. I could feel it stiffen, and I started doing all I knew from my few experiences. Bobbing, licking, sucking... He must have really have been horny, since it took him only a couple minutes to start seeding my mouth. I sucked all his sperm down, and he zipped back up. A minute later, I was unlocked from my belly chain, and my shackles were also removed.

"Gimme your shit," he said, "and I'll see `bout sendin' it out." My "shit" was my letter asking for help.

"BOSS thank you Boss." was my well trained response.

Next day, I sat on the floor in front of my shelf and began writing furiously.

It was a letter to my most famous and fearless colleague at the school of law, asking for his assistance in defending me. I made a couple of comments that would make it clear that even though the letter was from a prison and had a return address with the name of Cox, and that was not a name he associated with me, the letter was indeed from me. I alluded to a practicum I was doing about prisons to explain the name and the prison address, and asked for him to visit.

I did not say "my practicum" but instead mentioned a colleague who was an advocate of prisoner rights. I had faith that my recipient would be able to read between the lines, and I fervently hoped that when the officer read the letter he would be looking only for the more obvious references to drugs or whatever else would not be permitted in an inmate letter.

That evening Sarge came by to inspect my cell. I sucked him again, and he took the letter. "I'd say this is worth more than two sucks," he commented, "but your sucks ain't much good. Don't ask me again, convict." The steel door slammed. All I could hope is that he would be honest enough to mail the letter.

For three days the routine continued. I still kept my stainless steel tower spotless. It was something to do, since I no longer had anything to say in my notebook. On the fourth day, I was again allowed into my outdoor cage. The weather was bad. It was drizzling and cold. This time there was another monkey, in another cage, at the end of the line of cages. He paid no attention to me.

He just kept dribbling the basketball. The loud, wet, continuous boing boing boing pounded into my head. It was worse than being alone. I came back to the cell cold and wet. Then I stripped down and draped my stripes over the toilet tower to let them dry. I even shucked off my boxers and wrung them out as tightly as possible, then hung them on the bed shelf hoping to dry them faster. I spent the afternoon naked in my cell. I thought to myself that there was some advantage to solitary.

But my hearing for the cycles of the block had become more honed. Now I could make out the faint sound of food doors being opened a cell or two away. I was able to get into my boxers before my food box opened. Normally the tray was just pushed in, but sometimes the order would be given "Convict to the front." I would stand there and eyes would look at me through the little window in the door. Often that would be all, but occasionally I would have to stand back toward the bed shelf for a full body inspection. Today I got the full inspection.

"Why not in uniform, convict?" was the question yelled through the slot.

I started to explain, but the question had been merely rhetorical.

"Get in uniform, offender."

So I crawled back into my stripes, thankful they were closer to being dry. When the inspection was over, I folded my stripes and lay down on my sleeping shelf, under my thin blanket.

I was actually falling asleep, clutching the thin, small thing that the prison called a pillow with my arm so that my head was high enough to make my brain think I was on an actual pillow, when I heard the click of the lock on the door to my cell being opened.

I was still at least partially asleep when three guards I did not recognize pushed into the cell. No words were said. My stripes were thrown at me, and I was ordered to don them. As soon as I got them on, very quickly my hands were cuffed behind my back. I did not have my shoes on, but now these were placed on me as well, with shackles added above them. Next my nose was pinched shut, and when I opened my mouth to breathe, a ball gag was inserted and secured behind my head. Then a hood was put over my face. That ended my guess that I might be receiving the visit I had tried to solicit. I was grabbed by my elbows, and just barely touching the floor I was removed from the cell.

From my experience going outside for recreation, I knew we were heading for the door outside. We went through the first door, waited, and went through a second door, then paused for a moment. Shackles were placed on my ankles, and I felt the snap of a leash being attached to my cuffs. I didn't know where the tug on the leash was taking me. My whole universe so far had been reception, clothing issue, Seg, and its recreation cages.

I sensed that we were not going to our destination directly. I tripped on an uneven piece of concrete, then a couple minutes later, I tripped again on what seemed to me the same uneven piece. We went up some stairs and entered a building. Then, I knew, we were admitted through several gates, because I heard them being unlocked, opened, closed, and locked again. We might have been going in circles for all I know. Then we went down a set of stairs. I could feel that the air was colder, and there was an echo that I hadn't heard before. Finally we traveled down a hall that echoed a lot. Somehow I sensed we were in a hallway that was smaller than any I had gone down before.

We stopped, and I was turned to my right. My handcuffs and shackles were removed. "When we remove the hood, boy," one of them said, "you will continue looking directly ahead. Understand? " I nodded. Then the hood was removed.

Ahead of me was a solid steel door with huge hinges bolted to the wall. Looking straight ahead, I saw an officer's hand put a large key into the lock and turn it. The door swung open. I saw in front of me a set of bars with a barred door through it. Behind the bars was a floor, walls, and ceiling of unpainted concrete, but colored by the years. I was held as the barred gate was opened, then I was stopped, just inside.

"Strip, boy. Everything off." Off went my stripes, boxers, shoes, and socks. I was now standing in front of officers who were fully clothed, while I was naked.

This situation immediately makes a person feel weak and hopeless. If you are naked against your will, but others are clothed, you know physically, viscerally, that you are powerless.

Then there was a string of orders. "When this door opens, get to the back wall.

Hands behind your back. Grasp opposite elbows. When ordered to SPREAD, change from hands behind your back to palms against the wall and above your head.

Spread your legs out. Make yourself an X on that back wall. Understand, offender?"

"SIR yes SIR!"

"SPREAD!" was the order, and I immediately took this position.

"Now turn. Look at the floor, boy."

I looked and saw a hole in the concrete about three inches in diameter.

"That hole is your piss and shit hole, boy. You are responsible for making sure that all piss and shit is deposited in that hole. At specified times water will run underneath that hole and take out your crap. Got it, boy?"

"SIR YES SIR!" I shouted, but now I was shaking—partly because I was scared, and partly because it was cold in there, and I was naked.

"When an officer leaves you, offender, you will remain in whatever position the officer last ordered you to assume until you hear the outer door close and lock.

Then you will have full, unrestricted use of your cell."

I already knew that "full and unrestricted" was a cruel joke. I had maybe five feet in width and two yards in length, and the ceiling was about ten feet above me. There was nothing in the cell except me and the concrete. "Offenders are required to maintain total silence in this cell. Any attempt to talk, call, or otherwise communicate will be punished. Welcome to the Hole, offender."

When I realized what was happening, I wanted to fall on my knees and beg them not to leave me alone in that horrible box. But I maintained my position until I heard both doors—the bars and the solid steel—each close and lock, and boots faintly echoing down the hall. There was one light bulb, and it was in the ceiling on the other side of the barred door, just inside the heavy steel door.

I thought to myself, "That bulb and I are both caged inside this cell, and neither of us will move out of here unless we are so ordered." I hoped the bulb wouldn't be moved, because that was all the comfort I had, unless you wanted to count the ventilation grate in the ceiling, barred of course, and out of reach.

Then I thought of that sick joke, "I was in pain, and a voice came to me, `Cheer up, It could get worse.' So I cheered up, and it got worse." I sat my naked butt on the cold concrete, and cried.

They probably gave me two meals a day. If so, I was in the Hole for five days.

If they gave me one meal a day, it was ten. The meals were always the same.

Bread. Something like orange drink. A hard boiled egg. A vegetable. A bottle of water. The outer door swung open. "Spread!" was the order, and I assumed my position against the wall. A tray went through an opening in the bottom of the inner door of bars. I wanted to see what was happening, but I couldn't. I was an "X," splayed against the wall. After the first day, or half day, a wad of something like toilet paper arrived with the meal. "Ten days worth" a voice said as the outer door slammed shut.

I do not know how many hours I simply sat on the floor, going from useless anger to deep remorse for my stupidity. One thing that helped was an exercise called Between the Doors. It happened on the day when I was sleeping in the deep coma that became habitual for me, and I didn't become an "X" quite soon enough when my food came. I got my "meal." But when the officer came to retrieve the tray, it was me that got retrieved as well. Huge hands grabbed me and carried me through the barred door, slammed it shut behind me, then slammed the steel door shut in front of me. I was trapped between the doors.

I guess I spent all "day" in there, squirming like a bug trapped in a display holder. With great difficulty I got my body turned around so my nose wasn't pointed at the blank steel, and I could look "out" through the bars at my happy home, my cell. If I had only obeyed more promptly, I would be luxuriating in all that space again. Now, for all I knew, I would have to spend every day Between Doors.

Needless to say, when an officer finally came to liberate me and let me back into my cell, and I was asked whether I was now prepared to obey the rules, I shouted my promise warmly and sincerely, and with many tears of thankfulness.

Then one day the steel door cranked open, and when the convict X heard the command to "Turn! Go to the bars!" he saw Jim Hendeson leaning against the inner door.

"Hello professor," he said, casually.

It took me a moment to remember that I was the professor. Had been the professor.

"Oh my God!" I said. "I mean Sir yes SIR hello SIR!!!" If he hadn't been on the other side of the bars, I could have kissed his boots.

His words were calm. "I've been reading that letter you wanted to send," he said. "It's illegal of course, and it won't get out. The sergeant would never have intended such a violation of the rules if he hadn't consulted with me.

Your attempt to communicate did lead me to conclude that you still hadn't figured out your position here. First you wanted the prison experience. Then you decided you didn't want it. Which is why you needed this little trip to the Hole. It's a little experiment in Thought Clarification, professor. I'm here to discover the results of the experiment. What have you decided? Given what you know right now, do you want the prison experience, or don't you? Answer up, professsor."

My brain was running a mile a minute, but somehow it was still comatose as well.

It was running, but it kept going in circles, back and forth from how stupid I was to how much I deserved what had happened to me. When you added that up, it meant I was an offender, just like they said. A stupid fuckup. An insect. A monkey. A clown. A convict. An offender. An offender that had been convicted, sentenced, and transported to a place for offenders, which was where it was living now.

Was that true? It must be true. It had happened. One thing I knew: I could never get out of the Hole, let alone get out of prison, by saying I didn't want to be there. That was a Catch-22—the only way you can get out is to say you want to stay in. But I couldn't see any way around it.

"I didn't hear you, professor. Do you want the prison experience or not?"

"Sir this offender wants the prison experience it deserves Sir."

"That's good, convict. So now we can discuss your new sentencing. You have only one chance, and that rests with me. I can speak to the judge and try to get you off with something less than life. A few years, maybe. Then maybe you could get paroled, to my custody of course. I could probably use a houseboy. Always wanted one, though you're pretty old and clunky. Not sure you're the one I'd want.

Probably not. Anyhow. Suppose things go the other way, and the judge hands you your life sentence, I can still get you out of the Hole. I can still get you out of Seg. After all, you're only in here because I went to the trouble of arranging it for you. You don't want to spend the rest of your life in the Hole, Between the Doors, do you, convict?"

Either this made no sense, or it made too much. "No, I don't," I said.

"No SIR, you don't."

"SIR no SIR I do NOT want to spend my life Between the Doors SIR!"

"The problem is," he said philosophically. "You can't go back to your old life, even if you do get out. Not with those pictures. Those pictures that I can post on the web at any time."

"Pictures, Sir?"

"Those pictures I found on your computer. You know, those pictures of you naked, in that funny leather harness, eating that other faggot's ass. And those other pictures . . . . But you know what I mean. It's easy enough to post them.

Better for your colleagues and your students and so forth to just think of you as retired. And after all, by the time you get out, if you ever do, I probably will have sold your house. I've got power of attorney, you know. You gave it to me before you went inside."

"Sir yes Sir." Yes, I'd done that.

"But the main thing, as you've been finding out, is to keep me happy. Even a lifer can use a friend with power. If that's what I'm gonna make you. A lifer, I mean. Actually, the only reason I might not do it is . . . well, I wonder if you can guess. Go ahead, boy. Guess."

I was completely confused. All I wanted to do was to be left alone inside my cell.

"Sir I can't guess Sir."

"The only reason is that . . . that's what you seem to want. That's why you're here, isn't it? You wanted to spend your life inside."

"Sir yes Sir," I said. I didn't know if that was true. Maybe it was.

But I wanted the door to close and lock me back inside my cell. At least then I wouldn't have to answer questions.

"Good," he said cheerfully. "I always knew you intellectual types weren't so intellectual after all. So just sign these things, and I'll be on my way."

He reached into the pocket of his uniform shirt, pulled out some papers, and calmly unfolded them. "One is your letter, explaining to your department that you decided to visit Brazil on your sabbatical, to investigate prison conditions in the southern hemisphere, and you like it so much that you're going to stay.

This other one is a form authorizing your retirement payments to be deposited directly into your bank account. I'll take it from there. It's too bad you couldn't have waited till age 62; then you'd get a lot more money from your retirement fund. But I guess you knew that. I'll have these papers endorsed by the US consul in Sao Paulo. I've got a friend—a former client, you might say--who's good at being a US consul. Or anything else I want him to be. Just sign, and I'll make all the appropriate arrangements for your . . . maintenance."

He passed the forms to me, and I signed them and passed them back through the bars. At first it was hard to remember what name to use, but I got it right when he prompted me.