Adolph Meyer
It had been 10 days since they had instituted the smoking ban. One last bit of freedom, one last moment of calm. Geneva inhaled the last tobacco smoke tinged with filter; she realized the inmates were dealing better with it than she was. But they had quit cold turkey and she was only quitting for 10 hours at a time. Stubbing out the butt she gathered the utility belt from the passengers seat of the car. Lock and double-check the car. Buckle on the belt and pin on the ID card. Straighten: pants, shirt, belt, collar. She walked up the long walk way that lead to the wide cement stairs up either side. For a single story concrete and brick building it looked strangely antebellum. All it was missing was the gabled roof and the balconies, but the front was so tall it could have been designed for balconies. The walk way followed half way around the pillared front to a door on either side. The one story building was actually laid out like a series of cubes but Geneva had always thought it was laid out like a maze. You entered either side through one set of huge glass doors and then another. In between there was a few frightening seconds where one had to close before the other opened. In-between you knew what it was like to be a window display or an oddity on exhibit. Geneva always stood perfectly still for the 10 second count before the next door made a subtle click and allowed her to step into the lobby. Inside the building had changed a lot but this was still a lobby. The architect’s model was no longer there on display under glass. That would be silly, providing the inmates and guests with a visual layout of the complex.
She walked over to dispatch. "Hey Joey"
He looked up from the monitors crammed into a tiny room. His bulky frame barely able to turn without bouncing a shoulder off one of the unit lock down switches on the wall. "Checking in Geneva?" She nodded while swiping her card and signing in. Joey turned again slamming his shoulder into the key box "Damn! Why did they have it cram all the equipment into here?" Geneva looked up without a smile "The biggest switchboard in town lived in that room" Joey stopped rubbing his shoulder and looked around the room "I guess there was all kinds of wiring leading into here then" a door banged in the distance echoing down the wide empty hall. Joey looked thoughtful. “So what happened to the switchboard?" Geneva shrugged. "I don't know what happened to the physical thing, but the network became the first Internet dial up for the city." the echo bounced around the polished floor, down off the high ceiling seeming to settle near Geneva's feet. She stepped on the spot like she was pinning a loose leaf or runaway paper. JoAnn walked up, following the echo. "Giving Joey a history lesson?" She said smiling. JoAnn was more often than not the cause of the echo. She was loud and liked to stir the emptiness with noise, usually her loud voice. "Yeah, she's giving me a reason why this damn tiny room has all the controls and electronics"
“It's not that tiny Joey. You’re just huge.”
Joey squared his shoulders with pride taking up even more space "How does she know so much anyway?"
Geneva interrupted before JoAnn could answer, “I’m a local, not a transplant.”
“Right. I keep forgetting you didn’t come with the job like most of us…the job came to you.” Joey smiled at her.
Geneva smiled a half embarrassed smile at Joey as the words she said so often came from his mouth. “Sometimes I wonder if they hired me because I'm a woman or because I already knew the building"
"Both" JoAnn’s casual voice bellowed "You are in unit D today.”
Geneva walked down the echoing hall that JoAnn had just come from. Geneva didn’t find it odd that the echo was not from the last words. She followed the echo of “Unit D” around the corner as if it were to escort her there.
Joey squinted into the sunlight and called down the hall after her. “See ya for dinner?” Her figure seemed to wave an affirmative back towards him.
She walked away making less noise than a slight breeze rubbing up against a decorative wind chime. The walls and floors seemed to absorb her voice, her footsteps never seemed to reverberate or carry. Only a tiny jingle of keys or loose change and the occasional radio call betrayed her presence.
The hall leads her through the unlocked double doors and around the corner. Geneva followed it thru' the secure door into the cubes. Hallways crossing hallways like graph paper. Tiny courtyards enclosed by hallways and old offices. More secure double doors with single hallways wide enough to have 3 gurneys side by side. Then another door to another secure unit. The inmates and guards of Unit D would be waiting for her, Geneva looked at her watch. It used to be smoke break now it was just time in the yard. Geneva didn’t know why they still did it. It wasn’t like the exercise time when they were allowed out to the back (what used to be a pasture) or the side field. There was no space for games in the space where they were allowed in the early evening. It was just one of the larger courtyards created by all the squares on the graph paper. Just windows facing a bit of green below and blue above between other windows. Geneva opened the unit door and went straight to the heavy steel courtyard door to unlock it. There was only an anxious guard and one inmate by the door. In the past everyone would be waiting, anxious and ready, already having bartered and paid for the cigarettes to smoke outside. Stella, the guard. Nodded to Geneva as she swung the steel door open. The fresh air stirred the scent of jailhouse humanity. Stella turned her head as if the smell had taken a swing at her. She looked at Geneva and when she quietly spoke she looked past her “I’m gonna slip off …” Stella added the international sign for lifting a cigarette to her lips. Geneva nodded and looked outside. It was a one person job anyway. The walls were so high it would take more than 3 inmates cooperating to even get up to the roof. The chance of 2 inmates working together was improbable and besides after that there was the guard station set up on top perched like a cupola, the security cameras, the sensors, and the razor wire at the perimeter.
Very few went outside, most stayed in the day room watching TV. Geneva turned her attention to the outside. She watched the hardest core smokers walking the perimeter of the yard. Everyone had walked it and counted it. Most had walked it so much it was habit. Geneva could tell from where someone was how many more steps they would take before they would make a right angle to their path. Jo had 20 more steps to go when she sat down. Right there in the foot worn path. 40 steps and Linda would be on top of Jo. Linda frowned at the interruption of her circuit. She hesitated, looking back over her shoulder, missing a beat. One by one their pace slowed. Why Linda didn’t just cross the yard Geneva didn’t know. There was no one in the middle sunning or reading or whatever they had once done while they smoked. There was no one there anymore but just like the habit that kept these few women walking around the edge, even without smoking, kept them from deviating from their routine. Geneva lifted Jo up by her elbow and moved her out of the way before there was a pile up.
She looked at Jo, she seemed out of it, “Do you need to go to the infirmary?”
Jo came back a little and focused on Geneva “No” she sighed looking at the slightly confused women trying to regain their pace and spacing “I just got tired of it. Nothing else will change anything here. We are a hermetically sealed device of perpetual motion”
Geneva walked her back inside “There’s no such thing”
Oh sure there is, here there is. In the rest of the world maybe not, but here, here there are no sources but ourselves.
Every order has with in it the germ of destruction. Instruments strive to become out of tune. The pressed and dressed yearn to be folded and crumpled. Schedules eagerly try to compensate for the worlds interrupted rythem every so often missing a beat”.
She looked into the yard through the bright window. “There are no carriers here. We’re all perfect pitch with lifetime guarantees.”
She looked back at Geneva and laughed “Well at least 5 to 20”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
II
Joey was already in the cafeteria when Geneva got there. His broad shoulders hunched over his tray. He had an institutional way of eating; protecting his food as he quickly ate. Geneva looked past him at her forming reflection across the room as the sky began to darken the wide glass windows. The windows were secure but when they had turned this into a prison they had built a different cafeteria for the inmates designating this one for the staff. No one was sure if it was out of consideration for the inmates or the staff. She knew that looking on the outside was sometimes more painful. The reminder you are not there, you are here behind the glass.
“I had to restrain a violent in Unit A today. Lucky girl.” Joey said as Geneva set her tray down.
“What were you doing on the Unit?” She settled into the seat one down from him to give him space.
“They had to call me in”
They would only call a male into a unit when things got really out of hand. It wasn’t that this was an experimental prison that was trying to use only female guards, it was just they had good management that paid attention. The Warden had gone to the administration and presented his own observation that after a male guard was on the unit the prisoners would become more aggressive with each other. Since some of the Administrative council had also been on the Board of Directors for the Mental Health Facility, and found the woman’s’ prison less interesting that the hospital had been, this piqued their interest. They immediately contracted for a study and found the warden was right, adding their own theory that it was due to sexual response. The rest of the council, knowing little about psychology other than Freud, were quick to concur. There were male guards in all other areas but not running the units. The fact that the prison hired mostly women got out and the Governor received accolades for addressing the problems associated with abuse of power by male guards in women’s prisons and threats of lawsuits for discrimination against men. No one outside the committee had bothered to read the report, and few knew about it. Even the guards made comments about the, as they called it, “Freud Rule”. Not realizing that the rule had nothing to do with Freud but with the understanding of the basis of the study. The warden was sure to tell every new hire how he had observed the cycle and called for the study and that was why it was preferred the male guards remain off the units. He was very proud of himself. He was also a little peeved with the Governor. The Governor had only mentioned once that it was the warden’s quick mind and careful observation that the change was ever made, and it was only made in reference to a threatened lawsuit. So the Warden made sure all the employees knew it was his idea. Unfortunately the employees didn’t care much and someone picked up on the Freudian reference made by one of the more boisterous Administrators (an expert in the field of business). Thus it was passed down as the Freud rule, which also annoyed the warden.
Geneva waited, as Joey shoveled more food in, for him to tell her what the big commotion was.
“The story is that this new prisoner, that just came in for attempted manslaughter, kept ranting and she was going on about how if they didn’t move her from a windowed room they would all be in trouble. I guess she was getting really worked up about it, but she was just pacing, pulling her hair and ranting so the guards didn’t think anything about it, but Box was watching T.V. and told her to shut up about her damned insomnia and this new gal lost it went for her and, well, you know Box. Like I said lucky girl”. Geneva did know Box. JoAnn had all the Sr. Guards read the file because they rotated all the units. It was two-fold nickname. She was large but where as most large women are round and cushiony Box was square and firm. She was also called that because to subdue anyone fighting her she would fold around them and fold up onto the floor. The last time she had done it she wasn’t in here. Box (back when she had been Heather Maltfoy) had been at a bar and when the guy came at her, she seemed to envelope him. First she dodged a punch and spun the guy around then her arms went around him like a wrestler, like a big bear hug, which everyone watching thought was hilarious. Then her knees folded into the backs of his and they went down the man spluttering and getting all red faced, everyone thought she was subduing him. Her legs pinning his. Her knees digging in on the backs of calves, her arms around him and her body bending in closer and closer bending him with her head and chest. She had folded him in two and in the end collapsing his lungs, cracking his ribs and she had strained his back so bad if he had lived it would have been a while before he could walk again. JoAnn had been right to warn the Unit A guards and all the Sr. Guards. Box wasn’t a problem. She was docile and self-contained but with that personality an unexpected, practically unbreakable, move that could end like that was more than dangerous. Joey was about the only guy big enough to manually break Box. He also had a theory that he was the only one too big for her to use that move on, but Geneva had her doubts. Joey was taller and wider but Box’s arms were long. Unusually long. She could scratch her knee without bending. The bar fight had actually started over something like that. The guy called her an Ape she said at least she wasn’t a knuckle dragger, etc, etc.
Joey had just finished his story when a call crackled over several radios in the cafeteria. The humming sound of talk quieted and the scraping of silverware on plate stopped. There was a situation just down the hall. The Inmates cafeteria was just on the other side of the kitchen. The 2 halls were parallel linked by another hall of secure doors. Joey scooted his chair from the table. He flew back about 3 feet. The Freud rule didn’t apply in the halls.
Geneva and Joey took off running down the hall. He barked into his radio and the secure doors flew open before them. The smack of their shoes, crackle of the 2-way and jingle of keys trailed behind them and running on before them meeting up with the chaos of sound that comes from more than 2 inmates cooperating. The sounds of encouragement. The rise and fall of excitement the only thing detectable in the reverberating echoes. Bouncing from wall to wall mashing words and screams. Even whispers are magnified by these halls. Loudness is eternal inside and out.
Just down the hall the past the inmates hall for the cafeteria where Geneva saw a guard dragging a bloody woman calling for infirmary support. Geneva hesitated as she briefly met the frightened eyes of the guard dragging the limp woman, her hair turning from dishwater to a bloody blond. The floor began to dip. The slope led down to a small door where a handball court use to be. In front of the locked court a group of women stand as two in the middle circle each other and then falling to the floor roll around jockeying for the top position. Top-bottom, floor-ceiling. Joey yelling, his deep reverberating tones bounce off the wall behind the semi-circle of women and back into their faces. Waking several out of their teamwork. His hand is on his nightstick and several women line up against the wall hoping to slip by after he passes but Geneva knows Joey can end this fight without her help and stops farther back. They'll need the whole story, half-truths, lies and fantasy all parsed together from those egging the main attraction on.
Geneva stopped before one of the women, eyeing the line, mentally noting who was there. They weren’t troublemakers. These women were all notorious voyeurs. “What were you watchen’ Donna?”
Donna unfolded her arms and brushed her constant rats nest of dark curls back. “I ain’t sure. I didn’t get here soon enough to get ringside” she gave a half grin.
“But you knew where to be, so who were you guessing?”
Donna looked down the line of inmates on the wall “I’ll get to them Donna, don’t worry and don’t pass the buck. You know I know you too well”
Donna shifted her eyes up and down the hall and looked back to Geneva. “Jane” She pointed her chin defiantly at Geneva “Can I go?” Geneva looked down the hall to Joey “Yeah. You 3 too” She said to the inmates who had slipped up on the walls before the brawl broke up. By now there were guards and infirmary staff moving around behind her. Two female guards were working with Joey. They took the fighters while Joey badgered the ringside for information. Geneva walked back to the hall where the guard with the frightened eyes had been. She was still there bloody but sans injured woman. Geneva looked at the ID badge “K. Kelly”. She felt badly that someone who knew this girl better wasn’t the first to her. Kelly straightened up from against the wall. Still new enough not to know Geneva didn’t refused her position an authority figure among her co-workers. “What happened Kelly?” Kelly wiped her damp hands down her thighs as she straightened into a military at ease position. “I was rear guard on the lunch detail and I heard raised voices, but they were like you hear with the lunch detain in these halls, you know? Everything in magnified” Her voice had raised and cracked at the question. She shifted and licked her lips. “But as I approached I saw a couple girls break the line towards the court. I hollered and left the line after them. When I got there she was already down, sorry I don’t know her name but she’s in the infirmary now. Another fight was brewing and the inmate down was getting trampled by the crowd so I grabbed her and backed away calling for back up.”
She shouldn’t have left the line, she should have called for back up first, she should have broken up the fight. But Geneva said nothing. It could wait. Maybe the inmate in the infirmary was badly hurt, maybe K. Kelly had saved her life, maybe there were other factors. “Did you see a weapon?”
-No, Mam
-Do you know how she was wounded?
Kelly shook her head
-It was a lot of blood, maybe a head wound?
-Alright, report to JoAnn. But go to the infirmary first.
Kelly looked less military and more confused
-B-but I’m not hurt, it’s not my b-blood.
-Precisely, and you should learn the name of the inmate you took the time to save
Geneva turned back down the hall as the two guards escorted the cuffed fighters. One hunched so far forward her chin length hair covered her face was dripping blood from an unseen wound on her face or neck kept mumbling “Its not my fault it’s the cycle”
The other glared sideways pulling at her restraints yelling “Crazy Bitch!”
Geneva admired the technique being used on the aggressive inmate as they passed but was instantly distracted by the carrying raised whispers and low voices. The rest of the “witnesses” were coming down the hall followed by several more guards, also talking and followed up by Joey. They got quiet as the passed Geneva and she fell into step next to Joey for a briefing.
-Injured?
-Just the one
-Weapon?
-Teeth
Geneva hesitated.
-That was a lot of blood…Ear?
-Throat
-Good god…Who could…
-Jane. That new girl I told you about on unit A this morning. Maybe Box was the lucky one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
III
JoAnn was barking orders as they approached her office.
-Geneva, you talked to the Guard?
-K. Kelly
-Joey, you got the statement from the rest?
-All but the fighters and the one in the infirmary.
-Well then how the hell do you know what is going on?
-The primaries were to agitated to talk.
JoAnn stopped pacing and closed her door. “I just want to know, before we file this on paper…she took a deep breath….What the HELL is going on! Joey that’s the second incident scene you’ve been on today and one of them was on a UNIT.”
Geneva looked at Joey, mind still reeling from the information that it was a bite to the neck, JoAnn must be too. But then she hadn’t seen and probably hadn’t been briefed on the damage yet. Geneva spoke up. “I think I should check on Kelly if she hasn’t reported in to you yet. I sent her to the infirmary she was shaken up and covered in an inmates blood”
JoAnn blinked. Geneva was right JoAnn had no idea of the extent of the scene. She was just going through procedure and protocol like any other minor scuffle. Geneva recounted what she had seen, who was there, what Guard Kelly had told her as well as why she held a reprimand back till she could establish if Kelly had saved them from a liability. Joey grunted “Too bad we can’t tell right action from wrong till legal tells us” JoAnn Shifted her gaze to Joey expectantly. He looked at her “Right. So I waded in. Most of the inmates had already backed off when I got there but Dennis, Samantha from unit F and Lyeko, Jane, the new one on unit A. She’s the one who tried to take on Box, um I mean Maltfoy, Heather, this morning. That’s why I was called in…”
Jo Ann interrupted “Yes, yes, I have that report already”
“Well like I said, those two were still rolling on the floor and when Lyeko got the upper hand she was dripping blood down all over Sam, so at first I assumed she was hurt. I saw Lyeko was choking Sam, I mean Dennis, Sam but realized it was Sam’s own hands around her throat. By then I had pulled them both up and Lyeko’s face was covered in blood and snarling and snapping like a mad dog and I had them both so I…so I used some force to stun Lyeko and dropped her to cuff Sam. By then Guards; Sanders, Brooks and Tealer were there and took over restraining.” Joey looked down waiting for the reprimand he knew he deserved and when silence continued he looked up. JoAnn just sat there her loud mouth silent and slightly open. He looked back to Geneva and she nodded for him to continue. She was as fascinated by this as JoAnn but something about it was starting to seem familiar. “Then I start asking what happened and, best as I could put together quickly, it seems that they were all headed for lunch when Lyeko freaked out and jumped Tonya Gibbons from Unit F. Tonya is one of those petit ones and so she ran. Ended up going down the ramp. A couple followed thinking it was play but Sam who was further to the back of the line saw it and came running. Joey paused looking down at the floor again and turning a little pink She’s, uh, she’s a good friend of Tonya’s and a good thing to because by the time she got there Tonya was already down and Lyeko was ripping at her throat…with her teeth. Most of the girls who had gathered round thought it was you know, sex play till the blood started spurting. Sam kicked Lyeko off Tonya and then they started fighting.” He looked up. Geneva quickly closed her mouth and JoAnn’s had dropped open a bit more. He cleared his throat. JoAnn blinked a few times looking a bit like a guppy and then regained her voice enough to breath “Damn” She shuffled a few papers, looked up as if she forgot they were there, looked at them and went back to shuffling papers realizing she had been looking for something “Lyeko is only here on attempted manslaughter. What the hell set her off?” She looked off into the darkness outside her window again “Damn”.
Geneva knew how she felt. There was a-lot missing from the story. It was the most brutal sounding incident they had ever had. It was stunning. Yet Geneva kept thinking there was something familiar. Lyeko, Lyeko, Lyeko. The name tumbled around in her head. She hadn’t read the file but the name seemed so familiar. JoAnn came out of it “Alright” Her tone was forceful, she was back to giving orders “Geneva go check on inmate Dennis and guard Kelly. If Davis can talk get her statement, have the medical reports sent to my office, and I’ll call legal to see about Kelly, but I think she did the right thing in this case. Joey get together with the other 3 guards do interviews and pull together a report. Between the two of you I want statements from EVERYONE involved and witness” Geneva and Joey got up and left. Through the closed door JoAnn called out a final order “And Joey, please refrain from calling the inmates by their first name in your report.”
As they walked down the hall the buzzing in their minds was actually audible. That was how acoustic the halls were. Probably the only reason they couldn’t hear the actual words of thought was because Joeys shoes were squeaking and Geneva’s keys were bouncing against her hip as she struggled to keep up with Joey’s pace.
“When you are doing interviews, be sure to talk to Donna Martin. She and the other voyeurs knew something was up. I don’t know what or how, but they knew something” Joey responded with a grunt.
“Donna will tell you anything. She’s got a thing for you”
Geneva looked up at him sideways waiting for the blush to hit his ears. When it didn’t come she said “Look Joey, its fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was a combination of everyone and everything.” He looked down at her “Sure, I know, but how weird was it all, huh?” Geneva reached up to thump him on the shoulder as they split to go in two different directions “But only 3 hours left to go buddy”.
Geneva walked through the silence. It was very odd. The walls were absorbing the sound tonight, or everyone was being particularly quiet. She rounded the corridor towards the infirmary and heard a howl of pain. Already a little keyed up she jogged the rest of the way down and startled an attendant as she swung in through the doors. He jumped. “Oh. Hey” he looked reassured. He didn’t know her and she didn’t know him but they were both visibly relieved at the sight of someone else. “What’s the ruckus?” Geneva asked looking around the empty front rooms. His eyes narrowed “Those 3 that came in” he jerked his head towards the back.
-Three?
-Yeah the guard and the two inmates
-Two?
-The one with the nasty neck wound and the other with a concussion and unresponsive like catatonia
-The other one?
-Jane Lyeko
Geneva felt light headed. The room was too familiar all the sudden. It was then that it all clicked. The room. The man in the white coat with the clipboard. Jane. Everything was melting together the past the present the walls the floor.
She awoke on starchy white sheets. For a moment she wasn’t sure which was the dream or reality. Was there a past and a future. She rolled to sit up swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She looked at her vague reflection in the window dividing the areas and noticed a strapped down inmate in the room beyond. The same hair that covered the face earlier in the corridor. “Jane”. The thought was a voice in the silence. The head turned and the glassy eyes focused with recognition for a moment. Her lips turned up at one corner in a sickly smile and moved without sound several times and then as her eyes began to glaze over again the sound came. Quiet at first and then louder and louder, like a march, she kept repeating "One on the inside one on the outside"
She walked over to dispatch. "Hey Joey"
He looked up from the monitors crammed into a tiny room. His bulky frame barely able to turn without bouncing a shoulder off one of the unit lock down switches on the wall. "Checking in Geneva?" She nodded while swiping her card and signing in. Joey turned again slamming his shoulder into the key box "Damn! Why did they have it cram all the equipment into here?" Geneva looked up without a smile "The biggest switchboard in town lived in that room" Joey stopped rubbing his shoulder and looked around the room "I guess there was all kinds of wiring leading into here then" a door banged in the distance echoing down the wide empty hall. Joey looked thoughtful. “So what happened to the switchboard?" Geneva shrugged. "I don't know what happened to the physical thing, but the network became the first Internet dial up for the city." the echo bounced around the polished floor, down off the high ceiling seeming to settle near Geneva's feet. She stepped on the spot like she was pinning a loose leaf or runaway paper. JoAnn walked up, following the echo. "Giving Joey a history lesson?" She said smiling. JoAnn was more often than not the cause of the echo. She was loud and liked to stir the emptiness with noise, usually her loud voice. "Yeah, she's giving me a reason why this damn tiny room has all the controls and electronics"
“It's not that tiny Joey. You’re just huge.”
Joey squared his shoulders with pride taking up even more space "How does she know so much anyway?"
Geneva interrupted before JoAnn could answer, “I’m a local, not a transplant.”
“Right. I keep forgetting you didn’t come with the job like most of us…the job came to you.” Joey smiled at her.
Geneva smiled a half embarrassed smile at Joey as the words she said so often came from his mouth. “Sometimes I wonder if they hired me because I'm a woman or because I already knew the building"
"Both" JoAnn’s casual voice bellowed "You are in unit D today.”
Geneva walked down the echoing hall that JoAnn had just come from. Geneva didn’t find it odd that the echo was not from the last words. She followed the echo of “Unit D” around the corner as if it were to escort her there.
Joey squinted into the sunlight and called down the hall after her. “See ya for dinner?” Her figure seemed to wave an affirmative back towards him.
She walked away making less noise than a slight breeze rubbing up against a decorative wind chime. The walls and floors seemed to absorb her voice, her footsteps never seemed to reverberate or carry. Only a tiny jingle of keys or loose change and the occasional radio call betrayed her presence.
The hall leads her through the unlocked double doors and around the corner. Geneva followed it thru' the secure door into the cubes. Hallways crossing hallways like graph paper. Tiny courtyards enclosed by hallways and old offices. More secure double doors with single hallways wide enough to have 3 gurneys side by side. Then another door to another secure unit. The inmates and guards of Unit D would be waiting for her, Geneva looked at her watch. It used to be smoke break now it was just time in the yard. Geneva didn’t know why they still did it. It wasn’t like the exercise time when they were allowed out to the back (what used to be a pasture) or the side field. There was no space for games in the space where they were allowed in the early evening. It was just one of the larger courtyards created by all the squares on the graph paper. Just windows facing a bit of green below and blue above between other windows. Geneva opened the unit door and went straight to the heavy steel courtyard door to unlock it. There was only an anxious guard and one inmate by the door. In the past everyone would be waiting, anxious and ready, already having bartered and paid for the cigarettes to smoke outside. Stella, the guard. Nodded to Geneva as she swung the steel door open. The fresh air stirred the scent of jailhouse humanity. Stella turned her head as if the smell had taken a swing at her. She looked at Geneva and when she quietly spoke she looked past her “I’m gonna slip off …” Stella added the international sign for lifting a cigarette to her lips. Geneva nodded and looked outside. It was a one person job anyway. The walls were so high it would take more than 3 inmates cooperating to even get up to the roof. The chance of 2 inmates working together was improbable and besides after that there was the guard station set up on top perched like a cupola, the security cameras, the sensors, and the razor wire at the perimeter.
Very few went outside, most stayed in the day room watching TV. Geneva turned her attention to the outside. She watched the hardest core smokers walking the perimeter of the yard. Everyone had walked it and counted it. Most had walked it so much it was habit. Geneva could tell from where someone was how many more steps they would take before they would make a right angle to their path. Jo had 20 more steps to go when she sat down. Right there in the foot worn path. 40 steps and Linda would be on top of Jo. Linda frowned at the interruption of her circuit. She hesitated, looking back over her shoulder, missing a beat. One by one their pace slowed. Why Linda didn’t just cross the yard Geneva didn’t know. There was no one in the middle sunning or reading or whatever they had once done while they smoked. There was no one there anymore but just like the habit that kept these few women walking around the edge, even without smoking, kept them from deviating from their routine. Geneva lifted Jo up by her elbow and moved her out of the way before there was a pile up.
She looked at Jo, she seemed out of it, “Do you need to go to the infirmary?”
Jo came back a little and focused on Geneva “No” she sighed looking at the slightly confused women trying to regain their pace and spacing “I just got tired of it. Nothing else will change anything here. We are a hermetically sealed device of perpetual motion”
Geneva walked her back inside “There’s no such thing”
Oh sure there is, here there is. In the rest of the world maybe not, but here, here there are no sources but ourselves.
Every order has with in it the germ of destruction. Instruments strive to become out of tune. The pressed and dressed yearn to be folded and crumpled. Schedules eagerly try to compensate for the worlds interrupted rythem every so often missing a beat”.
She looked into the yard through the bright window. “There are no carriers here. We’re all perfect pitch with lifetime guarantees.”
She looked back at Geneva and laughed “Well at least 5 to 20”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
II
Joey was already in the cafeteria when Geneva got there. His broad shoulders hunched over his tray. He had an institutional way of eating; protecting his food as he quickly ate. Geneva looked past him at her forming reflection across the room as the sky began to darken the wide glass windows. The windows were secure but when they had turned this into a prison they had built a different cafeteria for the inmates designating this one for the staff. No one was sure if it was out of consideration for the inmates or the staff. She knew that looking on the outside was sometimes more painful. The reminder you are not there, you are here behind the glass.
“I had to restrain a violent in Unit A today. Lucky girl.” Joey said as Geneva set her tray down.
“What were you doing on the Unit?” She settled into the seat one down from him to give him space.
“They had to call me in”
They would only call a male into a unit when things got really out of hand. It wasn’t that this was an experimental prison that was trying to use only female guards, it was just they had good management that paid attention. The Warden had gone to the administration and presented his own observation that after a male guard was on the unit the prisoners would become more aggressive with each other. Since some of the Administrative council had also been on the Board of Directors for the Mental Health Facility, and found the woman’s’ prison less interesting that the hospital had been, this piqued their interest. They immediately contracted for a study and found the warden was right, adding their own theory that it was due to sexual response. The rest of the council, knowing little about psychology other than Freud, were quick to concur. There were male guards in all other areas but not running the units. The fact that the prison hired mostly women got out and the Governor received accolades for addressing the problems associated with abuse of power by male guards in women’s prisons and threats of lawsuits for discrimination against men. No one outside the committee had bothered to read the report, and few knew about it. Even the guards made comments about the, as they called it, “Freud Rule”. Not realizing that the rule had nothing to do with Freud but with the understanding of the basis of the study. The warden was sure to tell every new hire how he had observed the cycle and called for the study and that was why it was preferred the male guards remain off the units. He was very proud of himself. He was also a little peeved with the Governor. The Governor had only mentioned once that it was the warden’s quick mind and careful observation that the change was ever made, and it was only made in reference to a threatened lawsuit. So the Warden made sure all the employees knew it was his idea. Unfortunately the employees didn’t care much and someone picked up on the Freudian reference made by one of the more boisterous Administrators (an expert in the field of business). Thus it was passed down as the Freud rule, which also annoyed the warden.
Geneva waited, as Joey shoveled more food in, for him to tell her what the big commotion was.
“The story is that this new prisoner, that just came in for attempted manslaughter, kept ranting and she was going on about how if they didn’t move her from a windowed room they would all be in trouble. I guess she was getting really worked up about it, but she was just pacing, pulling her hair and ranting so the guards didn’t think anything about it, but Box was watching T.V. and told her to shut up about her damned insomnia and this new gal lost it went for her and, well, you know Box. Like I said lucky girl”. Geneva did know Box. JoAnn had all the Sr. Guards read the file because they rotated all the units. It was two-fold nickname. She was large but where as most large women are round and cushiony Box was square and firm. She was also called that because to subdue anyone fighting her she would fold around them and fold up onto the floor. The last time she had done it she wasn’t in here. Box (back when she had been Heather Maltfoy) had been at a bar and when the guy came at her, she seemed to envelope him. First she dodged a punch and spun the guy around then her arms went around him like a wrestler, like a big bear hug, which everyone watching thought was hilarious. Then her knees folded into the backs of his and they went down the man spluttering and getting all red faced, everyone thought she was subduing him. Her legs pinning his. Her knees digging in on the backs of calves, her arms around him and her body bending in closer and closer bending him with her head and chest. She had folded him in two and in the end collapsing his lungs, cracking his ribs and she had strained his back so bad if he had lived it would have been a while before he could walk again. JoAnn had been right to warn the Unit A guards and all the Sr. Guards. Box wasn’t a problem. She was docile and self-contained but with that personality an unexpected, practically unbreakable, move that could end like that was more than dangerous. Joey was about the only guy big enough to manually break Box. He also had a theory that he was the only one too big for her to use that move on, but Geneva had her doubts. Joey was taller and wider but Box’s arms were long. Unusually long. She could scratch her knee without bending. The bar fight had actually started over something like that. The guy called her an Ape she said at least she wasn’t a knuckle dragger, etc, etc.
Joey had just finished his story when a call crackled over several radios in the cafeteria. The humming sound of talk quieted and the scraping of silverware on plate stopped. There was a situation just down the hall. The Inmates cafeteria was just on the other side of the kitchen. The 2 halls were parallel linked by another hall of secure doors. Joey scooted his chair from the table. He flew back about 3 feet. The Freud rule didn’t apply in the halls.
Geneva and Joey took off running down the hall. He barked into his radio and the secure doors flew open before them. The smack of their shoes, crackle of the 2-way and jingle of keys trailed behind them and running on before them meeting up with the chaos of sound that comes from more than 2 inmates cooperating. The sounds of encouragement. The rise and fall of excitement the only thing detectable in the reverberating echoes. Bouncing from wall to wall mashing words and screams. Even whispers are magnified by these halls. Loudness is eternal inside and out.
Just down the hall the past the inmates hall for the cafeteria where Geneva saw a guard dragging a bloody woman calling for infirmary support. Geneva hesitated as she briefly met the frightened eyes of the guard dragging the limp woman, her hair turning from dishwater to a bloody blond. The floor began to dip. The slope led down to a small door where a handball court use to be. In front of the locked court a group of women stand as two in the middle circle each other and then falling to the floor roll around jockeying for the top position. Top-bottom, floor-ceiling. Joey yelling, his deep reverberating tones bounce off the wall behind the semi-circle of women and back into their faces. Waking several out of their teamwork. His hand is on his nightstick and several women line up against the wall hoping to slip by after he passes but Geneva knows Joey can end this fight without her help and stops farther back. They'll need the whole story, half-truths, lies and fantasy all parsed together from those egging the main attraction on.
Geneva stopped before one of the women, eyeing the line, mentally noting who was there. They weren’t troublemakers. These women were all notorious voyeurs. “What were you watchen’ Donna?”
Donna unfolded her arms and brushed her constant rats nest of dark curls back. “I ain’t sure. I didn’t get here soon enough to get ringside” she gave a half grin.
“But you knew where to be, so who were you guessing?”
Donna looked down the line of inmates on the wall “I’ll get to them Donna, don’t worry and don’t pass the buck. You know I know you too well”
Donna shifted her eyes up and down the hall and looked back to Geneva. “Jane” She pointed her chin defiantly at Geneva “Can I go?” Geneva looked down the hall to Joey “Yeah. You 3 too” She said to the inmates who had slipped up on the walls before the brawl broke up. By now there were guards and infirmary staff moving around behind her. Two female guards were working with Joey. They took the fighters while Joey badgered the ringside for information. Geneva walked back to the hall where the guard with the frightened eyes had been. She was still there bloody but sans injured woman. Geneva looked at the ID badge “K. Kelly”. She felt badly that someone who knew this girl better wasn’t the first to her. Kelly straightened up from against the wall. Still new enough not to know Geneva didn’t refused her position an authority figure among her co-workers. “What happened Kelly?” Kelly wiped her damp hands down her thighs as she straightened into a military at ease position. “I was rear guard on the lunch detail and I heard raised voices, but they were like you hear with the lunch detain in these halls, you know? Everything in magnified” Her voice had raised and cracked at the question. She shifted and licked her lips. “But as I approached I saw a couple girls break the line towards the court. I hollered and left the line after them. When I got there she was already down, sorry I don’t know her name but she’s in the infirmary now. Another fight was brewing and the inmate down was getting trampled by the crowd so I grabbed her and backed away calling for back up.”
She shouldn’t have left the line, she should have called for back up first, she should have broken up the fight. But Geneva said nothing. It could wait. Maybe the inmate in the infirmary was badly hurt, maybe K. Kelly had saved her life, maybe there were other factors. “Did you see a weapon?”
-No, Mam
-Do you know how she was wounded?
Kelly shook her head
-It was a lot of blood, maybe a head wound?
-Alright, report to JoAnn. But go to the infirmary first.
Kelly looked less military and more confused
-B-but I’m not hurt, it’s not my b-blood.
-Precisely, and you should learn the name of the inmate you took the time to save
Geneva turned back down the hall as the two guards escorted the cuffed fighters. One hunched so far forward her chin length hair covered her face was dripping blood from an unseen wound on her face or neck kept mumbling “Its not my fault it’s the cycle”
The other glared sideways pulling at her restraints yelling “Crazy Bitch!”
Geneva admired the technique being used on the aggressive inmate as they passed but was instantly distracted by the carrying raised whispers and low voices. The rest of the “witnesses” were coming down the hall followed by several more guards, also talking and followed up by Joey. They got quiet as the passed Geneva and she fell into step next to Joey for a briefing.
-Injured?
-Just the one
-Weapon?
-Teeth
Geneva hesitated.
-That was a lot of blood…Ear?
-Throat
-Good god…Who could…
-Jane. That new girl I told you about on unit A this morning. Maybe Box was the lucky one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
III
JoAnn was barking orders as they approached her office.
-Geneva, you talked to the Guard?
-K. Kelly
-Joey, you got the statement from the rest?
-All but the fighters and the one in the infirmary.
-Well then how the hell do you know what is going on?
-The primaries were to agitated to talk.
JoAnn stopped pacing and closed her door. “I just want to know, before we file this on paper…she took a deep breath….What the HELL is going on! Joey that’s the second incident scene you’ve been on today and one of them was on a UNIT.”
Geneva looked at Joey, mind still reeling from the information that it was a bite to the neck, JoAnn must be too. But then she hadn’t seen and probably hadn’t been briefed on the damage yet. Geneva spoke up. “I think I should check on Kelly if she hasn’t reported in to you yet. I sent her to the infirmary she was shaken up and covered in an inmates blood”
JoAnn blinked. Geneva was right JoAnn had no idea of the extent of the scene. She was just going through procedure and protocol like any other minor scuffle. Geneva recounted what she had seen, who was there, what Guard Kelly had told her as well as why she held a reprimand back till she could establish if Kelly had saved them from a liability. Joey grunted “Too bad we can’t tell right action from wrong till legal tells us” JoAnn Shifted her gaze to Joey expectantly. He looked at her “Right. So I waded in. Most of the inmates had already backed off when I got there but Dennis, Samantha from unit F and Lyeko, Jane, the new one on unit A. She’s the one who tried to take on Box, um I mean Maltfoy, Heather, this morning. That’s why I was called in…”
Jo Ann interrupted “Yes, yes, I have that report already”
“Well like I said, those two were still rolling on the floor and when Lyeko got the upper hand she was dripping blood down all over Sam, so at first I assumed she was hurt. I saw Lyeko was choking Sam, I mean Dennis, Sam but realized it was Sam’s own hands around her throat. By then I had pulled them both up and Lyeko’s face was covered in blood and snarling and snapping like a mad dog and I had them both so I…so I used some force to stun Lyeko and dropped her to cuff Sam. By then Guards; Sanders, Brooks and Tealer were there and took over restraining.” Joey looked down waiting for the reprimand he knew he deserved and when silence continued he looked up. JoAnn just sat there her loud mouth silent and slightly open. He looked back to Geneva and she nodded for him to continue. She was as fascinated by this as JoAnn but something about it was starting to seem familiar. “Then I start asking what happened and, best as I could put together quickly, it seems that they were all headed for lunch when Lyeko freaked out and jumped Tonya Gibbons from Unit F. Tonya is one of those petit ones and so she ran. Ended up going down the ramp. A couple followed thinking it was play but Sam who was further to the back of the line saw it and came running. Joey paused looking down at the floor again and turning a little pink She’s, uh, she’s a good friend of Tonya’s and a good thing to because by the time she got there Tonya was already down and Lyeko was ripping at her throat…with her teeth. Most of the girls who had gathered round thought it was you know, sex play till the blood started spurting. Sam kicked Lyeko off Tonya and then they started fighting.” He looked up. Geneva quickly closed her mouth and JoAnn’s had dropped open a bit more. He cleared his throat. JoAnn blinked a few times looking a bit like a guppy and then regained her voice enough to breath “Damn” She shuffled a few papers, looked up as if she forgot they were there, looked at them and went back to shuffling papers realizing she had been looking for something “Lyeko is only here on attempted manslaughter. What the hell set her off?” She looked off into the darkness outside her window again “Damn”.
Geneva knew how she felt. There was a-lot missing from the story. It was the most brutal sounding incident they had ever had. It was stunning. Yet Geneva kept thinking there was something familiar. Lyeko, Lyeko, Lyeko. The name tumbled around in her head. She hadn’t read the file but the name seemed so familiar. JoAnn came out of it “Alright” Her tone was forceful, she was back to giving orders “Geneva go check on inmate Dennis and guard Kelly. If Davis can talk get her statement, have the medical reports sent to my office, and I’ll call legal to see about Kelly, but I think she did the right thing in this case. Joey get together with the other 3 guards do interviews and pull together a report. Between the two of you I want statements from EVERYONE involved and witness” Geneva and Joey got up and left. Through the closed door JoAnn called out a final order “And Joey, please refrain from calling the inmates by their first name in your report.”
As they walked down the hall the buzzing in their minds was actually audible. That was how acoustic the halls were. Probably the only reason they couldn’t hear the actual words of thought was because Joeys shoes were squeaking and Geneva’s keys were bouncing against her hip as she struggled to keep up with Joey’s pace.
“When you are doing interviews, be sure to talk to Donna Martin. She and the other voyeurs knew something was up. I don’t know what or how, but they knew something” Joey responded with a grunt.
“Donna will tell you anything. She’s got a thing for you”
Geneva looked up at him sideways waiting for the blush to hit his ears. When it didn’t come she said “Look Joey, its fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was a combination of everyone and everything.” He looked down at her “Sure, I know, but how weird was it all, huh?” Geneva reached up to thump him on the shoulder as they split to go in two different directions “But only 3 hours left to go buddy”.
Geneva walked through the silence. It was very odd. The walls were absorbing the sound tonight, or everyone was being particularly quiet. She rounded the corridor towards the infirmary and heard a howl of pain. Already a little keyed up she jogged the rest of the way down and startled an attendant as she swung in through the doors. He jumped. “Oh. Hey” he looked reassured. He didn’t know her and she didn’t know him but they were both visibly relieved at the sight of someone else. “What’s the ruckus?” Geneva asked looking around the empty front rooms. His eyes narrowed “Those 3 that came in” he jerked his head towards the back.
-Three?
-Yeah the guard and the two inmates
-Two?
-The one with the nasty neck wound and the other with a concussion and unresponsive like catatonia
-The other one?
-Jane Lyeko
Geneva felt light headed. The room was too familiar all the sudden. It was then that it all clicked. The room. The man in the white coat with the clipboard. Jane. Everything was melting together the past the present the walls the floor.
She awoke on starchy white sheets. For a moment she wasn’t sure which was the dream or reality. Was there a past and a future. She rolled to sit up swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She looked at her vague reflection in the window dividing the areas and noticed a strapped down inmate in the room beyond. The same hair that covered the face earlier in the corridor. “Jane”. The thought was a voice in the silence. The head turned and the glassy eyes focused with recognition for a moment. Her lips turned up at one corner in a sickly smile and moved without sound several times and then as her eyes began to glaze over again the sound came. Quiet at first and then louder and louder, like a march, she kept repeating "One on the inside one on the outside"
posted by Perdita at 8:17 AM
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