Newsletter #25 ILLEGAL SHELVES 2-27-2000
RK©copyright 2000
T R I P R E P O R T
This has been a fun week in the empire; the California Prison
Empire . At
least for the men of the second floor of Building three of B
Quad, C M C
East. Let me tell you about it. It all started last Monday.
I was sitting at the desk in my cell typing a letter. My "
cellie " was
off to his afternoon class. I hear noises in the cell next
door. That cell
door was opened over five minutes ago and there's yet no sound
of its being
closed. In Prison one tends to listen for familiar sounds and
anticipate the
next sound.
Something unusual is taking place. I listen a bit closer and
now here
voices, outside my door and near the next cell. I detect a
woman's voice out
there now .
This puts things back in focus. We have a lady guard working
the second
shift this month. This would be her voice. I wish my friends
in the next
cell luck . No good can come from talking to a guard who for
some reason has
decided to visit your cell. Good luck fellas, I think, and go
back to my typi
ng. Not a good time to be
" visible ".
I should stop for a moment and comment on the lady guard who is
the
not-too-welcome guest at the next cell. She is not your
run-of-the-mill
guard material. This young woman is slim. She is a natural
blonde. She has
the clear skin and fine bone structure of the English Princess
Diana. With
no makeup or lipstick and dressed as guard she is still a very
good-looking
young woman. Dressed in a different style out in the world of
high-fashion
she could be described as a
" beauty ".
I sit at the desk and continue to work on the letter on I'm
typing.
Now there is a rap on my door. I stand, and go open it. There
at the door
is the young lady guard. She asks " May I come in ? I have to
check your
shelves ".
She is leading over backwards here, being courteous. She really
has the keys
to all cells including mine, and she doesn't need my permission
to come in
. I think she is trying to be decent and show some respect for
age.
I say, " of course you may come in . Please let me step outside
to give you
space. "
Now, I'm leaning over backwards being courteous. The truth is I
have to
leave before a guard can enter the cell. That's a rule.
She goes into the cell, walks up to the shelves on the end the
wall. There
are two there. " These " she says, " are illegal. " She then
addresses the
shelves above the desk. There are three, each above the other.
" That top shelf is illegal. It sticks out too far. "
This all strikes me as funny and I try not smile. The the thing
is: this is
an inner cell of an inner building of a major California Prison.
These are
steel shelves. They are bolted and welded into place. How
could illegal
construction occur in such a heavily guarded place. ?
To be blunt, " where were the guards"? While I am mulling this
intriguing
question the guard lady turns to my bed, bolted to the wall. "
That's
certainly not legal. It's way too high, and it looks to be too
narrow. Your
neighbors were right. "
Uh? Oh, now she said something that makes sense; sad sense ,
bad sense, but
sense. We now have an explanation for what's going on. And
someone is going
to rue this day .
We are all back outside in the aisle now. The men at the cell
next door,
where the commotion started, the lady guard, and I.
" I am calling maintenance to start work orders going to return
your cells to
legal. I'm also going to check the rest of the cells on this
side of the
aisle while I'm at it. " she's not talking about some
twenty-five cells,
there are going to be fifty very unhappy men .
As she leaves she turns to me and says, " you have only recently
moved to
this cell. The violations are not your fault, I know. They do
have to be
corrected though. "
With this , she leaves.
I turn to the two Hispanics who live in the next door cell. "
what
happened?, " I ask, " what brought this on? "
" Hey, man, I'm sorry. It's all my fault. She jumped me on
that special
self we have for our T V . Without thinking, I said, it's just
like the one
next door. "
Our Hispanic friend is not only embarrassed, he's a little
scared. He has
broken an almost sacred code of Prison conduct. " never, ever
try to get out
of a problem by incriminating another".
My " cellie" returns later in the afternoon. He's angry. In
our world of
limited space this has created a serious problem.
We have never had enough shelf space. Now we have even less .
Our modest
accumulation of personal property always has been done with an
eye to finding
storage space. I for instance cannot keep a file of all the
letters I
receive or all the letters I write. I am forced to operate an "
open end "
file in which only the letters of the last two months are
retained. The "
legal " shelves our pretty guard is insisting on will mean our
having get rid
of some more of our already limited property.
Probably all of the other cells snared in this exercise will
lose priceless
shelf storage space. We're looking at some forty eight unhappy
men . I feel
sorry for our Hispanic neighbor.
The one thing he has going for him is his honesty. That took
courage to
admit that this was his mistake. This will be considered by
those wanting
to " make him pay for his goof "
My "cellie" leaves immediately to go talk to his friends in
maintenance.
Perhaps they can squash this work order, or delay it till our
young lady
guard moves on.
He does his best. He even calls in some " markers ". But it's
to no avail.
Three days later the maintenance men arrive with their work
orders. They
start to work immediately.
They're apologetic. They know the problem this is causing.
They tell my
"cellie ", though, that this one is the " hot potato ". They
can't bury it
or lose it. Here's the way they are telling it.
Our young lady guard is working towards a promotion. To earn
this she must
do something for the record that shows she's " tough ".
Why for the record, you may well ask ? Well, because she just
doesn't look "
tough".
This will give her supervisor who very likely wants to help her,
some recent
proof he can show his boss that says, in spite of her looks,
she's " one
tough cookie ". She does have the qualities that we guards
consider
important. She's "mean ".
It all makes sense. We have a pretty, very feminine young
woman. She
doesn't have that " guard " look. How can she convince her
bosses she will
do her duty in the way they seem to think is important. That
she has no
concern for the prisoners under control.
Put this way we can appreciate what has happened. She's been
tough. She's
been mean . She'll get her promotion.
Yet to be fair, no one has been hurt. We wish her well.
This has been a fun week. This is life in the empire.
Richard Keech
semper fi
Richard Keech 