Michael Lister - Power in the Blood

Just inside the building there was a small inmate waiting room where inmates sat in silence staring at the front wall until they were called in by the particular official they were waiting to see. To the left was dental and classification, and to the right was medical and pharmaceutical, all of which were behind locked doors. I turned right- the opposite direction from Anna, whom I would rather be visiting.

After unlocking the medical department door with my key, I walked down the long hallway leading to the infirmary, wondering how many other staff members had a key to the medical department. It made sense that the chaplain did; I spent a great deal of time in the infirmary.

Along the way, I passed the nurses’ station where two nurses- one white, one black, both elderly and overweight-sat. Each had an inmate seated across from her and was laboring to check his vital signs. The inmates’ slightly amused slightly fearful looks said they wondered if the nurses had a vital sign between them.

I also passed by two exam rooms. In one, Dr. Mulid Akbar, PCI’s senior health officer and my personal advisor to the Muslim religion, was examining the knee of one of the inmates, who seemed to be in a great deal of pain. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just trying to get out of work, and then I felt guilty for being so jaded. It’s just that in the few months that I had been at PCI, I had been lied to more than the entire rest of my life. However, I vowed again, right then and there, not to become so callused that I expect to be lied to.

At the end of the hallway and to the left, I entered the officers’ station for the infirmary. There I found to both my surprise and delight Nurse Strickland, whom I had briefly met the day before. She was seated on the officer’s desk swinging her legs back and forth and chewing bubble gum while warmly conversing with Officer Straub.

“Well, hello, Chaplain. Jordan, isn’t it?” Strickland said.

“Yes, John. Hello. How are you two today?”

“Never better,” she said in an upbeat voice, but she was looking down. “By the way, my name is Sandra, but everyone calls me Sandy.” When our eyes finally met, she glanced at me and then looked away. She was that not-so-rare combination of beautiful and insecure. At that moment, I wished for the chance to help make her more secure. She was beautiful and I wanted to tell her so.

“I’ve never seen you here during the day before and now I’ve seen you two days in a row,” I said. “Have you been transferred to day shift?”

“Oh, no. I’m too much of a night owl. I wouldn’t be much use around here most mornings. Just with everything that happened yesterday and all, I’m trying to lend a hand. We also have an ACA inspection coming up soon, and I’m putting in a lot of overtime to whip things into shape.”

“We keep trying to get her to join us here on day shift,” Officer Straub said, never taking his eyes off her, “but she just won’t do it. I think she’s a vampire.”

She slapped at him in mock anger and then opened her mouth just enough to expose her vampire teeth and started toward his neck, but then got embarrassed and stopped. She looked down and then back at me to see if she had made a complete fool out of herself.

I tried to think of something to say that would assure her that she had not. “If you want to drain his blood, I can wait in the other room.” And then I laughed, but soon discovered that I was laughing alone. She looked upset and a little pale.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot all about yesterday. I know you were the first to check Johnson. It was very insensitive of me. I’m really sorry.”

“It was just so horrible. So much blood . . . everywhere. It really got to me. I didn’t think it would, but it did. I think I’m going to walk outside for a minute and get some fresh air. Would you like to join me, Chaplain?”

“Sure,” I said and then turned to say good-bye to Straub, but could feel the intensity of his stare immediately. I had interrupted his play and he made no attempt to hide his anger. I simply nodded and turned and walked away.

Outside, the fresh air was far too hot and humid to be refreshing, but it did restore Nurse Strickland’s color. Or perhaps it was the super slim Capri cigarette she was inhaling the way underwater swimmers take in air when they finally reach the surface again. We were standing at the back right of the medical building where the smokers normally congregated, but, for now, we had it all to ourselves.

“I’m really sorry about that. Are you okay?” I said.

“Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it. It was no big deal and any other time would have been funny. It’s just . . .”

“I know. Did you know him very well?” I asked.

“Who?” she asked as if I had just awakened her.

“Johnson.”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, as well as you can know any of these men, I guess.”

“Was he in the infirmary a lot?”

“Not a lot, but still a lot more than most of the other men,” she said.

“What can you tell me about him?” I asked.

“Why so many questions? What are you, an undercover cop?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just that I was involved and I’m curious,” I lied.

“Well, let’s see,” she said, looking at me only for a moment and then back down again. “He was kind of small, so he got picked on a lot. He was a little effeminate. I don’t think he liked girls very much. Probably hated them.”

“Really, what makes you say that?”

“Oh, don’t pay any attention to me. I’ve had a few psych courses, and I like to see if I can read people, but I don’t really know.”

“You may be right. I’ve heard that he had a pimp.”

“Really, who?”

“An inmate named Jacobson. Do you know him?”

“Not very well, I’m happy to say. He’s been in to see us a few times, but I try to avoid him. He’s crazy. That really pisses me off,” she said bitterly and then looked up at me in shock. “Oh, shit, Chaplain. I did it again. Excuse my French, please. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. What were you saying? I want to know what makes a pretty lady like yourself that angry.”

“It’s just what this place does to people. People like Jacobson turn sweet little boys like Johnson into monsters, you know. I’m sick of it. If you’re not a criminal when you get here, you’ll damn sure be one when you leave.” A single tear cut a path through the thick makeup on her right cheek.

I was moved with compassion for her. She was right. Oftentimes, the merely misguided became the cunningly criminal inside facilities like these. “It sounds to me like you really care,” I said.

“I do.”

We were silent for a few minutes. She puffed away, and I waited for the silence to pass while a single drop of sweat trickled down the center of my back, tickling as it did.

“What happened Monday night?” I asked finally. “How did Jacobson get thrown in the hole and Johnson in the back of that truck?”

“I really don’t know. It was a relatively quiet night. They were the only two we had in the infirmary. In the early morning hours of Tuesday-five maybe, they started yelling at each other and, before too long, Jacobson was on top of Johnson punching him in the face. The officer on duty, Officer Hardy, wasn’t at his desk, so Captain Skipper and I broke them up and separated them. He told them to go back to bed and he would forget about it. I’ve never seen Skipper do anything like that before. I figured he was up to something. He told them if they did it again, he was going to write them a disciplinary report and send them to confinement.”

“Where was Officer Hardy?” I asked.

She shrugged. Her expression said he was often away from his assigned post. “I really don’t know. Could’ve been anywhere. He was not where he was supposed to be.”