Vincent Zandri - The Innocent

But by 1997 a new breed of inmate had infected Green Haven Prison, a new generation of criminal born of the sewers of New York and raised in the streets. Teenage men who never really had a mother or a father or a home or the chance for an education. Men, not boys, who seemed almost happy to go to prison because, for the first time in their lives, they felt safe and protected by the thirty-foot-high concrete walls. Men who enjoyed the prison life for the free sex, booze, food, drugs, and medical attention. Tough young men who freaked at the sight of a dentist’s drill because they’d never seen one before. Young men whose life expectancy shot up dramatically from twenty-one to the ripe old age of forty because they now had iron bars and concrete walls to separate them from the killers they’d dissed along the way.

I was their warden.

I was their keeper, their mother and their father.

Which is why, for me, the matter of Eduard Vasquez’s escape was such a serious offense. I had signed the release form allowing him to visit a dentist on the outside. As the keeper of Green Haven, I was directly responsible. It was my decision and my decision only. What I mean is, I could have said no. But then, I couldn’t just deny a prisoner his right to proper dental care if that’s what he wanted. That was the rule in New York State. As the keeper, my job was not rehabilitation. My job was to see that society was protected from its prisoners. But get this: It was also my job to see that a man who’d shot a New York City cop at point-blank range maintained a pearly-white smile.

I was well aware that Vasquez knew his rights. All the sharp inmates did. Fact is, they knew their rights better than did the men and women who incarcerated them. It was simply a matter of the prisoners knowing more about their civil liberties than did the guards who locked them down every night. At Green Haven Prison in the spring of 1997 ignorance ruled, and ignorance was never bliss.

And when it came to making an executive decision based on an inmate’s civil liberties, there was never any right or wrong. There was only wrong and more wrong. But then, Vasquez had been a good prisoner. That is, he didn’t go around stabbing or raping anybody. And I’d had no reason to believe he would escape. Anyway, I didn’t make the rules in the first place, I only competed with them.

The hot sun poured into my office through the old double-hung windows. Even though Wash Pelton, the Commissioner of Corrections, had declared it a general cost-saving rule to leave the air conditioners dormant until June, I turned mine on and breathed in the cool, stale air.

I turned back to Val, watched her push up the sleeves of her cream-colored cashmere V-neck sweater.

“Okay, give it to me straight. You think Logan’s statement is legit?”

Val straightened her legs and spread her arms to catch the cool breeze from the air conditioner. She stood up from the leather chair and stretched her short solid body by reaching for the stars. A habit of hers I never got tired of admiring. “In my opinion,” she said, “Logan is one lying son of a bitch…if you’ll excuse my French.”

I slid off the desk, stuffed my hands into my pockets. “My thoughts exactly,” I said. I was relying on my gut. I’d never had an escape before. I’d never had any choice but to accept the word of my officers as gospel, no matter what I suspected otherwise. Besides the missing file, I thought, the only thing to go on was Logan’s unmarked face.

“You notice any marks on Logan’s mug?”

“For a man who got smacked over the head with a gun,” Val said, stuffing her notepad under her left arm, “he seemed in pretty good shape.”

“Perfect shape. Other than that small bruise on his forehead.”

We said nothing for a second or two while the cold air filled the room like the invisible vapors in a gas chamber.

The phone rang.

Val took it at my desk. “Superintendent’s office,” she said, looking directly at me with the wide eyes that told me someone I didn’t want to talk to was on the line. “Pelton,” she said cupping her hand over the mouthpiece.

“Crap,” I whispered. “He wanted two more men cut from the staff by Friday. Two more men when I don’t have enough officers now.” I removed my charcoal suit jacket from off the hanger in the closet, held it by the lapel.

“What do I tell him?”

“Tell him I’m not here. Something is definitely not right. I’ve got a missing prisoner, a missing file, and a possibly phony statement. I might even have a quack for a dentist. What I definitely have is a real problem when Pelton gets word I signed the release for Vasquez to walk.”

“What’ll I tell Pelton about the escape?” Val begged, her palm pressed flat over the mouthpiece. “He’s gonna want something. An explanation at least.”

I slipped on my jacket, pulling the cuffs to make the shirtsleeves taut. I looked into the small mirror on the back of the closet door, ran my hands through my black hair, pressed my fingers down over my mustache and goatee. “Tell him I had a dentist’s appointment,” I said, looking into my own brown eyes but quickly looking away. “Then try to find Vasquez’s file, even if you have to get it off the microfilm.”

“I can’t tell him you went to the dentist.”

“Why not? I have teeth.”

“He’ll know it’s a lie. You know I hate it when I have to lie for you.”

“Okay, then tell him the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That I don’t want to talk with him right now because I don’t feel like firing anyone.”

Val pressed her lips together, stared me down. She knew she had to lie for me whether she liked it or not. She took a quick breath, composed herself, and took her hand off the mouthpiece. She brought the phone to her face, spoke slowly, barely moving her thick, red lips. “Mr. Marconi just left for the dentist, Mr. Pelton. Is there a message?”

As I opened the door to the office, she stuck her tongue out at me.

“You mad at me?” I whispered.

She raised her middle finger high, as if the tongue hadn’t been enough.

LIKE ALL MAXIMUM SECURITY penitentiaries in New York State, the bowels of Green Haven are gray, dark, and completely devoid of life. The narrow tunnels and corridors that connect the nine cell blocks are lit only with caged light bulbs mounted high on the concrete walls. The concrete-paneled ceiling is flat and featureless, like a bunker. Looking around, you have the distinct, claustrophobic sensation of moving toward a dungeon or torture chamber rather than the “Home-Sweet-Home” of a few thousand inmates. Other than the thick, bright-yellow line that runs along the center of the concrete floor, all is gray, cold, and lifeless.

Here’s what I used to think, but never spoke up about: gray is not the color of rehabilitation; gray is the color of incarceration, pure and simple. Incarceration was my job, and Green Haven provided the perfect working environment.

Then there was the odor, the worm smell that coated the interiors like a vapor so thick you tasted it on your lips and tongue as much as you inhaled it, and when you first came to the prison you might have gagged on the foul air. It was an odor that began in the cells, from toilets that could not flush and from the waste-throwers who refused to flush the toilets that could. The smells came from the mess-hall galleys where nutritious meals of yellow potato salad, rice pilaf, beans, chicken patties, and Kool-Aid for twenty-five hundred inmates were being prepped for supper and served on Styrofoam trays with plastic spoons. The smells came from inmates who showered only twice a week, even after spending entire afternoons at the weight-lifting platforms or the basketball courts.