Robert Reilly provides a look inside America’s prison system unlike any other, and the way that it affects not only the prisoners themselves but also the corrections officers and their families. For more information or to purchase a copy of the book, please visit Amazon.
We first met not long after I started. It was part of inmate T’s institutional work detail to mop the floor of the cellblock. I remember him doing a lousy job and telling him that what he was doing wasn’t good enough. He complained loudly and bitterly to anyone who would listen. He mouthed off about feeling like a slave. He demanded to know if I thought he was Kunta Kinte. In response, I asked him very directly if he really believed I thought of myself as a slaver and a whip cracker. He walked away without responding.
A little while later, when he felt the floor was clean enough, he told me he was finished working. I told him he wasn’t finished until I said he was and that he was still doing a lousy job and that he was going to have to do it again and again until it was done properly. Inmate T threw down the mop, faced me, and in front of a full audience of maximum-security inmates, yelled, “Why don’t you go fuck yourself!” It was a very tense moment. Inmate T was being taken to task by a new guard, a guy without any reputation or credentials.
I was an unknown quantity, someone to be tested and, if possible, taken advantage of, someone who definitely didn’t act or look that tough. Inmate T was incredibly angry and on the verge of violence. His hostility radiated toward me like heat waves from a red-hot wood stove. I felt very vulnerable. I glanced over to my left. In the corner of the block, kneeling inside a water pipe closet was one of the maintenance guys. It was a man I had only met once or twice and would say hello to but didn’t know by name. What I did know was that he’d been a guard for twenty years and was finishing his time out on the maintenance crew, an easy gig after two decades of being a cast member in the state’s longest running, heartbreaking horror show. I could tell he was listening to what was going on but not mak- ing any moves to come over. His presence, although a satellite to the confrontation, felt quite comforting. I knew I wasn’t alone.
I stood still and asked the inmate in a quiet voice, “Why are you speaking to me this way? I would never speak to you like that. I can’t physically make you mop the floor, but if you don’t do a decent job, I can cancel your weightlifting, basketball, and GED classes. The decision is yours. If you do the job properly, it will be done in half an hour. If you complain, whine, and insult me, it will take you all day and result in me making some dramatic changes to your living situation.”
We looked at each other for a long time, eye to eye. He sighed deeply and said, “Are you going to write me up?”
“No,” I replied, “I would like you to start cleaning the floor properly and then when it’s done, we’ll be all set.”
The inmate returned to work, this time mopping diligently, changing the water regularly, moving tables and chairs, cleaning beneath them, and doing what I considered to be a good job. After a while, the old maintenance guy finished his work, got up from his knees, locked the water pipe closet, and then put his carefully num- bered tools back into a lock box. He sauntered over to me. As he crossed the dayroom, numerous inmates said hello to him, many of whom he’d probably seen every day for the last twenty years. He walked over to me and said, “You know what you are, don’t cha?”
“Er, I don’t know. What?”
“You’re a cooler, kid, that’s what you are.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’ve been working in this shithole for over twenty years. How you handled that, well, it was real good. Ya know, in a place like this, there are coolers, cowards, power trippers, and agitators. The coolers keep everything on an even keel. The rest of them, well, they just cause hate and discontent. Way to go, kid. You did good, real good.”