I pass the sign warning that anyone beyond this point should
be prepared to be searched or, in Spanish,“revisado.” I like that idea better.
I should be prepared to be revised. First drafts only up to this point. From
here on, you need to focus and figure out what the hell it is you want to say,
to do, and to act for a reason. Nobody except students write for no reason
other than their own.
The tubs are heavy with writing pads, pens, some magazines,
a few books of poetry, copies of inmate drafts that we will discuss. I set the
clear tubs down on the steel table so the guard can go through and check for
contraband. All of it is contraband, really, but usually the guard just sifts
through the pads, shuffles a few pages of the books to make sure they are not
hollowed out. He has no interest and likely thinks this stuff is worthless,
harmless, and a bit eccentric, if not insane. Why would anyone, including
inmates want to sit down and write only to have others critique it? The best
outcome is that the work might show up in an obscure journal somewhere, just
another crazy poem or story that weirdos would read.
Or at least that’s what I think when I look at his face. I
see a faint disgust mixed with bewilderment. Normally, he replaces the lids, and
I walk through the metal detector to pick up the tubs on the other side. From
here I have only to pass through the sally port and then I am in. I go through
this every Saturday, and watch but keep my thoughts to myself. I am lucky and
familiar enough that all of this protocol is routine. I see myself on the other
side already, under the roof, next to the shoe-shine station, waiting for my
ride.
There I will catch a bus and head on over to the Rincon
Unit, a two minute ride from the main gate. I will hear the electronic locks
snap open, like a bullet being chambered. I show my badge through the half-inch
thick, mirrored security glass and the invisible guard on the other side opens
the sliding electric door.
Musing on my near future, I wait, holding the tubs, feeling
my fingernails bend under the weight of them. When the guard signals me set
them down on the table, I do, before unloading my pockets of glasses, pen,
clip-on badge that allows me clearance, car keys, and any loose change. I am
ready to go through the metal detector when she asks me for the memo. I am
snapped out of reverie.
“What memo?” I ask.
“Your personal property memo that lists everything you are
taking in to the units.”
I don’t have this.
“I have never been asked for a memo before. This is for the
creative writing workshops. We’ve been running them for a long time.”
“You can’t take anything in that is not accounted for, and
you need to bring it all back out with you.”
“They need paper and pens to write during the week so we can
workshop on Saturdays. I have to leave them pads and folders.”
“Nothing is allowed in that doesn’t come back out.”
I think this is some of glitch, so ask to see a supervisor.
The guard says she will contact the sergeant, before re-entering the control
room. She points to a bench that looks like some of detention site. This is
where the drug sniffing dogs usually wait between checking visitors for drugs.
I wait forty five minutes. The sergeant, a blonde, heavy set
woman, emerges from a gray office complex, and walks, with a slight swagger,
toward me. I can see a trace of irritation in her face. I explain that the
materials are for the writing workshop and that I take them in every week and
leave them with the inmates.
“I’m sorry. But you cannot leave anything with the inmates.”
She looks at me, but doesn’t look at me, and is reciting policy. It’s her job.
“You can’t go in with anything not on your list. You won’t
be able to go in today.”
I can tell she is hoping that I will give up, go back to the
car with my tubs, and go home. I decide to bargain, and ask if I can take in a
file with copies of a poem by Sandra Alcosser, a poet who is coming in as a
guest speaker in a couple of weeks.
“We need to read samples of her work,” I say
matter-of-factly. Both of them look at me and each other. I keep going and offer to take the tubs back
to the car as a concession, going in with only my fig leaf of a file folder.
They consent. “But only this once,” as a way of winning this
battle.
So I take my contraband back to the car, lock it up, and
return for my revision. I pass
through the metal detector and the electric doors of the sally port and enter
the yard. I will have to figure this one out.
I count thirty-two ravens in a cottonwood tree over the DA,
the Dining Area, as I walk from the gate to the Education Building
in the Rincon Unit. Ravens whistle above me as they negotiate the gusty
breezes. They seem to like the razor wire and the dead trees, the military
lettering of the buildings – HU5 – the strafed austerity of the recreation
area. I like them. They mock us humans and our folly even as they benefit from
our trash and discards. They are not proud and take none of this seriously. OK,
I say to myself, so that’s the way it is. Fly high enough not to get caught and
keep your eyes on the cottonwood. If you’re lucky, no one will shoot you down.
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