Eight
____________
The Room
“Gerald Braithwaite, Attorney at
Law,” informed the well-dressed man addressing the officer posted in the
entrance building for the Youth Maximum Security Detention Facility. “I am here
to see my client, Renwick Stone.”
Attorney’s do not need
appointments and are not bound by any official visiting hours at Y-MAX. They
may visit their client any time, any day.
“A beautiful Saturday morning,
isn’t it?” small-talked the attorney.
The serious looking officer
mumbled something positive to that effect while continuing to log the suited
man into the prison entrance’s official log book. The C/O then called Inmate
Stone’s housing unit and informed the unit’s Control staff about the attorney
visit.
“Thank you, sir,” stated the
entrance officer, “Enjoy your visit.”
The attorney was not sure if the
officer was sincere or simply being sarcastic.
The attorney received an escort
into the prison and waited patiently for his client.
J-Wing’s Control announced that
Inmate Stone had a visit. Renie was escorted in restraints by an officer down
and through a sally port. Rows of small offices lined each side of a narrow
hallway. One single round table sat in the center of each visiting room circled
by a round attached metal bench. The entire hall side wall featured soundproof
glass and the remaining walls were covered with soundproofing tiles. These
rooms were for attorney visits, police interviews, and any other type of visits
requiring unrecorded privacy.
Renie was secured and seated
when his attorney entered the room. An officer locked the door and remained
outside the room for obvious safety and observational reasons.
“I have some temporary bad news,
son, your first appeal was turned down, but we are moving forward and filing
again. Just hang in there and we’ll get you another trial in no time at all,”
the lawyer informed.
Renie felt a heavy blow to his
soul, but it did not feel as hard a knock as his sentencing to prison had felt.
“How’s my mama?” is all he could think to ask.
The attorney adjusted his
briefcase on the table top, shuffled papers inside, and then looking rather
official replied, “I conversed with her this morning and she has high hopes
that we will overturn your conviction.”
High hopes, Renie pondered. High
hopes?
After about twenty minutes, the
visit terminated and Renie was escorted back to J-Wing. On the way he asked the
escorting C/O about his former celly Tony Richards.
“Richards, yeah,” the officer
recollected. “Word got around that he was contracted to do a hit but a rival gang’s
soldier tried to take him out first. Both of them are gone now, transferred out
right away. That’s one reason we’re building that Ad-Seg unit, no more
transfers when it’s completed. Same deal with the medical clinic being built
out there.”
Renie responded, “I’m workin’ on
that clinic.”
“Lucky dog, I say. Folks would
kill for those jobs, they pay good. You better watch your back, Stone. Others
will try to take your canteen issue and anything else they can get their hands
on. In here you’re considered rich.”
This was another potential
problem Renie had never heard about.
“There’s more rules in here than
out on the streets,” commented Renie.
“You got that right.”
The officer removed Renie’s
restraints in the sally port of J-Wing then exited. Control secured the outer
door then opened the inner.
“Stone,” the floor C/O addressed
his returning inmate, “I signed you up for a six month stint with that
religious thing you wanted, but there’s bad news with that good news.”
“I’m listnin’ Officer Brady.”
“C/O Johnson let me know this
morning that the group can only come every third week, not every week.”
“Ok, why’s that?”
“Policy,” replied the C/O.
“And why was Officer Johnson
here all night? I saw him readin’ a bunch of our outgoing mail.”
“He does a double shift now and
then, we all do. Extra cash, you know. The first-watch graveyard shift is
usually a peaceful one.”
“Thanks for the 4-1-1.”
Renie was not pleased with the
news. Dammit to..., he
thought, but for some reason could not say the word ‘Hell’ so easily. I never gave my cursin’ no mind
before... why now? Oh, well, must be tired, I guess.
Back at the house Renie and Joey
had a lot to catch up on and Renie had a lot to learn.
“And you know about not
pointin’, right?” Joey questioned.
“Yeah, because people will think
I’m a snitch.”
“More than that.”
“What do you mean?” the curious
newbie asked.
“I know an older dude that was
asked by a C/O one time on a prison yard if he knew where another officer was.
He knew so pointed across the yard. Right after he pointed, three C/Os jumped
another kid near that officer he pointed to and cuffed him up. The kid had
stabbed another kid in the chow hall that morning. It made it look like he’d
snitched. He had to PC.”
“PC?”
“They call it SNY now, Special
Needs Yard, but it used to be Protective Custody, PC. It’s for snitches, pervs,
crooked cops, newbies, you know, all the soft-shell cons.”
“What else you got to tell me?”
Renie eagerly asked.
Joey filled his celly in on as
much as he could until Control announced chow call for lunch. The boys lined up
and exited the unit together with J-Wing’s other hungry residents. Once in the
chow hall and through the food line the two sat down at a corner table up
against the west wall.
“Always keep your back against
the wall if you can and keep one eye on your plate while the other scans the
room,” commented Joey. “And look tough, but not fakin’ it tough.”
Renie replied, “Not the comedy
movie tough guys, but the more serious Hollywood gangster type.”
“You kiddin’?”
“Yeah,” Renie smiled.
Joey laughed, “Those comedy
tough guys are pretty funny.”
After they finished their mashed
potatoes with gravy, bun with butter, green beans and a piece of some type of
meat, the two youths turned in their eating utensil. The prison no longer used
both a fork and spoon, but had one combo utensil, a spoon with small fork teeth
on the end and one side sharp enough to cut soft meat. This allowed the chow
hall officer to count everything quicker and prevented losses. Serious problems
resulted if metal utensils made it out onto the mainline.
On the way back to their unit
Joey asked Renie how it went with his attorney that morning, but Renie just
shook his head, replying, “Not so good.”
“Maybe next time.”
“Yeah, maybe next time.”
Entering J-Wing the two were
greeted by C/O Johnson who came in early to relieve the second watch officer.
“You’re in early. Don’t you ever
sleep?” Renie asked.
T.J. Johnson grinned and
informed the boys that Officer Brady had an appointment and he was covering for
him. “He’ll pay me back later,” the C/O said. “Better to have someone owe you
than to owe, right boys?”
“You got it,” Joey agreed.
“I've got to get busy on my cell
searches,” the C/O proclaimed.
Cell searches were conducted
routinely on every shift except graveyard unless a special circumstance arose
at night. Sometimes the IIS popped in unannounced in the middle of the night to
search a cell, but not very often.
“If you’ve got any contraband,”
Joey commented, “you better get rid of it or hide it.”
Renie thought for a moment, then
replied, “Not unless havin’ two Bibles ain’t allowed.”
“Two Bibles, what you need with
two Bibles?”
“I got an extra at that Cyrene
Youth Ministry meetin’ I went to, in case you want it. You should’ve gone too.”
Joey squirmed uncomfortably as
they climbed the stairs to the second tier, “I don’t know. I got to think on
that one.”
“No pressure. The Bible’s there
if you want it.”
“Thanks anyway. It’s the thought
that counts.”
Renie laughed and replied, “Maybe it’s the Bible
that counts.”
Next Chapter: Hittin’ theFan
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