December 3, 2011
Officer Walter (Bud) Anderson
The lack of sleep left me bleary eyed. Breathing in the cold air felt like needles hitting my chest. There had been no time to heat up the truck, and my breath condensed in the frigid air. It looked like a damn arctic tundra outside. I strained to focus on the road ahead but my kept eyes drifting. I guess I drifted off because I before I knew it, my head jerked back to the solid white line as I was headed for the ditch.
Pulling over to the roadside, it took a while for my breath to slow. I opened the thermos, gulped a mouthful of steaming coffee and scalded the roof of my mouth. “Shit!” Even that came out in a cloud of fog.
Snow-covered plains and fenced in pastures glistened in the thin, cold light. A smallish ragged-looking coyote scavenged in the field searching for carrion, reminding me of the shaggy cattle of his childhood. They’d stand like that, at dirty feeding troughs, with their eyes glazed over.
Another cup of coffee, but this time I waited while the steamy vapor rose and the coffee cooled. The truck’s heater began to wheeze heat into the truck’s cabin. I pulled back onto the road, my tires skimming the surface of the slick roadway. It was a delicate balance between traction and torque. I’d seen plenty of violent impacts on icy Minnesota roads and I didn’t want to be one of them. I propelled forward trying to remain in control. Christmas lights haphazardly strung on trees and farmhouses cast a neon glow on the snow. Hell, I had barely gotten mine up before the first snow and now I wouldn’t even be home to enjoy them. My bags would probably be packed and on the street by the time I got home.
The weather station came in as fuzzy as dust. Most likely, it would be just like it was yesterday and the same way it would be tomorrow. Temperatures below zero and snow flurries likely.
Dunn Brothers’ Coffee was on the way so I thought I’d stop for a refill before work. It was busy inside. Rochester’s businesswomen were dressed to the nines in suits and scarves that probably cost more than I made in a day, draped around their necks. They issued orders on their smart phones, ordered skim milk lattes and flashed smiles as bright as chrome.
I knew by their looks the circles under my eyes were dark and angry. I flexed my biceps. The elegant, composed types, probably on their way to banks and courthouses, really got under my skin. My medium black coffee ready, I climbed back into the truck. It felt like the day had already kicked me in the teeth.
Ten minutes later, out of habit, I scanned the parking lot hoping to get a glimpse of Grace. Maybe we could walk in together but there was no sign of her or her Jeep.
I clocked in and slid into the morning security meeting. The building was overheated and a circle of perspiration grew under my arms. I imagine it stained my navy uniform black. I stared out the window at the inmates’ garden. It was dormant, the annuals long dead and the perennials covered with snow.
Something not only felt wrong, it felt horribly wrong. The walls, a putrid green, had last been painted during Ronald Reagan’s administration. My eyes converged on the red-and-white stripes of the flag in the corner of the room. The stripes began to waver. I tried to ignore the dizziness while the drone of words went on and on. My face and hands tingled. The photograph of President Obama on the opposite wall irritated me. I forced myself to take several deep breaths while the pulse in my temple seesawed up and down. It was something I had learned in anger management.
The meeting ended, and I noticed the doctors walking through the parking lot. All that money for doing what? My lips curled as I thought of the team I worked on. I was the one they called when the inmates went berserk. It was the only part of my job I loved. I was part of a team of officers called in to subdue the hell out of the inmates. The docs did the medicating, but without us, they’d be dead. The last psychiatrist got hit over the head with a coffee mug and I had to subdue the inmate. You’d think the guy would’ve been a little more grateful.
After the meeting, I staggered into the corridor and knew something was wrong. Since my discharge from the Marines and this job in the forensic unit, I had felt a vague sense of restlessness I couldn’t put my finger on. Sometimes it was a sick, claustrophobic feeling. The fucking job took so much out of me. Most nights it was all I could do to grab a beer or two, watch TV, and try to get some peace in my own house before the damn kids and the noise drove me nuts.
There she was.
“Morning, Doc.” Grace was coming down the hall. She stopped, knowing she couldn’t sidestep past me. I stood still and tried to make my voice seem casual. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” she said, sharp as nails. “Would you please bring Emanuel Venegas for his session?” The door lock clicked behind her.
Bitch.
I imagined her sitting at her desk, readying herself for her session with Venegas, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Sweeping back her thick red hair. Maybe scratching an itch somewhere.
I got the patient and knocked at her door. “Come in,” she called. “Please, sit down, Emanuel. How’re you feeling today?”
The inmate was new and had to be escorted everywhere he went on the unit. He shuffled slowly into her office, his eyes were downcast and sunken into purple hollows. His head drooped. He looked as limp as an inflatable doll I once loved.
“Officer Anderson, I think you can wait outside if you don’t mind,” Grace said. She got up and tripped. I leaped across the room and caught her by the elbows before she fell.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. “Are you okay? Your hands are clammy.” Grace pulled away from my touch as if I had rabies.
“I’m okay.” The feel of her in my arms was one I wouldn’t forget. “You want me to wait outside?”
“If you don’t mind,” she replied coolly.
Outside the door, my weight shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other. I wanted to scratch that itch, and then bang her.
Ten minutes later, Grace opened the door and asked me to escort Emanuel back to his cell. I dug my nails into my palms. A surge of power ripped through me. I was in control here. Emanuel stiffened and stood against the wall.
“Venegas, what’re you doin’? Let’s go, ya hear me? Shit. That guy gives me the creeps,” I muttered under my breath, audibly enough that she heard me. “One sandwich short of a picnic.”
“I think that’s enough, Officer Anderson.” Her voice was terse. “I would appreciate it if you show my patients the respect they deserve and treat them accordingly. This is the second time I’ve spoken to you about this. If I see you abusing Emanuel again, I’ll have no choice but to report you.”
“Respect?” I asked. “Sure, I’ll show ’em the respect they deserve.” The look I gave her made her step back. “Listen, Doc, a correctional facility is no preschool. These guys are here for a reason. People think once they’re here, they can’t cause any further harm but these are psychopaths we’re dealing with. They don’t stop being psychopaths just because they’re behind bars. You think they wouldn’t kill you in cold blood if they had the chance? Corrections officers have been punched, kicked, spit at, and even killed. Fuck, I’ve had urine and shit thrown at me.”
Grace’s eyes darkened. “Are you finished?”
“No, I’m not. I run the risk everyday of contracting HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis. So don’t you tell me about respect, okay, Doc?”
“I think that’s enough,” she said as I turned to escort Emanuel to the dayroom.
I flashed back to last night as I walked the long cold hall. Stacy’s legs wrapped around me, her nails dragging down my back as I pounded away at her. I still had it after all these years. I pictured her begging for more. I imagined Grace and how she would beg me for more. They don’t pay me shit to deal with this crap. I unlocked the door to the dayroom and wondered why they didn’t send these bastards home where they came from.
Emanuel sat down and stared through the windows outside the prison walls. His sleeves rose as he crossed his arms. He had tattoos of two hearts entwined. Marisol & Emanuel forever.
* * *
The last assignment of my day was to escort the inmates to the chapel. They lumbered in single file to the basement, their identical prison khaki pants and tees were soaked with perspiration. The basement was a good fifteen degrees cooler than the overheated unit was, and my sweaty skin soon felt chilled.
“You may think now this life holds little hope of salvation,” Father Tom Schill intoned. “But I’m here to tell you Jesus is the answer to your prayers. Seek forgiveness and it’s yours. Repent and you will live in the glory of God forever.”
Father Schill was a frail, stooped man with skin as transparent as onion skin. The complexion of a man who had spent much of his life indoors. Once each week he transformed the dank, chilly prison basement into a place of worship. Father Schill had no difficulty believing his flock had been forgiven for the heinous crimes they had committed. I had no such belief. An ex-marine, I was a man who relied not on faith but on myself, my muscles, and my guts. I looked for no forgiveness and offered none. My chest tightened as I sat down and sucked in the smell of despair. Anxiety surged from somewhere inside my gut.
Father Schill blessed the bread and wine, consecrating it according to the mysteries of faith into the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. “According to the Scriptures, Jesus, on the night before he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ He then took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”
I was surprised to find my hands clasped in prayer as I listened to the mass. Father Schill placed the Body of Christ on my tongue, absolving me of his sins. I folded onto a wooden pew, my head bowed and my eyelids squeezed tightly together. It had been a long time since I had been in church.
“… Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done …”
When it was over, inmates Venegas, Reynolds, Lawrence, Ramirez, and Isaac shambled back to the unit, with me right behind them. My keys jangled at my waist. It was just before dinner when I unlocked the double doors and sat Emanuel down in front of the television.
Shortly afterwards I gave my report to the evening staff. The unvarying routine of the unit was broken only by the shift changes. The altercations between inmates and the staff entering and leaving were the only real distractions.
As the day drew to a close and shadows deepened, I finished my rounds and clocked out. With nowhere to go, I drove down a long stretch of country road. The snow-covered fields were just like the mood I was in. Dark and empty. Black beady-eyed crows littered the roadsides, searching for road kill. Their cries resonated with my pain. After our lovemaking last night, Stacy had asked me for a divorce. The bitch said she’d done it for old times’ sake. I attempted to think clearly, to put side my anger and find a space where I could be free of the mindless agitation.