The Trap
I HADN’T SLEPT THE NIGHT BEFORE. How could I?
Now, after waving good-bye, I turned to face the entrance to the Englewood Federal Detention Center, south of Denver. Like most of the rest of this prison complex, the pinkish-brown concrete box looked like a cross between a Mayan temple and a Nazi fortress. Heavy and angular and stern, it belonged somewhere long ago and far away.
But that’s how everything looked and felt this morning. I’ve just been dropped off on Mars.
This had to be a bad dream, finding myself surrounded by walls that bristled with coils of razor wire, forcing myself to walk toward that door. I was numb.
None of this could really be happening, could it?
I shifted the weight of the black plastic trash bag they had told me to bring. In a way, it contained what was left of my life.
Somehow I made it through the door. I approached a lady at the front desk and went through the motions of entering a different world.
“I’m self-committing at 10:00,” I said. “Dudley Mitchell.”
She rose from her chair. “Follow me,” she said, and then sat me in another room where someone else handled the booking process, checking my photo and thumbprints. My trash bag was emptied, its contents inspected. A government form recorded the results:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | ||
FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS | ||
Inmate Personal Property Record Institution: FDC ENG Name: Mitchell, Dudley W. Register Number: 23386-013 Unit: Camp Date and Time of Inventory: 1/6/92 Purpose of Inventory: Admission Disposition D—Donated M—Mail S—Storage K—Keep in Possession C—Contraband (Attach BP-Record-102) | ||
Personally Owned Items | ||
Number | Article | Disposition |
7 | Books, reading (soft) | K |
3 | Books, religious (soft) | K |
1 | Eyeglass case | K |
1 | Eyeglasses | K |
3 | Photos | [none noted] |
1 | Radio (Realistic, w/earplug) | K |
2 | Shoes, tennis (Nikes) | K |
5 | Socks | K |
1 | Sweat pants (gray) | K |
1 | Sweat jacket (gray) | K |
5 | T-shirts | K |
5 | Underwear (white) | K |
1 | Address book | K |
1 | Driver’s license | M |
1 | Pkg. Stationery | K |
1 | Calendar book | K |
1 | Contact solution | K |
1 | Contact case | K |
They took one item I’d brought —a baseball cap. They didn’t say why.
It didn’t bother me and it didn’t surprise me. At that point I didn’t know if I’d be allowed to keep anything. After all, a prison employee had already made my status clear over the phone several weeks before: “You’re just a number now, an inmate.”
As the form noted, that number was 23386-013.
The Cold Room was next.
I’d been warned about the Cold Room by someone who’d been through this. “They’ll just sit you in a room and leave you alone,” he’d said. It was all part of the brainwashing process, getting you used to the submissive life of an inmate.
The Cold Room was a normal office, probably 10 feet by 12 feet. It contained one metal chair, and nothing decorated the walls.
I sat there glad I’d been warned about this. Weird. Just like I’ve been told —they’ve forgotten about me.
I pulled out the Bible from my trash bag and tried to read it, but it was hard to concentrate.
Next I tried to build up my defenses. I’m tall. I’m loud. Maybe that’ll help me get through this.
I thought about situations I might encounter in prison. Okay, how do I handle it if I get in a fight?
Had I not been warned about the Cold Room, it would have made me crazy. I was there for hours.
Finally, another woman showed up. Julie looked like a schoolteacher. About 35, I guessed. Nice appearance, friendly, pleasant —and very pregnant.
I liked her immediately. She wasn’t mean as she filled out forms and we talked a little. It was all part of Admission, with a bit of Orientation.
This might not be Mars after all. “Do you have any questions?” she asked.
Only two. I’d been worrying about them for weeks, and now they just tumbled out.
“When do I get raped, and when do I get beat up?”
It may have sounded like a joke, but it wasn’t. When she seemed to doubt my sincerity, I assured her it was the most serious question I’d ever asked anyone.
She took off her glasses and, in my mind, she went from being a prison administrator to a person. So these are just people. They have a job. These are my new associates.
“You won’t get raped or beat up if you keep your mouth shut and mind your own business,” she said. “If you see it —you didn’t see it. If you hear something said by another inmate —pay no attention to it as if you hadn’t heard it.
“You’ll feel like yourself for only about five minutes a day. And the rest of the time you’ll just keep your eyes on the lookout. Mind your own business and avoid trouble.”
She put her glasses back on. The “they’re just people” moment was over.
A prison guard opened the door behind me. Time to enter the cellblock. My heart beat faster.
He escorted me to another room, where I faced the kind of prison door I’d seen in movies —a wall of cold, gray steel bars that slid slowly to the side, then halted.
Clutching my trash bag, I stepped in. There I faced another set of bars. Behind me the first door rolled again and banged shut.
A voice came from a speaker in the ceiling. “One in the trap!” it said.
My heartbeat ratcheted up another notch. I was trapped, all right. I felt surrounded by evil, uncertain what would come next.
Through the bars appeared the two-tiered cellblock, much like the one I’d seen as a tourist at Alcatraz in San Francisco a few years before. Today I was no tourist. This looked stark, threatening —even worse than I’d expected.
Of all the half-formed, panicky thoughts that stumbled through my brain, one seemed louder than the rest: I don’t belong here.
Anybody who knew me knew that. I was a respected member of the community. I was successful. I’d done my best to help people.
More importantly, I was a Christian. I knew Jesus as my personal Savior. I had the privilege of knowing some of the foremost Christian leaders in the country. Many would say I was a Christian leader too.
I knew nothing about crime or criminals, much less prison. Until a few months ago, I’d never been charged with anything worse than a minor traffic violation.
What was I doing here?
The gray bars in front of me began to slide sideways, and my breathing grew shallow. The cellblock came sharply into focus. Numbly I stepped forward.
All I could do was try to follow Julie’s advice: Stay alert to whatever might come next.
And to keep believing that I would, with God’s help, somehow get through this.
Deep down, I feared I would never go home again.