Running The Books : The Adventures Of An Accidental Prison Librarian Part 19

As I spoke, I placed the Post-It note with my name on his forearm. Unfortunately, my gesture lost a good deal of its dramatic flair: the note didn't stick. Not even close. With awkwardly intimate care, like a mother putting a bandage on a child, I reapplied the Post-It to his plastic coffee cup.

"What?" he said. He seemed genuinely confused. he said. He seemed genuinely confused.

I have a slight tendency to mumble, especially early in the morning (and especially, though I don't have much experience, when I'm slightly deranged). It occurred to me that I should have warmed up first. I'd flubbed my line. Regaining my composure, I repeated, this time enunciating like a freshman theater major.

"I said: 'Next time you write a report on me at least get my name right.'"

I pointed to the hot pink note with my name printed maniacally on it, hanging precariously from his coffee cup. He glared at me.

Feeling confident, I added, "And by the way, I'm not 'short,' I'm your height."

Chuzzlewit took my advice. Within thirty seconds, he'd written a report. Once again, I was summoned to the Deputy's Office. This time, however, to the windowless office of bad cop Deputy Quinn. And instead of Deputy Mullin, the good cop, Quinn was accompanied by svelte Major Morrison.

Was Morrison, this lissome, handsomely groomed gentleman, ever not not a senior officer? His long face and sad eyes, his debonair mustache and crisp officer whites, demanded the accompaniment of a n.o.ble cavalry horse. He was present ostensibly in his role as s.h.i.+ft commander, and probably as witness, but I got the strong impression he was actually there to amuse himself. The major crossed his legs, sipped tea like a diplomat, and did not bother to suppress a large grin. Quinn, as usual, put on the tough guy routine. a senior officer? His long face and sad eyes, his debonair mustache and crisp officer whites, demanded the accompaniment of a n.o.ble cavalry horse. He was present ostensibly in his role as s.h.i.+ft commander, and probably as witness, but I got the strong impression he was actually there to amuse himself. The major crossed his legs, sipped tea like a diplomat, and did not bother to suppress a large grin. Quinn, as usual, put on the tough guy routine.

"Read this," he said, as I sat down.

It was Chuzzlewit's report about the Post-It note. The doc.u.ment, scripted in a bulky but supple hand, gave an oddly gripping fictional account of the incident. As per my demented provocation, Chuzzlewit had indeed used my Post-It note and referred to me by my full name. He claimed I shoved him. Twice. (He was good with details.) I'd also threatened him in a barrage of expletives, which he'd spun into full quotations that bore an uncanny resemblance to his own speech patterns. In the climactic moment of this tale, I had vowed b.l.o.o.d.y vengeance. According to this fanciful version of our encounter-which, despite myself, I found enormously entertaining-my attempted witty remark about our shared height was imagined as a dark threat: And don't think that I won't do it And don't think that I won't do it, I had allegedly said, we're the same size you know we're the same size you know.

As usual, he named inmates who had witnessed the brutal attack-none of whom, to my knowledge, were actually there.

"Did you threaten him?" Quinn asked me.

"No," I said, trying desperately to restrain a smile. "Look at me, Jack. I haven't been to the gym in months, I've got a b.u.m back. And you know know me: Do you think I go around threatening people, especially a CO? He's lying and he'll continue lying until he's exposed." me: Do you think I go around threatening people, especially a CO? He's lying and he'll continue lying until he's exposed."

Major Morrison, no longer amused, cut in.

"We could have had a serious problem over there, you know," he said, "You're lucky he didn't take a swing at you."

"He's lucky he didn't take a swing at me," I said.

This restored Morrison's cheer. He smiled again and sipped his tea.

"Did you a.s.sault him?" Quinn asked.

"Yeah, a.s.sault with a deadly Post-It note."

"Did you lay hands on him?"

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Did you touch him?"

"Okay, yes," I conceded, "I put the note on him. Did I sprain his arm? I didn't realize he was so delicate. First I'm a short, skinny nothing and now I'm a guy who's intimidating him?"

"So you admit that you laid hands on him."

"I admit exactly what I said in my report: I touched him gently with a Post-It note, and not at all in the context of a physical threat. I think the issue here is-"

"I can't have staff members laying hands on other staff members inside this facility."

I looked at Quinn; he looked at me. Major Morrison drained his tea. And I knew that Officer Chuzzlewit, with his constipated face, had me in checkmate.

Within the week I was served with notice of my suspension without pay. Chuzzlewit's allies were impatient to hear word of my punishment. They asked my union boss Charlie to spill the beans. He refused, and in fact gallantly offered to pick up the notice from the Deputy's Office himself, so as to deprive the officers the pleasure of witnessing my walk of shame. Less than a month and a half after a released inmate had mugged me for $43, an officer mugged me for a good deal more than that. And this time, I had only myself to blame.

The Knowledge of the Knife When I got home the night I was mugged in the park, I'd called my girlfriend, Kayla, to tell her the story. It's not every day you get mugged by someone who knows you. As I took off my coat and fetched the cell phone deep in my pocket, I composed the story in my head, organizing the comic elements. I would tell her that the mugging was my just punishment for paying money to see Jacka.s.s 2 Jacka.s.s 2. I'd gotten what I deserved. The comedy of the event itself needed little embellishment. And that punch line, I still owe you guys two books I still owe you guys two books, was funny stuff.

After a few rings, Kayla answered. She sounded tired. Her first year of medical school had thoroughly exhausted her.

"I've got a hilarious story to tell you," I said. "I got mugged, I'm fine, but here's the thing-"

"What!"

There was a dreadful pitch of desperation, of genuine fear, in her voice. This should have been my cue to stop.

"I know it sounds bad," I said, "but, trust me, it's funny."

But before I got to the part where the mugger recognized me as "the book guy," I could hear her getting upset. The sound was of choking.

"Wait, seriously," I said, "this is a funny story."

By the time I reached the part about the knife, she was crying.

"I guess that part's not so funny," I said.

Sitting alone in her room three hundred miles away, she was now sobbing miserably. It was past midnight. It had been a hard year for her. For us. I heard her say, not quite into the phone, "Oh G.o.d, Oh G.o.d, Oh G.o.d, what am I going to do?" I tried to comfort her, but it was useless.

"I don't know..." she was saying, "I don't know..." She sounded like an animal in pain-she was was an animal in pain. an animal in pain.

"Nothing happened," I said. "Hey, babe, it's okay, I'm totally fine. I'm right here, I'm talking to you."

Through her tears she was trying hard to say something. She took a breath.

"I don't know what I would do if something happened to you. I don't know what I'd do without you."

I could feel my heart literally clench when she said that. I was speechless. I'd never heard her this upset and was completely unprepared for this late-night surge of raw emotion, for the unforeseen immediacy of that statement, I don't know what I'd do without you I don't know what I'd do without you. When said in earnest this sentiment, abused in countless idiotic love songs, is startling.

It held a particular meaning for us at that time. A few months earlier she had moved to Philadelphia to begin medical school, to begin a new stage of her life. With the distance, our happy four-year relations.h.i.+p, for much of which we'd lived together, now had to justify itself. Was this a temporary separation, or the beginning of a serious drifting apart? It was clear that we couldn't float along forever on autopilot. Our relations.h.i.+p would require some sort of a decision.

One of the possibilities was marriage. At least this was how various friends and family advised me. But I couldn't shake the notion that Groucho Marx was right. "Marriage is a great inst.i.tution," he'd said. "But who wants to live in an inst.i.tution?" Especially given that I already worked in one. Aside from Groucho, the only guidance that grabbed my attention had come many months earlier, and from an unexpected source: Jessica.

It had been a strange night in prison. Sunset had been awkward and inconclusive, the sky remained a shade of weak yellow tea through the night. Inside, things also felt off. It was as if a switch had been thrown in some corner of the prison, causing a widespread simultaneous unhinging. The previous night one of the women inmates had scuttled into the library, pounced like a feral lynx roughly four feet through the air directly onto onto the counter, arched her neck at disbelieving bystanders, crawled the length of the counter, almost bit a library detail member-who had made a valiant effort to prevent her advance-then pounced again, ambus.h.i.+ng the magazine display I kept stashed safely (or so I'd thought) a full five feet behind the counter. Having missed her mark by a considerable margin, she proceeded to roll on the floor, giggling uncontrollably. the counter, arched her neck at disbelieving bystanders, crawled the length of the counter, almost bit a library detail member-who had made a valiant effort to prevent her advance-then pounced again, ambus.h.i.+ng the magazine display I kept stashed safely (or so I'd thought) a full five feet behind the counter. Having missed her mark by a considerable margin, she proceeded to roll on the floor, giggling uncontrollably.

The following night, the library had been tranquil, suspiciously so, until the stillness was dramatically shattered by Janet Jackson's "You Want This"-or was it "Throb"? It was hard to tell, it was so loud. A group of five lady inmates-the cool clique, the mean girls (which in prison meant mean)-had hijacked the back room and converted it into their own private club, complete with a bouncer. At the entry, they'd posted a lackey, a plus-sized woman who clung to the belief that she had a chance of earning her way into their b.i.t.c.hy graces. The fab five had gotten their hands on an ancient tape of music videos, which I hadn't known existed in the library, and were having themselves a retro dance party.

In a flash, I was on the scene, face-to-face with the large bouncer. I recognized her as the woman who'd recently been hauled out of her prison unit in tears and shackles after intentionally cutting herself. She tried to turn me away from the party, then thought better of it and let me through.

The dancers had refas.h.i.+oned their uniforms into club outfits: pants rolled high from the bottom, low from the top-s.h.i.+rts twisted and retied to bare midriffs. They were dancing for the gold, writhing around invisible poles and gyrating like strippers. Three of the five, I later learned, were strippers (among other things). One of these women-who told me that she used to moonlight as a Monica Lewinskyimpersonating stripper at private parties-was starting to inch her s.h.i.+rt higher and higher. It became immediately evident that there would be a topless prison inmate, who bore a slight resemblance to Monica Lewinsky, s.l.u.t-dancing in my library. And if I had any doubts about this, the woman began shouting, "I'm gonna take this motherf.u.c.ker off off!" The other women watched in awe from the wings. Some joined in from afar.

They didn't hear me shout the first couple of times. I waited for the right moment, and made a wild dash between their squirming bodies, lunging at the old VCR, just barely reaching the stop b.u.t.ton. Perhaps they teach you these commando tactics in library school-I wouldn't know.

In the spirit of full disclosure I must admit that, in the past, I'd quietly permitted modest amounts of dancing in the library. Don Amato, the former prison librarian, would have strangled me. And my bosses would surely have scolded me. But I couldn't help it. It seemed cruel and unusual to offer music while demanding that people sit quietly (a clear sign, if one was needed, that I wasn't cut out for the librarian business). But still, this particular dance session was going a bit too far. I imposed a no-video punishment on the entire group for the rest of the evening.

The cool group of hookers regrouped, however, and exacted their revenge by relocating their party to the front counter. They demanded to know about my life. I told them to readjust their uniforms.

"Cut the s.h.i.+t, Avi," one of them said, folding her arms, tough-broad style, her bare midriff revealing a proud green shamrock, peeking out just over her underwear. I hadn't met this woman before and was taken aback that she knew both my name and how to p.r.o.nounce it. And that I could see the tattoo on her thong-line.

"I know you're not married," she said. "But do you got yourself a cute little college girlfriend, or what?"

"Yeah, Halby," said another. "You got a wifey stashed back there?" She craned her neck and peered behind me, into my office.

Poor women. Forced in prison to live vicariously through the love life of a librarian. You may be a homeless heroin addict, you may be doing one of those unfortunate 125-year sentences, but surely this has got to be rock bottom.

"Fix your uniform," I said to the shamrock woman, trying hard to keep my gaze above her neck. "You trying to get me in trouble?"

"Maybe I am," she said, hands now on her hips, wielding her shamrock. "Unless you want to fess up."

I'm being shaken down by a bra.s.sy hooker, I thought with some amazement. In this moment of distraction, I lowered my gaze. All it took was a mere blink of the eyes.

"What're you looking at there, kid?" she said with a sly grin. This woman was a pro. She specialized in blinks. "You like that?"

I flipped my gaze over to the officers' post, outside of the library. Officer Malone had his attention elsewhere-more specifically, on a cute Boston College volunteer, whom he was merrily chatting up. Malone was acquainting her with the finer points of his walkie-talkie; he had her examining it.

I noticed Jessica making her way to the front counter. This was unusual. I'd seen her at the front counter once, but she had left after a minute, rolling her eyes at the endless jabbering. My initial impression of her as solitary, and that image of her in cold profile, had been borne out repeatedly. But that night she'd approached the counter with a rare smile on her face. She'd witnessed shamrock woman running circles around me. This apparently had enticed her to join the conversation.

"Yeah, Avi," Jessica said, as she placed herself at the counter. "You like girls?"

The crowd oohed oohed, in accordance with the training they'd all received by daytime television.

"d.a.m.n, son," said another one of the mean-girl hookers, shaking her head at me. "You ain't gonna let her do you like that? that? You You got got to answer now." to answer now."

The war of attrition on my male ego was now a concerted effort.

Shamrock woman piped up. "I know he likes girls," she said.

Perhaps I was bored, or just a sucker for playing to a female audience, but I played along.

"I don't like girls," I said. "I like real, live American women." women."

A cheer went up from the a.s.sembled crowd. I immediately regretted my comment. Shamrock woman shot me a skeptical look.

"Tell us more!" came a hoa.r.s.e little voice from the back.

"No, no," I said.

"C'mon, man," said the big bouncer lady, "you got a chick?"

I repeatedly invoked the fifth, an amendment with which these women were well acquainted. Unable to get me talking, the women proceeded to lecture me, about me. In the absence of any concrete facts about my life, the women instead adopted a.s.sumptions-challenging me to correct them-and then proceeded to voice strong opinions based on those a.s.sumptions. Perhaps they'd learned this tactic from cops.

"We know know you got a girl," someone said. you got a girl," someone said.

"You got to marry her," one of hookers told me. "No offense, but don't be a p.u.s.s.y."

"No offense taken," I said.

"It's true," shamrock woman nodded gravely.

To my surprise, it was a position that adhered, in content if not in terminology, to my family's and former rabbis' view.

But that's where the similarity ended. What emerged from the next few minutes of conversation was that shamrock woman, who claimed to be an actress and high-priced prost.i.tute, held three beliefs about marriage: 1) a man must marry or he's a p.u.s.s.y, 2) if the man doesn't also have extramarital affairs, he's a p.u.s.s.y, and 3) if he confuses these two things, he's a p.u.s.s.y.

According to her, a woman will love you if you propose and if you're a good husband/father, but she'll only respect you if you're the kind of guy who also gets some on the side. A hustler. (Of course, the wife wouldn't want to know know about it ...) There was a consensus of nods all around. about it ...) There was a consensus of nods all around.

From the gallery one woman added, "Um-hm. That's on some real real s.h.i.+t now." s.h.i.+t now."

"It ain't easy," I was told. "Most guys can't pull it off. But you want the truth? That's That's the truth." the truth."

I hadn't recalled asking for the truth.

"You got your work cut out for you, Avi," said Jessica.

"I don't think he can do it," the bouncer woman said.

"And another thing," said shamrock woman. "You better better know how to please a woman. Do you know how to please a woman? 'Cause if you don't, that girly's out of there, believe me." know how to please a woman. Do you know how to please a woman? 'Cause if you don't, that girly's out of there, believe me."

Again, I just made a face and glanced over at the guard's post. Officer Malone's lady friend was long gone. He was now staring at the ceiling. His walkie-talkie lay forlornly on his countertop.

"And another another thing," said shamrock woman, who seemed to have an infinite store of these addendums. I braced myself. thing," said shamrock woman, who seemed to have an infinite store of these addendums. I braced myself.

"f.u.c.kin' Date Night-you Date Night-you do Date Night with your lady, you're a confused little boy." do Date Night with your lady, you're a confused little boy."

I probably looked perplexed, because she asked me, "You know what Date Night is? I hope not."

I told her I was familiar with the concept, yes.

"These girls here know what I'm talking about," said Shamrock. "Married guys come to you, and I'm talking regular clients, lawyers and businessmen and s.h.i.+t, kind of guys you probably went to college with, and they can't come to see me next Sat.u.r.day night because," and now she switched into a tone of devastating mockery, "that's Date Night "that's Date Night. Are you f.u.c.kin' kidding kidding me?" me?"

Her friends wailed in recognition.

"But lemme tell you something. These guys' real real date night is with date night is with me me, and with whatever other little thing they're chasing around. And that's the way it's supposed to be. You don't date your f.u.c.kin' wife, you f.u.c.kin' p.u.s.s.y."

"Is that what you tell them?" I asked.

"Not exactly," she said, lightening up a bit. "Not to a client. Unless of course I know he likes gettin' chewed out. Then I f.u.c.kin' tell him whatever I think."

It would have been easy to dismiss this shamrock-wielding woman's view as mere street cynicism. True, she may have had a skewed perspective-but it was hard to refute her contention that her clients, and their wives, also had a skewed perspective. Her opinion, at least, wasn't delusional. This woman worked in the trenches of marital warfare. She had something to say on the subject.

And to be honest, I agreed there was something awful about date night, and the entire happy marriage happy marriage industry it represents. Every marriage propagandist seems to agree: the happy marriage requires "a lot of hard work." So, at the same time Americans are told that they work too hard, they're also enjoined to do more hard work. A lot of it. But who really wants to go home and begin a graveyard s.h.i.+ft? Is it possible modern marriage requires so much hard work because it's a busted up and obsolete old machine? For all of Oprah's cant, her guides to Recession-Proofing Your Marriage, her enthusiastic advice to "Go Outside Yourself- industry it represents. Every marriage propagandist seems to agree: the happy marriage requires "a lot of hard work." So, at the same time Americans are told that they work too hard, they're also enjoined to do more hard work. A lot of it. But who really wants to go home and begin a graveyard s.h.i.+ft? Is it possible modern marriage requires so much hard work because it's a busted up and obsolete old machine? For all of Oprah's cant, her guides to Recession-Proofing Your Marriage, her enthusiastic advice to "Go Outside Yourself-Often!" one can't help wonder why people don't just follow Oprah's real approach, the one she herself follows: simply refrain from entering into the quagmire of wedlock to begin with. Why ruin a perfectly wonderful relations.h.i.+p by turning it into a marriage? one can't help wonder why people don't just follow Oprah's real approach, the one she herself follows: simply refrain from entering into the quagmire of wedlock to begin with. Why ruin a perfectly wonderful relations.h.i.+p by turning it into a marriage?