Grass grows in the margin between the spiked fence paralleling the river and the asphalt lot. Grass clipped harshly, uniformly as the bristle heads of convicts in old movies about prison. Plots of manicured green define a path leading to steps we must climb to enter the visitors’ building. Prisoner trustees in ill-fitting blue uniforms—loose tunics, baggy, string-tied trousers a shade darker—putter at various make-work jobs near the visitors’ entrance. Another prisoner, farther away, near the river edge of the parking lot sidles into a slate-gray Mercedes sedan. A pudgy, bull-necked white guy. When he plops into the driver’s seat the car shudders. First thing he does is lower the driver’s side window and hang out his ham arm. Then full throttle he races the Mercedes engine, obviously relishing the roar, as pleased with himself as he’d been when the precise, solid slam of the door sealed him in. If the driver is hot shit, big shot for a few seconds behind the wheel, he’ll pay for the privilege soon enough when he adds the Mercedes to the row of Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, and Buicks he must scrub and spit shine for the bosses.
Another prisoner leans on a push broom. The asphalt walks are spotless, but every minute or so he advances the broom another foot, punching its bristles into the gray surface as if his job is not to keep the path clean but punish it for unmentionable crimes against humanity. Others sweep, rake, and supervise. Two or three trustees have no apparent duties. They are at their ease, talking and smoking. A lethargy, a stilted slow-motion heaviness stylizes their gestures. It’s as if they inhabit a different element, as if their bodies are enfolded in a dreamy ether or trapped at the bottom of the sea. I watch the prisoners watch the kids mount the steps. No outward signs betray what the men are thinking but I can feel them appraising, measuring. Through the prisoners’ eyes I see the kids as sexual objects. Clean, sleek bodies. Young, smooth, and supple. The coltish legs and high, muscley butts of my nieces. The boys’ long legs and slim hips. They are handsome children, a provocative banner waved in front of men who must make do with their own bodies or the bodies of other men. From the vantage point of the blue-uniformed trustees on the ground, the double staircase and the landing above are a stage free-world people must ascend. An auction block, an inspection stand where the prisoners can sample with their hungry eyes the meat moving in and out of prison.
But I don’t have their eyes. Perhaps what they see when the kids climb the steps are their own lost children, their sons and daughters, their younger brothers and sisters left behind in the treacherous streets. Not even inside the walls yet and I can sense the paranoia, the curtain of mistrust and suspicion settling over my eyes. Except for the car jockey and a runner outside the guards’ kiosk, all the trustees in the yard are black, black men like me, like you. In spite of knowing better, I can’t shake the feeling that these men are different. Not just different. Bad. People who are dangerous. I can identify with them only to the extent that I own up to the evil in myself. Yeah. If I was shut away from the company of women, I’d get freaky. Little kids, alley cats, anything got legs and something between them start to looking good to me. Yeah. It’s a free show when wives and mamas tippy-tap up them steps. And I’d be right there leaning on my broom taking it all in. I don’t want to feel angry or hostile toward the prisoners but I close up the space between myself and my two women, glad they’re both looking good and glad they’re both wearing slacks.
It’s crazy. It’s typical of the frame of mind visiting prison forces on me. I have trouble granting the prisoners a life independent of mine, I impose my terms on them, yet I want to meet their eyes. Plunge into the depths of their eyes to learn what’s hidden there, what reservoirs of patience and pain they draw from, what sustains them in this impossible place. I want to learn from their eyes, identify with their plight, but I don’t want anyone to forget I’m an outsider, that these cages and walls are not my home. I want to greet the prisoners civilly as I would if we passed each other outside, on Homewood Avenue. But locks, bars, and uniforms frustrate the simplest attempts at communication; the circumstances under which we meet inform me unambiguously that I am not on Homewood Avenue, not speaking to a fellow citizen. Whether or not I acknowledge that fact I’m ensnared by it. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I’m not wearing funny blue clothes. I walked into this zoo because I chose to; I can return home and play with these children, make love to my woman. These privileges, which in my day-to-day blindness I often don’t even count as privileges, are as embarrassing to me, as galling in this prison context as the inmates’ state of drastic deprivation must be to them. Without speaking a word, without having ever seen each other before, we know too much about each other. Our rawest, most intimate secrets are exposed, there’s no room for small talk. We can’t take our time and proceed in the gradual give-and-take, willed unveiling natural to human interaction. This place where we meet one another is called the slammer and sure as shit it slams us together.
People don’t so much meet as explode in each other’s faces. I say “Hi” to a tall guy who looks like somebody I might have played ball with once. He wasn’t anybody I knew but he could have been. One ballplayer knows every other ballplayer anyway, so I said “Hi.” Got back no hint of recognition. Nothing saying yes or no or maybe in his black face. The basketball courts where I sweated and he sweated, the close scores, the impossible shots, the chances to fly, to be perfect a second or two, to rise above the hard ground and float so time stands still and you make just the right move before your sneakers touch down again. None of that. No past or future we might have shared. Nothing at all. A dull, hooded “Hey, man” in reply and I backed off quickly.
Are the steps up to the porch landing iron or wood or concrete? I can’t recall. I’ll check next time. I feel them now, narrow, metal, curving like a ship’s spiral ladder. My feet ring against latticed rungs. I can peer through the winding staircase to the ground. People can look up between the rungs at me. The first violation of privacy. Arranged so that the prisoners are party to it. One privilege conferred on the trustees is this opportunity to greet free-world people first. Form a casual gaundet of eyes outsiders must endure. Behind the prisoners’ eyes may be nothing more than curiosity, perhaps even gratitude toward anybody willing to share a few hours with a man inside. Envy. Concern. Indifference. Any or all of these; but my ignorance, the insecurity bred by the towering walls incite me to resent the eyes.
I don’t enjoy being seen entering or leaving the prison. Enormous stores of willpower must be expended pretending it doesn’t exist. For the hour or so of the visit I want to forget what surrounds us, want to free myself and free you from the oppressive reality of walls, bars, and guards. And other prisoners. I resent them. And need them. Without them it wouldn’t be a prison. In the back of my mind I rely on the other prisoners to verify the mistake committed in your case. Some of these guys are bad, very bad. They must be. That’s why prisons exist. That’s why you shouldn’t be here. You’re not like these others. You’re my brother, you’re like me. Different.
A brother behind bars, my own flesh and blood, raised in the same houses by the same mother and father; a brother confined in prison has to be a mistake, a malfunctioning of the system. Any other explanation is too incriminating. The fact that a few twists and turns of