I Can Laugh About It Now

There are times when you simply cannot take life too seriously; even when something that could potentially turn out to be bad happens.  At the time it is happening the worst comes to your mind.  The gravity of it hits you so hard that you feel like you are swimming with a cement block in your hands.  When you let go of the block and float to the top gasping for air in your lungs you realize that you could have drowned.  Then you realize, I could have let go of the block a lot sooner.  So you laugh at yourself and the near fatal event. 

Monday, this past week, the morning started out cold and snowy as we commuted to work.  It was nothing big, but it was nice.  We had a busy morning at the Suds & Duds as many people decided to change their blankets and sheets.  I am always encouraged when it is busy like this, as it means guys are exercising good hygiene.  I only wish my cell-y would be in this crowd more often.  I had many repairs to work on that day so I kept busy.  At 7:30 we heard the announcement to recall us back to the house and we looked to our boss for instructions.  He was looking out the window and there was horizontal snow blowing across the compound.  It was blowing so hard that the visibility was reduced to almost nothing.  It was a good old-fashioned white-out.  Our boss told us we had to go, even though we had every machine operating.  In the rush to leave I grabbed up my assigned tools: Scissors, thread snipper, seam ripper and 5 inch long screw driver I use to replace the needle.  We use a fabric pouch that has a compartment custom fit for each tool to transfer the tool from the boss to me and back. So I grabbed the tools in haste and placed them in their compartments and rolled them up.  I grabbed my jacket and walked by the folding table we use for the sheets and placed my tools in the center in plain view of the boss and he saw me set them there from the front door.  We rushed to the house musing about how we could get lost in these white out conditions in the 50 yard commute to the house.

Once inside the building I headed over to the computer, as I hadn't checked e-mail since the day before.  I still had my jacket and hat on.  While typing an e-mail, I heard my name paged by the voice with instructions to report to the officers office.  This was an annoyance to me and certainly could not be important.  Perhaps just a random drug test I thought.  I walked down the hallway to the office and entered the small office.  A female Lieutenant and the duty officer were there waiting for me.  The LT asked me if I had any tools with me.  I was confused by her question, as it was absurd to me that I would have any tools.  My mind began to race as I replayed the events of our early shut down at the Suds and Duds.  I told them that I did not have tools as I began to check each one of my coat pockets just to be sure I didn't put anything in them by mistake.  She persisted with her questions as she presumed my guilt.  I explained how we ere rushed to leave the room and explained how I turned in my tools prior to my exit.  They had to assume the worst.

The male officer took me down the hall to the staff restroom where I had to put on my birthday suit to prove I did not have any of the missing tools they were looking for.  The officer was compassionate to the point of apologizing for having to follow the procedure, which gave me some assurance that he wasn't enjoying this.  There are others who love to do this as it allows them to assert their authority and power over an inmate.  The weather was cold so I had been wearing long johns, which added to the complexity of getting undressed and redressed in a confined space with another person.

He cleared me of any unauthorized possession and I went back to the office where the LT was waiting.  She drilled me again with questions of the tool and I explained carefully my steps to return the tools.  Meanwhile, the male officer went to my locker and shook down my locker looking for the tool. I persisted with her that the tool must have been misplaced and that if I were given the opportunity to go look for it that it would be found.  She told me that I could not go back to the Suds & Dud's to clear my own name.  My mind took a turn down a road that made me feel uncomfortable.  Is it possible that I was "set up"?  Did my boss decide he did not want me in that position and therefore conspire to falsely accuse me of this wrong?  Anything is possible.  So I prayed and asked God to vindicate me and let my character show for what it truly was.

The LT was on the phone and she asked me for the correct spelling of my name and number.  She relayed this information to the person on the other end of her phone.  I waited for her to finish and when she hung up the phone I asked the question I did not want to know the answer to.  "Am I going to the hole?" I asked her.  Her reply was brief and confirming of my worst fear.  "It looks that way," she said.    She asked me to wait in the hallway as she reached for the phone to make another call. While I waited outside the window of her office, my friend from Columbia stopped by and asked what was going on.  I explained the situation to him and he was agitated by the event.  When he gets agitated, he gets louder and his broken English even more difficult to understand but his body language was unmistakable.  Then I heard the LT yelling at me through the glass and motioning for me to come back inside the office.  I did. Now I received a very angry and passionate lecture from her about not talking to other inmates at this time.  She felt I did not understand the gravity of the situation.  She made the comment that a "staff person could be harmed already by this missing tool".  She was on a roll.  I felt like I was in third grade and I was caught with a squirt gun in school. She finally finished her rant and sent me to wait silently in the hall once again. Nothing like a good dose of humiliation for the day.

The compound officers arrived at the office for a party of blue uniforms.  I was glad to see they made it safely across the compound in this white out of a blizzard.  Then the page for my co-workers from the Suds & Duds went out over the voice.  Suddenly I felt better about having some friends around me but I felt bad that they were being brought into this event.  When they arrived, the compound cops took us into the unit laundry room and dismissed the inmates who were there guarding their laundry.  We were given instructions to get into our birthday suits for group search.  Being that I had already gone through this exercise I wanted to protest and ask if I could be exempted.  But why? This would only show my unwillingness to comply with their commands and it would show my co-workers that I was above them by not participating.  So I did what they asked and I got into my birthday suit to show yet again that I did not have what they were looking for.

The guards half-heartedly went through each of our clothing looking for the missing screw driver but found nothing from any of us.  They cleared us and told us to get dressed.  They left us in the laundry room with no instructions so we waited for the next command.  Several minutes had passed and no one came back so we left the room and went to the CO's office where they were gathered.  They told us to get back to our cubes for the special count they were about to conduct which seemed out of character.  If this screwdriver was still missing why are they sending us back to the cubes.  The Lieutenant said I was going to the hole.  So I asked the guard, " Did you find the screwdriver?"  He tersely replied with a "yes".  I felt immediate relief at hearing his response. However, It was clear to me that nobody was going to volunteer that information to me.  I believe they would rather have let me suffer thinking it was still lost.  So we went back to our cubes to be counted to make sure that nobody was lost in the blizzard.  Ironically, the sun was now shinning while the snow sparkled as it danced in the wind.  I thanked God for answering my plea of vindication and rescue. 

I went to the handbook and I looked up the charges for a missing tool.  It is at the same level as murder.  The penalty starts with a year in the hole.  You can also lose good behavior time off and they can add countless other punishments on there as well. This seems a little severe but I guess it is needed for places where more devious minds are kept.

The rumors were flying around the unit all day.  The inmates that sleep through most of the morning thought the extra morning count was caused by the missing screwdriver as they had no idea we had a blizzard with white out conditions.  After all, they could see the sun shining in the bright blue sky.  I learned later that if the screw driver was truly lost, the staff would not stop until they found it.  I would be in the hole and every locker would have been shaken down.  The rest of the day my adrenalin was racing through me.  I could not concentrate nor could I nap.  My mind was spinning with the events that took place and the risk of the severity they could have caused.  I still not have the whole story of why they thought it was missing in the first place.  I turned them as I do every day. I needed to know what happened but there was no way to find out as my boss had left for the day. 

The next day we all reported to work and met our boss in his office.  He knew what we wanted to know.  He took the screwdriver and placed it in the spot he found it.  It was wedged in the crack of the office chair I use for sewing.  The location was so awkward that the colors were camouflaged and not detectable.  He had scoured the entire area looking for it.  He went through the trashcans, my supply of scrap material for making repairs, and the jackets I left unfinished on the table.  We concluded that after I placed the tools in their custom made pouch, I turned quickly to grab my own jacket and when I did the screwdriver slipped out of it's place landing on the chair.  I didn't see it happen nor did I feel slip out.  It happened so quickly there was nothing that would have caused me to notice it.  Yet it caused us to have a big birthday party.  One I don't want to ever experience again!  I was relieved to know the rest of the story but not as much as I was happy that I was not in the hole.  Thinking about this event I see now that all I can do is look back and laugh at it. 

After work that day, I came back to the house and I saw the same male cop that performed the first search and shakedown.  I stopped in his office and I told him what happened with the missing screwdriver. He proceeded to thank me for being honest with him through this whole event.  He saw my integrity and for this I am grateful.  This is who I am.

Every day when my work is complete, I bring my tools to one other co worker and have them count.  It's not difficult 1,2,3,4.  Then I bring them to my boss and let him count them.  He gives me a chuckle knowing what I (we) went through.  He did tell me that he would have been reprimanded for this if the screwdriver went missing.  He is ultimately responsible for them.  We have a new level of respect for each other. 

Jeannie and I went to the Grand Canyon on one of anniversaries.  We discovered they don't put a safety rail around the ledge to keep people from falling over into the deep canyon.  I know this disturbed her much more than it did me. She has a greater sense of danger, so she stayed far away from the edge.  Me, on the other hand, walked right up to the edge.  I even sat on the edge and dangled my feet over it.  This bothered Jeannie even more.  While looking over the edge of the canyon, I knew that one missed placed step would take me over the edge.  A slight error, a misjudgment of distance, or a lack of balance; any one of these conditions could have taken me over the brink.   This was the same feeling I had with one misplaced screwdriver.  I was on the edge of losing what little freedom I had simply by miss placing a common tool.

When this was happening, I knew it was as serious as a heart attack.  Looking back at this adventure I can laugh at them now.   When others pass me in the hallway here I now, some guys will ask me if I have a screwdriver they can borrow.  I ask them if they need a regular or a Phillips. We can joke about it.  I think we should be able to make jokes. Sometimes life gets serious and we should take it that way.  But there are times when we need to be able to laugh about it.  Now it is time to laugh.

What time is it?  ...It's tool time!

Mc Freedom