One day after I'd been at the prison for a few weeks, while I was busy organizing things in the Cage area, an inmate who I'll call Mr. T came by to get some rags for the bathroom.  We generally tried to keep a few clean rags in the sink area of each bathroom, so inmates could wipe up whatever water they splashed all over the place.  Inevitably, however, these rags would get soaking wet, covered with people's shaved hair or soap or shaving cream, and left in a wet pile until the orderly would replace them the following day.  Another good idea gone bad.

Anyway, I knew Mr. T from my prior prison.  I hadn't had a lot of dealings with him directly, but he was buddies with my good pal Mr. G as they had both worked in the kitchen.  As Mr. T and I talked for a moment, the CO came out of his little one-room office nearby and told us to sweep and mop the room out while he waited.  He wasn't interested in anything too thorough - just a quick floor job by one of us (me) while the other wiped down the desk and cleaned the window.

The room itself was tiny, perhaps 6 feet by 6 feet.  On the desk was the CO's computer and a phone, plus piles of papers.  To the right was a rack of shelves with various junk on each level.  In the back corner, on the floor, was a pile of crap which had been confiscated from inmates and was destines never to be returned; extra blankets, stolen food, a thermos jug with no ID etched on it, a few wooden boards often used as illegal shelves with our lockers, and other miscellaneous junk. 

I quickly swept the floor, emptied the trash can, and did a simple wet-mop job while Mr. T wiped down the desk and used a dust broom over the shelves.  The whole process couldn't have taken more than three minutes, after while the CO "Turk" went back in his office.  As Mr. T and I walked away, he grinned a sly grin and said "I got me something, check them out."  I looked down, and in his hand he was holding a pair of sunglasses.  I figured he swiped them from the pile of junk on the floor, shrugged, and went about my business.  I didn't think about it again until breakfast the next day.

As I sat down with my cold cereal the following morning, the head orderly Ruiz came up to me and said that the nighttime CO "Johnson" wanted to talk to me.  I didn't know who Johnson was, but Ruiz pointed him out to me, standing at the head of the food line.  I had no idea what he wanted, but I walked over to him and said, respectfully, "Mr. Johnson, you wanted to speak with me?"

He eyed me in an odd way, and asked "Are you one of the orderlies who cleaned the CO office yesterday?"

After I'd replied in the affirmative, he was quiet for a moment, and then shocked me by what he said next.  "One of the CO's has had an expensive pair of sunglasses go missing from there.  You didn't happen to steal them, did you?"

I couldn't believe it - this idiot Mr. T had stolen a pair of sunglasses that belonged to a CO!  And for what?  It isn't like he could actually wear them...as they weren't prison-issue, if any staff member saw him wearing them, they'd confiscate them as contraband anyway.  This was my first experience with the pointless and moronic though process I would learn to recognize as "crack head logic". 

I wasn't really comfortable lying about it, but since Johnson hadn't specifically asked me if I knew who took them, I was able to get away with saying "No sir, the only thing I took out of the office was the dirt on the floor."  I sat down to finish my breakfast, and afterward I went and found Mr. T.  He was a pretty big, muscular fellow, so I didn't really want to antagonize him.  Instead, I simply let him know the CO was looking for those sunglasses.  "Don't worry man, I'll take care of it."  I figured he would either throw them away, or else leave them somewhere to be found by a staff member.  Once again, I naively thought that would be the end of the story.

Lunch was always a madhouse at that facility.  They only served for 60 minutes or less, depending on which Kitchen CO was on duty, and you had to stand on a long line the entire time until it was your turn.  You couldn't just skip the line and show up near the end of the meal, because if the CO saw the line was dwindling he would push everybody left into the chow hall, build them into a serpentine line again, and lock the door behind him so nobody else could enter.  What fun!  I learned to bring a paperback with me when possible, so I'd have something to do besides watch inconsiderate jackasses try to find ways to cut in line.

So that day I was waiting for the meal when Turk came up to me and asked if I had been one of the inmates he had asked to clean the CO office the day before.  Oh great, here we go again.  I told him yes, and he asked me to come with him.  We walked up the hall to the Front OFfice, and when he opened the door to show me in, Mr. T walked out and past me, without looking up at me.  I took that to be a bad sign, and for once I was right.  Turk led me into the Head Counselor's office, who was sitting at his desk.  "Mace" was rather heavy and gruff looking, but he somehow reminded me of my father the whole time I was there.  Anyway, he looked up at me and shook his head as he put his hands out in front of him, wrists touching, as if he was wearing handcuffs.

"Before you say anything," he said, "I may as well tell you that you're getting locked up.  You're going to The Hole."

(to be continued - watch for Part 3 sometime in the next few days)