Bad, bad, bad

S (my husband) says to me, why are you surprised? You’ve set yourself up in an environment where it is ILLEGAL for you to touch. You are looking to find connection through verbal means…

I walked into work this morning, and as always, I scan the board of who is in Segregation; which of my guys is in the Hole. Mr. Rose’s name is on the board, he is in for a major aggressive-type infraction. Another guy of mine is in for personal protection – he has done something to put himself in debt he cannot meet.

I hate mornings when two of my guys are in Seg.

But the real problem is Mr. Rose. I don’t even need to read the ticket, I don’t have to collect information, I know this is going to be a mess. He spent the first 20 years of his adult life in maximum security. I don’t remember why; I don’t care. Almost half of those years were in solitary. When I first met him (on his second bit) he told me how many assault charges he had on staff. He is the only person I’ve had in my office who actively sought to scare me. It worked, I pushed my chair backwards and checked my emergency button. But I didn’t disconnect from him. In retrospect, I suppose I was being tested.

After his first incarceration, he went back out into the world and constructed a new life. He found a regular job, a second wife, a child, an income, and I suppose he might even have been paying taxes. But he left the berserker response of maximum security behind him. Then, he got pulled over, and all that old behavior kicked in and he got in the face of the arresting officers and got himself a ticket. Because of his history, he was slammed back into prison. And eventually he came to me.

He came to my facility because he was dying. He had contracted Hepatitis C, and it was killing him. He had started the chemotherapy that might save him, and the horrible side effect of Interferon is that it makes you depressed. Suicidally depressed, kill yourself depressed, done with the world depressed. It was working, but they pulled him off of it because he was getting scary with his desire to die. They moved him to our facility for psychiatric support. We put him on a prophylactic antidepressant. And he restarted the Interferon. I was in charge of keeping him not-so-scary.

I failed him. Twice. I failed him. He was sent to the psychiatric hospital facility a couple of months ago. I had not kept close enough track of him and what was happening. I had given him too much latitude to let me know. I had trusted too much. We shipped him out to the psychiatric facility, and he came back a few weeks later feeling better. But the force of being back in prison was twisting him back to his previous behavior.

He is another beautiful boy, I suppose a man now. I can but imagine being put into a maximum security setting at 17 made him a huge target. He will never be a target again. Now, in his early middle age he is “sculpted from ice,” as my friend Sarah mused. He is completely capable of destroying one or two guards forcing him in a direction he doesn’t want to go. Nobody will rape him in the shower. They will not put him in the humiliating bam-bam sit. Bad, bad, bad.

He is in an observation cell, large bullet proof windows, no privacy, with the toilet up against the wall so I at least need to lean in to breach that particular space.

I lean over and put my face in the meal slot. “Mr. Rose? Hello?” He is huddled under the blanket on the slab of cement. Fortunately he is facing me. “What happened?”

No response. He slits his eyes at me, but nothing crosses his face. “Would you get up and talk to me?”

He closes his eyes and doesn’t move.

“Mr. Rose, I need you to tell me what is going on.”

Nothing.

“Mr. Rose, are you safe? Can you keep yourself safe?” Last time he was in Seg it threw him back to the bad years, and instead of giving into the impulse to destroy and strike out, he tried to kill himself. I don’t believe he is safe.

He half opens his eyes and give a slight shrug. He is not safe.

I am so angry I am vibrating. I am afraid and angry and more angry. I am responsible. I am the only person who suspects what is going on. If I could I would open that huge metal door and smack him upside the head. He is crashing and burning. He was supposed to tell me when this was happening. He had blown his appointment with me the previous day, and instead of calling to find him, I just rescheduled. I should have called and had them haul his happy ass over to me. I am angry at him; I am angry at myself.

So I leave. I tell custody he needs to go on suicide watch, based on the shrug. I call my boss-guy, and he asks me why I’m doing this. I tell him about the shrug, and I get a moment of silence. Then I tell him it is my gut, and bless his soul, he steps up and supports me. He is the best boss in the world.

Suicide watch means he eats his meals with his fingers. He needs to cough up his regular clothes, such as they are, and his sheet and blanket. He gets put into suicide wear, known as a bam-bam suit: a sleeveless, below the knee garment that Velcros at the shoulder. He also gets a quilted blanket. Both are designed to keep him from tearing and using the fabric to hang himself. He gets his underwear and toilet paper. Nothing else. He is alone in the cell with his thoughts and impulses, and I suspect his self loathing.

I type away on my computer, and do the paperwork. Boss comes in; he has heard from the Deputy Warden. They don’t really want to go into his cell and force the bam-bam on him. He is verbalizing a huge intent to resist, and he has the history to back it up. I want neither my custody folk nor him hurt. I don’t want him to have an opportunity to regress to the wounded monkey state of thinking.

I cancel the first half of my morning appointments. I slog back across the yard with the necessary paperwork and get the signature thing. We have modified the requirements to allow no change of clothing in place of constant observation. The Deputy Warden tells me this guy has been a problem all night, necessitating two calls to him after hours. This is information I didn’t have. It means he is reaching around his humanity back to the thoughtless days. Bad, bad, bad.

I have 45 minutes until my next appointment. Paperwork is in place. I evict the current custody woman from the 1:1 (direct observation) chair and pull it up to the huge, reinforced metal door. The meal slot is about 4x14 inches. The lock on the slot is a dead bolt ¾ of an inch in thickness. I need to lean down to speak through it. I’m past my first flush of anger now, and am just feeling desperate. I am afraid he is just working toward death. He has a three year old child he wants to go home to.

“Mr. Rose, I have the next 45 minutes free, and I intend to sit here and talk at you until you respond. I am easily as stubborn as you.” And I natter away at him.

It takes three minutes to break him. Or rather three minutes and giving up my anger. He shuffles across the room with the blanket and sits by the door. I have to be wary of being grabbed, even though I don’t believe he would do such a thing. I’ve already taken my decorative scarf off as an easy, deadly snatch. I can barely hear him he is talking so quietly. What he tells me is horrible, all the things you might imagine to say when you simply wish yourself dead. When it feels so appallingly bleak, you can’t remember your children, or the fact that physically, you are recovering from a death sentence. He wants to die; he wants it to stop.

“Will you please put on the bam-bam, and let us help keep you safe?” He agrees. If I could, I would crawl through the slot and just hold him as he cries. He is so alone and so hopeless, and needs the connection. Instead, I leap to my feet and go into the office to get the bam-bam and blanket. They slide through the slot, and I move away to give him his modesty and respect as he changes. He passes a wad of clothing out through the slot, and the guard covering Seg that day takes them. I remind him to get the blanket, and he goes back for that. I sit back down, and talk for a moment more. He is a wreck, but he is talking. And I ask him what he has in the cell to hurt himself with.

And from under the pathetic excuse for a mattress on the cement, pulls a coiled roll of fabric. It is the hem of his tee-shirt, ripped, and held as a weapon of self destruction. He passes it out the slot to me.

“Anything else to hurt yourself with?” He denies it. I fail him, yet again.

Back to my office, and one of my serious therapy guys. It was a great session; we made progress toward that trust and truth issue.

I coordinated with Medical so I could be in seg when Mr. Rose’s meds circulated again. He needs them. He will take them if I need to shove them down his gullet. Don’t fuck with me, I’m on it now.

When I come back after lunch to supervise his physical assessment and his meds he is compliant. But when we talk he makes a funny face at me and says, “I should give you this.” And another noose comes out, and the tee-shirt it is ripped from. The guard had not counted the clothing coming out, and had left him those objects. Shit. Bad, bad, bad. He tells me he has been experimenting with asphyxiating himself, and has come on the verge twice under the blanket. I take them, and I leave. Both nooses are pinned to my cork board in my office as a reminder.

When I take it, I ask if there is anything else, and he denies it. I slog across the yard yet again. He needs to be upped to the highest level of suicide watch and I need to act quickly to get him hospitalized. He knows this and agrees it is his best option.

Typing, more paperwork, more slogging. Signatures, and he is direct observation again as I arrange what I need to make it formal. How many times have I leaned over this slot today? I no longer know. The asshole across the hall thinks this is the best movie he’s seen in a while. I slam the slot in his door closed and shut the blinds. He is on his own for entertainment.

I have discommoded another custody guy I know visually, but not otherwise. He leapt up from the seat where he was speaking to Mr. Rose and gratefully gave it to me. “Mr. Rose, we’re sending you back to the hospital. I’m going to do the work and get you in today.” But I have just learned from the Captain that he will not return to me. He has made a number of threats on yard, and other inmates are claming sanctuary. I believe this is his last moment with me, and suddenly I am overwhelmed.

I sit across from him and start to cry quietly; thank god I didn’t give into full sobs. I cannot continue to channel his pain and not give into it. I’m not supposed to tell him where he is going or what is happening. This is a security issue. “Mr. Rose, I need you to take care of yourself. I need you to make the right decisions.”

“I’m not coming back here, am I?”

“I don’t think so. Mr. Rose, you need to find somebody, wherever you go that you can connect to. You need to do that to hold on to your humanity…. You cannot let yourself give into the dark parts”

And he cries with me. The guard is standing to the side. This is so not what I want to project with custody. Stupid female emotion. I look at the guard and threaten his life if he tells my secret.

As I finish my day, the custody guy who watched me weep shows up in my office. I am ashamed I can’t remember his name. He has arranged to have his post covered and come to find me. He is awkward, and I wave him into my office, and he closes the door. He tells me Mr. Rose had been discussing with him the intention to shit and wipe the feces over the window just before I arrived. This is the only act of defiance left to him. The officer had reached the end of his skill, with only the promise Mr. Rose would wait until he was off shift before he gets the monkey urge to wipe his shit on a window to keep his privacy or to express his rage.

The custody guy tells me as soon as I sat down with Mr. Rose he could see it all change. He has worked over twenty years in the prison and tells me he has never seen anything more powerful and touching, and all I do is cry again.

I stay that night until we get him safe and out. All the custody people are incredible with me. They let me lurk and help. They keep me fed and entertained as arraignments are made. They let me know that somehow, my caring is not wrong to them. It does not keep them from their jobs. This is my first real time with this shift, as they come on as I leave most days. I am so grateful to them to let me stay until he is safe away. I would have never imagined that support.

Mr. Rose is not just a story, it is a man’s life. He has to make the right decisions, and he is so not able to do this now, and I can’t go with him. I have left him as safe as I may. May the Goddess go with him.