Lights Out

The night shift was dreaded by most of the staff. Long hours dragged on in silence as prisoners slept fitfully. Every snore, every shift, every fart echoed in the quiet corridors. The half-walls that separated the inmates in the low-level facility. The incarcerated women generally settled down without too much hassle, so the night shift was deadly boredom for most. Not for Don Silverthorn.

Don knew what went on after the lights went out. He could write a book. The tears, the praying, the lovemaking. It was fascinating. The same women who walked around in the daylight picking fights and offering opinions and advice, could be found curled up in their bunks holding pictures of lovers, children, pets and weeping silently.

“Lights out ladies.”

Don walked the floor completing his headcount. Satisfied that all the bunks were inhabited appropriately, he sauntered down the corridor tapping on the walls of the pods as he walked by. The room was divided into eight pods, each containing two sets of bunk beds.  

“Night John-Boy, Night Mary Ellen,” a couple inmates responded which initiated a wave of, “Shut up,” mixed with chortles of laughter.

The room quieted as the lights were dimmed and Don took his station in front of the monitors. He lit a cigarette and readied himself for the show. Maybe there’d be some good lesbian lovin’ going on. He inhaled deeply and stared at the screens.

First, he noticed shuffling in pod 2. He clicked the screen for a closeup. Sure enough, there went Claskey sneaking over to Mason’s bunk. No harm in a little one on one. Don took another drag on the cigarette and glanced across the sea of screens. Pod 4, usually the least interesting, showed movement. He pushed the chair in for a closer look. Martinson was kneeling by the side of her bed and dragging something out, looking furtively one way and another. Cho lifted her head and mouthed something at Martinson, who hurriedly climbed back into her bunk, but she had something in her hand.

“What the hell is that,” Don said to no one.

His glance was drawn back to Claskey. It looked like the two women were spooning, nothing more. He went back to Martinson. He clicked again and again to bring the picture in more clearly.

“Hmm, is that contraband?” He watched a few more moments. Maybe someone in her family had snuck her in some good hooch. He was sure she would want to share. Chuckling, his eyes swept across the screens again. Pod 8 was moving around.

Lester had crawled out of her bunk and appeared to be hovering over Bronstein. Bronstein’s shoulders were heaving. Don let his eyes rest briefly back on Martinson. It looked like her shoulders were heaving, too. He clicked on the sound and ticked it up a notch.

The whispering was barely audible, but the sobbing was undeniable. Mildly interested, Don tried to tune out the other noise to hear more clearly what was going on.

“He told me he was going to do it,” Bronstein sobbed. “My boy, my beautiful boy is gone.”

“I know, honey, I’m so sorry,” Lester, the biggest bitch of the lot of them was comforting Bronstein.

Don lit another cigarette and took a long drink of his diet coke. Movement in 4. Martinson was back on the floor, looking for something under the bed. Cho slid down to help her look. Procter was sitting up on her bed, mouth moving. Don ticked the sound up.

“We’ll find it,” Cho said.

Click, click, click. Don enlarged the picture on the screen. What was Martinson holding? It looked like a tube. Lipstick? Drugs? He listened intently.

“If I don’t find it, Lily will never forgive me. She made it for me at school. Somebody stole it, I just know it.” Martinson’s voice was getting louder.

“Shut up, Martinson, you’re too damn loud. You’ll get officer Don-the-dick in here. What the hell are you looking for?”

“Don-the-dick,” Don chuckled, then paused to contemplate the nickname.

I’m not a dick. I’m the good guy around here. Is that what these bitches think of me?

His blood pressure went up and he fought the urge to flip the lights on and tell them that he was doing a surprise search of the bunks. He took a breath and stood up, taking a deep drag of his latest cigarette. He dissolved into a coughing fit which made his head hurt and his nose run.

"Damn cigarettes. I need to quit."

He paced the small space and decided to make coffee. His chest was tight and his head was throbbing. He wasn't sure if it was from the cigarettes or the insulting nickname.

Back to the screens. Cho was sitting up and triumphantly waving what looked like a piece of thread lined with macaroni and a tiny medallion. This was what Martinson was getting so upset about?

Cho handed Martinson the necklace and patted her on the shoulder.

“Calm down Carol. We found it. You’ll have it on the next time Lily comes to see you, and I’ll make sure that nobody puts their grimy hands on it. There, stick it back in the box. You’re okay now.”

Carol Martinson quickly stuffed the necklace back into the little box and shoved it under her pillow.

“Thanks, Maggie.”

Interesting. Hmmm, let’s see what Martinson is in for.

Don clicked on the file folder icon and opened up the inmates information file. Martinson, Carol. He highlighted her name and opened her file.

Martinson, Carol

5’7” 120 lbs.

Wheaton, IL

Charge: Attempted assault with a deadly weapon. Tried to rob a pharmacy in Wheaton. According to witnesses, Martinson carried a loaded weapon into the pharmacy and began demanding insulin for her daughter.

Don stopped reading and looked back on the screen at Carol Martinson, who had calmed down and was now lying in her bed, eyes wide open and glistening. She took a swipe at her nose as he watched.

So, Martinson had robbed a store for medicine that she couldn’t afford for her sick child. Don’s head thrummed with an odd sensation. He glanced at the screens; all was quiet.

Officer Don-the-dick

He clicked on the next file, then the next, and the next. These women were here for so many different reasons. One had shot her husband who had abused their young daughter. Another had assaulted the individual who had shoved her mother down a flight of stairs. And another had sold drugs and pimped herself out just to make ends meet to feed her five children.

Don’s chest tightened as he clicked on each screen and looked at the faces of his inmates as if it were the first time. All he had ever seen before were wild women; criminals who cursed and fought and threw insults like ping pong balls.

Why tonight?

Officer Don-the-dick

I’m not a dick.

Don read the inmates files all night. He was blinking and bleary-eyed when Officer Jeff Rozier knocked on the door.

“What are you doing, Silverthorn? Geez, man, are you crying?”

“Shut up, asshole. Of course not. It’s just been a long night.” Don shoved the chair back and quickly clicked out of the inmate files.

Rozier leaned over his shoulder. “You got some good porn going there?”

“Do you ever wonder about their lives?”

“Who? Them?” Rozier nodded toward the awaking pods.

“Who do you think? Yes, them.”

“Nope. Not interested. Bunch of mouthy criminals if you ask me.”

Don pointed to Martinson.

“She’s a mother. With a sick kid. She lost her shit last night, so I started looking in her file. Led me to read a bunch more of their files. It made me kind of sick to my stomach. Some of them really got a raw deal, I mean in life, out there, then they ended up here.”

Rozier’s eyes were glazed over as he strapped on his work weapon and slid into the seat abandoned by Don.

“They broke the law. That’s all I know.” Rozier shoved a wad of chewing tobacco into his mouth. “Don’t go getting soft on me, man.” He chuckled.

“I don’t know…I feel different about them after reading their stories. You should give it a try.”

That comment was met with a loud guffaw. “Get out of here and get some sleep. You’ve lost your mind.”

Officer Don-the-Dick

Don slung his jacket over his shoulder. “Maybe…”

Before he left, Don was compelled to stop by Martinson’s pod. He knocked on the wall. Martinson looked up at him through swollen eyes.

“What?” she asked, voice soft and weary.

“Come see me when I get back, okay, Martinson?”

“What for? Am I in trouble?”

“No. I want to help you, if I can.”

Perplexed, Martinson shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

Pod 8 was at the end of the corridor. As Don made his way to the back of the room, he said good morning to some of the women, who looked surprised, but had responded with the same. He stopped at the entrance to 8. Bronstein lay on her bed, still. Lester had her back to him and looked at him with knitted brows when she turned around to find him gaping at her roommate.

“You need something, Officer?” She moved closer to him and exuded defensive attitude,

“I just wanted to tell Bronstein how sorry I am, about her boy.”

“How’d you find out about that?” Lester’s chest puffed up.

“We find things out. Just tell her, okay?”

Uncomfortable, Don turned and hurried back down the corridor and out the door.

Officer Don-the-Dick

He knew something had changed within himself that night. He would always remember this as the night he became a better person. He pictured the screens and the women all living in their own personal hells.

Don left the prison, weary and emotionally spent. Don-the-Dick would be gone and replaced by a better man. He would endure grief from his colleagues, but he could take it. He rolled down his window and took a big breath. The beginning of a brand-new day.