Chapter Twenty-Eight #3
Piccardy announces our work assignments.
Israel and Harjeet get the plum job: weeding and tending to the fall beds of asters, mums, and flowering kale that decorate the front yard, then washing and waxing the warden’s and deputy warden’s cars.
Solomon, Ratchford, and Tito are handed push brooms and told they’ll be sweeping the walkways and the parking lots.
When Solomon tells Officer Goolsby that Cavagnero always has him work with me, Goolsby says, “Oh, yeah? Gee, thanks for letting us know. Now get over to the parking lots and start sweeping.” This earns Goolsby a thumbs-up from his mentor but leaves Solomon looking shaken.
The poor kid may still be within earshot when Piccardy asks Goolsby whether he knows who he is.
When Goolsby shakes his head, Piccardy makes his finger a gun.
“Woof, woof. Bang! Bang! Bang!” Goolsby says Solomon’s nothing like he pictured him.
Piccardy saves the last assignment for me and, just as I guessed, it’s the crappiest job.
Handing me a rake, a short-handled shovel, and a bucket, he tells me to clean out the decaying leaf sludge beneath the long row of barberry bushes that separates the back lawn from the woods.
I nod, denying him the satisfaction of seeing that I’m pissed to be singled out for this work detail.
As I start off toward the job, he catches up and walks alongside me.
“Too bad about Cavagnero, huh?” he says.
“I bet you’re going to miss him. I understand you two were pretty tight. ”
“Tight? I wouldn’t say that. We get along okay. He gets along with everyone.”
“Ain’t that sweet,” he says. “From what I hear, he’s probably not coming back. He’d be out for months anyway, so he’s looking into early retirement.”
“Well, like you said, Officer. What happens to staff is none of my business.”
He smiles at the “gotcha” I just landed, but then he retaliates. “So how’s your wife, Ledbetter? It’s Emily, right? How’s Emily?”
Rather than whacking him in the face with this shovel I’m carrying, I keep walking toward those barberry bushes.
“Enjoy,” he says, then turns and walks back toward the barn.
Fuck him and fuck his boot-licking assistant, too.
If Piccardy doesn’t let up, I’ll quit rather than put up with his bullshit.
It rained most of the night before, so the ground where I’m working is saturated.
Within the first hour, my work boots and socks are soaked.
Worse than that, the muck I’m scooping up is mice- and bug-infested and they’re not happy that I’m screwing with their domain.
There hasn’t been a frost yet, so I’m spending half my time swatting away flies and mosquitos.
By midmorning, I’ve pulled two ticks off me.
The one on the back of my neck had already begun to embed itself.
It’s warm for October—Indian summer, the TV weather guy said last night—so I dressed in just my scrubs this morning, no jacket.
Now I’m covered in bites. The only good thing about this shitty work detail is that it’s closer to the river, which I can hear loud and clear after all that rain. I wish I could see it, too.
At noon, the crew reconvenes at the barn, but there’s no sign of Solomon.
Has he freaked out and made matters worse for himself?
Walked off the job? I remind myself that, whatever happened, I’m not responsible for him.
I just hope that short fuse of his hasn’t gotten him in trouble.
Well, Piccardy isn’t here either, so at least that’s a win.
Goolsby passes out our lunches and tells us we have twenty minutes. “That’s ten minutes less than what Cavagnero gives us,” Harjeet points out.
“ Gave you,” Goolsby says. “Who are you—the union rep? Like I said, twenty minutes.” Piccardy’s star pupil is coming right along.
I open my bag lunch—a thin gray slice of bologna between two slices of white bread, two bendable carrot sticks, a stale mini-doughnut, and an eight-ounce plastic bottle of water.
The bologna’s a launching pad for bacteria so I pull it out and just eat the bread.
Goolsby’s nearby, so the guys are keeping their voices down, but I tune in to the chatter.
“You know who she is, right? Works in the office, blond hair, nice rack. She’s got to be pushing fifty, but I’d still tap it.
”… “He’s Zabrowski’s nephew. Got into some kind of trouble at the women’s prison.
They transferred him here so that Unk can keep an eye on him.
”… “How come they want to impeach him but not her? What about Benghazi? What about her fucking emails?”…
“Houston’s had home-field advantage and the Nats were running out of gas. That’s why it was the Astros in six.”
Solomon hasn’t done anything stupid, has he? He was working with Ratchford and Tito. “Hey, where’s the kid?” I ask Ratch.
He rolls his eyes. “We were busting his chops a little, nothing serious, but he started yelling at us, calling us lowlifes. Then he sat down, puts his face against his knees, and starts wailing. When we told him it was lunchtime, he didn’t move. Kid’s a real wacko, huh?”
I nod. “DOC never should have put him here. Cavagnero was kind of looking out for him, but now… Okay, here he comes. Hey, Solomon!”
As he walks toward me, I get up and move away from the others so that I can talk to him in private. He’s red-eyed, red-faced. I ask him how the parking lot detail’s going. “Terrible!” he says. “They keep making fun of me.”
“Yeah? What did they say?”
“I made one honest mistake when we were walking over there, okay? Called it brooming instead of sweeping and they started laughing at me. And I was like ‘Hey, it makes sense. What did we use when we raked leaves? Rakes .’ Or when someone plays baseball, what does he bat with? A bat !’ And Ratchford goes, ‘Yeah, but when some guy in the outfield makes a catch, he uses his glove, not his catch.’ Then Tito grabs his crotch and says that when he fucks a woman, he uses his cock, not his fuck.
Ratchford said he couldn’t believe I got to be my age without knowing not to call it brooming.
So I said maybe he and Tito had to do lowlife jobs like sweeping where they came from, but I didn’t because we have a cleaning lady.
Then they started calling me Richie Rich and shit and they wouldn’t let it go. ”
I tell him he’s got to be careful about knocking where people came from because that could hit a nerve. “So they can make fun of me all they want, but I have to be careful about what I say? I hate this stupid crew and this stupid job. At least I’m getting away from here tomorrow.”
“Yeah, about that, Solomon. Court runs are tough. Don’t think of it as a day off.
They’ll wake you before the sun’s come up, shackle and belly-chain you, load you into the van, and chain you to whoever else has court that day.
Then they’ll drive around the state for hours picking up cons from other facilities.
It gets hot and stagnant in the back of that van.
If you start feeling nauseous, put your head down and take some deep breaths so you don’t vomit. ”
For once in his life, he shuts up and listens instead of giving me an argument.
“When you get to the courthouse where your case is being heard, they’ll put you in a holding cell with a bunch of other guys.
Some of them may be mean, some of them sick or smelly.
Just keep your mouth shut. And when you and your lawyer finally get in front of the judge, it’ll take maybe five minutes to get your continuance.
Then it’ll be back to the holding cell, then back in the van for several hours while they drop off everyone they picked up before.
By the time you get back here, it’ll be after dark and you’ll be hungry and thirsty.
But don’t drink anything during the day.
They might not let you out of the cell to pee.
You don’t want to end up peeing your pants. ”
“Why are you telling me all this? To scare me?”
“Why would I want to scare you, Solomon?”
“Because you hate me after what happened in the library.”
His bottom lip pokes out and he looks close to tears. God, the poor kid is so maddening but so vulnerable. “I was pissed at you for that, yeah, but I don’t hate you. I just don’t want you to expect tomorrow’s going to be a vacation day because it’s not.”
“When do you think Lieutenant Cavagnero’s coming back?” he asks.
Doubtful that he is coming back, but rather than telling him that, I just shrug.
“I just want to work with you ,” he says. “You’re the only one who understands me.” He’s wrong; there’s no way I’ll ever be able to fathom that damaged psyche of his. But seeing him in pain like this makes me feel guilty about how intent I was to get him off my back. Like it or not, he’s mine.
I put my hand on his shoulder and tell him that, for the time being, the work assignments aren’t in our control. “But when you get teased, you have to try to laugh it off or give it back a little. Just don’t say anything more like you had a cleaning lady and they didn’t.”
“But we did have one,” he insists.
“That’s not the point, Solomon. What you don’t want to do is push your privilege in people’s faces. Make them feel like you think you’re better than they are.”
“But you just said that when they make fun of me, I should give it back! Now you’re saying the opposite!”
“No, I’m not. And lower your voice or this conversation’s over.” But it’s over anyway when Goolsby announces that it’s time for us to get back to work.