“Hunter, report to the Canteen,” announced my housing unit loudspeaker.
Puzzled, because shopping ended yesterday, I reported. My boss, Mr. S, and his boss, Mrs. G awaited.
“Did you deliver Martinez his groceries?” Mrs. G inquired.
Instantly wary, I told the truth. “No, Rick, the Inmate Chairman, handed over the bags.
“Why not you?”
I knew I was in trouble. I explained Martinez is a dope fiend and owed drug debts. Several weeks ago, he came to me and explained due to rules violations he was being placed on disciplinary status severely limiting how much money he could spend at Canteen. Martinez wanted to shop early before he went to Classification, so he could purchase a full draw and pay his debts. I told him his drug debts were his problem not mine. No! Multiple prisoners who were owed money by Martinez asked me to shop him early, and I told them that’s what they get for loaning a dope fiend money. No! Finally, Rick asked me to shop him.
“I know Martinez has a drug problem,” Rick said thoughtfully, “but I don’t want him to get hurt. Didn’t you use drugs?”
“More than thirty years ago,” I replied, “but I didn’t get into debt.”
“Just got into prison.”
Rick’s words were true, and he’s a friend, and I respect him.
“I don’t feel comfortable going to his cell with groceries, his creditors will swarm me.”
“I’ll deliver the bags.”
At that point, I agreed to shop Martinez, deliver the bags to Rick, and he’d take them to
Martinez. Rick got at Martinez, he gave me the greenlight, and it happened the next day. I stood in the day room and watched Rick make delivery.
“Martinez filed an appeal,” Mrs. G clued, “he said he was charged for the canteen but didn’t receive it.”
Mrs. G sent me to find Rick, and she phoned for Martinez. When we were all at the Canteen, Mr. S asked, “You didn’t receive any canteen?”
“No, didn’t receive anything,” Martinez lied.
“I reviewed the video surveillance,” Mrs. G interjected, “you received two bags.”
“They were short, only one hundred dollars.”
“You wrote on the appeal and just said you received nothing, ” Mr. S reminded.
“There is no way one hundred dollars of groceries is two bags,” Mrs. G asserted. “One hundred won’t fill one bag. I think you got it all!”
Martinez then admitted to receiving one hundred and fifty dollars in canteen but refused to sign a receipt for any amount while insisting on receiving back all two hundred and twenty-nine dollars deducted from his account.
“If you don’t sign for one fifty,” Mrs. G said grimly, “you get nothing today and I send this whole mess to the squad for investigation. Is that what you want?”
Martinez signed, and Mrs. G told him he’d receive seventy-nine dollars in canteen later that day.
When Martinez left, Mrs. G said, “I need seventy-nine dollars.” Rick and I each paid half.
“Do I still have a job?” I asked.
“This is on Mr. S, not you,” replied Mrs. G.
Up to that point, I was worried about my role, Now, I realized I had put Mr. S, who has a young daughter and pregnant wife, in a bad position.
“It’s my fault,” I insisted.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, so have you,” Mrs. G said, “you should have stayed on no.”
“I’m not as bright as you, takes me longer to learn anything.”
“The money has been paid,” she smiled for the first time, “and the accounts balanced.”
Since Mr. S believed from the video surveillance that Martinez had received all his groceries, he packed up seventy-nine dollars in packs of dehydrated eggs that had been discontinued because they hadn’t sold and offered them to Martinez. When Martinez refused them and wanted the money returned to his account, Mr. S told him to file a new appeal. Martinez accepted the packs of dehydrated eggs and tried to pay his drug debts with them with limited success.
The next day, a guard told me Mr. S had received a letter of instruction. This keeps getting worse.
I saw Martinez leave his cell, and I quickly padded towards him to confront him, he was picking up a bindle of drugs.
“Hope you enjoy the high,” I bit off the words, “Rick and I are paying for it.”
Turning towards me with confused glassy eyes, Martinez mumbled, “Who’s Rick?”
Martinez was completely faded. The zombie stumbled past me to his cell. My anger toward him went away instantly, replaced by pity, another life given to drugs, wasted away.
On my way to work the next day, a drug buddy of Martinez told me that Martinez had been offended when I refused to shop him and called him a dope fiend. The appeal asserting he had not received his groceries had already been written to get back at me even before Rick delivered the bags.
Made sense. Anyone who tried to hold me accountable when I had been using decades ago had been the enemy. Now I know, they were concerned and cared about me.
Arriving at work, I asked Mr. S for a private moment and asked him if I should seek another assignment.
Mr. S said I had been truthful, paid the monies needed to balance the accounts, worked hard, so he viewed me as an asset. From now on, all groceries would be handed over in front of him at the Canteen. I nodded my understanding and agreement.
After work, I went home to shower and a prisoner asked me if I would check his account balance, something I had routinely done in the more innocent pre-Martinez era.
Shaking my head no, I told him all Canteen business would be transacted with my boss at the Canteen, and he could thank Martinez for the new policy.
Aftermath
Standing in the morning medication line, something I do once a month to pick up my old guy cholesterol statins, I noticed Martinez in line ahead of me. Still feeling annoyed, I studied him. Martinez was wearing no personal clothing. State issued shirt, pants, raggedy canvas shoes caked in dirt except where they had holes.
Only about a week ago, Martinez had received a quarterly package from his mother. The vultures descended demanding payment for past highs still owed. The drug dealers stripped him of everything except for a pair of brand-new Nikes. Clutching the shoes to his chest, sobbing, Martinez explained his mother had sent them for his birthday. Now they were gone.
“Clucked your shoes for chemical bliss?” I said caustically, cruelly. Martinez’s head dropped in shame, staring at the ground. Feeling like a bully, I left him alone, picked up my meds and went to work.
“Martinez locked up,” my housing unit officer said casually when I returned from work.
“Drug debts?” I guessed but really was certain. Nodding. “Someone ran in his cell and smashed him. When he went to medical, he said he was suicidal and now he’s housed in a mental health crisis bed. Won’t be back here.” A mental health crisis bed is a stark cell with only a foam pad on the floor. The prisoner only wears a blue non-tear gown; prisoners refer derisively as the blue dress.
“Should have paid his drug debts,” I said with a shrug.
“Couldn’t.” The guard held up an address book. “This is all he had in the way of personal property. No TV, no radio, no personal clothes not even hygiene items. All he had was his mother’s contact info.”
Nodding, I turned and walked. Martinez’s dismal, drugged life affected my emotions now he had crashed and burned, but I wondered if it would change my future actions.
-The End-
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