Ain’t That Something?

As he approached the lectern, Frederick Bricklebaum brushed a piece of lint from the breast pocket of his grey jacket, pleased with his appearance but concerned that he might have overdressed for the occasion. He didn’t want to look too flashy, as though he were putting on airs. The suit was old, but recently he had his mother patch a few thin spots and let out the jacket to accommodate his burgeoning stomach. It was one of the nice things about moving back in with his mother, he thought. Lucy couldn’t have sewn two napkins together.

As he adjusted the microphone, Frederick looked at the crowd before him and was a little disheartened to see the number of empty seats. The turnout was not as good as last year’s, but he was proud that he’d been able to rent a better venue. He certainly felt it in his pocket, but these seminars were important and Motel 6 had very nice conference rooms.

“I want to—sorry, I always do that with microphones. It’s like nails on a chalkboard, isn’t it? I want to thank you all for attending the second annual gathering of the Dystopian Correctional Association. Most of you were in attendance last year and will recall the theme of the symposium, Correctional Uses of New Technologies. This afternoon we’re going to expand on that, delving deep inside this exciting subject with presentations from several administrators from across the country.”

Frederick paused suddenly and adjusted his glasses. He was growing anxious and had forgotten where he’d intended to take this introduction. The damn lighting was all wrong and everything in the room had a harsh yellow tint to it. He realized that he was wiping his glasses with the cloth he kept in his breast pocket, and wondered why it had seemed a good pretext for pausing. He must look silly. A woman coughed into her hand. Frederick was surprised that he’d not noticed her before, as she sat in the front row and was probably the oddest looking person he had ever seen. Like so many brunettes today, she was not content with her natural hair color and had assaulted her locks with such a variety of dyes that, when finally she settled on one, its vibrancy was compromised by the residue of the others and she’d ended up with hues that could just as easily have been red as purple. The motley tresses fell to shoulders that ought to have been granted to a linebacker, and they framed a block of granite with holes chiseled out for eyes, nose, and mouth. The hand that had covered the cough was a massive slab of meat, yet it did not seem grotesque because it was proportionate to the rest of her. And if the overall effect was grotesque, well, Frederick cared not one bit because the woman wore a dress, a long flowery thing that flowed all the way to a pair of sandals. How brave she was to show those feet! Frederick was in love. Women simply did not wear dresses anymore. In fact, they often didn’t wear much of anything, prancing around shamelessly in what appeared to be pajamas. Every time he saw a young lady in one of those leotard things he wanted to walk right up to her and tell her just how naughty and dirty she was as he spanked her hard on her tight little bottom, again and again. He grew upset just thinking about it. But this woman and that dress…

The scrape of a folding chair intruded upon his thoughts, returning him to his dilemma. The damn words just would not come. He would have to speak extemporaneously, he thought.

“Uh, before I give the floor to our first speaker I want to share with you an experience I had recently, which I think will illustrate the importance of what we do. The other day I was filling up on gas when I had a hankering for a snack. When I sat the food down at the register a bit of cheese from one of the chili dogs dripped onto the counter, and the sneer on the pimply face of the tattooed clerk was appalling. He looked at me with contempt–I, who was graduating from the University of Phoenix when he came kicking and screaming from between the emaciated legs of his junkie mother, was being slighted by a petty clerk who, I might add, will likely end up someday in one of our cells. And it is this disregard for one’s fellow man, this flagrant contempt for everything good and proper and just in our society, that compels us to do what we do. We are society’s bulwark against the flood of anarchic refuse that would inundate all that we hold dear. Prison gates are the floodgates protecting Western civilization from a deluge of base humanity.

And one thing more. It is true that we are often misunderstood. But it is important to remember that a man from Galilee was once misunderstood, forsaken by a world that could not comprehend his vision for mankind. If there are any Islams here today I do not mean to offend you by speaking of the Son of God, through whose grace alone can we find redemption, but the parallels between his work and ours are too glaring to ignore. I thank you all for being here, and I will now give the floor to the Director of the D.O.C. from one of our great Western states, Utah.”

As he left the stage Frederick realized that he was still holding the handkerchief and he began stuffing it back into his pocket, the left side of which started to tear. He would have to remember to tell his mother.

Donald Colby, Chief Superintendent of the Office of Associate Director for the Vermont D.O.C.—his friends called him Chief—left the conference room in search of a decent cup of coffee. There was a nice spread on the table in the room, but the coffee was no good. He needed to clear his head, and the present speaker wasn’t helping at all. Donald headed toward the lobby, recalling the row of vending machines lining the wall across from the front desk. He needed to do something different this year. His brother had a line of products that Donald believed integral to the management of prison populations, but his presentation last year evidently failed to impress anyone because not a single new contract resulted from it. It seemed somewhat of a betrayal to him because they were all supposed to look out for one another.

He really had little use for the dozens of sets of handcuffs he had purchased last year, after listening to a gentleman from Nebraska extol the virtue of the unique noise they made when clicked. Guards walking the tiers would often play with their handcuffs, closing the steel bracelets in a continuous loop so that they clicked and clacked and generally annoyed everyone in the vicinity. It was partly a nervous habit, much like bouncing a ball or chewing on a toothpick, but mostly it was intended to harass the animals in their pens. Every psychological advantage counted in this line of work, and Donald had been intrigued when the man had claimed that these particular cuffs of his sounded like “a cross between your mother-in-law and marmots rutting.”

Donald had no idea what kind of noises marmots made, rutting or otherwise, but the horrendous wailing of his wife’s mother, dead now for 10 years, still slapped him upside the head from time to time. It turned out that the handcuffs sounded no different than any other restraints, but he didn’t mind the expenditure because he was supporting a colleague in the field.

Ah, yes, one of the machines did in fact dispense coffee. He had thought so. A boy of eight or nine years stood at the machine next to it, weighing his sweet options. “I always liked the Junior Mints myself.” The kid paid him no mind and began pressing buttons. A pack of M&Ms moved forward and began to fall, only to end up stuck on a metal lip. The kid was crestfallen. As coffee was spat into a cup Donald offered to buy him a candy bar. The boy looked at him diffidently, his green eyes fixed on the large belt buckle Donald liked to wear. It had a silver guntower in the center, with concertina wire silhouetted in the background. He thought the image exuded a good deal of power.

“Mom says I shouldn’t talk to men I don’t know. She says my father was a strange man, and that nothing good ever came from meeting him.”

“Well now, your mother gave you sound advice, but there can be exceptions to rules, no?” The boy examined the carpet at Donald’s feet.

“I tell you what, you run to your room and ask your momma if it’s all right for me to buy you some candy, since your M&Ms got stuck. I’ll wait right here.”

“She isn’t there. She left Tommy to watch me and went to the casino with a man dressed like a cowboy. He had a big black hat with a feather on the side.”

An idea began to form in Donald’s mind. It would appear as though his desire for a cup of coffee just might have solved his problem.

“Kid, how do two bags of M&Ms sound, hmm?”

The man, thin as a whip with a light in his eye suggesting he was just as feisty, stood at the lectern adjusting his tie. He had looked forward to this moment for months. There was so much to share that he hardly knew where to begin.

“Good afternoon everyone. It pleases me to have this opportunity to speak here today. I do not think it an exaggeration at all to suggest that what I have to say could revolutionize the field of corrections.” He let the words hang there a moment, imagining the ethereal trails of light they left in the air as they drifted into the ears of his audience. This was going to be good, he knew it.

“None of us here today hasn’t struggled with what may be the greatest challenge in our thankless line of work; I refer of course to the food problem. Time and again we have found ourselves fighting tooth and nail to stay within our budgets while providing to those in our custody what on paper appears to be a reasonable diet. Other considerations exist besides those of a fiscal nature. Logistically it is no walk in the park to distribute three meals a day to every inmate. It is a waste of precious time and energy that officers could spend elsewhere. The problem is even more acute in segregation units, where staff must deliver the food themselves, sometimes even having to walk up and down stairs.” A low rumble emanated from the crowd and a few officials even booed. The man at the lectern smiled and held up his hand for silence.

“Right? You guys are no strangers to the many challenges posed by the issue of food. A good majority of states have transitioned over the last few years to Dr. Ketosis’ line of products, in particular the Meal-In-A-Tube paste, which I’m told is not only nutritious but something that prisoners can get down with just a few glasses of water. A few states have even begun using the good doctor’s latest innovation, a similar product more heavily fortified and delivered via a spigot in the prisoner’s cell. Every morning he approaches the spigot and, placing his mouth over it, presses a button to receive his daily food intake. Curiously, despite these advancements in our field, a few states continue to serve traditional foods to their inmates several times a day. We’re looking at you, Arizona, Oregon, etc.”

Another rumble from the crowd, followed by a few catcalls. The man was on top of the world, holding as he did the audience in the palm of his hand. And he’d yet to really get underway. No doubt there would be an award awaiting him at next year’s gathering.

“And a word here, if I may, on this practice. It is true that a couple of states—Washington being one of them—have made great strides in shifting their food models to keep up with the times. Although they still embrace the old paradigm, to be fair we must admit that the food they serve their prisoners is appalling enough both nutritionally and flavor-wise that it meets Association standards. However, I have to say—ruffled feathers or no—that it is often difficult for us to objectively view contemporary practices. It can take future generations to look back on our mistakes and see them for what they are. Slavery is probably the greatest example, though I maintain that the archaic custom of feeding inmates traditional foods is not far behind. It is an affront to each and every person in our communities who doesn’t have enough food on his or her table.”

The man paused again, wiping sweat from his forehead and taking a sip of water from the glass he’d brought to the lectern. He could see in their eyes just how rapt the men and women sitting before him were. Not one of them would soon forget him, no.

“And so I am pleased to tell you about the fruit of my collaboration with a team of researchers at a university in Kazakhstan. We have developed a pill that will provide sustenance to the prisoner for a day. We are calling it Mealdora, a quirk of a Spaniard on the team who was fond of a good portmanteau. What he was doing in Kazakhstan I didn’t ask and he never told me. Can’t say I care much for the name, but it’s not as though we’ve got to market it to the public. I should add that the pill is kosher, halal, gluten-free, and devoid of just about every substance known to cause allergic reactions. Few inmates will have cause for complaint. We should have F.D.A. approval any day now.”

The most raucous response yet. The man knew he could not end on a better note and he decided to leave the lectern then and there. As he did so the laughter turned into an ovation. He was only sorry that his wife had a hair appointment and could not make the trip with him. He knew she would have swelled with pride seeing him in his finest hour. He couldn’t wait to get home and tell her all about it.

Frederick stood at the banquet table eating a buttered roll. He was not at all unhappy with the refreshments he’d been able to provide. How serendipitous it had been that a buffet stood not far from the motel. As he headed out for a stroll last night, he saw several homeless people gathered at the back of the establishment. A group of busboys had emerged pulling a number of garbage cans, which they’d left near the dumpster before heading back inside. He watched as the bums loaded several bags with everything from chicken to macaroni and cheese. He feared that if he approached them he might be knifed or sodomized, or catch some terminal disease, so he waited until they left before knocking on the restaurant’s back door. He was glad that he’d waited until the undesirables had left, for their stench was overpowering and he imagined he might have fainted if he’d caught a whiff directly at the source. When the door opened again he’d requested several bags and, for reasons he could not understand, the busboys looked at him in a way they had not looked at the street people. If he didn’t know any better, it had bordered on disgust. All well and good. They’d given him the bags and he’d filled them so full of food that he’d been forced to make several trips to get them back to the motel. It had been well worth it. He’d considered catering the event because the cereal and bagels he’d pilfered last year from a Day’s Inn had not gone very far. The inn had faced the bingo hall of the old folk’s home, which he’d rented for the seminar, and the continental breakfast offerings had seemed like a good idea. They were not.

Everyone appeared to be in good spirits, especially after the last presentation just before the break. He’d already made a call and placed an order for hundreds of thousands of those pills. He couldn’t believe how much easier and cheaper things had just gotten. Fantastic!

As he finished the roll, he noticed the fellow from Vermont reenter the room, a young boy at his side whom he directed to go sit in a corner. Frederick was hardly surprised anymore by the proclivities of other men. You never knew what made people tick. He recalled several years ago, at an A.C.A. gathering, when the keynote speaker—who frankly had been far too pleased with himself for several puns he’d made on the theme of a turnkey making a keynote address—had been arrested in the parking lot after two midgets had managed to kick open the trunk of his car, where they’d been trapped for some time. Frederick didn’t know whether they were actually midgets (he could never be sure with Asians, and the fact that they wore diapers and had pacifiers hanging from necklaces didn’t help) but they looked freakish enough to him to qualify. The midgets had led the police to several kilos of cocaine and an odd assortment of toys, the exact purpose of which Frederick had no desire to know.

Finished with his roll, he decided to see if there was any coleslaw left. Heading to the end of the table he could hear snippets of conversation, which made him very happy. The entire point of these seminars was the exchange of ideas that could take penology into a new age.

“Say, Mr. Bricklebaum, how do you do? Samuel Simmons—say that five times fast, ha! We met last year as you may recall. This here is Mr. Brian Bellicose from Rhode Island. He’s the warden at the state pen out there and he was just telling me about… Well, why don’t you go ahead, Mr. Bellicose.”

“Yeah, so I got to thinking one day, we’re a small state, right? The smallest! Why not save space by making our cells small? Right now they’re rather spacious at 7×9, but we’ve made plans to reduce them to 6×6. It’s both economic and           humane. Think of a thunder-shirt for a dog, or a small kennel, both of which exercise a calming effect on the animal.”

Frederick was not unimpressed by the idea, but he begged off out of concern that the coleslaw might disappear before he got to it.

“And so I said ‘You want some toilet paper? Well I want to pay off my mortgage, good luck to us both!’ and I kicked his door for good measure. Whole unit full of annoying buggers, I tell you what…”

“In the same way that society has lost touch spiritually, so too has Corrections gotten away from its core values. We need to bring back the Pennsylvania Model, I’m telling you…”

“It’s been a month of Sundays and I’d wager that entire building still reeks of pepper spray. It’s that new stuff, too. What makes a man not just feel like he’s dying but that he’s already in hell dining with the devil…”

Ah, what joy these seminars bring, thought Frederick. He used to catch up with one or two people at these gatherings, but nowadays he preferred to move about and soak up the energy from the various interactions taking place around him.

“And didn’t you just toot!”

Frederick was taken aback, not just because he was certain he had not tooted but because the accusation had come from that mountain of a woman in a dress. What impudence! He’d put a lot of time and money into this day and here he was being insulted at his own event. This woman needed a heavy hand, and Frederick was of a mind to give it to her.

“I’m sorry?”

“O, not you. This piece of lettuce is a bit brown. It’s the girl in the harem who farts in her master’s bed. Under different circumstances he might enjoy her regardless, but not when he’s flush with options. You’re unfamiliar with the proverb? I’m Harriett Harridan, by the way.”

“I confess I’ve not read Proverbs in some time. Uh, I’m—”

“Standing between me and the roast beef, Mr. Frederick Bricklebaum. I think we will meet again later, don’t you?”

Oh, the nerve of this vulgar woman! She was really something. We most certainly will meet later, he thought, if only so you can be taught some manners.

Frederick knew he should introduce the next speaker, and as he piled coleslaw on his plate he began to formulate the words he would need at the microphone. These things never came easy to him, and he thought that next year he would delegate the role of host to someone else. It didn’t occur to him until he’d arrived again at the lectern that he was still carrying a plate of coleslaw.

Donald Colby walked onto the stage with all the confidence of a fur trader approaching a nudist colony in the midst of a freak snowstorm. Things would be different this year. A number of folks from the previous seminar were absent today, but there were many new faces in the audience, and he could see in them an eagerness to learn new things. These were his kind of people. As he cleared his throat to begin he glanced at the boy in the corner and gave him a reassuring wink. The kid smiled and waved a chocolate-stained hand.

“I want to talk with you all about the use of force, what many of us in our line of work refer to as ‘the second option.’ It can be unpleasant at times, but personally I find it very rewarding. All of you are familiar with the various tools of the trade and the pros and cons associated with them.” Donald paused for laughter that did not come. He’d rolled this one out several times in the past and it had yet to receive the appreciation he felt it deserved.

“Truncheons, pepper spray, shock shields, traditional tasers. These all have proven effective over the years in a lot of very difficult situations, but each has its limitations. Resistance to the pepper spray can be built up over time, and its incendiary nature means that we cannot use it with the shock shield. Such practices run counter to our values. We’ve all read the reports and have become too familiar by far with the litigious nature of inmates with second degree burns.”

The issue hit close to home for Donald, who could recall very clearly the baleful gaze of the lawyer who’d grilled him at a hearing a few years back for the better part of an hour. He could not believe it when he’d been named as a defendant in a civil suit, because he’d always been made to understand that he had qualified impunity when on the job. He was even more surprised when the court granted judgment to the prisoner, who, regardless of what that beady-eyed pissant of an attorney claimed, still had the use of one arm. But that was the justice system, wasn’t it?

“As for the taser, well, its merits are obvious. But how many of us have experienced a situation in which the prisoner continues to struggle, under the pretense of muscle spasms? I can recall a few occasions where the guy was able to flop around like a fish on the deck of a boat, arms flying every which way as he lay there on the floor, making it very challenging for the seven or eight of us to get him in handcuffs. There have even been instances when especially deviant inmates have attempted to assault officers with their urine, or worse, by feigning a disturbance in the use of their faculties. Well, no more.”

Donald pulled from his jacket a rectangular plastic object roughly the size of a small jewelry box, from one end of which protruded a metal nodule.

“Come on up, Timmy.”

The boy stood from his chair and, as he made his way to the tall man with the big belt buckle, he could feel dozens of eyes following him. He hadn’t been too sure about things when the man asked if he wanted to help him play a game, but ever since he’d entered this room he’d felt the excitement of a good trick just on the horizon. Now everyone looked at him as though he were the most important person in the world. Tom would be very jealous when he told him all about this later on.

“All right, kid, just like we talked about, hmm? Just stand next to me and smile, this’ll be a lot like hide and seek, ‘kay?” Donald adjusted his bolo tie and turned toward the microphone.

“Behold, the Temujin 5000!” Without Timmy noticing he set the device at the base of the kid’s neck and pressed a button. Immediately he dropped to the floor and lay there immobile, eyes shut and mouth agape. One leg appeared turned at an awkward angle, which Donald found a little concerning.

“I understand that many of you may be thinking ‘All very nice, but it’s a 60-pound kid.’ Well, rest assured, the outcome would be no different were he a hulking, enraged, jive-talking, uh, prisoner. Right to the amygdala!”

Donald looked at the kid and thought he’d better check on him, just in case. As he felt for a pulse he could hear tentative clapping, which grew steadily until he could feel it in his very soul. And what a feeling it was when, as Donald knelt down and slapped his face a couple of times, young Timmy popped up suddenly and, wearing the biggest grin Donald had ever seen, asked if they could do it again.

Frederick considered the wink rather tasteless (and right before discussing the use of force!) and there were other things that rubbed him wrong about this Colby fellow, but none of that mattered once he got to talking. The guy had a certain charm about him, and obviously his product was going to do quite well for itself. Frederick had already made plans to order a large number of them. But the spectacle at the end had crossed a line. If motel staff were to find out about it he might as well kiss this venue goodbye, and as he raced to the lectern he wondered what he might do to control the situation. What a relief it was when the kid sat up. As he stood at the lectern wiping a piece of cabbage from his mustache, he could see the kid sitting with Mr. Colby in the corner. He seemed to be just fine, which Frederick found very reassuring. Maybe today would be a success after all. How happy everyone looked.

“Well, I want to thank you all for coming. I do think—”

Whatever he thought was preempted by the sudden opening of the door, which swung with such force that it slammed into a flagpole next to the entryway. A woman in a cream blouse and sunglasses a top her head stood there looking with wild eyes all about the room until she saw Timmy sitting there playing with a pair of handcuffs.

“Mom, look what I’ve got! Mr. Colby here says that the future of his field depends on people like me. Ain’t that something?”