Well, I’ve been all around this nation, by car and thumb, train and bus; I’ve witnessed a diving horse and a hog castration (not for the squeamish), tended bar on the old Skid Row Bowery, picked tomatoes with Mexican dayworkers; I’ve seen the elephant and met Charlie Manson, but never in my seventy-eight years on this contentious planet have I ever encountered such a formidable bulwark of bureaucratic bullheadedness as the Pennsylvania Bureau of Corrections, whose only apparent corrections are their obsessive tweaking of their nigh-impenetrable rules and regulations.
In a previous post on MB6, I described what I had thought to be an unstoppable act of bureaucratic fatuity: the free replacement of the old state-vended combination locks with two smaller combination locks, whose aggregate weight equaled or surpassed that of the now-verboten old locks, which were sometimes used in lock-in-sock assaults. However, whereas only a small percentage of the inmate population had even owned a lock, now everyone had two, which in effect amounted to an unwitting escalation of the prison arms race.
Yes, that was a colossal boo-boo—a record at the time—but as the hack sports- writers love to posit (Warning—Cliché ahead!), records are made to be broken. And, man, has the Bureau of Corrections outdone themselves!
At my request, my granddaughter Aryanna ordered me two copies—one to loan out, the other to keep in my cell. Weeks went by—a month—but no books. Finally, one slid under my cell door, along with a notice that the second copy had been confiscated by the mail room, by the authority of an arcane regulation—unmentioned on the prison’s website—that “duplicate” copies are forbidden! I was offered a choice to either send home my novel, or allow its destruction, probably in an auto-de-fe lit by some bureaucratic drone.
Well, thought I, suppose I just donate it to the prison library, whose ever-sunny librarian, Ms. Nyberg, brightens her patron’s days. On my next weekly visit, I explained to her my dilemma, offered my novel as a solution. She gladly accepted, then immediately emailed the mail room, asking that my novel be sent to her ASAP. I sent a similar request to the mail room superintendent, reaffirming my desire to donate my novel. A week went by without receiving a response, and I assumed that the matter was settled.
However, as I learned during my next visit to the library, nothing was settled—my novel was still imprisoned at the mail room!
Ms. Nyberg didn’t know why—how could a mere mortal fathom the mazy logic of a bureaucrat? She advised me to write to the Facility Manager, vowing to do the same.
Yet another week went by—I received no response from the authorities, nor did Ms. Nyberg hear a word. Just when I was ready to throw in the towel, pay to ship home my poor novel, I received a partial copy of the regulations pertaining to donations of reading material, with the pertinent rule highlighted in yellow. It said that all donated books must be sent directly to the prison library by either the book’s publisher, or a bookstore, after undergoing an inspection for hidden contraband by the Security Processing Center in Bellefonte, PA.
Evidently, the fact that both copies of my novel had already been inspected and approved by the security company meant nothing: In violation of the rules, the books had been sent to me, not the library! Therefore, if I still wished to donate my novel, I would have to ship home the one in custody, then ask Aryanna to order a new book through Amazon, and tell them to ship it to Ms. Nyberg!
To hell with that, I fumed. I’ll send the damn book to the Philadelphia Inquirer, with a request that it be reviewed. Which I did, to the tune of $5.22, plus the $24 cost of the novel.
President Trump loves to boast of the military’s blockbuster bombs, which can penetrate 100 feet of soil and concrete. But I’ll bet the beer money that even a dozen of these behemoths would barely mar the protective shell of rules and regulations that shelter the throbbing bureaucratic heart within. Against that
monolith of turgidity, all assaults must fail.
The moral of this tale? Never underestimate any given bureaucracy to surpass its highwater mark of institutional stupidity, for even as we presently quail before the merest possibility of a repeat, a tsunami of unprecedented inanity may be racing toward an unprepared public. So, strap on your water wings and don a wetsuit—a good dousing may be in store!
Burl N. Corbett’s book, Dreaming of Oxen, can be purchased here
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