Maine

At around 8:03pm, Friday, February 28, 2025, death was declared for an inmate we used to call “Maine”. It was initially called a Code White (medical emergency), or a Code Purple (attempted] suicide or self-harm) and having occurred at our recreation time, we were ordered to lock up.

The first responders were frantic, their movements jumbled and erratic. Panicked confusion seemed to rule as competing orders drove some staff to run in one direction and others to walk in another. Not long into it, I thought I heard someone say, “He’s alive!” My cellie said that, early in the code, he too had heard the same statement (Jon admitted, though, that there were many voices speaking at once).

Despite what I presume was Narcan sent up to him, by the time they rushed him out on a stretcher, Maine didn’t seem to be responding. I’d seen it done before. Closest to Maine was a nurse who stood over him, feet perched on the neon yellow bars of the wheeled stretcher, giving chest compressions as both were swept out of the block on a wave of blue uniforms.

After they left, the place was relatively quiet. Some people, though, were upset and complained because their wall outlet power had cut out. Brad, next door, was in turmoil. I could hear him throwing things around his cell and kicking his door. Among the things stirring him was how people seemed more upset about their not being able to watch TV or charge their tablets than they were about his acquaintance’s being taken out on a stretcher. On the outside, Brad had been an emergency medical technician (EMT) and it was too much for him to have the helpless feeling of being locked alone in a small cell—unable to assist. Several people, including a social worker, tried consoling him, making several stops at his cell door.

After the emergency responders had gone, and the wall outlet power was restored, H-Block seemed to shudder into an uneasy quiet. Despite small, random noises, the overall silence of this place seemed to forever stretch over numb, unflinching voids.

Nevertheless, perhaps it was an hour later when I heard laughter. The sally port door that leads to a main hallway popped like a starting pistol and a raucous eruption burst forth. This happened shortly before the formal declaration of a Code Black. So sudden and incongruent was the entry of those first responders coming back, their mismatching joy shattering the solemn and hard wall-like atmosphere containing us. This invasion was a spasm of officers and a nurse. Rushing onto the block, they were coming, presumably with news from afar.

Although their mood was bright, its context had the jarring and discordant lightness of sociopaths on holiday. My cellie, Jon, wouldn’t believe it. He was certain that the only reason the nurse was happy, was because his patient survived. I’ve always liked and respected this nurse. Now, though, I felt uneasy because I knew at least one of the guards who came in with him.

I’d expect those guards to relax and celebrate if any of their burdensome animals died under yoke. Joy, on the other hand, would not be something I’d expect from those same guards, had their black prisoner risen from the dead. Even though I was hesitant to associate Griffen with such callousness, the hatred I saw from the others could not be denied. Nevertheless, for my eyes to gape upon this behavior was as shocking as a cold, heavy hand on the delicate shoulder of warm hope.

When, minutes after their rushed arrival, the Code Black was called, the reality of this place was easier a claim for me than it seemed to be for my cellie. Even though I think he should’ve known, Jonathan had been bucking against the idea that such evil could exist. He seemed desperate in his need to believe that civilization did not end in the hearts of those meant to protect it.

The black office phone rang in the bubble. After a hurried conversation, came the official news. My cell partner said that that was when the guard in the bubble declared a Code Black.

Until further notice, the empty cell was to be immediately closed off as a crime scene and labeled with a sign. They took video and presumably made note of whatever they needed to catalog. Then came the State Police.

Around 11pm, the prison system’s District Administrator. This was one of the few times I’d seen him since his promotion from his former post as the warden of Garner. His attire was meticulously clean and well kept, but it was perhaps the first time I’d seen him without a shirt and tie. With a heavy, sky blue and white hooded sweatshirt, it looked as if he’d been called from a late-night convenience store run for milk. After him, came two women: the current warden and presumably the deputy warden, both in fashionable but informal attire. Our warden’s pastel coat over a black hoodie did nothing to hide her quiet austerity. The district administrator and warden don’t visit after 11pm for fun. That was all I needed to see, to know that it was true, and my cellie was right about the Code Black being announced by the bubble’s phone operator.

Maine’s death had happened so recently that I’ve yet to accept that the person I spoke to eight hours ago could really be the same man that nurses were struggling to resuscitate, less than four hours ago.

3-1-2025, Sat, 4:35pm

It was Maine.

This morning an associate of mine confirmed what had happened last night in the cell directly above mine.

This was perhaps the second death from our block in approximately thirteen months, and at least the fifth death for this prison in that same period. Statewide, the incarcerated death rate continues to spike. In the imprisoned minds of fearful Department of Corrections officials, solutions continue to be slaves to stagnant imaginations and ever devolving standards.