WALKING A LINE
Six of us left the 400 building. No eye contact with lots of polite door holdings and thank you’s. Walking with purpose and direction toward a distant cement structure. The day is cold enough for a coat but three of the six are wearing only grey sweatshirts for warmth. Do you have a jacket, askes Arlene? We’re used to it, answers the closest man. We continue. He pulls ahead to catch up with the two others in grey sweatshirts. So, we travel in a loose line we six. Arlene and I follow as does the sixth man, trailing, almost along-side of us. The sixth man is a Corrections Officer.
We walk toward the 500 building. I set the pace because Arlene walks with me with the knowledge that I have blood clotted lungs and I need to travel thus. She glances at me and asks loving questions with her eyes. Are you alright? Piece of cake, I respond. The CO says something about the weather and Arlene engages him in one of those conversations. I check out and watch the three grey shirts up ahead. They are walking still in a ragged line, carrying their training manuals and one hand in their pocket. Tim is in the lead in his wheel chair. He moves faster than I resulting in the line stretching apart bit by bit. I move to not let the line get too thin. We pass the sea gulls on the compost heap to our left and the wintered gardens and greenhouses to our right. This sidewalk is called “The Mile”.
The men in the lead take the route they know is acceptable but still I see them glancing back with peripheral vision keeping check of us in the rear. We pass through chain link fences and tread oddly laid out sidewalks. We are soon at our destination. We repeat the polite door holdings and thank you’s as we pass through the double door sets of the entry. Arlene stays close to me and we all huddle inside the entry near the ‘bubble’ behind which a CO can watch us through smoked glass in all directions.
I am more at ease talking with the grey sweat-shirted men. With the staff and administrators, I need to behave all the time. Such is the way in our culture. But, at no time can I fully be myself with either set of people. I am neither fish nor fowl. I am not an inmate nor am I a staff person here. It is the way and it is as it needs to be. For now.
G. M. Goodwin
29 November 2018
Playing Fair and Being Kind 