I would finally touch him today. If only with my eyes.
Twenty minutes later, concrete-block gun towers appeared, then a single tower centered in back of what looked like the administration building. We passed by a long wall that had been quarried from stone, then turned into the prison and waited for the guard to open the gate.
Inside the building, a woman in a dark dress stood alongside a friendly corrections officer with a long stick who greeted us. My guard signed us both in under the visitor log.
“Welcome. I’m Officer Chandler,” the man said to me as he gave my guard a brisk handshake. “Thank you for volunteering your library services. If you’ll just step inside this office, the nurse will take your temperature and we’ll be on our way.” He pointed his walking stick to a door.
“Sir, I’m well,” I protested.
Officer Chandler pressed his lips together.
“Lovett, do as you’re told,” my guard ordered.
“Won’t take a minute or two,” Chandler assured, his face flushed. “The warden is grateful and has received wonderful praise about your work over at the women’s facility. We just, uh—”
“Inside, Lovett,” my guard said, giving a hard poke to myback.
Chandler opened the door, and I slipped into a tiny room where a nurse waited. Without a word, she picked up a glass thermometer and held it up to my mouth, her hand shaky with distrust.
I took it from her and tucked it snug under my tongue.
Minutes later, she escorted me out and nodded curtly to the guards.
“Let’s get you to the library, miss. I’m sure you’re eager to see it,” Officer Chandler said.
I lifted a small smile. I was more than eager to see my husband.
Ten
I waited until he unlocked another door leading out to a large field. A long, circular sidewalk led us to the entrances of different buildings.
Officer Chandler walked us through, letting me peek beyond the crash gates. The dorms were well lit, with barred windows across them. As we passed more, I saw men loitering, smelled the odors of sweat, urine, cigarette smoke, and bleach rising into dead air, baking on concrete walls. I slowed my pace and cast my eyes on each face at every dorm, desperately searching for him in the clusters of inmates, even checking the Negro section as we moved along to what Chandler called the Bottoms, the dorms farthest from the administration building.
Officer Chandler stopped a man walking past us on the sidewalk. “Tuck in the shirt, Payton, and get back to your dorm and shave,” he ordered. “Don’t show up to chow hall unless you do.”
The inmate’s face flushed, and he stuffed the shirttail into his britches as he sped off. All the men were clean-shaven, with very few sloppily dressed. I looked down at my assigned striped cotton prison dress and smoothed down the collar, double-checking the buttons on the front and the laces on my dull shoes.
A few prisoners whistled catcalls as they passed us on the walkway, and their guard struck out his walking stick, quieting them. Others gasped and stared in disbelief. One remarked loudly, “I’llbe damn, never seen a colored Blue’un, an’ by God, now I’ve done seen everything.”
Still, I would not lower my head, cower, or duck until I had boldly looked into all their faces—until I found him. And despite the disquiet rambling inside me, I tossed my pride and kept searching until the guard stopped at two wide metal doors.
“We’ll need to cross through the gymnasium,” he announced.
A gymnasium.I’d only seen pictures in magazines, and I snatched a glimpse of my guard and saw he was impressed too.
Chandler opened the door, and I stopped to gawk at the inmates playing ball on a large basketball court. A few sat on wooden bleachers and turned their attention our way. Over in the corner, two men in puffed leather gloves boxed inside a roped ring, oblivious to their visitors.
Officer Chandler paused a moment to watch the boxers, then called out, “Bob and weave, boys. Waters, you got yourself a glass jaw today? Lead right instead of using the dive.There.Counterpunch!”
“Are you a boxer?” my guard asked.
“Did some when I was in the Navy.”
He looked admirably at Chandler.
At a table beside the ring, three inmates huddled together, two puffing on cigarettes, the smoke ghost-tailing up between them. A black licorice twist dangled from the mouth of the other man as he shook something inside a spent Dixie cup, the rattles whispering a secret.
The officer suddenly stopped behind the men, held up his palm. “Hand ’em over, fellas.” One of the prisoners looked sheepishly over his shoulder, then scooped up something and passed it to him. Officer Chandler peered down at his palm, jiggling a set of dice. “Catch you gambling again, I’ll write you up and you’ll be going in front of Captain Coleman for disciplinary punishment,” he warned. “Get on down to chow hall.”
