Running The Books : The Adventures Of An Accidental Prison Librarian Part 21

In his concluding remarks, the speaker offered his interpretation of the new sign. It wasn't remarkable, he said, for an officer to run into harm's way to break up a fight, as Dever had done that night at Sully's. That after all was his job, his training. But for him to find a way to be compa.s.sionate in an environment like prison, that was courage.

An Epi-Prologue

I revisited the C.C. Too Sweet question. To find compa.s.sion for someone guilty of C.C.'s crimes truly did demand some act of courage. A type of bravery I hadn't been able to muster, and had indeed tried to escape.

For a while, I'd been uneasy with how things had ended. We'd had a productive working relations.h.i.+p, a rapport. I'd become familiar with his story, his quirks, those things that draw people together in sympathy. I'd helped him find a picture of Nemo, the cartoon fish, so that he could design a birthday card for his five-year-old son. I knew too much about his life to simply dismiss him. Even though he'd committed some sc.u.mbag crimes, I wished him the best. In fact, I wished him the best precisely because he had done those things. He needed it more than most.

And I was still rooting for him to figure things out. His book, at least the parts I'd seen, were truly gripping. He had a valuable story to tell. I didn't want him to think I was trying to undermine his extraordinary resolve to see it through-but there was no way for me to explain my hesitations to him without making things worse.

At first, C.C. seemed to be doing just fine for himself. I watched as he set up a literary shop, standing with his arms crossed managerially, while two cornrowed young recruits simultaneously typed different parts of his ma.n.u.script. But soon his editorial process fell into the mire. Instead of revising and rewriting, he busied himself with trifles: choosing a pretty computer font, designing a book cover (maps, maps, and more maps). This was all an amateurish waste of time.

But it was the issue of the floppy disk that finally swayed me. Ever since our relations.h.i.+p had soured, he'd refused to use the disk I had stored in my office and which I'd been backing up. He now kept a contraband disk stashed in his Legal Materials folder, an infraction to which I turned a blind eye. It killed me that all of his work lived solely on this one terrifyingly unreliable disk. I begged him to let me back it up in some other way. He had refused. It was a matter of pride.

This had gone too far. C.C. Too Sweet was many things, including many extremely bad things, but he was earnestly trying to tell his story. It was a legal endeavor, and a worthy project. This wasn't a "tell-all"-it was a serious account of his life. Perhaps in telling his story he'd redeem that story. But even if he didn't, perhaps I still had a duty to help him try.

It wasn't my job to judge his past. For this, there were attorneys, judges, juries. If he wanted to do something creative, perhaps it was not only permissible for me to help, but actually my duty. After all, as the great Officer Chuzzlewit had said, this wasn't the Quincy Public Library. It was a prison prison library, the library for the bad guys. The beauty of this job, if there was beauty, was in giving people like C.C. a shot to do something right and do it well. To remind them that they're more than criminals, if they choose to be. In practice, this turns out to be harder and more complicated than it sounds. library, the library for the bad guys. The beauty of this job, if there was beauty, was in giving people like C.C. a shot to do something right and do it well. To remind them that they're more than criminals, if they choose to be. In practice, this turns out to be harder and more complicated than it sounds.

When we first met I had asked why he wrote with such fervor. He didn't think for a second.

"The truth?" he'd said, leaning in close and whispering. "It's because I'm homeless."

That wasn't pimp talk. He'd whispered because he didn't want the other inmates to hear. This writing stuff wasn't a hobby for C.C. It was serious business. I decided to act, to do something I had been trained never to do in prison: apologize to an inmate. When I did, C.C. remained standoffish until I offered to write a prologue for his book. Before things between us had soured, this had been something he'd asked me to do for him-though he'd never straightened out the difference between a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue would be my small act of Dever-like prison courage, to attach my name to C.C.'s project.

The next week, when I handed him the prologue, which was really a glowing blurb, his face lit up. It seemed as though he wanted to jump over the counter and hug me. I wasn't expecting this sort of reaction. He read it again; then again, aloud.

"Thank you, man," he said.

There was a sincerity in how he said it that prodded my attention. It was like he was speaking in a different voice altogether. There was nothing Too Sweet about it.

"It was nothing," I said. And it really wasn't all that big a deal. The path of privilege, which I had treaded, was paved with bombastic recommendation letters. It was a pittance at this point. What actual difference, after all, did my blurb make? To what end, exactly?

"No, man. It really means a lot to me. I'm gonna show this to my mother."

Now he had my attention. After everything that had happened in his life, the abuse and the nasty crimes, perpetrated by and against him, the years hustling on the street, the homelessness, the lifetime in prison, it all came down to a simple thing: a good review. Possibly his first ever, possibly his last. All of it-the bogus talk of book deals, his fame, the constant macho posturing-it all amounted to a short, slightly balding guy wanting the approval of his momma. He was still that kid lying on the grimy hallway floor of the projects hoping his mother would appear and take him back gently into their home.

Prison Yard Lighting: A Queer Theory It's odd to speak of outcasts in prison. Inmates live on the fringe of society. They are all, by definition, outcasts. But within the closed society of prison itself, there was mainstream, and then there was the fringe. The outcasts of the outcasts.

Katy was one of the more obvious examples. She was the coolest chick in Unit 3-2. She was also the only chick in 3-2. And technically she wasn't a chick. But she was part of 3-2 and would roll into the library, together with her fellow inmates in tan-uniform pants rolled up rakishly at her ankle-walk up to the front counter, comb her luxuriant locks from her face, and flash a weary half smile.

Dread seized the inmate librarians. It was palpable. Teddy, the young Muslim convert, crossed his arms and scowled through his beard. Stix looked at the ground and giggled. Pitts actually backed away slowly, as though beholding the glory of the Archangel Gabriel. Schofield, a library regular, smiled stupidly, a clear attempt to be affable, but he straightened his spine and puffed his chest out, as though trying to scare away a mountain lion. As usual, Fat Kat kept his face planted in a car magazine and just shook his head. Not in disapproval-though he did disapprove-but rather in neutrality.

The only inmate librarian who acted civil was Dice.

"What can I do for you today?" he asked her, with a smile.

Later Dice explained his att.i.tude to me.

"Man, I was educated on Forty-second Street in New York in the 1970s," he said, his sungla.s.ses flas.h.i.+ng. "I've seen it all."

What Dice saw, or did not see, was of ongoing interest to me. With those sungla.s.ses, and a slight migration of gaze when he spoke, he had the distinct mien of a blind man. Was he in fact blind? I sometimes wondered. Mostly I wondered how he'd managed to get sungla.s.ses in prison.

"Those were some crazy times," Dice continued. "In my opinion, that's when New York was New York. I'll tell you what though, some of the best people I met on the street there was the transvest.i.tes, man. I ain't afraid to say that. These young guys here don't know s.h.i.+t about the world."

There seemed to be a generational divide on the question of Katy. Ironically, it was the elders who were more accepting. Boat, too, didn't seem the least bit put off. On the contrary.

"Toughest motherf.u.c.kers I met in the joint were the queers," he told me. "f.u.c.kin' guys gotta be tough, you know? I knew this queer guy in Leavenworth. I'm talking queer queer. Didn't make no bones about it. You said something wrong to him, though, Boom! Boom! He'd f.u.c.kin' gut you. I got nothing but respect, nothing but." He'd f.u.c.kin' gut you. I got nothing but respect, nothing but."

Boat told me that the toughest motherf.u.c.ker in South Bay was a queer. He'd introduce me. The next week, Brian showed up in the library. He was an intriguing character. By his own modest admission, Brian was "f.u.c.kin' smaht." smaht." With his c.o.c.ky intelligence, his brash accent, and lapsed altar boy persona, he was the kind of wounded, tough Boston Irish kid Matt Damon has made famous. Brian was the son of a crooked Statie, and was full of self-serving stories about police corruption. He was also a tank. Probably about six foot three and solidly built. Giant hands. He was definitely not someone even a prison tough guy would cross. With his c.o.c.ky intelligence, his brash accent, and lapsed altar boy persona, he was the kind of wounded, tough Boston Irish kid Matt Damon has made famous. Brian was the son of a crooked Statie, and was full of self-serving stories about police corruption. He was also a tank. Probably about six foot three and solidly built. Giant hands. He was definitely not someone even a prison tough guy would cross.

Brian was more or less openly gay. Standing at the library counter, he told me, with a sly grin, that he'd seen a couple of prison guards in "my kind of club." When he said this, inmate eyebrows in the vicinity raised.

"I should probably watch myself," he said to me, without lowering his voice. He was, in fact, slowly raising his voice. "I'm not in hiding, you know, but I don't get much by advertising it, either. Especially with all the ignorant f.u.c.ks f.u.c.ks in this place." in this place."

The inmates standing around regarded this comment for what it was: an open threat. Teddy didn't cross his arms and glare, Pitts didn't cower. Stix didn't giggle. Everyone just pretended not to hear. Brian smiled smugly.

Katy wasn't a harda.s.s like Brian. At least that wasn't her persona. (I wouldn't tangle with her, though.) She wasn't a mean queer, but an old-fas.h.i.+oned queen.

And as a queen, she had a predilection for royalty. She was making her way through our small collection of books on the late Princess Diana. Every few days, she'd give me updates on the saga: the fairy tale courts.h.i.+p, divine wedding, the saintliness, the betrayals, the martyrdom.

After three books, Katy had all but tapped the library's Princess Di collection. I tried to meet her needs for a couple more weeks by p.a.w.ning off books on other female monarchs in history. Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra, Isabella of Spain. But it wasn't the same. She wanted more Di. Needed more Di.

I looked for other t.i.tles of potential interest. The only thing I could rustle up was the autobiography of s.h.i.+rley MacLaine. When I presented her with the book, she just looked at me and said, "OmiG.o.d, are you serious?" and then, catching herself, "I mean, that's really really sweet of you, but puhleeze." sweet of you, but puhleeze."

Instead she gathered a pile of women's magazines and went to the table, took a seat next to a couple of g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers, tossed her hair back, and started flipping through the glossies. The guys exchanged quick glances but went back to their own reading.

"n.o.body talks to me," she confided to me once. "Not a word. But I guess I should be happy about it, 'cause I probably don't want to know what they're thinking."

Unlike most of the inmates, Katy's problem wasn't direct conflict, but extreme loneliness.

There was a more literal version of this prison-within-a-prison. One night, at about 10 p.m., after I'd lingered an hour or so after the end of my s.h.i.+ft, I encountered it. As I walked out of the 3-Building, I saw a large group of inmates lining the prison yard. They were wearing gray uniforms. In over a year working in prison I had seen exactly one inmate wearing a gray uniform. Now I saw probably sixty, standing in a line, shoulder to shoulder. There was something disturbing about this group. For a moment I paused to figure it out.

The men themselves seemed deeply unsettled. Under the brilliant stadium lights, some stared, bug-eyed and unblinking. Haunted. Some wrung their hands. Most of the men stood, shrinking, as though naked and cornered. A few s.h.i.+elded their faces with their arms or retracted their heads into their uniform tops, turtle style. A few mumbled to themselves, giggled, snickered, twitched. At the tail of the group, like a punctuation mark at the end of a long and bizarre sentence, a tiny sullen bald man held a basketball under his arm.

I'd heard about this unit. They were the inmates of the Protective Custody (PC) unit: the h.o.m.os, snitches, psychos, and pedophiles. The outcasts of the outcasts, the freaks of prison, the queers of the queers. The inmates that the prison mainstream, criminals all, considered criminals. These men were-sometimes by choice, often not-kept completely separate from the rest of the prison population. This was done for everyone's safety. Katy and Brian were given the option of joining this prison unit, if they felt threatened.

Rarely did the inmates of PC ever emerge from their unit on the fifth floor of the Tower. Among inmates of the general population, a sighting of a PC freak held a nearly sacred significance. Once in a while, a PC inmate gained special permission to visit the library. When he did, all of the other inmates would be evacuated, though they'd try to linger for a moment, to catch a view of the mythical gray creature. Afterward they'd shower me with questions: What was he like? What did he say? What did he look like? How did he seem? Did he try to touch you? Was he a total freak? What was he like? What did he say? What did he look like? How did he seem? Did he try to touch you? Was he a total freak?

The one man in gray I met was, in fact, rather disturbed. He had visited the library to do some legal work. After photocopying dozens of cases and laws, he told me, "I'm gonna nail the prosecution." With great care, he produced a doc.u.ment and asked me to photocopy it. It would, he told me, clinch his case, prove conclusively that a "lizard overlord" had arrived on Earth and, with the help of the CIA, quietly overthrown the U.S. government.

I glanced at the sheet. To his credit, the doc.u.ment, a printout from a website, did indeed say just that. I asked him how this was going to help his case. He sighed and gave me an exasperated look, like I was the most incorrigibly naive person he'd ever met. "'Cause they don't got jurisdiction to try me if the Const.i.tution and the government is controlled by a lizard." It was a logical argument, if somewhat misinformed.

Now here they all were, the entire gray ensemble, standing in the expanse of the prison yard, exposed to all. The curtain dramatically lifted. They were poised to play the most charged game of basketball since the infamous 1972 U.S.-USSR Olympic gold medal match. Under the heavy glare of the yard's stadium lights, it almost seemed as though that were the purpose: to place these men on center stage.

I looked behind me at the giant wall of cell windows, and up at the women's tower. Out of habit, my eye tended toward the eleventh floor, to the window from which Jessica used to watch her son in the yard. Jessica's window, a cla.s.sroom window, was now dark. It belonged to the world of the daytime, to the concerns of business hours-but now it was night, afterhours.

The inmates' personal cell windows were all lit. Each had a silhouette or two or three in it. In the windows closer to the ground, it was easier to see the inmates pointing, laughing, glaring, watching with curiosity. Within a few minutes, word was out over the entire prison. Every Every inmate with a yard-facing cell, man and woman, was now standing at his or her window. The galleries were packed full. Inmates who didn't have a view would get detailed reports later. The PC inmates down in the prison yard could see plainly that they were being watched, discussed, reviewed, mocked. inmate with a yard-facing cell, man and woman, was now standing at his or her window. The galleries were packed full. Inmates who didn't have a view would get detailed reports later. The PC inmates down in the prison yard could see plainly that they were being watched, discussed, reviewed, mocked.

This was a peculiarity of prison architecture. The late-eighteenth-century prison of Santo Stefano, near Naples, Italy, was constructed in a mult.i.tiered horseshoe shape, an architectural scheme borrowed directly from the theaters of that period. But that blueprint was only the most obvious example of a general phenomenon: Prisons are designed for optimal viewing, a security imperative that occasionally produces accidental live theater performances.

And this was one. It was a rare example of a collective experience in prison. The inmate general population, as one, was viewing a prison freak show under the blazing stadium lights, a spectacle that probably allowed them, as the audience, to feel less like freaks themselves.

As the painfully awkward basketball game commenced, I made my way along the edge of the yard-the last sight I caught, looking back over my shoulder, was a group of inmates in the 3-1 Unit, standing in a cell window literally falling on each other in laughter. This wasn't like Jessica, whose window gazing was an intensely private experience-and one that further locked her into her own loneliness. The PC freak show was something else. It was a cruel bonding experience for the inmate majority. A unique opportunity for inmates to look out of prison windows and feel better about their lot.

The prison's queers, the Brians and the Katys, are given the option to join this stage show. Or to be in the audience.

The next day I decided to put a Princess Di biography, and other more directly gay books, on prominent display. My friend and coworker, Mary Beth, had told me of an inmate from 1-2-1 who had fas.h.i.+oned a skirt out of a towel during count time and pranced around like Josephine Baker, batting his eyes, pursing his lips, sidling up to inmates and officers alike. Everyone thought this was a hilarious act.

Later, when this young man came down to the library, I told him that news of his antics had made the rounds. I asked him if he was a performer.

"Nah, man, it was just a joke, you know to keep things light," he smiled.

Uninterested in my new display, he checked out an old battered copy of The s.h.i.+ning The s.h.i.+ning by Stephen King. Then he winked at me and went on his way. by Stephen King. Then he winked at me and went on his way.

The Narrow Place One of the oddest people I met, the one who least fit in, was the most familiar. I first met Josh Schrieber during the library's 3:30 period, one wet and overcast afternoon. In our constant effort to lure inmates to the library we were screening Superman II Superman II.

I noticed him immediately. He had the appearance and demeanor that my grandmother would approvingly call eidel eidel, Yiddish for gentle gentle. A trim and gregarious twentysomething, boyishly handsome, close-cropped curly brown hair, and plastic-framed gla.s.ses. He reminded me of every boy from my yes.h.i.+vas and Orthodox summer camps. In fact, he bore such a close resemblance to a certain kid from my yes.h.i.+va high school, in nearby Brookline, I wondered if perhaps they were related. It wasn't every day that a guy who looked like Josh Schrieber walked into the library. I was intrigued.

When the period ended and the inmates came to the front desk to collect their IDs, I couldn't help myself.

"Hey," I said, taking a look at his ID. "You know what Superman Superman is is really really about?" about?"

He smiled and shook his head.

"It was created by two Jewish guys from Cleveland. It's about how even a skinny neurotic with gla.s.ses can be a total bada.s.s sometimes. You with me on this one, Schrieber?" I said as I handed him his ID.

"Yeah, I'm with you."

It wasn't the right thing to say. I'd outted him. I shouldn't have said it in front of the other inmates. It had made him wince.

Later I asked Mary Beth, who worked in the prison's Offender Reentry Program, which was based in Schrieber's unit, "So who's the Jewboy in 1-2-1?"

She knew exactly who I was talking about and briefed me on his background. From the western suburbs. Into some bad stuff. Heroin. He was in for larcenies and breaking and entry, common charges for cash-strapped addicts. Within the month he would be wrapping up his bid to the streets, meaning he was being released, on probation, but left to his own devices. No halfway house or sober home.

She told me that he was a very friendly kid who got along well with everyone. A bit too well. Desperately eager to please, Schrieber carried out every order with conspicuous diligence. Never lingered when told to lock-in, never gave anyone any problems. Seizing on Schrieber's obedience-and sensing that he was different and without allies-a certain officer, had decided to take advantage of the situation.

In the presence of his fellow inmates, the officer had deputized Schrieber, bestowing on him the dubious honor of serving as the officer's sidekick. This meant doing tasks-tasks that were the job of the officer alone-such as summoning inmates from their cells, even aiding with lockdowns. Schrieber was caught in a no-win situation. He was too cowed to defy the officer. But, by following these particular orders, he was severely compromised among fellow inmates who could turn violent on him.

He'd been tenuously accepted by the white guys in his unit. By these semi-friends, he was routinely called, "the Jew," to remind him of his place. He wasn't a total pushover, but he also wasn't an Italian or Irish tough guy from the inner city. He was permitted entrance as a guest, but only by his strained effort to pa.s.s. Now, with his new deputy honor, he'd be officially isolated, and put in danger. Everyone would a.s.sume that Schrieber was not only a Jew lackey but a snitch.

This was the last thing Schrieber needed. He could get severely beaten or stabbed; once he hit the street it could mean getting shot. Indeed, it wasn't long before a fellow inmate turned hostile on him. He and the other inmate had to be separated to avoid a battle. His list of enemies, which is officially called "the keep separate from" list, was five names long, a high number.

I felt bad for Schrieber. He needed some allies. The next time I visited the 1-2-1 unit, I called on him. He seemed surprised to see me out of the library. I introduced myself.

"I hear you're a brutha," I whispered.

He smiled. "Yeah," he said.

I told him about my background, that I had been raised Orthodox and attended yes.h.i.+va in Israel. I told him that it was a good idea to roll with the Irish and Italian guys, but if he ever wanted to keep it real, he should come to the library some time and talk. I added the infamous Jewish nudge: "No pressure."

We agreed to meet. He seemed genuinely interested-though, of course, he was a pleaser.

But before we had a chance, he was released. I happened to have been pa.s.sing through the prison's front lobby at the moment he was walking out to freedom. He was dressed in his street clothes, a sweater and jeans and a black leather jacket. We chatted for a moment. I wished him good luck. Just then, his ride showed up.

I knew this guy. He was a former inmate from 1-2-1, a junkie who used to steal newspapers from the library. It had been a running joke with him (I found it less funny). In the lobby he gave me a big, toothless grin. "Hey, Avi, got any Revere Journals fa' me?" he asked.

"Nothing changes, hey Hesc.o.c.k?" I replied.

It was all perfectly clear to me. Schrieber, despite what he had told Mary Beth and his mentors in the reentry program, was on his way to get high with his old buddy from 1-2-1. A little junk to celebrate getting out of the joint. I wanted to shake him. But instead I leaned in and said, "Avoid bad friends, it's the only way, Josh. Or you're going to end up dead-or, if you're lucky, back in this s.h.i.+thole."

I would never have spoken this frankly to an inmate when I first started my job. At this point, however, I felt not only able, but responsible to say such things. I'd officially turned into a tough-love prison-mentor type. He looked down at the floor. And that was it. He and Hesc.o.c.k went out together into the darkness.

Schrieber got lucky. A month later, he was back in prison. I was frankly surprised it took that long. That week, I visited him and arranged a meeting. He wanted to study Jewish texts, he said. He started with a question.

Why does the Jewish tradition require mourners to cover the mirrors in their house during the s.h.i.+va?

A random query, but an interesting one. As a yes.h.i.+va-boy-c.u.m-obituary-writer, I felt uniquely qualified to answer it. It is a strange custom and there was no obvious answer. I told him that there were undoubtedly some deep-seated folk fears regarding mirror images-especially in a house of mourning, which already has ghosts swirling around it. Mirrors exacerbate these anxieties.

But there was also a more directly psychological reason: to focus the attention of the mourners away from the world of appearances and into their thoughts, their memories, their souls, their mortality. They are not to concern themselves with the mundane during the s.h.i.+va. Every worldly issue is handled by a friend. For seven days they inhabit an internal s.p.a.ce and need not be concerned with their hair looking perfect. Or if their a.s.s is too big.

Schrieber asked about the Pa.s.sover Seder, which was imminent. I told him that to understand what leaving Egypt means to Jews, you have to know what the word Egypt Egypt means. In Hebrew it's means. In Hebrew it's Mitzrayim Mitzrayim, which the rabbis interpreted, as usual, through a pun: it means the Narrow s.p.a.ce (meitzar) (meitzar). It's not a specific country that existed in the Iron Age or a historical event that may or (more likely) may not have happened. It's a state of mind.

"You know what I'm talking about, right?" I asked Josh. "The Narrow s.p.a.ce: Narrow s.p.a.ce: You know all about it. It's a very hard thing to break out of. It's as hard as a miracle. But it can be done." You know all about it. It's a very hard thing to break out of. It's as hard as a miracle. But it can be done."

Ever since he was a kid, Josh told me, he had identified with the legendary second-century sage, Rabbi Akiva, particularly the story of the great rabbi's dramatic martyrdom.

This startled me. I'm not a shrink, but when an imprisoned heroin addict tells you that his hero in life is a righteous man who was arrested and thrown in prison, where his skin was flayed (meaning, peeled off layer by layer using red-hot irons), one gets to wondering. What did Josh see in a man who refused to renounce his G.o.d even as he underwent torture?

Surely having a Rabbi Akivacomplex might be a sign that a person expects, perhaps hopes, to die soon. Considered alongside his question regarding mirrors in the house of mourning, it was all grimly revealing. This was a man, aged twenty-nine, deliberating over his own imminent death.

Something about Schrieber really got me. I felt a strong urge to watch out for him. A part of me felt guilty for these feelings. Why should Schrieber elicit any more sympathy than any other inmate? He, of all inmates, was lucky. Although deeply mired in addiction, he did have a loving family who cared for him. He spoke of them often. He had role models, knew what a stable life looked like. He wasn't an orphan of the streets like so many other inmates.

But I couldn't help it. We were roughly the same age. His sister and mine shared the same unusual Hebrew name. He grew up in a suburban community like mine, with the same expectations. The accent, the humor, the cultural references, the hangups were very familiar to me.

But there was something else about Josh that gave me pause. At my friend's wedding roughly two years earlier, my run-in with Rabbi Blumenthal had inspired me, half in jest, to consult the prophets regarding my decision to work in prison. It had occurred to me that many of the prophets were either criminals, or prisoners, or had spent time among criminals. It had seemed mysteriously significant.

Now, I couldn't help but wonder if it was related to this uncomfortable familiarity I felt with Josh. The prophets crossed the boundary into the realm of the criminal not to comfort themselves by discovering the essential humanity of the criminal-in that Hollywood way of enn.o.bling the prisoner, of dramatizing how they're just like us- they're just like us-but rather to unveil the essential criminal in the human. To expose a darker truth: We're just like them We're just like them. When the prophets crossed over, they discovered just how familiar it looked, how much it resembled the world of the supposedly upright.

Wasn't this the unsettling truth behind the theater spectacle that night in the prison yard? The prison mainstream got more than mere cruel pleasure in watching their own outcasts from the Protective Custody unit dramatically exposed under the lights; it allowed them to feel self-righteous. To feel less like outcasts themselves. Even criminals look for ways to conveniently distance themselves from criminals. When I looked at Josh, his face, his life, I wasn't able to conveniently distance myself.

Josh told me that he had been the quintessential "good Jewish boy." Everyone had loved him, all the community ladies wanted to set up their daughters with him. "I was a good catch," he said with a little laugh. The one problem: his secret hobby. Once he tried heroin in college, that was it. For a while he led a double life.

"At first," he said, "I was a put-together college guy. I was dating this great girl. A beautiful girl."