Page 104 of The River Is Waiting

She says she knows I had issues with Officers Anselmo and Piccardy. “But you won’t have to deal with them anymore. They’ve both been fired.”

“Fired or suspended?” I ask.

“Suspended at first, fired yesterday. Another officer blew the whistle on them for abusive treatment of some of the inmates and sexual harassment of some of the women who work here. The whistleblower was smart enough to collect evidence and get statements. I’ve heard arrests may be coming, too.”

When her phone rings, she answers it and, while she’s talking, it hits me that what’s happened this week is the opposite of what was supposed to happen: Piccardy and Anselmo are out of here but I’m not. Win the battle, lose the war. But if those two sociopaths get arrested, I could probably help get them convicted if I opened my mouth about what they did to me. But there’s no way in hell I can talk about that.

When she’s off the phone, Jackson says, “You look exhausted. Come on. Let’s get you back to your block.”

I see Angel on the stairs, heading down while I’m going up. He’s wearing the Timberlands I gave him when I thought I was getting out of here. As we pass each other, he says, “Tough break, brah.” I nod without managing to look him in the eye. I guess the word is out. When we pass three guards chatting on the landing, I hear one of them say, “Someone ought to breakhisnose.”

“Don’t listen to that stuff,” Jackson says. “You’re probably going to get a lot of it for a while, but don’t react. Just tune it out.”

“Easier said than done,” I tell her. Climbing the next flight of stairs in silence, I imagine theotherme, the Corby whodidn’tsabotage himself. He’s been out of Yates since Tuesday, enjoying his freedom. Maybe taking a hike out by the reservoir or catching a movie on Netflix.

When we get to the third floor I see Pawlikowski, the CO who escorted me to Discharge four days ago, sitting behind the control desk. “Boy, you really stepped in it, didn’t you?” he says. I don’t respond. Officers Sullivan and Kratt are there, too, and I feel the chill from both of them. Jackson says goodbye and promises she’ll check in with me soon. Officer Sullivan says nothing when he walks me down to my cell, unlocks the door, then locks me back in.

Manny’s up on his bunk, looking so sorry for me, I feel like punching him in the head. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

“I heard you were in seg. How you doing?”

“I’m great, Manny. Just great.” How the fuck does hethinkI’m doing? “What else have you heard?”

“That when they said you weren’t getting out, you flipped out and assaulted an officer. Why wouldn’t they discharge you?”

I have to look away from his pity. “Dirty urine.”

“You?” He shakes his head. “That’s bullshit.”

It’s not, but let him think whatever the fuck he wants to.Why didn’t you tell him? There are other kinds of medications. This is on you.The truth fills me with such self-loathing that I grab the one chair in our cell and whack it, hard as I can, against the locked door. Do it again and again and again until the plastic cracks down the middle.

Manny’s down from his bunk, pulling at me and shouting for me to stop it. “You just got out of seg! If they hear this racket down at the desk, they could come down here and haul your ass back there!” When I throw the chair against the wall, it ricochets back at me, clipping my left ear. Manny puts a hand on my shoulder and tells me to calm down. “Don’t fucking touch me!” I warn him. Pulling away, I grab the wastebasket and hurl it at the back window, sending crap all over the place. Spotting the empty storage box under my bunk, I yank it out and kick it so hard that I twist my ankle, screaming out in pain. Manny stands there and says nothing.

As soon as my adrenaline spike subsides and my breathing slows down,the exhaustion kicks back in. I flop face-first onto my sour-smelling, sheetless mattress and fall asleep.…

When I open my eyes again and lift my head, I ask Manny how long I was out. “A few hours,” he says. “You were flailing around at first and arguing with someone, but it came out like gibberish. I figured you might be cold so I covered you up. You calmed down after that.”

“Thanks. Isn’t this the blanket your sister sent you?”

“Well, Amazon sent it, but she ordered it. Yeah, last Christmas.”

I notice that the shit I’d strewn all over the floor is back in the wastebasket and the cracked chair is upright. I apologize about the tantrum and for wrecking the chair.

“Three days in the hole when you thought you were getting out of here? No wonder you went nuts.”

Pitching that fit wasn’t about being in seg; it was about how my self-sabotage has landed me back here with him for who knows how long. But let him assume what he wants. I stand, fold his blanket, and put it back on his bunk.

“Thanks for the loan,” I tell him. “Sorry about the chair.”

“That’s okay. You can still sit on it if you’re careful, Corbs. Leans to the side a little but it should be okay for a while. Hey, did you hear about Anselmo and Piccardy?”

I tell him I heard they got fired but I don’t know the details.

“They were being investigated for months by a CO from another facility who was working undercover.”

“No shit. I’m surprised the dep warden didn’t intervene and save his nephew’s ass like before.”

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