Power in the Blood

I did. And, when I had closed the door, she looked a little surprised.

“What is it? Are you okay?” she asked, and I sensed her genuine concern. She was a good nurse, I could tell. I had come to the right place.

“I need some help,” I said, “and I really don’t know where to turn.”

“Sure. Anything. What is it?” she asked.

“I don’t really quite know how to say this.”

“Take your time. It’s okay. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. Okay?”

“Okay, here it goes. I found out today that the inmate that was killed yesterday had AIDS.”

She nodded her head slowly. “Yes, I know,” she said.

“His blood got all over me. I can’t quit thinking about it. I can’t concentrate on anything else because I think I might have gotten AIDS through his infected blood.”

“Oh, you poor man,” she said, sounding like the kind mother I never had. She was a mother-a caretaker, which I was glad of because I needed taking care of just then. “I know how you feel. Blood is such a scary thing these days. I come in contact with bad blood all the time. It scares the hell out of me, too.”

“Should I be scared?” I asked.

“Well, he did have AIDS. That’s true enough, but unless it penetrated your skin or splashed into your eyes or mouth, you probably have nothing to worry about. And even then you’d have to have an open sore or wound. It’s not likely.”

“Officer Shutt splashed it everywhere. It could’ve gotten into my eyes or mouth. I just don’t know. I haven’t found any cuts or sores, but eyes and mouth I’m just not sure about. What should I do?”

“To be certain, I can give you an AIDS test. That’ll clear it up for you and let you know one way or another. But I wouldn’t worry. Chances are, you didn’t get it, okay?”

I nodded.

She smiled at me reassuringly. “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll go ahead and give you the test down here now, and it can be our little secret. Nobody else has to know. How does that sound?”

“That sounds great,” I said. “Thank you.”

She motioned for me to have a seat on the exam table.

“Stone might ask you to go on leave until you know for certain, and that would just be a hassle. You shouldn’t be punished because that little black bastard had bad blood. It’s not right. There’s no justice in this world when people like you and me have to risk our lives just to do our jobs.”

I didn’t respond.

She moved around the room quickly and efficiently preparing to take some of my blood out of the place where I most wished it to stay, my body. All the while she spoke of how high the number of inmates with AIDS had become. And how we were all paying the price for their sins.

While she continued to talk about the same things, my mind drifted. I began to think of how ironic it was that I might have AIDS. Not only had I been monogamous and careful even then, but I was extremely careful in daily life as well. My daily routine in prison involved washing my hands so many times as to be almost compulsive. I didn’t take chances with AIDS, hepatitis B, and the like. I had visited enough hospital rooms to minister to someone in the last stages of AIDS to know that I wanted to avoid it at all costs. If I had it, I would not let it get the best of me. I’ll kill myself first, I thought.

When she was finally ready to draw my blood, she put her delicate hands on me: patting, squeezing, caressing, comforting. She even held my hand as she withdrew the blood. And, after she had finished, she gave me a hug. It was, hands down, the best nursing care I’d ever received.

“How long does it take?” I asked. I remained seated on the exam table, not in a hurry to leave. She busied herself labeling the vile of blood and disposing of the needle.

“About a week, give or take a little. I’ll have to sneak it in with some other tests. I’ll call you the minute I know, okay?”

“Okay. Listen, thanks a lot. You’ve been wonderful. Truly an angel of mercy.”

“You’re very welcome. You’re a special man. I want to take good care of you.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s funny that you called me an angel of mercy,” she said, turning to face me. “I wanted to be a nun when I was a kid. I was raised in a Catholic orphanage.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “But . . .” She made a sheepish grin.

“What?”

“I like men too much,” she said. She walked over to the table and stood between my knees, her face just inches from mine. “Sister said I should become a nurse.”

I nodded my agreement. “Forced celibacy is wrong. It’s going to do nothing but cause increasingly more problems for the Catholic Church, I’m afraid.”

She nodded. “Anyway, I wanted to help people, so I became a nurse.”

“You became an excellent nurse,” I said.

She smiled warmly as tears filled her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered and leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. I could feel her tears.

“Thank you,” I said.

She turned, pulled some tissues from the flower-covered box on the counter, and dabbed at her eyes. I hopped off the table.

When she had finished wiping her eyes, I asked, “How did you wind up here?”

“In prison, you mean?” She smiled. “Old sour Sister Mary Margaret said I’d wind up in prison one day. I worked for a doctor in Tallahassee that I needed to get away from, and this came open, so here I am.” She backed away from me slightly.

“You needed to get away from the doctor you worked for?” I asked.

“Yes, well, it’s a long story,” she said. “Bottom line is that we had a relationship. He had a wife . . . and kids. And . . . it was a bad scene.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Tallahassee’s loss is our gain.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I didn’t mean to get into all that, but you are so easy to talk to. And so nonjudgmental. I’ve heard you went through a divorce and some pretty rough times yourself. I’m sure that gives you a lot of empathy for others.”

“I hope so,” I said as I walked over to the door and opened it. “Thanks again.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’d like to talk again sometime, perhaps over coffee.”

“Sounds great.” I walked out, leaving the door open.

Chapter 8

Compared to other investigations I had conducted, I was finding out information quickly. Prison is such a closed society and so self-contained that rather than having a lack of information about the case, it seemed as though I’d soon be faced with having too much. Having such easy access to everyone at all times, with the exception of the first- and third-shift officers, made this more like Murder on the Orient Express than a modern-day investigation.

I was trying to track down an inmate named Jacobson, which on the street would have taken days, if not weeks. In a matter of minutes, I discovered that he was in lockup.

There are four types of lockup in the state prison system. Protective management lockup is for those who are at risk in the general prison population-rapists, child-molesters, ex-law enforcement officers. Close management dorms are for those who, because of their custody, crimes, and behavior on the inside, do their entire sentence inside a cell. Then there is confinement, which has two classifications-administrative and disciplinary. An inmate is placed in administrative confinement when the administration determines that it is best to do so-usually when he is under investigation for a crime. Disciplinary confinement is for those inmates who were accused of a crime and were found guilty. Jacobson was in the latter.