When I reached the control room for work the following morning, I was directed by security, along with the other staff, into the visiting park for a contraband search. A long row of tables was set up on which we deposited the contents of our pockets and anything we were carrying-purses, briefcases, and lunch boxes. We were then escorted into the restrooms-men’s and women’s respectively-and required to remove our shoes and be patted down. These occasional checks for contraband were a good idea in theory-inmate visitors weren’t the only ones bringing it in-but most employees were tipped off about them in the parking lot when they still had time to slip something back into their vehicles, and the thoroughness of the search was often dependent on how well the officer doing the searching knew you. They were our coworkers, after all.
Leaving the VP, I ran into Theo Malcolm, the new GED and literacy teacher at PCI. Malcolm was a thin, wiry black man in his early thirties with small dark eyes, the whites of which looked like unstirred chocolate milk. His eyes had an angry, defiant glare, and his posture was one of rigidity and defensiveness.
“You got a minute?” I asked.
He hesitated, then gave one curt nod of his head. Obviously, he didn’t want to talk to me, but would, as long as I understood that he was doing me a favor. “In my office,” he said and began walking down the compound.
I followed. When I caught up with him, I asked, “Are you enjoying your work here?”
“I’m not here for enjoyment,” he said curtly. “I’m here to do my part to free my brothers from their oppressors.”
“And to enjoy it would lessen its importance somehow, wouldn’t it?” I asked.
He didn’t respond, and we walked the rest of the way in silence.
To my surprise, his office, which was filled with kente cloth and African art, was not only unlocked, but there was an inmate inside it.
The inmate, Luther Albright, one of Malcolm’s orderlies, was in Malcolm’s chair with his feet on the desk.
“Luther, will you please excuse us a moment?” Malcolm asked as if it were Albright’s office.
Taking his time getting to his feet, Albright walked very slowly out of the office, glaring at me and bumping my shoulder with his as he passed by.
When he was gone, I said, “Does he work for you?”
“He’s one of my-”
“Or do you work for him?”
Malcolm said, “I will allot you ten minutes out of professional courtesy.”
“Does that mean you’re going to be courteous?” I asked.
On his desk, open file folders revealed photos of several inmates, including Abdul Muhummin, my chapel library clerk. He quickly closed the files when he reached his desk, and I thought his attempt at nonchalance was jerky and awkward.
He shook his head. “I don’t have time for this,” he said. “I’ve got work to do. My concentrating on doing my job may be the only hope some of them have.”
“I feel the same way,” I said. “We’re here doing the same thing-trying to achieve the same goals.”
The small office and state-issued furniture was all hard, cold surfaces, with no warmth or personality, and was filled with stacks of papers and books and the sloppy clutter that resulted from laziness and disorganization rather than busyness. If it weren’t for the kente cloth and African art, it’d look like every other office in the institution.
“Do you have a Band Aid?” he asked.
“What?”
“I may need it if I get cut-oh, but it’s the color of white peoples’ skin, isn’t it? So, because I live in a white world, I have to bandage the wounds white people inflict with something that resembles your pale weakass skin.”
“Are you for real?” I asked.
“We don’t have the same goals,” he continued. “I’m part of the solution. You’re part of the problem.”
“But some of my best friends are black,” I said with a big smile.
“That’s not funny,” he said.
I shrugged. “I thought it was,” I said. “But the fact is, it’s true.”
“Monroe,” he said. “He’d see he didn’t need your friendship if he wasn’t such a white man’s nigga’. You think you’re doing us a favor by helping us. It only adds to our dependency.”
“Perhaps,” I admitted, “but does that mean I should just forget about Nicole?”
“The white preacher’s colored show piece,” he said. “Well, he finally showed her to the wrong son of a bitch, didn’t he? Ironic thing is, whoever killed her did her a favor. Freed her from slavery.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Wake-up,” he said. “Bobby Earl’s one of the most racist bastards ever to do time in Florida. I’ve told my students, he’s the one they should’ve killed. “
“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Whoever did it,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“You were there, though, weren’t you?” I asked.
He nodded. “You saw me.”
His right eye started twitching, and he looked down and began rearranging the objects on his desk as if it were something that had to be done immediately.
“But I’ve never seen you there before,” I said. “Why choose the night before last to go for the first time? It seems a little-”
“Just checkin’ things out,” he said. “I get a lot of complaints about how racist you and your chapel programs are.”
His comment had its desired effect. Suddenly I felt guilty and defensive, my pulse quickening, my hairline sweating, and I wondered who had accused me of such a thing. I had fought the good fight against the rampant racism of the area nearly my whole life, but with one comment I felt the need to defend myself, spouting my record the way a politician does. The race card was a powerful thing, especially when used on someone afflicted with so much white guilt.
“Really?” I asked, my voice flat, calm. “From whom?”
“I can’t reveal my sources,” he said.
“No, see, that’s only reporters,” I said very slowly. “You’re a teacher in a prison.”
“If you don’t stop patronizing me, you’ll regret it,” he said.
“Luckily,” I said, “I have experience living with regret, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Why are you harassing me?” he asked, his voice taking on a whining, wounded-child quality that matched his squinty expression.
“I would think that’s obvious to you,” I said.
“Because I’m black,” he said.
I smiled and shook my head. The persistence of his perception was maddening, and I realized that for all his racist outrage there was very little that was black or Afro-centric about him.
“Could be,” I said. “Or maybe it’s not harassment at all, but just a few friendly questions.”
“But why’re you asking me?”
“Because you were there,” I said.
“So were a lot of other people,” he said.
“That’s true, and I’m talking to them, too,” I said.
“Oh,” he said, and nodded, seeming to relax a little.
“But, unlike you,” I added, “the murder didn’t happen during their first and only visit to the chapel.”
Leaving Theo Malcolm’s office, I walked down the long hallway of the empty education building toward the door, my dress shoes echoing loudly on the polished tile. Windows starting half way up the walls revealed dark, empty classrooms, many of which were seldom used. We had the inmate labor to build them, but lacked the budget to staff them.
