The Deputy Warden, who had a body shaped like a coke bottle, spoke to us in a slow, deliberate, well-rehearsed speech.
"You were sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. So while you are here, you'll be required to participate in programming. Including school. We want you focusing on the betterment of yourselves, so that when you get out, you stay out." But since Riverside had just opened, they hadn't yet worked out all of the job assignments and construction on the new school space was behind schedule. This, along with inadequate staffing, would explain the lack of structure that I would experience later.
"You'll meet with your unit counselors as soon as we get these things sorted out," he said. "In the meantime, none of you are going nowhere anytime soon."
To get to 10 Building, we had to cross the main yard. As three guards led our group, I noticed that activity in the yard had come to a subtle, yet definite stop. Conversations ceased as inmates took us in. They pointed and nodded, leaning toward one another to make comments. Some of them yelled things, like pretty boy or sweetie, but I kept my focus on the ground in front of me.
One of the cons in our group pointed to a building on the northeast corner of the yard. "That's where the old-timers are housed." We turned right and headed toward 10 Building. The guards led us up the steps and through the door. None of the inmates in our group were taken on to 11 Building, the mental ward, so I took that to mean there weren't any bugs among us.
Another guard met us, and the group was cut in half and told to step to the side. The rest of us were ordered to follow up the stairs. On the second floor, we were taken down a long glazed-bricked hallway where dormitories appeared, every twenty to thirty feet, on the left-hand side. Through the narrow windows of the painted steel doors, I could see the first set of bunk beds, which blocked the view of most of the room.
At the end of the corridor was the guard's station. One guard handed paperwork to another while a third guard led us into the dayroom.
Inside the dayroom, there were several orange fiberglass-molded rocking chairs arranged in slapdash rows in front of a television that had been mounted from the ceiling. Two inmates were watching a soap opera while one of them sipped from a plastic tumbler. To the left, a doorway opened onto the poolroom. The partition wall that separated the rooms was lined halfway up with glass. The inmates shooting pool stopped their game and came to the windows to gawk. We couldn't hear what they said, but several more inmates got up and joined in. While I couldn't hear clearly, the one word that came through was fish.
The guard walked us through the dayroom and into the smaller card room where he ordered us to take a seat at one of the tables. He went back to the office.
"Hey Slim," a black inmate said, tapping on the window from the TV side of the partition. I wasn't sure, but it appeared he was looking at me. One of the inmates sitting behind him whispered something, and they both laughed. They were staring in my direction. I turned and looked behind me, thinking they couldn't mean me, but there was no one there. I looked down at my fingernails and pretended not to notice them.
A few minutes later, the guard returned with a clipboard and a handful of keys dangling on long nylon strings. You were only allowed inside your own dormitory, to which we were each issued a key.
The guard read through several pages of orientation notes.
"There are four counts a day," he said, "One at 6 A.M., one at 4 P.m., one at 9:30, and the last one at midnight. At count times, you are to be in your dorms and on your bunk or you will be considered AWOL, and you will be shot." He paused to look at us. "And," he added, as if being shot wasn't enough, "you'll be issued a misconduct report."
Several of us looked at each other.
"The mess hall is in the basement," he said, "meal times and menus are posted on the bulletin board just outside the officer's station." Meal times alternated depending on floor. We were to be in our dorms at eleven and lights-out was 11:30. We would meet with the unit counselor, and those appointments would be posted on the board. He said the rest of the rules were listed in the inmate handbook.
"I thought we were residents," one of the inmates said.
"You're a bunch of convicts," he said. "I don't care what that book says. Just make sure you familiarize yourselves with the rules." He then read off our names and numbers from his clipboard. "1-5-3-0-5-2, Parsell."
"Here," I said, raising my hand.
"Dorm 1013, South." He handed me a key
"Thank you," I said, realizing how out of place my politeness sounded.
"This is the north side. The south side is through that door." He pointed to the southwest corner of the dayroom, behind the two inmates in front of the TV. Having lost interest in the fish, they were now engrossed in The Young and The Restless.
The guard finished handing out keys, ordered us to grab our bedroll, and then he and another guard split us into groups. We walked through the door that led to the south side. It was an exact duplicate of the north. There were two inmates shooting pool on the other side of the partition while The Price Is Right played to an empty day room.
We crossed the dull floors and continued down a hallway to the
