right there, he told our session he’d see us later.
It was after lunch when the instructor showed up at our classroom door. “Uh-oh,” mumbled Bella. We were sent to a hallway upstairs and told to line up. There, as we stood at attention, the muscle-bound instructor told us he could put us on restriction forwhat had happened, then commanded, “Down on the floor.” We put our hands down and got into push-up position. “Give me fifty, all together,” he ordered. This was out of the range of most of the group. He counted, sometimes repeating a number or even backing up if he thought somebody hadn’t done a good job. At around twenty, recruits started dropping in exhaustion. He ignored his threat to begin at zero if anyone did that and made do with berating them. Then he kept counting. Trembling, those of us who were able to go on did so, until our arms could no longer lift us. After that, we lay on the floor in our pressed uniforms. He told us to stand up.
“No, not you,” he said to Chavez. Chavez lay back down.
“Give me twenty more.”
I’d never heard Chavez complain about anything at the Academy, with the exception of the pain that push-ups caused his one bad elbow. This must have been killing him. Sweat poured off his face onto the floor. His uniform was soaked. He started shaking so badly I couldn’t bear to look. “Eight!” screamed the instructor. Tears now mixed with sweat on the floor under Chavez’s face, which seemed to delight his tormentor.
“You think inmates are gonna care if you cry? Inmates ain’t gonna care.” What inmates had to do with this, I had no idea. Maybe the instructor was just saying he didn’t care either. Maybe he was saying that forgetfulness and shows of weakness or emotion wouldn’t fly in prison. Maybe he simply believed, along with a number of his colleagues, that abuse was a perfect preparation for prison work.
When it was clear that Chavez had no more push-ups to give, the instructor told him to stand up and then dismissed us.
“Ah, so you were studying CPR, eh?” asked the instructor as he arrived in the room after lunch, looked at the chalkboard, and noticed what we’d been taught in the morning. “So who here can tell me how to do inmate CPR?” We were quizzed so frequently that everyone thought the question was serious. “Nobody? She didn’t teach you that? Then I’ll show you.”
The instructor placed his boot on the chest of an imaginary prone inmate, pumped five times, then straightened up, looked down, and blew five times loudly toward the floor. He repeated it—to titters, then laughter.
Other sessions had taken Chemical Agents before us; we’d see them in the mess hall at lunch with gas masks around their waists and apprehension in their eyes. Or we’d talk to them at night in the lounge after they’d been to the range, hearing tales of how they’d been exposed. (“We had to hold hands.” “This cloud of smoke rose up from the ground.” “I was crying so hard my shirt was soaked.” “He had this huge booger hanging out of his nose.”) Then it was our turn.
Chemical agents (call it
tear gas
and you had to do ten pushups) were an important part of most prison arsenals and came in many different kinds of containers. We learned about them in a class. First were the handheld aerosols, beefed-up versions of the little canisters found in women’s purses. This “irritant dust” was most likely to be used in small situations with one or two recalcitrant inmates. For larger groups, there was a variety of handheld grenades, and many prison mess halls had a special kind of cartridge installed in the ceiling, for quick remote activation in case of disturbance. All-out riots called for cartridges shot out of a gas gun, which looked a bit like a sawed-off shotgun. The instructors passed around spent cartridges that smelled slightly of citrus; one had enough residue left inside that my nose started to run after I sniffed it and the skin on
It was after lunch when the instructor showed up at our classroom door. “Uh-oh,” mumbled Bella. We were sent to a hallway upstairs and told to line up. There, as we stood at attention, the muscle-bound instructor told us he could put us on restriction forwhat had happened, then commanded, “Down on the floor.” We put our hands down and got into push-up position. “Give me fifty, all together,” he ordered. This was out of the range of most of the group. He counted, sometimes repeating a number or even backing up if he thought somebody hadn’t done a good job. At around twenty, recruits started dropping in exhaustion. He ignored his threat to begin at zero if anyone did that and made do with berating them. Then he kept counting. Trembling, those of us who were able to go on did so, until our arms could no longer lift us. After that, we lay on the floor in our pressed uniforms. He told us to stand up.
“No, not you,” he said to Chavez. Chavez lay back down.
“Give me twenty more.”
I’d never heard Chavez complain about anything at the Academy, with the exception of the pain that push-ups caused his one bad elbow. This must have been killing him. Sweat poured off his face onto the floor. His uniform was soaked. He started shaking so badly I couldn’t bear to look. “Eight!” screamed the instructor. Tears now mixed with sweat on the floor under Chavez’s face, which seemed to delight his tormentor.
“You think inmates are gonna care if you cry? Inmates ain’t gonna care.” What inmates had to do with this, I had no idea. Maybe the instructor was just saying he didn’t care either. Maybe he was saying that forgetfulness and shows of weakness or emotion wouldn’t fly in prison. Maybe he simply believed, along with a number of his colleagues, that abuse was a perfect preparation for prison work.
When it was clear that Chavez had no more push-ups to give, the instructor told him to stand up and then dismissed us.
“Ah, so you were studying CPR, eh?” asked the instructor as he arrived in the room after lunch, looked at the chalkboard, and noticed what we’d been taught in the morning. “So who here can tell me how to do inmate CPR?” We were quizzed so frequently that everyone thought the question was serious. “Nobody? She didn’t teach you that? Then I’ll show you.”
The instructor placed his boot on the chest of an imaginary prone inmate, pumped five times, then straightened up, looked down, and blew five times loudly toward the floor. He repeated it—to titters, then laughter.
Other sessions had taken Chemical Agents before us; we’d see them in the mess hall at lunch with gas masks around their waists and apprehension in their eyes. Or we’d talk to them at night in the lounge after they’d been to the range, hearing tales of how they’d been exposed. (“We had to hold hands.” “This cloud of smoke rose up from the ground.” “I was crying so hard my shirt was soaked.” “He had this huge booger hanging out of his nose.”) Then it was our turn.
Chemical agents (call it
tear gas
and you had to do ten pushups) were an important part of most prison arsenals and came in many different kinds of containers. We learned about them in a class. First were the handheld aerosols, beefed-up versions of the little canisters found in women’s purses. This “irritant dust” was most likely to be used in small situations with one or two recalcitrant inmates. For larger groups, there was a variety of handheld grenades, and many prison mess halls had a special kind of cartridge installed in the ceiling, for quick remote activation in case of disturbance. All-out riots called for cartridges shot out of a gas gun, which looked a bit like a sawed-off shotgun. The instructors passed around spent cartridges that smelled slightly of citrus; one had enough residue left inside that my nose started to run after I sniffed it and the skin on
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