Tears burst from my eyes and, squinting, I saw that the door had opened and others were filing out. I staggered that way and was quickly grabbed by my classmate Anthony “Big Buck” Buckner, a 275-pound man from the Bronx, who walked me out into the open. There I joined some twenty others, all of whom were gasping, with red, wet faces, as the pain sharpened. Streams of mucus issued from our mouths and noses and dripped to the ground in long strands. My eyes didn’t hurt too badly until someone said to open them. And then some more stabbing irritant flowed in, sharp and prickly. They said that holding your eyes open made it pass sooner, and everyone tried to. Water was splashed in our eyes by a strange piece of equipment designed to do just that, but it didn’t seem to help. Finally, I just stood there shaking, and Officer Popish, whom others considered an asshole, held my arm and I felt deep gratitude.
Fifteen minutes later the roles were reversed, and I was holding the massive arm of one of the Antonelli twins as he sputtered and teared. Nearby, as Arno recovered, someone pointed out that the cap hanging from his belt was covered with puke. Brown sheepishly confessed that he was responsible. For a while, Bella was spitting up blood. We took off our shirts and shook our hair, since the chemical agent lingered in both. The instructor handed out garbage bags for us to place our uniforms in and offered us the rationale for this ritual of suffering. It was necessary, he said, so that we didn’t panic if it occurred inside a prison. He painted a scenario: Chemical agents were released into a mess hall containing unruly inmates, and officers too. The inmates would soon be rushing outside to the yard, hopping mad and “looking for the first uniform they can find” to beat up. If we officers could calmly remain inside the mess hall, we would be more likely to remain safe.
This was just barely plausible. Who said the mess hall would have an exit to the yard? And that it would be open? Our afternoon on the range made more sense to me as a rite of passage that might bring us closer by making us feel we’d endured something awful together. In conclusion, the officer assured us that the chemical agent, “once you’re out of it, will be nothing more than a painful memory.”
At chow that evening, somebody commented that the exposure had caused “the worst pain I ever had.” I thought about that, and about the instructor’s remark—kinds of pain, kinds of bad memories. For a pain of fifteen-minute duration, this was probably the worst. But I’d had worse pain, duller and more long-lasting, from various injuries. And how did you compare these nerve-related pains with heartache, or with the pain—call it soulache—of imprisonment, the kind of pain, no one seemed interested to observe, that we were going to administer in our chosen profession? It hardly seemed right to use the same word for all of them.
Concomitant with the rise of imprisonment, there were 239,229 correction officers nationwide at the beginning of 1998, up from 60,026 just sixteen years before. In large areas of New York and other states, corrections is the only growth industry, the most likely profession for thousands of young people. But how odd to devote yourself professionally to confining others in a small space.
“You’re just a forty-thousand-dollar baby-sitter,” one instructor told us in summary, after describing the misbehavior of inmates. Only, most baby-sitters can’t get away with the use of force, and most are not seriously endangered by their charges.
“You leave here and become a boss,” another instructor asserted. “You’re automatically a supervisor, because supervising inmates is your job.” This instructor, Turner, who was not very good at telling a joke but clearly intended one, proceeded to read us a passage from
The One Minute Manager:
“‘Take a minute out of your day and look at the people around you—they’re the
Fifteen minutes later the roles were reversed, and I was holding the massive arm of one of the Antonelli twins as he sputtered and teared. Nearby, as Arno recovered, someone pointed out that the cap hanging from his belt was covered with puke. Brown sheepishly confessed that he was responsible. For a while, Bella was spitting up blood. We took off our shirts and shook our hair, since the chemical agent lingered in both. The instructor handed out garbage bags for us to place our uniforms in and offered us the rationale for this ritual of suffering. It was necessary, he said, so that we didn’t panic if it occurred inside a prison. He painted a scenario: Chemical agents were released into a mess hall containing unruly inmates, and officers too. The inmates would soon be rushing outside to the yard, hopping mad and “looking for the first uniform they can find” to beat up. If we officers could calmly remain inside the mess hall, we would be more likely to remain safe.
This was just barely plausible. Who said the mess hall would have an exit to the yard? And that it would be open? Our afternoon on the range made more sense to me as a rite of passage that might bring us closer by making us feel we’d endured something awful together. In conclusion, the officer assured us that the chemical agent, “once you’re out of it, will be nothing more than a painful memory.”
At chow that evening, somebody commented that the exposure had caused “the worst pain I ever had.” I thought about that, and about the instructor’s remark—kinds of pain, kinds of bad memories. For a pain of fifteen-minute duration, this was probably the worst. But I’d had worse pain, duller and more long-lasting, from various injuries. And how did you compare these nerve-related pains with heartache, or with the pain—call it soulache—of imprisonment, the kind of pain, no one seemed interested to observe, that we were going to administer in our chosen profession? It hardly seemed right to use the same word for all of them.
Concomitant with the rise of imprisonment, there were 239,229 correction officers nationwide at the beginning of 1998, up from 60,026 just sixteen years before. In large areas of New York and other states, corrections is the only growth industry, the most likely profession for thousands of young people. But how odd to devote yourself professionally to confining others in a small space.
“You’re just a forty-thousand-dollar baby-sitter,” one instructor told us in summary, after describing the misbehavior of inmates. Only, most baby-sitters can’t get away with the use of force, and most are not seriously endangered by their charges.
“You leave here and become a boss,” another instructor asserted. “You’re automatically a supervisor, because supervising inmates is your job.” This instructor, Turner, who was not very good at telling a joke but clearly intended one, proceeded to read us a passage from
The One Minute Manager:
“‘Take a minute out of your day and look at the people around you—they’re the
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