he’d done federal time. I didn’t say a damn word. In fact, I don’t think I could have gotten to my room faster if my ass had been on fire. I sat on my bed, waiting for my father to come in and talk to me/murder me slowly. But nothing happened. We never spoke of it again.
I called the guy the next day and the first thing he said was, “You didn’t tell me who your dad was.” Like it was somehow my fault.
“You didn’t tell me you’d done time,” I shrieked.
“That’s not something I usually talk about on a first date.”
“Why the hell not? You know this is a prison town.” We had the federal prison, state prison, community corrections, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America, a privately run corrections facility), county jail, military detention barracks—we were loaded to the brim with prison.
“I didn’t think you were that Sasek’s daughter.”
“Yeah, because we all know Sasek is like Smith. Really? Are you kidding me? I’m lucky I’m not dead.”
“You? I was the one there to pick up his precious and only daughter.”
“I thought you were a badass. You’re sniveling.”
“I’m not ashamed to admit your father terrifies me. He could ruin my parole.”
“And you’re on parole? Oh. My. God.” My dad could have gotten in serious trouble at work for that since this guy was still on paper, as we called it, meaning he still had an active file.
“I don’t think we should see each other.”
“Well, no shit.”
“He’s not mad, is he?”
I hung up without answering him.
But that wasn’t taking The Job home; that was The Job coming to him.
I looked at my husband over lunch as I remembered this, and I tried to imagine what he’d do if one of our girls brought home someone he knew from his cell house. I imagine his reaction would be much the same. My husband and my father don’t like each other very much, and it makes me laugh because in a lot of ways, they’re a lot alike. It wasn’t always this way, but now as I’m writing this and my husband has done The Job for a few years and he’s good at it, the similarities are ridiculous.
Except my husband does bring it home, but not in a bad way. Meaning it’s not heavy or subversive. He brings it home, we talk about it. Part of it could be because I’ve been there, I’ve done it. I know the places he’s talking about, I know the policies, I know the frustrations and the little victories. There shouldn’t be anything we can’t share; making an officer be two people drives a wedge into any relationship: platonic, familial, or romantic.
When we both were working there, it was common ground when everything else seemed so far apart.
Like this day. We talked. We laughed. We commiserated. We ate french fries. And it was good. Even when our conversation turned to the darker parts of The Job, not just commiserating over the same stressors and pressures but the horror of which only humanity is capable of.
Like when he told me about the inmate who tried to disembowel himself with the jagged lid of a tuna can.
That takes a certain kind of horrible dedication to carve at yourself and pull out your own guts. He was a sex offender, a diaper sniper (child molester). He was also Latino. That’s something that the Latin gangs won’t tolerate. The population at the prison where I worked was different than most because we had the only sex offender treatment program in the state, so these offenders weren’t victimized as often as sex offenders are in other populations simply because we had so many. But the Latin gangs don’t care. One of their own? They’d torment him until they killed him or he killed himself.
This inmate had tried to kill himself seven times. The staff would save his life, and then as soon as he was back in general population the gang members would take after him with a lock in a sock, gang rape, and anything else they could think of to torment him.
This time he slit his wrists too, and he bled out before he could
I called the guy the next day and the first thing he said was, “You didn’t tell me who your dad was.” Like it was somehow my fault.
“You didn’t tell me you’d done time,” I shrieked.
“That’s not something I usually talk about on a first date.”
“Why the hell not? You know this is a prison town.” We had the federal prison, state prison, community corrections, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America, a privately run corrections facility), county jail, military detention barracks—we were loaded to the brim with prison.
“I didn’t think you were that Sasek’s daughter.”
“Yeah, because we all know Sasek is like Smith. Really? Are you kidding me? I’m lucky I’m not dead.”
“You? I was the one there to pick up his precious and only daughter.”
“I thought you were a badass. You’re sniveling.”
“I’m not ashamed to admit your father terrifies me. He could ruin my parole.”
“And you’re on parole? Oh. My. God.” My dad could have gotten in serious trouble at work for that since this guy was still on paper, as we called it, meaning he still had an active file.
“I don’t think we should see each other.”
“Well, no shit.”
“He’s not mad, is he?”
I hung up without answering him.
But that wasn’t taking The Job home; that was The Job coming to him.
I looked at my husband over lunch as I remembered this, and I tried to imagine what he’d do if one of our girls brought home someone he knew from his cell house. I imagine his reaction would be much the same. My husband and my father don’t like each other very much, and it makes me laugh because in a lot of ways, they’re a lot alike. It wasn’t always this way, but now as I’m writing this and my husband has done The Job for a few years and he’s good at it, the similarities are ridiculous.
Except my husband does bring it home, but not in a bad way. Meaning it’s not heavy or subversive. He brings it home, we talk about it. Part of it could be because I’ve been there, I’ve done it. I know the places he’s talking about, I know the policies, I know the frustrations and the little victories. There shouldn’t be anything we can’t share; making an officer be two people drives a wedge into any relationship: platonic, familial, or romantic.
When we both were working there, it was common ground when everything else seemed so far apart.
Like this day. We talked. We laughed. We commiserated. We ate french fries. And it was good. Even when our conversation turned to the darker parts of The Job, not just commiserating over the same stressors and pressures but the horror of which only humanity is capable of.
Like when he told me about the inmate who tried to disembowel himself with the jagged lid of a tuna can.
That takes a certain kind of horrible dedication to carve at yourself and pull out your own guts. He was a sex offender, a diaper sniper (child molester). He was also Latino. That’s something that the Latin gangs won’t tolerate. The population at the prison where I worked was different than most because we had the only sex offender treatment program in the state, so these offenders weren’t victimized as often as sex offenders are in other populations simply because we had so many. But the Latin gangs don’t care. One of their own? They’d torment him until they killed him or he killed himself.
This inmate had tried to kill himself seven times. The staff would save his life, and then as soon as he was back in general population the gang members would take after him with a lock in a sock, gang rape, and anything else they could think of to torment him.
This time he slit his wrists too, and he bled out before he could
Similar Books
