It is time for me to go spend ten hours with the felons again. Putting on my uniform helps get my mind in the right place for work. I hop into my pick-up and take the twenty minute drive out to The Lincoln Correctional Center. Although Lincoln is in the title of the place it is outside the city limits. I soon have corn fields all around me, and then there is the prison. The place is both intriguing and uninteresting. Set far back from the road, the building seems to jump out at me from the surrounding corn fields. I arrive at the place I spend forty or more hours of my week.
As I turn into the drive, there are at least two sets of eyes watching me on the monitors. The guards recognize my truck, but they still keep an eye on me. I drive along the double fence, twelve foot high, electrified, razor wire on top, signs stating “DO NOT APPROACH. TOWER PERSONNEL AUTHORIZED TO USE DEADLY FORCE.” I turn around the last curve hoping to find a parking spot close to the entrance. First shift starts at six a.m., but I start work at nine so usually I am relegated to parking at the far end of the lot.
I head towards the main entrance. The place was obviously built with function in mind over aesthetics. The building is squat and sprawling. The sense of security is clear. The color palette is industrial gray – old neglected industrial gray. The building sits there silent and ominous. It appears as if it has all the time in the world. People and things may come and go but this building seems to say, “Don’t worry, I will always be here.” Time is what this building is all about.
A line of delivery trucks waits to enter the institution. I wave to Borzi manning the wire gate. He controls all vehicle traffic that enters the institution. One truck goes in at a time, everyone waits for the truck in front to finish its business and leave before the next one goes in. Security positions are supposed to rotate every three months, yet Borzi is at the wire gate day after day, month after month. I walk past the wire gate and continue towards the front door.
The front door is an odd combination of chrome handles on industrial gray frames. Saying hi to the correctional officer manning the front desk, I set my lunch box on the belt to get x-rayed. While the CO is irradiating my lunch, I log myself in. Now that we are both sure that there is no contraband inside my ham and cheese sandwich, I clock in. With a beep and the flash of a green light, KRONOS lets me know that I am now on state time.
With a sharp snap, I take two chits off my key clip to trade for my keys and radio. There is a small metallic clink as I toss them into the teller drawer. The voice of the people in central control sounds tinny as they say good morning through the intercom. I wouldn’t hear them at all without the intercom behind inch-thick glass. These are the people who watched me drive into the parking lot. They are able to watch me wherever I roam within the institution. Now they pass my keys and radio to me through the drawer. The ring is full and heavy with keys. With a snap, I clip them onto my belt where the chits had been just seconds before. The radio doesn’t feel that heavy, but after ten hours the weight grows. I walk to door one and wait for them to let me into the institution. When I hear a deep buzz, I push my way through. Once door one is closed I pass though door two, accompanied by another buzz. I head on to the next door. No buzzer on this one; just a small light to let me know that it is open. After thirty feet and three locked doors, I am swallowed up by the building. Inside the institution the colors turn from gray to browns and yellows, old and peeling. The air in the halls is thick and stagnant. Everything is closed up tight with no chance to generate a breeze to clear the air.
As I walk in I can hear the murmur of activity in the kitchen, my destination. I stop at another locked door, but I have the key to this one. I snap the keys off my belt and flip to the correct key. I step into the kitchen office and lock the door behind me. This is the eye of the hurricane that is the institution’s kitchen. In here it is quiet, calm, and relaxing. Past the next door is noise, chaos, and stress. I say hello to the two managers who have desks in the office. My name isn’t on a desk in here; my job is on the other side of that door. I take my time squeezing my lunch into the fridge and strapping on the radio. I twist the knob on the radio and a high-pitched beep lets me know that it is working. My radio becomes the constant background noise in my day. A loud knock on the door draws my attention. I have only been here a couple of minutes, and an inmate is already demanding my attention.
I unlock the door and step onto the kitchen floor. Immediately I am surrounded by smells, noise, and activity. I take a second to take it all in and get a sense of what is going on. To my left, there are crews of inmates dressed in kitchen whites working on today’s meals. To my right, the dish crew, dressed in their khakis, are trying to finish the dishes from breakfast. It appears to be chaos but everything going on has purpose. I turn my attention to the inmate that had to speak to me so urgently. He is dressed in his state-issued khakis and boots. He has been working in the hot and humid dish room and sweat runs from his face. I ask him what he needs and he quickly states, “Hey Alex, tell the blue suit that I am done and can go back to my unit.”
“You know I just walked in the door. You need to go talk to Jodi and ask her if you can go.” I am about five minutes into my shift and I am already annoyed.
“Come on man! You know she don’t like me, just tell the CO I can go!” I just shrug and send him off to talk to the person currently running the floor. The inmate feigns anger at my unwillingness to help him; “Alex, I thought we was better than that.” The inmate heads off into the kitchen whether he will go talk to Jodi remains to be seen. So starts my day on the floor of the kitchen.
I walk though the cavernous kitchen, peeking at what each crew is working on. As I pass the Lead Cook, I double check with him how the lunch meal is coming along. We discuss how much we have and decide that we should have plenty. When preparing a meal for nine hundred people, we have to make enough and enough is a lot. After a quick chat about last night’s ballgame, I continue my tour of the kitchen.
The Lead Prep Cook comes to me with a crisis. The inmate cannot just explain the problem so we head to the walk-in cooler so he can show me the issue. I remove my keys and quickly flip to the proper key to unlock the cooler door. With as much drama as the inmate can muster he shows me that we have a single fifty pound bag of onions. After staring at my blank expression for a moment, he finally explains the prep crew needs to clean and dice one seventy five pounds for tomorrow. I tell him that the produce truck was in line at the wire gate and he will have his onions within the next hour or so. Yet another emergency averted.
I stop by the storeroom to let the inmates working there know that the produce truck was in line at the gate. The three inmates sitting in the cool, dim dry storage room start to stir as though I woke them. As I walk away I hear a vague complaint about slaving in the kitchen.
As I pass the diet room, the inmate working in there flags me down. I open the door and stick my head in to ask what he needs. The inmate reminds me that he has group in the afternoon and that someone else will be working his supper shift. I make note of the change in my head.
My day goes by at a rapid pace. We serve and clean up lunch, then do it all over again for supper. Inmates arrive in the kitchen, perform their jobs, and depart only to be replaced by another set of inmates. Each group brings its own noise, activity, and demands on my attention. I joke and laugh with some; disagree and argue with others. The kitchen is seldom empty and I savor any downtime between groups of inmates.
Finally at the end of the day the kitchen is quiet. All the inmates have left the kitchen for today. The kitchen is spotless and the lights are off. I retrace my morning steps to leave the institution. I wait for the light on the inner door and then the deep guttural buzz of doors one and two. A clank as my radio and keys go into the drawer and two petite clinks as my chits are returned to me. KRONOS beeps to let me know that I have been released from state time, for now. The CO x-rays my empty lunch box as I log myself out and I am out the door.
My truck sits alone at the far end of the deserted parking lot. Borzi has abandoned the wire gate for the day, but he will be there in the morning, as always. As I make the long walk I take in the quiet surroundings. The block walls and chain link fence are as they were when I arrived. The building looms silently behind me letting me know that it will still be here tomorrow. From here it seems as though nothing changes inside this place.
