Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian (5 page)

The music is low-klezmer, the lyrics high-biblical. Still divided by sex—men on one side of the floor, women on the other, a physical barrier set down between—the dancing is manic and intensely circular. These are not polite circle dances. This isn’t a lazy Sunday morning “Hava Nagila” through the park. These are hard-driving, frenetic, Darwinian merry-go-rounds of testosterone.

There is a lot of pushing. The circles get tight and competitive. People push to get things moving forward. Inevitably some guys will try to get to the inner circle. They too begin pushing. For reasons pertaining to physics, psychology, and theology, the inner circle is the most aggressive and dizzying dancing the human body can endure. In order to get that circle moving, you push.

I’m not saying the community of my youth is loud and pushy. Only that they’re in earnest. They don’t half-ass things; they mean business. When the rabbi says, “You
must
make the bride and groom happy,” it means you make them delirious until they’re pummeled within an inch of their lives and left for dead by the side of the dance floor. I understand this well because I’ve been an active participant in this enterprise.

At my best, I was more sincere than ten bearded Hasidic men combined. I’ve been to scores of Orthodox weddings. I’ve pushed. I’ve been pushed. I’ve pushed hundreds, possibly thousands, of my fellow Orthodox Jews. I’ve pushed on the Sabbath and I’ve pushed during the week. I’ve had people pushed into me, I’ve pushed people into other people. I’ve been pushed by children, by the elderly. I’ve pushed children, pushed the elderly. This is how it goes. I don’t regret it. I’d do it again. But I’d lost the touch long ago.

Perhaps it was the drug, which had now run its course, or the stress from running into my old rabbis and classmates, perhaps it was the cumulative sense of having had enough of monotheism, but that day I was incapable of jostling and being jostled. You might even say I was feeling a bit vulnerable. I let my guard down. This would be a big mistake.

The punch that came blind from my right was in no way predictable. The first split-second was characterized by the almost obscene slap of a sweat-drenched hairy fist to my cheek, next to my nose, followed by a bone-to-bone, knuckle-to-face whip crack. My head snapped. The room upended. I was cheek to parquet floor, at a ninety-degree angle from the world.

Nobody cared. It’s not that they were callous. They simply didn’t notice. Onward, in an endless cycle, they marched. Dressy legs and shiny shoes stomped next to me, a few on me. There were too many people, too much pushing, for someone to stop and help. If a guy were to stop
he
might get pushed down or, like me, clocked. Who would risk it?

I knew the rules: on the carousel of testosterone, there are winners and losers. I had lost. Only the well-adapted survive. I got exactly what I deserved. Knowing this, however, did not make me feel better.

I looked up. Dancing expressionlessly was Rabbi Blumenthal. I was seized by the suspicion that it was he who had popped me, in fulfillment of the rabbinic dictum for dealing with the Bad Son, “you strike him in the teeth …” For a moment, I entertained the thought of jumping up and taking him out. Then I realized this was an awful idea—one of my worst. Then I realized he’d have been right to punch me.

I had to admit that my head-pounding could have a pedagogic function. In the past it had.

On a school trip to Toronto senior year of high school we had played laser tag (what else does one do in Toronto?). The major rule of laser tag at the laser arena/funzone place in Toronto was
no running
. We were told again and again. “Absolutely no running.” When I heard this, I guffawed to myself: No way I’m following
that
rule. Toronto had been godawful and now, given a chance to let off some steam, I was amped, raring to do battle, eager to get into the field, scout out a perch or two and commence the laser carnage. I wanted nothing short of the fucking lasertag battle of Midway.

I was all over the place, blasting people right and left. I was runnin’ and gunnin’ like a disgruntled Texan. Late in the game, when only a few fighters remained, I scoped out a nice high spot, called for cover, got it, and, of course, ran to get there. At that point, I’d completely forgotten that there was even a rule against running.

I saw the danger only once it was too late. The guy running directly at me was moving quickly and unrelentingly forward. I remember my last thought, right before we collided head-on, at full speed:
Jesus Christ, who’s that crazy asshole running
right
at me?
As I fell back, my glasses busted on my head, my nose exploded in blood, and my sensor unit buzzing after sustaining a direct shot from an opponent, I looked up and saw my own beat-up face staring back at me. In my thirst for laser dominance I’d disregarded the tenets of basic optics. I’d run headlong into a mirrored wall. Turned out the crazy asshole running at me
was
me.

But this is how I learn: by stubbornly doing things my own way until I run face-first into a wall. Frankly, I’m grateful for that wall.

B
ack in the bathroom at the wedding I looked at my face in the mirror. There wasn’t that much blood and I soaked up what there was of it. My head ached but I felt lucid for the first time in a long while, possibly years, and was struck by an urge to make decisions about my life.

Got to get a haircut. Go to the dentist. Get in shape. Get more organized. Pay my taxes on time. Figure out my life. Stop being a damn beatnik. Get my shit together. Perhaps let
Easy Go
go
.

Looking at myself in the mirror, an old, favorite prayer returned to me. It is said when the Messiah arrives or when you see a long-lost friend:

Blessed are you God, who revives the dead
.

The punch to the face, which may or may not have been delivered by the rabbi, had knocked me off of the fence. I lingered for a moment in this marvelous clarity of mind. Clear about what I knew and did not know.

Rabbi Blumenthal had educated me well. He had taught me to take the prophets seriously. Yet, earlier at the wedding he’d said, “You should be involved in the Jewish community.” Why, he’d argued, waste time working in a prison? Is this any place for a good Jewish boy?

But, as he knew, the prophets had spent time among outcasts and criminals. Many
were
criminals—and not just for their revolutionary ideas. Isaiah, like many brilliant preachers, had a weakness for indecent exposure. Elisha committed first-degree murder when someone made fun of his hair. Abraham did time; Joseph did time; Jeremiah did time; Daniel did time. So did Samson. Jacob was a con man who spent most of his life on the lam. Both Moses and Elijah were fugitives for committing murder. And so was David, until he returned with a loyal gang of outlaws. The prophet Hosea had a notorious predilection for hookers. Nearly every single one of the prophets was either a criminal or had spent time among criminals. Clearly the prophets themselves believed there was something to learn in prison, even if Rabbi Blumenthal did not.

I decided to apply for the job as a prison librarian. The idea of it had been with me for weeks. Now was the moment to admit it was something I wanted, perhaps needed, to do. I wasn’t sure why, exactly. It probably had something to do with my education. Harvard was a lovely assisted-living facility from which I’d emerged, like my classmates, stupider and more confident. I still had a lot to learn. When I imagined grad school, though, all I could see was long, passionately argued footnotes on the iconography of Bugs Bunny’s carrot—I wasn’t going to be of any use to a university, and vice versa. And so the choice crystallized in my mind: It was either law school or prison. The decision was clear.

I ran back out into the wedding celebration and found Yoni. Bathed in sweat, wearing some type of tribal headdress, his tux in tatters, he was bellowing a rowdy Hebrew fight song that called for the Messiah to immediately restore the Great Temple in Jerusalem on the site of the Temple Mount.

“I think I’m going to apply for that job,” I said.

“What?” he shouted. The music was blaring.

“I think I’m going to prison,” I shouted into his ear.

He flashed a big grin.

“Nice,” he shouted back. “And honestly, dude? It’d probably do you some good.”

The Hair Test

“While I don’t have a degree in library science,” I reasoned in a cover letter, “I possess both the skills and motivation to be a successful prison librarian.” This was résumé talk. The truth: I had never stepped foot in a prison nor worked as a librarian. Until I’d come across the listing, I hadn’t even known such a job existed.

I was interviewed by three people. The director of the prison’s Education Department—which sounded ominous to me—the union boss, and the head of personnel.

The blunt questions came from the union boss, Charlie (pronounced the Boston way,
Chah
lie).

“Where’d you grow up?” he asked.

“A bit in Cleveland,” I said, “but mostly in Boston.”

“Oh yeah, where?”

“Cambridge.”

His eyes narrowed. “Cambridge,” he said, “is
not
Boston.”

Coming from a man raised in the Irish projects of Dorchester, a proud union man, this comment had a particular resonance: he was calling me out as a child of Cambridge privilege who either didn’t know the difference between an Ivy League enclave and the big working-class city or, worse, was posing as a city kid.

“Yeah,” I said, “but we have excellent views of Boston from our condos.”

Charlie seemed to like this answer.

“You know,” he said. “We don’t like newspaper reporters, especially those know-it-alls at the
Globe
. Why should we let you in?”

He said this with a smile. But he was serious. And it was a good question. I danced around it and mentioned that, having recently quit reporting on living people, I didn’t pose too much of a threat.

After Charlie finished his routine, the head of the Education Department presented me with some scenarios and asked how I would deal with each one. The answer was the same each time: I’d defer to the security personnel.

“We need team players here,” she said.

“I could do that,” I replied, realizing immediately that my answer subtly revealed a deeper truth, a psychological insight that, until that point, I myself had only faintly acknowledged: I’m not much of a team player.

Finally, we reached the last question.
Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you?

I tried not to allow my eyes to widen before this delicious feast of a question. There were so many possibilities. Did they want to know that I read
Cat Fancy
magazine? That my feet are flat and duck-like? That my initials are A.S.S.? Were they angling at something specific? Were they asking if I’m gay? A Zionist? I decided not to chance a reply. Instead mustered up a “No, I think that just about covered everything.”

This seemed to do the trick. I was told the position—which included working as a librarian and a creative writing teacher—was mine. That is, on condition my background check was clean and that I passed a drug test.

“No problem,” I said.

And I had thought it wasn’t. But, as it turned out, I was wrong. I realized after the interview that my pre-wedding smoke with Yoni—roughly two months earlier—would most certainly pose a problem.

What would happen if I failed the drug test? This wasn’t a typical employer. It was, after all, the Sheriff’s Department. The guy who’d sold Yoni the marijuana might be sitting in a cell in this very prison. I had a bad feeling about this.

When the head of personnel called to discuss benefits and payment plans she asked me point blank, “Are you going to pass this test?”

“Yes,” I replied reflexively, “of course.”

How did she know to ask
, I wondered. Was there something about me? The nefarious moptop? Did she really want to discuss this issue openly? Blissfully ignorant of the prison’s internal investigative division, and their habit of tapping phone conversations, I decided to level with her, thinking perhaps she’d give me a break.

“Well,” I said, “I did … smoke. Once. I mean most recently, a while ago though—at a party. I mean, it was a wedding, actually. And it was obviously
before
the wedding. The party at the wedding, I mean.” I winced. “But that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Dead silence.

“Hello?” I said.

“It’s a heya tess,” she said finally.

On the phone, and thrown off balance, I was having trouble with the Boston brogue.

“A what?” I asked.

I heard her sigh. She didn’t want to discuss this further.

“Heya tess,” she said and quickly changed the subject to dental plan options.

That night I searched online for information on drug screening. Within two clicks, I understood that the woman from personnel had been trying to tip me off: I was facing a
hair test
. I delved into the minutiae of this screening method. In addition to being alarmingly accurate, it also covered a longer period of time than the imprecise, tamper-prone urinalysis. Apparently hair, even more than urine, is articulate of its master’s misdeeds.

This didn’t surprise me. I’d always held quiet beliefs about hair, vague but persistent suspicions of a treacherous, even demonic, aspect, the more sinister for its allure. It grows beautifully even though it’s dead. That’s creepy. I’d always sensed it wasn’t to be trusted.

Now was the time to act. The incriminating data was hidden at a certain point in every strand of hair on my head. I had to locate, then remove, evidence—a wonderful start to a job at the Sheriff’s Department. There was only one surefire way to accomplish this: to shave my head completely. But I’d been taught etiquette, and it was bad manners to arrive at a hair test with no hair. I’d have to take a risk, tell Manny the barber to go as short as possible, and hope the evidence ended up on the floor of his shop.