Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian by Avi Steinberg Read Free Book Online Page A

with the metal detector. He kept a well-worn book of Zen Buddhist philosophy at his post.
    It was the three o’clock shift change. Large groups of officers came and went, ribbing each other loudly, dodging children who were running around, doing silly dances, playing hide and seek, while their mothers or grandmothers sat by nervously. The children seemed intimately acquainted with the prison lobby, well-versed in the fun-making dimensions built into the wide pillars. This was, I gathered, where they waited to see daddy or mommy.
    A few officers stood nearby, next to a No Fumar sign by the front steps, puffing cigarettes and ogling women. Speaking in semi-code, they gossiped about union matters.
    “Hey, ya hear Fitzy’s taking some heat?”
    “Really? For …”
    “Yup, that.”
    “No shit?”
    “Yah, no shit is right  …”
    Both laughed.
    An officer approached me with a message. The boss was skipping our meeting. He told me to follow him. What was going on? Had my boss seen my crew cut on a closed-circuit security TV and decided I was a criminal? And if so, where was I being led? I followed the officer, though not without trepidation, into a back hallway. He directed me to some guy named O’Shea, who would administer the hair test. Nothing was wrong—the boss was merely overbooked. I would be spared the awkward encounter.
    The hall led to the clubhouse of Local 419, the officers’ union. It had vending machines, an empty lounge with a giant sheriff’s badge painted on the wall, and a TV that beamed in a daytime talk-show in which a studio audience scrutinized a messy family drama.
    Further on were unmarked offices, men’s and women’s locker rooms. A transistor radio blasted classic rock from an unoccupied weight room. A glass trophy case displayed artifacts and photos from the old prison at Deer Island: a dusty set of nineteenth-century-era handcuffs, shackles—both of which called to mind Harry Houdini—an old-fashioned mug shot number sign, a billy-club and tear gas canister from the neolithic age. Nearby, plaques honored officers from the prison who were serving in the wars. And next to that, a handwritten sign: Inmates do only as much as you let them .
    I waited a few minutes in front of O’Shea’s office, cap in hand. There was no turning back now. Finally, the door swung open and a large man with a buzz cut and a mischievous smirk emerged. He winked at me and said “g’ luck” as he walked by. He’d just taken the hair test himself.
    The office was cramped, though there was nothing in it. O’Shea was a short, aggrieved man. After a quick how y’doin’ , he took a few snips of my hair, and sealed it in an envelope. It was an oddly intimate gesture, like he was taking a lock of my hair as a romantic keepsake. Perhaps that was why the conversation turned to sports. We reviewed the Red Sox’s prospects. O’Shea was openly disdainful of my optimism.
    “I don’t care what they did last year,” he told me, referring to the Sox World Series title. “They’re still the Red Sox and they’ll always fold in the clutch. Any asshole can get lucky once in a while.”
    Sitting in that office, anxious and radically shorn, I readily agreed. I myself was just such an asshole, hoping to get lucky this once.
    T wo weeks of low-grade dread passed. Finally I got a phone call from personnel. I was to begin ASAP, she said. There was no more talk about the hair test, no congratulations, you passed the drug screening! It was official. I was now on the side of angels. The Po-Po. The Fuzz. The Heat. The Big Blue Machine.
    The transformation was immediate. Over the weekend, I couldn’t help spinning around quickly, scowling into a mirror and saying, “I’m with Johnny Law.” Or simply, “Whada you lookin’ at?” This act was first performed for the benefit of my girlfriend, Kayla. But pretty soon I was doing it all alone, for the benefit of no one.
    “I heard that,” Kayla shouted from the next room,