Sweet Hell on Fire by Sara Lunsford Read Free Book Online Page B

could have been paper on both sides, but there wasn’t, and I haven’t had any issue with that inmate since the interaction. I think it was a great opportunity for risk reduction.”
    He seemed to chew this over for some time. He asked me more questions, but I knew even though he may not have liked my methods that I’d said the right words. Risk reduction . That’s what everyone was about, and it looked really good on paper.
    Then he told me that the OIC had already told him that he wanted me for the post. He said he still had a few more people to interview, but as it stood, he wanted me for the post too. It was vital that they both wanted me. The OIC, a first sergeant, was in charge of everything security related in the cell house, but the Unit Team Manager was responsible for all administrative matters.
    I was elated. Something was going right.
    Until later that night after shift when I was standing out in the parking lot across the street from the prison, where we’d gather to bitch and complain, generally letting off steam before going home.
    My engine overheated, and my piece-of-shit Camry burst into flame.

The next day the friend who was supposed to pick me up for work forgot, and I didn’t have enough money to call a cab or any minutes on my cell phone. So I had to hoof it about a mile up the street to the nearest pay phone. I had fifty cents to my name. Enough to make one phone call.
    I called my husband so he could come and get me when he got off his shift at the prison, and so he could also call the Captain and tell him I was going to be late and why. I wasn’t worried about how that would affect my career because I was usually a consistent employee and accepted overtime shifts and extra responsibilities.
    It turned out to be another tower day and halfway through the shift, my oldest daughter called. She was elated. She’d started her period.
    We talked about it; I asked her if she had any questions. I made a big deal about it being a good and positive thing. Told her I’d buy her something special to celebrate and we’d have a grown-up dinner out together. When we hung up, I cried like a little bitch.
    I was missing so much of her life working this second shift (2–10) and living as we were. I didn’t see any other avenue for us though. That made it worse. I felt trapped in this mess I’d made trying to get out of the other mess I’d made of my life. It was a vicious circle.
    But I plugged it up. It was prison. I was behind the walls, and my personal bullshit had no place there. Even hanging out by myself up in the tower, as it were.

The husband took me to lunch so we could talk about the kids, but invariably, the conversation turned to The Job. When we were together, no subject had ever been taboo, and with both of us working there, it was the natural progression of the conversation.
    Tensions, rumors, his snitches, my snitches, and just what was going on in general. More caches of shanks had been found. Some in cells, some on the yard. Guys were hoarding newspapers and magazines they weren’t supposed to have, and, in most cases, they’d use it for armor. Numbers were up in Seg, with inmates doing stupid shit to get in there. Inmates who were normally no problem were walking up to officers out of the blue and threatening to shank them. Why? It’s a check-in move designed to take them out of population and into protective custody but without looking like a pussy or spilling whatever information they have.
    Some of the brass would have frowned on us and this conversation. Talking about all of this stuff outside of work was in effect “taking it home.” In training, they tell us not to take it home. That’s universal throughout corrections. My father was a federal corrections officer, and he never brought it home. He never told me anything about what happened at work beyond what I absolutely had to know, until I did The Job myself.
    As a kid, there was almost a whole year in which I didn’t see