My father looks directly upward and takes one last look at the prisoners. Ghosts don’t go away that easy.
Inside the building, a thick-necked guard with a triangular face and delicate, spindly fingers stares down from a podium. “ID, please,” he says as we’re blinded by the sea-foam green walls and matching sea-foam tile floor of the waiting area. I’m assuming the colors were picked because they somehow soothe the savage beast. But as my dad fidgets with his wallet, fighting for his ID, it’s clearly not doing its job.
“We’re from the Historical Society,” I tell the guard as I hand over the two IDs we used to get on the plane. “We do the society’s book donations, and—”
“I’m sorry, can I help you?” a woman in a flat midwest accent calls out. She’s got boyish Buster Brown hair, a long knit skirt, and the strongest, most painful handshake I’ve ever received. “Ann Maura Spencer, prison librarian,” she adds as I spot the bright orange Chuck Taylor sneakers peeking out below her skirt. “They said you were from the Historical Society?”
“We do book donations,” I clarify. “And since we donate so many titles here—”
“Which we appreciate so much,” Ann Maura says.
“And we’d love to keep doing it,” I tell her. “That’s why we set up the appointment.” I stare straight at her, smiling like she should understand.
“I—I’m sorry,” she offers. “What appointment are we talking about?”
“To visit the library. Y’know, to see where all our books are going—to make sure your facilities can deal with and distribute them so we can keep—” I cut myself off. “No one told you we were coming, did they?”
“Oh, I bet you spoke to Elliot. In the morning, was it?”
“It was definitely early,” I say.
“That’s Elliot. He’s kinda—” She forces a laugh. “He kinda flounders with details.”
We all laugh together.
“Listen, we didn’t mean to catch you unprepared,” I say. “Why don’t we come back next week when you’re all ready for us?”
“No, don’t be silly—we’re ready—of course we’re ready,” she promises. Even the world’s toughest prison knows better than to disappoint one of its biggest donors.
I look at my dad, then back to Ann Maura. “You sure?”
“Positively.” Turning to the guard, she adds, “Kellis, can I get two passes, please?”
Up on his podium, the guard who’s still holding our IDs is now staring down at them. There’s a small laptop in front of him. Here’s where the fire starts to singe some skin. For most prison visitors, he’d do a LEADS check, putting us in the Law Enforcement Automated Data System to discover exactly who we are. But I know for a fact that most prisons don’t have the time to run it on every single delivery that comes through the door. Best of all, he’s heard our conversation. He knows we’re not here to see inmates. We’re here to see books.
So why isn’t he handing back our IDs?
The guard hits a button on his laptop, and I feel drops of sweat rolling down my stomach. He squints at his screen, and I swear it takes every muscle in my face to hold my grin.
“Here you go,” the guard says, passing us our IDs as he stuffs them into two visitor passes with small cutout holes for our ID photos. “And thanks for the donations. The inmates really appreciate them.”
“I assume you left all your weapons at home?” Ann Maura laughs, pointing us toward an X-ray machine and a walk-through metal detector.
“Always do,” I tease, forcing another laugh and tossing my car keys onto the conveyor.
We’re moving quickly now—even my father’s excitedly keeping up—which is why I can’t help but hesitate. Last time things went this well was when Naomi ambushed us at the museum. I look back at the guard, who tosses me a friendly nod. In front of us, we bypass the elevators and the standard visitors entrance. Instead, we walk through a narrow doorway and stop at a thick steel door that could easily do the job at a bank vault.
“Step in,” Ann Maura says.
There’s a soft pneumatic hiss behind us, and I realize we’re in another sally port. From out of the wall, a matching steel door slides sideways, all set to seal us in this small, five-foot-long, bright white space.
My father motions to our left, and I spot the mirrored wall. Two-way glass. The key question is, who’s watching?
Behind us, the back door slides shut, clicking with the cold thunk of a meat locker. The sound echoes like the first clods of dirt hitting a fresh coffin.
This isn’t like the chain-link fence outside. With that back door shut, we’re officially in prison. Next to me, my father is as green as the fluorescent lighting.
“Say cheese,” Ann Maura says, tapping a finger against the two-way glass. “Just hold up your badges for the control center.”
As we do, my dad can barely lift his ID. I’m worried he’s about to pass out.
“I know . . . it can be a bit intimidating,” Ann Maura adds as she presses her palm into a hand scanner and waves her own ID. “What’s odd is how easily you get used to it.”
There’s another pneumatic hiss as the metal door in front of us slowly, slowly slides sideways, disappearing into the wall and revealing a long concrete hallway that runs down to our right. I’ve never been so happy to see sea-foam green in my life.
“And here’s our little island of literary freedom,” Ann Maura sings, stopping at room number H-277. The sign on the door says, “OSPLibrary.” “Now what can I show you first?”
“Whatever you like,” I reply.
My father’s not nearly as patient. He steps into the room, already eyeing the bookshelves. “Where do you keep your Bibles?”
74
Oh, believe me, we can always use Bibles,” Ann Maura says as we follow her through the prison library, which is centered around a large uncluttered worktable, with tall bookshelves lining all four walls and a small glass office in the far corner. Like the hallways, the room is a cheery, maddening sea-foam green, but as I look back to my dad, he can’t take his eyes off the library’s oddest pieces of decor: a collection of soda cans, bedsprings, peanut-butter jars, an empty spool of thread, a tiny cassette-tape motor, a set of chocolate Tootsie Roll Pop lollipops, a moon-shaped horn that soldiers used to carry gunpowder in, a rusted cigarette case, a zebra-print animal skin, and even rabbit ears from an old TV, all of which are glued directly to the wall and run like a junkyard border above the tops of the bookcases.
“What’re those?” my father asks.
She laughs. “The guards call it their trophy case—y’know, all the things they’ve confiscated over the years. See that cassette-tape motor? A prisoner ripped that out of a Walkman to make his own homemade tattoo gun. And those Tootsie Pops? They replaced the lollipops with tiny bags of heroin, then melted new candy around the bag so we wouldn’t find the prize inside. I’m telling you, you wouldn’t believe how viciously crafty these folks get.”
My dad nods. “I can only imagine.”
“Aren’t you worried about keeping the items on the wall?” I ask. “Won’t the prisoners grab them?”
“Oh, no—we don’t allow prisoners in here,” Ann Maura says, which explains why there are no cameras in the room. “With our population—no—we deliver the books directly to their cells.”
On my left, there’s a large industrial sink with two tall piles of paperbacks: one labeled “Clean,” the other “Unclean.”
“Some of the prisoners are a little . . . rough with our collection,” Ann Maura adds.
I look back at the piles. I don’t even want to think about it.
“So do you have enough Bibles for your entire population?” my dad asks as she approaches the reference desk on the right.