Undue Familiarity

Every now and then it's bound to happen, even though it isn't supposed to, and there's nothing to do about it but stuff it down where it belongs and live within the scope of policy.

I met a young man at work several months ago. He's the barber on I Block. He is soft-spoken and wears Muslim head dress that brightens the medium custody brown he wears, has always been respectful of staff and others, as far as I have seen. There's something gentle about him that does not belong within the confines of razor wire and concrete. And yet, he committed an act that landed him there.

We speak in the hallway. Occasionally, we talk in the park area just off of Central. Once, the conversation concerned pinto bean pie, and just yesterday, we spoke of the weather. He told me about Hurricane Hugo, how he hunkered down under a table in a restaurant, and while all else around him was blown about, the table stayed steady and he was safe. He told me about last year's tornado that was the cause of 500 pairs of soiled underwear at the facility, spoke of the power of nature shearing limbs from trees like a high powered chainsaw, yet it didn't touch him.

I told him - you'll just have to spend the rest of your sentence here. Sounds like you're awfully lucky! He laughed and agreed that a higher power was waching over him.

And then he went his quiet and unobtrusive way.

If it had not been for the crime he committed, we never would have had yesterday's encounter. And certainly, I will not seek him out for conversation. Policy justly calls for separation between staff and inmates. Yet we're thrown together, sometimes. And sometimes, observation tells more than what color clothes a person wears and why. No, we wouldn't have met had he not been in prison - I don't know when his sentence is up, but perhaps it is soon, and if it means he'll  make it on the outside with that gentleness he exhibits, I hope I never see him again.