The Big Hot House
Kate Stone Lombardi
Word Count 1229
Only five guys showed up for the class. Each had a ratty washcloth wrapped around his neck. They were meant to serve as personal cooling devices. But any coolness the cloth once held had long since given way to the building's oppressive heat.
When it's hot outdoors, it's even hotter inside prison.
There is zero circulation, no windows, no fresh air.
I've never been inside a residential cell block, but the guys tell me that even the walls sweat. Air conditioning? Not something taxpayers will ante up for. In Southern states, where indoor temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees, prisoners have claimed that the brutal heat violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
"Don't take it personal," M told me, as his chin indicated the empty chairs in the room. Class attendance is always sparse during the summer, he told me. The guys don't relish walking up the hill to the school building. Many languish in their cells, too hot to move. If there's any sort of breeze, they head to the yard.
The men who had made the trek were all sweating – it gleamed off them. It struck me suddenly that they'd all shaved their heads, even a guy who once sported dreadlocks. It was even too damn hot for hair.
Prison uniforms are a dull green: a heavy long-sleeved shirt with matching pants, constructed out of a polyester and cotton blend. This clothing is designed for durability, not comfort.
Tonight the guys had their trousers rolled up their shins. They'd also removed their long-sleeved tops. Everyone at their desks wore white undershirts, or at least once-white. Now they were various shades of gray, with yellow staining at the armpits.
I had no idea if the men were permitted to remove their green shirts – probably not – but let it go.
As a teacher in a maximum-security facility, I had my own dress code. Absolutely nothing revealing was permitted. I couldn't chance getting refused at a security clearance gate because of a sleeveless shirt or lightweight material that was considered too thin.
Besides, I wouldn't wear a dress or skirt on the inside in any weather. Teachers weren't allowed to wear sandals either – only closed-toe shoes. I'm not sure why.
So I sweated along with the class in my own t-shirt and long pants. Even when choosing those, I had to make sure they weren't green (a security risk, because that's the inmate uniform color) or blue, the color of the corrections officers' uniforms. Avoiding blue wasn't a rule, but an instinct.
Surprisingly, the classroom did have an ancient fan. I wondered about it. Throughout the prison, the lightbulbs – fluorescent tubes or single bulbs – had cages around them. Yet this fan had sharp, metal blades. Was it purposefully overlooked as a security risk? So much inside these walls is a mystery. It's best not to ask.
F had positioned himself directly under the fan. He was always soft-spoken, and with that machine clanking over his head, I couldn't hear anything he said.
J suddenly rose from his chair and walked out of the classroom. He soon returned with water for his dog. The prison had a popular dog training program, and J was working with Lily, a yellow lab. She'd been panting heavily on the floor. Some of these dogs would go on to work in law enforcement, an irony lost on no one. Still, J used a tone of voice when talking to Lily that he used nowhere else.
W was out of sorts because he'd been written up for giving out ice cubes to the men in the mess hall. That counted as an infraction. W didn't want to lose his job. "It doesn't smell too good in the kitchen," he said. "But work is work."
The fan was doing nothing but making noise. At best it pushed hot air around. In the commissary, prisoners could buy what were described as "personal fans" – think handheld. Depending on the prison, the price ran between $15 and $20. To put this in perspective, W was making eight cents an hour at his kitchen job. Prison janitors made twelve cents an hour.
My lesson plan for the night was on writing dialogue. But it felt like we all needed to be transported out of there, at least in our minds. I gave the guys a prompt to write about their favorite place instead.
As quiet – except for that fan – came over the classroom, I also bent over my notebook to write. We only had crap pens to use, because the kind that comes with a spring and a clicker is considered a security risk. Their parts could be remade into a weapon. We use composition notebooks, because spiral notebooks have wire binding. Same issue.
After 25 minutes, I called stop and then the men took turns reading what they'd written. Each of their favorite places harkened back to childhood, a park, a street, an aunt's house.
The piece that struck me the most was written by L. L is a big man – towering and heavyset, with skin almost blue-black. He has an incongruous baby face, with amazing long, curled eyelashes.
L's favorite place was the planetarium, which he'd visited during a school trip in fourth grade. "You leave this world," he wrote. "You see all the stars in the sky. The brightest is the North Star, and if you ever get lost, you just look up, and that's North."
Except L, who is serving a life sentence, will probably never see the North Star. He didn't even see it in fourth grade – just an image of it, painted on the ceiling.
My own favorite place is easy to conjure. A lake in the Adirondack Mountains, where the light dancing on the water always makes me feel like my Dad – gone nine years now – is still with me. I call up the cool, dark water, the rickety, splintered dock, the mountains that ring the lake, covered in pine trees.
Of course, I keep my memories to myself. Sharing them seems an act of cruelty. I'll be returning to the lake later in the summer.
At the end of class, a corrections officer arrives to escort me to the exit. He's also sweating, also in a uniform – his light blue shirt strains over his stomach. He sports black socks and heavy black shoes and a thick bunch of metal keys on his belt. The officers are also locked in the building during their shift.
Leaving the prison involves almost as much security as entering it. Finally, I pass through the last check – holding my hand with the invisible-ink stamp under a purple light that reveals it. I exchange my prison ID for my driver's license at the front gate. Then I walk through the doors out into the night.
Everything changes on the other side of those doors. Even though the evening is humid, the sense of freshness is like a smack in the face. I walk past the fence, where spotlights illuminate the rolls of barbed wire.
From the parking lot, I look up in the sky. I can't see the North Star, or any stars. There's too much light around the facility and the grounds.
I take another big inhale and open my car door. I blast the air conditioner and head home.
Kate is a journalist, author and essayist. For 20 years, she was a regular contributor to The New York Times. Kate’s work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Time.com, Good Housekeeping, Readers Digest, AARP’s “The Ethel” and other national publications. She is the author of The Mama’s Boy Myth (Avery/Penguin), a nonfiction book on raising boys to be good men. www.katestonelombardi.com