In the Sanctuary of Outcasts (2 page)

Daddy is going to camp.
That’s what I told my children. A child psychologist suggested it. “Words like
prison
and
jail
conjure up dangerous images for children,” she explained.

But it wasn’t camp. It was prison.

“I’m Neil White,” I said, introducing myself to the man in the guardhouse. I smiled. “Here to self-surrender.”

The guard looked at his clipboard, then at my leather bag, then at his watch. “You’re forty-five minutes early.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, standing tall, certain my punctuality would demonstrate that I was not your typical prisoner. The guard pointed to a concrete bench next to the guardhouse and told me to wait.

The grounds were orderly and beautiful. Ancient live oaks, their gnarled arms twisting without direction, lined the grove between the prison and the river levee. The compound—called “Carville” by the U.S. marshal who had assigned me to this prison—was a series of classic revival-style two-story buildings. The walls were thick concrete painted off-white, and each building was connected by a two-story enclosed walkway. Large arched windows covered by thick screens lined the walls. There were no bars on the windows. Nothing but screen between prison and freedom.

Through the windows I saw a man limping in the hallway. He stopped at the last arched window, the one closest to the guardhouse, and looked out. He was a small black man wearing a gentleman’s hat. Through the screen his face looked almost flat. He stood at the window and nodded as if he had been expecting me, so I waved. He
waved back, but something was wrong with his hand. He had no fingers.

I stood and stepped over to the guardhouse. “Is that an inmate?” I asked the guard with the clipboard, motioning toward the man behind the screen.

“Patient,” the guard said.

“A sick inmate?”

“You’ll find out,” he said, and went back to his clipboard.

I looked back for the man with no fingers, but he was no longer at the window. I wondered if he had lost his fingers making license plates or in some kind of prison-industry accident. Or God forbid, in a knife fight. I returned to my bench wondering why he was roaming about instead of locked in a cell.

The prison sat at the end of a narrow peninsula formed by a bend in the Mississippi River, twenty miles south of Baton Rouge. The strip of land was isolated, surrounded by water on three sides. My wife, Linda, and I had driven ninety quiet, tense minutes north from New Orleans. We left the radio off, but neither of us knew what to say. As we passed through the tiny town of Carville, Louisiana, a road sign warned: pavement ends two miles. Just outside the prison gate, I’d stood at the passenger window. Linda looked straight ahead gripping the steering wheel with both hands. I’d leaned in through the window to kiss her good-bye. A cold, short kiss. Then I watched her drive away down River Road until she disappeared around the bend.

As I sat on the bench, waiting for the guard, I resolved again to keep the promises I made to Linda and our children—that I would emerge the same husband, the same father; that I would turn this year into something positive; that I would come out with my talents intact; that I would have a plan for our future.

A guard in a gray uniform drove toward me in a golf cart. He stopped in front of the bench and stepped out of the cart. A tall, muscular black man, he must have stood six feet, four inches. A long silver key chain rattled when he walked.

“I’m Kahn,” he said.

I introduced myself and held out my hand. He looked at it and said, “I know who you are.”

I put my hand back by my side.

He picked up my British Khaki bag. It was a gift from Linda and a reminder of better times. I had packed shorts and T-shirts, tennis shoes, socks, an alarm clock, five books, a racquetball racket, and assorted toiletries, as if I were actually going to camp. Kahn tossed the bag in the cart and told me to get in.

We drove down a long concrete road that ran along the right side of the prison adjacent to a small golf course, and I wondered if inmates were allowed to play. We passed at least ten identical buildings that looked like dormitories. The two-story enclosed hallways that connected each building formed a wall surrounding the prison. The place was enormous. Enough room for thousands, I guessed.

I had done my research on prisons. Not as an adult, but in high school. I had been captain of my debate team. I understood the pros and cons of capital punishment, mandatory minimum sentencing, drug decriminalization, bail reform, and community-service sentences. I won the state debate championship advocating drug trials on convicts. I argued with great passion that testing new medications on federal prisoners would expedite the FDA’s seven-year process to prove drug safety and efficacy, that the financial drain on taxpayers would be greatly reduced, and that these tests would give inmates an opportunity to earn money, pay restitution, and seek redemption, while thousands of innocent lives would be saved. When I was debating the merits of drug testing on prisoners, I never dreamed that I might someday be one.

Kahn stopped the golf cart at the last of the white buildings. He grabbed my bag as if it were his own now, and we entered through a metal door. The walls were newly painted, and the floor was well polished and shone like Kahn’s shaved head. I walked behind him down a narrow hallway, and he pulled the chain from his pocket. He unlocked a door marked R & D. My heart skipped, and I felt panic coming on as we stepped inside.

Except for a wooden table, the room was empty. Kahn threw my leather bag on the concrete floor, positioned himself behind the table, and assumed a military stance.

“Front and center!” he commanded. I wasn’t sure where to move. He put his hands on the table, leaned toward me, and yelled, “I said
front
and
center
!”

I stepped between the table and the wall and stood still facing him. I didn’t want him to have to repeat himself again.

“Strip down,” he said. I removed my shirt, pants, and shoes and took off my watch. I lifted each foot and pulled off my socks. “All of it,” Kahn said.

I removed my underwear and dropped it on the floor. The concrete was cold on my feet. I held my hands at my side, but I wanted to cover my front. Once an athlete, I now sagged. My ritual of rich business lunches—seafood appetizers, fettuccini Alfredo, filet mignon with béarnaise, and chocolate decadence—coupled with an abundance of red wine at night had added forty pounds. Kahn rattled off a set of commands.
Lift your left arm. Now, your right. Bend forward, run your fingers through your hair
. After each command, Kahn paused and examined the exposed area. He continued.
Lift your penis. Lift your scrotum. Turn around. Face the wall. Lift your left foot. Now, your right. Bend over. Spread your cheeks
.

I glanced over my shoulder to make certain I had heard correctly.

“Bend over,” he repeated, irritated, “and spread your cheeks.”

I bent over and placed my hands on each side of my buttocks. I slowly pulled them apart. As I held my position, I felt blood rush to my face. I felt humiliated. I looked at Kahn through my legs. “You know,” I said, “I won the DAR Citizenship Award in high school.”

Kahn remained expressionless. I had hoped to disarm him, make him laugh so he would see I was not like the other men here, but he wasn’t interested in my attempts at humor. He finally turned away and tossed a green shirt and a pair of green pants on the floor. I straightened myself up and examined my new uniform. The pants were too small, and the shirt was horribly wrinkled.

The suits and shirts I had worn on the outside were always pro
fessionally pressed. A perfect outward appearance, I believed, would accurately reflect the quality of my work and assure clients that my attention to detail had no boundaries.

“Do you have an iron?” I asked Kahn as I held up the shirt, examining its poor condition and missing buttons.

Kahn didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me. Instead he opened my bag, turned it upside down, and emptied the contents onto the table. He quickly sorted through my belongings, tossing to the floor items he said would be sent home. The items he kept on the table would stay with me. He held the stack of books I’d packed and told me to pick two.

I’d brought along some southern classics I had never made time to read—
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole,
Good Old Boy
by Willie Morris, and
The Moviegoer
by Walker Percy—but two other books were more important to me.

Every year, beginning with my eighth birthday, I could count on one Christmas gift from my father: a copy of
The Guinness Book of World Records
. From the world’s fastest human to the tallest radio tower, from the wealthiest family to the largest blue whale, from the most consecutive jumps on a pogo stick to the world’s biggest pancake, the people in the pages of the Guinness book were not ordinary. These individuals had status and prominence and immortality. They were one of a kind.

More than anything else, I’d wanted to be listed in the book. But I had a few early setbacks. My pogo stick got stuck at jump 2,009 when the oil burned off the pole. My growth spurt hadn’t taken off like Robert Wadlow’s, so I had to face the fact that I might not grow to surpass eight feet, eleven inches. And while practicing to break the world-record discus throw—a record I just knew was within my reach—I sent a two-pound weight through the back windshield of my mother’s car.

For me, everything was a race. I raced against a clock when I mowed our lawn or held my breath underwater or scarfed down food. I was completely unconcerned with the
exact
record I would break, as long as I ultimately accomplished one act, one conquest that no other human had ever achieved.

I told Kahn I would keep
The Guinness Book of World Records
. I chose the Bible as my second book because I had hidden photographs of Little Neil and Maggie in the back.

With a metal-tipped vibrating device, Kahn etched something on the back of my wristwatch—a Christmas gift from Linda and the kids. Kahn tossed the watch back to me. “03290-043”—my inmate number—was scratched on the back.

“Do you have any money?” he asked.

I had a $20 bill in the side pocket of my bag. “Paper money is contraband. Inmates can only have coins,” he explained and handed me two rolls of quarters. He started toward the door. I couldn’t let him go without asking about the sign on the door. “Research and Development?”

Kahn looked confused and annoyed. “Receiving and Discharge,” he answered.

“But I saw a patient earlier,” I said. “What kind of—”

“Hansen’s disease,” Kahn interrupted, walking toward the door. Without looking back, he added, “It used to be called leprosy.”

Kahn left the room and locked the door behind him.

Leprosy. Kahn had to be wrong. Surely, healthy people—even inmates—would not be imprisoned with lepers. But that
would
explain the man with no fingers. Everybody knew lepers’ body parts fell off. Or maybe Kahn was just beginning the mind games I’d seen guards use in movies to break prisoners.

A nurse rushed into the room and opened two folding chairs. She told me to sit at the table, and she asked me a series of routine questions about drug use, smoking, chronic diseases, and depression, to which I answered no.

“Any family history of mental illness?” she asked.

I hesitated. “Define mental illness.”

The nurse suggested I tell her about any family members who might fall into that category, so I explained about my great-aunt, who bought seventy pairs of shoes in a single day before she was committed, and about my grandmother, who did a couple of stints in the state mental hospital and then ran for president, twice—

The nurse interrupted. “Of the United States?”

“Yes,” I told her, “but it all happened when she was off her medication.” Then I mentioned that my mother sees auras and claims to have been Mary, Queen of Scots in a former life.

She interrupted again. “I’m going to mark this yes.”

When she finished, I asked if there were really lepers living here.

“They prefer to be called Hansen’s disease patients,” she said. “But, yes, about 130 live here.”

I asked if they were contagious and if we ever got close to them
and, if so, was there some way to get transferred to another prison. The nurse cut me off and said I’d hear all about it at admission and orientation.

My mind raced as she collected her paperwork. I could recover from a year in prison, but I couldn’t put my life back together with a missing hand or a deformed face. That would be like a life sentence. If I caught leprosy, I would lose my family, never be able to get close to Neil and Maggie. I was frantic, but I had no way of letting anyone know what was happening to me. I was completely helpless.

I gathered the two books and the few clothes Kahn let me keep. Then the nurse escorted me to a hallway and gave me directions to my room. It seemed strange that I’d been left to wander around without a guard or escort.

The hallway smelled like my grandmother Richie’s farmhouse, that earthy scent of dust in a closet that had been closed up for years.

Arched windows lined the elevated hallway that went on as far I could see. The sunlight, tinted by thick screens, threw bands of symmetrical amber light against the wall, like dozens of sepia tombstones waiting to be engraved.

The hallways formed a quadrangle, and inside was a lush, almost tropical, courtyard with banana trees and mimosas, oaks and azaleas. It was not at all what I imagined a prison would be like. It felt tranquil, like a beautiful island paradise I’d expect to find in Hawaii.

Through the screen I saw inmates shooting basketballs, tossing horseshoes, and walking around a concrete track. I heard soft chatter and laughing and the sharp snap of dominoes hitting a table.

I walked out into the courtyard. The crowns of the buildings were contoured with extravagant sculptured designs and plaster cornucopia scrolls. The pungent smell of fresh-cut grass reminded me of the slow summer days of my childhood.

Men were lounging in the shade. Some were dressed in khaki uniforms, others in green like mine. Some of the men were old; others looked not much past their teens. A few were in wheelchairs. There were blacks, whites, and Hispanics. At one table sat four of the most obese men I’d ever seen in person. They were playing dominoes. They
didn’t look much smaller than Robert Earl Hughes, the world’s fattest man, whose photo I had studied at night in
The Guinness Book of World Records
.

Three men were sunbathing on a shuffleboard court. Another man was zipping around the grass on a small, motorized four-wheeler pulling a trailer full of garbage bags. He drove the vehicle in my direction and stopped in front of me. He turned off the engine and let out a loud howl like a coyote.

“You know they got lepers here, don’t you?” he said.

“I’ve heard.”

“And you’re a convict, right?” he asked.

“I guess so.”

The man smiled and said, “Then that makes you a lepercon!” He laughed, threw his head back, and howled again. Then he cranked the engine and drove up a ramp and into a hallway.

I noticed a few inmates looking my way, so I hurried up the ramp and into the hallway that led to my dorm.

As I walked down the corridor, holding everything I now owned in my arms, an elderly black woman in an antique, hand-cranked wheelchair rolled toward me. Two long, vertical chains ran from the handles to each wheel. She cranked the wooden handles like a child pushed pedals on a bike. With each crank, the wheels on her chair turned. The skin on her hands was shiny and cracked. She wore a turquoise striped dress that hung from the seat of her chair like a wrinkled curtain. She had no legs.

With each churn of the handle, with each rotation of her hand, the wheelchair moved closer to me. The woman’s eyes were bright in contrast to her dark sockets. Her hair was silver and black. Her fingers gripped tightly around the wooden handles. With each crank the wheelchair wavered. Her earrings swayed with the tempo.

This was a prison for men, which meant she wasn’t an inmate. And she certainly wasn’t a nurse or a guard. I made eye contact and smiled like I might have to a beggar in the French Quarter. I took satisfaction in being polite to the down-and-out. Had I encountered this woman on the street, I might have stuffed a few bills in her cup,
but here, I was wary of getting too close. She smiled and looked me directly in the eye. I stepped to the side of the walkway to make room for her to pass, took in as much air as possible, and held my breath. I had perfected a technique in elementary school when my teacher, Ms. Cauthen, who had terrible halitosis, would lean over my desk. I would hold my breath and put on a tight-lipped smile. When she moved away from my desk, I would cover my mouth with my shirtsleeve to filter the air and escape from the particles I imagined she had left behind.

I held my breath and smiled at the old woman, hoping to mask my apprehension. Slowly, she cranked her way down the corridor. Passing me she chanted, “There’s no place like home.” Her voice was worn-out, but sweet. I stood perfectly still and said nothing. Once she passed and could no longer see me, I put my belongings on the floor, covered my mouth with my shirtsleeve, and exhaled. I stood in the hallway with my mouth covered. She chanted again, “There’s no place like home.” I watched her slowly roll away and disappear around the corner.