The Bomb and the Cage: Doree Anne (2 page)

If I had known this was going to be my last
normal
morning, I might have mixed things up. Skipped my shower and made myself a feast for breakfast, or maybe sleep until the sun rose and woke me from my dreams.

I left my bedroom, my German Sheppard, Bush, followed me to the backdoor. I let him out and watched him run around the yard before going to the bathroom near some rose bushes towards the back of the complex. I never used a leash this early in the morning because no one was ever outside. I breathed in the cool air. It was in these quiet hours that I was happy to be alive. 

After Bush was done, I whistled for him to come back inside, ate a small meal, consisting of two packets of peaches and cream oatmeal with a glass of milk
.
I checked the weather channel. There was a thirty percent chance for rain. After eating, I rinsed my bowl, and put it in the dishwasher.

In the bathroom I brushed my teeth, shaved, showered, and put on some cologne after drying off.

I was Unit Thirty-Two for the
Clearwater Police Department
. It was hard to get a job as a police officer, and I was grateful to not only have been able to afford to go to the academy, but to have gotten a job right out of school. 

I put on my police uniform: dark navy blue pants and shirt. I took great pride in my uniform and always wanted to look my best  because I not only represented myself while I wore this uniform, but I also represented my department, and everything my Country stood for.

I had been living at
Rain Tree Apartments
in
Leefield
for a total of eight months, and so far, I enjoyed living here and it was better than the last few apartment complexes I had stayed in. My apartment was a one bed and one bath duplex; and for a one bedroom, it had more than enough space for Bush and me.

Bush was a K-9 drop out that I saved about two years ago, and he is, by far, the most loyal dog you’d ever find. He was named after President George W. Bush because it was during his presidency the agency received the funding to buy several K-9s. However, instead of buying from a breeder that took care of training and state standards, they bought from someone that sold purebred German Sheppards, and decided to use one of the local dog trainers to train them.

Well, Bush never passed for whatever reason, and my agency started looking for a home for him.  At the time, I had been thinking about getting a dog, so it made perfect sense to take him. They gave me Bush, a large bag of food, and a kennel. We’ve been a family ever since.

Chapter 3

09/18/2004 0740 Hours

C.O. Carlos Mendez

I pulled into the prison parking lot at seven-forty. Twenty minutes before my shift started. It gave me time to get through the gates, grab a cup of coffee and get to my post on time. I got out of the car and was in the process of checking my uniform to make sure my gig line was straight when Nurse Janis pull up to her normal handicap spot only to see that someone had taken it. She pulled out of the front parking lot and pulled over to where I had parked. She slammed on her breaks and got out quickly.

“Mendez, do you know who took my parking spot?” Janis said looking very angry. I was sure she would ask me to find out who parked there. 

“No Janis, I didn't see who parked there.”

“They don't even have a handicap sticker! When you get in will you tell a supervisor so they can tow that piece of crap away?”

“Yes ma’am, I'll make sure to let them know about it.”
I lied
. If I took the time to tell someone, it would take at least ten minutes and I'd never get that cup of coffee that I so desperately needed. It would have been different if Janis would share her fancy brand coffee with me, but I knew she wouldn't. I also knew that even if I did waste my time telling a supervisor, nothing would be done.

The nurse’s station had a coffee machine and every shift shared it but mine. It was just the kind of person she was, nothing against her. I love working in medical with her. She didn't get on to any of the officers that worked there about the way they treated the inmates. Some of the nurses would baby the inmates and watched us to make sure we weren't too rough or mean to them. Janis didn't care as long as we didn't jeopardize her job. This was what made a great Correction Officer. Knowing the rules and enforcing them to the fullest while being fair. If you followed those guidelines, you never had to worry about losing your job.

At the gate I saw the regulars outside waiting. I waved at them and smiled.

“Good morning folks!” I saw Tiffany and her daughter at the front of the line. They were always first in line to see Chris King. Chris King wasn't a terrible guy. He was in my last unit for over a year and never gave me a single problem. I was sure he was afraid that if he missed any visitation by getting in trouble, Tiffany might never come back. He had a ten-year sentence and I was sure the gravity of the situation hadn’t hit Tiffany yet, or maybe it had and their love was strong enough to carry them through.

I had recently gotten my post changed to medical. Before medical, I was assigned to Bravo Dorm. It was the closest dormitory to the front gate and was an open bay unit. Open bay units didn’t have cells in them; instead, they were a large barrack style dorms with metal bunk beds that went the length of the large room. I loved Bravo Dorm; it was quite during the day because they housed all the road crew workers. On most days, it had a head count of a hundred, which was almost fifty less then everywhere else. The good thing about a low head count in a large dorm was they still had to staff it the same. I worked it with C.O. Bryan Willis. Bryan was in his late forties and didn't like change. He had a routine and he stuck to it like glue. When you have a routine, inmates always notice. Inmates will make sure to work around it so contraband was always a problem in that dorm, and would always be a problem, as long as he worked there, which was fine with me because we got along great and never had any problems while we were working. 

It wasn't until after an inmate had written what we called a
Kite
that we were reassigned. A
Kite
is a note to supervisors telling on staff or inmates, a snitch note. You didn't have to put your name on it, inmates could remain anonymous. If an inmate didn't like another inmate, he could plant contraband on him and write a
Kite
. We would have to search him. When we found whatever it was, he’d get a disciplinary report and be placed in confinement.

The
Kite
the inmate wrote on us said there was contraband inside the dorm and
we knew about it; that we were allowing it and also making money off it. It was all a lie. The administration reassigned us for a week and shook down the dorm. They found the contraband exactly where the
Kite
said it would be. This was how things worked in prison. Piss off the right inmate and he can force the admin to move you. Well at least that was how it was in the
Florida Department of Corrections
.

So we were reassigned permanently. Bryan was assigned to the Food
Service, I got Alpha Dorm for a few months, and then when the officer in the medical spot retired, I put in my paperwork to be moved. They couldn't deny me because I had the highest seniority that had requested it. Medical wasn't a bad assignment, it was pretty simple. The infirmary held eight inmates and an isolation section that held an additional three. I never saw the numbers get higher than five but then again I hadn't been working there for more than six months. Flu season was coming and that was when the infirmary would fill up.

I got to the first gate. It buzzed loudly followed by the sound of metal scrapping as it opened. I waited for the gate to completely open before I passed through it.  There were stories of people being caught in the gates. Stories where they unnaturally slammed shut catching people's arms and legs. I didn’t want to be one of those victims that people told stories about.

After clearing the front gate, the next stop was the control room lobby. Inside the brightly lit room was where the staff and visitors were checked in. There was a large white metal detector, which everyone entering the prison had to clear. Everyone always says metal detectors are safe, but if I ever met a manufacture of one, I'd make sure to ask if they were so safe, why did I need to get a new debt card every six months because the magnetic strip would stop reading. If it was strong enough to demagnetize a debit card, what was it doing to me?

I cleared the metal detector and went over to the large Plexiglas window of the control room. There was a slide out metal box, below the window, where the roster is kept. The roster wasn’t in the box so I went around the corner to where the control room door was. I knocked on the small window in the door. A second later, it buzzed and unlocked. I opened the door and stepped inside.

Inside the control room was a section on the wall to the left where the rosters hung for every shift. I looked for today’s roaster and saw it hanging on the wall. I took the clipboard and looked for the medical spot. I ran my index finger along the smooth paper until it came to
C.O. Carlos Mendez
. I hung the clipboard back up and waited a moment for the lock on the door to buzz. I exited and passed through the last door exiting the front lobby. I held up my identification to the large Plexiglas window that wrapped around the outside of the control room facing the compound and Sergeant Fred Robby waved at me from the other side. Fred was almost sixty and would have been retiring next year had he not lost a big chunk of his retirement when the internet bubble busted. It had pushed back his plans until he was at least sixty-five. Fred needed to retire. I was sure his vision was nowhere close to where it needed be for this job. I'd place money on him not even knowing who I was. I guess it didn't matter who I was. I was in the brown
DOC uniform
and going
into
the prison, it only mattered coming out after all. 

When you entered the compound, there was a small building twenty-five yards from the main gate, which is
Staff Dining
. It was painted tan and had with dark green trim and a brown shingle roof like every building here. The roof extended past the front and there were two 4x4s that held the roof up. A few years ago, the wood working shop had made a few of those Adirondack chairs and a few rocking chairs. The chairs were once painted white but they hadn’t been properly primed and the paint had peeled off in several places.

I didn't sit in the rocking chairs; because I had seen one of
CCI's
finest sit in one once. She may have been pushing a hundred-fifty pounds overweight but the chair should still have held her. She was in the process of rocking backwards when the back legs gave way. The sound of the wood cracking made the hair on my neck stick up. She wasn't hurt by the fall but just the look on her face as she was falling backwards would forever scare me away from rocking chairs.

I entered staff dining and the moment I opened the door I was greeted by the warm familiar smell of bacon on the griddle. Staff dining opened up at seven and closed a little after midnight seven days a week. The inmate on the morning shift was Felix Jones a large 6'4” black male in his late forties who was sentenced to prison for five years for possession of cocaine. He was a friendly guy who was a master of the griddle. He also cut hair and shined boots on the weekends for any employee. It was a dollar for either and it wasn't the best haircut or boot shine you could get, but for the money, you couldn't beat it.

“Good morning Officer Mendez.” Jones said in his deep southern voice.

“How are you this morning Jones?”

“Well I woke up alive, so I'd say I was blessed by our Lord and savior with another day on this Earth.”

I smiled. He sure did have a way with words. There were a lot of inmates in prison that would find Jesus here. However, most of them would leave Jesus where they found him when they got out. Jones was not one of them.

I ordered a large coffee with one cream and three sugars, two slices of buttered toast, and two strips of bacon. Jones smiled and put bread in the toaster and began pouring my cup of coffee.

“You want that bacon between the two slices of toast like normal?”

I nodded and he did just that after the toast was done and buttered.

Jones wrapped my bacon sandwich in a brown paper towel and handed it to me with my coffee; I paid the bill, left staff dining, and walked to medical. I planned to be done with my sandwich by the time I made it there. I never liked eating in medical because of all the inmates that were coughing all over the place. I just always felt dirty in there. Besides, I loved starting my shift with a full stomach and a warm cup of coffee. I didn't know I was going to need it that day in particular. If I had then I might have ordered two sandwiches that morning. Maybe I would have ordered everything on the menu.

Chapter 4

09/18/2004 0744 Hours

Nurse Janis

When I pulled into the prison, I went to my parking spot, the handicap spot right by the gate. I had been parking there for three months, ever since I got my doctor to approve me for a handicap sticker, which by the way wasn’t easy in my situation. I wasn't crippled, just overweight. I was getting older and it was getting harder to get around. When I was twenty, I was only fifty pounds overweight and it was never an issue. However, at forty-three and pushing a hundred-fifty pounds overweight. it was. I also smoked and had bad joints to make things worse. The price I'd have to pay for eating whatever I wanted to.

When I saw that van in my parking spot, I immediately looked for the handicap sticker and of course, there wasn't one.
What a way to start your day. I bet it was a younger person too, someone who was in perfect health. I would look at those visitors real well today; I would make sure that van got towed away. No one parks in my spot without paying the consequences