Disillusion...

Disillusion: to cause to lose naive faith and trust

Meet my co-workers: NY; H; D

I've been working with the two men standing every day for the past 7 months. Mr. H is relatively new. They come down and pack the bags for delivery. I take them to and from the cell block. I go get their lunch. We bull shit together. I listen to their stories. I listen to their hopes and dreams as well as their mistakes and failure. I've grown especially close to NY & D.

Today, while sitting right back behind where NY is standing to the left, counting inventory, two officers proceeded to come back and handcuff all three of them. No words except "cuff em". The young guy in the middle said "what's this all about"? No answer. For some reason, my favorite: D said "may I take a bowel movement before I go?" No answer. Straight up to 8 South.

Without even moving out of my chair, I just watched. I don't think my mouth was hanging open because of the seriousness of all of it. In a minute, I was able to move and walked in to ask Pam what the hell just happened. She said it was something about phone cards being stolen.

D had been saying earlier to me, that a guy up on 8S was running off at the mouth about commissary workers stealing stuff. I didn't pay much attention. Then we saw 2 officers come in, talk to Pam and then leave. Then two different ones. Then the ones that walked straight back and took my buddies away.

After talking to Pam, I walked back, picked up my clipboard and immediately burst into tears. I didn't know she was behind me. She said don't worry, it's going to be okay. "Can you take this check to custody release"? Wipe tears, Debbie. Walk out the door. Keep working, I told myself.

Yesterday, I had broke the loose rules and gone and gotten them chicken for lunch from the Officer's Dining Room. They deserved it for all the hard work with Inventory and keeping the warehouse organized. I got in a little trouble, but wth.

I have always trusted people until I had a reason not to. Just because these guys are in jail, does not mean I can't trust them. They are human beings. We have mutual respect going on here. I don't even take this personally. The middle guy is due to get out in April (some DUI probation violation). NY was supposed to be in court this week, but a murder trial took priority. He was talking about what he's going to do when he gets out. D's court date was postponed yet again because he won't take a plea.

We now have to change our entire procedures. I've been tapped to develop a computer inventory of the phone cards. We can't prop our door open any more. You have to unlock it to go in and out. It goes on and on. The phone cards are under lock and key, but anyone with a brain can watch and see where the key is. Big duh. The only way to do it would be to wait till we went to the bathroom. Many times there is only one of us down there.

By the end of the afternoon, they had cleared two of the guys. One of them had a foot locker full of food and has never had any money put in his account. A lot of guys give their stuff away when they leave. All 3 had access to food ALL day. They had permission to eat the out of date stuff. I had my idea of who it was and according to the results...unproven...I was wrong.

This has blown me away.

Can you tell by looking at them which one is NOT coming back down tomorrow?