it back together again. I was allowed to take a tube of liquid foundation, but not the tampon I’d always kept, just in case, in a pink plastic holder in a zippered pocket of my purse. Roll-Over handed me a key so I could leave the tampon in a locker. “Safety measure,” he said. “Inmate could suicide himself by choking on one.”
I passed through the metal detector and then waited while Bonnie went into the room marked No Entry StaffOnly. Surely they weren’t accusing Treat of making any more trouble? When Bonnie reappeared, the matron popped her head out of her office and handed me a Kotex maxi-pad, to replace the contraband tampon, I guessed. No inmate, evidently, would try suiciding himself with a sanitary napkin.
The snow fell harder as we walked between buildings. Mr. Saygrover saw Bonnie and waved us through the glass doors into his office, where a notice read, “Tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of interest.” A leaning tower of files stamped Classified was stacked on his gunmetal desk.
“Feeling bad just isn’t good enough for some people—they got to make everyone else feel bad too.” He indicated the files. “They send me all this from the warden’s office … all these complaints. This one’s toast is too hard. That one’s toilet paper’s not soft enough. This one’s mattress has teeth marks on it. I tell you.”
Mr. Saygrover shuffled through his paperwork until he found what he was looking for: release forms in triplicate for Bonnie to sign.
Bonnie began crying again, and Mr. Saygrover looked embarrassed. He patted her on the back, offered her a fresh piece of Kleenex. He looked at me, helplessly.
I said I was going to get a cup of coffee from the machine.
“Get one for me too. Extra sugar and whitener, if you don’t mind.” Mr. Saygrover reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. “Here you go. It’s on me.”
When I returned with the coffee, Bonnie had gone to the washroom. Mr. Saygrover told me no one “higher up”had given permission for the body to be released, so Treat would be laid to rest in the prison cemetery. “That way, we can keep an eye on him.” He winked at me.
I asked if it would be possible to arrange to have his body flown back to his last address, which was Bella Bella.
Mr. Saygrover shook his head. “Too late now. You got to plan ahead.”
Mr. Saygrover sniffed his coffee, then asked if I wanted to see the autopsy report. I nodded, and he handed me a file marked Confidential. He hadn’t started out as a visitor’s and correspondence officer, he told me—years ago he’d taken a St. John’s Ambulance course at the YMCA, which had qualified him to work on the daily sick line. He’d wired more jaws, sewn more torn anuses, he said, than you could shake a stick at. But never, in all his years at the infirmary, had he seen anything as sick as this.
“I’d like to get my hands on the individual that did this.” No charges had yet been laid, Mr. Saygrover said—the “incident” was under investigation.
Treat, who had been discharged from the infirmary at the beginning of March, shortly after the Corazóns had been let out of segregation and back into the population, had received a wedding gift: a stainless-steel cutlery set, pilfered from the prison kitchen. Knives, forks, even the dessert spoons had been driven into his flesh. His rectum had first been carved out with a knife to permit the entry of “an object larger than the normal man,” though the report didn’t specify what kind of object, or what part of a normal man.
I held the photograph in my hands, thinking Treat looked like a piece of performance art with all that cutlerysticking out of him. I was ashamed of myself, too, for wanting to laugh. Looking back, I believe I was anaesthetized by shock. I told Mr. Saygrover I didn’t think Bonnie needed to see the report, or the photograph; he put it away in a file before she came back into his office.
All Treat’s
I passed through the metal detector and then waited while Bonnie went into the room marked No Entry StaffOnly. Surely they weren’t accusing Treat of making any more trouble? When Bonnie reappeared, the matron popped her head out of her office and handed me a Kotex maxi-pad, to replace the contraband tampon, I guessed. No inmate, evidently, would try suiciding himself with a sanitary napkin.
The snow fell harder as we walked between buildings. Mr. Saygrover saw Bonnie and waved us through the glass doors into his office, where a notice read, “Tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of interest.” A leaning tower of files stamped Classified was stacked on his gunmetal desk.
“Feeling bad just isn’t good enough for some people—they got to make everyone else feel bad too.” He indicated the files. “They send me all this from the warden’s office … all these complaints. This one’s toast is too hard. That one’s toilet paper’s not soft enough. This one’s mattress has teeth marks on it. I tell you.”
Mr. Saygrover shuffled through his paperwork until he found what he was looking for: release forms in triplicate for Bonnie to sign.
Bonnie began crying again, and Mr. Saygrover looked embarrassed. He patted her on the back, offered her a fresh piece of Kleenex. He looked at me, helplessly.
I said I was going to get a cup of coffee from the machine.
“Get one for me too. Extra sugar and whitener, if you don’t mind.” Mr. Saygrover reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. “Here you go. It’s on me.”
When I returned with the coffee, Bonnie had gone to the washroom. Mr. Saygrover told me no one “higher up”had given permission for the body to be released, so Treat would be laid to rest in the prison cemetery. “That way, we can keep an eye on him.” He winked at me.
I asked if it would be possible to arrange to have his body flown back to his last address, which was Bella Bella.
Mr. Saygrover shook his head. “Too late now. You got to plan ahead.”
Mr. Saygrover sniffed his coffee, then asked if I wanted to see the autopsy report. I nodded, and he handed me a file marked Confidential. He hadn’t started out as a visitor’s and correspondence officer, he told me—years ago he’d taken a St. John’s Ambulance course at the YMCA, which had qualified him to work on the daily sick line. He’d wired more jaws, sewn more torn anuses, he said, than you could shake a stick at. But never, in all his years at the infirmary, had he seen anything as sick as this.
“I’d like to get my hands on the individual that did this.” No charges had yet been laid, Mr. Saygrover said—the “incident” was under investigation.
Treat, who had been discharged from the infirmary at the beginning of March, shortly after the Corazóns had been let out of segregation and back into the population, had received a wedding gift: a stainless-steel cutlery set, pilfered from the prison kitchen. Knives, forks, even the dessert spoons had been driven into his flesh. His rectum had first been carved out with a knife to permit the entry of “an object larger than the normal man,” though the report didn’t specify what kind of object, or what part of a normal man.
I held the photograph in my hands, thinking Treat looked like a piece of performance art with all that cutlerysticking out of him. I was ashamed of myself, too, for wanting to laugh. Looking back, I believe I was anaesthetized by shock. I told Mr. Saygrover I didn’t think Bonnie needed to see the report, or the photograph; he put it away in a file before she came back into his office.
All Treat’s
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