Locked down -- terribly inconvenient

Rehearsed The Caucasian Chalk Circle from 1-4pm, as usual. The actors were released at four, but returned to our classroom, as the institution was in cease movement. One actor, a longtimer, warned that we probably wouldn't have Spoken Word poetry class tonight because an emergency exercise for staff had begun, and would take hours. How many hours? Lots.

After the inmates were finally called to their housing units, I packed my bookbag, signed out and headed for the door. The lobby officer told me the institution was on lockdown and I could not leave the building. I protested and asked what anyone could do to me for moving across the yard. He assured me that I'd be OK, but he'd be blamed for not "controlling" me and would be in no end of trouble. So I went to the activities office and spent half an hour happily xeroxing poems for next week's Spoken Word class.

The officer came down the hall to the office to tell me I needed to gather my things, that I was going to the Visiting Room. He asked me to wait at the door while he got the chaplain from his office. I asked the two guys at the door, an officer and a white shirt, how soon I could go to dinner. The bowl of Cheerios I had at the motel this morning was wearing off quickly. Was beer and popcorn being served in the Visiting Room? Even pitiful attempts at humor go a long way in prison.

The Visiting Room held sixty or seventy people, all hungry, all cranky, all frustrated. It was 5:00. Some folks, like me, had planned to leave at 4:00; others were scheduled to work until 9:00. Some lucky people had money and got food and drink from the vending machines; others had packed their suppers and ate in front of the rest of us. I knew from experience that the water fountain in the Visiting Room is vile, so I just tried to chill out.

I removed extraneous stuff from my file folders, wrote a letter to my mother, consolidated all my attendance records, and worked on possible cuts to the script. The inmates were called to dinner, house by house, around 6:30; they must, by law, be fed. Staff and VICs, however, are fair game -- no unions at this institution.

Finally, at almost 8:00, we were freed, one by one. I was the second from the last to be called. I feel lucky to be old and experienced -- I hadn't complained, hadn't paced, hadn't lost my cool.

I just got in my car, stopped at McDonald's for french fries and coffee (the Mexican restaurant was still open, but they have nothing on the menu that can be eaten while driving), and drove the almost two hours back to St. Louis. Too tired to eat when I got home, I had a drink, read the paper, and went to bed.

Now I can't sleep. Too many stifled emotions.