The Man Who Came Uptown

MEN IN orange jumpsuits stood in an orderly line, waiting patiently to talk to a woman who was seated at a desk bolted to the jailhouse floor. On the desk was a paper circulation log, a stack of DCPL book receipts, and a pen. Beside the desk was a rolling cart with shelves holding books. The cell doors of the General Population unit had been opened remotely by a guard in a glassed-in station that was known as "the fishbowl." Two other guards were stationed in the unit, observing the proceedings, bored and disengaged. There was no need for them to be on high alert. When the book lady was on the block, the atmosphere was calm.

The woman at the desk was the mobile librarian of the D.C. Jail. The men addressed her as Anna, or Miss Anna if they were raised a certain way. On the job she wore no makeup and dressed in utilitarian and nonprovocative clothing. Her skin was olive, her hair black, her eyes a light shade of green. She had recently turned thirty, was a swimmer and biker, and kept herself fit. In the facility, she used her maiden name, Kaplan. On the street, and on her driver's license, she went with her husband's surname, which was Byrne.

"How you doin today, Anna?" said Donnell, a rangy young guy with sleepy eyes.

"I'm good, Donnell. How are you?"

"Maintaining. You got that chapter-book I asked for?"

From the cart beside her, Anna found the novel Donnell had requested and put it in his hand. She entered his name, the title of the book, his inmate identification number, cell, and return date in the log.

"Can't nobody mess with Dave Robicheaux," said Donnell.

"I hear he's pretty indestructible," said Anna.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You got any books that, you know, explain women?"

"What do you mean, explain them?"

"I got this one girlfriend, man, I don't know. Like, I can't figure out what she thinking from day to day. Women can be, you know, mysterious. Sayin, is there a book you could recommend?"

"Like a manual?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe you should read a novel written by a woman. That might give you an idea of the kinds of things that go on in a woman's head."

"You got any recommendations?"

"Let me think on it. In the meantime, that Robicheaux is due in a week, when I come back."

"What if I don't finish it by then?"

"You can renew it for one more week."

"Okay, then. Cool."

Donnell walked away. The next inmate stepped up to the table.

"Lorton Legends," said the man, asking for a novel that was often requested but unavailable inside the walls. The book was set in the old prison and on D.C.'s streets. "You got that?"

"We don't," said Anna. "Didn't you ask for this same book last week?"

"Thought y'all might've got it in since then."

By policy, sexually explicit books and books that promoted violence were not available in the jail library. Some urban fiction made the cut, some did not. Certain heavily requested books that espoused outlandish conspiracy theories, like Behold a Pale Horse and The Forty-Eight Laws of Power, were also prohibited. The sexuality and violence standards set by the D.C. Public Library for the detention facility were murky and often went unenforced. Some serial-killer novels and soft-core potboilers made it through the gates. Anna had once seen a group of inmates in the dayroom watching a DVD of The Purge.

"What you got for me, then?" said the man. "Don't give me no boring stuff."

On the cart, Anna found something by Nora Roberts, a prolific, popular novelist who typically generated good feedback, and gave it to the man. She began to log the details of the inmate and the novel.

"I read one of hers before," said the man, inspecting the jacket. "She's cool. That'll work."

As he drifted, the next man came up to the table. He was tall, with a full beard and close-cut hair. Anna knew little about him except for his reading habits. He was nice-looking, had a lean build, and spoke with soft confidence. His name was Michael Hudson.

"Mr. Hudson."

"What do you have for me today, Miss Anna?"

She handed him two books that she had chosen for him when she had staged her cart the previous afternoon. One was a story collection called Kentucky Straight. The other was a single volume with two Elmore Leonard Western novels, written early in his career.

Inmates could check out two books a week. She often gave Michael longish books or volumes containing multiple novels because he tended to run through the material very quickly. In the past year, since he had first been incarcerated, he had become a voracious reader. His tastes ran to stories occurring outside of East Coast cities. He liked to read books about the kinds of people he'd not met growing up in Washington, set in places he'd never visited. Nothing too difficult or dense. He preferred stories that were clearly written and simply told. He read for entertainment. Michael was new to this. He wasn't trying to impress anyone. But his tastes were evolving. He was learning.

He studied the jackets, glanced at the inner flap of Kentucky Straight.

"The stories in that book are set mainly in Appalachia," said Anna.

"Like, mountain folk," said Michael.

"Uh-huh. The author grew up there. I think you'll like the Westerns too."

"Yeah, Leonard. That dude's real."

"You read Swag. One of his crime novels."

"I remember." Michael looked her in the eye. "Thank you, Miss Anna."

"Just doing my job."

"So, tell me a couple more titles. For later."

As Michael had gotten more into reading, he had asked Anna to recommend some books for him to read in the future, either upon his release or when he transitioned to prison. Novels that were not in her inventory or were deemed inappropriate for the inmates. Books she thought he might like. She gave him the titles verbally. He'd write them down later, tell them to his mother when she came to visit. His mother had been surprised, and pleased, that he had developed an interest in books.

"Hard Rain Falling," she said. "By Don Carpenter. And a short-story collection called The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien. It's set in Vietnam, during the war."

"Hard Rain Falling, Carpenter," repeated Michael. "Things They Carried."

"Tim O'Brien."

"Got it." He stood there, as if waiting.

The man behind him said, "Shit. My hair about to go gray."

"Is there something else?" said Anna.

"Just want to say…I never read a book in my life before I came in here. You know that, right? This pleasure I got now, it's because of you."

"The DCPL put a branch in here a couple of years ago. That's why you get to read books. But I'm glad you're taking advantage of the opportunity. I hope you like those."

"I'll let you know."

"You're coming to book club next week, right?"

"You know I am," said Michael.

"I'll see you in the chapel."

"Right."

She watched him walk toward his cell. He was rubbing the cover of one of the books as if he were polishing something precious in his hands.

THERE WAS a law library in the detention facility that the inmates used to research their cases. Anna had worked there when she'd first come to the jail.

The law library was available to members of each housing unit for two hours per week and to inmates who were in Restricted Housing by request. A civilian law librarian ran the operation and was assisted by a legal clerk who was an inmate, a desirable, soft-labor position in the jail. Inmates had access to reading materials and to LexisNexis programs on computers but had no access to e-mail services or the internet. In addition to research, the law library's space was used for voting, which was available to non-felons only, and for SAT and GED testing.

Though the D.C. Jail's library was an official branch of the DCPL, it was not a traditional library in that inmates could not enter a room and browse through the stacks. An actual library was to open soon, but for now, books were delivered to the inmates on a cart.

There were fifteen units at the jail. The mobile librarian visited three units per day, so every unit received her services once a week. Among the units were GED, General Population, Fifty and Older, Mental Health, Juvenile, and Restricted Housing. Each unit had its own characteristics and needs. It was part of Anna's job to anticipate those needs when she staged her carts and chose titles from the over three thousand books housed in the workroom. The library stocked paperbacks only.

Four thirty was her quitting time. Anna was in the workroom and had been staging her cart for the Fifty and Older unit, which she was scheduled to visit the following morning. That particular unit housed mostly repeat offenders, parole violators, and drug addicts. She chose a couple of Gillian Flynn novels, popular among inmates, and some early Stephen Kings. Anything by King was in heavy play. The Harry Potter books were wildly popular as well.

Anna's assistant, Carmia, a recent graduate of UDC who had come up in public housing in Southeast, stood nearby, inspecting each book that had been returned, fanning through pages, checking for notes and contraband. For security reasons, books could not be passed from inmate to inmate. Each book was inspected between rentals.

"You almost ready, Anna?"

"Yes."

"We can walk out together. I got to get my boy out of day care."

"I'm nearly done."

Anna had been at the D.C. Jail for several years but not always in her current position. After her undergrad studies at Emerson, in Boston, she accompanied her husband, who had been hired as a junior attorney in a District law firm, to Washington, where she obtained her master's in library science at Catholic University. Her first job in town was as a law librarian in a firm on H Street. This bored her silly, so when she saw an ad posted by the Corrections Corporation of America for the position of law librarian of the D.C. Central Detention Facility, she applied. To her surprise, she was quickly hired.

Running the law library of the jail was her first encounter with lockup. Initially, the experience was troubling, especially the daily security process and the ominous finality of doors closing, locks turning, and gates clanging shut. But these procedures and sounds soon became part of her routine, and quickly she found that she preferred dealing with inmates to dealing with attorneys. Interacting one-on-one with men who were incarcerated was not problematic. She was there to help them, and they knew it. It unsettled her, sometimes, to sit with a man charged with rape or pedophilia and direct him toward informational avenues of appeal. But she never felt threatened. Rather, she was unfulfilled. It wasn't a creative or particularly rewarding way to spend one's day. Also, she had a deep love of fiction, and she thought it would be cool to promote literature and literacy. So when the DCPL opened a library branch in the jail in the spring of 2015, she applied for the position of librarian and got the job.

"Coming?" said Carmia, a devout Christian with pretty brown eyes who was built small and stocky, like a low-to-the-ground running back.

Anna shut down her government cell phone, then gathered the few belongings she had brought into the jail and placed them in a clear plastic handbag.

"Let's go."

ANNA AND Carmia exited the D.C. Central Detention Facility and walked to the lot where they had parked their cars. They passed a variety of guards, visitors, administrators, and law enforcement officers, driving, headed on foot to their vehicles, or standing around, catching smokes and talking about their day. The jail was at Nineteenth and D, Southeast, on the eastern edge of the 20003 zip code and residential Kingman Park. Longtime natives knew the area mainly as the 190-acre Stadium-Armory Campus, which housed the jail, the former D.C. General Hospital, now an enormous homeless shelter, and the beloved RFK Stadium, where the Washington Redskins had played during their glory years.

"Have a blessed day," said Carmia, veering off toward a Japanese import that she would be paying on for the next five years.