Newjack Read Free Page A

other.
    A-block and B-block are aligned with each other, end to end, and span the top of Sing Sing; between them sits the mess-hall building. Both were completed in 1929, and they’re very similar instructure, except B-block is twenty cells shorter (sixty-eight), and one story taller (five). Though few civilians have seen anything like them, there is nothing architecturally innovative about the design. It plainly derives from the 1826 cellblock, based on Auburn’s “new” north wing, which was the prototype for most American cell-house construction: tiny cells back to back on five tiers, with a stairway at either end and one at the center of the very long range.
    From the ground floor, which in both buildings is known as the flats, you can look up and see how each structure is made up of two almost separate components. One is the all-metal interior, containing the inmates; it’s painted gray and looks as though it could have been welded in a shipyard. The other is comprised of the exterior walls and roof, a brick-and-concrete shell that fits over the cells like a dish over a stick of butter. One does not touch the other: Should an inmate somehow escape from his cell, he’s still trapped inside the building. A series of tall, barred windows runs down either side of the shell. They would let in twice as much light if they were washed. As it is, they let pass a diffuse, smog-colored glow, which crosses about fifteen feet of open space on each side before it reaches the metal, which it does not warm. There is a flat, leaky roof, which does not touch the top of the metal cellblock but leaves a gap of maybe ten feet. If the whole structure were radically shrunk, the uninitiated might perceive a vaguely agricultural purpose; the cages might be thought to contain chickens, or mink.
    The blocks are loud because they are hard. There is nothing inside them to absorb sound except the inmates’ thin mattresses and their bodies. Every other surface is of metal or concrete or brick.
    A crowd of officers is milling around a cell near the front gate of B-block when I get there; this cell is the office of the officer in charge, or OIC. Rooms for staff were not included in B-block’s plan, so a few cells near the front gate have been converted for that purpose. Next to the OIC’s office, an identical, tiny cell houses the sergeants; two of them are squeezed in there. Next to that is the coat room, which contains a barely functioning microwave oven and a refrigerator that won’t stay closed. There’s an office for paperwork and filling out forms, and one for a toilet—the only staff toilet on these five floors.
    For many years, the day-shift OIC has been Hattie “Mama” Cradle, a fifty-something woman five feet tall and just about as big around. She’s got a clipboard in her hand and horn-rimmed reading specs on a chain around her neck. Officers give her theirnames and job numbers; she tells them where they’re posted. I hang back a little, but then there’s no more stalling: “Conover, two fifty-four,” I say. She gets the spelling off the tag on my shirt, then, already poised to jot down the next name, says, “R-and-W.”
    My heart sinks. It’s as bad as it could be. I am the first officer on the second-floor galleries, known by the letters
R
and
W
. I’ve worked there a few times before, including my very first—horrifying—day of on-the-job training, when I accompanied a novice officer, or “newjack,” who barely knew what he was doing. Today I’m that newjack, going it alone.
    I crowd into Cradle’s office and look for my keys—four separate rings of the big, heavy “bit” keys, which work cell doors, with center-gate, end-gate, and fire-alarm keys thrown on for good measure. I attach these to my belt, and feel the weight. My heart is pounding, but there’s nothing for it. I find a fresh battery for the floor’s portable communications radio and grab a sheaf of forms that I have to fill out during my shift.