The Count

Every day the 200,000 federal prisoners in the United States federal prison system are counted. This is no easy task. Monday though Friday all inmates are sent back to their cells for the 4:00 PM census count. The count is held at 10:00 AM on Saturday, Sunday and Holidays. Starting with the facility in Alderson, West Virginia through Yazoo City, Mississippi correction officers literally count each and every 199,325 inmates that comprise the archipelago scattered throughout the fifty United States of America. The evening counts take place at ten, midnight and four in the morning. But most inmates are sleeping by then.

I was one of those unfortunates . Lewisburg was my home for six years. No! Not the real maximum security facility housing such nefarious creatures as Al Capone and not so nefarious as Jimmy Hoffa. But the extension camp reserved for white collar criminals. The extension camp has no bars on the windows and isn't even surrounded by a fence. Actually, the view from my cell window was quite pleasant. In the background was the Nittany Mountains and the foreground a hay farm. Three or four times a season I watched farmers harvesting and baling the crop for market.

The first year of my confinement, I was assigned to clean the offices of the maximum security facility at Lewisburg, affectionately called "The Big House". It's a place you don't ever want to be at, if you can help it. It holds murderers, rapists, terrorists and drug lords. The place is beset with violent incidents on a daily basis. An ambulance from the local hospital is clearly visible at the entrance to the facility, waiting to spirit away an inmate victim of one gang war or another. This is not television or the movies. It is for real.

All camp workers would be returned to the camp facility around three in the afternoon during a work week. Promptly at 4:00 PM an announcement came over the loudspeakers "Count time, count time, all inmates return to their cells for the afternoon count." Make no mistake about the importance of the moment. Failing to be at the proper place, your cell, at the time of count was the second most serious incident you could commit at the camp. The most serious was walking off the facility, of course.

The guards that worked "the Big House" were a lot easier when they were temporarily assigned to camp duty. There was one exception. His name was Art Bates, a native Lewisburg resident and wannabe "big house" guard. Rumor had it that he worked behind the wall for awhile . But he was held in such disdain by the inmates , they almost lynched him inflicting bodily injury so severe he was permanently transferred to camp duty, where he spent the last twenty years of his career.

Mr. Bates, as he was wont to be called, was about as ornery as a human being can be. He was of slight build and stood about five feet four inches tall. He weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds, fully clothed. A cigarette was constantly hanging from his lips and you could see the nicotine stains on his fingers and mustache.The rasp in his voice was another sign of his nicotine addiction. Bates was a recovering alcoholic. But occasionally the sweet swell of whiskey on his breath belied the success of the "twelve step program".

There was nothing endearing about him. Mr. Bates hated inmates and went out of his way to make our life more difficult than it already was. He had a nasty habit of engaging you in conversation. Just when you thought you were talking to a human being, he would suddenly turn on you citing some obscure infraction of the rules.

He was an avid bass fisherman and kept a supply of fishing rods and lures in the back of his SUV. The camp was located on the banks of the Little Buffalo Creek which contained some bass and a few brook trout. I asked him one morning if he ever fished the creek. He told me he did and went on to site the various fishing holes he frequented in the area. Naturally, I thought I had witnessed a human side of the man when he announced... " you're in violation of camp rules by having that crossword puzzle in the dining room". So much for the mans' humanity.

But Mr. Bates was about to meet his match. The camp cell blocks were two stories high with a stairway in the back and in the front of the facility. The stairways were located in the middle section of the building. So it was possible for an energetic inmate to seemingly be in two places at a time by running up the back stairway when the bottom floor count was completed and jumping into a cell only half occupied.

Bates took the count seriously. His face reflected rapture as he yelled out "count time, stand up count". He was so absorbed in this activity that on one occasion an inmate raced up the back stairway, occupying a cell where another was recently released , as Mr. Bates completed counting the lower tier and was on his way up the front stairway to complete the count. It wasn't necessary to face the hack conducting the count. Usually, the presence of the body is all that's needed.

Concluding the count, Mr. Bates announced the result to his partner, who had a number one inmate lower. By this time the inmate had raced back downstairs and the count was taken again. Mr. Bates insisted on a picture count the second time around, thwarting a repeat miscount and stretching the count out for another half hour as the guards retrieved their picture books of the inmates. Bates never knew what really happened. It was that rare occasion when even the rats among us dummied up. We had our victory.

You can tell Mr. Bates this story if you are ever in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania and happen to stop in the local Dunkin Donuts shop there. He'll be behind the counter where he works supplementing his government pension.