The Things I Learned in Prison

Working in the movie industry, you get to be a part of many different places. I've been on NASCAR tracks, inside penthouse apartments, CEO offices, million-dollar homes, swamps, runways, quarries, abandoned warehouses, and on one particular film, a prison. Of all the locations I've worked, this last one is the one I can't forget. I remember it with a crystalline clarity, and what I learned while working there made an impression deeper than I realized at the time.

On this film I worked as a set dresser, which meant that I helped determine the look of the sets. This was a non-union shoot, so my responsibilities varied quite a bit beyond my job title. One of the sets called for in the script was a jail cell. As this was one of the centerpieces of the film, I worked directly with the movie's production designer on building the set. We built it inside a working jail because there were also a number of scenes that would take place in the jail's common area, and this would add to the film's realism. Fortunately, the jail we worked in had one of its ten floors empty, so we would have a floor all to ourselves, well mostly to ourselves.

Abandon All Hope
The jail was an imposing building -- ten stories of solid brick. From a distance it looked innocuous enough, like any of the other downtown buildings that surrounded it, but on closer inspection you realized it differed in one major way - there were no windows. There were tiny slits, that permitted some daylight into the building, but that was it. Otherwise there was nothing about this non-descript building to suggest it was a jail.

We entered the building through the loading dock and warehouse area. Double gates topped with razor wire. When we arrived there was a tractor trailer in the dock. A couple prisoners in white jump suits laughed as they unloaded the truck. They seemed happy to be there in the warm afternoon sun. We later learned the white jumpsuits were a good thing - these were for trustees. The blue jumpsuits were for regular inmates. The guys in orange suits were the ones you wanted to avoid. These were the ones in for murder, rape, armed robbery - violent offenders.

You Don't Want Cavities
Once inside we were greeted by Brody, our guard. We were not allowed to go anywhere without Brody. He was a jolly, rotund fellow who wore a wrist guard due to some carpal tunnel issues. He liked to talk a lot. Sometimes I think he just like to talk to someone from the outside world. When he wasn't telling dirty jokes he mostly talked about life as a guard and all the crazy stuff that went on in the jail. We mostly listened. We were under orders to be nice and respectful to everyone in the jail - at any time they could kick us out, and this location was extremely important to the film.

While we were loading in, I looked around the warehouse. I'd never been in a jail before. Everything was neat and orderly. The warehouse was huge, like that last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark - a giant room filled with boxes upon boxes. To my right something caught my eye. A row of identical boxes, the size of big television boxes, stacked on massive shelving units running 30 feet high and 60 feet long. On each box was stamped: latex gloves. I nudged the production designer and gestured over to the boxes. For some reason I felt my butt tighten at the thought of those gloves. We weren't in Kansas anymore.

On the Inside
We took our gear to a big door. Brody called out into the air, "Brody! Three one six!" The door clanked, then slid open. I glanced around for cameras, microphones, whatever it was he was calling to. I saw nothing. We went inside an enclosed room with another large door. Brody called out, "Clear!" The door we just entered slid shut. This room was about the size of a classroom, but had nothing in it but walls, the door we'd just entered, and the door in front of us. Brody assured us that there were cameras at each door, but we couldn't find them. "Brody! Three one six!" The door across from us slid open, and we entered the jail.

The first thing to hit you was the smell. It didn't smell bad. It didn't smell good. It just smelled. The whole place had this greasy, industrial, unscented-lotion kind of odor to it. The jail was exceedingly clean. Cleaner than my house clean. Almost too clean. But that odd, lingering smell was somehow at odds with the cleanliness - almost like the two were competing for your senses.

Brody led us through the jail like a tour guide. He explained that a jail was different from prison. The longest anyone could be in jail was a couple years, although he admitted there were some prisoners who'd been there longer. Jail was the place where they kept people before they were shipped off to prison or where prisoners were kept for short sentences. There was something odd in the way he referred to the inmates. When he talked about them, it was though he was referring to boxes or tables or dogs - anything but human. They were objects to be laughed at, puzzled by, angered at, but they weren't people - not like you and me. They were inmates, and there was a difference, at least to him. I thought about that as Brody talked about the jail - how it was the newest in the state, with state-of-the-art security systems and this and that. As he talked it reminded me of touring communist China. The tour guides pointing out how wonderful everything was, and yet you knew, behind the pretty curtains, gross injustices were being carried out. My thoughts drifted to that as we walked through the sterile halls.

The jail floor was not what we expected. There were no bars - just solid steel and inch-thick bulletproof glass. Each door had a slit in it, just wide enough for your arm. The floor was open and airy. On the walls at each end were two small holes encased in steel. These were used by the prisoners to light cigarettes. (Lighters are confiscated when a prisoner enters the jail because they could be used as weapons.) These wall lighters were kind of like car cigarette lighters only too small to stick your finger in. Brody explained that the tougher prisoners would hang out by these things. Other prisoners, ones less tough, would have to run the gauntlet to get their nicotine fixes. Sometimes it would cost them a smoke - sometimes a lot more.

Near the entrance to the floor were the showers. These were covered by half-doors running across the middle. Not a lot of privacy, but for the most part they covered your midsection.

Steel tables and chairs were scattered around the room. At one end was a television mounted out of reach on a wall. The wall's base was surrounded by yellow tape. You weren't allowed in the taped off area. Five payphones were against the far wall behind the TV area.

The cells were small, as to be expected. There was a stainless steel toilet and a sink and bunk beds. The sink had no faucet. It was like a little water fountain and doubled as such for the prisoners.

Lunch
After setting up our gear, we broke for lunch. Brody invited us to eat with the guards, and in the interest of maintaining good will, we agreed. We ate in the guard's cafeteria. The food reminded me of a high school lunch with larger portions. While we were eating Brody asked us how we liked the food. We said it was good (it was okay). He nodded then casually added "The prisoners make it." We all simultaneously stopped chewing. He must have noticed our expressions because he said, "Don't worry. We got a guard on 'em to make sure the mayonnaise is mayonnaise." He laughed. We chuckled along. But I had lost my appetite. When we left that night, I told the production designer I wasn't eating there again. He agreed, and thereafter we always had a production meeting or a supply run to make at lunchtime.

The Cell
After about a week, construction was going well on our jail cell set. During this time we got to know some of the guards pretty well. Brody was still our main guard, but occasionally others would replace him. Brody taught us a lot about prison life. He explained most people on the outside never understood why jails had air conditioning and cable TV. These things were used to keep the prisoners in line. If they got too rowdy, CLICK, off went the TV. The cold air also helped keep the prisoners calm. There's nothing like stifling heat to get tempers flaring. What he said made a lot of sense. I'd always wondered about prisoners getting to watch TV.

I was asked to rummage some set dressing - little items that a prisoner might have in the cell, as well as the toilet, sink and beds that would be located in there. Brody led me to the supply room and let me have some real items issued to prisoners. The toothbrushes were made out of this floppy soft plastic. They bent at the slightest pressure - not particularly good for brushing your teeth, but, as Brody pointed out, they couldn't be sharpened down into a weapon. There was a comb made of the same stuff, for the same reason. Brody asked if I wanted some soap the prisoners used. Of course! No set dresser in his right mind ever turns down free set dressing. He pointed to a box and told me to grab a few bars. When I opened the box the smell of the soap hit me. That was it. That oily smell the whole place reeked of was this soap. Brody explained that the prisoners would eat soap to make themselves sick so they would be sent to the infirmary. With this new soap you could eat bar after bar of it, and you wouldn't get sick. The things I never knew.

The Lobby
The production designer wanted some benches to dress the common area. They didn't have any there already, so Brody suggested that we pull a couple from the visitors lobby.

The lobby was half full. As I glanced around for some empty benches I looked at the people waiting there. Most of them were women. Judging from the scuffed up shoes and cheap clothes, none of them had much money. There was one woman sitting off to the side with her three kids, not one of them over six years old. She seemed tired. The two older kids were pretty bouncy - they must have been there a while. A baby was sleeping in her arms. One of the children kept asking when they were going to see daddy. "In a little while, precious. In a little while."

When we came back down to get a second bench, she was still waiting. She seemed so very tired.

Goodbye
On our last day there I was bringing our gear down. I was in the room with two doors by the warehouse. Brody was with me as always. He was received a call, so he asked me to wait in the room. He'd be right back. As I stood there in the room, I began looking at the cream colored walls - not quite yellow, not quite beige, and I realized that there was no way out of here. If Brody was gone for a while; if for some reason he forgot I was there - I was trapped. Brody said there were cameras. But what if the guy monitoring the room was out to lunch? What if there was some sort of emergency? What if Brody had a heart attack and died? How long would I be here? The room seemed to enclose all around me. I had to get out. Get anywhere.

He may have been gone for ten minutes, maybe longer, but it seemed like ten hours. For those ten minutes my freedom was totally at the mercy of another person, and I couldn't stand it. How pathetic was that? Ten minutes. But it was enough. And in those moments I feel as though I came to understand a thing or two about being in prison. Of course, I didn't know anything. But I knew enough to know that I would never want to be in jail. Not ever. And that was more than enough.