Tuesday Mornings; The Little Deaths Of Prison Covid Testing

STF Correctional Facility, K-unit

February 22nd, 2022 

2:41am

Our weekly Covid testing is tomorrow morning. Just over five hours away. I guess technically that makes it this morning. Definitely should've skipped that last cup of coffee.

When a correctional facility logs more than 25 positive Covid tests in a week it's placed on outbreak status. This, among other things, means weekly testing for the entire prison.

Every inmate lives in fear of pulling a positive Covid test. Not because we're afraid of the virus, but because upending your entire life for the appearance of a thin blue line is a life-altering pain in the ass. Every Tuesday morning for the last five weeks has been a nerve wracking viral Russian Roulette, where instead of a bullet to the head, the losers are given a trash bag and told to pack. It works out to roughly thirty minutes to secure all of your earthly possessions before a box truck appears in front of the unit to whisk you away to an undisclosed location somewhere on the other side of the compound.

In an attempt to avoid falling victim to this weekly catastrophe some of the more crafty inmates have developed a few specialized techniques to beat the test. These include—but are not limited to: coating the nostrils in Vaseline, toilet paper enemas of the nose, inhaling clouds of baby powder, some have even resorted to snorting bleach water stolen from the spray bottles we use to clean the toilets.

My personal method of evasion consists of stuffing wads of twisted toilet paper up my nose and spinning them until the inside of my nostrils are bone dry. I then restrict my breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—until it's time for the test. I figure the antibodies they're looking for must be in the mucous of our nasal cavities. If there's less mucous to be swabbed, there should be less antibodies to be detected.

To wonder whether or not these techniques actually work is to miss the point. It's just as likely that these acts of subversion are more psychological sedative than they are actual ways to cheat the Covid test; little toilet paper and bleach water lies we tell ourselves that allow us to believe we have control over our own fate. Either way, come 8 am tomorrow morning—this morning—when the yard is closed, the phones are shut off, and the day-rooms are cleared out you'll find more than a few inmates in the bathroom prepping their sniffers.

In just a few hours several nurses will show up pushing a rickety plastic testing cart. We will be ordered to return to our respective cubes. They'll set up in the dayroom. We will wait. When they're finally ready the unit counselor will come around and dismiss individual cubes to the repurposed day room. When it's our turn me and my seven cubies will climb down from our bunks and file out.

Masks on.

Don't forget your masks.

Half the time I have to turn around and grab my mask.

We join a cramped line of equally tired and anxious inmates before shuffling our way through the unit, one step at a time, until we reach the beehive of a day room. Bright fluorescent lights, nurses, inmates, and COs moving in organized chaos. Right away there's a table with, what I assume are two members of the nursing squad's B-team. One cradles a clipboard, the other mans a stack of sticker paper, and a box of rapid-response Covid tests. The one with the clipboard barks, "NAME AND BUNK NUMBER," to each arriving inmate.

I always try to get mine out—“Caldwell 52”—in the fraction of a second between the guy-ahead-of-me's response and her next repetition. The best I've been able to manage is the last half of my bunk number over the first half of her instructions. My name is crossed out on the clipboard. The appropriate sticker is slapped onto a small cardboard test and handed to me as I inch past. Every time, I open the test and consider tearing off part of the strip that leads to the readout. And every time I chicken out.

Three nurses from the A-team are stationed at individual tables across the tiny dayroom.

For all of our nasal trickery, the most important factor in passing a Covid test ultimately comes down to which nurse does your swab—well, that and whether or not you actually have the Corona virus. We have little say in which nurse we get. The inmate ahead of goes to the first available station, and you go to the next. An assembly line of inmate testing. Sometimes two stations will open up at the same time. If you're quick you can slide towards your table of choice.

Most of us are hoping for the manicured blonde nurse. The one with with perfect bone structure, and custom-fit jeans wrapped around an Instagram ass. Every Tuesday morning a line of incarcerated Petri dishes waits anxiously to tilt their heads back and look down their cheeks at this bombshell of a nurse, with her rolling eyelashes and perfectly shaped eyebrows over blue-grey eyes, and maybe even catch a whiff of her hundred dollar bottle of celebrity-endorsed perfume in the process. I get it. She's a tempting siren for sure. But you can't let her French-manicured nails fool you. Landing in her line is a risky endeavor. She swabs the deepest and twirls the longest. If you're not careful you might crash against the shore of a positive Covid test chasing her call.

I prefer the more homely nurse of ambiguous ethnicity. She's usually at the middle table. She might be Cuban. She has this amazing wavy hair. You could say she's from any one of a dozen countries close to the equator and I'd believe you. Calling her homely isn't really fair—it’s not like she's some old shoe. Even by free-people standards she's reasonably young, and attractive—it’s just standing so close to the immaculately preened Insta-Nurse makes her look more average than she actually is. Either way I feel lucky every time fate sees fit to deliver me to her table. She has a smile that makes it through her N95 mask the way, her checks squeeze her eyes into slits and the inner points of her eyebrows peak in empathy. She'll hold eye contact and say things like, "How are you doing today?" as she motions for you to tilt your head back for the swab. Now I know this sounds like more than shallow pleasantries, but when she says it it's different. There's a sincerity there that transforms her words into more than just the collection of consonants and vowels I've transcribed here. And if her genuine warmth isn't enough to explain the pull of her table, she also administers the most gingerly Covid test imaginable. She pinches the swab between two fingers, delicately floating the cotton tip around the outer rim of each nostril before dismissing you with a, "God bless you."

The third station has had a different nurse every week. A Covid test of unknown veracity. A nurse with unproven technique, and unseen attire. No thank you.

Ultimately, no matter the station, your swab will be folded inside the cardboard panel and dropped it onto the table with a heap of others. You'll know you're done when whichever nurse it is steps aside to let you pass.

After the last inmate has shuffled out of the dayroom, the unit returns to our normal activities—so long as they take place outside of the dayroom. About half wander back to their cubes to crawl under their sheets. Some begrudgingly surrender to the waking day by crowding the bathroom to brush their teeth. And yet a formidable number of us linger just outside the dayroom with our noses all but pressed against the shatter resistance glass looking for any signs of positive tests. After a few minutes of us gathered around the windows like this we're shoed away by one of the unit COs. "There is no loitering in the halls." We'll disperse just long enough for him to turn away before promptly returning to exact same spot so we can watch the nurses shuffle the lollipop shaped Covid tests from table to table searching for any hidden meaning in the movements. We take turns pontificating about which groupings on which tables are for the positives and which are for the negatives.

The truth is no one really knows.

Just more lies about control.

The only thing we've learned for sure is that every test ends up in a red biohazard bag. As the nurses pack up and prepare to head out, we clear a path for their exit. Some of us wait to steal our glances when the nurses aren't looking. Others are less concerned. We all wait for someone other than ourselves to ask a CO how many positives there were.

The first week they said we had zero positives. We actually had one.

The next week we heard forty two. Which turned out to be four. 

Then it was zero, but was really ten.

Last week they said nothing—then handed out seven trash bags.

No matter what they tell us we won't know the number of positives until second shift comes in. The first shift does the testing. The second shift does the moves. The limbo between test and result is four to six hours. Just long enough to forget that you're worried 

As soon as you let your guard down it happens.

It starts with a murmur. "They're passing out bags." Ears perk up. Heads swivel. Everyone's waiting.

Each cube has a designated sentinel. Someone who's job is to lean into the hallway to report the happenings to his cubies without a view. Some of the inmates with top bunks stand up to look for themselves. This is me every Tuesday.

Each shift has two COs. And each unit has two hallways. So each CO grabs a certain number of trash bags and stalks down their respective hallway, checking their notepads to make sure they're headed in the right direction. The sentinels narrate the action. When a CO reaches a cube with a Covid positive inmate they come to stop and double check their notepad. They search the walls for a specific bunk number. They home in. Another check of the pad. Satisfied, they finally make eye contact with the infected inmate.

No words are needed.

At this point everyone knows the deal.

The sentinels announce the location and identity of the condemned.

This weekly walk down the unit hallways in search of fallen convicts is the height of incarcerated anxiety. Every slight stride to the left, or pivot of the heel to the right, sends cubes of inmates into cold sweats. Every COs shift of the eye, or twist of the head, portends potential doom for those in the adjusted path. It's maddening. Spirit crushing. Inevitably the Harbinger of Viral Positivity reaches a cube that peaks her interest. Every inmate inside holds their breath, until she either steps inside or continues walking.

This moment stretches into eternity.

Last Tuesday the unthinkable happened. A CO—trash bag in hand—sauntered up to my cube and stepped in. Cold sweats. He scanned the numbers on the wall. My wall. My bunk. He took a step in my direction. My heart froze up and rolled over like a possum. He checked his list and shoved a trash bag in my direction. I wanted to throw up. I couldn't move. I just stared at him in disbelief. I thought that maybe if I just sat there it might not happen. Like maybe if my heart seized up and exploded right then and there my name on his little notepad would become irrelevant; or if, by some miracle, there was a stadium-sized meteor hurtling towards K-unit at that very moment my hesitation would at least give it a chance to crash through the ceiling and save me having to pack everything I own to move to god-knows-where for god-knows-how-long. Instead nothing. No sudden heart attack, no comet to the rescue. I had no choice but to accept my fate.

This is all prison is. A caged uncertainty. Handcuffed control.

Just before I hopped down to start packing, an arm shot out from under me to snatch the bag.

"Bunk 51," declared the harbinger of doom, "Harvey."

It wasn't me who tested positive. It was my bunkie D. No cardiac arrest needed. My dead possum of a heart jumped back to life. And as wonderful as a moment like this feels—you can't help but feel that the constant whiplashing between adrenaline and relief of life behind bars is taking its toll. But the fact that it isn't you holding the bag in this very moment is just enough to bury the thought for the time being. So you step aside and watch as this poor infected soul packs his things and scrambles to take care of a few remaining affairs before saying his goodbyes and finally being carted away.

I felt for D—really I did. As far as bunkies go he was one of the good ones. But even if he wasn't the whole unfair charade is maddening. I wanted to shout to the CO that this whole thing is stupid; that moving people who've spent the last several months packed together like sardines isn't going to stop an airborne virus because it's everywhere. We've all had it. We're all going to get it. I wanted to console my bunkie, and even help him pack. But more than anything I was just glad it wasn't me. And I wasn't willing to risk testing positive next week by holding his bag for him. So I stepped aside and tried to subdue my relief as he disappeared down the hall.

The feeling of surviving another week is fleeting. It lasts just a few short days. Just until you're closer to the next Tuesday than you are from the last. This is all prison is. By the time you find something worth enjoying it's already over. The tragedy of life behind bars...of life in general I guess. After eight years in this place it's hard for me to tell the difference between Prison truths and Universal truths. I'm starting to suspect that if there is a difference it's one of degree not of nature.

As I write this I am three hours away from having to spin the cylinder in this week's roulette. I hate it. But this is all prison is There's really nothing to do but pull back the hammer and step into the dayroom. Death comes for us all. Some of us just get more practice before the big day. Here's to hoping I survive another week, in this unit, in my bunk, and in my mind. And if not, here's to hoping they find cure for death before it's my turn to go.

Now if you'll excuse me. 

I have just under three hours to find a fresh roll of toilet paper, a tube of Vaseline, a pile of baby powder, and spray bottle of bleach. I figure one of them has to work—and if not I'll see you on the other side.

Wish me luck.

One of these days I'm gonna need it.

After all, this is all prison is.