Chapter 10 — When the Door Opens

Chapter 10 — When the Door Opens

The RRU classroom was quiet.

Matt Morris didn't trust quiet anymore.

Not because something always happened.

Most of the time, nothing did.

Nine inmates sat inside the classroom waiting for the teacher to arrive. The classroom officer watched them through the window while several other officers remained outside the room.

Matt stood nearby with Pike, Bietz and Tyler Grant.

Grant had been on the job less than a year.

Long enough to stop looking completely new.

Not long enough to stop being the new guy.

Pike leaned against the wall.

"You think we're actually going to make it through this without somebody doing something stupid?"

Bietz looked at him.

"Why would you say that?"

Pike shrugged.

"Just asking."

Matt pointed at him.

"Same rule as saying quiet."

"I didn't say quiet."

"You basically did."

Grant smiled.

"You guys really believe that shit?"

Matt looked at him.

"Believe what?"

"That saying it's quiet makes something happen."

"No."

Bietz nodded.

"Absolutely."

Matt looked at her.

"You're not helping."

Grant laughed.

Then something moved inside the classroom.

The classroom officer straightened.

Matt saw it too.

One inmate stood.

Another stood immediately after him.

A third moved quickly from the other side of the room.

There wasn't time to wonder what was happening.

The first punch answered the question.

"Fight!"

The classroom officer was already on her feet.

Inside the room, chairs scraped violently across the floor.

An inmate went backward.

Another came across the room.

Then another.

Within seconds, five inmates were fighting.

Three on two.

The other four stayed seated.

For the moment.

"Get down!"

"BREAK IT UP!"

"STOP FIGHTING!"

The commands came through the door.

Nobody listened.

Inside, the classroom had exploded.

Five men were swinging, grabbing, shoving and trying to take each other down between desks and chairs.

One went into a table.

The table moved several feet.

Another inmate came over the top of him.

The four uninvolved inmates remained in their seats, watching everything happen around them.

The teacher hadn't arrived yet.

Thank God.

The radio came alive.

"Level One, 10 Building RRU."

Everything changed.

Matt heard the announcement.

So did every officer within range.

There were moments inside a prison when people moved before they had time to think.

This was one of them.

Boots began pounding down the corridor.

Officers appeared from different directions.

Then more.

A sergeant arrived.

Another followed shortly behind him.

Inside the classroom, the fight continued.

"ON THE FLOOR!"

"STOP FIGHTING!"

"GET DOWN!"

Nothing.

Matt stood near the door.

Pike was beside him.

Bietz.

Grant.

Other responding officers stacked in behind them.

Every instinct told them to get inside.

But going through that door without enough staff could turn five fighting inmates into five fighting inmates and several officers trapped in the middle of them.

So they waited.

Seconds.

That was all.

But seconds lasted differently when you were standing on one side of a locked door watching people beat the hell out of each other on the other side.

The sergeant looked through the window.

Then behind him.

Enough staff.

"All right."

Matt shifted forward.

Pike did the same.

Grant was right there.

The door opened.

OC went first.

A burst into the room.

"GET ON THE FUCKING FLOOR!"

The officers went through the door.

Everything became movement.

Noise.

Bodies.

Commands.

OC hanging in the air.

Matt grabbed the nearest inmate still actively fighting.

The man twisted away.

Matt drove into him.

"DOWN!"

Somebody else grabbed the inmate from the opposite side.

They took him to the floor.

Around them, officers were doing the same thing.

Pike hit the room like a truck.

He got hold of one inmate around the upper body and drove him away from another inmate.

Bietz went toward another.

Grant grabbed one of the larger men.

The inmate spun.

Grant held on.

The man swung.

The first punch caught Grant in the face.

Grant's head snapped backward.

He didn't let go.

The inmate swung again.

Another shot landed.

Then another.

"STOP RESISTING!"

Grant drove forward.

Blood was already coming from his nose.

He didn't notice.

Or didn't care.

Adrenaline had taken over.

Matt had his own problem on the floor.

The inmate beneath him was still trying to pull an arm underneath his body.

"Give me your fucking hand!"

The inmate refused.

Another officer got control of the arm.

Matt heard shouting behind him.

Something crashed.

Someone yelled for cuffs.

Someone else yelled that they had one.

There was no clean order to it.

No movie choreography.

No perfectly synchronized takedowns.

Just officers getting control of whatever was in front of them.

One inmate at a time.

Hands.

Arms.

Cuffs.

Control.

The four inmates who had remained seated were being restrained too.

One officer moved down the line.

"Hands behind your back."

The first complied.

Then the second.

Nobody was taking chances.

Not now.

The fighting inmates were removed first.

One by one.

Cuffed.

Escorted.

Separated.

The noise began to drop.

Matt stood.

His breathing was heavy.

His eyes burned from the OC.

His uniform had been pulled halfway out at the waist.

He looked around.

"Everybody good?"

Pike wiped his face with his sleeve.

"Fucking wonderful."

Bietz coughed.

"I hate this place."

"You're the one who keeps coming back."

"They pay me."

Then Matt saw Grant.

Grant was standing near the wall.

Blood covered the front of his shirt.

His nose didn't look right.

Not even a little.

Matt stared at him.

"Jesus Christ, Grant."

Grant looked over.

"What?"

Pike turned.

His expression changed.

"Holy shit."

Grant touched his nose.

His hand came away bloody.

"I think it's broke."

Bietz looked at him.

"You think?"

Grant breathed through his mouth.

"I'm pretty fucking sure."

Matt stepped closer.

The area around one of Grant's eyes was already swelling.

"You get dizzy?"

"No."

"Seeing double?"

"No."

"You sure?"

Grant looked at him.

"I just got punched in the face three fucking times. Give me a minute."

Matt almost smiled.

There he was.

Grant was hurt.

But he was still Grant.

A sergeant came over.

"Go see the nurse."

Grant looked toward the room.

"We done?"

Matt stared at him.

"Yeah, Rocky. We're done."

Pike laughed.

"Don't call him Rocky. Rocky won."

Grant raised his middle finger.

Bietz pointed at his face.

"Careful. That's probably the only part of you that still works."

Grant laughed and immediately regretted it.

"Ow. Fuck you."

That was when Matt knew he'd probably be okay.

Probably.

But Grant's face looked bad.

Really bad.

The block nurse examined him first.

It didn't take long before the decision was made that he needed a better assessment.

Grant was sent to the prison ER.

One of the sergeants went with him.

The rest of them stayed behind.

Because the incident was over.

Which meant the paperwork was beginning.

✦ ✦ ✦

The five inmates involved in the fight were evaluated by medical.

Eventually they would be returned to their cells.

Tickets would follow.

Fighting.

Disciplinary hearings.

Sanctions.

That part would work itself through the system.

The four inmates who had stayed seated were removed from the classroom as well while everything was sorted out.

The classroom remained empty.

Chairs were out of place.

A table had shifted.

Papers were scattered across the floor.

OC still hung faintly in the air.

The teacher never walked into any of it.

That was one piece everybody could agree had gone right.

"Thank God she wasn't in here," Bietz said.

Matt nodded.

"No shit."

Pike looked around the classroom.

"Could've been a hell of a lot worse."

Nobody answered.

Because it could have.

They all knew it.

Then came the reports.

Use of force.

Injuries.

Incident reports.

Workers' compensation paperwork where applicable.

Names.

Times.

Commands given.

What each officer saw.

What each officer did.

Who resisted.

Who was restrained.

Who was injured.

Corrections could turn thirty seconds of chaos into hours of paperwork.

Matt sat down and began writing.

His hands had stopped shaking.

He hadn't realized they were shaking until they stopped.

Across from him, Pike worked on his own report.

Bietz was doing the same.

Nobody said much for a while.

Finally Pike looked up.

"Anybody hear anything about Grant?"

"No," Matt said.

Bietz looked toward the door.

"They took him up to the ER."

"I know. I mean after that."

Matt shook his head.

"Not yet."

Pike went back to writing.

A minute later he looked up again.

"His nose was fucked."

Matt nodded.

"Definitely."

Bietz said, "Maybe they'll make him prettier."

Pike stared at her.

"That's a lot to ask from modern medicine."

Matt laughed.

Bietz smiled.

There it was.

The humor.

It always came back.

Sometimes quickly.

Sometimes because nobody knew what else to do.

Matt returned to his report.

A few minutes later somebody came through with an update.

Grant was being sent out for further evaluation.

The room went quieter.

Not silent.

Just quieter.

Matt looked at Pike.

Pike looked back.

Neither said anything.

They didn't have to.

An officer leaving work in an ambulance was different.

Inmates got hurt.

Officers got hurt.

Everybody who walked through the gate knew it could happen.

But knowing something could happen and watching it happen to somebody you worked beside were two different things.

Especially somebody like Grant.

Young.

New.

Still learning.

Matt remembered talking to him months earlier.

Grant had asked him a question.

You ever get to the point where none of this bothers you anymore?

Matt had answered without thinking.

No.

You just get better at not showing it.

At the time, Grant probably hadn't completely understood.

Maybe Matt hadn't either.

✦ ✦ ✦

The official diagnosis came later.

Broken nose.

Fractured orbital socket.

A few weeks off to let the fracture heal.

He was going to be okay.

That was the important part.

Once everybody heard that, the jokes got considerably worse.

Pike was first.

"Couple weeks off? Son of a bitch figured out the system."

Bietz nodded.

"Should've let somebody punch me."

Matt looked at her.

"You want Pike to do it?"

Pike raised both hands.

"Absolutely."

Bietz stared at him.

"Try it."

Pike lowered his hands.

"I'm good."

Matt laughed.

Another officer walked by.

"Grant gonna be all right?"

"Yeah," Matt said. "Broken nose and orbital fracture."

The officer winced.

"Jesus."

"Few weeks off."

"Good."

Then he kept walking.

That was how the information traveled.

Officer to officer.

How's Grant?

He's okay.

What'd he break?

Nose and orbital.

How long's he out?

Couple weeks.

Good.

Then back to work.

Because counts still had to happen.

Movement still had to happen.

Inmates still needed to be fed.

Posts still needed to be covered.

The institution didn't stop because one of its officers left in an ambulance.

Matt knew that.

They all did.

But every time he looked toward where Grant normally would have been, he noticed the empty space.

Not because Grant was indispensable.

None of them were.

That was another lesson the job taught quickly.

The prison would find somebody to fill the post.

Somebody would work the overtime.

Somebody would get moved.

Somebody would get stuck.

The machine kept moving.

But Grant wasn't a post.

He was one of theirs.

✦ ✦ ✦

Later, Matt stood with Pike and Bietz.

The adrenaline was gone now.

That almost always made things feel different.

During the fight there hadn't been time to be afraid.

There hadn't been time to think about wives.

Kids.

Hospitals.

Broken bones.

Career-ending injuries.

There had been a door.

Five inmates fighting.

And the officer beside you.

So you went through the door.

Afterward was when the possibilities showed up.

Pike rubbed one shoulder.

"Gonna feel that tomorrow."

Bietz looked at him.

"You're getting old."

"I'm younger than Morris."

Matt looked over.

"Why am I involved in this?"

"Because you're old."

"Fuck both of you."

Bietz smiled.

Then she became serious.

"Grant got lucky."

The joking stopped.

Matt nodded.

"Yeah."

A fractured orbital wasn't exactly lucky.

A broken nose wasn't lucky.

Leaving work in an ambulance wasn't lucky.

But they knew what she meant.

A punch lands differently.

A head hits the floor.

Somebody has a weapon nobody saw.

An officer gets separated from everyone else.

Thirty seconds goes another way.

Lucky was relative inside a prison.

Pike looked down the corridor.

"Could've been any of us."

Nobody disagreed.

Matt thought about Grant grabbing that inmate.

The punches.

The blood.

Grant refusing to let go.

Matt had been only feet away.

And he'd had his own hands full.

That was another thing people outside the job didn't always understand.

Sometimes the officer beside you was getting hurt and you couldn't immediately help him because somebody else was trying to hurt you.

You handled what was in front of you.

Trusted the officer beside you to do the same.

And hoped everybody walked out afterward.

Today they had.

Grant just needed a little help doing it.

Matt looked at Pike.

"He'll be back."

Pike nodded.

"Yeah."

Bietz smiled.

"And we're going to make fun of his face every single day."

Matt laughed.

"Absolutely."

That was settled.

Grant would heal.

He'd come back.

The first day he walked through lineup, somebody would say something terrible.

Probably Pike.

Possibly Bietz.

Definitely Matt.

Grant would tell them all to go fuck themselves.

And somehow that would mean everything was normal again.

Until then, his spot would be empty.

And every officer who had gone through that classroom door would know exactly why.

Because sometimes the reminder wasn't an inmate being carried out.

Sometimes it was one of your own.

And when that happened, even when you joked about it afterward, even when the paperwork was finished, even when the count cleared and the institution went back to normal—

it stayed with you.

Because every officer knew the same thing.

Grant was going to be okay.

This time.