This One's For the Birds by James R. Tomlinson

James R. Tomlinson teaches convicted felons in the Michigan Department of Corrections. He is a recipient of the Judith Siegel Pearson Prize for fiction and has been previously published in Pebble Lake Review and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine. Other prison stories have appeared in the Detroit MetroTimes.

I’m staring at Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, one of several I’ve kept from 1973 through 1986, wondering why I haven’t thrown them out. Once you read a mystery story it’s solved, case closed, and there’s no real need to reread it unless you’re critiquing each story, searching for a hairline fracture in each plot, justifying your own existence, thinking, “Hey, I can write this crap.”

So I distance myself, pull back from unearthing a story here, treating Hitchcock’s side profile as the first of a series of inkblots. Like prior writing drills where I use word association to get the creative juices flowing, I’m off and running: Hitchcock, The Birds, Free Bird, Feed the Birds, Give me the Bird, Big Bird….

Soon I’m recalling the day administration had surveillance cameras installed in the prison yard and mall area¹ to protect the prisoners from doing harm to one another. It’s not too long after that that a few inmates are written minor misconduct tickets for coming out of the chow hall and feeding the seagulls. There’s no denying their involvement because it’s on video. The Hearings Officer, in collaboration with the Hearings Investigator, decides one day of toplock² is punishment enough.

But now my story sputters, so I’m back looking at my list, and when I first see “Big Bird,” I’m thinking Sesame Street, which in turn reminds me of the little boys trapped in men’s bodies with their lame-ass excuses for not wanting to go to school. Then I’m recalling a rather tall inmate (approximately 6’ 10’’) who had the honor of becoming the first convict I ever apologized to. Not that it matters—I have to use universal precautions and assume they’re all a bunch of liars.

Pull—“I have to call my lawyer.” Pull—“I’m not feeling well.” Pull—“I had another death in the family.” PULL—“I have to go back to my unit and take a shower.”

This last explanation is from the tall prisoner and seems genuine if not ridiculous. I give him two choices: 1) stay for the full two hours of class or 2) leave, which is an automatic “032 Out of Place” ticket³. He chooses to stay.

An hour into the class, I’m walking up and down the aisles, monitoring each student’s progress. Then I notice it. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see it. You’re so tall, and I was sitting down. Go. You have a legitimate right to take a shower.” A big gob of bird shit was running down the top of his scalp.

¹Mall area - centralized location of intertwined sidewalks connecting the housing units to the chow hall.

²Toplock - targeted cell doors that will not electronically open for mass movement of prisoners.

³“032 Out of Place” - numerical code for prisoner rule violation when a prison isn’t in his assigned area.