Orange Is the New Black

until finally we found the twisted piece of metal rolling around in the lid of one of the toolboxes.
    DeSimon was relentlessly unpleasant to many of the prison staff as well, who called him “Swamp Yankee” (and worse). He may have been widely disliked, but he was also the head of the institution’s union chapter, which meant that management let him do as he pleased. “DeSimon’s a prick,” one of the other shop heads told me candidly. “That’s why we elected him.” Under the Prick’s indifferent tutelage, I learned the rudimentary basics of electric work.
    A group of totally inexperienced women working with high voltage and nearly no supervision did yield moments of broad comedy and only occasional bodily injury. In addition to a butch tool belt, prison work gave me a greater sense of normalcy, another way of marking time, and people with whom I had something in common. Best of all, I was sent over to the garage to obtain my prison driving license, which allowed me to drive the CMS vehicles. Although I loathed DeSimon, I was glad to be kept semibusy five days a week, and ecstatic at the freedom of movement I had driving the electric shop van around the prison grounds.
    On a Friday when we returned from work to the Camp, Big Boo Clemmons from B Dorm came out to meet the CMS bus. “Guilty on all four counts!” she reported with great excitement. Inside we found the TV rooms packed, because a jury had found Martha Stewart guilty on four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a well-timed stock sale. The style diva was going to have to do fed time. Her case had been followed with keen interest at Danbury—most prisoners thought she was being targeted because she was a famous female: “Guys get away with that shit all the time.”
    ·  ·  ·  
    O NE AFTERNOON Levy, our nervous coworker Shirley, and I, geared up in our tool belts, were shuttling around the staff housing on the grounds, checking the circuit panels in every house. DeSimon escorted us from house to house, where he would make small talk with the occupants while we did our thing. It was bizarre to go into the homes of our jailers and see their angel collections and family photos and pets and laundry and messy basements.
    “Zey have no class,” sneered Levy. I didn’t like prison guards, but she was insufferable.
    When we got back to the shop, DeSimon left, and it was up to us to clean out the truck and return the tools to the cage. That’s when I discovered the extra screwdriver in my belt.
    “Levy, Shirley, I’ve got one of your screwdrivers.” They both checked their belts—no, they had theirs. I held two screwdrivers in my hands, confused. “But if you’ve got yours, then where…” I was mystified. “I must have… picked this one up in one of the houses?”
    My eyes met Levy and Nervous Shirley’s, which were huge.
    “What are you going to do?” Shirley hissed.
    My stomach dropped. I started to sweat. I saw myself in the SHU, with no visits from Larry, with another criminal charge for stealing a CO’s potentially deadly screwdriver. And I had these two fools in on the game, no one’s choice for accomplices.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but you don’t know a thing about this, understand?” I hissed back.
    They hurried into the shop, and I stood outside, looking around wildly. What the fuck was I going to do with this screwdriver? I was terrified, because I knew it could be construed as a weapon. How could I get rid of it? If I found a hiding place, what if someone found it? How did you destroy a screwdriver?
    My eyes fixed on the CMS dumpster. It was big, and all the shops threw their garbage, all kinds of garbage, in there. It got emptied often, and the garbage was taken away, to Mars as far as I was concerned. I grabbed the shop garbage and strode toward theDumpster. I fiddled with the garbage bag while I surreptitiously wiped the screwdriver like a maniac, trying to get rid of fingerprints. Then I flung both into the Dumpster, which unfortunately didn’t sound very full. It was done. Heart pounding, I returned to the shop and put away my tool belt. I didn’t even look at Nervous Shirley or Levy.
    That night I went over the screwdriver problem again and again in my mind. What if the CO noticed it was missing and remembered that inmates had been in his house? He would raise the alarm, and then what? An investigation, interrogations, and then Levy and Nervous Shirley would