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More offices, more signatures. At Medical, a nurse tells me I still have some left on my Klonopin. Do I want them to send the rest of my prescription over to Discharge? I tell her no—that I’ve gotten myself off them. Haven’t taken any for about a week and a half. “Any negative effects?” she asks.

Palpitations, some on-and-off twitching, a little more irritability. Nothing I can’t manage. “None that I’ve noticed,” I tell her.

“Okay then,” she says. “If you’re sure.”

Our last stop is Counselor Jackson’s office. “Okay, this is it for me,” CO Whiteley says. “Good luck.”

“Same to you,” I tell her. “Hey, do me a favor, will you?” She says officers don’t do favors for offenders. “Okay. I was just going to ask that youdon’t let this place make you cynical.” I put my hand out to shake hers, but she refuses the gesture and walks away. I figure she could go either way after she’s here awhile: become one of the decent ones who remember we’re human beings or one of the ballbusters who has to keep reinforcing the message that we’re scum and they’re in charge. Something I’ve observed in the time I’ve been here is that a lot of the female officers are chameleons. They’ll treat you reasonably one shift and go hard-ass on you the next, depending on who their shift partner is. For whatever reason they chose this work, women have to manage two groups of men: the prisoners and their fellow guards, including the ones who try to test them by making sexual remarks and the ones who assume this is no job a woman should be doing.

Counselor Jackson wants to know how I’m feeling. I shrug. Tell her my head’s all over the place but I’m mostly happy to get out of here. “Understandable,” she says. “Is someone picking you up on Tuesday?” I tell her yes, my mother. “Good old Mom, huh? Let her know she should be here no later than eight thirty, but that she’ll probably have to wait awhile. Depends on how many others are getting processed out. And as you’ve probably noticed, nothing at this place moves too fast.”

“Believe me, I’ve noticed. See if you can speed things up when they make you warden here.”

She laughs and says, “Oh God, don’t wishthaton me. Here. Don’t lose this.” She hands me a card with the name and contact info of my probation officer and tells me I need to check in at his office within forty-eight hours of my release. I’m given a CT DOC discharge packet that contains information about transitional services and how to access medical insurance. I ask her to describe what happens on D-Day.

“Sure,” she says. “They’ll get you up early, probably have you take a shower and get dressed. They will already have issued you a couple of garbage bags for the stuff you’re taking home, so you should pack the night before. Make a list of everything. Then an officer will escort you over to A&D and put you in a holding cell with whoever else is leaving that day. They’ll call you up one by one, check the stuff in your bags against the listyou made, give you a pee test to make sure you’re leaving here clean, and ask you a bunch of questions to make sure you’re really you, not someone who’s trying to sneak out of hereinstead ofyou.”

“Seriously? Did that ever happen?”

“Once, I heard. I guess it was all over the news, so they’re super careful not to let it happen again. Anyway, just before they discharge you, you hand in all your paperwork and they give you your release documents. You’ll get your new ID and your gate money. Then an officer will unlock three or four doors. When you pass through the last one, you’re on the outside, a free man again.”

“A free man. Wow. Is it really going to happen?”

“It is,” she says. “You ready for it?” I tell her I’mmorethan ready, but the truth is, I’m on edge, too. The routines at this place can be mind-numbing, but what happens after I’m out and my days are unstructured? What if I can’t get a job or get my license back? I ask Jackson whether I can use her office phone to call my attorney about having my driver’s license reinstated. She nods, gets me an outside line, and hands me the phone.

“Attorney Dixon is no longer practicing here,” the receptionist says. “Would you like to make an appointment with Attorney Stives? She’s taken over the practice and has all of Ms. Dixon’s files.”

“No, that’s all right. Thanks anyway.”

It’s February the first, late Saturday morning, and the final countdown to Tuesday has begun. Manny’s sitting on my bunk and I’m kneeling in front of my open storage box, conducting the great cellmate giveaway. I’ve already promised my sweats to Pacheco, my Timberlands to Angel, and my blanket and knit hat to Lobo, who’s always bitching about how cold he is. But to Manny go the rest of the spoils—whatever he wants to claim. He’s already taken possession of my TV, writing with a Sharpie “Property of M. DellaVecchia” on both sides of the thing.

“How about these?” I ask, holding up my checkerboard Vans. “They’re kind of frayed and there’s a hole in the toe.” Manny gives me a thumbs-up. He’s probably worn them more than I have.

“Earphones?”

“I can always use an extra pair.”

“Plastic bowls?”

“Fuck yes. One of mine’s got a crack in it.”

“Stamped envelopes?”

“Sure. I ran out last week and I owe my sister a letter.”

“What about a half-empty tube of toenail fungus cream?”

“Why not?”

Giving away all the commissary shit I’ve accumulated is against the rules, officially; you’re supposed to haul it all out of here whether someone else could use it or not. But for me, part of the joy of getting out of here is giving it to him and, really, who’s going to check and say, “Hey, isn’t that Ledbetter’s antifungus cream?” It’s one of the stupid rules here that begs to be broken, and I’m just seventy-two hours away from saying so long to all the stupid regulations at Yates fucking CI.

“Zatarain’s?”

“Which kind? Blackened or Creole?”

“Creole.”

“All right then. Yeah.” Likehe’sdoingmethe favor.