Power in the Blood

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I was standing at the gate of Potter Correctional Institution staring at him when he was killed. Actually, I was looking into the back of a garbage truck. As I waited to be buzzed into the pedestrian sally port, my view was slightly impaired by the chain-link fence and razor wire that surrounded the vehicle sally port. The hot July sun reflected off the razors as it would from the mirrored shades of a redneck police chief, waves of heat dancing through the circles of steel. The air was thick and hard to breathe. The clear, blue, cloudless sky offered me no shelter from the sun’s assault, nor any promise of rain for the parched planet beneath my feet.

I didn’t know I was witnessing a murder at the time. All I saw was a rather young corrections officer, with a bad complexion and wide hips, standing on the back of a white, one-ton Ford flatbed truck loaded with trash bags. He was thrusting a long metal rod through each bag. His hips made him look like he was wearing football pants with full pads. Sweat poured off his face, and his light brown uniform was soaked through. What caught my attention in the first place was the enthusiasm with which he executed his task.

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