YOUNG SHOELESS JOE

Let’s call him Shoeless Joe—you’ll discover why—a young prisoner learning how to do his time. I’ve had to warn him over and over and over: Quit screwing around. Stay focused. "This is not sixth grade camp," I say. "This is prison. You’re not here to make friends."

He laughs.

“These guys will do you, I mean really really do you,” I add.

Shoeless Joe refuses to listen, refuses to take my advice. He wants to argue instead. He thinks he has game. I give him my Eddie Haskell, tell-it-like-it-is, in-your-face, reality-check, “Back when I started with the department you were shitting in your diaper. In fact, you still got milk on your breath.”

Shoeless Joe gets angry. I don’t know, maybe he thinks I’m his camp counselor, maybe he thinks I’ll serve him graham crackers and milk, and burp him afterward. “You’re no game player,” he tells me. Most teachers aren’t, but if that’s what needs to be done to teach him a lesson, then so be it.

One day I observe Shoeless Joe concealing something in his shirt. Without implicating myself for violating a certain policy, because I would never do that, implicate myself, I confiscate a size nine state shoe. I know it isn’t his—he’s wearing his state shoes. He begs me to give it back because he lent his gym shoes to another inmate and took the man’s state shoes as collateral. Shoeless Joe ain’t got no game. He has no way of retrieving what was once his.

“What am I gonna do?” he asks.

“Deal with it,” I say, “Playa.” He looks dejected. “Maybe you can do a one shoe trade.”