Intake
It was an uncomfortably warm early afternoon as I arrived in Shelton, Washington DOC’s classification facility for men. I, seated in a cage at the front of the chain bus for my own protection, separated from the rest of the circus, stepped off first. Since pandemic-era quarantines were still hitting the prison systems, I was immediately greeted by a younger nurse in full PPE standing behind a tall plastic barrier. As she scanned my forehead for signs of fever, she told me, “Damn, you’re young and cute. Be careful, people like that here.”
And that was my first interaction with a DOC employee.