Page 2 of The Coworker
Benton presses a button, and again, that ear-shattering buzzing sound goes off, just before the second set of barred doors slides open. He directs me down a hallway to the medical ward of the prison. There’s a strange chemical smell in the hallway, and the fluorescent lights overhead keep flickering. With every step I take, I’m terrified that some prisoner will appear out of nowhere and bludgeon me to death with one of my high-heeled shoes.
When I turn left at the end of the hallway, a woman is waiting for me. She is roughly in her sixties, with close-cropped gray hair and a sturdy build—there’s something vaguely familiar about her, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. Unlike the guards, she’s dressed in a pair of navy blue scrubs. Like everyone else I’ve met so far at this prison, she isn’t smiling. I wonder if it’s against the rules here. I should check my contract.Employees may be terminated for smiling.
“Brooke Sullivan?” she asks in a clipped voice that’s deeper than I would have expected.
“That’s right. You’re Dorothy?”
Much like the guard at the front, she looks me up and down. And much like him, she looks utterly disappointed by what she sees. “No high heels,” she tells me.
“I know. I—”
“If you know, why did you wear them?”
“I mean…” My face burns. “I knownow.”
She reluctantly accepts this answer and decides not to force me to spend my orientation barefoot. She waves a hand, and I obediently trot after her down the hallway. The whole outside of the medical ward has the same chemical smell as the rest of the prison and the same flickering fluorescent lights. There’s a set of plastic chairs lined up against the wall, but they’re empty. She wrenches open the door of one of the rooms.
“This will be your exam room,” she tells me.
I peer inside. The room is about half the size of the ones at the urgent care clinic where I used to work in Queens. But other than that, it looks the same. An examining table in the center of the room, a stool for me to sit on, and a small desk.
“Will I have an office?” I ask.
Dorothy shakes her head. “There’s a desk in there. Don’t you see it?”
So I’m supposed to document with the patients looking over my shoulder? “What about a computer?”
“Medical records are all on paper.”
I am stunned to hear that. I’ve never worked in a place with paper medical records. I didn’t even know it was allowed anymore. But I suppose the rules are a little different in prison.
She points to a room next to the examining room. “That’s the records room. Your ID badge will open it up. We’ll get you one of those before you leave.”
She holds her ID badge up to the scanner on the wall and there’s a loud click. She throws open the door to reveal a small dusty room filled with file cabinets. Tons and tons of file cabinets. This is going to be agony.
“Is there a doctor here supervising?” I ask.
She hesitates. “Dr. Wittenburg covers about half a dozen prisons. You won’t see him much, but he’s available by phone.”
That makes me uneasy. At the urgent care, I was never alone. But I suppose the issues there were more acute than what I’ll see here. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.
Our next stop on the tour is the supply room. It’s about the same as the room at the urgent care clinic, but of course, smaller—also with ID badge access. There are bandages, suture materials, and various bins and tubes and chemicals.
“Only I can dispense medications,” Dorothy tells me. “You write the order and I’ll dispense the medication to the patient. If there’s something we don’t have, we can put it on order.”
I rub my sweaty hands against my black dress pants. “Right, okay.”
Dorothy gives me a long look. “I know you’re anxious working in a maximum-security prison, but you have to know that a lot of these men will be grateful for your care. As long as you’re professional, you won’t have any problems.”
“Right…”
“Donotshare any personal information.” Her lips set into a straight line. “Donottell them where you live. Don’t tell themanythingabout your life. Don’t put up any photos. Do you have children?”
“I have a son.”
Dorothy regards me in surprise. She expected me to say no. Most people are surprised when I tell them I have a child. Even though I’m twenty-eight, I look much younger. Although I feel a lot older.
I look like I’m in college, and I feel like I’m fifty. Story of my life.
