Stanley was driving fast enough to beat the minutes, checking off mile marker after mile marker, hurtling over the rivers and through the woods in his mad dash to get up there before the warden departed, the pizzas breathing in Stanley’s back seat, heater vents wheezing to keep them warm, buckled in to keep them from sliding and spilling downwards, toppling onto the chassis floor, hungry pies made of God knows what, corporate-certified The Works^©, masses of fatty meat and regimented veggie shards, scattered across prefabricated crusts, smothered in low-grade salt-ridden bulk-manufactured warehoused tasteless cheese, which All-American Pizza^© delivered daily by the truckload to All-American Pizza Courts^© scattered across America like plastic houses on a Monopoly^© gameboard, yet still, despite their All-American mediocrity, their aroma, warm and savory, strapped in place in Stanley’s back seat, locked up with him alone at the helm in the confines of his lonely dashing car, provided Christmas hope, for indeed it was Christmas Eve, and despite all the red tape the warden had wrapped around it, finally, to Stanley’s surprise, miracle of miracles, the warden granted permission for Stanley to cut through it all and purchase the pizzas for one last gathering of his Correctional Education class, just like in the outside world, a pizza party on the last day of class.

The plan was to eat some All-American pizza, drink some juice, and read some literature, at the students’ request—even the Muslims—A Christmas Carol.  

When Stanley pulled into the prison parking lot, however, the warden’s car was nowhere in sight.

In the guardhouse was a corrections officer whom Stanley had learned to mistrust.

This was a man who always kept Stanley waiting unnecessarily in the guardhouse as Stanley stood before him behind the protective glass.

Stanley would greet him with a pleasant hello.

The officer would say nothing.

He would dawdle at his desk.

He would complete paperwork that did not exist.

Why?

In hopes that before Stanley could be processed and allowed to enter the sally port into the inner precincts of the prison, the prison bell would ring.

For the afternoon count.

No one could come or go during a count.

Every person in the prison needed to be accounted for. It was a census that took place four times a day. Every day. Even on Christmas Eve.

A count took forty-five minutes.

At the least.

It was a mind-numbingly monotonous game.

The prison game.

Like the outdoor shooting range across the street from the prison, available only to law enforcement agents.

The gunfire echoed for hours each afternoon until sunset.

Try parsing Emily Dickinson to the popping of gunfire.

The protocol of the count called for the prisoners to recite their ID numbers for the guards, all of whom knew the prisoners by name, and some, even by number. The kindest of the guards checked off the names rapidly to get the count over with. Others took their prosaic time. Some, unfamiliar with kindness, extended the game.

“I didn’t hear you,” they would say, “speak up.”

Some prisoners would speak up, repeat their number.

Some would not.

No one liked their number.

“Repeat it or I’ll write you up.”

Most men did not want to be written up.

Most men did not want to be toyed with, either.

Who does?

In short, the prison count could take hours.

Usually it did not.

But sometimes it did.

Sometimes Stanley would finally enter the prison with only minutes to spare for his class. But still he would enter. He knew the men were waiting. He understood his role in the game.

Not the game of prison.

The game of hope.

When the bell rang and the census was over, prison activity could recommence.

Stanley could enter the sally port regardless of whether or not the officer on duty was the same officer who liked to make him wait.

The same officer who was on duty this particular night, Christmas Eve.

The officer who was now informing Stanley that the warden had already departed and that no, he had not left word about any pizza parties, and that no, he had not left any paperwork, and that no, without paperwork, pizzas could not be brought into the prison.

Food was contraband.

If Stanley wanted to turn around and take the pizzas home, he could do so, or leave them in his car, that would be fine, but otherwise, the officer would have to confiscate the pizzas.

It was up to Stanley.

“Has the afternoon count happened yet?”

“No.”

Stanley entered the sally port without any pizzas.

The sally-port door slid closed behind him.

He waited.

He considered ways to appeal.

With the warden gone, there were none.

The opposite sally-port door slid open.

When Stanley arrived in the classroom, the students greeted him with smiles, ready with their copies of Dickens placed happily on their desks.

Boxes of juices purchased from the canteen awaited, eager, ready to be popped.

The students noticed Stanley had no pizzas.

Stanley informed them: The pizzas were in the guardhouse, the guard claiming the warden had not left permission to bring them inside.

Eyes rolled. Names of guards were called out.

They guessed immediately who it was.

They were angry.

Stanley asked them to remain calm. It was Christmas Eve. They could still read A Christmas Carol.

There was grumbling.

Unkind comments.

Un-Christmas-like comments.

Bah humbug-like comments.

Not directed at Stanley.

The animus was more exact.

For their professor from the state flagship university, the university with the All-American basketball team, they would remain calm.

When the first guard passed by the classroom window with a folded slice of pizza at his mouth, the tenor of the situation changed.

Other guards passed—all with pizza in hand.

Soon no one was reading any novel.

The prison bell rang.

Time for the count.

When the officer entered the classroom, wiping his chin and tossing a remnant of All-American pizza crust into the trash barrel, the riot ensued.

– Paul Stapleton

Author’s Note: I have taught in five different prisons in North Carolina, and the goal of this story is to capture some of the intensity of the interpersonal dynamics that exists in such institutions, not to mention the naivete of do-gooders from the outside.