Staff weren't in much better shape. Those with the most seniority were first in line when it came time to pick days off, and Christmas was one of the first holidays chosen. So on this Christmas morning, low-seniority staff crowded the guard-mount room at the beginning of the shift where duty assignments would be made, and these folks were feeling some resentment at their long-seniority colleagues who were missing.

The first thing we did that morning in the Segregation Unit was serve the breakfast trays. Food trays were arranged on rolling carts, and we went room to room, left off trays, and then later returned to pick them up. Once this chore was done, the inmates went back to bed, and they tried to sleep through as much of this day as they could.

Staff cleaned up after the meal, and then we also settled into comfortable chairs to pass the time as painlessly as possible until lunch arrived and the special noon meal would be served.

Just as everyone was settling in and getting comfortable, I announced to my co-workers that right now would be an excellent time to carry out a random urine test to check for drug use. Random urine tests were a regular, recurring task assigned to us, and we completed this task one inmate at a time when we had an opportunity. I picked up the paperwork, rose to my feet, and invited my grumbling, resistant co-workers to join me at room L-8 where an inmate named Joseph lived.

I arrived first at the cell and opened the door.

"Good morning, Joseph," I said. "It's time for a random UA."

Right at that moment, I was not a very popular fellow. Joseph was no happier to see me and be awakened than my co-workers had been to give up their comfortable chairs and come to his cell. Joseph stumbled out of his bed, and he complained that he wouldn't be able to provide a urine sample because he had urinated shortly before he ate his breakfast.

I insisted he try.

We completed the required strip search, and I gave him the specimen cup he was to use. Joseph stood over his toilet with his penis poised over the empty cup, and nothing happened. We waited. Finally, he set the cup down on the ledge at the back of his toilet.

"I just can't go," he said.

We had a procedure to follow when an inmate couldn't or wouldn't produce a urine sample. We're supposed to notify security that an inmate isn't able to urinate. They send a correctional officer who escorts the inmate to a holding cell where he stays until he can produce a urine sample.

It was a lot of trouble, and it was Christmas morning. Keeping all that in mind, I said, "We'll wait."

There was a chair in the room next to the wall, halfway between the bed and the toilet, and it had a book on it. I stepped over to the chair, picked up the book, sat down in the chair, and laid the book in my lap. I told the inmate not to hurry, that we had plenty of time.

"What!" said my co-worker standing in the doorway. It was the last straw for him.

"Larsen, you're crazy!" he said. It was his parting comment, and suddenly I found myself alone in a Segregation cell with an inmate. This was never supposed to happen, but it never occurred to me that I was in any danger.

Although my co-worker was now gone, Joseph didn't move. He continued to stand over his toilet with his penis dangling over the toilet, and he picked up the specimen cup and held it beneath his penis. I was seated in a chair, and I looked at the book that was now in my lap. It was a Bible, and it was Christmas morning. I turned to Luke, Chapter 2, verse 1, and I started to read aloud:

"In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration . . . "

The Christmas story. The gospel writer Luke's account of the birth of Jesus. It's a lovely story, and I love reading it aloud, but we were a most peculiar sight: me in a disciplinary segregation room by myself with an inmate assigned to be there, who listened to me reading from the Bible in the early morning on Christmas Day while standing over a toilet with his penis dangling over an open, empty specimen cup. Actually, the atmosphere was very relaxed, and I hadn't been reading very long before I heard the tinkling sound of urine falling into and filling the specimen cup.

Success.

I closed the book and stood up. Joseph screwed the specimen cup lid tightly in place and handed the cup back to me. We completed some paperwork, and I put everything in a special plastic bag, and I started to leave.

"Wait," said Joseph. "Don't go. Finish reading the story."

I was surprised and delighted with the request. I settled back into the chair, and Joseph sat back on his bed and leaned against the wall of his cell.

"And while they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger."

I read to the end, loving each word as I spoke it. When I finished, there was a moment of silence between us, and then Joseph spoke. He quietly thanked me.

"I never knew where that was in the Bible," he went on.

I put my finger on the page in Luke where Chapter 2 begins and I said "It's right here."

I stepped over to his bed and laid the open Bible on his lap. As I left him, he started to read the story again for himself, his head bowed over the open Bible. I paused at the door and drank in the image. I would not soon forget it.

As I returned to the office and resumed other duties, I realized that this memory would rank high as one of the nicest things I had ever experienced on Christmas.

Discussion

1. What ranks at the top of your list of Christmas experiences?

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