Scenes of Prison
38. Who is My Enemy?
“J ew boy!“ “Jew boy!“ “Hey, Jew boy!“
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The loud calls and pounding on the door interrupted an idle conversation I was having with Mike, a co-worker in the Disciplinary Segregation Unit. The calls came from an unfamiliar voice. We were standing on the landing between the up and down staircases near the entrance door on C-1, and the calls were coming from the lower tier of rooms. Mike and I had just finished checking an inmate into CL-27 near the stairway leading down to the yard door. Mike and I looked at each other puzzled, and we wondered if it might be him.
“Is that the new guy we just put in L-27?“ Mike asked.
“Sounds like it,“ I said. “His name is Paxton Dewey.“
Mike stepped over to the head of the stairs and called down to the inmate. Paxton was standing inside his room looking out through the door windows of lower 27.
“Paxton, is that you calling?” he asked.
“Not you,“ he said. “I want Jew boy.“
“Jew boy!?“ Mike repeated. “There aren’t any Jew boys here.“
“The other guy. The bald skinny guy.“
I qualify as bald and skinny, and I have for many years. I stepped over to the head of the stairs and stood next to Mike.
“Mister Dewey, did you want me?“ I asked.
“Yeah, you’re the one,“ he replied. “You’re a dirty Jew. That’s right, you. You’re a dirty Jew.“
Mike and I exchanged a glance.
“Larsen‘s not Jewish,“ Mike said to Paxton.
“Oh yes, he is,“ came the reply. “He’s a dirty Jew. Hey, everyone,“ he was now addressing the other inmates who had come to their doors when they heard the pounding and the loud voices. They were curious, and they were now watching the action.
“Larsen‘s a Jew. Don’t do anything he tells you to do. Let’s get him when we can,“ he said.
The other inmates on his tier were confused. I’d never before heard any expression of antisemitism among the inmates. Apparently, they hadn’t either. I don’t think any of them knew any Jews, and they weren’t antisemitic, not even Paxton. He didn’t even know that “Larsen'' wasn't a Jewish name.
Paxton was probing for some insult that would hit a nerve with me, something that would sting. He was trying to hurt me, and he was hoping that I was Jewish.
Paxton had been led into our Segregation Unit that morning with his hands restrained behind his back in handcuffs. He had been in a fight, but the fight had been stopped so quickly that no one had been hurt. Paxton was young, medium build, and angry. He seemed to stay angry, too. He seemed to need to be angry and need to be in conflict with others, and before the morning ended, he turned his attention onto me. I became his latest project. He would provoke me, and as he pursued his project, he would keep his comments and insults barely inside the boundary created by the Inmate Code of Offenses.
In the coming days, whenever I appeared nearby, the insults quickly landed. Paxton was trying to hurt me. Right now. All day, every day. Whenever he laid eyes on me, the slurs and insults came thick and fast. Surely, Paxton was my enemy. He would physically harm me if he could, and that got me thinking. He thought I was a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. I thought of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and what he had to say about our enemies.
Many people in ancient Israel addressed Jesus as Rabbi or teacher, and stories about him often include the phrase “and he sat down to teach them.” What often follows this phrase are sayings, stories, and parables that seem likely to prompt discussions and elicit followup questions.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.”
“A man went up from Jerrico and was set upon by robbers.”
“Who is my neighbor?”
“Who is my enemy?”
This last question was my own. I was thinking of Paxton.
I’ve studied the Bible, and I’ve always been curious about Jesus. It seems to me that Jesus used Jewish Law to teach people. Very often, the discussions he began seemed to help his listeners think, discuss, and decide for themselves individual answers to a very important personal question: “How can I lead a righteous life?” It also seems clear that these answers would vary with different individuals, different times, and different circumstances.
Sometimes, his teachings were vague and prompted many answers, so people had to decide what to do. But other times his teachings were pretty clear: “Love your enemies,” and “pray for those who do you harm.” This teaching was from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. It reads more like a commandment than a suggestion or a discussion prompt, and this was the part that clearly applied to my relationship with Paxton.
Love Paxton? Pray for him? This inmate who shouted unprovoked insults at me from behind his closed Segregation room door all day every day? I found this teaching to be difficult. This would take some thinking.
How could I love Paxton? How would I apply this teaching?
It seemed that I had fallen into exactly the kind of internal discussion that Jesus intended his listeners to have as they listened to him on the hillsides of ancient Palestine. Think of your goal. Imagine the viewpoints of others. Discuss options. And decide what you will do. So that’s what I did in my dealings with Paxton. It was Jesus‘s idea, so I thought I’d give it a try.
I thought it all over, and I made a few tentative steps.
First, I ignored the insults.
Next, I ignored the hostility that accompanied them. With others, Paxton’s efforts to provoke conflict by hurling insults, slurs, and hostility would have been returned in kind, and the mutual animosity would have led to violent conflict. Just what he wanted. I resolved that it would be different with me.
Next, I spoke matter-of-factly to Paxton. We had occasional matters of business to conduct, and I scrubbed any negative affect from my own words and actions.
Finally, I anticipated Paxton’s needs living in Segregation and brought them to his attention.
“Looks like you’re nearly out of toilet paper. Do you want another roll before deadlock count?” I’d ask.
I was able to do these things because Paxton was locked in a room, and he was limited to verbal assaults. He could not physically hurt me unless I opened his door.
For anyone who saw me, it would have appeared to them that I loved Paxton. My actions and affect resembled a parent reacting to a toddler who stomps his foot and shouts, “I hate you!” when some frustration has disrupted his day.
I did not love Paxton, but I didn’t hate him either.
Then, a remarkable thing happened. Just as suddenly as Paxton’s hostility toward me had appeared, I came to work one day, and Paxton’s animosity had disappeared. It was replaced by the exact opposite sentiment. I was a great guy. His greeting became friendly. He asked how I was, and his change of heart persisted.
When it was time to send Paxton back to his unit and release him into the general population, he hadn’t changed. Paxton was still the same antagonistic, always-ready-to-fight inmate. He insulted other inmates, and he provoked conflict. In the coming months, he often returned to Segregation in handcuffs with a security officer following close behind him. But his attitude toward me never changed. I was a great guy, and he repeated this to anyone who would listen.
Amazing.
It was ironic that Paxton’s efforts to hurt me by calling me a Jew prompted me to think of Jesus, who was a Jew, and to follow his teaching about enemies in my relationship with Paxton. It certainly wasn’t in the employee handbook, and there was no lesson on it at the Training Academy. But it worked with Paxton. I wondered what he would say if he knew?
Discussion
- The author chose to employ a teaching he learned at his church in his job at the prison, and it was successful. Are there any other teachings you have learned through religious education that you would like to use in working with prisoners?
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