You wouldn't think that saving a CO from a fellow inmate would endear you to a prison full of said fellow inmates, but Chloe was different. Nobody ever had a bad word to say about her. Even when she had to write someone up, nobody ever seemed to feel like she was unfair to them. Kindness goes a long way, I suppose. While nobody really had any real problems with me before, that was mostly just due to people not really caring. My paperwork was fine, I wasn't an asshole, I understood the way things worked, and I stayed out of people's way. That was all most of them cared about. After the word got out about what happened though, I became somewhat of a micro-celebrity.
Few people cared for Norman. He was a white collar criminal who thought he was tough because he'd shaved his hair off and gotten in shape, and he wasn't much for making friends. Like me, he stayed out of people's way, and he knew the way things worked, but he'd never talk to anyone unless he had to. He had a few acquaintances, mostly old-timers who'd helped him out early on with understanding how things worked. For everyone else though, if Norman was talking to you, it's because he wanted something. That's what people said. He always paid his debts, but that alone wasn't enough to earn him any friends, and certainly not enough to get anyone defending what he did.
By and large, people here were used to asshole COs who would treat you like shit, write you up for petty things, and then use it to try and turn you into a snitch. Chloe was none of that. When it came to getting involved in people's affairs, she knew how things worked, and she understood the limitations that herself and the other COs had. I don't think I ever heard of her trying to force anyone to turn snitch, either. She never made promises she couldn't keep, she... Well, she did her job, only got involved where she had to, and that was about it. While you might have a picture of a lazy CO who did the bare minimum, that wasn't the case at all. She never shied away from breaking up a fight, or something that looked like it was heading that way. She was good at it as well. She could de-escalate something that may otherwise get bad, just by being there, more so than any other CO, and if that wasn't possible, as I knew full well, she wouldn't hesitate to jump in. While it always felt dangerous to see her wading through a crowd towards an altercation, she never faltered for even a moment. I think she knew her reputation with the inmate population. She knew nobody wanted to hurt her. Well, almost nobody.
The thing people remembered the most though, was that she treated people like people. In the weeks after the incident, I heard one burly inmate say she was the first woman to smile at him in six years, and that he was sad she was gone. So to say she was popular with the inmate population was an understatement. She was beloved, and not just because she was pretty, but because she had a genuinely kind heart. But I knew that when she saved my life, and spent the next few minutes making sure I was okay. She didn't just do that because it was her job. She did it because she cared. When the news of what I'd done to stop her assault got out, which it did, well before I was released from the hospital, I found myself coming back to pats on the back from people I'd never talked to before.
The hispanic block especially was grateful for what I'd done. I was a little surprised by that, truth be told, as they were the ones who usually got in trouble for whistling and catcalling, as well as making lewd remarks. That didn't happen much, though. It was mostly gang-affiliated new arrivals, looking to stake a claim and get a read on the COs. Eventually they realized she really didn't care, and that she wasn't going to let them intimidate her. Oddly enough though, once they got past that phase, they ended up begrudgingly showing her respect. Maybe it was just because she was part hispanic herself, but my actions in preventing her rape had made me some sort of folk hero to most of them, and I never again found myself dissuaded from coming into the rec room when they were in there. On the contrary, Luis and Oscar were excited to teach me how to get better at pool, which they excelled at.
The overwhelming support the inmate population had for Chloe just made me so much more confused as to why Norman would've tried to do what he did. He always seemed okay really, not the kind to cause trouble, but as I'm sure anyone could tell you, you never really know what kind of evils lurk in the recesses of someone's mind. I used to worry about myself a little, sometimes, before. I never really knew what kind of man I was, until I was tested. And I was tested. I wanted to kill Norman for what he did, and what he tried to do. I could've murdered him, easily. With just a few more swings of the baton, I'd have done enough damage that he would've been dead, and I would be a killer. And a part of me still wasn't fully convinced it would've been the wrong thing to do.
Regardless of how I felt though, I suspect I displayed a lot more restraint than many of the other inmates would have. Conversations after the fact seemed to verify this, as every Tom, Dick, and Harry kept saying things like "I'd have wasted him." "He deserved worse than that." and the most worrying one of all; "You had the perfect excuse." The perfect excuse... That was how some people here viewed taking a life. If you had a good excuse, then it's a-okay, I guess. As a whole though, no inmates in there had anything bad to say about what I did.
As for the COs, well, it was odd. The male COs seemed to be quite endeared to me, whilst the females... Well, it was complicated. As for the rest of the prison population, the male COs were a little better to everyone else, perhaps in recognition of the shared respect everyone had for Chloe, and the shared condemnation of what Norman tried to do, but the female COs seemed to get a thousand times nastier. Not to me, of course, but to everyone else, most definitely. It only added to everyone's bitterness and frustration, and whilst before, few people ever seemed to have a nice thing to say about Kara, Vickie, and Samantha, the three other female COs, now they seemed to have nothing but horror stories to tell.
When I tried to imagine it from the women's point of view, it wasn't surprising. They were women COs, trying to do a job that required them, in their mind, to dominate and subjugate the male inmates who outnumbered the COs ten to one. One of their colleagues, someone who had a totally different philosophy on the matter, was violently attacked and sexually assaulted by one of those male inmates. To their mind, that could only reinforce their convictions, and show just how imperative it was to never allow themselves to be seen as weaker than the men. It was a tale as old as time.
I'd heard more than one inmate floating the desire that it had been one of them attacked, rather than Chloe, and if I'm honest, I understood. I wouldn't say I agreed, or that any of them deserved it, hell, I couldn't think of a person alive who I believe deserved rape. But I couldn't lie to myself. Had it been say, Kara - who I was told frequently topped the monthly leaderboard for write-ups - in that room instead of Chloe, I don't think I could've summoned the courage to risk my life for her, the same way I'd done for Chloe. It was horrible, I know, and part of me felt bad for considering that, but simply put, it was true. She just... Well, I would've never wished it upon her, and I know I'd never have joined Norman in abusing her, or anyone, but she's not Chloe, and as such, I just wasn't willing to risk my life for her. It wasn't a fun thought experiment, and so I tried not to dwell on it.
The recognition for my good deeds from the COs, and the other inmates was nice, but it didn't make much difference to me really. I got on with most people pretty well already, and I kept out of trouble, so I never got much shit from the COs. That meeting with the warden, where he said that I'd done a good thing - as if, because I was in his prison, I had to be deficient in basic humanity and morality, and as such, he needed to explain it to me - and that he'd get me on whatever good behavior credit programs the prison could offer, that made a difference.
Putting aside how little he seemed to think of his prison's population, that was him telling me that my sentence had been cut down by nearly a third of what it should've been. That was him telling me I'd get to go home to my parents, probably within two years. That made a difference. He also told me that Chloe and her family were grateful for what I'd done, and passed on various sentiments of gratitude and the like. I was also granted a number of other privileges that were otherwise difficult to earn, and easy to lose. I had increased visitation slots, - which didn't do me much good when my family lived 1200 miles away - and he'd given me a better cell to myself in a quieter housing unit, mostly full of old-timers. I didn't mind my cellmate at the time, but he was keen to replace me with one of his friends, so it worked out fortuitously.
When I (admittedly very proudly) told my mother about what happened, and what the warden told me, she said that since I got stabbed for that woman, then I should've been released then and there. Given I wasn't a huge fan of being stabbed, I was inclined to agree. However, apparently in the eyes of the federal government, taking a dirty shiv to save a CO - and nearly getting sepsis whilst waiting for the COs to organise transport to an actual hospital - wasn't quite enough to pay your debts to society. I tried not to feel bitter about it though, because I knew if I had to do it over again, knowing the outcome, I'd do it all the same. My dad just told me that I did what a man does, and that he was proud of me. We never got on all that well in recent years, and we hadn't talked since the sentencing. I know that was hard on both of us, and for my mother as well, but to hear that he was proud of me, well it made the dull, perpetual ache in my thigh not really seem to matter anymore.
---
I was sitting down at breakfast, a little over five weeks after the incident, when something miraculous happened. At first it was just a little bit of a ruckus near the canteen entrance, where one of the COs always stood, watching people as they went in and out, through the metal detectors. I ignored it, and focused on my... well they called them eggs, but I wasn't convinced. It wasn't until I heard a shout of "Chloe's back!" that I started paying attention. No. It couldn't be. There was no way she would be back after what happened. There was no way the prison administration would let her stay, even if she wanted to. And why would she? She was violently and sexually assaulted by an inmate, and the only reason she was whole, and alive, was because of me, another inmate. Those weren't my words, those were the words of the warden, and no doubt part of the opening statement of her civil suit against the prison.
Or so I guessed. I sort of assumed she'd have sued the prison for failing to put in place adequate safeguards for female staff, and then taken whatever payout they offered to set her up. Yet when I got to my feet and looked over at the crowd, once it thinned a little, there was no doubt who was standing by the door. Ignoring my tray, I swiftly walked over to her, intent on embracing her, without thinking. I came to my senses before it was too late though, and stopped short, just a few feet away, and somehow, I was tongue-tied. She was smiling awkwardly across at me. Even after what happened, after that terrifying and traumatic ordeal we shared, she was still smiling.
"Hey." She said quietly, and locked eyes with me for a moment.
There were at least half a dozen inmates around us at that moment, all of them glad to have her back, comforted by the knowledge that the only ray of sunshine wasn't gone from this cold granite complex. Yet when I looked into her deep brown eyes, I don't think I was aware of anyone else. It felt like time had slowed to crawl, and it was only us left in the whole wide world. Even as another two COs walked over, curious, and perhaps a little concerned that a situation was developing, and the crowd dispersed, the two of us were left there, like the world couldn't touch us.
