Caxton finally got her first shower a week after she arrived in the SHU. She even got a shower stall all to herself. Of course, two female COs watched her the whole time and she had to wash around the shackles on her legs, but the hot water made her feel almost human for the first time since she’d been moved to her new cell. It was over all too soon. As she was dressing she was told she was in for another treat: a one-hour therapy session. She was allowed one every six weeks and her number had come up. “You’re allowed to refuse therapy,” a CO told her, but Caxton couldn’t imagine why she would. Any human contact that wasn’t with Stimson sounded like heaven.
She quickly discovered that the therapy she was being offered wasn’t what she had expected, though. She was led to a small room near the SHU. It had padded walls and it smelled of antiseptic. There was no one in the room except for Caxton and two COs, but there was a telephone mounted on the wall. She was told she could pick it up and speak directly with one of the prison’s staff psychotherapists. When Caxton picked up the handset she saw there were no buttons on the phone. It was strictly for this purpose and there was no way to get it to call outside the prison.
“Um, hello?” she said, placing the handset to her ear.
“Yeah, hi. How are you feeling?” a bored male voice asked from the other end of the connection.
Caxton licked her lips. “I, um, I’ve been better.”
The psychotherapist said nothing.
Caxton let her head fall forward a little. “It’s tough, you know? It’s just tough adjusting to this routine. It’s kind of. Um. It’s nice talking to a friendly voice. Everybody else I talk to around here is either yelling at me or they’re crazy.”
Caxton blushed. She couldn’t believe she was opening up like this with a complete stranger, one she couldn’t even see. But the chance to unload her problems, even in such a clinical way, was affecting her in a way she couldn’t have foreseen.
“I miss my girlfriend,” she said. God. It felt good to say that out loud. She’d been afraid to say it even to Stimson. “I get pretty scared in here. I can’t sleep, and the food doesn’t taste like anything, it tastes like cardboard. I think—I think maybe I’m having a harder time of it than I even let myself believe. I think I might be going—”
“Are you depressed?” the therapist asked.
Caxton thought about it. “Um, I—”
“Depression doesn’t just mean you’re sad. Everybody’s sad in here. What about voices? Are you hearing voices? Voices that tell you to do things you don’t want to do?”
Caxton’s body tensed up again. “No,” she said.
“Let me know if you start hearing voices or having hallucinations. I can give you Thorazine for that. If you think you’re depressed I can send over some Prozac. You just have to be careful with this stuff. If you start feeling suicidal you need to alert a guard right away. Do you want the Prozac? We’ll start with a low dose and adjust as necessary.”
“No. Thank you,” Caxton said, and hung up the phone. Her therapy session was over.
On days when it didn’t rain, the SHU inmates were allowed outside for their exercise period. Sort of. They were let out of their cells in groups of six, and as before their feet were shackled and they were never allowed to be less than six feet away from each other. They were then taken out of the SHU through a short corridor to a door that led to sunlight, and open air, and a patch of blue sky.