Larry Franklin: The Rita Nitz Story: A Life Without Parole

Concrete Walls and Metal Pipes

From The Rita Nitz Story: A Life Without Parole by Larry Franklin, Southern Illinois University Press, 2005.

Dust blew across the field that circled the Dwight Correctional Center. The summer was unusually dry, and the farmers needed a slow rain. What an eerie sight, to see a stone prison that seemingly had flown from another place, another world, and landed in the middle of a bean field in mid-western Illinois. I pulled into the parking lot, stepped from my car and walked towards the entrance. A security van inched my way. It was 8:54 a.m.; the door opened at nine. I turned slowly and scanned the prison yard. High, along the top of a chain link fence, were rows of barbed wire that could gut a fish’s belly in a flash.

A man with painted arms and long black hair pulled back into a pony tail walked my way. “We got a few minutes until 9,” he said. “Everything is by the rules.”

“Yes, I know what you mean.”

“Where did you come from?” he asked in a friendly way.

“Carbondale,” I said.

“Whoa,” he answered as his eyes widened. “You had quite a trip. I’ve been coming here one time each week and I’m getting tired of it. I’m too old for this.” He shook his head. “I’m 72. I’ll be dead before my wife gets out.”

“How long is she in for?” I asked.

He looked down and kicked at the dirt. “Ninety years. She left me for a year and ran around with a younger crowd. She’s 23. She got into drugs, and now she’s here. Choices, everybody’s got choices and she made the wrong one. If she hadn’t left me, she wouldn’t be here. Bet she’s sorry now.”

Click. The door opened. I went to the counter and waited my turn. “I’m here to see Rita Brookmyer Nitz N97463.”

An officer dressed in a stiff pale-green short-sleeved shirt checked his computer screen, picked up the receiver and made a call. He, too, had painted arms. “Bring Rita Nitz down,” he said. “She’s got a visitor.”

I turned and did the usual: purchased a debit card, put my belongings in a locker, and walked to a small room where I took off my belt and shoes and waited to be searched. Next, I passed through a metal detector, a hallway, and two doorways before entering the visit room. I picked out a round table with two chairs and sat down.

The man with painted arms chose a table some fifty feet from me, and another man sat to my right. We were the first visitors for the day. Two young female inmates dressed in blue jump suits kept busy wiping down tables with soft wet rags. Rita had told me that inmates in blue jump suits were called “intakes”: women recently transferred to Dwight but not yet assigned a minimum, medium, or maximum security level. Another intake with still eyes, some six or seven months pregnant, sat next to the officer. She looked no older than sixteen.

The routine was interrupted when two large men and one stout woman, carrying black helmets with plastic masks, entered the visit room. Each wore an orange jumpsuit, a bullet-proof vest, freshly polished black shoes, thick gloves, and a belt with canisters and other things hanging from it. Their faces were flushed and showed an air of excitement. With their helmets in place, not a speck of skin was visible. What would it feel like, I wondered, if six of them came into your cell? And these inmates are women. Are they that violent?

An inmate arrived and disappeared behind a door adjacent to the visit room. She’s probably doing the dance, I thought. “The dance” is what Rita called the procedure that inmates underwent behind those closed doors. During one of my earlier visits, Rita raised her hands back behind her head and lifted her long hair into the air. “First I lift my hair up and slowly turn around so they can see if I’m hiding any contraband,” she said. “It’s like I’m dancing at some strip joint. I lift my breasts up and they take a close look. Then, I twirl around, bend over, and spread the cheeks. And if that’s not enough, they take their little flashlights and see if I’m hiding something you know where. They might call in some more guards who take their flashlights and have a look. If they’re still uncertain, they take you to the infirmary for a cavity search.”

Now, as I waited, I imagined that I was a young man who had come to see Rita as a teenager. After meeting her parents, they tell me to wait in the living room and that she will be right down. The television is on, and her father and I watch in silence. The rattle of dishes can be heard through the kitchen door. Sandy, her spotted dog, jumps on the sofa and licks my hand. But reality is different; this is the visit room, a place where everything is hard. The chairs and table tops and legs are hard. The floors are tiled, and the ceiling and walls are stone. Even each word, spoken in a normal tone, is hard and bounces around until it finally dies. I’ve learned to speak softly and direct each word into the softness of Rita’s chest; she sends her words into mine. That’s how we talk in the visit room.