In the Sanctuary of Outcasts
Read In the Sanctuary of Outcasts Online
Authors: Neil White
A Memoir
Neil White
To Little Neil and Maggie
He dwelt in an isolated house,
because he was a leper.
—2
CHRONICLES
My First Day May 3, 1993
Daddy is going to camp. That’s what I told my…
Leprosy. Kahn had to be wrong. Surely, healthy people—even inmates—would…
My building was called Dutchtown, named for a neighboring community…
The walk took about five minutes. I followed Kahn, winding…
Back in my prison room, I wrote a letter to…
Summer
The guard banged his flashlight against the end of my…
Toward the end of my first week of work in…
After work the following day, I returned to my room…
The guard who had caught me talking to Ella gave…
The prison library occupied two rooms in a building in…
After work each day, I walked the perimeter of the…
My plan to write an exposé about the convicts and…
My menu board illustrations had become popular with the leprosy…
“May I please borrow your iron?” I asked again.
I met Linda in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1984 when we…
That night, just before lights out, Doc asked if I…
On a Sunday morning in late June, in spite of…
On Monday morning, I found myself alone with Ella in…
One balmy night after the 10:00 P.M. count, Link invited…
I was appalled that the Bureau of Prisons would force…
I spent the late summer afternoons walking the inmate track.
On one of my afternoon walks, when the shade from…
Doc’s job as an office clerk afforded him access to…
Carville was full of men whose grand schemes trumped common…
Steve, the ultimate entrepreneur, managed to get the best job…
Fall
Frank Ragano, Jimmy Hoffa’s lawyer, was terrified he would catch…
I missed my cologne. For years, I would douse myself…
Initially, I couldn’t fathom why the federal government would decide…
Carville was strange in many ways, not the least of…
Doc had one close friend at Carville, Dan Duchaine. Dan…
As the leaves started to turn on the trees, Linda…
Smeltzer’s efforts to profit from the inmates reached a fever…
Because the leprosy patients liked my menu board illustrations, the…
The prison was quiet and cool the day I turned…
During the five months I’d been at Carville, I had…
As I immersed myself in reporting on the patients, my…
On a crisp fall day, bundled in a heavy jacket,…
For all that I had done wrong, one part of…
I went to my room, crawled into bed, and pulled…
On a Wednesday afternoon, after days of crippling despair, I…
Winter
I stood behind the barricade and waited for a guard…
On a Saturday morning in December, I waited with about…
Outside, in the inmate courtyard, Slim waited for the children…
A few weeks later, Steve Read finally invited me to…
The next morning, while transcribing the menu board in the…
“Have you seen this?” Doc asked. He handed me a…
Every day after the four o’clock stand-up count, the Dutchtown…
My nightmares about the children persisted. In every dream, Neil…
Mom brought Maggie and Neil to visit as often as…
“Hey, Doc,” I asked, interrupting his reading, “what are you…
“Ella,” I asked, “do you have any children?”
I looked forward to mail call on the first of…
During the cold winter months, bundled in a brown, government-issued…
During a Wednesday night service at the Catholic church, I…
I waited for my team meeting with five other inmates.
I left the meeting and walked to the library. As…
Link was given a new job, too. The guards, who…
“Hey, Harry,” I said, “this is my last day.”
On the morning before my first day of work as…
As the gray winter months lingered, the leprosy patients became…
As the Bureau of Prisons continued preparations to take over…
Back from two weeks in parish jail, Link had found…
I returned to my room to find Doc burning a…
On a Sunday afternoon in late January, more than forty-five…
The prison alarm echoed through the hallways, and the guards…
In the midst of lockdown, I learned that my furlough…
On the first two days of furlough, the kids and…
After a dinner of gumbo and cornbread, Mom drove me…
Spring
Back inside the colony, a guard gave me a urinalysis…
Not to be left out, I drafted my own short…
The prison population dwindled. U.S. marshal buses and vans arrived…
In preparation for the annual patient Mardi Gras parade, the…
Five days after the Mardi Gras parade, on Ash Wednesday,…
“If you’re not careful,” Jimmy Harris said while riding his…
On a bright day in April, Dan Duchaine yelled out,…
Late in the evening after the dance, the guards came…
I stood in the breezeway and waited for Ella. I…
The day before I was released, I packed my belongings.
My last night as a federal prisoner, a few inmates…
My Last Day April 25, 1994
I dropped my boxes at Receiving and Discharge, in the…
Frank Ragano’s book, Mob Lawyer, was published immediately after his…
For more than a century, Carville, Louisiana, served as the United States’ national leprosarium. Individuals who contracted the disease were forcibly quarantined at its remote location on a bend in the Mississippi River. By the 1990s, the number of patients at Carville had dwindled to 130, the very last people in the continental United States confined because of the disease. The facility had hundreds of empty beds, so the Bureau of Prisons transferred federal convicts to Carville.
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts
is the story of the year I was incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Carville, Louisiana.
A Note on the Word
Leper
I wish the word
leper
were not in our vocabulary. For the individuals who contract leprosy, this ancient term is deeply offensive: the label defines individuals solely on the basis of their disease and further alienates them from the world. Early in the book, I have included the term as I used it—in my own ignorance—when I first arrived at Carville. I lived with, watched, and ultimately forged friendships with the residents of Carville, many of whom welcomed convicts into their home. For this reason, I have used the term
leper
as sparingly as possible to depict the suffering caused by this branding, the misunderstandings about the disease, and the stigma associated with leprosy. My hope is that the book will reflect my gradual
understanding of, and empathy for, this community of men and women who survived unimaginable injustice and tragedy. After the “Summer” section, as narrator, I do not use the word. For the remainder of the book, the term
leper
is confined to dialogue, sequestered within quotations.
My First Day
May 3, 1993
Live oak trees separate the front of the colony from the Mississippi River levee.