Even on holiday, it’s a scary place
Longtime chaplain Bob Giguere brings his service to the county’s inmates.
AUBURN – The only jingling came from the guards’ keys.
The only light shone from humming, fluorescent bulbs. The only decoration was a pair of Christmas cards, which sat atop a desk in a locked cell.
The holiday comes here, too, to the Androscoggin County Jail. But it’s dressed-down, serious and just a little scary.
“So many times, it’s confrontational in here,” said the Rev. Bob Giguere, the jail’s chaplain for 26 years. “They want to challenge you.”
It happens even in the Christmas service.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way.
“Why is the truth the truth?” asked an inmate, a bearded man about 30 years old.
“I don’t believe this,” he went on, looking down at the open Bible in his hands. “This is what somebody thought. It’s not fact.”
The bearded man wore an orange uniform. There were slippers on his feet. Across his back were stenciled the words: “Androscoggin County Jail.”
An older man sat beside him on a picnic-style table in the maximum-security common room. At one end sat Lou Thibodeau, a lay assistant. At the other end sat Giguere.
The 74-year-old preacher stared at the young inmate for a moment. Then he continued, unfazed.
“The truth is the truth,” Giguere said. “Let me show you.” He recited chapter and verse, flipping among dog-eared pages in his Bible and helping the others find the right passages.
For about 45 minutes Giguere went on. He moved from Genesis and the eating from the tree of knowledge to Christ’s conception, birth, death and resurrection.
“I don’t plan it,” Giguere said later. “The service goes as the good Lord wants it.”
So, he meandered. He spoke of evil – “Saddam is evil”- and deliverance from it.
“Give God a chance,” Giguere said. “If you don’t like Him, the devil will take you back.”
It was a far different service than the one Giguere will give at the Fellowship Church. The Protestant congregation meets in a modern building among the trees in Greene. People will dress in their Sunday best and they’ll sing carols.
There in the jail, such outside pageantry seemed so far away. The only glimpse came from the Common Room window, where the lighted trees of Great Falls Plaza could be seen.
Giguere tried to bring carols with him for this service, but the guards banned the songbooks. They were bound with staples, which could be used as weapons. So, he and the inmates read.
Meanwhile, the guards watched. When the older inmate stood and stretched, the guard motioned for the man to sit again. He did.
Giguere, whose white hair and weathered features resemble Spencer Tracy in his latter days, said he was comfortable there.
“I’d rather spend my Friday nights here than anywhere,” he said. “I have only been hit once.”
Comments are no longer available on this story