Just Deserts

In the mid­dle of the pan­dem­ic, 7010 Lambton Park Road in New Albany sold for $4.3 mil­lion dol­lars. As far as I can tell it was bought by no one from no one; from LJHB LLC to the 7010 Lambton Park Road Real Estate Trust. The prop­er­ty backs onto one galac­tic arm of the New Albany Coun­try Club, shield­ed, but not too shield­ed, from the fair­way by a thin bumper of trees. The entry dri­ve snakes toward a key­card­ed entry gate, in front of which is touch­ing­ly, hope­ful­ly, a lit­tle black met­al mailbox. 

Under­stand first of all that the town of New Albany is utter­ly sur­round­ed with white fences. It is white fences to the point where when you see a white fence else­where you seem to be in New Albany. They are white fences, after the mod­el of split rail fences, and from the road they give the impres­sion of an unbro­ken chain of stud ranch­es. Instead of pas­turage, they fence off long bumpy lawns, and some­where behind those bumps, some big brick hous­es. And inside these brick mans­es, the mas­ter class are sleep­ing with their chins on their chests, dream­ing of putting greens, untrou­bled ponds, lol­lipop top­i­ary by a grav­el walk. Or that is my dream, since my nose is only ever as it were up against the glass; I can only see those fences, and fences, and fences, the long grassy berms they sit atop, here and there a white oak sol­id in the wind. 

After a cer­tain point, pow­er can take on the appear­ance of float­ing free from its sur­round­ings. It expands like a thought bub­ble in a car­toon, block­ing out all the con­text; giv­en enough time, it would expand into the cloudy ter­rain of heav­en, fea­ture­less but for St. Peter’s pearly gate. In New Albany, reclaimed from the farms on the periph­ery of the city by the local corps of barons, a safe space for the rich was laid out in the 1980s; not con­tent­ed with the air­tight garages of mid­dle class dream­ing, malls and roller rinks and themed restau­rants, they unfold­ed their fenced yards to the sky.

Since very few of us long to be impris­oned, the land­scape qual­i­ty of dream­ing always has a leak­i­ness to it. Dri­ving through the periph­ery, you are fre­quent­ly exposed to the lures of oth­ers’ dreams, water slides mount­ing up behind the trees. So far, the pro­pri­etors of such places do not throw up walls with jagged glass set into the cop­ing, but set­tle for cam­eras, for rental secu­ri­ty agents, but most of all, sheer space, tracts of space no one would both­er going across; moats of low grass wide enough to for­get what was on the oth­er side. More gas mon­ey, more time on the bus, more space in which to be spot­ted and clocked. Wind­ing up the dri­ve on your way to the coun­try club, or the zoo for the mat­ter, you have plen­ty of time to con­sid­er: should I have come here at all? Or, if your mon­ey is already good, you can relax into that same space of doubt from the oth­er end – sure­ly I am still part of the city, part of soci­ety, and I have nev­er had to pass through a wall, and there was only a teenag­er in a visor at the check­point, noth­ing at all too fear­some. And on the ski slope, the golf course, the semi-pub­lic hik­ing trail, the space goes on wind­ing, and wind­ing with­in itself, wind­ing into the lore of tra­vers­ing it, intestines packed into a cav­i­ty for mat­ter to find its way through.

The prison has always been by Colum­bus’ side. Sul­li­vant starts his town with stocks and a hum­ble jail, and the pro­pri­etors are on the hook from the first to build a pen­i­ten­tiary sized for the new state. The first State House was built by con­vict labor, hid­den behind a fence in the cen­tral square, dress­ing stones from Lucas Sullivant’s quar­ry. Dri­ven back and forth to the pen­i­ten­tiary con­ve­nient­ly close at hand, they worked in exchange for the time shaved off from their sen­tences. This noble edi­fice, its columns wood­en beams paint­ed in imi­ta­tion of mar­ble, man­aged to burn down less than 40 years lat­er. This hap­pened while a new State House, again built by con­victs, was slow­ly ris­ing next to it, behind a new white­washed fence. Above this fence, you could see a series of elms sway­ing. They had been painstak­ing­ly extract­ed from near­by forests and replant­ed as noble memen­tos of the past.” 

The first exe­cu­tion in Colum­bus – the first for­mal one, at least – is not car­ried out until 1844, where two pen­i­ten­tiary inmates were killed for mis­deeds com­mit­ted in jail. One, a black woman named Esther Fos­ter, had killed a fel­low woman pris­on­er with a shov­el; the oth­er, a white man named William Clark, had killed a guard with an axe dur­ing an escape attempt. Most­ly for rea­sons of econ­o­my,” local his­to­ri­an Ed Lentz says, they were hanged togeth­er on gal­lows erect­ed along the Scioto river­front. A huge, noisy, and rather drunk­en crowd gath­ered to watch.” A horse in the crowd was suf­fi­cient­ly excit­ed to rear up and tram­ple an unfor­tu­nate bystander, Mr. Sul­li­van Sweet. After­ward, the mid­dle class demand­ed to be spared such sights, and fur­ther exe­cu­tions were removed to the pen­i­ten­tiary yard. This was not an ade­quate solu­tion, since bored peo­ple climbed on sur­round­ing roofs to look in, just as though they were look­ing from their con­dos into Wrigley Field. 

Give the peo­ple what they want, or at least halfway. As the 19th cen­tu­ry wore on, vis­i­tors, here as else­where, were invit­ed into the pen­i­ten­tiary, pay­ing to see dis­ci­pline at work. What they saw in the yard was odd­ly close to a Vic­to­ri­an park, com­plete with a mil­i­tary review – corps of inmates being drilled by their over­seers on a lawn fringed with shade trees, ringed with bed­ding and showy ele­phant ears, before being marched back to their cells.

The Pick­away Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter, a growth from the lit­tle ham­let of Ori­ent, has long since suc­ceed­ed the old State Pen­i­ten­tiary down­town. Half an hour away from the cen­ter of town, it can sprawl in every direc­tion, eat­ing up the farm­land, grow­ing itself an acad­e­my for prison guards, grow­ing around the grave­yard of the insane asy­lum it sup­plant­ed. You know the ratio of space between the base­ball dia­mond of the exer­cise yard on one hand, and the tracts of lawn spread­ing out beyond it, gate after gate, extra time for aim­ing a search­light and a rifle. Do I need to tell you what is there to meet you at the gates of the prison? White rail fences, fram­ing the entry drive.



(February 2025)