Sex Inside

I guess it was not really sudden. I mean we make bad life choices and one thing leads to another. We pick up bad friends and bad habits and it just leads to a conclusion. But it felt sudden when it happened.

I was just chillin’ with him at his place when they banged on the front door shouting,

“Open up. Police.”

We looked at each other then, both jumped to our feet, ran to the back door and straight into the arms of a pair of cops.

They turned us around, twisted my arms so I screamed and clamped on the cuffs. I could hear their radio chatter as a background track. I was being dragged towards their car as they were rapidly firing out, “You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney, anything you say may be….de da de da whatever.”

I never saw him again. He must have been put into another car. Did you know that cop cars don’t have normal back seats? They are solid molded plastic so nothing can be pushed down between the upholstery and the seat is tilted backwards so you slide to the back and it takes a lot of effort to sit upright or to move.

The next twelve hours were a hell of fingerprints, handcuffs, photos, waiting around in holding cells and shouted orders. If you are a first timer, it is horrible, terrifying and dehumanizing which is the whole point. Every second is designed to enforce the message that you are powerless. What you may think or feel is of no importance at all. You are here to be punished and to do whatever the fuck you are told.

“You sit down. You do not try to walk around. You co-operate or this all takes longer…”

With what they had on me, I was never going to make bail so there I was in County Jail in my orange suit in a communal unit of about thirty bunks and sixty women. County Jail is not segregated like state prison so the woman in the next bunk could be on a traffic offence or Murder One. And you don’t have jobs or courses so you sit around being bored and scared.

The trial took less than fifteen minutes because I had been advised to plead guilty and then I had to stand up – in handcuffs and shackles to hear the verdict read by the judge.

That felt like being repeatedly slapped in the face in front of a huge audience.

“Appalling chain of offences…unmitigated evil…without excuse..complete lack of compassion..I have no alternative but to sentence you to ten years in prison.”

TEN YEARS!

Then they took me downstairs to a holding cell where I sat until court ended at 5.30 and then six of us were loaded into a van for the drive to Montgomery Jail Maximum Security Unit.

That proved to be a repeat of what happened when I was first arrested. Every unit you go to wants to strip search you and read you a whole new list of orders which you don’t take in and they can’t put you in a cell until they have taken blood and done a full medical. They check all bloods for pregnancy, drugs, HIV and diabetes. I was brought a plastic food tray in a holding cell because I would miss chow call in the cell block.

They take your watch with everything else you own when you first come into County and there aren’t any clocks so I had no idea of time but it had to be past midnight when, carrying my plastic mattress, I entered my triple cell and the sliding door slammed shut. Of course, my cellies were not thrilled to be woken up by the noise but nobody ever sleeps through the night in jail due to the constant shouting.

You never have just two in a cell because then a strong one could prey on a weak one. The third person is thought to be sort of a balance. Often you will have four.

One girl was called Franks (only last names in jail) and she barely spoke. She never responded to direct questions and made it very clear that such questions would end in violence. Names are always written outside cell doors and the girls get friends on the outside to search online so everyone knew that Franks was doing thirty years for a liquor store robbery where a clerk was shot dead. I don’t know why she wouldn’t talk about it as, in jail, that is pretty much fine. It is really stupid to try to hide your offence because everyone assumes you are a ChiMo and then life gets VERY hard.

The other cellie was Hooper and, over time, I discovered that she had done just over three years of a fifteen stretch for dope dealing and aggravated assault.