Jail Chronicles, Chapter 9

I want to go home. 30 miles from home right now, and it might as well be China. I want a shower, a warm private shower. I want to sleep in a bed with sheets and a pillow or two. No lights, no slamming doors, no popping locks, no crazy drunks, no ringing phones. I want to brush my teeth, shave my legs. I want to see the sun, hug my kids, and drink real coffee. I want my freedom.

Due to the clearing house, booking was busy all damn night. I’m not sure I slept, but I know for sure I didn’t dream.

Breakfast my first morning in Lincoln County is biscuits & gravy, normal one of my favorites. I’m not sure exactly what this stuff is, but b’s&g’s it ain’t. I can’t eat. I want to go home, I want real food. I drank the milk before it got warm. I know I’m losing at weight. At 5′ 7″ 115 lbs, I have precious little to lose. I don’t care.

After breakfast, a shower, and another strip search. No avoiding the shower this time. No point in it. My booking picture has been taken, who am I going to impress in here? The strip search doesn’t even faze me, I don’t care. I have no dignity left. At least the people here are familiar. I’m not proud to say I’ve been here a time or two before. Never over night and never in the back in general population, but still. Here. This shower is hot, and alone, and behind a locked door. The last small bit of privacy I’ll enjoy for who knows how long. I enjoy the hot water, and the soap feels/smells good. Washes the jail funk off of me, in preparation for more. I know that once I’m done here, my fashionable orange ensemble is waiting for me.

My bra is taken, along with my underware. They don’t allow any color other than white, and they don’t allow underwires. I’ll remember that next time. Only white underneath any time I have to go to court. Just in case. *sigh* why does there have to be a ‘just in case’?

I’m given my property tote and taken back to G-pod. There is no sneaking in under the cover of night. I will have to walk in this time in full view of everyone there. I feel like fresh meat. I walk up the stairs to my assigned cell. I’m last one in (already three girls assigned to this cell) so I am left with the very top bunk. Which is all of 12 inches from the ceiling. Even as thin as I am, I’m not sleeping up there. I’ve got all day to figure out the alternative. For now, set my stuff down and don’t wake the natives. No point in pissing off the roomies 5 minutes after walking in.

The rules are different here. The remote, stays in the pod, we have control. The cells are not locked down at night. We are free to roam 24 hours. I look around, take in all in, watch and learn.

My cellies (I learn the lingo quick) wake for lunch and Sarah explains we can get a ‘boat’ for my mattress and I can sleep on the floor. Floor beats ceiling any day of the week.

As the day wears on more girls come out of their cells to the day room. The atmosphere is much like a college dorm. Hanging out in each other’s cells, listening to the radio, playing scrabble or spades, braiding each other’s hair, writing letters, watching television.

Home sweet home.

Jail Chronicles, Chapter 6

The elevator opens and it’s dark. I step out of the elevator and see why it’s so dark. The pods are illuminated, and when it’s darker outside than in, it’s easier for the guards to see the inmates and nearly impossible for the inmates to see the guards outside.

I enter the pod. At 3:30 everyone is in their bunks in their cells. The day room is empty save the 3 tables bolted to the floor, two showers off to my right and a toilet that is just behind a half wall. In front of me, 8 cells, 4 upstairs, 4 down. I happen to be in one upstairs. I walk in, claim the top bunk, and the door shuts behind me. The locks slam, sounding like gunfire. There is no light in the cell, save whatever light shines in through the small window in the door.

I crawl into bed, in a dark room. Alone. Scared. Abandoned. Ashamed. Depressed. Exhausted. I had nothing left. No energy to think about freedom, to think about life outside, to shed a tear for my babies. I had nothing left. Not even enough strength to whisper “Save me”.

Jail Chronicles, Chapter 4

They relay the message to my savior in the visiting area, but that well has run dry. He’s completely tapped out. My options now are simply

1. Wait for bail which is highly unlikely, like almost impossible.
   
2. Wait to be transported to Lincoln County. Which will still have no effect on my bail amount.
   

Either way? I’m fucked.

And yet? I hold on to hope.

The Co’s are no longer my BFF’s they were a few minutes before. Some of the regulations *must* be enforced. My high heals are traded in for sassy orange rubber sliders. My freedom to roam at will is gone. I’m confined to a holding cell, by myself.

For the first hour I’m OK. I’ve got my book and I am out of sight from all the inmates on their way to and from court. They can’t avoid the temptation to come take a look at me, like a rare exotic animal in a cage. That just pisses me off which only serves to excite them. I end up sitting on the floor against the door so that no one can see me.

Two hours. Waiting. Uncomfortable. Still hoping, believing, that The Preacher Man will come back with the money it takes to set me free. I watch the clock as time speeds away. I’m allowed to walk around again not that court is done for the day, but I take little joy or comfort in the minimal freedom I’m given. I should have enjoyed it.

The Last bunch of inmates to pass through booking were unbelievable. They acted like they hadn’t seen a woman in months. And it’s very possible they hadn’t. They made rude comments which I could easily ignore. But when they mentally undressed me, my skin crawled. Virtual Reality Rape. They could undress me in their minds, and I was helpless to stop them.

Three hours. I’m starting to worry but I can’t let it show. I still have my cell phone with me, so I am able to talk to the girls when they get home from school. I am supposed to be on my way home from work right now. I’m not even close. I tell them I’m going to be a little late even though I am beginning to doubt it. I can’t tell them the truth, it will scare them. I’m scared enough at the thought of them at home alone and me in jail. They have no idea I’m not at work.

Hope is fading. Shift change is coming up soon. The simple freedoms I’ve been granted today are about to run out. I sent a text message “If you can’t save me, please take care of the girls for me.” It was all I could do. It was going to have to be enough. I had to believe it was enough so that I could just focus on getting through the next few hours. They put me in a cold holding cell with a bed (concrete slab) a thin mattress and a blanket. It’s Warren Co jail, not the Hilton. I’m locked in a this room alone. For the first time all day it’s beginning to sink in that I may not be going home tonight. I am, for the first time in my life, alone in the world with nobody to turn to for help and salvation.

I refuse to eat dinner. I’m not *that* hungry. Frankly they don’t care. As long as I’m complacent and quiet, they pay me little attention. I sit huddled in my blanket reading my book. I doze off now and then as much from fatigue and boredom as from self preservation. My stress level is building as hope fades with the evening sun. Every tick of the clock is a tick of the clock longer than I thought I’d be there. Sleep offers a temporary pseudo escape from the reality of the Hell I’m in.

I listen for the phone to ring bringing news of my release with it. It never comes. By 9:00 I start to admit to myself I might actually be spending the night in jail. Something I’ve never done, and something I never thought I’d do. I never thought it would come to this. And yet… here I sit.

I get as comfortable as I can, and try to sleep. Without my medication my mind races. Stress, fear and disbelief keep me wired and awake. The noise of jail night life conspire to make sleep fitful at best.

I drift off to sleep praying Save me God. Save me God. Save me God.

Tomorrow offers new hope.