My new home...

As the 'slider' (a large steel door that slides open and closed) opened up into D Pod, I was greeted with a volley of shouts of "There he is!" and "he's the one!", all bullshit, really, and I was to learn that everyone was greeted that way, for the most part. Since I was new I was escorted into an enclosed area, separated from the rest of the pod by large Plexiglas windows. There were 4 cells in the enclosure. All the cells were the same, as were the pods, differentiated only by their pod color. As I said before, D-Pod was blue/gray. The diagram at the top is what they looked like.

I unpacked my meager belongings and stored them in the cubby under my steel bunk. No bedsprings here. This was a state-of-the-art jail, with no bars, only 3 inch thick steel doors with narrow windows leading into a 6'w x 10'l x 12'h room. At the opposite end of the room room the door was the window that gave me a view of the outside perimeter, surrounded by razor wire. The steel doors were controlled by an electronic/magnetic deadbolt. The Co's console had the release switch for all the doors. It was dark and gloomy, so I turned on the light. The long enclosed fluorescent flickered on quickly and illuminated me with the only type of light that I would see on a regular basis for the next 19 months. As I was reading through my paperwork and settling in, it suddenly hit me:

I was in jail. And not just overnight. I had learned my lesson, but no one was letting me out anytime soon.

There was a payphone in the enclosure and I hurried to make a call to home. I was not allowed to say goodbye to my family in court. The judge would not allow this to take place. So I made my first of hundreds of phone calls using the jail collect call system. The sound of my mother's voice crushed me as she answered. There was a pause while the system connected us, and there she was, as if she was right next door. I couldn't contain myself. I said, "Oh, Momma, I'm so sorry..." We both started crying, and she said that she was sorry, too. She asked about some of the formalities, making small talk, I think. Then we cried some more. She told me to be strong, that I'd make it through this, that she'd be there for me, that we would all be together again soon. I told her that I loved her, and that I'd call her again soon. Then we hung up.

I walked to the CO's desk and asked for a pen. He handed me the pens used by inmates; a rubbery thing made up of a short ballpoint inkstem and a flexible type of grip. I went back to my cell-I had no cellmate-sat down at my bolted-to-the-wall steel desk, took out the only paper I had, which was a copy of the rules and regulations, found a blank spot, and began to write. Nothing survives of the first 4 days of this ordeal. Where the writing went, I do not know. Maybe I didn't write anything at all. My first entry begin on January 12, 2003:

"5 days in-physical assault is a possibility. The powers that be say that they are here to protect us from ourselves as well as other stuff. I've already had one offer from the protection rackets. $30 in an (canteen) account and he'll protect me. Very illegal-for me as well. I was non-committal about acceptance."

Looking back I can see how I was assessing my survival situation, the way a shipwrecked sailor may assess his own predicament. He would make sure he wasn't hurt, tally his meager possessions, and set about building shelter, maybe make a fire if he could. With that first sentence I was able to stake a claim on my own existence. If I had paid the protection money, there would have been no end to the swindling. Once that door is opened my life would be over. By not accepting the offer, I showed that I was not easily swayed by the scary rumblings of the natives. This offer would come around a couple more times and I would rebuff it every time. My small holdings at that time were few, but important. I had my wits, my intelligence, and, thank God, my sobriety. I came in to jail with a program. AA would be my light in the darkest of days yet to come. My sobriety gave me power, and an edge, over others. I was focused on today, just today, and getting through it. My first lesson had been learned: I only had to worry about today.

That night I cried myself to sleep.


#1229