Day 1

Wednesday night...

I lie awake in my bed, watching TV and playing games. My hope is that th first day will consist of me sleeping all day long, so I starve myself of rest the entire night in hopes of removing a day of my sentence in slumber. I used to do all nighters all the time, this would be the first one in a LONG time.

The night isn't anything special, I'm just trying to set up the next day...

DAY 1 - Thursday Morning

8:00am

The sun creeps through my windows. I'm still in my bed. I'm waiting for a miracle to happen.

10 days in Jail. Not something I have been looking forward too, but an inevitable outcome of my rash decisions plus the corrupt system at its finest. Now it is something I can't escape. Something that I've been waiting for so it can be over with. Still the image didn't sit well with me, there was nothing I could do at this point.

No miracle.

I get as ready as I can get for something like this. I take a long hot shower. I know it will be the last one I take for a long while. It was a good shower. I eat my last meal as well, cereal.

My job calls. They tell me that the people I had cover for me on Saturday and Sunday won't be able to because they aren't giving out overtime, and those two individuals would have more then 40 hours. They want me to come in because I don't have anyone to cover for me. I pretty much tell them I can't and hang up. At this point my job thinks I am going to Miami for some sort of death in my family. I didn't explain the details, but I told them that much. It will have to suffice for now. I had asked for the next entire week off before they had made that weeks schedule and got lucky.

My calculations had me getting out Friday, or at worst, Saturday morning. I tell my mom I am going to be going on a camping trip. I don't explain much of the details, but she likes to keep tabs on me and wants me to call her every day. I pretty much go under the impression of my phone not getting reception out in nature as the reason why I don't call her. Lame, but it will have to do.

My two alibis are in place. It's 9:30am. I have to be there before 12:00pm. I drive over to my brother's house. He is to drive me over to the Jail. My car will left there. The mood is somber when I arrive. I'm very quiet, completive about the situation. he is unaware of my deep disappointment in him. My friend and myself got next to nothing as far as apologies go from my brother. Now it is I, not him that has to take the brunt of the punishment. He takes me to the jail, it only takes 30 minutes to get there. First, we had to make a stop at the building next door and give them my down payment for staying in jail for these next 10 days. That's right, I had to give them four hundred and twenty five dollars for this whole affair. Cash cow anyone?

It's just after eleven by the time we get out of that place. I curse the system under my breath as I leave. To think I have to give THEM money for me staying locked up is absurd. Sure, it's the fee of the "court cost," but I am losing a week of work for this. It's like I'm losing two weeks of pay instead of just one. Not cool.

The walk to the jail's entrance was long and gloomy. Me and my brother only talked about all the bullshit this whole situation was. Of the three of us, only my friend got out Scott free, (other then having that "no Contest" thing loom on his record.) but I'm glad about that. It's what should have happened to me as well. I guess I'm just not that lucky. But I already knew this.

I get to the desk. What I have in my possession (besides the clothes I am wearing) are my phone, a Gameboy Advance, (for when I get out, I will have something to do while I wait to get picked up) a Sudoku puzzle (level 4 I think) in the hopes that they would at least let me go in with that, my ID, and my yellow wristband. I take no money with me, because if i were to go in with money they would automatically take out ten dollars from whatever I brought with me.

It's just before twelve now and I tell my brother that I will call him when I get out. We exchange a hug. A heartfelt one at that too. Despite all his shortcomings, he is still my brother and I could never turn my back on him. That, something I was very conflicted with during this whole ordeal, is clearer to me now then ever before. He's lucky to have a brother like me. I wonder if he knows that.

He also helps me out with my little "lie" with my mom. He says that he will call her a couple days later and tell her that he got a text from me saying that I wasn't getting any reception while I am supposedly camping. That should ease her mind a little while I stay out of contact with her for 10 days. I just hope she doesn't worry about me too much in the mean time.

It's now twelve o'clock and time for me to go in. I give them my name and they tell me to sit and wait for the officer to usher me into the booking area. The cop comes in and after a few jokes from me, frisks me. He asks if I have any drugs or concealed weapons in my possession. Honestly? He takes everything from within my pockets, and no, my Sudoku wasn't allowed to go in with me. He leads me into a room where I have to give them all of my information. They show me all of the stuff I had in my pocket and after making me describe it all, place it in a bag. I am then asked to go inside a room and strip. That's right, full cavity search time guys! I get to spread my cheeks and lift my sack, literally. Ugh, this is the second time this place has made me do this. I am pretty sure my friend, when we came in a couple months back didn't have to do it back then, but I did....and now again.

Some of the other people waiting in the same room with me don't have to go through this ordeal. Some do. What is the reasoning behind this? That some people have to get naked and some don't. Like I am a threatening presence. This place disgusts me and I will have to deal with it for a week. After they process the few of us that are in that small room, they put us in a small room.

In the room sat three other people. One guy looked nice enough. He was very compliant with the cops and didn't have a sour look on his face. If I could look at myself, I would say I had a blank look on my face. This guy was a heavy set man. He told me that they arrested him while he was in Publix shopping. He had a couple cans of Chef Boyardee, but he needed a shopping cart to continue with his shopping. Now, I've worked at Publix, they keep the shopping carts right by the exits. That said, as he was trying to get a cart, a security guard grabbed his arm. He shrugged (sounds familiar) his shoulder and before he knew it, four other men had jumped on him. He tried to explain to them that he had the money and would pay for cans he was carrying. No sale, he gets booked on petty theft. Gotta love it!

There was an older man who also turned himself in as well. He didn't speak much, but I leaned that he was in there for 60 days for child neglect or something. Something along the lines of him not paying child support, or that he owed two thousands dollars. I dunno. I couldn't imagine myself being cooped up in this place for two days. I had hoped this whole process had eaten up a good chunk of my time...

The other guy looked out of it. I asked him what he was in here for, and he didn't here me. I asked again, and yet again he wasn't getting it. The fat guy with his over the top voice asked him and he told us that they arrested him with multiple charges. This guy looked like someone that should be in here. He was in for burglary, assault and battery, possession, and fleeing. his eyes were bloodshot. me and the fat man both let out a "Damn" after he told us everything and then silence filled up the room.

A couple of other people joined us in the small holding cell. No one really said much and time seemed to stand still. I still wasn't even in booking yet and already I wanted out of this place. I was going to go mad in this small place. Maybe a sign of claustrophobia perhaps? In any case soon enough they let us out and led us into the booking area.

Booking is one big party. No really. It's right before you get thrown into a cell. They have phones and a TV and best of all, rubber seats that offer almost no comfort and even bester of yet these chairs aren't really sleep friendly. Hooray! This is where people call there moms, or dads, or whoever and have the embarrassing ordeal of trying to explain to them why they are calling from the county jail. It's quite fun to listen to some of the conversations going on. This time, I didn't have that problem, I was in there for keeps. No phone call was going to get me out. The booking area also had a clock. It was a little past one at this point.

...

FUCK!

Ok, so I get photographed. I tell the guy taking the picture that I am trying to envision this trip as me staying at the shittiest resort ever for a week. I get a chuckle out of him. I'm full of laughs. Jokes on me.

The fingerprint guy was pretty nice. I told him why I was here and he basically told me that I need to be careful because this (I basically, my predicament) is how they get paid. He mentioned something about a law library and me getting this thing off my record completely. I'll be looking into that when I get out.

The new set of people being fingerprinted and photographed are let loose into booking now. They can now use the phone and watch TV. I set myself up in a chair that is right underneath the TV, a few rows back so my neck won't be too uncomfortable. I expect that they will ship me into my cell rather quickly because I turned myself in, there's hardly any reason for me to stay in this room. This room is basically a room for people to use so they can contact someone to bail them out. I try not to look at the clock so much, because that will only drag this ordeal out longer then it has to be.

I calculate in hours how long I will be in this place. I got in at twelve of this very day and won't get out for ten days. With one day of time served, that makes it nine days in this joint. Nine days is next Friday at some point. That's eight full days at worst and half a day. That's two hundred and four hours. It being one (fucking yay) means I only have two hundred and three hours to go! At worst I mean. I don't know when they will let me out, mind you. I just calculated the worst case scenario because that's all I could have counted on.

I just hope that when they do take me to my housing area it's with people with misdemeanors. I'm not built to stay with felons. I'm not an intimidating presence at all. Oh well, can't worry about that now.

The station is TBS. Being a weekday, there's a nonstop run of comedy shows on the channel. That's good at least. It started with Home Improvement. Fair enough. I haven't watched Tool Time in years.

The fat man sits close to me after he got off the phone. After awhile, we started to talk and it turned out that he was on his way to Comic Con in San Diego. Telling me this, I ask if he was a big comic book fan and away we went. I talked to him in a low whisper, but he couldn't seem to contain his enthusiasm about talking comics to someone else. His voice carried all over the booking area. I could hear sneers and jeers from the others who didn't care much for comic gossip. I could care less either, but anything to pass the time.

Who cares if I let out the inner nerd out. No one I knew was going to see me talk about how cool Nightwing is, or how sad we were to be missing opening night of "The Dark Knight." This guy said he wore an actual (well not actual, but you know) green lantern ring. He said Hal Jordan and Superman were his favorite superheroes. He was all about DC. Good man. It was pure losery bliss. Too bad it didn't last. His mom had him out of there by three. Why the fuck wasn't I in a bed yet? Sleep deprivation might have been a bad idea. I was starting to get a headache.

When it hit four they fed us. Two bologna sandwiches and a small carton of juice. Nasty, but I have to eat. Then the cops in the booking area did an pretty dick move. They lowered the volume on the TVs for some reason. Now I couldn't hear the punch lines over the sound of everyone talking and what have you. Not like I am supposed to expect them to adhere to my needs in here, huh?

One thing that was funny, was there was this old black lady who kept talking to her shoes. But, she was talking loud enough so that everyone had to look at her to see if she was talking to them. It got to the point that she became the entertainment for a good while, until a homeless guy got offended at her senile dribble and got up and challenged her. He yelled that this place was his staple ground and he didn't much approve of her getting all the attention while he was in there as well. A shame that the cops put crazy bitch in solitary confinement before anything could happen. I think she could have taken him.

Time went painfully slow. Most shows were just an hour of back to back of the same show. Shows like, "Yes Dear", and "Just Shoot Me," were just some of the things I was trying to watch to make the time fly, but even in my ADD mind, I knew that when a new show came on, only an hour had gone by. I got pissed when they only showed one episode of "Friends" in order to pull three fucking episodes of "Everybody Loves Raymond" out of their ass. Fuck that show.

Did I mention I almost got thrown up on? As I was walking back to my seat from the nasty ass bathroom, some black crack whore bump into me making dry heaving sounds. Ugh, this place disgusts me. I had to backtrack to the bathroom and wash my hands just at the thought of her bumping into me.

At nine I was treated to a nice movie, "Dumb and Dumber." Good movie for a room full of people that got caught doing something stupid. I hadn't seen it in years, and even in its edited form, it was still pretty funny, if not a tad silly. I was in booking long enough to watch that entire flick. It was just around eleven. What the hell man? I had been in booking for over ten hours. Not cool man, not cool at all.

They check my health and weight. That means I'm going in soon. The lady is nice enough, she tells me I am very healthy. I take a guess at my weight and sure enough I got it on the dot. I weigh one hundred and sixty pounds even. Jail, a quick way to lose weight? I guess I would find out if this place was every fat mans dream diet.

11:30pm

They finally call my name. I don't know if I should be happy or not. I go through the process of giving them my clothes in exchange for the orange jumpsuits. They say I can keep my white T-shirt and undershirt since they are plain. They also said I can keep my shoes and socks. The only thing they wanted were my pants. that's all I gave them, but honestly I should have given them everything so I wouldn't have to worry about any of it.

They lead me to my holding cell. The old man who didn't pay to support his kids is going to the same place as me. It's some place called C-block or something. Before getting there, they stop in some bunker of sorts and give us a cup, a toothbrush, and some sandals. Hell yeah, I love sandals. That was the best thing I saw all day. That was why I wished they had taken my shoes.

Inside the C-block they lead us through a whole bunch of locked doors until we get to the cells. They gave us a mat and some linen. I was hoping for single person confinement myself. Not the case. As we walk past the cages, a hearty "Fuck you" and "Fresh Meat" was shouted in our direction followed by less then welcoming laughter. It came from the right cell area. I thought to myself, anywhere but that one, please. Sure enough...that's where they put us.

It was late so most of the people in this particular pod were asleep. the ones that were awake were all in one of the semi-rooms talking or playing something, I don't know. *** I didn't stop to introduce myself. I just hauled ass upstairs as I heard some more laughter comments as I made my way up. I found an open bunk in the second room I looked in. There were two black men already asleep in that room. I tried my best not to bother them as I positioned all my stuff up on the top available bunk. With no pillow and a shitty, skinny, hard mat I laid myself down to go to sleep.

The day had been long. And this was only a half day. This stay was going to suck. I drifted off into dream land rather quickly. Not going to sleep for a day and a half can do that too you.

The first day was over. Eight more....

*** To give you all a better description of the C-block cell I was in, the place didn't have any doors at all. There were bars on the outer parts of the cell farthest from the bunk area. There was also two stories of rooms filled with three bunks each. Two on the ground level and one elevated for a total of three people staying in one area at a time. In between each bunk area was a wall that separated them like a room sort of. There were eight rooms on the top floor and an extra room down below for a total of seventeen rooms altogether. With maximum capacity, that meant I'd be staying with fifty one men for the rest of my stay. On the bottom level to the left of everything was the shower area. In between the bars and the rooms were four tables for eating and what have you. In each room there was a sink and a toilet with a small window that had a view of the outside.