I guess I didn’t discuss jail very much, did I? Sorry ‘bout that! My mind must’ve wondered.
Where did I leave off? I’ll just start from…Here:
So, at the magistrate’s office, I down about 25 mg of xanax while the constable, Paul, wasn’t looking. I was only there for a matter of minutes before they handed me paperwork and I was off to Allegheny County Jail. My paperwork said $100,000 straight bond. I knew it had to be some kind of mistake! This was crazy for 1 bag of dope and a needle. I had been to jail before, but only for a few hours at a time. I thought for sure I’d be out by the next day.
I was absolutely wasted from the xans by the time I got there. I was put in holding with about 5 other girls that were just arrested. I was so messed up, I just laid down on someone sitting on the cold metal bench. Her name was Jen and I didn’t know it then but she would be my saving grace for the next week. I remember only vaguely that night and the next day. Jen told me a lot of what happened. We sat in holding for hours before we were taken out one by one to get fingerprinted and our mugshots taken, then it was back to holding again, but this time it was a different room. It had a vending machine and a phone. I was going to do laundry that morning so I had $10 in quarters in my pocket. I called Tony and told him he had to get me outta there. I told him to call the bail bondsman and that I’d call him back. The bondsman knew who I was even before Tony told him. I had the highest bond of any person in the jail at the time. It was also a non-monetary bond, so to get out, I would have to get someone to give the deed to their house, which they would get back after I showed for court, and $7,000 to the bondsman, which would not be given back. Needless to say, I was stuck in jail for the duration, until my hearing. The magistrate was so angry with me that she put the bond that high and made my court date as far off as she could. It would be about 6 weeks later.
Next would be the lice shower and strip search. We were told to take off all of our clothes, which they gathered everything but my underwear, and put in a plastic bag and took away. We were given a paper cup with lice shampoo and told to rub it through our hair and over our bodies. Next we were told to squat down, spread your cheeks, and cough. I’m so glad I was wasted on those xanies cause I don’t remember this all that well. They gave me my underwear back and a pair of Reds (that’s the color of the top and 10x too big pants they gave me. I had to roll them up at the waist!).
We all got checked out by the nurse, who I told that I was detoxing (although the xans held that off for a few hours). We were all taken to the intake pod, Pod C. That’s where all the new people go until they are classified to another pod. I’m not exactly sure how the pods are broken up. In ACJ, there’s only one floor for females. I know there’s a pod for Drugs and Retail crimes, one for hookers, and one for violent crimes. If you are detoxing, you stay on the intake pod longer before you’re classified, because the intake pod gives you detox meds (Yeah! Right! They give you a catapres 2x a day. Didn’t help at all!).
So, by now, I’m sick as hell. I’m getting sweats and chills. I’m puking and shitting, with an audience cause the toilet is right in front of the window. I’m freezing cause they keep the jail at about 40 degrees. I’m told its to kill any diseases. I toss and turn all night long, laying on what resembles a cookie sheet.
The only good thing was Jen. The girl I had laid on in holding turned out to be my first cellie. She was in for a DUI house arrest violation. They grabbed her in the middle of the night cause she didn’t hear the phone ring at 4am. She has 3 kids too, that her mom was taking care of while she was there. Jen and I talked and told each other our stories of why we were there. She was hooked on dope at one time so she completely understood my sickness. She didn’t mind my tossing and turning or even waking her up at night just to talk. We’d play stupid games all night, like the “Alphabet Band” game (A = Alice Cooper, B = Boston, and so on).
The next day, I was extremely dope sick and I think the worst thing was the cold. My dad had come down and put $100 on my books so that I could buy what I needed (don’t you know he made me pay that money back when I got out!) and I needed a thermal shirt more than anything else in the world! Commissary or Store only comes once a week (unless you want to buy something 2 for 1 from another inmate. She gives you one candy bar now and you give her 2 when your commissary comes in. No thank you!). I put in my order for a thermal, some underwear, soap, shampoo, paper and envelopes, the stuff I really needed. Then I was talking with Jen and she said, by the time your order comes, you won’t be dope sick any more. You should get some food so you don’t have to eat this shit. And their food was BAD! I’ll tell ya about that in a minute. So, I put my second commissary slip in. I couldn’t wait for it to come. I wanted that flannel so fucking bad, I could feel it! When my order came, I was quite surprised to see some chips, jolly ranchers and soup! I didn’t know that you couldn’t place 2 orders! They only filled my last one. I was so upset I started crying. All I wanted was that thermal. I constantly shivered. At night, I had to roll up my extra reds for a pillow so, I didn’t have them to keep me warm either.
As I was people watching in jail, I saw a girl that seemed to run the place. Her name was Missy. Missy was probably in her early twenties. She was a worker which meant she was going to be there for a while (you can only apply for work if your sentence is a certain length), she got to eat the staff food, and she got to smoke somehow. Missy was a very pretty girl and she was a lesbian. She seemed to like me and when she saw how upset I was about my thermal she came over and asked if I had anything to trade for one. I showed her my junk food. She took some Jolly Ranchers and brought me back a thermal. Damn, was I happy about that!
Back to the food- the shit was green! All of it! For breakfast, it was grits, with no butter or sugar and they served this stuff called Chicory that was supposed to be similar to coffee. It wasn’t! For lunch, it was a green bologne sandwich. Dinner was a hotdog swimming in beans with a piece of bread. We ate at 8am, 12pm, and 4pm. I was starving in the evening. At around 7pm, there was a hot water line where you could get hot water to make hot chocolate or soup. After my commissary started coming in, I didn’t eat the jail’s food again. Well, that’s not true – they had the best cake! It was upside down so when the trays were stacked the icing wouldn’t come off on the tray above it. This cake was delicious!
I gotta tell you, it’s amazing and pathetic, how quick I can adapt to anything. The first 2 days I was there, I cried constantly and was always calling Tony. After those days, I got fairly comfortable. I was learning all the women jail stuff, like how to make eyeliner out of a regular pencil and how to make mascara out of pen ink and toothpaste, and how fire ball candies from the commissary make a nice shade of red lipstick. There was an older black women named T, that was there for murdering a witness who was to testify at her son’s trial. T pulled me aside one of those first days when I was crying and said, “Girl, if you don’t stop crying like that, those girls are gonna eat you alive when you get to your permanent pod!” She talked to me and made me laugh and she did my hair on visiting day. Tony came to visit on Tues., Thurs., and Sunday. He had to be there 2 hours early, just to see me for an hour through dirty glass! This is one of the reasons I have a hard time letting him go. He has done a lot for me in crisis situations.
I had been on the intake pod for about 5 days. I was pretty much done with the hard part of my detox and they called me in to be classified. They asked me some questions: How many times have you been arrested? For what? How long ago? Then they told me I was going to D pod, along with the other drug addicts. I was just getting comfortable and getting to know people. I didn’t want to move!
You know, telling this story, I was thinking that I’m making jail not sound so bad. My problem is that my brain doesn’t really hold on to the bad things. That’s part of the reason I always go back to drugs too. Just so you know, jail was absolutely horrible. Let me try to remember some more bad shit:
When you got there, they gave you a Styrofoam cup and a spork. That was it! If your cup got a hole in it, too bad! If your spork broke, you’re shit outta luck! People watching you shit. People watching you shower in ice cold water as they’re waiting in line for their cold shower. The sound of the door to your cell locking or unlocking. It’s horrible! You were only out of your cell for about 4 hours total daily. You were only out about an hour at a time. I new when the door was supposed to unlock but many of the CO’s would go to sleep and leave you in your cell. I would sit in my cell and just pray to here that monstrous click, so I didn’t have to sit there anymore. See, at this new pod, my cellie was a pregnant girl that slept constantly. I had no one to talk to so, that time in my cell was excrutiating! Even after I got outta jail, I would flinch when I heard my car door automatically lock! There was nothing to read but Guide Post magazines, which I read over and over. There was a TV that was always on BET and muted so you could see the words because everyone was so loud. It didn’t matter because you were never out of your cell long enough to watch anything! There were all these women with sores all around their mouths and I didn’t know why until someone told me that they were toilet talkers. They would use their ass to plunge the water out of the toilet, then put their faces down into the toilet to talk to guys on the floors below. I thought that was so disgusting! I preferred window writing when I was bored. If you look out the window of some of the cells, you can see the guys in their cells. A lot of the girls would getting naked in the window and the guys would be beating off. Some of us just did window writing. If you use your finger and “write” backwards, the other person could read it. I met a guy from a town about 10 minutes from where I was living at the time. We talked about what we were in jail for. He decided to show me his dick, which was quite large, then we said goodnight! It was interesting to say the least!
There were so many freaks in this jail. There were 2 people there that made me ask if it was a co-ed prison. These two women actually had beards and mustaches. They lived as men on the outside but had to go to a women’s jail. The majority of the girls were lesbians and prostitutes, even though their charges this time was for drugs. There were girls running around saying, “I can’t wait to get outta here and get it in!” Me? I was making deals with God telling him that if he got me outta this place, I would never shoot dope again. I promise! I’m done!
So, about 5 weeks later, it was my hearing date. I think I told that story already so, I’ll stop here. Let me know if I didn’t tell you what happened and I will.
