“A light sentence, is a Prism, is not a Prison, is not a Prism.”

CLACK CLACK, CLACK CLACK

“RACK IN RACK IN RACK IN!”

Everyone in the section starts looking around, trying to figure out what’s interrupting the middle of our day.

“Hurry up, let’s finish the hand,” Tad says quickly.

Jimbo and I are teamed up this round, trying to prevent Tad from pulling his bid, and the whole thing turns into ‘don’t think, just play’. I lose count of how many aces were played and how many trump cards are left. As we finish, I make a dumb mistake that gives Tad two points he shouldn’t have been able to pull.

“Shit! I lost count. Sorry Jimbo.”

“I would’ve pulled it anyways,” Tad says, throwing down his last few cards.

“WRAP IT UP GUYS!” the CO yells at us.

“Leave the cards here, we’ll sort everything when we come out.”

I make it back to my cell, and Kevin is right where I saw him last. He’s his bunk reading a book from The Sword of Truth series.

Darrell put in for the kitchen a few days after we had our little scuffle. It feels like forever ago now, even though it’s only been two months. Truthfully, I think it was my buddies at the tables clowning on him all the time, and his mental just couldn’t take it.

After Darrell, I had an older bum off the streets as my celly for a couple days. I’ve come to learn that during the winter months, jail can be a little vacation from the cold wet streets. “Three hots and a cot,” they say. He didn’t even post bail either, the jail just released him on the terms “overcrowding”.

After he left, I got Kevin, who’s been my best celly yet. He hardly speaks, keeps clean, and mostly just reads all day. We have a lot in common with the kinds of books we prefer, so we combined our library orders on the last go-around to get the whole Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.

He’s on book seven and really enjoying them. I’m on book six and I have to force myself to keep reading. The plot’s decent enough, but his character interactions feel flat and robotic. That’s what I love so much about Brandon Sanderson. Not only is his world building fantastic, but the way his characters talk to each other feels so alive and real.

Kevin puts his book down and asks, “What’re we racking in for?”

“Not sure. Nothing in our section, I don’t think.”

I hear myself talk and realize how much of my proper English has been abandoned. It feels like I’ve slowly dumbed myself down so I can fit in easier. I once used the word tantalizing at the table and you would’ve thought I said something like onomatopoeia for all the shit they gave me about using a “big word.”

I walk cell-laps back and forth as Kevin and I discuss the part of the book I’m reading.

I’ve been lying to him the whole time about how much I’m enjoying the series, because it’s the only time he shows any excitement about anything. Reading between the lines, I’ve been able to piece together that he relapsed, and that’s why he’s here.

He didn’t just lose his freedom this time though. I think he may have also lost his wife, family, and job.

I keep doing cell-laps even after the conversation dulls and Kevin gets back to reading. Every third or fourth lap, I stand at the door and look out into the section. There are quite a few inmates at their doors as well, and I see Big Petey across the way, doing sign language to someone in a cell upstairs above me.

And so it goes for over an hour. Walk to the table, touch the wall, walk back to the cell door, look out.

Then boredom overtakes me, so I pull out my pill pack. Even though I know where I’m at on the count, I check them anyway.

The jail just gave me an early six-month checkup to see how I’m doing with the pills. After half a year of listening to jail talk all day long, I’ve come to understand how truly valuable my pills are. The only reason they were prescribed to me was my lack of drug history. So I put into practice the advice given to me by the other inmates by wording my responses to the doctor’s questions in a light that kept me on the same medications with an increased dosage.

However, the goal wasn’t to get twice as high every day. I wanted to start my first jail hustle. It turns out that, like Seroquel, inmates will pay two or three soups for one of my Effexors. It’s an inmate rotating transaction that I really don’t fancy keeping up on, or taking the risk for either. So I found a way to feed two birds with one peanut.

A dude named Wess is one of the numerous inmates who likes to come over and watch us play Pinochle for hours but never has the confidence to play himself. He’s a dorky young white dude who made his living as a drug dealer on the streets. Although, he’s literally the only dealer I’ve heard of yet who strictly deals weed and spice, and nothing else. No black, white, or clear.

 But he has the hustler’s spirit through and through. One day, after going to him for my once-a-week Seroquel for a Sunday cocktail, I offered him a lucrative deal. I told him that if I supply him with one of my Effexors each day, he can sell it and give me half the profits. You would have thought I’d given him a winning lottery ticket with how excitedly he agreed. Not once has he tried to screw me over. It’s definitely not because he’s afraid of lil ol me, but probably because he watches me say things like “Fuck you” to the likes of Tad and Scrappy.

These Pinochle gangsters and I aren’t the sun everything in this jail-controlled section revolves around like you see on TV. We’re more like the gravity on Earth…holding everything down.

Pills, drugs, a two-for-one store, and information all go through our little group at the card table.

The vast majority of the sixty-four inmates currently in our minimum-security section fit into one of three categories: over fifty-five, won’t be here longer than six months, or are petty criminals who’ve never done prison time. All in all, it’s been a much more laid-back experience than I would have thought after my first week behind bars.

I don’t know how long we’ll be locked down today, so I decide to snort my extra Effexor instead of selling it. As I’m crushing up the mood mellower with my ID, I notice my date of birth is starting to fade from all the work I’ve put the plastic card through. Saint Patrick’s Day was a few days ago, which means my birthday is coming up and  I’m about to hit the quarter-century mark. Twenty-five isn’t even close to being considered old, so why do I feel so bloody ancient?

CLACK CLACK, CLACK CLACK

The jarring sound of our doors popping open snaps me out of the relaxing, Effexor-induced meditation I was in while lying on my bunk.

I look at the clock in the day room and wonder the point of letting us out for twenty minutes before racking back in for shift change.

My question is answered when I step into the section and see inmates rushing to line up to get clean. That’s right, the showers only get colder as the night goes on. I’m glad I’m in the routine of always take mine right after lunch.

When I get to the card table, Scrappy is the only one there. We start walking laps after cleaning up the cards from earlier. I pull out my ID and joke about how the card itself is gonna need rehab for all its drug abuse. He takes a look and laughs, then notices the date. “March 22nd? That’s Wednesday, right?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Why?”

“That’s the day Cory gets out. You ready to join the crew for real this time?”

Cory is the one that I secretly dislike. He came into the section the day before Brock went home, and just because he’s homies with Tad on the streets, he got the laundry trustee job over me.

“Send it,” I say, a hundred times more nonchalant than three months ago.

“You’re gonna be in for a surprise too. Someone got a very exciting kite from one of the trustees in quarantine.” He drops his voice to a quiet threat. “Don’t tell anyone. Not a single person, including Wess. We just keep this among the laundry crew, K?”

“Oh, one hundred percent.”

We do laps until rack-in. The whole time, I’m considering the implications of accepting the trustee job. Before I even have it, I’m already getting pulled into what sounds like a drug deal involving something from the streets. The chances are high that something could go wrong, landing me in serious trouble.

But how do I say no to people like Scrappy and Tad? Can I even say no? I wish I could call my dad and ask his advice without the phones recording every word.

Even though I already know what he’d say, it would still be nice to hear my pops’ voice of reason with stuff we see eye to eye on, which is pretty much any topic that’s not religion.

I can’t talk to my celly either. The only person I can talk to is myself.

Crazy people talk out loud to themselves, I hear, so I stick to talking to myself through writing.

{“Once upon a time, in a forest deep deep inside.”}

That voice! I know I heard that voice in my head before! Hello!?

{“……”}

I know I didn’t imagine it this time, I heard you!

{“…..”}

Wow, am I really think shouting to an imaginary voice in my head? I need to get a grip on my self.