CLACK CLACK

I’m back.

This is the first time I’m returning to the section, and as the door opens, I look into my living quarters from a whole different angle. I’m actually relieved to be back after being gone all morning and most of the afternoon. Hours and hours of waiting around in tiny holding cells packed full of inmates, just to say a couple words to a guy on a screen.

As I scan the pod, my skin starts crawling because I can feel so many eyes on me. It isn’t fear of a fight so much as the quiet weighing of who I am and where I belong among them. It feels like breakfast that first morning when I had my panic attack. It’s not just the inmates’ eyes that I can feel either, but also the cameras. And the cop, and I swear above us all, God has taken out his Godnoculars and is watching me again with a juxtaposition of curiosity and disappointment. But of course, that last part could just be my ego thinking for me again. Realistically, I don’t think any of the gods would be interested in me.

The copper in the section orders me to put my hands up against the wall, pats me down, searches my mouth, has me shake my hair, and show him behind my ears. After confirming I’ve brought nothing into the section, off I go.

First things first, I walk quickly to my cell to relieve my bladder. After I finish pissing, I start making a cup of coffee. There are no knobs on the sink, only buttons that allow the water to flow for about five seconds per push. It’s before 5:00 PM, so there’s still a little warm water left. By the third press, the lukewarm water reaches its maximum temperature. I use it to fill my cup of instant coffee. A quick stir with my flimsy white spork, take a sip and... Ughh, it tastes like burnt boot broth.

I’m standing at my cell door with a caffeinated alertness, looking out into the section when I notice a straggly haired dude at the TV who keeps sneaking glances in my direction. I don’t recognize him, but it’s clear he’s looking my way. He looks to be over fifty-five with white hair and sun-weathered, wrinkly skin.

I finish my coffee and go to the sink to start cleaning my mug, my back to the cell door. All of a sudden, I hear a voice I don’t recognize echo in the cell.

“Hey-O, how’s it going?” I spin around faster than a subatomic particle in the Large Hadron Collider. And there he is, the same dude who kept looking at me at the TV, now fully inside my house.

“What are you doing in here, bro!? You’re not allowed in other people’s cells,” I say, as if I’m not the only one just learning the rules.

PUMP PUMP, PUMP PUMP

The adrenaline is screaming at my body that shit is about to go down.

He can sense it, because he goes, “Woah, woah, hold up. They just told me to come to this cell. If you’re mad because you wanted the bottom bunk, I get it, but I’ve got a medical clearance. My back’s all fucked up, and I’m not tryin’ to step on anyone’s toes here, okay?”

“What do you mean? That’s your shit? Where did JJ go?”

JJ never kept anything outside his box, so I didn’t even notice the changes after someone else apparently moved in.

“No clue, the bunk was empty when I got here. No idea what happened to your old celly either, but you don’t have to worry about me. I’m not a biker, I shower every day, and I’m pretty laid back. As long as you’re cool too, we shouldn’t have any problems.” He plops down on his bunk.

“Damn,” I say, feeling defeated by change. “JJ was my first real celly and was teaching me a lot about this place.”

“First time in jail?”

“Yeah. Just got back from video court and pleaded not guilty.”

“How much time you looking at?”

I spend the next 45 minutes telling him how I ended up here. He has a quiet demeanor and listens intelligently. I can tell Vaughn and I are gonna get along just fine.

CLACK CLACK, CLACK CLACK

“You good?” I ask, ready to shut the cell door for the night.

Vaughn checks the toilet paper.

“Only got a quarter of the TP left,” he says.

Perfect chance to talk to the only CO I actually want to talk to, Officer Parker.

“CO!” I yell.

She turns around to face me. It’s only a split second, but when our eyes meet it feels like we really see each other. Her glasses really do fit her face well, and I think that—

“What? What do you want?” she asks from the copper station, breaking me from my trance. Oops, I guess it’s been longer than a split second.

“Can I get a roll please?” I ask, holding my hands up like I’m ready to catch a football.

She doesn’t say anything back, just grabs a roll and hurls it my way. It’s a little high so I have to jump for it, and like a receiver for the New York Jets, I drop the pass.

“Oh come on! That was an easy catch!” Officer Parker jeers.

“Yeah if I was six-seven!” I yell back.

I bend over to pick up the roll off the ground when she attacks behind my back.

“With how skinny you are, I’d think you’d be a better catcher.”

“OOOOOOOHHHHHHH!” a couple of the trustees yell, dragging the sound out long enough for everyone else racking in to pick it up and join in.

The dis isn’t about how skinny I am. She basically just called me a bitch who takes it in the arse. My face turns as red as the beard on my chin.

I turn to face her again, my bruised pride hijacking my mouth to defend itself with a rumor that’s been going around.

“Hey, just cause your husband likes to get pegged doesn’t mean every man wears a dress.”

Her smile disappears, replaced by a look that could kill. The pod goes as quiet as it can be, except for the sounds of distant toilets flushing and cell doors clack-clacking shut.

“You think you’re funny? Who do you think you are running your mouth like a retarded red-headed stepchild? I could have you—”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, my bad, I was just—”

Lava erupts from her eyes. “DO NOT interrupt me! Get in your cell and rack in this second, before I send you straight to max!”

I turn away from the copper station and start heading back to my cell. “My bad I—”

“STOP TALKING, YOU’RE DONE!”

I drag my eyes off her and start mov-

BAM!

I walk full-speed, metal to forehead, into my cell door.

The trustees who’ve been watching, burst out laughing, along with guys in their cells joining in.

My face could cook an egg.

I pick up the TP I dropped after smacking my head, close the cell door, take a huge breath, hold it, and before I can release it, my celly Vaughn speaks in a neutral tone.

“That was rough to watch. She’s an unstable one for sure.”

I feel the tinge of practiced paranoia and immediately make a shushing gesture and point to the speaker in our cell.

“Pshhht, we’ve been cellys for four days now. You know I don’t give a fuck about these pigs. They can all eat a big phat donkey dick.” He pauses to make crude gestures. “By the way, I notice you worry a lot. We all have to find ways to feel a bit of control in here, but you can’t sweat the small stuff.”

I understand the stoic wisdom he’s trying to impart, but he doesn’t understand how my mind works. Worrying about the small stuff is exactly what I have to do in here. Even though this isn’t the big scary “I might get stabbed” environment, it’s the only place where I can learn to recognize what the small stuff actually is. Because at the end of the night, I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’ll most likely be in those stabby stab environments soon enough if I get sent to prison.

I’ve also learned that arguing or debating is completely pointless in here most of the time. The people I’m surrounded by got their education in a much less formal setting, with completely different areas of study. Instead of algebra, they learned how to turn a half ounce of coke into a whole ounce of profit. Instead of learning how to clock in on time or use a POS system, they learned what kind of protection they need during a drug deal. Instead of studying psychology, like how learned behaviors and environmental factors shape our actions, they learned which crackheads to sell to. And which ones to avoid.

So instead of debating, I just agree with Vaughn. We chop it up for a bit before I hop up on my bunk and start reading.

My mind starts doing its wandering thing again, and I find myself unable to recall what I just read. Not just one sentence either, sometimes it’s whole pages. My eyes scan every line, but after I suddenly snap out of my thoughts, I have no clue what I just read. How can that be? How can we do things on autopilot and yet still claim we have free will? Dreams have to hold the secret key to what consciousness really is. How can my brain make up a dream and everything in it, yet have the sensation of experiencing it simultaneously? Which one of me makes up these wild, crazy stories while I sleep, and which is the one experiencing them?

Do we have free will all the time, or just during the times when we’re asked to prove it?

End of chapter 5