Rogue(33)

What a bizarre proceeding was to follow. These constables and officers were theoretically part of the same organization, but seemed to follow some strange, Kafkaesque plan detached from reality.

We were slowly processed in, thoroughly and not uncomfortably searched, and stuffed into a holding tank. The only toilet was in clear view of everyone, male, female, prisoner, employee, whatever. My experience made this no issue, but I’m sure for many it would be demeaning and embarrassing. I couldn’t decide if that was its purpose, or if it was just lack of concern.

After being biometrically IDed, we were led to another holding cell. I asked about contact and was told, “You won’t see a phone for the next four to six hours.”

That was interesting. They had mine, and complete control of me. It still didn’t seem repressive or dangerous, but what harm is there in allowing someone to communicate? Presumably the idea is to process them into either detention or release, allow the legal process to commence. All this takes time and money, and I can’t figure out how further communication is bad for that.

This was an experience few tourists get. I kept notes. No, I don’t recommend it.

My guess is the toilets in the holding cell have never been cleaned. I doubt they can be—when is the cell empty? There was no furniture, just concrete and block walls and shelves. It was crowded at 2300; it was elbow to nose by 0600. It was cold. It stank.

Leftover food sacks littered the place. This was good, as the brown paper could be used as insulation to stop one from freezing to the floor. Ones with sandwiches still in and mashed flat could be used as pillows. The leftover sandwich bags made handy cups to get drinking water from the sinks over the toilets, centimeters thick in gray slime mold. I recalled tricks from my military survival training, which I never thought I’d use domestically. If you pull your arms inside your shirt, you maintain body heat. Sleep as much as possible. Save small things like toilet paper for later use. Talk little, and try to help others. I gave some of my hoarded brown paper to a man with no shirt who had to be suffering from hypothermia on that floor.

No one seemed disposed to trouble. In fact, everyone in the cell was very polite. Those who had to sit on top of the wall over the toilets because of lack of space would courteously look away while you used them. I could handle that, but I imagine most of the locals would not find it at all pleasant, being more body shy than Freeholders, and no one likes to be watched eliminating. It’s instinctive. One is rather helpless at that moment.

At 0600 local, they brought us breakfast. The guards handed it out personally to ensure that every prisoner had a meal. This must be procedure, as they clearly didn’t care. Breakfast was fake ham on soggy bread with stale cheese, and a cut up apple, with a bag of sterilized, sour-tasting milk. To drink the milk, you had to chew off the corner of the bag. I saw one poor derelict, filthy and hungry, eating leftover food that had fallen around the toilets. Clearly, this man needed a hospital, not a cell. Some few had sketchy bandages from fights. One man who kept demanding his medication had apparently been there for eight hours already. He was obnoxious, either from desperation, or from needing help. Still, if he had medication, he should have been taken elsewhere. He wasn’t exactly built like a boxer.

I was finally taken upstairs to the regular cellblock. It had steel bunks, and we each took a thin but functional mattress with us. I actually had no idea what time it was. There were no clocks anywhere and the guards literally would not give us the time of day.

No sooner had we got in there, however, when a curse-screaming, obnoxious woman guard told us she was turning the phones off until we cleaned up the mess left by the last occupants, of whom only three were still present. I resented being held incommunicado, I resented not being asked first, before being given an ultimatum—I’d be glad to clean it for the sake of cleaning it, and to have anything to do for a little while. Most of the rest of my cellmates felt the same way, the sole exception being a screaming, cursing twenty-two-year-old admitted drug dealer.

We picked up the trash and swept and mopped in short order, and I recognized other military veterans from their cleaning style. The drug dealer spent the time calling the guard every unimaginative name in the book, while boasting of his prowess in acquiring stolen property. In response, the guard shouted that she was leaving the phone off to teach us a lesson. What lesson? That this punk was an idiot? We all knew that. Was she hoping we’d attack him so she could gas a few of us? We offered no hassle or resistance at any point. She initiated hostilities.

We all took care of the man with the prosthetic leg. Everyone was careful of the toilets and toilet paper, as we all knew we’d have to use them eventually. Leftover food was shared with new arrivals. The prisoners, with perhaps two exceptions of sixty, were polite, courteous, and addressed all guards as “Sir” and “Ma’am.”