17
The handcuffs were digging into my skin. They felt like they were cutting off my circulation as I rode in the back of the police car.
“Where are you taking me?” I managed to stop crying and ask the cops.
“You got a one-way ticket to Rikers.” He sneered at me.
“But don’t I get a phone call?” I pleaded with him.
“Oh, you’ll get your phone call and your useless public defender.”
“No wonder this country is in so much trouble. You got these derelict kids with no ambition breaking laws and then demanding to be represented as if they were innocent. And it’s us taxpayers who foot the bill for their legal representation. Any other country they’d just skip right over this personal rights bullshit. It’s killing our country. You get found with a pound and you go straight to jail.”
“But it wasn’t mine. I don’t know where . . . Well, this girl hates me and she set me up.”
“Save it for the judge. He’s seen your kind coming and going.” He laughed and his partner joined in.
I stared out the window, wondering if this would be the last time I would actually see the outside world. We traveled across a bridge. I saw a small island of buildings and jails. The car pulled up outside a large gray building. They helped me out of the car and led me into the gigantic building. After going through a series of buildings I understood that this was like the Door of No Return on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal. During the slave trade all the slaves were led through this door and onto ships that would carry them to faraway lands away from their freedom. I imagined that this was how the slaves must have felt entering a doorway that guaranteed the end of their old life. I saw quite a few people dressed like me in street clothes. Most were being led into the jail. I saw one man with a huge smile who was obviously leaving.
“I’m outtie!” he shouted as he passed me, an officer leading him out.
Finally I arrived at the Rose M. Singer building, where the women were housed. I felt myself shaking as they led me inside the gates and into a large holding area. This was an entirely different experience from the one I had only days earlier visiting my father. I didn’t know who I should phone with my one call but I needed to speak to D-Waite.
The cops signed paperwork, all the while talking about me as if I weren’t human. As if I weren’t there. It hit me that to them I was one more statistic, another poor black girl who had fallen prey to the criminal element because of my greed to get rich quick. I didn’t bother to set them straight because, after all, I was the one in handcuffs, caught with an obscene amount of drugs in my backpack. This was the first time that I was glad my mother wasn’t alive. After all her hard work to keep me away from crime and drugs and here I was accused of both. I had let her down. Tears kept rolling down my face even though I tried to be strong.
“Don’t cry now.” One of the correction officers laughed at me. “You did the crime and now you’re gonna do the time. I’m sure you’ll make a lot of friends. Those dykes like young fresh meat like you.”
“Hell, she’ll be wed whether she likes it or not within a week,” another one added.
“I hope you like the taste of sushi,” a female officer added.
They kept at it until a middle-aged female officer entered through an inside door.
“Y’all leave her alone,” she chastised the officers. “Follow me.” She directed me through a door. “Have you ever been arrested before?”
“No, ma’am,” I whispered.
“How did you get here?” she asked, shaking her head before I could answer.
“My boyfriend—” Before I could continue she interrupted.
“Boyfriend? Huh? It’s always some guy who gets young girls in trouble. In the meantime he’s out there probably already corrupting some new girl to be his drug mule.”
“No, it’s not like that!” I defended D-Waite.
“It never is.” She took my finger and fingerprinted me. “You’re gonna be in here for most of your youth while he’s out there free, not thinking about you. These guys are worse than pathological. They use woman. I hope you figure that out before it’s too late.”
“You don’t know him.”
“In sixteen years working corrections I have never seen a guy stop his girlfriend from taking the fall for him.”
“That’s not what happened. It’s not his fault.”
“Did you have anything to do with drugs before you met him?” She stared me straight in the eyes. I had to look away. We finished the rest of her work in silence. She photographed me, did a strip search, and then she gave me a small bar of soap, a scratchy washcloth and towel, and led me to a shower without a curtain or door.
Maybe it was the water or the reality hitting me but I broke down crying, my entire body racked with sobs. I didn’t know how long I had been in there until she yelled out, “Hurry up in there. This ain’t no country club.”
When I got out and dried off she handed me a bra, panties, and a gray jumpsuit that closed with Velcro. It was the standard uniform that all the prisoners wore.
“Come on.” She hit the buttons on a keypad and a large steel door opened. She led me down a hall until we reach a heavily barred door. “Lemme give you some advice: keep to yourself and don’t let them see you crying. Weakness will work against you.”
“Open!” she yelled out and the door swung open to the inside of the jail. We entered on the lower level where female inmates crowded out of their cells, into an open area, where some watched television or hung around.
“Fresh meat!” a voice yelled as I followed the officer. She led me into a tiny cell with a metal bunk bed, a metal toilet, and a sink.
“This is where you will be until your case is heard. It can take up to forty-eight hours since it’s a weekend.” She pointed to a lower bunk with a folded blanket on top. “I will make sure you don’t have a roommate tonight. Take care of yourself,” she warned and then she was gone. As soon as she left two inmates crowded around the door. The heavyset dark-skinned one looked like a man.
“What you in for?” she asked and I swore she sounded just like a dude.
“They found drugs in my backpack.”
“So you a mule?” the dude asked but it sounded like a statement of fact.
“You broke the first rule of crime. Don’t get caught.” The short, pretty Latino woman, about twenty, laughed. The heavyset woman swatted her on the ass.
“Bitch, you glad you got caught. In here, you gotta make the right friends. Ones who will have your back,” the big one informed me. “They call me Tiny Tina.” She grabbed on to my head, rubbing it like I was a puppy or something. “Shit is real and soft.” She smiled to herself.
“Um, I just want to rest.” I had been holding back more tears and I remembered the officer’s warning not to break down.
Tiny Tina shot me an angry stare. “You rejecting my friendship?”
“No. I just . . . I’m really tired.”
“Want me to give you a massage?” She smiled easily at me as if we were old friends or lovers.
“No, thank you.” I tried not to appear mortified but I was afraid she wasn’t fooled.
“No, thank you,” the short Latino mimicked me. “Oooh she’s all Miss Manners and shit.”
I started to apologize, but then I thought about what D-Waite taught me about letting people see fear, how they immediately treated you as a victim ready to be abused.
“Look, I just need to be alone.” I grabbed my blanket, rolled it into a pillow, and lay on the bed with it under my head. Inside I was shaking in total fear but I pretended that I wasn’t.
“A’ight, bitch, you wanna fuck off my generous offer of friendship. Don’t come begging to suck my dick when you understand that this ain’t no high school.” Tiny Tina sneered down at me, then turned and walked off with her friend.
There was no way I would be able to sleep. Nobody even knew that I was here. They didn’t let me make a phone call so I couldn’t talk to D-Waite. I closed my eyes imagining it was six hours ago and I was still with him, that I hadn’t gone home to get my things and I hadn’t let Mika in. But the noises of the inmates screaming and yelling, arguing and laughing kept me awake. I glanced up at the small window in my cell. It hurt to even consider looking outside. My whole life I had done all the right things, followed rules, and yet I had wound up in the same place as people who had never walked the straight and narrow. One thing I felt certain of was that my life as I knew it was over.