After spending two days back in general population, I began to get a feel for how things worked around here. There was a schedule, and it sucked.
Six a.m. The lights turn on, the doors click open, and we’re allowed to exit our cell and line up for breakfast. Women are coming from the top tier and bottom tier of cells, stacked on top of each other surrounding the dayroom. Inmates from the “working pod” set up at the entrance of our pod and quickly begin to serve the food. I learned that when it was my turn, I was to say my last name and cell number to the guard and he would put a check mark by my name. This is a way for them to keep track of who is eating and who isn’t. If you skip too many meals, they take you to Medical, assuming you are trying to kill yourself by starvation.
There are technically no assigned seats for meals. However, certain people claim certain seats, and should an innocent new inmate ignorantly sit in one of those spots, she is verbally assaulted until she voluntarily moves to another place. (I learned that the hard way.)
Six-thirty a.m. Breakfast is over and we all go back to our cells—with the exception of the inmates whose cell is on cleaning duty that week. We are locked in the cell until seven-fifteen a.m., so the guards can go around and count. Evidently, this is to make sure no one has hidden in a garbage can and gotten wheeled the hell outta there during breakfast.
Seven-thirty a.m. The doors click open and we are freeeee! The women usually fly out of their cells, desperate to escape the confined space. I spent the first two days back observing my surroundings. I noticed that jail was kind of like a weird summer camp for the outcasts of society. At one table, you had a forty-six-year-old woman and a nineteen-year-old girl coloring pictures of hearts and animals. In the corner of the dayroom, three women were seated with their backs to each other braiding the hair of the one in front of them. Another table had two grown-ass women playing patty-cake and giggling like seven-year-olds. It really gave me the creeps.
The middle table had girls yelling and laughing while playing cards, while two others were making up a dance routine at the top of the stairs. I glanced around in amazement at how these women were acting. It was as if either they had forgotten where they were—or they were very good at adapting. I really think a lot of these women loved the idea of not having any responsibility other than making their bed and exchanging their clothes on laundry day.
It was fascinating and terrifying all at once. I tried to imagine myself being that carefree and having fun here, and it seemed impossible to me. I didn’t belong here. This wasn’t my idea of “fun.” I missed hot coffee, and sunshine and Taco Bell and watching Dr. Phil, and sleeping in a comfy bed. I missed freedom, and it hadn’t even been a week.
Nine a.m. The fun is interrupted by guards barging in and ordering everyone back to their cells. It’s time for another lockdown so they can make sure no one escaped through a toilet bowl or the shower drain. Because literally those are the only two exits and they aren’t even physically possible. By day two, the fact that they had a hundred lockdowns a day started to really piss me off. We’re locked in the cells for another hour.
Ten a.m. Lunchtime! Once again, the women spring out of their cells like wild animals the moment the doors click open. Last name, cell number, bologna sandwiches, assigned seats, fifteen minutes to eat—and then back in the cell for an hour for the “after lunch” count. Fuck, this was getting annoying.
Eleven a.m. to three-thirty p.m. Free time. The moment the doors click open it’s like a stampede. The women literally trample each other to get to a phone. There are six phones and about a hundred women who want to call their loved ones, so you can imagine the drama that ensues the minute they are freed from their cages. This is the longest time between lockdowns, and the first time we’re permitted to use the phones. This was when I considered our “day” to really begin. There wasn’t much to do while stuck in one giant room with nothing but time, so people had to get creative. I spent the first two days napping and lying in bed. I was still detoxing, but it had gotten better.
Three p.m. Lockdown, and another motherfucking count.
Four p.m. Dinner. This is the last meal of the day, and by eight p.m., I’m always starving again. The best nights were corn dog nights. I noticed we got bread pudding and oranges every dinner, and often some kind of sloppy pasta. The only way to eat outside chow time is to purchase commissary. Our loved ones could put money on our accounts, enabling us to buy shampoo, conditioner, and snacks. My family hated me…so I was shit out of luck there.
Four-thirty p.m. You guessed it, lockdown and count.
Five-thirty p.m. to eight-thirty p.m. Free time. This was when things usually got wild. Women used jelly packets and instant coffee to make “whips.” You whip the jelly and coffee together until it forms this…goo. Then you dab a bit on the top of your hand and lick it off, over and over, until it’s gone. I shit you not, this is a real thing, and everyone was doing it. I suppose this was the jailhouse equivalent of partying and getting wild. Girls would be snorting headache medicine in their cells and flashing their tits to each other across the dayroom. (By the way, I found out that the crazy girl who made me show her my boobs that first night was literally crazy and was always asking girls to show her their tits and had to be given a horse tranquilizer to make her calm down.) It was a madhouse. There was an observation room with eight giant windows on top of the dayroom, and guards were stationed there to watch our every move. Occasionally they would yell over the loudspeaker for us to “calm the hell down,” but for the most part it was a free-for-all.
Eight-thirty p.m. Final lockdown. We are confined to our cells until the next morning. They do a final count and shut the lights off. From that point on, we are required to be silent. If we are caught talking, the entire cell has to go to “lock,” which is slang for solitary confinement.
We are supposed to sleep at this point, but sleeping is impossible in this place. Toilets are flushing loudly all night, my cellmates snore like bears, and the lights never really go off. They stay on all night long, which was really going to take some getting used to.
On that second night in the general population, before lights-out, Brandy and I were talking about our high school experience. I brought up the fact that I used to be a cheerleader and she began laughing hysterically, saying she could never imagine me doing that. I was about to stand up and show her some of my moves when suddenly her expression turned serious. “Tiff, if you don’t mind me asking…what did you do to get in here?”
There it was. I knew it was coming eventually and I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to tell anyone what my charges were, because my case was still pending. I had heard rumors that you’ve got to be careful what you say in here, because people will do just about anything to get their sentences reduced—including running to the cops with inside information about your case.
But I trusted Brandy. I was very good at reading people and could tell she had a good soul. She had befriended me when I needed it most and I felt as if I owed her. I looked into her eyes and hesitated for just a moment, trying to read her to see if she really wanted to know, or if she was just using me to find out the gossip. I took a long, hesitant breath—and began to tell her everything.