The guards were up in the catwalk shoving and beating back
everyone into their cells before I was completely under the covers. Nothing
like this had ever happened in that jail, so it took some time before they
figured out what to do with the inmates whose cells were no longer secure.
Finally, the guards herded all of us, downstairs to what were commonly
referred to as the Rubber Rooms. The Rubber Rooms were the solitary confinement
cells that once had padding on the walls. The padding had long since been ripped,
or burned off, as evidenced by the scorch marks on the walls that was all that was
left of them. Short bolts that once held the padding dangerously projected from
the concrete two or three inches every couple of feet. The floor had a four-inch
open drain in the middle so that the cell could be hosed out. That hole was all there was that could be used as a toilet; therefore, the stench that arose from it saturated the whole confined space . The accumulated filth was washed down the drain every morning, leaving the cell constantly damp and cold the
next twenty-four hours. The only light came in through the tray slot when it opened once a day for our ration of grits and a cup of water.
I took a corner and sat quietly while
the others complained and griped. Each inmate was interviewed and moved, either
back upstairs, or to the rubber room next door. My cell was empty by the third
day. The fourth day my solitude was broken with the door opening and Ray was
let in. I couldn’t understand why an intern, especially Ray, was put in my
cell. The other inmates next door knew something because they started hooting
and Red called out… “Hey Ray, your ass is grass now!”
Ray let his eyes adjust to the dark.
My eyes were accustomed to the dark and could make out Ray’s figure huddled in
the opposite corner, “What are you doing in here, Ray?”
His voice cracked, “They’re interviewing
all of us… trustees and all.”
“What do they want to know, who did
it?”
I couldn’t tell whether it was a touch
of defiance, or sympathy, in his voice, “Most of the guys in here already
snitched you out.”
“Yeh, I know. That’s why they sent you
here too, right?”
There was a long pause. Ray was
afraid. I was reminded of the look in
Daphne’s eyes even though I could barely make out Ray’s eyes through the dark
of the cell. I was done with violence, “Don’t worry, Ray, I’m not going to hurt
you. Go ahead and tell ‘em anything they want.”
Across the dark of the cell, he asked,
“We okay?”
“Yes, let bygones be bygones.”
Ray was out the next day. The folks
in the other cell were sent back to the cell-block that day too. I was never interviewed
but the guards were clearly pissed off. The rest of the time I spent in
solitary were the most pleasant I’d spent locked-up. Samuel’s sessions on
meditation down in the kiva in New Mexico came in handy. I sat cross-legged in
the dark and simply watched my breath, listened to my heart pulse through my
arteries, and took advantage of the acoustics of the concrete cell to chant,
“Om… ah… hum.” I let my voice hold each Om until a whole other vibration bounced
off the concrete walls and melded with it… took over and carried my chants with
a resonance of its own. I felt as though I could have opened the cell doors
with the vibration if I worked on it. This noise drove the guards on watch
crazy. I did it until they demanded I stop and started up again when they went
on their rounds.
Ray had his trustee job back and he
added some sandwiches to the grits and water as a peace gesture whenever he got
a chance. He told me that it cost the jail a small fortune to have all the
covers welded back in place over the rails from the so-called jail-break and
that it wasn’t likely I’d be getting back upstairs anytime soon. This wasn’t
entirely bad news for me as I took to solitary confinement much better than I
would have thought. There was no telling day from night, except for meal time
once a day. I’d do some exercise… stretches, jumping jacks, push-ups and then
sleep or meditate.
Even though Ray was providing a few
extra baloney sandwiches now and then there weren’t calories enough to keep me
from losing weight. My jailhouse pants had to be held with one hand or allowed
to drop to the floor. I had to kick them off when I exercised. Mostly, however,
I meditated. I sat on the cold concrete floor and practiced breathing… allowed
my mind to ramble through the events that got me in jail. I thought about the
Jesus freaks talking shit about ‘the end times’ but I also thought about what
it might mean to have a personal relationship with what they called God…
whatever God was.
I wondered, “What is this bit about
being ‘Born Again’? How come I’ve never heard of it before? What does it mean
to be ‘Saved’? And ‘Saved’ from what? Hell? What Hell could be worse than this
one? Wasn’t it enough to be saved from this Hell?” I thought about the
experience on the beach in Waikiki and remembered feeling as though I was close
to a cosmic truth then and how that feeling didn’t last. Once I came down off
the acid I was pretty much the same. But wasn’t my hunt for the mountain lion spiritual? Wasn’t the universal love I felt after the Peyote
Ceremony a ‘Born Again’ experience? What about the surge of love and forgiveness for Hoss
Bozz? And then Daphne..., Oh shit, came the next thought barging through doors I tried to shut, I'm fuckin' damned.
I considered all these things sitting there in the dark on dank and cold
concrete for two more weeks before they sent me back to the cell block.
People came and went with court
dates, Jo-Bob and Red were gone, but I had yet to hear anything from anyone
concerning my case. I asked Officer Dunne a few times, but Dunne just shrugged
his shoulders, “Now what did you git busted fer?”
“Something to do with selling drugs
is my guess.”
Officer Dunn stopped and turned to me
saying, “Oh, I knewed a girl what smoked that there Mary Wanna… she got herself
knocked up, an’ she had herself a baby… and next thing ya knewed… oooh-weee! I
swear to Gawd, that baby came out lookin’ like a frog!” and he walked away.
I liked the man because, in his deeply ingrained Southern, and surreal way, he
showed compassion.
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