#she used orange toothpaste and i was not expecting it and almost gagged

[fitsinthepalm]

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[gary36]

2 Soups for a Tray

Right then. Properly caffeinated and sufficiently indulged in cat therapy, it's time I got started and if I mispell anything I know a lovely audience member will tell me.

Here's a tale from the land of orange jumpsuits and tiny toothbrushes.

I'm not proud. Let's get that out of the way. Late one night I was on my way home from a job out of town. At around 9:30 I see blue light very dimly in my mirror. It should be known I was pulling a large trailer. What's more the running lights didn't work. I should've never agreed to drive the thing but jobs run late and I finish what I start. Now there's blue lights behind me, and my face is covered in my own blood. Now I promise to explain that but it's a story for another day. I pull into the next gas station and wait. I'm the subcontractor, I get the points off my liscence but nothing to pay. I'm cool. The cop's nothing special. He sticks to the facts. I've got no lights, he just needs to run my liscence. He's gone for a minute and I have time to get bored and wonder how much longer until I'm free. There was a long ways to go yet and the felines would be waiting on food. He gets back "Can you step out of the truck." Instruction, not question. "Yes sir." And I'm out. "Turn around." I do.

Handcuffs are on me before I can think about why I turned around in the first place. I'm confused. I go and sit in the back of a cruiser while the officer asks me questions. There's nothing but cold metal back there and with my hands compromised I wasn't comfy. Do I know there's a warrant for my arrest? No sir. Do I know why? No. Is there anything I want to tell now before I get stripped down? No. So we wait for someone to radio. If they want me I'm screwed. If they don't I'm free to go. We wait so long two more cops drive up to chat with my keeper. They all get a good laugh in at me hunched forward back there. I let it slide because if I'm lucky it'll be over soon. It wasn't.

Finally the radio condemns me. Then a long ride to county jail. First thing's first I empty my pockets. Write down all the contacts in your phone as fast as you can. Got it. Turn over your wallet. Now we're going to put your card on file so you can use it inside. Won't be an issue, no money. Then into the holding tank. There's three benches and two are broken. There's a sink and a toilet. I haven't slept in a long time and it's getting late. I lay on the bench. I jump awake and sit up to see a large man inside the tank as well. He's bald and surprisingly cheery. Neither of us says anything but he takes a seat. It's awkward silence for a long time. The cops ask him out. I'm alone. I lay down. The door opens and I jolt up. It's a stocky man with a beard. He loves to talk. "Why are you here?" Until he asked me I didn't know. I sigh with exasperation. Now I remember. "When I was twenty I got caught shoplifting. I never went to the court date."

About two hours later after pretending to be interested in the fight my fellow got into with his girlfriend and her ex, just as I'm beginning to wonder what'll happen if he actually expects me to be involved in the conversation, I'm asked out of the holding tank. I put finger prints on paper. A lady behind a desk tells me what I already know. I talk to a nurse. She wants me to come in to her office for the blood on my face. May not be until the next day. Fine. None of it felt the least bit real until I had to change. Out of my filthy work clothes into an orange jumpsuit that is entirely too loose and incredibly itchy. Having a cop watch me change took the rest of my dignity. Now I get a stylish green napsack, a pair of slippers that constantly fall off, a smelly hard pillow, to top it off a blue bedroll that is approximately 30 pounds. All the lawmen are surprisingly nice, maybe they had fun watching me carry everything. It's 3 AM and I walk into block B.

I don't know what I expected but I didn't get it. Everyone is asleep. I'm in a large room of white and green tile. It smells offensive. My bunk is 34. There's at least 50 men packed in the room. A third of them are up some stairs. It took a while to find my bunk because the numbering is present but without logic. I roll out my bedroll. It's bad. It's really bad. The pillow is a rock wrapped in plastic. The bed is running out of stuffing. I don't know who's in the bunk above me. I try to be quiet. For some reason I want to make a good impression. What a laugh. I peek in my stylish napsack and find a very worn blanket, a very short toothbrush in a wrapper, toothpaste in a ketchup packet, soap in a ketchup packet, 2 rolls of toilet paper, six blank strips of blue cardstock. Then my favorite. A pamphlet of rules. The pamphlet is hilarious. It urges me to tell a guard if I ever feel threatened. The room has three doors. Two upstairs lead to separate blocks. Five locks a piece. No guards. Downstairs has a big window into the halls, one pressure locked door and no guards. The pamphlet also reminds me that there's no weapons or drugs allowed in the county jail, and well... we'll get to that.

The next morning I'm jolted awake by the lights and a horn. No music just a very forceful "MEHHHH" and everyone is paying attention. A guard opens the pressurized door and bellows with a drill sergeant's enthusiasm "EXERCISE!" Almost everyone lopes along to the door. My bunkmate hopped down. A very lean man with dreadlocks. I watch them file out but when I realize that exercise isn't mandatory I decide to get my bearings. Only 3 people remained in block B besides myself and they were all keen on sleeping. I find 3 showers and five toilets. One shower and one toilet upstairs. It's suddenly obvious where the awful smell comes from. Jailbirds can't be bothered to hit their mark. I had to be careful to avoid puddles in my worthless slippers. The shower upstairs is the only vaguely warm one as I'd soon find out. The shower is not very helpful. There's not enough soap to get very clean, I'm still dirty from work. The walls of the shower are disturbing and I dare not touch anything. I use all my soap and half my toothpaste right away. I feel better but not much. My hair is a gnarled mess and the blood on my face is dry. I look fairly crazy, just guessing since all the mirrors were scratched to the point of not functioning. Everyone filed back in from exercise. At this point I realize my bunkmate is the only black guy in block B. Based on what I learned from TV he'd be in danger but he was cool as a cucumber. Before anyone can settle in it's breakfast time. A cart shows up. We all take trays and a single styrofoam cup. I get a sudden feeling of the first day at a new school and not knowing where to sit. I hear over my shoulder "Bunky!" That's how I met Shakespeare Jones. My bunkmate was incredibly well liked. Guys were always asking Shakespeare to come play cards or join in on some project or other. Shakespeare asked me a series of questions I would get used to, eating heartily as he did so. What did I do? How long was I in for? What happened to your face? Shoplifting and failure to appear in court. I don't know. Nothing violent. When Shakespeare was satisfied he became quiet and I decided not to bother him with similar questions. I turned my attention to the food. Breakfast looked and even smelled quite normal. With plastic spoon and grits in sight I dug in. And immediatly gagged. A sharp and distinct taste of bile slithered in my mouth. I tried the firm and sticky scrambled egg. The SAME sharp bile taste. I could barely overcome my instincts, it was work to swallow anything. Everything, even sliced carrots tasted like bile. It would've been impressive if I wasn't so hungry. I knew I couldn't be picky so I ate it all. I needed water to force down each bite. The water from the fountains is horrifying. It's warm. It tastes like metal. The fountain is grimy. After breakfast I settle into my bunk and just watch. Just to see how block B's ecosystem functioned. The basis of the economy is food and drugs we were not supposed to have. The highest tier of food is soup, followed by anything else from commissary (small bags of chips, coffee packets, mayonnaise, small slim jims), followed by cake.

A lot of people had cake. The cake came about once a day with lunch or dinner. Everyone was stockpiling cake by making containers for it out of two cleverly bent styrofoam cups. Most people saved it for later, others traded large amounts of cake for soup. Soup is just instant ramen. It's value was initially hard for me to understand. Lunch arrived before I could find out. Lunch looked normal. It tasted like bile. All of it, even the rice. My stomach was sore from trying to vomit even as I forced myself to swallow. I was starting to see what would be the greatest challenges in jail. I wasn't worried about my cats. I had a good roommate, he would feed them. I used my one phone call to let my roommate know the situation. Half way through explaining that I still didn't know how long I'd be locked up the phone cut out. I went back to observing. A commotion passed through almost every man in block B. I heard many whispers of "Billy White." A freckled man with a beer gut and a bandana who only ever wore one sleeve of his jumpsuit bellowed "Billy White's coming!" Several others echoed joyfully. The pressurized door opened. In walked the bald cheery man from the holding tank. With a smile on his face Billy White threw up his arms to a round of tired applause and set about high fiving and bear hugging the line of men to greet him. Thirty minutes after Billy White set up his bed he was pulled into a group of mischievous men. They whispered for a while. Billy White broke away from the huddle and walked upstairs to one of the doors with five locks. He knocked rapidly and loud. Then silence. Then he placed his ear to the crack in the door. Then he whispered to the door. A few minutes later something slid beneath the door and into Billy White's hands. It was shiny and smooth. The huddle formed again around Billy White, this time close to my bunk. A man crowding Billy White looked sickly, he saw me watching and told me to go somewhere else. I opened my mouth to speak but Billy White was first. "Layoff he's cool. Anybody who fights the cops is cool." The crowd automatically obeyed him. Shakespeare hung his head over from the bunk above and he was positively beaming. We both knew I'd never fought a cop. Billy White was making assumptions because of the blood on my face. I was allowed to watch the rest of the crime. Billy White produced a small cylinder from somewhere. It was a third the size and diameter of a #2 pencil and had a candy cane pattern. He twisted the thing and a razor blade grew out of the end. If he went through the same strip down as me then the only way Billy White had gotten that inside was up his ass. They search every where else. Billy White cut the shiny smooth stuff into rectangles. I don't know why. The crowd stumbled to the toilets downstairs where they could all just barely escape the view of the camera by going around a corner. A minute later the stench of criminal urine mingled with a strange chemical smell. News traveled throughout block B that the guys downstairs were smoking spice. The night of day 1 was lively. Most people stayed up talking. Shakespeare and I talked for hours. Shakespeare had been incarcerated a lot. He was the same age as me but had spent 7 years in prison and over two months in jail this time. He used to fight a lot. It used to help pass the time. It got to where he'd been broken and stabbed so much he just gave up fighting. Now he would do anything not to be bored. He had a daughter and a girlfriend waiting for him. Outside he was a custodian. Shakespeare couldn't believe I'd never been to jail. He said most guys talk more on their first day because they're scared. I told him I was terrified. I told him I'd never steal again. He laughed at that. He said that's what they all say. Shakespeare was always laughing mostly at his own jokes, he was too funny to be where he was.

On Day 2 I felt myself getting cabin fever. The room was explored. We never left. There was nothing to do. No matter what I did the eyes of at least twenty men were watching. After forcing down breakfast and lunch my stomach was turning. Shakespeare did a little dance and then made like he would backflip off of the upper floor. He made it look so authentic my eyes went wide. Shakespeare Jones was the only performer in block B. He made everyone laugh. Once he bellowed a joke I'll never forget because it makes no sense without context. "2 soups for a tray!" He called out to no one in particular. And everybody laughed. The trays are so rotten and the instant ramen so mysteriously valuable that the idea of auctioning off soup for a tray is a joke all its own. I finally understood the soup after Shakespeare drew a crowd together. Each man brought every food item he had. Fritos, bits of hotdog, bits of slim jim, a tin of onion dip, some mayonnaise, everything. Shakespeare provided the instant ramen. All the ingredients go into one trash bag. The trash bag is filled with water from the upstairs shower because it is the hottest. The bag is shaken. That's it. That's soup. Everyone argued over how to divide the soup until finally each investor had a cup full. They ate with much passion. It smelled alright, like instant ramen. Shakespeare offered me half his soup, I declined because the hotdog worried me and my stomach was already in knots. The investors chastised Shakespeare for trying to waste soup on me. Shakespeare pointed at me "Look at him man. He ain't got nothing." I layed down, I couldn't believe I was the poorest guy in block B. That night the guy in the bunk next to me packed up and went home. I was the only one awake so he offered me his stylish bag. I got a real bar of soap and travel size toothpaste. Score.

On the third morning the guards had us all step away from our bunks and hold still. They knew about the guys who smoked spice. They were doing a search. They threw shit everywhere. My bag remained intact though, other guys weren't so lucky. Some guys got taken outside. Some came back. After I ate breakfast I felt suddenly ill. I had a fever and I began vomiting. Not sure why. Thought it must've been the food. I stayed in bed all day. Shakespeare came by to let me know the rumors about me. In block B they thought I was a meth addict who knew Billy White on the outside. They thought I was going through withdrawals. I didn't eat dinner. Mistake. Hungry by midnight but still sick. Shakespeare asked how I was. I said my head was pounding and the food or water was killing my stomach. He said that wasn't normal. I figured if it was bad enough they'd take me to a nurse. I was supposed to have been already but it just never happened. Shakespeare told me I wouldn't go to the nurse until one of the guards confirmed I was dying. I didn't think I was dying.

Day 4 I wasn't any better. I was led to a room with 15 others to talk to a judge on an old boxy television screen. He asked us if we had lawyers. He asked if we were mentally competent. He set my trial date for next month. I asked the television how much longer I'd be in. He told me I'd be transferred within ten days to the prison in my county. Then after booking I would likely be transferred back to where I already was because the prison was overpopulated. All at my expense. On the way back to block B we passed a line of female inmates. The guys from block B went nuts. The women went nuts too. In a few seconds twenty or more people let loose all the most vulgar things they wanted to do to each other and then we rounded the corner. Back at bunk 34 I wiped out. The fever was worse. My insides were all wrong. My neck was stiff because of the worthless pillow. I missed my cats.

On day 5 I began to wonder if the food might kill me. Billy White gave me some coffee. For the first time I tried to sit by the TV. Usually the seats were all taken by the oldest men in block B. One of the gray inmates had his hand grafted to the remote and all requests had to go through him. One guy managed to get him on to a news channel. It was raining. I didn't know. I hadn't been anywhere near outside and I was starting to regret not taking my chance on day 1 to excercise. The coffee tasted like the metal in the fountain but I hadn't had caffeine in a while so it worked. Along with the morning news it nearly made me forget the headache. I was being pressured into relinquishing my TV seat, cake was brought up. I was about to explain to the man hovering over me that food wasn't an acceptable offer because I was vomiting all the time and the cake tasted like bile anyway. Before I could speak the guard opened the pressurized door and called my name. I didn't register what was going on. Finally Shakespeare put it in terms I understood. "You're going home man!" I got that. Confused and groggy I gathered my lumpy bed, my stiff pillow, and my fabulous bag. I gave Shakespeare the stuff he wanted out of the bag. I told him I'd find him on Facebook. He just smiled and shook his head.

I got naked for a cop one more time. I got back my dirty work clothes, my wallet, and my phone. I was led to the entrance where my sister was waiting for me. She had called. She had gotten worried. She went to my house. My roommate told her where I was. She payed my bail. It was a thousand bucks. It took me 6 months to pay her back. All because I tried to steal a shoelace, a soda, and a packet of Thai seasoning from Walmart. That's how my sister saved me from the second most painful experience in my life. Starla ex machina.

I looked for Shakespeare on Facebook but never found him. I check every now and again. I hope he got out and stayed out. I hope he got to see his daughter. I never stole anything again.