"Don't Call Me a Bitch"
A Story From My First Day in Prison
This is the 3rd article in a series. You can read the previous one here.
“Stock up on soups before you go so you won’t be hungry in receiving. Oh and body wash! They only sell bars of soap down the road, so people will pay big money for some body wash," Mark had told me when we were back in the jail.
Our morning so far had consisted of a van ride, a strip search, and some shouting. 5 of us were being transferred from jail to prison. Sergeant Skinner was leading us down a hallway in the SHU — the Special Housing Unit. We would spend the next few weeks here locked in our cells for 23 hours a day while we were evaluated based on our crimes and our mental/physical needs to determine our security level.
The Levels
Level 1 offenders go to a small road camp or a farm. These guys typically have jobs that require them to be trusted while outside of a fence. Some jobs include running farms and orchards, roadside cleanup, and maintenance at higher level facilities.
Level 2 offenders go to prisons where they live in open barracks-style housing units with 60-90 offenders in a single unit. There are no cells and these facilities tend to feel a bit more free and privileged than higher level facilities. Although we were unclassified, we were currently in a level 2 facility and I would remain in a level 2 facility for the duration of my sentence.
Level 3 offenders live in housing units with cells, similar to Shawshank Redemption.
Level 4 prisons are similar to level 3, but more oppressive. Picture armed officers and trained police dogs.
Level 5 prisoners never leave their cells. Picture death row. Showers roll up on conveyor belts to cell doors 3 times a week. Isolation. Insanity.
The first door on the right led to a small day room. There were a few metal table/chair combos bolted to the floor, a decently-sized flatscreen TV, a microwave, a tub of clean dog blankets, and a tub of dog food.
“Oh shit, they keep the dogs here?” Jared asked with some excitement. We had seen a few dogs playing around the rec-yard with the inmates on our way in.
Across the hall from the day room were two private showers — each the size of a cell — with mosaic tiled walls and floors.
“And look at these showers,” Mark said in response. “It’s like moving into a palace. No graffiti or nothin’”
I’d later learn that there is a floor covering vocational class at this facility. These tiled showers were the result of their work.
At the mention of the word “graffiti”, the Sergeant chimed in, “and let’s keep it that way.”
The remaining doors in the hallway led to individual cells and there were 2 phones attached to the wall at the far end.
We continued down the hallway a short way and saw whiteboards on the walls next to cells with our names on them — my name next to the word “TOP,” Jared’s next to the word “BOTTOM.”
“Into the cell with your name on it,” ordered the Sergeant.
Moving into a new cell comes with a fair amount of anxiety. Is my new cellie gonna snore? Is he gonna stink? Does he have any diseases I can catch? Are we gonna fight?
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jared. I had shared a pod with him in jail for a couple months and knew he was loud, brash, and assertive. If he didn’t like something, he wasn’t afraid to voice his opinion about it. It was also not his first time in prison. Was I going to break some rule I didn’t know about and offend him? Yes, but not for another few hours at least.
I walked into the cell and sat down in one of the two plastic chairs and slid a property box out from underneath the bottom bunk. One chair and one box had a “T” on it, one chair and one box had a “B” on it — leaving no room for disagreement on who got which.
I unloaded my laundry bag into the box — 5 white t-shirts, 5 pairs of socks, 5 pairs of white boxer shorts, 1 pair of sweatpants, 1 sweatshirt, a denim jacket, a handheld radio, a pair of headphones, 5 ramen soups, a bible, a pad of paper, a few pre-stamped envelopes, a flexible ink pen, and a deck of cards. Back in jail, this stuff filled the entirety of the rubbermaid tub issued to me. Here in prison, this stuff didn’t even fill half of the property box.
A few moments later we heard the sound of locks being released as COs in the control center unlocked the cells of the regular inmates who lived farther down the hallway.
These guys were permanent residents of this level 2 prison and this housing unit was considered an “honors” unit. The offenders lived in cells — offering more privacy than a level 2 prison typically allows — while maintaining the freedoms and privileges of the low-level facility. Among the residents were dog handlers and guys with level 1 classifications who had maintenance jobs outside of the fence.
We were still unclassified — in a place known as “receiving” — where we would remain until they determined our classification. We shared a hallway with the level 1 and 2 offenders who were trusted not to interact with us.
Jared quickly pulled his body wash out of his laundry bag and turned back around to the door and held it up to the window.
It caught the eye of one of the inmates on the other side. “I’ll give you 6 soups for it,” shouted the stranger.
“Nah,” Jared responded. “I got soups. I want something new. What else you got?”
The guy on the other side thought for a moment and responded with a question, “refried beans?”
“Ok, and what else,” Jared continued his negotiation.
“Refried beans and a block of cheese,” the other guy said.
“Deal,” said Jared. “How do I get this to you?”
There was a 2-inch gap under the door, but it wasn’t big enough for the bottle to fit through.
The guy on the other side said, “leave it in the tub of dog blankets next time you get rec.”
“Aight bet.”
Jared turned around to me and asked, “you got soups right?”
“Yea I’ve got a few,” I answered.
“Cool. I’ve got refried beans and cheese. We can eat tomorrow.”
“Wait, you don’t have soups? You just said you have soups.”
“I lied. But you got soups. So we can eat tomorrow,” he said.
The rest of the day was spent lying on our bunks and trying to make conversation, but Jared and I didn’t have much in common. He was serving a 5 year sentence for violating his probation. I was serving 4 years for wrecking a sports car at 120mph. We came from very different backgrounds.
“5 years for a piece of crack this big,” he would say with a lisp while holding out the tip of his pinky finger. I think I was supposed to be surprised at the excessive sentence for such a small amount of crack, but I had no baseline for how much time corresponded with how much crack. To this day, I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen a piece of crack.
At intervals throughout the day a meal cart would roll through and we’d be served trays through the slot on the door. The food was delicious compared to jail food. Dinner was Chicken à la King over rice, freshly baked dinner rolls, garden-fresh veggies that came from one of the farms run by a level 1 prison, an apple, and freshly baked cookies.
After dinner we made a card table by stacking our property boxes on top of each other.
“You know how to play war?” he asked.
“For sure,” I said.
He dealt out the deck of cards — half the deck to each person. We’d each pull the top card from our decks and lay them face up. The player who played the higher card would take both cards back to the bottom of his deck. The player with all the cards at the end was the winner.
We played a few uneventful games to pass the time until there was a fun moment in one of the games. We had both played an ace face up.
“Alright it’s war,” Jared said with some excitement.
We each played 3 cards face down, followed by a 4th face up. Two queens this time.
“No way,” I said.
3 more face down cards came out, followed by a 4th face up. A king for Jared. A 10 for me.
“Ah, bitch,” I said in defeat as he grabbed the big stack of cards on the table and returned them to his deck.
I played out another card, but Jared hesitated. Instead of playing another card he got up from the table and walked over to the window in the door of the cell. But there was no movement out there — nothing to see. The energy had changed, but I didn’t understand it. He was still and silent while staring out into the hallway.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“There’s one thing I can’t stand,” he started. “If someone calls you a bitch and you don’t do somethin’ about it, then everyone’s gonna call you a bitch. I’m not gonna be called a bitch.”
“Ok?” I said in confusion.
“Some people come in here from the streets saying, ‘bitch this,’ and ‘bitch that,’ like, ‘all my friends call each other bitches all the time,’” he continued — the pitch raising in this voice. “Well, it ain’t like that in here, yo. Never in my life have I called a friend a bitch. A bitch is someone beneath you. Someone whose face you wanna rub in the fuckin’ dirt.” He turned to face me, and I saw the anger in his eyes. It looked like he wanted to hit me.
“Ok.” I said. “I get it.”
“I won’t be called a bitch,” he said firmly.
“Alright,” I responded.
He returned to his bunk and laid on it, staring at the bottom of the top bunk. I put the cards away and went back to my bunk.
Did I call him a bitch? I thought to myself.
I had completely forgotten that I just used that word a few moments ago, because it was such an innocuous word to me at the time. I don’t remember if I apologized, but I don’t think I did.
Prior to that moment in my life, the word “bitch” had no power over me. If you called me a bitch in a game of cards I’d probably laugh because it meant I was winning. But if you call me a bitch now I don’t laugh. I look you in the eye to make sure that you’re someone like I was at that card table. I don’t lecture you, but I certainly don’t encourage you. Later in my sentence I would come to learn how people used the word “bitch.” It’s certainly not a word I want ascribed to me and I’ve all but eliminated it from my own vocabulary.
The rest of that evening passed in silence.
The next morning we awoke to the sound of the tray slot opening. This time each tray had 2 large fried eggs, grits, a banana, fresh baked bread, a big scoop of butter, a big scoop of jelly, a plastic pouch full of apple juice, and a small cup of shitty coffee. Compared to the cereal we got in jail this was a massive breakfast. I could hardly stomach all of it.
“God damn, the food here is good,” Jared said. It was a new day and I think he was ready to put the discomfort of the previous night behind him.
Shortly after breakfast the permanent residents of the hall locked down and then our doors popped open. We’d have an hour to shower and socialize. I took a shower and then got on the phone to call home. After that I still had about 30 minutes to socialize before we had to lock down in our cells again for the rest of the day.
Jared stashed his body wash in the tub of dog blankets — trusting that the guy he had spoken to yesterday would hold up his end of the bargain. Long term residents could be trusted more than transient ones like us. After we locked down, 2 bags of refried beans and 2 blocks of cheese slid through the crack under the door.
“We’re gonna eat good tonight, cellie!”
Im loving these stories! Found you through Reddit. I want moreeee!!!