Jacksonville Jailtime Part One

Today is Monday March Twenty Ninth Two Thousand Ten. I guess one good thing about working on a Sunday is that you can't really have a case of the Mondays. Sometimes my optimism wears on even me by saying something as asinine as that. I am actually quite happy today as I am rested and ready to get some shit done today. I managed to take care of a couple of things right off the bat this morning so I may have time to write a letter for a guy facing some time in jail. He has been a valuable member of AA and I'd like to help him but I don't know how much it will. He is a lifetime criminal who is facing two years in jail but has a chance to serve much less than that if his sentencing goes well. Whats interesting is to see all the outrage that other members of AA feel towards the establishment due to this and the thing is the guy says that he is guilty. I am certain that he is guilty of much more than what he happened to get caught for. I personally think that he should just plead out and serve what they give him and thats that but as I am not the one facing jail time my opinion doesn't really matter. I've been in jail overnight twice and since I have not written any war stories for awhile I'd relate some of my experiences about it here.

The first time I spent a nite in jail was in Jacksonville, FLA then the crack capitol of the USA. I was the president of my pledge class and due to our trespassing in a cemetery someone had to deal with the police. Since it was my car that the police were interested in the decision was pretty easy. At that point my driver's door didn't work so when the po-po asked me to "step out of the car" I went to scoot over to the passenger side. The cop rightly saw this as an escape attempt so he hauled me out the window, threw me to the ground, then cuffed & stuffed me into his cruiser. I made up some story about dating a goth chick who was kinky and they hauled this yankee off to jail. On the way to the jail which in Jacksonville in huge, he must have stopped and told four or five other cruisers the story of how he had a yankee in the back who he had arrested for trying to make nooky in a cemetery. They all seemed to think that is was hilarious and since I was wearing a button down, bermuda shorts, and flip flops, really strange.

I arrived to the jail and was ushered onto a bench for intake. Intake is not booking, all they do there is to really search you, take the cuffs away, give you some documents with your charges on it, and affix a hospital like wristband. As I stood up to be searched the guy next to me motioned to the floor where I saw about ten to fifteen crack vials on the ground. I then told the cop to look down before he searched me so that I wouldn't be blamed for the crack. I believe to this day that if that guy hadn't told me about those vials that I would have been charged with possession and that would have really sucked. I was given my "charge sheet" and then escorted into another cell to wait to be transferred into another cell to wait for booking. It was here that I finally found that I was charged with "prowling" and all the other criminals thought that was really hilarious. You learn to swallow your pride in jail pretty fucking quickly and I went with the lie that I told the po-po, that I was going to meet a chick for some kink. The criminals thought that was an excellent motive and the only problem was that I had gotten caught before I had gotten any.

After a long period of time I was moved to a purple cell to wait to be called for booking. I will remember this cell for a few reasons, one was that it was an ungodly shade of purple. All the other cells were either green or off white but this one was purple and I think perhaps that since you are supposed to go talk to someone that it is supposed to calm you. I will also remember this cell because my friend who had pointed out the crack vials to me helped me yet again. A new guy was brought in to the cell and my friend told me to stay the fuck away from him. I quickly found out why. After a few minutes of rummaging around his cuffs he produced some crack, a cigarette, and a lighter. He then started smoking it in the corner of the cell and about ten minutes later a CO came in super pissed and demanded to know who was responsible for the crack smell. After many threats the guy who was smoking the crack pointed to some other guy and the CO took the both of them away.

After some indeterminable amount of time I found myself at a desk in the central booking office of the Jacksonville jail. I got the whole whats a nice guy like you speech and I continued with my goth girl story. I could see that the booking lady felt sorry for me but there wasn't anything she could do except place my file at the top of the magistrate pile. They didn't seem to know what to do with me because of my strange charge and since I didn't have a record. I was brought to yet another holding cell and by now it was too late for the morning court session so they brought me to a dormitory type area. We had to walk outside for awhile and we were all shackled together and they guy next to me showed how he wasn't really cuffed at all and how stupid the guards were. I didn't mention his ankle cuffs as I didn't want to appear unenthusiastic in making fun of the CO's and just smiled.

I think what sucks the most about jail for me is that you have no idea what fucking time it is. Granted being locked up sucks and all that but I like to know what time it is. When I arrived at this dormitory area I was glad to see there were clocks on the wall and it was just after eight in the morning. I had been in the Jax jail system for six hours and I didn't really know what was going to happen next. My friend from earlier was there and while he knew I was a rookie at all of this I didn't want to appear completely weak and afraid. I knew that they would let me go eventually, it was just a matter of seeing a judge and I didn't know how long that would take. I'm going to stop here because there is much more to relate about this experience.