I woke up to someone tapping on the window. One of the inmate workers was passing out breakfast. He opened the slot on the door and slid in two trays, one by one. The other guy was still sleeping.
I nudged him.
“Breakfast.”
He peeked out a bit from his blanket, giving me a brief glimpse of his face. He looked at the food, shook his head in disgust, and went back to sleep. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I held both trays, his and mine.
I could have put it on the floor, but that felt disrespectful.
Hours went past again, and the guy was still sleeping, while I just sat there, the swarm of flies, smell of poo, uncomfortable seating, and bright lights all keeping me awake. Throughout the day, I heard other inmates pounding on their windows and screaming.
“I’ve been here for seven days! Get me the fuck out!”, one guy screamed
I could only imagine how being locked in one cell with a bunch of other guys for seven days felt. In booking, there was no shower, so everyone was forced to stink for days. Also, there was no commissary, so we could only eat the food they gave us. On occasion, one of the inmate workers would throw a bag containing four slices of bread and two slices of meat in some of the cells.
The C.O.s were no help. We were monsters to them; just a bunch of animals behind the glass. They laughed at us and mocked us, which just caused the inmates to rage and bang on the windows harder, which made the C.O.s laugh and yell louder.
It was a vicious circle. Someone had to play nice guy, and it wasn’t going to be the animals forced to live in a cage for days.
“Excuse me”, I said, gently tapping on the window.
Nothing. The C.O. ignored me.
“Excuse me!”, I said louder. He looked at me and shook his head, walking away. These guys were horrible, and extremely unprofessional.
I was miserable. Miserable and bored. More hours went by and I began to think that the guy in the cell with me was dead, until he let out a small snore. He slept for a really long time.
A C.O. came to the door.
“Anderson! Fergie!”
With his head still covered, “Fergie” popped up.
“Come on, we’re movin’ ya’s.”
We grabbed our stuff and walked out.
Behind the C.O. was a tall, dark-skinned man. He instructed all of us to walk down the hall, and follow him into another cell. This one was slightly smaller and had seating around two of its four walls. And, instead of smelling like poo, it smelled like pee, due to another bathroom hole in the middle of the floor. The tall man, blanket man, and I picked our spots on the benches, and went to sleep.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
*CLAP*
“Allah Akbar…!”
*CLAP*
“Allah Akbar…!”
*CLAP*
“Allah Akbar…!”
*CLAP*
Wherever these claps were coming from, they were getting louder. I took what I had designated as my “light-shielding towel” off of my head, and looked for the source of the noise. The tall man was performing a Muslim prayer.
Crap.
I said to my friends the one type of person I didn’t want to share a cell with was a Muslim. It’s not that I had a thing against Muslims, it’s just that Islam is probably the religion I have the most problems with.
The guy finished his prayer and sat down. He bore a striking resemblance to Mikai Phiffer1. Mikai sat in silence, staring at the wall. Both of us being awake made the silence awkward. Outside the cell, we could hear the C.O.s chatting about upcoming inspections that were to take place on the following day.
“I can’t believe they have us in this pissy smelling cell”, Mikai said, breaking the silence.
“It’s pretty bad”, I agreed.
“I mean, how are you going to put three grown men in a small-ass cell like…like this! And then they have, like, ten dudes in the next cell!”, Mikai said, gesturing wildly.
Our talking woke up the other guy, and, for the first time, I saw his face fully. He was young and skinny. Mikai continued to rant about the almost barbaric intake process, and the lengths of our stay.
“We’re going to be in here for a while, because the prison is always full,” the guy said.
“Shit makes no sense”, Mikai said, shaking his head, “Where you guys from?”
“Clifton, but I’m from Brooklyn,” Brooklyn said.
“Oh, I’m from Clifton,” I exclaimed.
“I’m from Upper Darby,” Mikai said.
“Well, it’s a Delco party in here,” I said awkwardly. We all gabbed about Upper Darby and reminisced about random Upper Darby related things.
“I graduated UD, Class of ’83! The only black man in my class, and the only black man on the football team,” Mikai said proudly, “I was the star of that football team, but they wouldn’t let me progress because I was black!”
Oh boy.
This one sentence summed up Mikai perfectly, as I would come to learn very well in later conversations.
“My son is the number one basketball player in Delco!”
Wow. This was impressive…the first twenty times he had mentioned his son’s greatness.
“He’s going places! He’s going to be in the NBA and make millions!”
He talked about his son’s achievements and compared to his own talent and failure, due to an injured knee, for two hours. It was obvious he was living vicariously through his son.
When Brooklyn had a chance to speak, he naturally talked about Brooklyn and his girlfriend. He explained to us how he was only in on a probation violation because his P.O. found some cooking wine in his mom’s cabinet, and naked picture of himself he was sending to his girlfriend in New York.
But he only really focused on the former violation.
We talked for hours. Well, they talked for hours…about sports. I tried to jump in when it was appropriate, but these moments were few and far between. We talked, then slept, talked, and then slept. They seemed to sleep for most of the day, which isn’t a surprise, because there was nothing else to do.
Sometime in the evening we were pulled out of the cell and put in another so they could clean the cell to impress the inspection people that were coming tomorrow. I’m not sure what they cleaned, but they put a blanker over the pee-hole, which seemed to diminish the smell almost a hundred percent.
The day went on, and we still sat in our cell. People around us were banging and begging to go to the bathroom, and the C.O.s just laughed and continued to taunt the inmates. I asked a female C.O. if I could use the bathroom.
“Yes you can”, she said, and walked away.
“I don’t know”, or, “Hold on.”
Those were the two go-to answers for almost every question asked.
The C.O.s were complete jokes and unprofessional. They acted more like children than many of the “animals” that surrounded them.
“Leave my titties alone!”, the one female C.O. screamed.
They openly made comments about the inmates, with a tone that felt like a teacher openly criticizing their students right in front of them. We were the trouble-makers, so it didn’t matter if we sat in a cell full of shit, swimming with flies.
We didn’t matter.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
1 I realize this is not how
you actually spell Mekhi Pfiffer's real name but I spent almost 8
months writing it “Mikai.”
