Dep barked again… “you all are leaving the floor! WALKING!” On his command we started marching down the hall with our chains all rattling with each step…. Chink Chank Chink chank chink chank.

The hall had a stripe on the floor like a highway lane. “RIGHT SHOULDER AGAINST THE WALL!!” The two deps herded us down the hall, staying on the left side of the line. We got to a door that needed to be unlocked from the other side so we stopped. The dude in front of me had lost his marbles. He cackled like a lunatic for for no reason. When we stopped at the door he turned around to me and made some nonsense joke “hey wood, what is that a swastistach?” He was talking about my facial hair and insinuating that because I was a wood I was a nazi or something lol.. I couldn’t let that slide even if he was just crazy.. “yeah maybe it is, who wants to know?” Dep heard the edge in my voice and menaced to me, “hold it wood.. he a J Cat, he ain’t even worth the time in the hole…” the hole is where you go to jail when you’re in jail. It’s a windowless room by your self where you’re locked for a week at a time and only get out to shower one time a week. Dep couldn’t give a fuck if I faded this dude in the cell but if I fucked up his formation he’d have to do some paperwork and that would piss him off enough to send me to the hole.

Luckily the door opened and we proceeded deeper into the belly of the beast. We found ourselves in another chaotic indoor processing station… this one had a circular tower and was covered in tinted windows so at any moment the deps could look out and observe the housing blocks. The blocks were housed A, B, C, and D. We were led around the entire perimeter as the deps discussed where to put each of us… When we stopped at D block we looked inside… there where mean bad looking dudes of different races, on cots, as the deps continued to debate where we were going be locked up, the inmates began to slowly rise from their bunks and turn their attention towards us. Their eyes were cold and black and seem to hold no emotion whatsoever. I was reminded of the way the lions look at you when you arrive outside their exhibit at the zoo.

The deps continued their argument… “ Fuck Martinez, you know we’re not supposed to put bitches in there!… I couldn’t believe how dumb the kid behind me was, he asked with a voice full up surprise and hope …‘there’s girls in there!? HAHAHA , no you dumbfuck! YOU are one of the bitches dep doesn’t want to put in D Bock. Dep called out “anyone want a bunk now or wait? An insanely tall black dude raised his arm and whistled, I don’t think he’d ever learned how to speak let alone read. He’d obviously been abandoned as an infant to the state… John Doe, he’d never even been given a name of his own.. much less a future anywhere other than a place like this.

Deps then herded us around again this time stopping in front A Block which was the Mexican general population Block. This appeared to satisfy both Deps, they barked us again “prisiones like up! Face forward they cracked the door and led us all inside, un cuffing each of us individually as we entered the unit.

Inside, the block appeared to be a large sterile concrete courtyard with 35 ft Ceilings over the grossest constant flickering fluorescent lighting on earth. On the floor were randomly arrayed, two man bunch beds. All along the walls on both levels were tiny two man cells… this was the most terrifying part.. as we entered the block many of these desperate and insane men screamed and wailed and hurled their bodies against their cell doors. We could see their crazed faces overgrown with ragged beards and tortured eyes. To this day I sometimes can hear the thuds of their bodies against the steel doors.

In County the lower bunk is always preferable so of course those were all taken. I found an empty top bunk next to Munoz and Jaime. In jail or prison any semi permanent block or yard will have a shot caller or basically someone who over sees things in that things run as smoothly as possible. The shot caller in here was a Mexican dude probably 5’10.. he was already getting to work yelling at a guy for what I’ve always thought was one of the oddest codes of conduct behind bars…. “EH MANO, YO YOU BETTER SIT DOWN TO PISS!!” The guy was trying take a piss in one of the urinals scattered around the block. All the toilets are steel with no lifting seat so piss splatters like crazy… plus the water fountain for drinking is the upper bowl of the steel toilet so no one wants piss splatter in there… and lastly no one wants to sit down in a splatter of someone else’s piss while they’re trying to take a shit.

Main door opened and Dep walked in again, this time leading a bunch of employees pushing carts of foul smelling ‘food’ “CHOW TIME LINE UP!” We single filed past the slop cart as an employee dumped a portion of this nasty shit onto our styrofoam plates. Luckily they gave us a banana and bag small lays chips as well. I walked over sat down next to my homie Munoz and tried to spoon a bite… literal instant impulse to vomit.. Munoz as busy trying to parse out the small strips of soggy lettuce and just eat those. Whelp, so much for that diner…. I pushed my plate forward and grabbed the banana and chips for later. I asked Munoz if he wanted my ‘stew’ he said no but recommended I offer to the shot caller. That guy didn’t want it either.

After a while, we all ate whatever we could, and retired back to our respective bunks. There was a pretty cool boxing match playing on the TV big screen above us and I started to feel a little bit more chill. This certainly wasn’t ideal but hey, got some cool snacks and a fun night on the TV. Seems like it could be worse… boy was I correct in that assumption. Just as I was starting to chill out and think about getting some sleep the goddamn steel door open again the sheriff barks out in that cursed voice of his… GUTIEREZ, JOHNSON!! GRAB ALL YOUR SHIT!! YOU’RE BOTH MOVING TO D BLOCK!!! I literally crashed the fuck out on the inside but didn’t show god damn emotion. WHAT THE FUCK D BLOCK?!WITH ALL THE FUCKING CRAZY PEOPLE!?!? WHY!? I was already chilling here, I had to at least try.. “Dep I’m doing pretty good here…Can I just stay here?” “Sorry Wood that’s an Order move now. Dam I must be Palmer lucky up in this mutherfucker LOl... was this me finally getting my white privilege I’d been hearing so much about recently? My Homies on both sides of me sighed with disbelief and disappointment.. we had all started feeling pretty safe in the group we had cliqued up in and and the loss of both me and Gutierres was unfortunate for all of us. There was nothing else for it. I grabbed the few articles of clothing I had on me, jumped off the bunk and headed towards Dep and he cracked the door

I was still in the waiting room from hell when a young Mexican kid probably about 25 years old approached the deputies outside the medical unit.. he didn’t belong in here.. Maybe none of us belonged here.. He showed fear. He cried to the deputy nearest to the window.. “I feel so horrible, I don’t want to live anymore!” I was standing next to a dude with the P tatted on his cheek.. he banged Piru Bloods.. I haphazardly considered asking him how he felt about being forced to wear blue, as he most certainly had killed men over that color. But my Darwinian instincts overrode that impulse… he sparked up conversation with me.. “Aww shit homie, look what they abouta do to this kid.. they bouta put this nigga in the samurai suit hahaha..” the official name of that device is the smock. I come from a culture that if you say that you are having any kind of mental health crisis, everyone drops everything to immediately help you. This kid picked the wrong place to play that card.

Half a dozen deputies came up and stripped the kid butt ass naked and put him in the samurai suit… a straight jacket of sorts.. you are totally naked and it’s a heavy cloth trench coat where you’re wrists are cuffed behind your back with steel handcuffs so you can’t sever your wrist arteries with your teeth by biting them. The itches that develop when you can’t scratch your face for days are said to drive some inmates to insanity.

The kid screamed and they dragged him off to some other place.

I decided to try to call home on the phone that was installed on the wall.. I punched in the numsbers on my wristband to activate the call.. to my surprise I was able to call my mother. No answer. I hung the phone up and stood there while one of the EBK kids I’d processed in with called home.. his mother answered.. I hung around because I had no where better to be. Their conversation was heartwarming to me. “Yeah momma we chillin down here in LA county.. you know we in them Dodger blues!! Wid the white thermal! The big homies already told us we good, we see you EBK! They say just ask if we need anything!”…

When we first processed in, a slightly overweight Mexican named Jorge was bragging to everyone about how he had just been given a dose of ciboxin to curb his fentanyl withdrawals. Well that was 6 hours ago. He was now withdrawing from the ciboxin and stumbled up to the medical unit.. it was guarded by a deputy. Jorge stood there hoping for another ciboxin injection.. the deputy seemed pissed “what the fuck do you want?” “I need another fix I’m dying!” The deputy turned back to the doctor in the medical unit.. “what the fuck is he talking about?” The doctor responded “he’s suffering acute opioid withdrawal, I last gave him an appropriate dose of ciboxin…” the deputy wasn’t having it. “Get the fuck out of my sight..” he muttered at Jorge.. Jorge started wailing and fell on the floor.. this made the deputy even more pissed. “Now you’re fucking my night up!! Get the fuck outa here and go cry by the phones bitch!!” Jorge stumbled out of the processing area out to the phone planted on the wall.. he tried to take a shit on the toilet out by there because kicking opioids make you do that.

As I was watching this and feeling sorry for Jorge, I Dodger Blues Ch. 5

The samurai suit

I was still in the waiting room from hell when a young Mexican kid probably about 25 years old approached the deputies outside the medical unit.. he didn’t belong in here.. Maybe none of us belonged here.. He showed fear. He cried to the deputy nearest to the window.. “I feel so horrible, I don’t want to live anymore!” I was standing next to a dude with the P tatted on his cheek.. he banged Piru Bloods… he sparked up conversation with me.. “Aww shit homie, look what they abouta do to this kid.. they bouta put this nigga in the samurai suit hahaha..” the official name of that device is the smock. I come from a culture that if you say that you are having any kind of mental health crisis, everyone drops everything to immediately help you. This kid picked the wrong place to play that card.

Half a dozen deputies came up and stripped the kid butt ass naked and put him in the samurai suit… a straight jacket of sorts.. you are totally naked and it’s a heavy cloth trench coat where you’re wrists are cuffed behind your back with steel handcuffs so you can’t sever your wrist arteries with your teeth by biting them. The itches that develop when you can’t scratch your face for days are said to drive some inmates to insanity.

The kid screamed and they dragged him off to some other place.

I decided to try to call home on the phone that was installed on the wall.. I punched in the numsbers on my wristband to activate the call.. to my surprise I was able to call my mother. No answer. I hung the phone up and stood there while one of the EBK kids I’d processed in with called home.. his mother answered.. I hung around because I had no where better to be. Their conversation was heartwarming to me. “Yeah momma we chillin down here in LA county.. you know we in them Dodger blues!! Wid the white thermal! The big homies already told us we good, we see you EBK! They say just ask if we need anything!”…

When we first processed in, a slightly overweight Mexican named Jorge was bragging to everyone about how he had just been given a dose of ciboxin to curb his fentanyl withdrawals. Well that was 6 hours ago. He was now withdrawing from the ciboxin and stumbled up to the medical unit.. it was guarded by a deputy. Jorge stood there hoping for another ciboxin injection.. the deputy seemed pissed “what the fuck do you want?” “I need another fix I’m dying!” The deputy turned back to the doctor in the medical unit.. “what the fuck is he talking about?” The doctor responded “he’s suffering accrue opioid withdrawal I last gave him an appropriate dose of ciboxin…” the deputy wasn’t having it. “Get the fuck out of my sight..” he muttered at Jorge.. Jorge started wailing and fell on the floor.. this made the deputy even more pissed. “Now you’re fucking my night up!! Get the fuck outa here and go cry by the phones bitch!!” Jorge stumbled out of the processing area out to the phone planted on the wall.. he tried to take a shit on the toilet out by there because kicking opioids make you do that.

As I was watching this and feeling sorry for Jorge, I heard my name get called for cell block housing… my name get called for cell block housing…

Two deputies led us out of the shower hall and down a hallway. We made a left turn and found ourselves entering a large waiting room of sorts. I wrapped the extra undershirt and thermal around my left hand wrist and arm up to my elbow, with multiple tight wraps. This allows you to better use your left arm as shield against someone coming at you with a shiv. Several other guys did the same. There were plastic chairs lined up like at the DMV. Inmates in blue jumpsuits were sitting in chairs and laying down directly on the concrete trying to get some sleep, despite the harsh ever present fluorescent lighting. I took a seat in one of the chairs. Every 10 minutes we would move forward one seat towards a plexiglass guarded jail employee who was in charge of processing us. This was going to take a while.

Then my Mexican homie Jaime, got banged on. We were stretching our legs, not too far from our plastic chairs and spots in line when a huge dude lumbered up out of nowhere and situated himself directly in front of Jaime… “ROLLIN 60s CRIPS NIGGA WHERE YOU FROM!?” Oh shit this was awkward. LOL I thought… I stood there, watching to see what Jaime would do. Where we about to fade? I cocked up both my fists and raised them up to my mid section in case I had to start swinging at any second… “I don’t bang” Jamie waved his right hand from left to right horizontally, punctuating his words. The giant dude literally slightly crossed his eyes in confusion. He was obviously confounded that his challenge had been so effortlessly diffused. He lumbered off into the mix of chaos from whence he came. Jaime immediately glanced back at me nervously, obviously worried that I now thought him to be a lesser man for ducking a fade with the fat fucking crip retard. Quite the contrary, I was impressed with his diplomacy and that he had so effortlessly avoided a fistfight.. I would probably have just started swinging on that fat fucking moron.

We were seated in the chairs again when they rolled in a black inmate. Literally rolled, in a cart of some kind. He was paralyzed from the waist down and also handcuffed over his stomach. We heard him yelling before we saw him.. “FUCK YOU FAGGOT ASS PIG NIGGAS!!” A tubby overweight deputy with gut overflowing duty belt stepped up.. “”The county’s undefeated…” the deputy puffed his chest out and held his arms back, trying to look intimidating as he said it. This really pissed off the paralyzed guy, he screamed now... “FUCK YOU! I’M UNDEFEATED NIGGA!!! I’ll LET MY KIDS SHOOT AT YOU!!! THAT’S ON THE DEAD HOMIES!!!!” He wracked his throat for all the mucus in his body and spat the most giant lugie I’ve ever seen, straight at the deputies center mass. “Hhhhoooocckk PHUuuuu!!” “TAKE THAT!!!” This fat bastard deputy had to do a matrix type slowmo dodge to avoid getting blasted by the epic lugie. “FUCK THE MASK!” I thought he was talking about a Covid mask or something… 4 deputies appeared out of the background and ran up behind him with a spit hood, tossing it over his head and face. “Hold up! Leta nigga see!” He flopped around and fell out of the cart, prompting more deputies to run up, trying to lift him back onto the cart. I was watching this as a female deputy walked up to me and said to my face “if you don’t want to be called as a witness, you should probably look away now.” Are you fucking kidding me? Fuck all that, I kept looking as they wheeled the paralyzed dude out of sight and earshot.

Eventually it was my turn at the window and I walked up and sat down in front of the plexiglass. There was a small opening at the bottom of the glass through which we were to conduct this exchange. A middle aged woman with a Covid mask motioned at the opening, “Please pass your right arm through, palm up” I slid my hand through and before I knew what was happening she grabbed my palm and stabbed me in the pointer finger with a sharp steel needle. Blood spilled out and she flipped my hand over and smeared my blood onto some kind of testing paper. She then scanned a wristband and strapped it around my wrist. “Thank you sir, you can remove your arm…” “yeah fuck yourself” I muttered. I held my finger pressed into my thigh trying to slow down the bleeding as she read off a monitor. “It appears here that you have hypertension and qualify for medical status” medical status? “What’s that mean?” I asked. “You would be housed in a safer and more protected area under medical supervision during your time incarcerated. You would also wear a yellow shirt instead of the blue one you’re currently wearing. Blue shirts are worn by inmates in general population…” I almost crashed the fuck out.. I was so pissed.. I was already on varsity homie, I was wearing a blue jersey. I’d be dammed if I let some jail employee take this dodger blue off me and put me in some weak ass protected status yellow bullshit. My mind scrambled for a rebuttal… I went with the first that came to mind, “oh yeah, high blood pressure, nah that’s not me, that was the last guy you saw.. I remember him talking about it earlier…” she rolled her eyes. Did she believe me? No she definitely did not believe me. But she did let me fly. She slapped some keys on the keyboard and said “Mr. Johnson, general population.” Good shit.. I got up walked over into the main waiting area to see what was next.

I didn’t make the rules in jail but you bet your fuckin ass I followed them. Failing to do so will get you the most severe ass beating of your life, or killed, or both.. quickly. Durning my time behind bars most everyone just addressed me as Wood, or sometimes Big Wood due to my stature… 6’1” 245lbs. Only my close homies or cell mates called me Colt. Wood is an abbreviation of Peckerwood which means white inmate. In areas that have a large population of Woods, we naturally come together to form our own Peckerwood gang. This area had almost zero Woods so I was accepted into the Mexican inmate population. As I sat there in the central seating area, one of the most ironic encounters of my entire incarceration took place. I was kicking back, elbows resting on the seat-back and legs stretched out onto the chair in front of me, when a passing inmate paused to come over and warmly introduce himself… “oh I see you chillin, what’s up my wood brotha!” He smiled and sat down in the chair to my left. “What’s up man, I’m AJ.. I’m from peckerwoods too…” none of this would have been out of the ordinary except for the fact that this dude was clearly at least half black.. He was acting and talking like we banged the same set, “I stay out in the valley mostly… you know Woodland Hills, Van Nuys, Canoga Park, Calabasas… that’s pretty much me.. you from the valley?” “Nah I’m from Santa Monica” I answered. “Oh Santa Monica, right on bro.. What are you in for?”… “So far it sounds like some kinda DV charge..” he sighed and nodded.. “I hear you brother I had one of those a while back, shit eventually got dropped…yours probably will too..” then just like that, his name was called for cell block housing. We shook hands as he got up to leave, “Alright then Colt, see you later bro!” I scratched my head with contemplation as he walked off to join the chain gang marching away to the cell blocks. Well, I thought…I’m a pretty open minded guy, if AJ wants to be a peckerwood I’m not about to tell him he can’t be one.

We exited downtown and took a couple side streets, the county jail building is somewhat near the heart of downtown. I was slightly geographically disoriented when we pulled into a parking area next to another law enforcement vehicle. We parked and got out. Still cuffed he led me towards the entrance, a huge steel sliding door. As we approached it slid open, revealing a second sliding door like an airlock. Once through both doors, we approached a waiting room of sorts. A couple benches with attachment points to chain inmates were in front of a glass counter. Multiple cops were in line at the window with their respective prisoners for drop off, so to speak. Action Jackson chained me to a spot on the bench and went to go stand in line behind the other cops. I looked around at the other inmates chained to the benches.. one was a giant black dude with an unpleasant looking expression on his face, he grimaced at nothing in particular and looked irritated. Another inmate appeared to be some kind of strung out super skinny drug addict, either high or crazy or both. Over the course of the next 30 minutes both of their arresting officers had returned and led them down the hall and out of sight. Before long Jackson returned for me and unchained me from the bench. He led me down the hall where the other inmates had disappeared. We came to a large open room. Here, away from the bombproof entrance, the security seemed more relaxed. I was finally uncuffed and a deputy began a pat down on me, searching for weapons I didn’t have. “Good luck man” said Jackson… I looked back to see him turn and walk out the hallway towards the free world. That was the last I ever saw of Action Jackson.

I turned my attention back to the situation at hand. The deputy was searching my pockets and decided to make conversation with me “So.. what are you in here for man? What’s you do?” “I got into an argument with my wife” I answered. He chuckled “haha right on man, did you eat yet? want some food?” He held out a clear plastic bag with some assorted food items. I gladly accepted, I hadn’t eaten anything all day, “go wait over there” the deputy pointed over towards a series of doorless plexiglass waiting rooms filled with more benches that were attached to the floor. I walked over towards the first room, it was full of inmates talking loudly sitting in sort of a circle so I walked past that room and into the second room which only had 4 or 5 inmates inside. I picked a spot on one of the benches on the empty side of the room and sat down to evaluate my surroundings. There was one black guy on the far side of the room, a couple Mexicans behind me and another black dude on the opposite side of the room. The was a shitter in the back of the room and what looked like a pay phone stuck to the wall. I had decided that I was going to savagely fuck up the first one of these bastards that gave me any shit whatsoever. Other than the odd deputy that walked the hall every half hour we were basically unsupervised. It was jailhouse law literally, and I was going to have to put the hurt on the first unfortunate soul to test it. I had barely turned my attention to the dog shit dinner of lays chips and a jelly sandwich when the black dude on the opposite side of the room stood up and started walking towards me. This motherfucker wanted the smoke apparently… good, I thought… let’s get this first one over with… I took a quick inventory of the immediate surroundings. Nothing I could use as a weapon unfortunately, but under the plexiglass there was a good sharp concrete corner that I could use to my advantage. I would wait for him to utter his first hint of a word at me and I would instantly drive my entire body into him, smashing him into the concrete wall. I would then throw a couple thunderous uppercuts and maybe an elbow for good measure. When he was effectively stunned I would smash his head down onto the sharp concrete corner, cracking his skull and putting him down. He walked closer as I prepared myself, my right calf tense and ready to exert maximum driving force into this rat bastard. He was only a few yards away now, I was waiting for the first hint of a sound from his mouth. When he was only a few feet away I shifted weight onto my right side to initiate the explosive body check, it was now, this was the moment of extreme violence… and he walked right past me without saying a word. He ended up on the other side of the room and sat down next to the other black dude completely oblivious to how close he had just come to such a violent encounter. Whhhoooossssshhhhhh I let out a long exhale. I felt like I had just held in a sneeze or something. That was extremely anti-climactic, what the fuck… I turned my attention back to the literal shit sandwich dinner. They also had included a carton of cheap ass orange juice, why? A water bottle would have been much more welcome, and orange juice just seemed weird. At least the lays chips were edible.

After eating I decided to check out the phone box that was bolted to the wall. It looked like the old pay phones that used to be all over the city decades ago. I walked over to try and make a call. There was nowhere to put quarters in. Not that I had any quarters anyway. I read some engraved words on the unit, enter ID code before dialing what the fuck ID code? I hung the phone up and heard one of the Mexicans speak in one of the most polite and friendly voices I’ve ever heard “oh is the phone not working?” This took my by surprise a bit. I was still in a very aggressive and violent mindset. I had not anticipated my fellow inmates being somewhat normal dudes. I said no and he spoke again “I think it’s because we don’t have our wristbands yet” I shrugged, wristbands… perfect, like a concert in hell.

Before long a deputy walked in told us to line up, we got in line and he walked us down the hall to another window and counter. Behind the window sat a jail employee. One after another we walked up to the window. It was my turn and I walked up to the glass. He addressed me first, pronouncing my name wrong as everyone always does if they read it before hearing it first… “Bayard Johnson?” “Yes” I answered. “Are you HIV positive?” What!? “No” I answered. “Are you a homosexual?” What the fuck!? “Fuck no!” I shot back angrily. what the fuck kind of place was this? He typed some shit into a computer and passed a wristband under the glass and instructed me to put it on my wrist.

After the gay survey we were all led further down a hall and into a holding cell that already had some dudes in it. I grabbed a spot on one of the benches and took stock of this new situation. There was a group of 5 or 6 black kids probably in their early 20s, an old Mexican man passed out drunk on one of the benches, a solo black dude in his 30s, the two Mexicans I came in with, and a strung out drug addict 25 year old Mexican cloaked in a wild assortment rags. The crew of young black dudes were all from the same little street gang from Bay Area called EBK every body killas. They had EBK tatted all over in different spots. They had come down to LA to for a leisurely crime spree of robberies and drug dealing when they had been pinched by law enforcement somewhere out by the suburb of Pomona. They had broken into a house to rob it when the cops showed up. Apparently they had all run in different directions but were all eventually rounded up and brought here. They were making light of their situation by laughing loudly and exchanging stories of their respective unsuccessful attempts to evade the cops. “Nigga I saw yo ass run down the block that pig was on yo ass in the car nigga!” “nigga, I did run but they had the drone on me nigga!” They all exploded in laughter again. “Nigga we supposed to be in Vegas right now!” “Woop woop nah nigga we was supposed to be in Vegas yesterday nigga!” They had apparently planned to roll through LA and then swing up through Vegas before heading back up to Bay Area. One of them a light skinned black kid, probably weighed about 120 pounds, he had super long straightened hair which he was constantly pulling back into a bun type style. He had a very interesting speech quirk in which he would always start every other sentence with the words “woop woop” and talk about himself in the third person. “Woop woop nigga was locked up in San Mateo, I had a couple little cases I was fightin up there…” “woop woop I had SNAP in there, nigga got comfortable woop woop” for those who don’t know, SNAP is food stamps, which can be available while incarcerated. I found myself genuinely interested in their stories and they told them with great skill and enthusiasm.

One of the Mexicans from earlier was sitting a few feet away from me and politely introduced himself to me. “How you doing bro? First time in here?” How the fuck did he know it was my first time in here? In any case I didn’t see any point in making shit up. “Yeah” I answered. “How about you?” He winced and looked defeated… “bro, I was in here last week… this is my 7th time in here…” “Damn” I replied “what are you in here for now?” He shook his head and looked at the ground… “some stupid shit, my girl had a restraining order on me and we were chilling but then shit got hectic and she called the cops on me.” “How about you?” He asked. “I’m in here for getting drunk and yelling at my wife…” I answered. Wild, what were the odds we were in there for pretty similar things. He sighed and stared off into the wall before speaking again… “first time huh, you good though?” He was genuinely asking if I was alright. “Yeah I’m good” I answered. When you are locked up, things happen very slowly and very quickly at the same time. Fights and violence happen in an instant but you can also become solid homies almost as quickly. It’s about survival and in times like that, humans have a tendency to band together for protection. Strength in numbers.

The EBK kids continued their loud ass laughing and joking long into the night. The strung out drug addict was standing in the middle of the room, leaning dramatically to one side, fast asleep standing on his feet. He was tranqued out. Tranq is the street name for cocaine mixed with a horse tranquilizer which gives it its name. After hours of this he finally sort of woke up, he immediately reached into his rags and pulled out some white powder wrapped in foil. He was really stoked about his mystery drugs “I found this on the ground on skid row today!” He proclaimed excitedly. One of the EBK kids asked the question we were all thinking… “how do you know it’s not fentanyl?” “Because I smelled it!” He answered authoritatively… lol I thought, pretty sure that’s not how that works.. oh well, if this dude gets bit by fent right here maybe they will finally move us to the next area.

Eventually the energy died down as it must have been 2 or 3 AM. I created enough real estate on a bench to lay down. All the other guys also either lay down on benches or directly on the concrete floor. All of us began to dose off, including the tranqued out tweaker who was again standing up fast asleep. Suddenly the door loudly unlocked and I jolted awake to see a fat looking deputy enter the room and shout at all of us “EVERYONE STAND UP AND GET BUTT ASS NAKED!” Aw hell no… the grumbling was immediate and audible. The EBK kids were pissed “what the fuck this gay ass nigga wanna see us naked for?” There weren’t a whole lot of options, we all began removing the clothing we were wearing. I remember not wanting to be the first or last one totally naked. After about a minute we were all standing butt ass naked holding our articles of clothing over our dicks in a kind of desperate last attempt at clinging to dignity.

The deputy had us line up and marched us all out of the cell into a larger room. A handful of other deputies stood by watching as they had us throw our clothes into a pile. Now completely naked they had us pick up a plastic bag that contained jail uniforms and rubber sandal type shoes. One of the deputies opened another door and marched us inside. I realized this room was a giant shower hall, as soon as we all were inside they locked that door behind us… it was a long hall with a long bench on one side and several dozen shower heads sticking out of the opposite wall. We all spread out down the hall and I selected a shower spot a few spigots away from the nearest guy. I threw my new bag of clothes on the bench and turned on the water to a comfortable temperature. We all began showering, making sure to avoid accidentally seeing anyone else’s dick or ass. I spent about 5 minutes showering and found it to be a calming experience given the circumstances.

The shower timed out and I walked over to the bench where my new clothes were. I poured everything out on the bench and located some boxers. I threw those on along with some pants. There were a couple undershirts and an over shirt. The pants and over shirt were blue. Dodger blue. All the under garments were white-ish. Everything was laundered but had been worn before. Every article of clothing except the boxers had the words LA County Jail written on it.

I sat down on the bench with finally some pants on and finally felt more relaxed. The little EBK gangsters struck up their conversations again. One of them sitting next to me respectfully struck up conversation with me.. “hey bro, you look Calm, what you in for?” I responded, “thanks, I was drunk and got into an argument with my wife…” he nodded and asked back “did you bruise her up?” “No I never touched her” he chuckled, “aw that shit’l prolly get dropped…” I nodded back.

I then caught sight of the drug addict down the shower hall, he had attempted to shower and was now standing by the bench in just boxers.. he pulled more drugs out of somewhere! How did he keep doing that!? He was like a dirty street Houdini… he had some little tin foil wrapped mystery powder in one hand and was grabbing at his dick with the other hand, still smacked the fuck out on whatever he was on… two of the Mexicans I was cool with were trying to convince him to put more clothes on, “hey campo, you don’t wanna get dressed?? C’mon bro, you got some clothes right here…” this went on for a while with marginal progress. After about 2 hours the door unlocked and we were once again on the move to a deeper circle of hell.

I’d lived most of my life in Santa Monica at that point. I’d seen squad cars driving around town countless times. Usually the backseat was empty, though occasionally I’d see some figure locked back there. I’d never imagined that it would be me one day locked back there. Seeing the familiar streets and neighborhood of my hometown roll by through the bars of a police car was surreal. At this point I was still in such a state of shock that I hadn’t had time to think about why I had just been arrested. On the way to the police station I had a second to think and my mind began to race, conjuring up different possible explanations for this insane scenario I found myself in. I figured the most likely reality was that this was a huge misunderstanding of some kind. Probably something to do with my truck being stolen the night before. I asked the cop driving why I was being arrested, his answer: “you’ll know soon enough.”

The car pulled up to the Santa Monica police station and turned down the alley along side. From there we came to the entrance of an underground driveway. The cop who was driving, scanned a card and the gate opened. We pulled into the belly of the beast. A turn left a turn right, we passed a number of parked squad cars. Eventually, we came to another gate and the car stopped. We passed through that gate and it closed behind us like a fucking airlock. Here, the cop shut off the car, got out and opened my door. Still in handcuffs I was led through a doorway down a hall and into a waiting room of sorts. To the left was a series of windows, not unlike a bank or something. To the right were a line of cells, steel plated doors with a window about eye level. Some of them had prisoners inside. others were empty. I heard a voice from behind one of the windows, through a speaker, “put him in number 3”… A blaring beep sounded and the steel door to one of the cells slid open. I was led inside and told to face the wall away from the door. I’ve then heard the sickening clang of steel on steel. The door was closed behind me. A waist high, letter sized port in the door opened, and the guard told me to place my handcuffed wrists through. He undid the cuffs and closed the port. Now locked inside the steel walls I took stock of my new environment. The cell was small, probably 8‘ x 4‘ with 7 foot ceilings. everything was concrete except the metal toilet in the corner. The concrete bench was not long enough to lay down. I saw that the only space long enough to lay down would be on the floor. I was disgusted. Little did I know this would end up being the cleanest and most hygienic of all the spaces I would spend time in while incarcerated.

Prior to that moment, I used to always think that I would rather be imprisoned alone rather than along side others. Now I realized that being trapped in here alone was worse. The claustrophobic feeling was suffocating.

Some time passed and I heard someone outside the door. The handcuff port opened again and I was told to turn around and hold my hands through so that I could be cuffed again. A guard slid the door open and led me out of the cell and through a labyrinth of hallways. We arrived at room where another cop took my finger prints and a million photos from different angles. They even did some type of close up eye scan. These bastards had me in the system now.

When they did the blood pressure check they encountered a problem. The cop or nurse or whatever he was looked surprised, “your blood pressure is too high” thank god I thought. “You’re going to have to go to the hospital before we can book you.” I believed this was great, positive reasoning entered my head.. they’ll take me to the hospital, I’ll spend a few hours there, they’ll realize this was a mix up, I’ll probably sleep in my bed at home tonight. Boy was I wrong.

A young cop showed up and it was explained that he would be assigned to drive me to St. John’s hospital in Santa Monica, a short drive down the street. This kid was probably about my age, maybe a few years younger. A real Action Jackson. The first thing I noticed was he had a really sweet piece on his right hip. An M&P 9mm with an extended magazine, plus some extra mags on his belt. And not the shitty 10 round civilian mags you get in California, these were full capacity. Some quality firepower son. I was a bit jealous.

Jackson escorted me back to the motor pool and put me into the back of one of the cars. We rode over to the hospital and parked by the emergency room driveway. The handcuffs were getting painful as shit at this point. We walked into the emergency room intake area. This was my neighborhood hospital, it would not be out of the ordinary to run into someone I knew. Standing there with hands cuffed behind my back and Jackson holding my left bicep, the room fell silent. Doctors, nurses, and various medical staff stared at us. Action Jackson and me, the big scary convict in handcuffs. Jackson explained to the closest nurse that they needed medical clearance to book me. Staff kept staring. At that moment I thought it would be funny to shout BOO! Just to watch all the fancy Santa Monica nurses jump and flinch in terror. After a while they snapped back to reality and resumed working.. but every time I would look around around the room, everyone would avert their eyes and faces away from me like I was lord fucking Voldemort.

Time trickled by and Jackson was nice enough to undo one of my cuffs and chain me to the shitty staples office chair in the ER delivery room. We were too close to the automated sliding door so it kept doing this annoying shit where it would open and close every time I shifted my weight in the chair. Eventually Jackson got irritated at the automated door and asked the nurse if we could move to a different area. We relocated down the hall a ways and the staff finished up with me. I still assumed I was going to be set free from the hospital at any moment.

A pair of SMPD detectives walked in. A short female and a large male. She walked up to me and addressed me by name. “You’re being charged with verbal threats you made against your wife and unlawful storage of a firearm” “What the fuck!? My mind was racing but my mouth couldn’t put words together properly. “What’s this going on where..” she interrupted my incoherent nonsense words and kept on “as soon as you are medically cleared here you’re going to be moved to county where you’ll be incarcerated until you are able to see a judge” FUCK!!..I was dizzy now “how many days is it?” “todays a Thursday and it takes at least two days normally to see a judge” I started counting days in my head.. she continued, “there’s no court on weekends and Monday is a holiday. So the soonest you’ll see a judge will be Tuesday.” What incredible luck, not only was I going to county, but I managed to get arrested right before a three day weekend that would slow the shit out of everything.

The detectives left us and shortly after I was cleared by the doctors. Jackson put both cuffs back on me and led me back out to the squad car. He put me in the back and we left St. John’s, driving towards LA County Jail, or as its known on the street Twin Towers.

I jumped in the truck and headed down the street. I adjusted the radio and made a left turn. As soon as I was through the intersection flashing lights appeared in the rearview mirror. Six police cars pulled in behind me, blocking the entire street and intersection. Some were marked and some were unmarked. The loud speaker went off “driver of the gray Tacoma! Pull over!” I pulled over, what the fuck was going on? I looked in the rearview mirror and watched as GI Joes with rifles jumped out of the squad cars with rifles and pointed them straight at the back of my head. In the mirror I could see directly down the barrels of all their weapons. The bullhorn went off again, “roll down your window and put both hands outside the window!” I did that. “Unlock the car door from the outside and step out of the vehicle!” Fuck this was a problem. My seatbelt was still on. I didn’t want to drop my right hand down out of sight to unbuckle it, these jack booted psychos might think I was going for a gun and blow me away. I yelled back out the window “my seatbelt is still on!” No response. Now it was louder “step out of the vehicle now!” I again tried to tell them I had to unbuckle the seatbelt, I expected to feel hot lead in the back any second. Probably wouldn’t feel much for very long. I called out again, this time the guy told me to hit the seatbelt buckle. I did and stepped out of the truck. “Hands up! Face forward and walk back towards my voice!” “Back back! Side step right! Back back! Stop!” “Reach your hands straight back behind your back!” Click, click. I felt the cold steel of hand cuffs bite down on my wrists. The GI Joes slowly lowered their rifles. I was confused as fuck, “what’s going on?” No one answered me. One of the dudes had me sit down on the curb while my hands were cuffed behind. They tossed my pockets, wallet, keys. I had left my phone in the cup holder in the truck. My nike slippers had tiny zipper pockets on the top. One of these Stasi fuckers with a desert camo military rifle asked another Stasi if they’d already searched my slipper pockets. As if I might have feet full of explosives or something.

My truck had been stolen the night before and recovered shortly after. Some hobo got in there snd managed to drive a couple blocks before running out of gas lol. Maybe these militant psychos had mixed me up on that somehow. I asked them “does this have anything to do with my truck being stolen last night?” One of them questioned me back “your truck was stolen last night?” Didn’t seem to have anything to do with that.

One of the squad car doors was opened and they put me in the back seat.

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