What Jail Is Like

(This is a chapter from the book of short-stories I'm currently working on, "Everyday I Write The Book")

The idea that Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani held the potential to become President of The United States gives me nightmares. Posing as a Messianic figure while mayor, Rudy Giuliani turned the New York City that was famous for being New York City and “cleaned it up” and took all the quirks. Additionally, he took a whole lot of money from nice stuff—like the school sys- tem and social programs—and put it right into the police department. This ba- sically put more cops out on the street and expanded the time and energy put into catching the forgotten, unappreciated, questionable criminals like graffiti writers, bums, the guys that squeegee you car clean, street musicians, people who jump subway turnstiles, people who like to drink outdoors, marijuana smokers, people who like to take a walk in the park at night and public urina- tors. Had he become president,I imagine a future much like the one portrayed in the underrated Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes film Demolition Man, in which people get tickets for swearing, the only restaurant is Taco Bell, you have sex using virtual reality goggles, and going to the bathroom involves three mysterious seashells.

To be fair, Giuliani, like many other fascists, was actually very brilliant at his job. He came up with a truly effective plan to put the reasonably innocent in jail. These policies were often referred to as “fishnet policies.” This meant giving out a lot of tickets for doing things that aren’t worth bringing someone to jail for, but are just civilly disobedient enough that we aren’t supposed to do them. People getting parking tickets or summonses equates to a big bag of fish.

These are usually settled by a fee up front or a court date, where they decide to give you a fee or not (instead you have simply been robbed of your time). Some fish pay their tickets and show up to court and some fish don’t, for personal reasons. Some fish have criminal records, as many New Yorkers do. Avoiding semantics, sometimes you catch a fish doing something hardly harmful and it turns out you’ve caught an actual criminal or a drug dealer or a fish that’s had a run in with the law at some point in their life. That’s the how the filthy aquar- ium of Central Booking stays crowded with fish.

I was having a truly great night. We took a spontaneous car ride, three friends and I—including a girl I’ve been in love with on and off with since we met, about four years ago. This whole time, she has not let me touch her at all. But every time I see her, my heart tends to swell up and like it’s inhaled ni- trous oxide, except the buzz lasts until one of us leaves, not just forty seconds. Plus we’re looking at the prettiest view in Brooklyn and it’s really fucking great out, even though it’s January 4. We drove back in her car and listened to a mix I made her a while ago. This brought up memories of that time and at this point I was a wreck, in the best way possible. I told her to let me off by BAM and I’d walk home. I wanted to take advantage of the weather and the good mood so I called my friend Christina to see if she wanted to take a walk. Christina is from California and it is written all over her. She is down.

I went to her studio apartment, which is in a nice building in nice Fort Greene, and it costs as much as my shithole two bedroom that three people live in, in technically less nice Bed-Stuy (The price difference is visible—the Cosbys live in Ft. Greene and Biggie lives in Bed-Stuy). We rolled a joint and decided that since Fort Greene Park was closed, we should take a quick walk to smoke the joint and be on our way. I noted the possibility of getting caught but at the time, but I decided to not give a shit. She bought a beer to keep in her purse and drink from a paper bag.

We went to the highest point and sat on a bench. She took her beer out and asked me, “What happens when you get a summons?” I explained to her that they either take your time or your money, and sometimes both. As I notice the headlights of the police car I recalled two incidents.

The first incident took place in Central Park, on Strawberry Fields over a year ago. Every year on December 8, me and a couple hundred New Yorkers from all walks of life get together and remember the day John Lennon was shot by singing Beatles songs. Sometimes my parents come too. The cops come but they seem to let everyone smoke pot and drink, which is nice of them. When they got to “The Long and Winding Road” (which I hate) I needed to relieve my- self. I went to a nearby but not visible spot, pissed, and headed back to the fun where a man held his badge out and said, “I saw you pee.”

The second incident occurred sometime in the A.M. I was waiting for the G train, which becomes a long, lonely adventure at night. I was listening to something great on my iPod and enjoying the remnants of the evening’s decent buzz. I got on an empty train and lit a cigarette (Illegal!), sure that I would not see another soul this late on this ghost train. I closed my eyes and for a mo- ment life was okay. I wasn’t even at Hoyt-Schermerhorn when I opened them to see a smiling police officer. He ran my name through the database, and my pee in Manhattan didn’t register to the Brooklyn precinct. I never paid either be- cause I truly believe they give out so many summonses that they would simply lose these. I had been through a whole lifetime of getting summonses and tak- ing care of them, I was tired of wasting time and money on bureaucratic non- sense.

Then the cops got out of the car. As usual, they were two Italian men. These guys didn’t seem mean. I went to college, and all the guys who called me a fag in high school became cops. One time, some cops rolled up on us in the park when the park wasn’t closed and we weren’t even smoking pot. They made fun of us for playing guitar, drawing, and eating Thai food, and then made us clean up all the garbage and leave. The cops on this night didn’t talk much, which I appreciated.

They got into the car to run our names. When they came out they asked me if I had any unpaid summonses, and I said yes. Soon, I was in handcuffs. They told Christina that I would be out by the next morning. In the back seat of the cop car, I was mildly amused by the fact that there was a nu-metal song on the radio, probably Disturbed’s “Down With The Sickness.” Nu-metal is definitely cop rock. Mostly I was thinking, “These handcuffs really fucking hurt,” and I wondered how long I’d have them on. When we got to the precinct—which is coincidentally a few blocks from my apartment—the officer asked me if I was okay. “Sorta,” I replied.

They dragged me in. “Sleeping in the park?” somebody asked. “No.” I’m not a bum, I’m an unemployed college student and a total fucking idiot, so why was I there? This had been such a sweet night. The first thing they did was to search me, which I didn’t think would be necessary, I was just sitting on a bench. They emptied my pockets and found a bag of pot. “The plot thickens...” one said. They got to my jacket, to my inside pocket and the guy pulled a bag of weed. Then another one. Then a bigger one. That one costs fifty dollars, the smaller ones are twenty dollars. Then another.

“Are you a drug dealer?” “Sorta,” I whined. “Not really.”

“Yes. You Are.”

Yes, I am, except I don’t really make any money. In fact, I was in the hole before and suddenly way more-so now that this guy had mugged me for about two hundred dollars worth of pot. However, this didn’t worry me that much because the cops are fairly lax about marijuana, they’re looking for crack and heroin and anyway, you need a lot pot for anyone to care.

They let me into my cell and out of the handcuffs and there were marks on my wrists like the one you’d get if you’re fat and you wear underwear a cou- ple sizes too small. “This is where you’re sleeping tonight. You’re lucky you get it to yourself. In the morning, we’ll take you to booking, where you’ll see a judge.” The cell was about half the size of my room. I estimate that you could charge about $600 for a studio this size in Ft. Greene, maybe $400 in Bed-Stuy. In Manhattan, you could potentially charge $1,000. A little later the guy took my fingerprints. It took fucking forever but at that point I was enjoying be- ing able to walk a few feet from my cell and the company of this cop, who I pretty much hate on principle. I thought, “So, this is what jail is like. This is fucked.”

The first thing I thought about in the cell was the girl from tonight, if she would ever go out with me, or sleep with me even. I wondered how this would affect the chances. I then thought of the other girl I am possibly in love and discussed the same question. Then I thought about my parents, my six-year- old sister and my grandmother. I thought, “I’m a nice kid, not a bum or drug dealer or both like the people here think I am.” Then I got angry again and couldn’t believe I was here. I thought about what I’d have to do to pay my guy back, and about how I don’t think I should be a drug dealer anymore. I thought about Ghostface Killah and how he always says he’ll start selling coke again if he stops selling records. It was about three in the morning and I was on break from school, so I’d been staying up till eight in the morning watching HBO on Demand. I didn’t know how I was gonna fall asleep and there was nothing to do but think about my life. Fuck.

I laid down then I sat down then I stood up again and repeated that about 1,000 times. I started talking to myself. I found that the only thing I could do calm myself down was to sway back and forth. I decided to sing. Hear the lonesome whipper will/He sounds too blue to fly/The midnight train is whin- ing low/I’m so lonesome I could cry.

“Jesus Christ, put your shoes on.” I woke up sweaty with my face in my arms lying atop the bench. I smelled my socks and realized why one might think I’m a bum. (My sock situation is pathetic. I have like four pairs. Some- times I spend five minutes just smelling socks, trying to decide which sock, comparatively, is the most clean.) A lady cop brought me out. She smiled at me and I smild at her and then she cuffed me. She asked me if I got in a fight. I told her I was just taking a nice walk in the park. They took me outside and I was overwhelmed by the sun. I thought, “It is a beautiful morning!” They put me in the car. I heard a Reggeton song and it was the first time that music had sounded remotely good to me. They told me I’d be out by twelve or so, and I’d have a really nice day where for once. I’d really appreciate my broke, stinky life.

They brought me to Central Booking which is underneath the big courthouse on Jay Street and Schermerhorn Street where you go when you have jury duty. The lady took me in and talked to me a little bit and I thanked her for being nice to me, I was so lonely. At this moment, this lady cop was the best person I’d ever met. Soon, I was in a cell with a bunch of dudes. By the way, I was wearing a leather jacket and a Violent Femmes tee shirt. Someone asked the guard a question and he said, “Do you want to see my new chokehold?”

I got dragged around and finally ended up in a cell with one other man. He said that he was 53 and had lived in Brooklyn his entire life. He said he was there because he went to a community meeting regarding the developments on Coney Island, got a little angry, and mouthed off a little bit. He announced he was leaving and as he turned around he faced two police officers. He had something on his record from over twenty years ago and there he was, with me in the cell. From this account, it is amazing that I don’t get arrested every day. I used my singular quarter to call my roommate Adam, and he didn’t pick up, but luckily I got to listen to Sonic Youth for thirty seconds instead of a ring, which was nifty. “Hey Adam, as you may have heard I’m in jail, I’m not dead, I should be out soon.”

My new roommate and I took turns napping. After a while—my concept of time passing was completely gone, I could not tell five minutes from an hour—the cell opened and about twelve guys came in. One of them, I noticed immediately, was pretty crazy. He looked at everybody funny, and everybody noticed. He then went into a frantic rant that vaguely resembled slam poetry. He then took the receiver and slammed it into the phone about eight times. A few minutes later, he apologized and shook everyone’s hand. Thanks a lot.

It was time to eat so they brought us plastic bags that contained two stale pieces of bread with a small square of cheese, a small container of two-percent milk, and a box of Bran Flakes. I don’t understand how they thought I would eat this cereal without a spoon, and I opted not to consume any bran, because the last thing I wanted to do was take a shit in front of twelve strange men. “They can take my freedom, but they can’t take my dignity!”

At some point, I realized it was past twelve and I have made no progress as to leaving. Amazingly, they removed all of the other people except me and my original roommate. At that point, I had been falling asleep and waking up for fifteen-minute periods for God knows how many hours. My glasses broke while I was lying on the ground. I asked for some tape and the guy there pre- tended I didn’t exist. I was so bored and starting to get really delirious. I forced the cheese sandwich, which I’d been sleeping on, down my throat.

They took my roommate away and I wondered how many hours since I’d been arrested. The guard who was standing around outside left and I was all alone. I worried that somebody had forgotten about me, because I still had no idea what time it was, but I had a feeling I’d been there longer than I was supposed to.

I think I was alone for about fifty hours. I sang every song I know, and did the world’s longest hand percussion solo on the toilet seat. I thought about every girl I’d ever liked and every girl I’d ever kissed and created a venn dia- gram in my head. I tried to remember the full plots of movies. I counted every- one I knew. I also paced like a madman, trying to tire myself out.

Eventually, a young Asian cop came and sat in a chair near me. “I should be in Iraq right now,” he said. I told him my situation and he said I should be out soon. It turned out, this guy went to my high school so we talked about that for a while. We had a hard time finding common ground. “So when did you decide to incorporate the leather jacket into your look?”

“Jamie Frey!” I heard my name finally. A square-jawed, Italian guy cop took me away. “Your fingerprints were messed up, we’re gonna do them again and then you’re gonna see a judge.” This basically meant that I’d been here all day for no reason because the cop from last night fucked up. I love bureaucracy. I just wanted to take a walk in the park. I felt like I was in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. On my way to take the prints, I found a familiar face, another cop I went to high school with. This guy played piano in Guitarfest with me. I didn’t say hi.

I took the new prints and they walked me to a different cell. “Wait here.” Fuck! I had been duped again. I was back in the cell, this time with a couple young black men and an old sleeping guy. They informed me that after 1:00 the judge stopped working and it would be another incarcerated night and ex- cept this cell had bugs and rats and piss on the floor. The guys were nice, around my age and they’d both been here plenty of times. One of them was smoking a cigarette on the train platform, the other one jumped the turnstile. I wondered if everyone was in here for something stupid.

“This place is fucking disgusting.” “You’re the first white person I’ve ever heard say that.”

Nobody came for me. A new guy was let in. He said that he was there be- cause his friend stabbed somebody and said he did it and he was fucked be- cause he had violent crimes on his record. “Violent crimes are my M.O.” He was really nervous and one of the guys said he should “ask the man upstairs for help.” Weird. He was then taken to Rykers Island where they take the violent criminals. The remaining four of us laid down to go to sleep.

About an hour later, the door opened and eleven or twelve new guys came in fresh off the street, so they hadn’t been drained of life yet, which meant they were talking and loud and shit. The cell was now at capacity,

Immediately, the conversation turned to the subject of “bitches.” There was an argument as to whether there is no such thing as a good bitch, or if there is occasionally a good bitch. This one guy said, “If you ask me, all women are bitches, except my mom, but if you ask my dad, my mom’s a bitch.” I laid under a bench and clutched my jacket while I pretended to sleep. This was not the place for a feminist diatribe. The guys started talking about their kids and I realized these guys were pretty caring dudes. I was glad I’d witnessed this. Then at five, one of the guys suggested everyone go to sleep and all these dudes cuddled up next to each other. I was sleeping under another guy, sleeping on the bench next to this other guy. I thought, “This is kinda cute.” I calculated that I’d been there almost thirty hours. On the piss soaked floor I thought, “This is so disgusting I feel like a Jew in Nazi Germany, I can’t believe that I broke the law by walking in the park, taking a piss and smoking a cigarette, but they can keep us here legally. I cannot do this another night or they’ll have to transfer me to Bellvue.”

I’d been sleeping on and off for a whole day so, I wasn’t that tired. I woke up, squeezed out from under the bench and leaned against the urinal, watch- ing the guys sleep and listening to them snore. Eventually, another twelve guys were let in and it got seriously fucking tight. Some of the dudes were ar- guing X-Box vs. Nintendo Wii very exuberantly. They started calling names but not mine. At that point, I started to go a little nuts, frantically trying to get one of these cops to get me out of there. I also realized they hadn’t fed me or given me water for about sixteen hours. I wondered if they’d lost my information and if I’d be here forever, stuck in a bureaucracy till the end of time. A couple hours later, my new friends and I were brought into a little room where we’d get called into little booths to see our free lawyer.

“I can’t believe where we slept last night. Someone should sue these peo- ple.” I say.

“I don’t know any lawyers. You look like you know some lawyers.” I real- ized that I did know some lawyers. “So you’re Jewish, but you don’t wear the hat and the coat?” one guy asks.

“He ain’t Jewish like that, he’s Adam Sandler Jewish!” He had it exactly right. We then started talking about funny movies and saying lines and every- one laughed and I remembered what laughing was like. I saw the lawyer, she seemed to have no idea what I was doing there and said my case would be dismissed. At that point, it had been thirty-five hours since my arrest. I was coughing really bad and trying not to throw up, but if I had puked on their floor I wouldn’t have felt at all bad about it. Incarcerating nonviolent criminals has never made any sense to me. Everyone there was a regular guy who was being kept out of work, who did something debatably illegal two times. I thought, “Thanks Rudy, you classist, racist fuck!” I went to see the judge. There was a young girl there who was not that good looking but she looked amazing to me right then. My case was dismissed.

A day and a half later, it was still really nice out. I immediately bought some Burger King, which I scarfed down on the bus. I couldn’t even taste it, I was so sick. I had to go back to the police station to get my cell phone and keys. I saw the nice lady cop. She said, “Hi, Jamie,” and I said, “That was the worst experience of my fucking life.”

I got to my apartment and immediately roll a blunt and smoke it to the face, and watch an episode of the show Californication (which is really fucking good, by the way), at which point I decide this: Jail is pretty fucking pointless to me. The one effective part of it is that you don’t want to go back. I go to charge my cellphone and realize they have stolen the battery, as if they didn’t fuck me hard enough. Hail Giuliani!