JAIL

I had gotten fed up with the steady diet from Hollywood movies and the media in general in their ignorant portrayal of Mexicans and Blacks in jails. America, the Calvinist country without parallel, immediately indicates that anyone that had been sentenced, by definition, is automatically to be shunned as some sort of pariah. According the the Calvinists who run the country and make policy, only thieves, violent men, beggars, the dregs of society (eg., people of color) wind up in jails.I had been tailed for my activities in the Brown Berets for some time. Once a cop stopped me and, surprisingly, said as much, then let me go. After an FBI visit, it was only a matter of time that a cop would stop me for not having renewed my license plates. I was served a warrant to appear in courtI had already decided not to pay the fine. I wanted to see how similar or how different were the portrayals of my brethren in an actual jail. I decided to become a pariah.First, court. The fine was $20. I knew that as a misdemeanor this would not affect future employment. The judge heard the complaint, sentenced the fine and was ready to move on to the next case.There was a hitch, however. I did not obediently move to the dais to pay, but said I wasn't paying it. The judge gave a dirty look. Instead of making money here his office was going to have to pay my room and board. Oh, well, it was taxpayer's money anyway. The shuffled me off to the other exit, the one with the hallway, the one where you were checked in.

My first residence was a large communal room filled with bunk beds. In them were every sort of man one could imagine,; young, old, fat, thin, White, Black, Latino, Asian. Most were just whittling away the time doing innocuous things, reading a magazine, combing their hair, etc. There was one bunk bed that had hung a curtain and two felons had retired together. After a while, we were called up and assigned to actual cages. I went in mine where an old man was lying on the cot, harrumphing and retching up vast amounts of phlegm. "I'll never get out of here alive," I thought. Still, I greeted him decently and he answered in like manner. After a while a 19 year old was brought in. He had had the police flash the lights on him to pull over, and he had panicked and gunned his car so that there was a chase, and of course the police won. Now the boy was thoroughly depressed and could hardy speak. He lay there and stared at the wall, contemplating how his life had been ruined by his one mistake.Next came lunch. Since I had taught prisoners before, I was pleased to find several of my homies working in the kitchen and serving the food. They were amazed to see their former teacher in their environment, but were definitely pleased to judge from their ample smiles when they saw me. We exchanged pleasantries and I went to sit down. As I remember, the lunch had a heavy dose of scrambled eggs, mystery meat and maybe mashed potatoes. I sat at a table with other men who ignored me- not in a hostile way, just because they had no pleasantries to exchange at the moment. There was a brief stint in a large room where games were being played, cards, etc. Here I saw more of my former students, and greeted them accordingly. One young man I knew (I have forgotten his name) was a diabetic. Later I learned he had gotten a job as a teacher's assistant. I got the feeling that hustles were going on, there is always someone who will supply whatever you need even in a concentration camp.Back to the cell.I slept a bit, and suddenly the guards started screaming to get up, rattling the cages. We were shuffled off to buses. We were going to be sent to another jail somewhere. I didn't think of it at the time, but I guess it was to make room for new recruits. The bus pulled out of the glass house, (as it is called), and made its way into the street. It was a very strange feeling to be riding the familiar streets from a prison bus. I could see everything I recognized, but no one on the street would look at us. We were invisible.We were lotteried into a communal room again. Same routine. Bureaucrats find one way to do things and that is what they do, forever. It was starting to get boring. Perhaps that is the greatest take away from my escapade into confinement, that instead of violence, sex, bells going off, beatings, escapes, there was nothing. Nothing. Nothing but the endless, boring hours that slid imperceptibly one into the other. How can anyone make a movie out of that? Maybe a French art film, but who makes money that way? The truth is that the inmates, myself included, are decent, empathetic beings just as you would find anywhere. The society has invented a way to demonized a group, put them away, so that the rest can feel safe. The government is on our side, they think. They have gotten rid of evil. The parallels with the Middle Ages are striking.