Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 00:51:13 -0400
From: d.a. w <daw62@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Roommate  Chapter 18

Please remember to support Nifty with a contribution.  As a writer I value
having Nifty to share my work.

As a reader I check out the great stories every day.

Also, as you know we writers share these stories freely, and really are
glad to share what we write.  However, as a writer, I really do enjoy
reading comments from readers.....which let me know that someone has read
my work, and they are not just there awaiting a reader, but actually have
been read.  Therefore, as you support Nifty with some financial support, I
would ask for some support for the writer by your letting the author know
that you hav read his work.  Feedback of what was liked; what was perhpas
less interesting, and what really interested and made you want to read
more.  THANKS


CHAPTER 18       Inmate Style Waiting

From the end of Chapter 17...

"I am sorry ma'am, yes please have counsel appointed for me."  I paused,
and then remembered my manners and added.  "Thank you ma'am for your help."

My polite reply made no difference to her.

"I'm not the one that appoints any lawyers, sir."  The "sir" was definitely
sarcastic.

"I have all the information," she added.  "Stand there."

I stood.  She pressed a button, and an officer came over and again grasped
me and controlled me from my cuffed hands.

"This paperwork is complete," she said, separating some copies of forms
from the originals.  She handed them over to the officer, and he guided me
away from the window and down a hallway from what in society would be a
waiting room, but I had heard it referred to by officers as the
"holding-processing" room.

CHAPTER 18 Inmate Style Waiting

I noted that I was sort of an object.  My paperwork was not in my hands,
but in the control of the deputy, and I was an object being delivered to an
assigned place.

We had not traveled more than a couple of steps when the deputy who had
been one of the two officers who had driven me to this place stepped over
to my escort.

"Hi Steve" he greeted the current person who had custody of my body.

"I came back to retrieve my cuffs from this northern scum bag."

I was personally not impressed by his original lexical choice for me.  I
might have made a comment, but I had no desire to drool over a mouth tube
again.

"Oh, so this is the northern con who repaid Beau by crashing into the fence
at Pleasant Acres."

With every comment like this that I have heard, I become more sure that my
sentence would not be a fine that would not be suspended pending my good
behavior when working at Pleasant Acres, and then paid from my wages.

My wrists were roughly grasped, and Steve fiddled with his key and unlocked
my wrists from the restraints of steel.

For a moment my arms were no longer uncomfortably locked behind my back.

"Miller!" my escort snarled at me. "Keep your hands behind your back and
grasp the opposite elbow."

I tried my best, but I could not grasp my opposite elbow because I could
not reach that far.  I hoped that grasping the opposite forearm next to the
elbow would be sufficient.

My escort looked at my earnest attempt to comply.  I guess he was willing
to let my best effort be acceptable, even if I seemed to be the most
perfidious criminal in the city by violating the property and generosity of
the most perfect of all persons Beau Wilkinson.  I wondered if these
persons would believe some of the pranks that Beau, their idea of
perfection in a person, had perpetrated while at Williams.  By this time my
escort and I had arrived at yet another door with no door handles on it.

I heard my escort say "Open 16." and in just a few moments the door began
sliding open.

My elbow as grasped, and we went through the doorway and as we headed down
a hallway I heard it close and click shut, locking me behind yet another
layer of locked doors.  We went down a hall with cement block walls on both
sides of us, and then we turned to the left and in this hallway was a long
bench.  It was wood, but easily three inches thick.  I suppose every three
feet of this eight to ten foot bench was a steel triangular brace which
anchored this impressive piece of lumber to the wall.  Sitting on this
bench were six others who clearly were like myself, men locked there
awaiting trial.  My arrival did cause twelve eyes to turn my direction.  I
mentally thought that if your only place to look was a cement block wall
with mustard colored paint up about eight feet from the floor, and then
above that was perhaps was a two feet wide band of red, any distraction
would be welcome.  I decided the paint has been chosen by someone who was
perhaps color blind as the paint was really ugly.  My second thought was
that perhaps it was deliberate.  Perhaps the colors were chosen to make the
poor victims in this uncomfortable waiting room have a preview of their
future of having to wait for others to do something to you, and while you
waited your comfort and happiness was of no interest at all to those in
control.  My escort indicated the end of the line, and releasing my wrists,
I did as expected and sat down. What happened next was a surprise.

"Lean over!" I was commanded.

My wrists felt, and I heard the sound with which I have had some very
recent experience, the sound, and the sensation of handcuffs being lock on
my wrists, keeping my wrists behind my back.

"No conversation while you are awaiting your trials." my escort informed me
as he locked the cuffs.

He walked back down the hall which we had just traversed, and I heard him
again call "Open 16," and the sound of his exit. I looked down the line of
my companions.

I opened my mouth, but did not begin talking because my just beginning to
open my mouth caused genuine agitation from the man next to me.  His look
of fear, along with his vigorous head shaking made me realize that fear of
talking had been very successfully instilled in these men, and whatever
would happen if I would talk would also cause them pain or suffering, and
they wanted to prevent that occurrence.

Their fear stifled my words, and so I joined them looking at the cement
block wall.  I needed some stimulation, and so I began counting the number
of concrete blocks on the wall opposite me, from a break in the plastic
baseboard about four feet to my left, to the end of that section of
baseboard about ten feet away where another break occurred.  I got to 247
when the sound of a door opening, but not door 16, then caused me to lose
my place.  I thought that some real person would be more interesting then
cement blocks.

There was a guard and a red jump suited prisoner.  The prisoner was pushing
a plastic cart sort of like the ones I had seen in libraries when a library
employee was pushing around this cart of book and re-shelving them.  Only
on this cart was seven plastic boxes, faded tan in color.

When they arrived in front of us, the officer announced in a monotone
"Lunch."

As I sat there with my wrists cuffed behind my back and looking at the
boxes I had little expectation that what was in the box was something I
wanted to eat.

The first thing that happened was that the prisoner orderly walked down the
line and placed a plastic box on each or our laps.  He then moved back to
the opposite side of the hallway, scrunched down on floor, with his knees
bent in front of him and his hands behind his back.

We all now had a "lunch" on our laps and no way to eat it.

The officer now walked in front of us.

"I am going to unlock one wrist so that you can eat lunch.  The other wrist
will remain cuffed to the bench chain.  As I am unlocking your one wrist
you are to make NO (and here the word `NO' was said with great emphasis)
movement on your own.  I will move your hand to the correct eating
position, and tell you when to begin.  Do you have any questions?"

Here he looked at us in a clearly perfunctory way.  He clearly expected no
answer, as indeed the instructions were simple.  I am sure any kindergarten
child could have followed them successfully.

With a certain amount of chain rattling as each prisoner had one wrist
released in order to eat, I heard the prisoner two inmates down from me say
"Officer I am left handed. Please release my left hand SIR."  I was
immediately tense for him, and for us.

There was a pause.  It seemed relatively long to me, but it might have been
only moments in real time.  "No Problem" the officer said very loudly.
"One prisoner has stated he does not want lunch."

When he got to me he leaned over and I felt him key my right handcuff open,
and although the left cuff, and the handcuffs themselves were part of the
chain going through the bench supports, stayed securely locking my body to
the bench and wall, my right hand could reach the tray.

Since I was the end of the line, the guard retuned to the other side of the
hallway, nodded at the orderly, and ordered we tethered seven miscreants,
"EAT."

"SIR, OFFICER SIR, this prisoner would be happy to eat lunch with his right
hand SIR."

The officer walked down the hall with his inmate orderly following.  I
realized all of us prisoners has been taught a lesson about our place in
the jail world.  We were powerless, and were not expected to question or do
anything but what we had been instructed to do.

I looked down on my lunch.  It was as far from my meals at Pleasant Acres
as it could possibly be. On my tray in front of me was one large
compartment, in which rested what I expected to be a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich.  I picked it up and found that the bread had real rigidity
to it.  None of the "just baked" freshness of Panera.  This bread had been
fresh some days ago.  I suddenly remembered my Dad mentioning that Enfield
Correctional Center bought all the day-old bread from a large bakery in
Springfield, and used that day old bread for meals for inmates.  I realized
that with only one hand I could not really open the sandwich to look at its
contents, but one bite did convince me it was what you might expect
bologna.  I suspect there was a thin hint of mayonnaise on it.

As a person with one wrist cuffed to a chain, and through that chain locked
to a bench, I accepted that the statement from society was clear.  Inmates
were not worthy of the expense of first quality anything except items used
to chain, cuff, restrain, and cage them.  There was also a compartment in
which five (by actual count) yellowish lumps which I charitably considered
to be lumps of a peaches swam in a flood of thick and very sweet syrup.
This sumptuous meal ended with my vegetable, which were greenish half inch
bits of green beans.  However these brave bits of green vegetable were
swimming in a broth which shimmered from the sheen of fat from the lump of
bacon in the tray slot.  I mentally went through the food groups and
decided that I was looking at a lunch that on paper met state, which I
would guess were not very stringent, but probably a bit more stringent
federal guidelines.  I smiled at the thought that this meal could be an
illustration of that hackneyed phrase... Figures don't lie, but liars
figure.

"Something funny Miller!" caught me back into the here and now.

"Sir not SIR," I vigorously replied.  I was just thinking back to my
college days, SIR."

"Really asshole?  Who the fuck cares."

Just then a light that I had noted up by the ceiling came on, and I noted
it was red, and almost instantaneously an alarm sounded.

"Grab the trays Diggs!" the officer ordered.  Diggs hopped up and grabbed
each of our trays, reattached the lid from the bottom of the tray and
reseated it as the lid.

As Diggs went down the line, the officer went down reattaching our "free"
wrist back into the cuff behind our backs, and we again became one with the
bench and its firm mountings to the wall.

The officer, Diggs and the cart all dashed down the hallway.  The officer
said something into his microphone on his shoulder strap, and the door
opened and our lunch and our visitors disappeared.

The flashing light and the pulsing claxon lasted for several minutes more.
I am no judge of time without a watch, and the discomfort of the sound and
our helplessness all made the time seem to be hours long.

Finally silence returned, and I thought how absolutely marvelous silence
can be.  My mind wandered immediately to the Simon and Garfunkel hit song
"The Sound of Silence."  I began to amuse myself by singing the song in my
head.

It was then that my reverie was interrupted by a call of nature.  I am sure
that the lunch I had just almost eaten was not making its end-of-digestion
remains announcing that it wished to exit my body but the large meal I had
consumed last evening... could it really have been just that little time
for my life to change so completely?

 However, I was now really in distress.  What could I do?  I was already
enough disliked that to appear before the judge with a load of shit in my
pants was not any way to make a good impression.

I shouted.  "OFFICER!  OFFICER!  SIR, WILSON in some hallway awaiting a
court appearance needs to go to the bathroom.  SIR please come immediately
SIR!"

To my amazement someone must have been listening and within a couple of
minutes an officer appeared through the door at the end of the hallway.

"Miller?" he shouted as he approach out little band of brothers.

"SIR YES SIR.  SIR HERE SIR" I shouted back.

The officer reached behind me and uncuffed my wrists from the chain, but
then cuffed them behind my back, and propelled me down the hallway where
the door had not been closed.

I only barely looked at the hallway we were going down.  Suddenly the
officer opened a door and there was a real bathroom.  With my hand cuffed I
could not unbuckle my pants, and so the officer had to serve me.  The
officer unbuckled my belt and unbuttoned my pants, zipped down my fly and
pushed down my boxers.  He then pushed me down on the toilet.  I yelped
involuntarily as the toilet was not porcelain glass, but stainless steel,
and ice cold.

As I sat down my first action was to release the sphincter ani externus
muscle to allow the fecal matter that had accumulated from the generous
bounty of last evening's dinner into the toilet.  I was absorbed with this
activity, but when I looked up, I saw that the officer who had escorted me
to the toilet was still in the toilet with me, and actually was watching my
defecation.

When he saw me notice him still there and perhaps my shocked look he
commented.  "Prisoners are not allowed to shit without an escort.  Believe
me we all hate having to be around you guys when you're shitting, but it's
part of the job."  As I suppose I still was looking at him in amazement, he
continued.  "We would not have to do it, except you cons stick stuff you
want to hide up your butts, and so we have to be sure that you really shit,
and not just get rid of whatever contraband you might be trying to smuggle
into the facility."

I looked to the side and saw a roll of toilet paper on the floor.  I
reached over, picked it up and did something else I had not done in public
ever for as long as I could remember.  I wiped my butt with another adult
watching me do so.  I have to admit that when I did the checking of the
toilet paper to see if it was clean, I was embarrassed.

My guard seemed not even to notice.  I finished by looking at the side to
see how the thing flushed.  I saw a square that was separated from the rest
of the stainless steel tower.  I pushed it, and was rewarded with the rush
of water.

"Pull'em up, and I'll get you back on the line." he said in a bored way.  I
suppose a person gets use to almost any job, even including having to watch
detainees take a dump.

Once I got my underwear, and here I actually looked at my underpants, as
before I was more interested in getting them off my butt to really pay
attention.  I saw that I had what might have been white boxers at one time,
but these has yellow stains on the front, and brown skid marks on the
inside of the rear.  I mentally thought that Beau was his usual thorough
self.  Nothing was out of place in my attire.  My clothes perfectly fit my
new name Thomas G. Miller, and his biography.

I finished pulling up my jeans and tightening the belt, when the officer
opened the door, and indicated I was to move through it.

"As soon as you are through the door, nose and toes on the wall with your
hands behind your back for re- cuffing."  This command was given with a
monotone as one would expect with a command that had to be given many
times.

I complied by exiting and turning to the wall beside the door, and
instinctively placed my hands behind my back in the place that they had
become so accustomed to in the time since my arrest.

The wrists were firmly grasped, and soon I felt him lock the cuffs on my
wrists, and then fumble with locking them in place.

I was returned to my place on the bench chain, with my fellow prisoners not
even bothering to look at me.  I was old news.

When there is nothing by which to measure time, time sort of does not exist
really.  I actually had no idea of when I was first locked onto this bench,
and certainly had no clear idea of what time it was now.  I decided that to
keep my mind at least a little occupied I would go back to counting cement
blocks.  As I began I smiled...being careful to keep my smile inside not
actually smile outwardly.  I was becoming enough of an experienced prisoner
to know that smiling without a clear reason would be met with antagonism
and suspicion by those who, I now realized only too completely, controlled
every aspect of my life.

I was up to one-hundred seventy nine when again the door without a number
(at least to me) opened, but this time there were four officers.  I knew we
must be getting close to our time in front of the judge.  My mind did
wander a bit.  I thought about what would happen when I faced the judge.  I
almost said out loud...what will happen Beau has already determined.  All
that is needed is for me to be present to hear what Beau has already
planned for my sentence to be.  Maybe he was just trying to teach me a
lesson, to win an argument that I couldn't quite remember . . . .

One officer wore a different uniform from the other three.  The three wore
uniforms like the ones who had control of the lunch and the potty trip, but
the fourth had a much more tailored uniform.  As the group arrived in front
of us, the officer looked us over with a sort of disapproving frown.

"Gentlemen," he began, and the sarcasm of his addressing us as "Gentlemen"
was very clear.  "It is approaching 1:00 and the time of your appearance in
court.  You will be released from the bench, and we will place all of you
in belly chains and ankle shackles for the trip to court.  You will be
taken from here to a secure elevator and down to the basement and through a
tunnel to the Birch Courts Building.  You will then be taken to a holding
cell there as deputies assigned to the court will take you individually to
your assigned courts.  We expect your complete co- operation with the
deputies in this move.  Any lack of co-operation will be reported to the
prosecutor, and will become another part of the charges and could affect
the outcome of your case."

He paused here staring... perhaps a better term would be glaring...at us.

Then, to my absolute amazement a fellow prisoner two men to my left spoke.

"Officer, SIR, Officer, may this prisoner make a request, SIR"

There was silence in the hallway.  I think everyone there was in shock that
the normal and accepted program was being disrupted.

The silence continued for an uncomfortable length of time... at least to
me.

The officer walked over to stand directly in front of the prisoner, glaring
at him like he was some insect who deserved to be squashed beneath a foot.

"Yes prisoner, just what is your request for which you have breached
discipline by speaking without permission?"

"Officer, SIR, I know that soon I will be working in a factory in
involuntary servitude to pay back for my stealing from the company when I
was one of the free workers there.  I know that the involuntary servants
there work in the factory all day, and go back to the pens after dark, and
also are brought to the factory before dawn, SIR.  SIR therefore MY REQUEST
is that this coffle of prisoners not go through the tunnel, but just cross
the street so that this prisoner, and others that might also not see the
sky much after being sentenced to some sort of inside servitude can have
this last time under the open sky and able to enjoy to sun above, SIR.

I was shocked that anyone of us would have the bravery to make such a
request, knowing that the result would probably only result in some further
pain for the offending prisoner... and I feared the rest of us would suffer
for his insane breach of discipline.

There was a long pause.  I have no idea how long, but I am sure it seemed
much longer than it really was.

"Well prisoner," the officer said very slowly and deliberately.  I could
tell that he was still formulating his response to this request which
surprised us all.  "You know speaking out in the way you have should result
in some discipline by these officers here on the expected behavior of
prisoners which is to do as ordered, and not presume to try to have any
control over what is being done to them.  After all the concept of a
prisoner is that the prisoner has things done to him, and accepts that he
is in a subordinate state of doing as told without question.  Therefore
what should happen now is that these fine officers here would take you
aside and explain in clear and very physical terms what your place in
society is now, and what rights you have now, which actually ARE none."
Here again the officer paused.

In this pause, I awaited what would happen next.

"Officer Jenkins, go back to supply and get a ten cuff chain."

Officer Jenkins had the door opened again by the magic of talking into his
shoulder mike.  All of us who were left, sat or stood in silence.

After what seemed like abut five minutes, the door opened again, and the
officer we now knew to be Officer Jenkins entered with the sounds of
clanking chains as his accompaniment.

"Officers unlock the prisoners from the bench cuffs, and lock them in the
gang cuff chain."  The officer in charge ordered.

The other three officers unlocked the inmate sitting on the other end of
the bench from my place.  The same procedure was followed for each.  The
prisoner was released from the cuffs locking him to the bench, and then
ordered to rise.  When the inmate rose and the officers locked his wrists
into a set of handcuffs, but the cuffs were not just chained between the
prisoner's wrists, but another chain was connected to the chain linking the
prisoner's wrists to the connecting chain between the next prisoner's
cuffs.  I noted that the first handcuff of the ten cuff chain was not used
and THE first prisoner was locked to the second handcuff of the set of ten.
There seemed to be about two to three feet of chain between each cuff.

The two deputies went down the line, and when it was my turn I too was
locked to all the other six prisoners.  Two cuffs and their linking were
left over.

"Lock the other cuff on shit boy's other wrist, and use the front and last
cuffs as handles to keep the prisoners secure." the commanding officer
ordered.

The officer in charge then said "Open Door 6."  our little chain gang went
back into intake waiting room, and then out the door into the parking area
for officers bringing prisoners into the jail.  Finally we walked up a
ramp, and into the sunlight.  I had to squint my eyes for a bit to adjust
to the outside world.

With our leg shackles clanking and the chain between each of us swinging we
were a noisy and very unusual sight on the sidewalk.  I didn't care what
the others prisoner said about looking at the sunlight or whatever; I
didn't want to be seen in a prison coffle, loaded with chains, paraded like
an animal in front of people in business and briefcases.  First the people
looked surprised.  Then they pointed and laughed.  I thought about how much
I hated these people.  Then I thought about how maybe I would be doing the
same thing they were doing if I saw a bunch of criminals on their way to
their trials.  There was certainly a big difference between being on one
side of the sidewalk, wearing chains, and on the other, wearing a business
suit.

As we moved around the jail building suddenly we were at the corner and
across the street was a six story limestone building.  We all stood quietly
waiting the "Walk" sign while the cab drivers slowed down to look at us.
We couldn't hide.  When we crossed the street I saw a sign which proclaimed
the building to be the Justice A. A. Birch Nashville Court Building, and
that it was for Davison County, and that its address was 408 Second Avenue.

I digested all this important information as we clanked by on the way to a
side door.

There was a security check point right in front of us, and three very
surprised deputies who were manning the steel desk.

"Airing out your gang?" one of the deputies said to the officer in charge.

"Nope" our officer said in a friendly tone... totally unlike his time when
addressing us.  "One of them asked to see some blue sky because he was sure
the he would see little of it in Involuntary Service training, and I
decided that I would not mind a bit of sunshine myself."

"Well bring'em through the side here.  All that metal would make the
detectors go berserk."

Our little parade of chained but still technically not yet convicted
criminals clanked through a gate which a deputy opened for us.  My training
from home kicked in, and as I went by I said to the officer holding the
gate open. "Thank you SIR."

He looked startled at me.  "You've got a polite boy here Brad."

"Nice to know.  He had some prison time up North.  Maybe they taught him
some manners."

"Not likely," the other one said, and they both laughed.

No one of course gave a thought to consulting me.  I was a prisoner, and
not worthy to be in conversation with them.

"What court are these prisoners scheduled into?" our officer asked.

"Just a minute, I'll check."  He glanced at me.  "Name, prisoner." He
demanded.

I automatically began to form the word "Frank" but I knew it would get me
punished for giving a false name.  I responded with "Thomas G. Miller,
SIR."

I saw his reaction immediately.  I was notorious.  "The Pleasant Acres
perp?" he said aloud.

Of course it was the officer who answered, not me.  "Yeah.  That's the
one."

"Well Brad, this asshole and all the rest 0f them are scheduled in Judge
Whorton's court."

I saw a smile form on the face of the officer in charge. "That's good."

"Court 10, Room 320," the other one said.

"Thanks" the Lieutenant said, and he led us away from the public areas
through a door marked private, and into a space I knew was for us.  The
marble walls disappeared.  Once again we were led down a hallway floored in
plain concrete, and with walls of dirty beige paint toward an elevator.
The officer pushed the button, and when the chime rang and the door opened
I knew we were indeed in the prisoner part of the building.  The elevator
car had stainless steel walls, and a dull metal floor.  We were pushed to
the back, and an office pushed his ID card under a reader, and jammed his
thumb on the "Three" button.  We arrived at an equally spare hallway, and
were told to march to the right.  I saw a door marked "320" and a bench on
the other side of the hall from it.  We were taken to the bench and told to
sit and not move.  All of US knew that our fates would be decided when we
were called to enter the door marked 320.