It was a Friday evening when I walked onto a new tier in the Carroll County Jail; that’s when a fellow by the name of Hollywood says to me, “Hey man, can I have your bagel tomorrow?”
“What? What’s a bagel?” I said. (thinking he was using some kind of jail lingo.)
“Man. The bagel that comes on the tray with breakfast.”
“Oh, yeah… that bagel.” I hesitated. “For what?”
“I’ll give you my cereal for your bagel.”
“Sure, I guess that’s fine.”
I walked away from this brief conversation thinking that this was going to be by far the funniest and most outrageous thing to happen at the Detention Center. But it didn’t take much too longer until I was proved wrong.
It was probably later that night, a guy by the name of Chris in the cell next to me offered me a cup of coffee. I was also a bit reluctant to try the coffee because I thought it was probably against the rules to drink coffee in Jail and I couldn’t imagine how anyone could make coffee with the sinks distributing even luke warm water.
I can’t remember much of the antics in the first tier I was in, because I think it wasn’t until I was moved into the J-Pod tier in the center that things really started rollin’.
I was busy involved watching an investigative TV-movie when they alerted me that I was about to move. It took less than maybe ten minutes until my mattress and few things were down the hall in another tier. I was probably pretty enthused thinking this would be my big chance at going to the library. For the last a week up until then, I was annoyed many of the staff and inmates of how about going to the library.
I walked into J-Pod and I was overwhelmed at the amount of sunshine shining the sunroofs on the ceiling of the tier. I felt a bit surrealistic, like Ocean City. All the guys looked pretty friendly and I could already tell of a warmer sense of humor in the tier.
One of the first people whom I saw and met was a guy by the name of Jonny. His head was poking through a hatch at the far side of the tier. I soon found out it was because he was in lock-in from a couple of fights a few months prior. From the angle I was standing, he looked like he was maybe fourteen or fifteen. And I found it hard to believe he had been in any fights. Also because he was so funny. But I found out later this was true. He slipped me a shot of coffee or two as I remember.
A few of the others guys were busy involved in a board game known as Rune Bound. A sort of Dungeon and Dragons meets Risk sort of game. I may have been a bit disillusioned from the sunshine because I thought maybe I was involved in the game. I kept wanted to play the game and roll the dice but the said this was not so. I watched them play instead and watched TV.
All this went on for the next few weeks and during that time; I entertained myself by drinking cup after cup of Keefe Coffee and eating bags full of Zippy Cakes Iced Oatmeal Cookies and Honey Buns. I also read most of On The Road and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas again.
I also began a decent “routine” of daily meditation almost every morning and night. I’m still going about trying to continue that.
Towards the end of my stay, I started getting pretty bored and tried to see how many nights I could stay up during the darkness of the night in the cell I was sharing with a guy named Squirrel.
There’s more I could say but I just wanted to get this stuff off my chest. Chio.
