Solitary Chap. 1 (Salinas version 2.0) (Patreon)

I sold meth. I couldn’t stand it at McDonalds any more, so why not sell meth? Everybody’s taking something. Mitzi wasn’t the smartest of my cousins, but she was in good with some guys making crystal and they figured I was reliable enough. It’s who you know, not what you know, you know? And you gotta stand on business, or business is going to stand on you. So I got to work.

I did okay dealing. Better than McDonalds, though not by a lot. I was living with Momma so I didn’t have to worry about rent. I did buy the prepaid cards for our phones, and the electricity. Momma got the water. We both got groceries. Momma did her best but Walmart didn’t give enough hours to make it work. They said they needed more help, said they were hiring, but they never gave Momma enough hours. 

McDonalds didn’t give me enough hours either. Kept hiring new people, but never gave anyone enough hours to live on. Then they acted like they couldn’t understand when I got mad and threw my hat in the fryer in the middle of a shift.

Selling meth, I made my own hours. Worked on commission at first, then consignment. I didn’t like consignment one bit, but it was that or nothing, so I put together enough regulars over a few weeks and made it work. Staying on my grind. Visualizing and manifesting that success. All that stuff they talk about on daytime TV. 

I was making a little money. Saving up bit by bit. Sharlyne and I were a thing. She was loyal and I caught feelings so I figured maybe we could get a place together. I’d save up for the first, last and security, then we could split the rent and utilities. See if we couldn’t make a life together. I knew dealing meth wasn’t ever gonna be a career or nothing, but when you got nothing else going, what else you gonna do?

Didn’t even go nine months dealing before I got busted. Mitzi snitched. She got caught holding when she tried to run out of a Target with six bottles of Tide right in front of a cop. She talked on everyone. I recruited her into the gang, we were cartel affiliated, I had bodies on me. I’m like, I’ve put one clip through this gun and that was popping cans in the desert. When did I catch a body? 

I took the plea. Folsom. I had no priors, but they put so many charges on me, put that violent offender tag on me, I wound up in damn Folsom. 

Hadn’t been inside two weeks when I heard Sharlyne was with Carlos now. Was I supposed to be happy she found a good man? Cause my best friend must be a good man, right? You can understand why I near killed Hector on my one-month anniversary inside. 

I said it plain to the Lieutenant at the hearing. Kept it honest and respectful. Hector tried to back me up in the shower, said I looked real sweet. I told him it wasn’t going to be like that, and he slapped me. Right in front of half the damn cell block, man slapped me. Said I was going to earn for him. I put him down and kept him down and I don’t give a damn if he ever walks again, because I wasn’t ever going to live no damn human life if I didn’t.

Why didn’t I leave? Why didn’t I call for help? I thought the Lieutenant was joking with me when he asked. I didn’t know any better when I answered. It was my first time incarcerated. Thought I could explain things, and it would all be okay.

I laid it out for the Lieutenant, very respectful. The last time someone got jumped in the shower, the C.O.’s didn’t come in at all, never mind too late. Same happened when CeeCee got caught slippin in the laundry, speaking of people who ain’t never going to walk again. This was pure self defense. The Lieutenant knew what was going to happen otherwise, and again and again and again and again if I didn’t. I was firm, but I was polite.

The Lieutenant didn’t like that at all. Said I should have called for help if I was telling the truth. But he didn’t think I was telling the truth. I had a history, he said. Which I don’t. He said I was gang affiliated, which is another lie. He said Hector was affiliated too, which made this gang on gang violence. 

Phone privileges gone, commissary privileges gone, library gone, twenty-three hours a day lock down in cell, goodbye to my good time, goodbye to earning good time, and forget about getting work time. Say hello to serving the full sentence instead. Oh, and he would fit me up special for a transfer to high security, since I liked throwing hands so much.

I asked him if there wasn’t any other way. I would take the hit on the phone and library and commissary and every other thing, but I can’t lose the good time and take that transfer. You don’t live like a human in High Sec. Not at all.

Twenty day stretch in solitary. Take it or leave it. I took it. I was shaking when they pushed me in. I’d heard things. The C.O.'s were laughing at me. Saying twenty days solitary ain’t nothing. They have people who have been in the box forever. They got one guy, been in a box for twenty years.

When they pulled me out… I wasn’t right. Couldn’t sleep. Kept hearing people whispering about me. Giving me looks when they thought I couldn't see them. Kept having these visions of ripping apart everyone around me. I kept it to myself. Never know who’s a rat. They might stick me back in solitary ‘for my own protection.’

The guards pissed on my bread every day. Twenty days in solitary, every meal, they pissed on my bread. I wasn’t going back for nothing. 

I got a job in the factory for a while. Stitching and sewing clothes. You figured out real fast that they were uniforms. Second I saw the gray shirts I knew- McDonalds. Somebody I was working the line with had made my old uniform. 

I busted my ass in that sweatshop. Couple cents an hour to my commissary account wasn’t nothing, even if it was close to nothing. Most important thing was the time. Work time came off your sentence. Minute by minute, I got closer to getting out again. It wasn’t work I wanted to do, but I could deal with it.

Then they put me on a farm, and I couldn’t deal with it. 

I was picking tomatoes. You know how hot it gets in the Central Valley in August? We weren’t allowed water breaks either. Guard standing in the turn row with a rifle in his hands. Making sure we were moving, hitting the quota. Turns out, we were rented. Folsom pocketed the fee. We just got a couple pennies in our commissary accounts, and our work time. 

It was hot. Sweat running down my face, into my eyes. Burning my eyes. Felt like I was choking, smothering in the heat. The baskets for the tomatoes were heavy, and hard to hold. The plastic bit me. Tore up my hands. I could deal with that. It was the spraying that broke me. 

We’d be bent over, picking in the field, and these trucks with big white plastic tanks on the back would pull up. Man would come out, and start spraying down the rows, mostly while we were in them, or just before we went in them. Fertilizer, pesticides, all kinds of things. Just a fine mist, falling down over everything. Making sure those tomatoes came out nice for the store shelves. Hard and green and smooth as glass. I said they weren’t ripe yet and the guards laughed at me, called me a moron and told me to get back to work. The owners knew their business.

One day in the fields my hands turned red. Started blistering. Felt like I was covered in bugs, and the bugs got into my lungs. My lungs were burning. I was on the ground screaming for a doctor, and I wasn’t the only one. I didn’t know what was different this time- the man with the sprayer had been out a few times before. This time, a whole bunch of us went down. They pulled us out of the row, kicking our guts with steel toe boots to check for fakers. I wasn’t faking. They let me drink some water, wash the burns with irrigation water. 

Didn’t help. 

A week later, I was called ‘fit’ and told to get back in the fields. I wouldn’t do it. My arms were still burned, my lungs still burned, my eyes got watery for no reason. I wasn’t fit. But they said I had to go back, they had quotas to meet. I said I wouldn’t do it. They said I was being disruptive, uncooperative, disorderly, threatening the good operation of the prison. But since I wasn’t fit, they would help me out.

Thirty days in solitary. Maybe I’d be ‘fit’ when I came out again.

I tried to argue, yelled that it wasn’t fair. They didn’t give a damn, and shoved me in there.

Solitary is a cell the size of a parking spot. Cinderblock walls painted white. Bare concrete floor. Bare concrete ceiling. Slab of metal for sleeping on takes up most of the space in the cell. Solid steel door painted white keeping me in. Slot at the bottom of the door. 

I didn’t get any yard time either. Twenty four hours locked down, food shoved through the slot on a plastic tray. Plastic fork and knife and God help you if they ain’t all back on the tray when they come to collect it. Never tested it myself, but I know they rush the cell and wear you out real good if you try to hang on to anything. 

You are supposed to get fruit with dinner. Apple slices, something. I didn’t get my fruit. I didn’t bang on the door to ask where it was. I knew the answer. I knew why. Guess I was just lucky they didn’t piss on the bread this time. Guess they were sending a different message.

Some people get to bring in a Bible when they go in the box. I didn’t think to ask. I wished like Hell I had before lights out the first day. 

The walls were so close together already, but they were still closing in. I walked back and forth, back and forth, tried to do push ups, burpees, anything. I had whole conversations in my head, reviewed every damn moment of my life that led up to me being in that box, every argument, every time Mitzi was unreliable. Every time Sharlyne smiled at me, or Carlos was a bro. More often thinking of every time they looked a little too friendly together. Every time Carlos said how hot she was. The thoughts ate me up. I couldn’t get away from them, they chewed up through my brain. I was half dead by the time the buzzing fluorescents switched off.

That was the first day. When the door turned up on the seventh day, I don’t know what I was. 

The door was steel. It had been painted dark green, once, but most of it had chipped off. The wheel in the middle was still solid and had most of its color. There were a couple spots on either side of the axle that were worn smooth, even had shallow divots two fingers wide in the spokes. 

I sat on the edge of my bunk and touched the new door. Cold. The smoothness of paint and the roughness of the chipped and flaking spots. I tried the wheel. Stuck. Figures I would get my very own second door in solitary and it was still locked. 

I laughed. You don’t get a lot of laughs in the box, so I enjoyed it while I could. Tried to stretch the laugh out, keep it going even when it wasn’t funny no more. I figured I would be depressed soon enough. Couldn’t be that upset about it, though. The door was a precious thing in solitary- a distraction.

Only one thing to do, and that was to turn the wheel. I set my arms to it, then my back and legs. Nothing. I kept at it. Nothing else to do. I lay on the floor and put both of my feet on one spoke of the wheel and pushed up. Was it giving? Or was it the cheap sneakers they give you in prison crushing down into my feet?

No shoelaces in the box. Just in case.

I pushed until I felt something in my back start to go, then I eased off. I waited until I felt strong again, then waited a bit longer, because I know how muscle fatigue works. I tried to keep loose. Keep my muscles warmed up. Then I did it again.

Dinner was two pieces of paper thin baloney between two pieces of white bread, and a half pint of milk. It wasn’t enough to fill me up, never mind the taste. The spot on the tray where the fruit was supposed to be was bone dry. I stuck my nose in it, trying to find the smell, just the smell, of apples or oranges but it just smelled like plastic. Didn’t even smell like soap. 

I ate everything. Drank every drop. Then I put the tray in front of the slot, everything neat. Some time passed and the slot slid open. I pushed the tray out. Didn’t even try to talk to the guard. They don’t like it when you try to talk to them.

I tried to sleep some, but I couldn’t. I didn't know if the door would vanish again. I forced my body to rest before I took the next shot at the wheel. I kept thinking about the tray, the dinner tray, all beige plastic and no fruit. No nothing. Not even enough food to keep my muscles up. I would only get weaker in the box, not stronger.

I set myself on the floor again. The leg press position seemed like the best bet. I strained against the wheel. I hadn’t breathed right since that day in the field, but I pushed through. Breathe what I could, and push. The spoke pressed into my foot. Hard. So hard, I figured it would leave bruises through the sole of the shoe. I kept pressing and straining. Even if I tore every muscle in my body it would be worth it, because that would mean going to the hospital ward, and my arms were still burnt up.

I put every scrap of me into pushing that damn spoke. I held in there, insane with the need to see what was on the other side. I rubbed my shoulders near bloody, pressing into the concrete. I could feel my knees starting to go. Wouldn’t be walking that off. Something else gave instead. The wheel turned. Barely a quarter turn, but it went.

I would have started laughing again, but I couldn’t. No wind. I panted, lying on the floor, letting the cold concrete soak some of the burn from my muscles and my arms. This would hurt tomorrow. Worth it. When I felt strong enough, I pushed on the wheel again with my feet. I had broken through whatever was keeping it stuck.

I spun the wheel until I heard something go chunk on the other side of the door. I pushed it open, and saw the sun rising. I just did. The sun was rising and the warm light was flooding my cell. I could see what looked like a little town through the doorway. Could see some buildings, though they looked in rough shape. But mostly I saw the sun, shining like an orange in the sky.

Going through the door was definitely escaping prison. No two ways about that. Things were real bad for escaped cons. But things were bad now, And here was a door that couldn't exist opening up to sunrise just after dinner. I was going to die in Folsom. Hadn’t been here a year, but I knew. So I stepped out into the light.