Act 1: Scene 3
The holding cell
I knew that an ending was on the way.
I knew the impending doom was moving too fast.
I remember being told that it is only by dying that one is awakened to eternal light.
And I remember being told that life comes with opportunities, and, so, when one door closes, another door opens.
Tragedies can lead us to the greatest comebacks, or so I was told.
I do not know about these things.
Or, maybe I know more than I think
No, I sat this way, alone in a segregated cell after being mixed with two other criminals earlier in the evening.
They must have had a special on wife-beaters that night.
Wife beaters. Drunk drivers. Car thefts and more.
Drug dealers. Assault and battery experts.
And me?
I was a little lamb, a sheep in lambs clothing.
I was puny and wasted.
I was sitting in a small cell, alone, and looking upwards at a window that was slightly tilted inward to which, I could see the sky turn from day to night. Everything else was manmade and remanufactured from the luight to the air we breathed.
I watched the daylight vanish into night time, and consecutively, I was awake for most of the night and watched the sky turn from night to daylight again.
There is no place like this.
There are smells that were both ungodly and unforgettable. I could hear the echoes of people, some of them grown and old men and some were crying. I could hear the echoed sounds from the local street bums, drunk and sick and howling their vomit into the stainless steel toilet, which sat in the corner of the holding cell.
I remember a tall man, perhaps Mexican, and perhaps larger in size than his typical countrymen. He had ancient features, like a manly Azteca princess because he was more feminine than manly. He was girly and chubby with man-breasts and with an unfortunately tight and nipply t-shirt, poking out like a man with pregnant tits. He wore shorts and I an recall seeing him walking by my ell like a streetwalker in the middle of the street with a high volume of prostitutes and quick-fix hookers.
I heard men whistling, as if a woman came down the corridor.
“What the fuck?
Who are they brining in now, I thought to myself.
The tier was never quiet; however, there were lulls of quietness which were usually interrupted by the sound of a new arrival.
And this time was no different.
I’d often hear the drunks complain and shout about the fact that they knew their rights. And then of course, there were two men who rapped with awful beats and sang rap music, and they did this back and forth from neighboring cells.
I hated them most,
In fact, I mention these men particularly because they were hazing me in the beginning. I was previously picked on by these two because I assumed that I was just another skinny white kid and they were men of a different race.
I recalled them calling me “white meat” and describing what they like to do to little longhaired whiteboys like me.
I wished they would leave me alone and I wanted to defend myself, but in all honesty, I knew I could hardly fight one person, let alone two.
I knew that words and my whit or anything I tried would never help me in a place like this. I knew that let alone the fact which I knew at best, I could hardly fight my way out of a wet paper bag, I could not compete with a grown man who had no care or concern for me or my pain.
No, punishment and torture is somewhat of a fetish in places like this.
The beating would have been unthinkable
The reality in jails and prison is that brutality calls the shots and weakness pleads and cries and in the worst cases; to be a mark means that you are just a mark and eventually, the pain and the suffering and the torturous life can be enough to end a man like me
But I digress,
I recall the whistling when the heavyset fem-boy walked down the hall. They whistle at him like he was a girl and the fem-boy received and accepted the whistling with a grateful smile. And yes, he happily accepted the intentions for a little jailhouse romance, which never happened and neither did my morning rape which was promised to me.
I was off the hook though.
They fem-boy was the new focus.
I heard one of the two men who teased me remark about leaving me, (the white meat) alone.
“I guess this means we’re gonna have to leave the white meat alone.”
“Why?” questioned his neighboring friend.
“I like me some tight white meat,” he said.
“Yeah, but you do know what they say in jail,” commented his neighboring leader.
“No, what do they say in jail?”
The man who toyed with me the most and the loudest screamed out with laughter and said, “No better joy than a fat butt boy.”
Ad that’s when I knew . . .
this was not a good place for me to be.
I was not a fat butt boy.
I was not tough or strong.
I was scared.
There was no way, no real light.
Everything was taken from me.
The light from the ceiling seemed remanufactured in the hallway and in the jailcell.
The only remaining purity was a slimer of hope, which is the crack I noticed from the window that was slightly tilted inward.
The air smelled and was refurbished and returning from the vents with a sustainable sickness that refused to rid itself from the stench of cleaning products, body odor, and vomit, shit, piss, and any other putrid stenches.
I sat alone after being moved a few times.
One temporary cell mates was a Jehovah’s witness.
He was a wife beater to whom the guards abused and refused to give him toilet paper.
“Ask God for toilet paper,” said one of the guards.
The other temporary cell mate was beaten and bleeding and drunk.
He hit his wife in the head with a baseball bat because he assumed she was trying to get him drunk.
“BUT I”M NOT DRUNK,” he kept telling me
Then his wife asked if he had seen the car keys, to which he explained, “you understand, right?”
Then he explained, “I just had to hit her with the bat.”
By the time I was separated or segregated and alone, I felt this odd sense of relief.
I was previously on my way to die. I knew this.
I was arrested and I knew that nothing was ever going to be the same.
I did not want to go down like a chump or like a weakling.
I had to make a stratement.
So, to make my statement and to show the onlookers and the local kids who knew me that I was unafraid, I had to make a grand exit when the cops took me over to the car.
And yes. I made a statement.
I leaned back on the two escorting officers who walked me over to the squad car.
I leaned back on their arms and lifted my feet.
Next –
I took my feet and pushed them forward to close the car door on the sqaud car.
I did this as a sign of defiance and told the arresting officers, “I’m sorry. My Mother told me never to get in the car with strangers.”
This was not a good idea . . .
nor was this well-thought or planned
but hey . . .
a statement is a statement
All the bullshit and all the running around and all the acting or the pretending had caught up tome
I was caught, red-handed.
I was locked up for the first time. . .
And yes, I was cared and yet, I was relieved.
At least I knew that tomorrow would be different.
At least I knew that I didn’t have to make a run to the drug spots anymore or that I didn’t have to pretend or lie.
I knew this is not the life that I wanted for myself. Yet, this was the life that I had.
I always wanted to die.
And maybe I died in a lot of ways.
Maybe the death of my former self was enough to see light on the rebirth that was about to come
Act 1 scene 3, and I wondered to myself
What the fuck is going to happen next.
Ah, 1989 . . .
I wonder what that scared little boy would say if he could see who we became now.
I wonder what I would say to him, my previous self.
“Everybody hates me.”
No, son.
That’s not true
We just hated ourselves for way too long.
I assume he would tell me “I’m tired of being scared.”
“I’m tired of being bullied.”
It’s okay, son . . .
No one bullies me anymore
- Except for me, of course
- Except for my memories
- Except for our past
- Except for the love I never dared for
- Except for the lingering insults and the iner voice
- Except for the insecure whispers that are louder than any scream
Other than that . . .
No one picks on us in the future.
Instead, most people – well . . .
They just stay away from us.
“Are we happier that way?”
Not so much, kid
But trust me . . .
We are working on it
“Can you get me out of here?”
Kid . . .
I am so sorry I let you down
But –
I’m working on it little man
Believe me.
I really am
“Didn’t your ex-girlfriend tell you everybody hates you?”
Yes, she did
But we she is gone now
All that’s left is you, me, the lonsomeness
and the need to break free.
“Okay then. I’ll trust you but pleese
don’t let anyone hurt me again.”
I wonl;t kid
at least, not if I can help it
