Eat THIS !

The following is an excerpt from part one:

He is then paired up with some weirdo who constantly reads bible passages aloud but has no clue whatsoever of their meaning. He is constantly badgering Sid to have sex. He is constantly declined. Sid’s injuries from the Jeep accident and Riff ’s attack are exacerbated from the upheaval of the previous days but he is denied attention by the nursing staff or any C/Os that wander by on occasion. He asks the weirdo cellie to write out a medical-request form for him and then surrenders it though the slit in the door.

Before you know it, Sid is ushered to the hospital. He sits before a psychiatrist and the deputy warden. Snickering C/Os are looking on. Inquiries are made about him being suicidal. He tells them that he is not feeling suicidal. That is not what he asked his cellmate to write. Everyone ignores him. Then he says that he does not care to speak to any of them because there is no one he can trust. Again, no one listens. No one cares about anything he has to offer. He is wasting his time. The deputy warden does not intervene. She scratches notes on her little clipboard notepad and observes as they pull him off to suicide watch.

The suicide cells have long, skinny, horizontal two-way mirrors and surveillance cameras. They are stark and sterile (not as in “sterilized,” however). The one hundred-million lumen lighting remains glaring 24-7. Routine comments by C/Os, as they peer through the catacomb’s windows, are never-ending. “You’re not dead yet?” “Hey faggot, are you hungry? Eat this.”

Railroading at it’s finest

The following is an excerpt from part one:

There are two Marthas at the Intake Service Center, both exceptionally sweet. One is a minister whom I had the pleasure of meeting at some of the services. The other one I never met, but Sid tells me of their association. She is present at the time he is threatened with solitary confinement for this recent “incident” and advocates for him after he is booked. The disciplinary board is not the least bit interested in Sid’s side of the story. They dictate that he refused to go to court. That entitles him to seg for twenty-five days. That is five days more than Riff Raff got for beating the crap out of him.

The two jerk-off C/Os accompanying Sid are joking and laughing the entire time. Sid speaks up, which does not endear him to the board. “You guys are laughing and making a joke out of this but it’s not funny. This is my life that you’re dealing with.” The mockery does not cease nor does anyone do a thing to prevent it. The board informs him that besides the twenty-five day term he forfeits any good time he may have accumulated.

There is a form to use if he cares to appeal. Sid notifies them that he cannot read or write. Martha steps in to offer assistance, which ultimately results in a reduced sentence of fifteen days. It could be reduced to one day and still make no difference. He was still not released after seventeen days without the lawyer’s intervention. It was no one’s intention to release him, ever.

Sid’s first seg cellmate, as expected, is supposed to smash him to smithereens. The preliminaries involve tiring interrogations. “Whadya do?” “Whadaya in faw?” Sid refuses to respond. The badgering persists and Sid gives in. “Child molestation.” The guy goes berserk. It is all part of the act. He flings his food tray directly at Sid’s face and the mess goes all over. Sid tells him that he knows about the plot to assail him but that he is innocent. He explains some of the outlandish details. In the next moment, his would-be attacker chucks a napkin at him. “Clean yourself up. I’m outta here.” He starts banging on the door like crazy. When someone finally responds, he announces,

“I’m not beating up an old man, especially not this one. Get me the fuck outta here.” They remove him. Sid is alone until the next day.

The Lady Barkley

The following is an excerpt from part one:

It starts with a state marshal bitch and finishing touches are left to the C/O monsters. The cause for him missing the court date is a squabble involving an inmate. After I had left the final holding cell to board the bus, an enormous Hispanic man approaches Sid. “Do you know me?” Sid says no and the guy spits in his face, then continues. “Well I know you. You’re a ripper.” Then he spits again. Sid walks over to the doorway where a C/O, observing the tiff, is standing—no doubt the C/O who arranged the harassment. Sid tells him that he is being threatened and he feels sick. They move him into a small cubicle by himself.

Sometime later Sid is retrieved and escorted to the hospital. No blood is gushing, no guts hanging out. “There’s nothing fuckin’ wrong with you, you’re goin’ to court.” He is lugged back through the maze and to the sally port exit. There, Badge 191 of the can-do-no-wrong state marshal’s gang shoves him onto the bus. She is an absolute bulldog dyke with all kinds of metal rings pierced throughout her head. She directs Sid to the cage in which spit-man is sitting. Spit-man begins to howl. “Come over here, man. I like you. I wanna’ sit on your lap.” Sid tells Bulldog that this guy spit at and threatened him. He can’t sit there. He asks if he can sit in the empty cage across from him. “Get the fuck in there.”

“Can’t I please just go in the empty one?” Bulldog yanks him off the bus and back inside the prison pit. She taunts, “He doesn’t want to go on the bus. He’s ScaaaAAaaarred!” Sid is dragged back to a holding cell where he spends the entire day. Finally, he is booked for refusing to go to court.

Where oh where?

The following is an excerpt from part one:

Sid’s segregation ordeal begins on the day of our previously scheduled Family Court appearance. He and I complete the pilgrimage from chow to the final holding cell location before proceeding through the metal detector. Roll call to the buses is alphabetical by mod: A mod, last name A through Z; then B mod, last name A through Z. Because of our mod locations, we are assigned to different buses.

I watch for him all day in the holding cells at the courthouse. He doesn’t show. I never make it up into court, but that is a common enough occurrence. (I have made many more trips to court for nothing than for anything else.) When we return from court, Sid is still not around. I check in with Leo. He is a dining room porter from the same mod as Sid and regularly relays messages for us. Leo has no idea either. He is under the impression that Sid was at court for the day.

The following day I call my sister Marie. She hasn’t heard anything but says she will try to find out. I call her the next day and she tells me that Sid is in seg. That is the only information available. I know instinctively that he has been set up but I can’t possibly imagine the details. He would not have initiated an altercation or fought back with an inmate. There has to be some cruddy C/O or messed-up marshal behind the plot.

At the hospital the next day, Sid is being led out as I approach the entrance. He is wearing the orange seg jumpsuit and looks like he has been put through the wringer. He pauses briefly to explain, “I wanted to go to court but—” The C/O tugs him through the entrance to the seg mods and they disappear.

I remain in the dark for the next two weeks. During that period, my mind often slips into worry mode. I instantly redirect it elsewhere. I am certain that Sid is undergoing a nasty time but there is no sense in both of us enduring it. It is not until we go to court again that I finally get to speak to him. He tells me the painful details of the ordeal.