The food's horrible, but the view ain't bad: PART 4

jail has been a little rough on my soul, but i'm slowly going to add entries from the notes i've taken the last several trips. this one is from july 1st.

so it turns out that extreme heat summons feisty, law-breaking behavior. this comes as no surprise to me, and i feel blessed that the home stretch of my jail time is happening when temperatures in portland are peaking. upon checking in, we were informed that the entire justice center was full to capacity and that lisa, myself, and three other women were to be transferred in an honest-to-goodness paddy wagon across town to the INVERNESS JAIL! the six of us were chaincuffed together and placed in one of a three-part truck that smelled like rank gym shorts and swamp foot. needless to say, the ride was a bit unpleasant. imagine riding the tilt-a-whirl at a carnival placed directly next to a sewage treatement center with a strong breeze. i'm all about random intimacy with strangers, but this was a bit much.

when we finally arrived, inverness turned out to be very much like a college dorm room filled with women that were all received the same memo about what to wear that day. there were sixty beds, about twenty tables, a television, book shelves, games, a shower room, and even an outdoor basketball court! i was given one of ten beds that was elevated. yeah! top bunk! when we finally arrived, all i wanted to do was sleep, which i did for about four hours.

when i awoke, it was dinner time and we were actually given the privilege of eating dinner at tables with other human beings! as newbies to the scene, lisa and i had no idea there was a hidden seating arrangement. if i were still a seventh grader, i would describe the glares sent in our direction as "dirty looks". even when we tried to sit with a couple of seemingly harmless gals, the response was very unwelcoming. we found seats at separate tables, much to my dismay.

i can't remember much else about this visit, except that at one point in the night i awoke to the sound of so much unanimous laughter that i wondered whether i had lucid-dreamed myself into a comedy club. in a stupor, i sat up in my bunk and said "what the hell is so funny? and do they have ear plugs in here?". i was told by one of the women to tear apart the cotton in the maxi-pads provided, which i did and it did not work. i ended up tying my socks together and making a head piece that covered my ears. at 4:45am, lisa and i were taken in the paddy-wagon back to the justice center, where we sat in a holding cell for 3 hours and listened to a woman ramble on about her three children living in mexico city with their daddy. she was going to be released with us at 8:00am and couldn't wait to go buy a crack rock. it's moments like these that have, over the past several weeks, made me more excited than ever that this whole experience is almost over.

The food's horrible, but the view ain't bad: PART 3

8:00: check-in and proceed to the hard plastic chair room with lisa. there is a young woman, 22 years of age at most, who confesses she has been crying and waiting to be released since midnight. the last thing she remembers is having margaritas at a sports bar, leaving, and then crashing her car into a telephone pole one block from her house. despite being a dental assistant with a 9-5 working job, she manages a secret meth-smoking habit and keeps it hidden from both her boyfriend AND employer. lisa and i offer our condolences and help her find a glass of water. it's funny how much people will reveal their dirty laundry in this setting...

10:00: strip search. i instantly become a believer in the "third time's a charm" theory. our guard is easy-going, and her unobtrusiveness in maintaining a distance of four feet between her head and my ass hole is greatly appreciated. i feel so pampered.

10:30: we are escorted to cell unit A, which is the unit from my first stay at multnomah county's finest. i am directed to my cell block and, as an ex-super 8 motel employee, i can see that the maid service took the day off. there are seven empty maxi-pad boxes strewn about the cell, two pairs of sopping wet jail-issued underpants, a old orange peel, and an empty carton of chocolate milk. also, the last guest must have decided to see what happens when you stick feminine pads to the toilet seat because there is sticky goo all over it. in paging the guard, i am given a pair of rubber gloves, a bottle of bleach solution, and "10 minutes only" to clean the room. the adhesive on the toilet seat will not free itself, so i make an 8-layer deep toilet paper seat that stays in place for the next 28 hours.

11:00: a new inmate is placed in the cell block next to mine. i have no idea what she looks like. the only thing i can determine is that she is COMPLETELY LIVID to have ended up in jail because she moans, screams "fuck!!" every two minutes, and kicks (or punches? or throws her body weight?) against the door between screams. it sounds like she's either giving birth to a sea monster or has a serious case of turrett's syndrome. some of her thrashing is so loud i half expect her to come flying through the wall and end up on the floor of my cell. somehow, through the madness happening next door, i am able to fall asleep until lunch.

12:30: lunch. there are two slices of wheat bread on the tray, and a scoop of pulverized meat salad. i literally can not tell if it's supposed to be chicken, ham, or tuna. it has the texture of wet cedar shavings and the flavor of white distilled vinegar. in another compartment there is a pinto bean salad with dehydrated celery in it, and, in the next, macaroni salad. it is so tangy that i find myself thanking god my mother wasn't the type to make me wash my mouth out with dish soap because i think this is what it might taste like.

1:30-2:45: walk time. i finally figure out the story of the woman in the cell next to mine. it turns out my theories were incorrect. evidently, she shot up two 8-balls of meth right before being arrested and is now in the "giddy" phase, according to one of the inmates. her hairdo is the best case of rat's nest i have ever seen, and her bodily movements are the humpty dance times a thousand. i don't think i've ever seen a human being move that many body parts, that quickly, at once. somehow, despite lisa and i sitting mere feet from her, the meth lady manages to put her hand down her pants and masturbate in the tv room and we miss the entire ordeal.

3:00-5:45: fortunately, the ruth reichl book i started two weeks ago is still on the shelf, and i pick up where i left off. i make it about 50 pages and fall back asleep. again.

6:00: dinner. another unidentifiable meat product is on the plate, this time mixed with rice. i believe it to be some form of "spanish rice" because it's sitting in a swimming pool of pinto beans, this time seasoned with cumin. the cooks tonight must have taken pity on us for being in jail on such a beautiful summer evening, because they also served the vegetable of the day in a swimming pool of pepper water. it only makes me wish i was on a beach somewhere, so i suppose the theme is effective. i'm not sure it touched the meth lady next door, because her giddiness has worn off and she's back to kicking and screaming again.

8:00: walk time again. about ten of us watch the B.E.T. (black entertainment television) music awards. bel biv devoe does a performance of "poison", which inspires half of the room, myself included, to sing along. "she's drivin' me out of my head...that's why it's hard for me to find... can't get it out of my mind... that girl is poooiison..". for three minutes, i actually forget i'm in jail.

9:00-10:00: rec time. back to the smelly gym from my first stay here. i decide to work on my abs and legs. i feel like there's no better time than now to take the time to get in shape. unfortunately, the other six days of my life i am not in the mood for leg lifts and crunches, so i spend the entire hour doing this. near the end of rec time, lisa and i have a conversation with a girl who claims to have, in one week, had a miscarriage, lost her mother to a fatal illness, and divorced her husband to be with a woman. this story may have been believable, except for the fact that it was followed by a tale about her last husband allowing 27 men to gang rape her on her birthday. i think i hear a cry for sympathy. lisa and i do not budge.

10:00-8:00am: after tossing and turning all night while i anxiously wait to hear those four precious words- "larson, roll 'em up", i'm still here and it's breakfast time! all i can think about is a cigarette, a shower, and the person picking me up from jail. breakfast is horrifying. it's gruel again, served with another one of those petrified biscuits i had last week with the ham glue. this time it's served with packets of syrup and whipped butter, which makes it almost tolerable. somehow, i'm given the same tray i had two weeks ago, which has the phrase "SC EATS SHIT" carved into the plastic- as though i needed a reminder of what i'm ingesting. the coffee served in jail has no caffeine content, and the thought of a strong cup of stumptown is making my mouth water.

8:00-10:45: more sleep, followed by FINALLY GETTING OUT!!!

after week three of spending the night here, i am emotionally and mentally troubled enough to truly see that jail-life is a sad, depraved culture of its own. it is made up, mostly, of people that really don't have any idea how to stop breaking the law and who will probably end up spending the rest of their lives in and out of this place. my eyes have been opened to the idea that punishment, though it may only really hit the nail on the head of a few, can genuinely change the course of someone's path. it certainly has mine.

The food's horrible, but the view ain't bad: PART 2

ok... here goes...

8:00: check in. the procedure goes the same as the first, except this time i made sure to wear laceless shoes and clothing. lisa is there, which gives me a sigh of relief. she is officially my jail bff.

9:30: unlike last week, we are strip searched and taken to a cell unit several hours before lunch time even happens. it is a different guard, and this one seems far more interested in the moments spent with my ass cheeks spread apart. even lisa noticed the woman "got right up in there". egads. i am not finding it to be nearly as humorous as the week before. i suppose that is the nature of these things.

10:00: lisa and i are placed in cell unit A this week. it has 32 single cells, 4 large tables in the center, and a "day room" with an LCD flat screen television and three round tables- one made less wobbly with a crushed orange peel. there are at least 7 women in the room watching VHI videos. one of them has eyeliner on that appears to have been drawn on with a chubby, dull crayon. it turns out she is withdrawing from heroin, which explains her nickel-slot eyes and lethargic composure. there is another woman who is wearing cute sneakers instead of the standard issued plastic sandals. lisa asks her about this alleged foot-wear privilege, and ends up wishing she had eaten her own sandal when the woman silently lifts the cuffs of her blue scrubs to reveal two silver rods the size of monkey bars, dead ending in the cute sneakers. oops. also in cell unit A are the most corn rows on white women's heads that i have ever seen.

11:00: i meet one of the trustees, who is an inmate given special duties such as serving meals, cell clean-up, and eating at an actual table during meal time as opposed to the rest of us who are forced to eat in our cells, tray in lap. she has two teeth in her mouth- one on the top to the left, and one on the bottom- dead center. she is the most boisterous of the bunch, and speaks fanatically about the importance of the peg-leg lady NOT sharing her vitamin A&D ointment with the other women to soothe their chapped lips. although she has several stories about her man on the outs, her demeanor and swagger are so sapphic it hurts. i'm confused...

11:30-12:30: i curl up with a book entitled "2041"- a collection of "short stories about the future". it turns out this book was written for teenagers, and i finish reading it in thirty minutes. with another hour to kill before lunchtime, i attempt to sleep but am unsuccessful because my bed is completely parallel to the nine story high window overlooking downtown and i am struck with vertigo.

12:30: lunch. in one corner of the tray, there lies a mixture of peas, carrots, and corn- all of which are so dry they might as well be packaged for astronauts. also on the tray are watery canned beans that are so awful i can barely swallow them. in the main compartment lies a small portion of rotini- also space-food quality in dryness accompanied by a sauce that resembles sloppy joe filling. we are given a styrofoam cup filled with pink liquid that tastes exactly the kool-aid i would make as a child when the cupboards had no sugar. the only redeeming quality to the meal is a wheat roll with butter. there is an orange as well, which i save for later.

1:00: "walk time". this is what it's called when we are released from our cell blocks in to the main unit. i settle in a chair in the day room and watch an episode of maury povich-the subject being "he's my fiance now...he's not your baby's daddy". (no joke). i engage in debate with some of the other inmates in a discussion about whether or not the guests are paid to behave in such an obnoxious manner, which i believe to be true. my theory is outnumbered unanimously. i suppose this makes sense considering the context...

2:40: at this point i am experiencing hideous nicotine withdrawals. my solution is to turn my cell block in to a work-out room. i tie my t-shirt to the side, jennifer beals "flashdance" style, and proceed to do every floor and cardio routine i can remember- most of which are inspired by the richard simmons tape i watched as a twelve year old.

4:00: more walk time. i hear a discussion about something called pruno, which is jail moonshine made by saving bread and oranges for weeks on end until it ferments and turns into alcohol. we watch two episodes of "everybody hates chris", and by this point i am so fucking tired of watching television in hard plastic chairs that i want to claw my eyeballs out of my head.

6:00: dinner. we are served black-eyed peas with ham and a side of white rice. honestly, the flavor is pretty tolerable. i had coleslaw and cornbread on the plate, but i passed it to lisa because her vegetarianism limits her intake of food and i do not want her to starve.

8:00: walk time again. this time we watch "the color purple". there is a scene where whoopie goldberg's character kisses another woman. i fully expected the women in the room to shout homophobic remarks, but was pleasantly surprised to hear them rooting whoopie on! shocking..

10:00: bedtime. for hours on end, i toss and turn in hopes of hearing my name called for release at some point in the middle of the night. as the hours pass, i realize (through a toilet discussion with lisa in the next cell) that the sun is coming up and WE ARE STILL IN HERE!! by this point, i am craving a cigarette so badly that my stomach and lungs are writhing in agony.

7:30: breakfast. oh my god. we're still in jail, and i am completely shocked when i lay my eyes on the tray of food in front of me. there is a pile of something that looks like white gruel. i'm guessing it's supposed to be grits, but the consistency is more like a person's nasal mucus after a week long sinus infection starts to clear up. there is also a large rectangle of what might be a biscuit, covered with something that i could can only describe as ham glue. the potatoes are like white pieces of cardboard and taste like stale air. it is horrifying, and by this point i am soooo over being in jail that every second feels like ten hours.

10:30: lisa and i are FINALLY released. we walk to the nearest coffee shop downtown and buy large, strong coffees. when my ride arrives, i am finally given a cigarette, which tastes like heaven. the conclusion after this visit in the slammer: i don't ever want to have to spend an extended period of time in jail. whatever i have to do to maintain my probation i will do. if it means not consuming a drop of alcohol, i will do it. it just isn't worth it. hopefully my next stint will be more tolerable...

The food's horrible, but the view ain't bad: PART 1

welcome.

this is the first entry of a nine part series i am writing about my experiences in the multnomah county jail. as mentioned in my previous entry, i will be checking in thursday mornings, and getting out some time between midnight and 9:00am on fridays.

here's how the day went...

8:00- check-in, which involves handing over my passport, 80 cents, my trazodone prescription, and any strangulation devices on my body (ie: my shoelaces, and the strings to the hoods on both my sweatshirt AND my raincoat)

8:30- move from the waiting room, to a room called "the holding room". this is a room with rows of hard plastic chairs that force your body into a perfect 90 degree angle. there is a television, a phone for collect calls, and a handwashing sink the size of a small bird bath. it is here i meet lisa, a woman who is also spending her thursdays in jail due to a dui offense. she is a vegetarian, has beautiful red hair, and agrees these are the most uncomfortable chairs in the history of the world. we proceed to make small talk for 3 hours. this is lisa's second thursday in jail, and her best anecdote is about a girl she sat in the holding room with last thursday who spent several hours masturbating with her hand down the front of her pants. i am instantly jealous, and silently ask myself why i didn't start serving last week.

11:00- traci joins us. she is 18 years old, cries uncontrollably, and makes collect phone calls every five minutes despite each call costing her grandmother ten dollars. traci is about to spend three days in jail due to a missed community service date because "her baby had the pneumonia". after calming down, lisa and i learn she enjoys taco bell steak quesadillas, thinks the judge with white hair is a "punk", and loves her new boyfriend because he owns property and buys her anything she wants.

11:30- lunch is served, brown bag style. it consists of a plastic wrapped tower that includes 4 slices of wheat bread, 2 slices of imitation kraft singles, 4 slices of bologna, and 4 creme-filled sandwich cookies. ALL of these items are in one contained pack. also in the bag: an orange (organically grown, i'm sure), a mustard packet with enough mustard to coat one quarter of one slice of bread, a mayo packet, and carton of tepid 1% milk. i devour the entire thing, and make a third sandwich with lisa's leftovers.

12:00- two girls from the clackamas county jail join us. i never learn their names, or the nature of their crimes. what i do learn is that they're both highly skilled shoplifters, have no desire for employment of any kind, and think the food at clackamas is waaaay better than here. one of them asks me what my style is because i look like "one of those alberta coffee shop kind of people that seem to have taken over north portland". i tell them that i shop at the goodwill bins- a place neither of them has heard of. when i explain that the bins are all the rejects from goodwill, and that the items are paid for by the pound, i receive unanimous laughter from all four women. who knew the bins would be such a crowd-pleasing story??

2:30- strip search. all five of us are taken into a room with stalls and are told to remove our clothing. "you mean get butt naked?", i ask. "yes. get down to your birthday suit," the guard tells me. this is where i experience what is, by far, the best combination of humiliation and hysteria EVER. luckily, all of the other women are laughing as hard as i am. one by one, the female guard came to each stall and asked us to lift our arms, shake out our hair, and (the best part) turn around, spread our cheeks, and cough. apparently my cough was too forced, because one of the clackamas girls shouted, "god! you don't have to gag!". after this, we were given our jail scrubs, complete with plastic sandals and pink tube socks. they even gave us pink jail underwear to put on!

3:00- transfer to cell block C. it is a large two-level room with a window overlooking downtown portland and a view of the willamette river. i would say there were a dozen women in the room. there is a television, two round tables, and a bookcase with hundreds of books to choose from! i find a ruth reichl book, and upon heading up to my single cell (#C15) one of the women says "did you smell that girl? she smells good." on the way up the stairs, i drop my blanket and instantly feel half of dozen eyes on me. in order to overcome my embarrassment, i proclaim "thanks for thinking i smell good!". the upper level of the room has floor to ceiling white metal bars, which i find somewhat comforting rather than unnerving. my cell has a nice big window, and when i make up floor mat bed, i discover how pleasing it feels to be horizontal and descend into a deep sleep for a couple of hours.

6:00- dinner. we are released from our cells, and are handed a plastic lunch-room style tray. this is where i realize the true meaning of why jail food has been given such a bad rap. in one compartment of the tray there is a pile of baked beans intermingled with ham and cheese macaroni that is so overcooked i could have easily eaten it with a bubble-tea straw. also on the plate is canned spinach and a square of corn bread. i think the cook was attempting a unique polarizing effect with these two items because the spinach had the consistency of an odwalla juice while the cornbread more like a brick of wall spackle. i tried combining the two, and found the flavors didn't mingle as well as i had hoped. there were two more creme cookies on the tray, and i ate them not because they were tasty, but in an attempt to cleanse my palate of the spinach.

6:30- i'm sitting in my cell, and hear an ethereal female voice. "hey neighbor," they say. i'm confused, and, for a second, think that i may be hallucinating. i hear it again, and this time i respond with, "uhh.. where is that voice coming from?" "go sit down by your toilet. we can talk this way." i do, and see that there is a vent next to my toilet and that the person talking to me is the woman in the next cell- speaking to me from her toilet. we proceed to have a ten minute conversation about her sentence (armed robbery, but she's innocent) and i am given advice about the $1.50 hygiene kits that are available to us. i tell her that i don't plan on purchasing one, but thanks anyway. she seems nice.

7:00- recreational time. those of us who are interested are given 90 minutes to hang out in a large, smelly gym equipped with a basket ball hoop and some archaic work out equipment. lisa suggests we play a game of "around the world", which lasts about twenty minutes because it turns out most of us suck at making baskets. the next game, suggested by the "hey neighbor" woman, is 4 square. we use our jail sandals as boundary lines. this goes on for about thirty minutes, during which time i am accused of playing cut-throat style. personally, i think i'm just quick on the draw but i reign it in because i don't want to get punched or stabbed with a spork next thursday when i return. after 4 square becomes boring, i offer to lead some of the ladies in a series of ab-strengthening exercises. we lay on our backs and pretend we are bicycling through the countryside, all while laughing hysterically. rec time ends with me giving the women a tour of my tattooes, which somehow leads the my jail cell neighbor into telling us a story about her first sexual experience with a woman happening behind bars. they got busted. :(

9:00- bed time. i have not gone to sleep this early in ten years, but it seems appropriate considering i have grown bored with reading and am pretty worn out from rec time.

1:30am- a loud speaker voice booms into my cell: "larson. roll up your bedding. you're getting out." yippee!!!! in a stupor, i ball up everything on my sleep pad, my street clothes back on my body, and i'm outside being picked up by carmen fifteen minutes later. never has a cigarette tasted so good...

don't you forget about me

in exactly 9 days i will be spending half of my weekends, for eight weeks in a row, in jail. check-in at 7:30am on my saturday, and leave at some point the following morning. i have to sleep there, which terrifies me.

i have no idea what to expect. since my sentencing last week, i've been spending a lot of time wondering what effect this will have on my sense of self, my psyche, my body, or my idea of spare time. it doesn't seem like much, but it's approximately 250 hours of my life where i will be in an environment with little to no freedom, and this- this single little fact- is what terrifies me the most. my current struggle, internally, has been the "caged animal" syndrome. this creeps in and out of my life at times and it's at a particularly high point these days. i have security blankets at my finger tips- like my cigarettes, my phone, my computer, tasty food, the cats, or a stiff drink. none of these will be available in jail, and i'm desperately trying to see this as a test of strength. what pains me is that it isn't on my terms.

the silver lining will surely reveal itself throughout the course of this. it just has to.

when the sun shines, we'll shine together.

it's been awhile since i blogged about my dining experiences on 82nd ave.

as mentioned before, bahn mi is quickly becoming a weekly meal for me. so far, i've tried the bahn mi at three establishments on 82nd ave, all between divison and powell street: best baguette, ha vu bahn mi, and fubonn deli. i have to say, best baguette is still at the top of my list. the bahn mi i ate today at ha vu was tasty. in fact, the salty chicken filling was even better than best baguette's chicken. despite this, best baguette is still the champion because the determining factor in a good bahn mi, in my opinion, are the raw vegetables. their vegetables are slightly pickled, crunchy, and they never use a light hand when stuffing the sandwich. plus, the bread at best baguette is simply outstanding. just the right amount of crispness, with a soft airy interior. it's perfect.

i'm sure i will continue to grab a quick bahn mi at fubonn from time to time. they're the least expensive, at $2.25 a piece. in general, i'm starving when i head that way to pick up groceries, so it's a handy way to calm my growling stomach while i make my way through the sensory-overload inducing aisles.

hee-yahh. ha. ha haha ha.

it only seems fair to post something about my favorite dive bar on 82nd Ave. it's called the steinhaus, and i've mentioned it before. it's a stone's throw away from the trailer court, or the length of half a camel light 99, if you're want to document the length in cigarette form.

before today, i thought the best part about the steinhaus was the strong and cheap drinks they pour. it turns out, it gets even better. apparently, on "taco tuesdays" you can purchase two tacos for one thin dollar. we're talking WT tacos with hard shells, greasy beef, bright yellow cheese, and iceburg lettuce, all with a plastic ramiken of pace picante salsa. it doesn't get much better than this. i'm full as christmas goose, and it cost me half the price of a bus ticket! ah, heaven.

so, i'm sitting here. in the steinhaus.

the subject of today's blog is sponsored by the drunk-ass cackling lady siting on the other side of the bar. i feel like i'm really missing out on something, comedically, by hanging out in the pool room. what the fuck is so funny? i hear the word plantain. surely they aren't laughing about that wonderfully bitter relative of the banana. i mean, maybe? wait. now she's talking about her daughter's wedding. i ought to perk up... god her laugh is amazing..

john the bartender just walked in. unlike colin, john is afraid of the bottle. his pours are weak, and he has the disposition of a bartender working on mississippi or alberta street. the "thoughful pour", where the bartender considers what the patron is paying for with their $3-$5 dollars. bullshit, in my book.

you work in a dive bar, john. pour drinks like you work in one.

i suppose at this point it can't get much more exciting. i hear high-five's in the distance, more cackling, and the sound of a silent jukebox that yearns for my money. i think i'll wander over there and drop a few coins in for my pleasure...