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I didn't know much about jail, had led a relatively sheltered life since my aunt took us in, but I had a feeling that the standard phrases were true.
Like they can smell weakness.
And nothing said weakness like showing up to your first day of jail with swollen eyelids and tear-stained cheeks.
So I buried the tears.
I did what I had to do.
I got tough.
My palms were sweaty as I was led out of intake.
I was handed a pillow with a blanket rolled on top, a pillowcase, a change of clothes - one - slip-on shoes, a small bag of travel size shampoo, toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a bar of soap, then a roll of toilet paper.
By the time I actually was led down the hall toward the housing tier, I was actually too exhausted to feel fear.
The unit itself was two floors of long lines of green painted doors, gray walls, gray floors, gray tables in the lower level common area. Everything cold in a figurative and literal way.
I was led to the second floor and all the way to the corner, ignoring some of the questions yelled out at me.
Where are you from?
Who are you with?
What are you in for?
Even if I had chosen to respond, no one would have liked my answers.
The nice side of Navesink Bank.
No one. Absolutely no one.
And possession. Distribution.
My first cellmate was a woman about ten years my senior, in county for the fourth time in five years, awaiting her trial for a drug offense. Luckily enough for me, she didn't want to make connections, had her eyes set on her freedom that she was sure was just a couple months away, that she would get out on time served.
You're going away, baby doll, she had told me, not one to sugar coat things. They like making examples these days. Getting tough on the ones selling drugs. It's not so bad though. Prison will be easier.
I couldn't fathom such a thing.
A cage was a cage was a cage.
But it was something I heard day in and out while waiting for my court date, while trying not to get discouraged about my incompetent public defender since I knew I had no one else, that my aunt would never pay for a decent attorney, that my brothers couldn't afford one, not even if they got together.
"How long were you in jail?"
"Three months. Then I had my trial. Which went exactly as my cellmate told me it would."
It was a first offense for an honor roll student who had just turned eighteen.
But they threw the book at me.
Ten years.
They wanted ten years of my life for a mistake of misplaced trust.
It was a whirlwind that day.
The sentence was handed down. The next thing I knew, I was on my way out of Jersey and into Pennsylvania to the minimum security women's prison.
It was not what I had been promised from the women in county jail.
Did we have the right to get jobs, to load up on commissary, to have better visits, more access to things like the small library, better outdoor spaces for exercise, and some classes? Yes.
But we also didn't even get the relative privacy of a cell with a single roommate.
Nope.
We lived in one large room full of low beds where you got to store your things underneath and in a footlocker.
Forty women.
In one big room.
That was why I could never sleep. That was why their crying or nightmares or talking kept me awake night after night. It was hard enough to adjust to sharing a room with one woman, but to share it with thirty-nine others was a whole different beast.
During the day, the noise was loud enough to drive you half mad most of the time. People talking, yelling, laughing, singing.
I was the only new woman in our unit, so everyone else already had their cliques, their alliances, their friends. And while I wouldn't say they were opposed to the idea of new women trying to join in, I guess I just never put in the effort.
I never felt like I fit in.
I wasn't a criminal.
I hadn't done the crime everyone thought I did.
And while everyone liked to boast their innocence when guards were around, when we were all essentially left to our own devices, they would admit the truth to their friends.
They all knew they belonged there, that they had to do their time, even if they maybe didn't agree with the length of their sentence, or the laws themselves.
I didn't.
I didn't belong in the first place, and found it hard to try to act as if I did.
So I did what a few of the older women around did.
I behaved. I read when books were available. I took any classes that would get me out of our common area for a while. I took my time outside to walk the yard, get some exercise. When I had been there long enough to do so, I got a job in the kitchens.
