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When I got to the booth, there were about fifteen women in line ahead of me waiting to speak with the two women behind the large glass partition. It struck me that this was exactly like the DMV, except we were all wearing the same jumpsuits. There was a large Mexican woman in front of me with a shaved head and tattoos covering both of her arms. She turned around to look at me and didn’t drop her stare for thirty seconds. I had already learned through trial and error that the conventional “hello” or “word up” didn’t work here, so to break the awkward silence I had to try something new. “I like your head.”
She said something in Spanish and spit on my feet. Then she looked at me again for an uncomfortably long time. I gave her a closed-mouth smile to let her know I was totally cool with her spitting on me, until she turned back around. She had two large knots above the roll of fat that co
I looked around at all the inmates milling about. Some were in groups talking, one woman was rapping loudly with headphones on, and there was some sort of frenzy ensuing in the far corner of the room about fifty yards away. Then I heard yelling. “Ham-and-cheese sandwiches!” Again, I saw all the women flocking to one area as sandwiches flew through the air, some landing on beds, some landing in people’s outstretched hands. Everyone in line in front of me scattered and ran toward the sandwiches. It was a complete madhouse and gave whole new meaning to the word “picnic.”
I, of course, seized this opportunity to get to the front of the line and get some answers. “Hello,” I said to the officer sitting behind the partition. “I’m supposed to get bailed out shortly, so how exactly does that work?”
The officer was a pretty black woman who didn’t appear nearly as a
“Well, I’m positive that my bail has already been posted, so can you check in the system and see?”
“Name?” she asked as she wheeled the chair she was sitting in closer to her computer.
“Chelsea Handler.”
“No bail has been posted,” she told me after a couple of minutes. “That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been paid, but it’s not in the system yet.”
“Well, how long does it take from being posted to get in the system?”
“Sometimes a couple of hours, sometimes overnight. The system looks like it’s down. You’re definitely not getting out tonight. You better get yourself a sandwich before they run out.”
I was unsuccessfully trying to fight back tears. I turned to leave and then walked back to the window. “Do you know where I can get some eyeshades?” I asked her.
“Eyeshades?”
“Yes. I need them to sleep. I am extremely sensitive to light.”
“I don’t know if they sell them at the commissary, but you can try. You need to have money in your account, which you don’t have. Once you start working, you will be able to purchase stuff from the commissary.”
That’s where she lost me. I turned and walked toward the pay phone.
One woman was on the phone while another was yelling at her, “Get off that goddamned phone, you fucking bitch! Your five minutes is up!” The officer with the sandwich cart was passing by and threw three sandwiches in our direction. I caught one thrown in my direction, took one look at the white bread with thumbprints on it, and tossed it in the trash bin next to me.
“What the fuck you thinking?” asked the woman in front of me waiting for the phone as she ran over and retrieved my sandwich from the trash. “You can trade that for something.” Then she handed it back to me.
“What can I trade it for?”
“Candy, soda, pills, whatever,” she said. Finally, someone was speaking my language.
“What kind of pills?” I asked.
The woman on the phone hung up and the woman in front of me almost caught air lunging toward the phone. She picked it up and started dialing. I leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder. “What kind of pills?” I asked again. She looked at her shoulder where I touched it and gave me a look that said any more contact with her would not be rewarded.
When it was finally my turn to use the phone, I made a collect call to my aunt. My cousin Madison answered the phone, accepted the charges, and handed it to my aunt. I immediately started bawling. Being in jail was similar to being in a hospital bed: You’re fine until you see or speak to someone from your family, and then you completely lose your shit.
“When are you getting me out?” I asked her.
“We’re working on it. We had to put a lien on the house to get the money.”
“What’s a lien?”
“It’s a loan, dipshit, against our mortgage,” she explained.
“Oh, shit.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry, we should have you out by the morning.” Hearing for the second time in ten minutes that I would be spending the night caused the same sting that I felt hearing it from the officer behind the window, and a new rupture of tears exploded.
“Chelsea, are you okay?” my aunt demanded.
“No!” I wailed. “There are gangs here and people are trading sandwiches for tampons! It’s complete chaos, and…” I took a deep breath. “And…,” I continued, “I’m sleeping in a bunk bed.”
“Chelsea, just try and get some sleep. We will get you out of there as soon as we can. Dan’s going to the bail bondsman first thing in the morning.”
I used the sandwich I was holding to wipe the tears off my face. “Do not tell my father,” I told her.
“He already knows,” she told me. “He’s fuming.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah, he’s livid. He can’t believe your sister is such a jackass.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, comforted by this development.
“Yeah, he said he won’t speak to her until she starts taking medication.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Hey, Smurfette! Get off the fucking phone!” a woman behind me yelled. I was so startled, I didn’t even say good-bye or hang up. I dropped the phone, took my sandwich, and hightailed it back to my bunk. I was much taller than Smurfette and preferred the Barbie nickname from earlier in the afternoon. It wasn’t going to be easy to get any of these lunatics to take me seriously, but I was hell-bent on trying.
I climbed up on my bed and put my head down on the pillow, which had the consistency of a pancake. I placed my sandwich under it for extra support.
“You not go
“Do you want it?” I asked, jumping at the opportunity to make a friend.
“Shit, I’ll take it,” she said, and put out her hand. Her name was Lucille.
“What are you in for?” I asked her.
“Murder.”
The notion that someone who used a fake I.D. was put in a bed next to a killer was not lost on me. What kind of operation were they ru
I searched my mind for the correct lingo to converse with a murderer. “Who’d you knock off?” I asked nonchalantly, trying to hide my fear by picking in between my toes and then smelling my fingers.
“My sister, the cunt,” she said.
“Really? I’m thinking about killing mine,” I told her as coolly as I could.
“Yeah, sister was a cunt, slept with my man.”
“Did you kill the guy?”
“Nah, didn’t get the chance, would’ve though,” she said as she piled my whole sandwich into her mouth in one sweep.
“Right.” I nodded. I didn’t want to pry, yet I wanted to know how this frosted-blond petite woman murdered her sister and where in her body she was storing the two sandwiches she had just demolished. She couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred pounds and she was about five-foot-six. This woman/ killer was a testament to my theory that the crazier you are, the more calories you burn. That’s why psychos are always so ski