5. Prisoner
PRISONER
FAITH
T he older deputy isn’t there, just Kyle.
I’m still in a daze—still closed off. I barely remember being processed . Fingerprints. Photograph. Orders.
I follow the commands. Stand here. Sign that. Go there.
I’m being taken to Salem, I’m told, to jail.
The drive is silent. The van smells like piss and old sweat. I stare at my reflection in the scratched plastic divider. I’m scared—I know that—but it’s submerged under cotton. Everything feels dull. I’m disassociating. Pulling away from reality. Breaking into parts.
Marion County Jail is a concrete box with no sky.
Fluorescent lights hum twenty-four hours a day. It doesn’t matter because there is no day here, no night either, only shades of despondency.
The intake officer barks orders like I’m a dog.
Strip. Squat. Turn. Lift.
I do it all because that’s all I have.
They give me underwear that doesn’t fit and a shapeless jumpsuit that smells like Lysol.
My cellmate is a woman named Erin. She’s older, with a face carved from hard years. She doesn’t speak, just nods at me, then lies back down on the cot and stares at the ceiling like she’s waiting for time to forget her.
I curl up on my cot, hugging my knees to my chest, the thin blanket doing nothing to block the chill that lives in my bones.
I can’t sleep. I can’t stay awake. I’m stuck in limbo. An awful silence singes my nerves with how loud it is.
Food is brought twice a day. Gray meat. Cold bread. Something orange that might be fruit.
Erin eats what I don’t. My stomach is full of bile. There isn’t room for food.
“You have to keep your strength, that’s all there is,” Erin grunts.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how long I’m here for. I don’t know what happens next.
The hours smear together—shouting from down the hall, metal doors slamming, the occasional sob that echoes too long.
Sleep comes in fragments, full of nightmares.
Jamie is kicking me, and then Cain is. The boot against the ribs hurts the most. The fist against my jaw makes the loudest sound.
I stay in the room with a door locked from the outside for two nights and three days.
Then I’m let out.
“You can go,” someone says.
I can barely stand. I feel broken. My body aches from the cot. My throat burns from screams I silenced.
I don’t ask questions. I don’t speak. I don’t know what to say. I can’t even feel my skin right now.
Another deputy shows up as they hand me back my clothes in a brown paper bag. He’s from Marion County PD, according to his uniform.
“You’re free to go,” he tells me.
I nod. Free? What does that mean? Now what happens?
“But don’t leave town,” he instructs. “You’re still under investigation.”
I nod again. But I’m going to leave. I have four hundred dollars in my apartment. I’m going to take that and run.
The deputy walks me out.
“You…ah…need a ride?” he asks.
I give him a blank look. I’d rather crawl on my knees on asphalt .
Uncomfortable with my lack of response, he leaves. I watch his government-issued car drive away.
I look up at the gray Oregon sky and feel the painful immensity of freedom.
It tastes a lot like ruin.