14. Isaac
14
Isaac
At eight am the morning after I talked to Officer Davis, I turned myself in to Summerville Corrections. Big grey building where niggas age a year for every day they’re in. Intake was the same old, same old. Dehumanizing. Humiliating. Frustrating.
My family always worried about me inside. Vic once joked about me being pretty and getting passed around, but that kinda shit doesn’t happen as often as people think, and definitely not in small jails like Summerville. You might get your ass beat, like I did when I was sixteen, but that was the extent of it. Besides, I knew half these motherfuckers to call them acquaintances, and a few to call friends. I was fine inside.
Physically.
It’s the mental that gets you.
Don’t show weakness. Not to the other prisoners, and not to the guards. Be cool, but not too cool. Be quiet, but not too quiet. Big or small, if you lose the social game, that’s when motherfuckers get to testing you.
Then there’s you . What goes on inside your head. You can’t get to thinking too much about outside, because that’s beating yourself. Outside can’t exist for you until you’re walking out the jail toward that motherfucker.
I was on block B this time around. Big, thick, sweaty Officer Paul Delmonico escorted me to my cell, droning on about the rules and procedures. I could have recited all that shit a lot faster than he did, but it was whatever. You don’t fuck around with the guards.
“Here we go. Once your personal items are processed, somebody’ll bring ‘em here to you. Do you understand?”
I nodded at Delmonico and stepped through the doors, smiling when I saw PJ.
PJ Landry was a nigga I knew from high school and a big name out there in the streets. As big as you can be in Summerville, that is. Short, frail, and inexplicably cocky, he never got pressed, inside or out. He had the mental fortitude. I learned a lot from watching him.
Except I was never deep into the street shit like him. My crimes were always opportunistic and lowkey stupid, but never organized. Never systematic.
Which might be even worse.
“Nigga, what you do this time?”
I sat on my bed and lay flat on my back, ready to sleep the next thirty days away.
“Pissed dirty,” I answered with my eyes closed. “You?”
“Been here two months on possession. Got another year in this bitch.”
That was all we said to each other all day.
I slept until dinner. I was pissed that I woke up to eat a dry ass chicken breast, baked sweet potato, and peas. But I didn’t let myself dwell on that too much. Mental fortitude means forcing satisfaction with everything they hand to you.
First day wasn’t too bad.
On the second day, I fell into the old routine. Roll call. Bullshit inspection. Bland eggs, rubbery pink bacon, and orange slices for breakfast, which I ate with PJ and his crew. They got sent off to do their daily tasks after breakfast, but without a work assignment, I didn’t have anything to do. I ventured back to my cell and took a nap. Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes for lunch. It wasn’t horrible, but my appetite still wasn’t at full capacity. I ended up giving PJ what was left.
I lifted hard after lunch. Going, going, going, no breaks, no stopping, keeping my mind focused on the task at hand. Counting, breathing, getting stronger. I skipped dinner, took another nap, then woke up right after lockdown and couldn’t sleep.
That was hard. I tossed and turned for hours before I finally drifted off, but not before I let my mind drift to her. The one who put me in here in the first fucking place.
It’s funny how emotions can cycle back and forth. The night she told me, I was pissed at her for a second, but I came around real quick to the fact that this was a hell of my own making.
But now, on night two, after thinking back to the night at the gallery and the time we spent together, anger found me again, and it had her pretty face on it.
As ornery as Gaither was, that nigga never violated me for weed. He didn’t even like me all that much, but he let that shit slide every time. POs have the choice there, not the judges. Matter of fact, the judge doesn’t even see that shit unless they write it up.
So, night two is when I realized Officer Davis high key did that shit on purpose. The thing I couldn’t figure out was why .
When I woke up on day three, I laid there on that hard ass fucking cot and stared up at the gray ceiling, depressed as fuck until it hit me.
I sat straight up. PJ looked over at me with a scowl and turned back over to go to sleep while I sat there in shock, realizing that Officer Davis didn’t violate me because she had to. She did that shit to prove a point.
It almost made me smile until I remembered I was stuck in this motherfucker for twenty-seven more days. But there was one small consolation in all this shit, and that was this: if she really did this shit to prove she wasn’t feeling me, all she did was show me the opposite.
Me and her were gonna have words.
I hoped she enjoyed her next twenty-seven days. Shit wasn’t gon’ be pretty on day twenty-eight.
After lunch, I settled on my cot and cracked one of my books open. It was a gothic horror novel, and it hit the spot. Bleak, haunting atmospheres, disturbing psychological trauma, dark emotions, and fucked up situations. Perfect avenue for escapism. Or maybe it all mirrored my real life in more dramatic ways. Either way, I got so lost in the pages, I jumped when a deep voice yelled, “Isaac Jackson!”
I looked up from my book and into the wild eyes of Officer Delmonico.
“That’s me.”
“Come with me.”
I shrugged at PJ as I exited the unlocked cell. I hadn’t been here long enough to get into shit, and I definitely wasn’t expecting any visitors. I settled on the idea that I was getting a work assignment. I could deal with kitchen or yard duty, but I damn sure didn’t wanna have to clean the bathrooms.
I brushed that out of my mind before I manifested that shit into reality.
Delmonico stopped at an office near the front entrance and stretched out his arm for me to enter. The dreadlocked man inside looked bored as fuck. He didn’t even bother to speak or introduce himself. He just jumped right on in.
“Mr. Jackson, we seem to be having a bit of a problem with overcrowding. Somebody needs your spot. Non-violent drug violations aren’t high on the list.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re out.”
“Today?”
“Yeah, as soon as you’re processed. You’ll wanna see your PO tomorrow for more information.”
Well, well, well.
It took almost eight hours for them to process my release. I spent that time plotting my next move. Watching shit play out in my head, mostly having to do with Azalea Davis.
When they finally came to get me, PJ watched me gather up the little bit of shit I’d brought with me.
“Man, you gotta be the luckiest nigga in the world.”
“You ain’t lyin’.”
He laughed. “Guess I’ll catch you next time.”
I looked over at him and smiled, mostly out of pity.
“There won’t be a next time.”