Blue Notes
There is a complicated process involved in turning a person into a prisoner.
First, they have to verify that you are who you claim to be. Every prison has an urban legend about some drug lord or gang leader who paid someone to do their time for them. You need to be photographed and fingerprinted and issued an identification card.
You need to be stripped, searched and showered.
The clothing and personal items you brought in have to be collected and catalogued. If you have glasses or dentures or a prosthetic limb, you have to fill out forms giving you permission to keep them. All jewelry is collected, with one exception. If you wear a simple wedding band, you can keep it. Lenore, the older woman who was processed in with me, wept when she was made to give up her wedding ring because it was jeweled.
You are given your state issued items; a foot locker and a combination lock, a laundry bag, a comb, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo and a roll on deodorant.
You are responsible for all your state issue. If you lose any item, you have to replace it at your expense and pay a five dollar fine. This applies to your clothing as well, so keeping track of all your items becomes an ingrained habit. Years later, I can still recite the inventory of my clothes; one pair of sneakers, one pair of shower shoes, six pairs of granny panties, six pairs of white socks, four bras, one nightgown, one bathrobe, four pairs of jeans, four blue denim shirts, four white t-shirts and two sweatshirts.
After you've received your property and dressed in your new uniform, it's time for orientation. First, you are given a copy of the manual, and a staff member goes through it page by page, rule by rule. The manual is also state issue, if you lose it, five bucks and the cost of a new one. Then you undergo cell compatibility counseling, a polite way of asking you if you are a racist or a lesbian. Then a health screening. A meeting with your caseworker. Explanation of your work assignment. Finally, you are introduced to your Housing Unit Officer, who takes you to your unit.
Violet, Lenore and I had arrived late because of the bad weather, and by the time we completed the intake process evening chow was over. Violet asked if we would be given any supper, and one of the officers replied that we would not, because we were assigned to units now, and our units had already been fed. I thought that was a lousy way to treat people, and the reality of the situation sank in for me. You aren't a person anymore, you are a prisoner.
Housing assignments were based on your work assignment. I was designated to work in the cafeteria, while Violet and Lenore were slated to work in the garment shop, so we were spilt up as we were escorted to our cells.
The officer opened the door to my housing unit and led me in. After stopping at the security station, she guided me across the common room to my cell. There were only a few women in the room, watching television. Most of the prisoners were still at work, cleaning up the cafeteria and kitchen after evening chow. She explained to me that the door could be opened from the inside until lights out, but that if I wanted to go back in, I would have to ask to have it unlocked. The implication was clear, don't bother her with letting you in and out.
I stepped into the cell. It was ten by ten, with bunk beds on either side. Between them, against the back wall, there stood a set of shelves. Three of the shelves contained foot lockers. Only the bottom shelf was empty, so I put my box there. Looking around, I saw that there was a combination sink and toilet unit to the left side of the door, and a small desk and stool to the right. The top bunk on the left side was unmade, and there was a stack of linens and towels on it. I made the bed and climbed up on it. Sitting there, I thought, "This is my home now." I felt detached, distanced from the reality of my situation, as if I were watching someone else. I did not recognize it in that moment, but I was already becoming institutionalized.
I heard a growing murmur of voices from the common room, but I could not steel my nerves to step out of the cell. I laid down and dozed for a little while. I was startled awake by the sound of the door opening. Two women stepped inside. The woman in the lead was tall, close to six feet. She had shaggy dishwater blonde hair and a perpetual sneer that made me think of Elvis Presley. I knew instantly that I did not want to get on her bad side. The other woman was a small, round faced brunette with an olive complexion.
"Yo, new fish." the blonde said when she saw me. I sat up and introduced myself. She told me her name was Alicia. She had a long criminal record, and was in on a ten year stretch for operating a stash house for an extensive heroin ring. The other woman was her "gay for the stay" girlfriend, Theresa. Her brothers ran a chop shop, stealing cars and breaking them down to sell the parts. She'd been caught driving one of the stolen cars. She had an air of melancholy about her, and often spoke of how much she missed her four year old son. My son would have been about the same age.
They flopped down together on the bottom bunk across from me.
"You on the rag?" Alicia asked.
"No, I'm not. Why?"
"Look at the state issued shit they gave you. They give you any tampons, Kotex or anything?"
I realized that they had not, and shook my head.
"Pretty stupid, right?" she laughed. "And you took an ass reaming on canteen."
"What do you mean?"
"You got processed on Thursday. You know what else happens on Thursday? You turn in your canteen order. And you pick it up on Monday. But not you, fishie, you didn't put one in. So you have a week and a half before you can get jack shit. So, maybe you'll need tampons or something. Or even just want a snack before then. So, if you do, no prob, just let us know, you can pay up later."
I was immediately on edge. "Pay up, how?"
Alicia gave me the first of many lessons on life behind bars, this one on the prisoner economy. Every prisoner has a job, she explained; in the kitchen, the clerical offices, the garment shop or elsewhere. For our efforts we receive wages totaling thirty one dollars a week, a sum I later learned was one of the highest prison wages in the country. Those wages, along with any money contributed by family or friends, were deposited in our account. From that account, we could make canteen purchases, prepay for phone time and charge up cards for the common room vending machines.
She showed me a canteen order form, and I was surprised at all the things you could purchase. You could buy almost any kind of snack or non perishable food item, and any hygiene products you wanted. You could buy a radio or a cd player. You could buy clothes in different colors, as long as they were the same style as your state issue.
The planning of your canteen order becomes a preoccupation. You are only allowed to spend seventy dollars a week, and many prisoners do not spend their money wisely. They buy expensive body wash, conditioners, nail polish, make up. Then, by Sunday night, they are miserable because there is no money in their phone account or they are jonesing for a candy bar. In addition, there is a rule that no prisoner can ever be in possession of more than three of any particular item, so people often run out of their favorite things by the end of the week.
Alicia listed the must have items that I needed to get with my first order. At the top of the list was a single serving electric coffee mug, which prisoners refer to as a "hotpot". Not only can you make coffee, tea or cocoa in it, she explained, but you can heat soup or beans. You also want to buy a knit hat, it gets damn cold at night. Aspirin or ibuprofen, it's noisy inside and headaches are common. Hydrocortisone, because battling skin rashes is going to become part of your daily life. Ramen noodles, because, in addition to being cheap and filling, they come with seasoning packets that can easily be slipped into your bra and smuggled into the cafeteria to add some flavor to the bland food.
"And make sure you get blue notes every week," Theresa interjected.
"What are blue notes?"
Alicia explained. "Let's say you get three honeybuns from the canteen. So, now it's Sunday night and you have one left. But you don't want it. You have to get rid of it, right? OK, I'll eat the honeybun, but I don't have anything you want to trade for it. So, I pay you with blue notes."
"Which are?"
"Instant coffee packets. They call them blue notes because Maxwell House is most popular and they are blue. But any brand is called a blue note."
"So, they are money, basically."
"Exactly. In the old days it was cigarettes, but now the fuckers won't let you smoke, so it's blue notes. So even if you don't drink coffee, buy some. Because you don't ask for favors. There is no such thing. One way or another you pay for whatever you get. Better to pay with blue notes than your pussy. And way better than fucking owing somebody."
My third cellmate came through the door. She was a dark, heavyset woman who scowled at me and ducked into the bunk below me without a word. She never said much unless she was cursing someone out. Her name was Desiree, and I would learn that she was a jailhouse legend. I heard that she had once seen a woman she suspected of fucking her boyfriend pumping gas, and beat her half to death with the hose nozzle. That she had burned down a store because they stopped selling a chocolate pudding that she liked. That she deliberately ran a mini-bike into a cop because he was ticketing her brother. I don't know how many of the stories were true. I was not going to ask her, and she never spoke more than a few words at a time to me. I do know that, at the time we were cellies, she was serving time because she broke into a telephone store and stole a dozen smart phones. Alicia asked her once if it had not occurred to her that all the phones contained GPS chips and she just laughed.
Wake up call came at 4:30. We had a half hour to shower, dress and be at our work stations. I was shown my duties; set up the big conveyor belt dishwasher, fill it, get my breakfast, then return to the machine and load it with dirty dishes as they came back to the kitchen. After the last breakfast dishes were done, drain it, run it though a cleaning cycle, refill it. Eat lunch, wash the lunch dishes, drain it and clean it again. Tomorrow, do it all again. Every day, do it again.
