Dream Journal: Prison Dream, What Do You Mean It's Not Not Co-Ed!?

I had a fantastic nightmare.

I'm being locked up for a little bit.
I've been detained for vaping and getting caught with an expired license or something ludicrous...

In fact, as I tried to remember exactly what my accidental crime was it became less clear and far less important than my predicament. 

I was confused when they arrested me but remained calm.  I was willing to serve my penalty and get it over with without a fuss. The cuffs were uncomfortable but I really did need a good stretch. I got used to them. I can understand their need to cuff me in these circumstances. 

It's alright.

Processing was taking such a long time! I wondered, "Can't this go any faster?" I had to take off all my clothes and get searched, but I also got to shower. I was given a fresh pair of undergarments and they were comfortable. It felt good to be clean. 

As I marched along in my new orange pajamas it slowly began to dawn on me the other things I had to do. I had a gallery to run. I had interviews to finish publishing. I had shit to do that couldn't wait for long! And will I still be able to take my meds? I need them. I felt scared and panic began growing in me as I continued marching along for processing. I was relieved my meds were still working and I wasn't in shambles of emotional distress (in retrospect I realize, they really are working even as I dream). 

The mess hall was just like the one in Bootcamp and we had plenty of time to eat. Although under the circumstances I would rather know what was going to happen to me and where I'd be staying before filling my stomach. I wasn't hungry. All the men and women I was with were as confused as I was. 

We all had the same questions. How long would I be here? Can I call someone? Can I get their number out of my cell phone? I asked others what they were here for and if they knew how long we'd be here. 

"Nothin' much." was a common response. 

"Can't be more than a day or three." 

The march out of the mess hall was excruciating. The guards cuffed us again on the way out and the hill we walked up was slick with mud. I looked up and saw my fellow inmates crawling forward, slowly. I slipped down to my knees, it was too steep and slick. Getting up the hill with my hands cuffed was a fun game, shame the shower didn't last. All of the guards were female and armed with tasers. I was afraid of getting tased if I didn't move fast enough. I felt relieved that the guards were women, although some of them seemed terribly cruel. 

I soon found that some were unnecessarily cruel. When I reached the top with everyone else I learned that it was a common practice for one of the guards, in particular, to require that we stay low. She liked our faces to be in the dirt to scan our tags, which were short around our necks. She'd register the tags with our faces in the dirt and if we didn't get the tag out just right she would shock us in the face instead of the tag. We were each counted and had to sound off our number. We had to say that number aloud as we entered the prison. This was done every time we returned from chow and it was the reason some of the prisoners had pushed to have a certain place in line.  If we refused to pay attention to the count and sounded off the wrong number we'd get dropped into an electrocage (it reminded me of the box I've used on mice) but it's a practice that didn't seem taken too seriously.

A small young woman had sort of bonded with me on the way here and she'd seemed to make a couple friends out of some bigger, scarier guys too. I liked her. She was funny. She was right in front of me in line and she accidentally sounded off the wrong number. "8! I shouted, she meant 8!" 

But it was too late, she'd been dropped into the elctrocage. I was up next, coming in just behind her along the stairwell I shouted, "9! She meant to say 8! I'm 9!" and then I reached around and opened the gate for myself. 

I bolted down the stairs into the dungeons as fast as I could as one of her friendly companions screamed out, "Get her out of there!" 

"C'mon hurry up, is she dead already? Really!?" She wasn't dead. She was sent to the infirmary in bad shape. I saw him scoop up her body like a small fetus and carry her to the medics. He was livid. I began to ponder, in shock, the injustice of what had just happened but could not help but look around and more immediate concerns quickly replaced all of my thoughts. 

Where were all the women? It was the same thought I had back when I was wheeled into Ward 7. As I looked around I saw that the handful of females stood near me, and the rest were males with more than one thug-looking-creep too many and they were staring at us. It was just like old times. We were sorted and counted into our racks and cages, and the other ladies were not mean. We were allies. But none of us had many answers and we weren't supposed to converse on our own. The rule resulted in most everyone not speaking at all, ever, but the fact was that so long as a guard was near enough to listen clearly we could talk. My willingness to ask questions was not looked fondly upon and the guards became acutely aware of me, which frankly, I found comforting.

In the morning when my bunkmate and I exited our cage the population of females had dwindled even more. I wondered where they had gone. Did they get out? Was their time up? Had something happened to any of them? The result was even more unwanted attention from the men. It was Marine Corps service all over again and I still couldn't figure it out. I had to be aware of my surroundings but to look through the males making eye contact to even try to sort the good from the bad caused more undue attention and unwelcome excitement. In this place, the good resented being looked at by us because our attention made them a target, and one look at those already staring back was enough to make things worse. Fuckin Catch 22 all over again!

It was made worse that we couldn't stay together. Everyone scrambled for their place in the chow line count off and I just let myself get pushed right along. I didn't care what number I was, I could remember it. What I didn't like was the brute who wanted to get behind me in line. He was standing too close. I hesitantly looked over my shoulder and said, "I'm not here for long." which was probably a stupid thing to say.

"They all say that at first," he answered in a friendly manner. I soon learned that many of the men I was serving with were destined to be here for years. Years! And the longer they were in for, the less they had to gain by not taking advantage of other inmates. The man in front of me was up to 3 years. 

That guy, number 11, he's up to ten years, "For what?" I asked.

"Abusive behavior." answered number 14. I was getting scared. I had the impression that abusive behavior was not the crime he committed to get here but, rather, an amount of time he had accumulated for behavior while he was in here. I had to know what my rights were. When would I be separated from the prisoners here who were actually dangerous? They cuffed us again and we began marching to breakfast.

I wouldn't pick up a tray, and this caused some angst. I said to the guards, "I can't eat until I get some answers. What are my rights? How long am I here? Please at least give me my meds so I can calm down." 

With a smirk on her face the cruel guard shouted, "Counselors!" and the two friendliest faces I'd seen in days came down and greeted me. Everyone was staring at this spectacle. It didn't matter. I couldn't exactly lay low with tits on my chest so what difference did it make? But the new silence that filled the room made me really, really edgy and I was getting stage fright. 

My legs started shaking and I stuttered, "Ca-can we go ta-talk somewhere else?" They looked at each other and nodded.

One of them put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Walk with us, dear."

We walked up a gangway and went through a small door, I was still in cuffs. Guards were still with us. They closed the door and I took a deep breath and said, "I haven't been abused or anything I'm just getting confused. There's some things tha-this isn't so bad, the first night seemed fine," they about died laughing when I said that and patted me on the shoulder, boy they'd never heard that one before! I could see they thought I was kidding, "No, I'm serious. I was in the Marine Corps so I'm accustomed to this sort of thing and I can appreciate it to a certain extent. I understand my place and it isn't too bad. I can behave myself and do as I'm told alright so far. But some things are starting to frighten me-" and I tried to think just how to articulate the signs that not everything was quite right, "Why are so many of the inmates here for so long?" How did they go from being small misdemeanors like mine to long drawn out sentences from which no hope existed?

And then, I kid you not, they busted out into song and dance singing 'Ya Gotta Have Faith'! As they sang I wondered exactly what would be a diplomatic way to let them know I was an Atheist and needed real answers. I certainly wasn't going to tell them how much I despise musicals. As they sang and danced and slid around the rafters in here I had to jump up out of the way doing the splits between two shelves to keep from getting bumped into or hugged over and over again. It was made more difficult by having no use of my hands and accidentally knocking over plastic bottles of ...soaps?...on the shelves.

"Is that shampoo being used to wash the clothes!?" Screamed one of the guards.

Still standing myself up between two shelves, I picked up one of the bottles to read it (all of a sudden, no cuffs) it was a pink bottle of shampoo and I said, "Apparently." Then I realized we were in the laundry room. This guard wasn't aware yet that I wasn't in here doing laundry, it was just the only private location the counselors knew about where we could meet and I could exercise what appeared to be my right to ask questions in privacy. The counselors walked out the door and I jumped down and ran after them back into the chow hall which was now...some sort of assembly room. 

I was surrounded by guards for running and pinned against a column. A woman in white scrubs stood by a projector. The guards cuffed me again and spun me around. Everyone had been waiting on me to finish my private meeting with the counselors before beginning what was a regular day's set of rehabilitation activities. 

The instructor began listing off pairs to start the day's inters. "What are inters?" I asked a small guy sitting near me.

"You know, it's like playdates." He whispered back and a guard kicked his ribs for whispering over the instructor to answer my question.

"What do you mean playdates!?" I shouted at the instructor and the guards squeezed me harder, I was cuffed and pressed between three of them.

The instructor answered me with a friendly voice, "Shouting is prohibited behavior." Then she said, "Playdates demonstrate to us that you can get along with others."

"That part isn't co-ed though, right?" I asked, still interrupting the class

"Of course it's not not co-ed." said the instructor.

As I looked around at the little cells we'd be put alone with somebody in I shouted, "What do you mean it's not not co-ed!?" and as the guards prodded me I looked at the assembly of inmates, falling to my knees, seeing a few scattered sinister smiles. 

The small guy behind me said quietly, "I don't like it anymore n' you do."

The instructor explained, "We haven't had the numbers available to conduct segregated inters and there's no evidence that segregation will help the social rehabilitation process." I could see that the guards, as women, all sympathized with me but there was nothing they could do about it. We'd each have to pass 18 playdates and we were each assigned a partner with which to begin. At this point, I wasn't sure I wanted anybody to tell me what Abusive Behavior was considered. I saw Number 14 with a big grin on his face. They were getting a real kick out of my reaction.  

A guard saw me looking fearfully at 14 and prodded him, then he said, "Oh I just think we got some nice girls here is all" in a tone that made my sphincter go tight. I was placed in an empty cell with a partner to, presumably, converse with. He was about 5'6", thin and lanky and he had a big teeth filled grin that didn't go with his eyes. 

He laughed and shook his head and said to me, "You women don't get it. You think you're so special. You think I want to be here anymore n you do? You think I want to be alone in a cell with some of these men? You women don't get it!" 

I didn't know what to say.  "How long do we have to talk to each other?" I asked him.

"Until somebody comes in here and takes one of us into the next cell for the next conversation, that's how long." He answered with his chin up. 

"What's the worst that can happen in this little game?" I asked him. 

He laughed maniacally and said, "Use your imagination." 

"I mean before the guards come in." I interjected.

"Depends on the guard, don't it?" He said back.

I saw the cameras. Everything was being recorded and the data collected was utilized to determine how long we had to stay. Maybe I only had to make it through one day of this and I could leave. This guy didn't seem bad. I didn't have the sense he wanted to be here any longer than I did and didn't feel threatened. The door buzzed and a guard escorted him out of the cell and this next guy made my stomach drop a notch. Our hands were cuffed in front of us but that didn't offer any comfort, neither did the guard standing outside the cement walls. Shit. His eyes were vivid and his stare was hard to take. This must be what a goldfish feels like when the cat wants to play. 

"Silence is rude." he said.

"Hi." was all I could muster. He didn't say hi back. I wondered just how seriously they were going to analyze these conversations. Did we have to show a lack of social hostility?  "What, what are you-"

"That's personal." he answered before I could finish. More silence followed. When the door buzzed I jumped a mile high. 

This time I was brought out and taken to another cell, and saw stains on the floor. The door closed and this one started walking quickly closer and closer fast, backing me into a corner then he lifted me up and it hurt! But he lifted me high enough I reached my cuffs over his neck and twisted sideways, pulling him down to the ground, choking him until the guards came in. I couldn't have stopped if I wanted to, the fall hurt like hell and I was stuck. I got tased, earned two more years for attempted murder and they locked me in solitary confinement. I hadn't yet bruised from how he lifted me and it didn't matter that he'd initiated physical contact first.  Two years may as well have been 20. Sitting alone in my dark box, I cried a puddle of snot and tears. This couldn't be happening, and it was. I wanted to be dead again.  I wished for at least a pencil and paper. I wished I could do something, anything! And then it occurred to me, I could practice Kung Fu here. I could practice Kung Fu in my mind. I closed my eyes and woke up.

Read the original post in my Dream Journal at www.NeeleyArts.com