StoryTime…Yay! (part II)

…see, it’s possible.

my most recent ‘to be continued’ is not a lie of an optimistically well-intentioned egg fertilized by the sperm of bad memory, apathy and drunken lethargy.

I swallow (and never spit… even during a calorie-free obsessive period) the cute little white swimmy-tads contained in the opalescent jizz that regardless of boy, seems consistently infused with the essence of brie… cheese. glug, glug, glug, gag, glug… deepthroat. Hey, if one can’t be a natural bulimic, why not work the gag reflex to… advantage… I don’t even fuckin’ know.

I’ve totally digressed. Metaphor has become literal and distraction has become… a crutch.

So, without further adieu:

STORYTIME… YAY! (PART II)

Again, I do not know if I’m tired. But after an unknown amount of time in the cold cold holding cell, I decide that I will sleep until I am freed… which shouldn’t be longer than a couple of hours, the guard assures me. Yeah, okay… people that work for the government, in public facilities [ie DMV, prison, healthcare clinics] never know what they are talking about. But naive, new-to-this-whole-jail-thing, me, I do not know this just yet. So, by this time, a couple of additional people are put into the holding cell, including a chick in what seems to be a prom dress-like apparatus who is a completely entitled drunk bitch that belittles the guards. The guards tell us that this is the only opportunity for us to make local calls for free. As my phone was sitting snuggly in my apartment; the only local numbers I have memorized are the cell #’s of the producers that I work for & the office. Not a good idea.

Most of the people I know, myself included, that live out here have some sort of out-of-state number. This is not free. And Jasen, my sort of friend that has vowed to protect me in any situation [without my asking or real wanting], ironically lives pretty close in Glendale … but I do not know his number off-hand. Oh well, I should be released in maybe seven hours, at the most. At this point, we are lined up, released from the holding cell and told to walk down the hall, and around corners. We are separated into two groups; by felony and misdemeanor. There are two guards. I move to the felony line. The guard that told me that I would be released in a few short hours tells me to go back to the other line. I feel better. This is when I start to realize that people don’t know what they are talking about. Because I say something about, “Um I think I’m charged with a felony”. The guard looks at the pink slip that I was given and is all, “well, look at that.” Then looks at me. “She right” she says to the other guard in her high-level Ebonics.

And so, we pick up our scratchy blankets and useless sheets. The jail cell sliiiides open and we enter. It is somewhat dark… this is both positive and negative. We walk down the middle of two rows of horizontally and much too closely positioned bunk-style beds with vinyl/plastic-y gym-mat mattresses. This is sort of cool. But the coolness of the bunk bed can in no way, this time, trump the fact that there are no cool ladders to climb or child-like colors but rather an exposed toilet and an arsenal of middle-aged women already in there. I take the second to last high bunk stage-right, contacts positively stuck like transparent colorforms to my eyeballs. Hoisting myself up with just my arms makes me feel youthful, lithe and childlike. So, I win for a second.

Before the guard sliiiides the cell shut, she asks if we would like the large television on. We do not have control of the channels as it is mounted somehow outside of the cell. Though I still do not know if I’m tired, as mentioned before, I’ve decided that I would sleep until this whole thing was over… so I assertively, though kindly say no… everyone else assertively though also somewhat kindly says, “yes”. So, I lose for the moment but I wouldn’t know just how severely until after I’ve seen all the current commercials for soy products, osteoporosis, motherhood, Pantene and all things celebratory of woman-hood 50x over. Estrogen-Nation exists in the Van Nuys prison.

Again, To Be Continued…

Story ’bout a Girl [part II]

Jail time is lifetime, baby… Lifetime: Television for Women.

I will testify, to this day, in a court of law [if aforementioned thing were ever necessary]… that the truly breaking part of being incarcerated in a women’s prison is the constant loop of Lifetime MOW’s. Young Amish chicks getting pregnant, giving birth and disposing of the body, Mariska Hargitay [Law & Order: SVU] is this modern [mid-nineties] lawyer that has to live in Amish country to solve the case. With nary a pinch of electricity and therefore, no computer access beyond what her laptop battery will provide!!; Kirstie Alley’s as an aging, has-been, overweight writer in Hollywood that ‘hires’ her hot nephew to pretend that he wrote her present scripts and go into studios to pitch them. He becomes the hottest young writer in Hollywood, chaos ensues and “a valuable lesson is learned by all”; & a classically early-to-mid-nineties Candice Cameron is in high school finally gets the guts to go up to the “most popular guy wrestler in school”, an early-to-mid- nineties Fred Savage [haha!!] only to find out that he is a possessive and abusive motherfucker [haha, again]…. He ends up killing her. With a special cameo appearance from the “The Mamas & the Papas” own, Michelle Phillips as Candice Cameron’s mother; by then probably in her 50’s but still hot. And all this time, a  meter on the lower left-hand side of the screen ticking down the hours, minutes, seconds to THE PREMEIRE OF THE LIFETIME ORIGINAL SERIES… ARMY WIVES!!! Which ironically, we have a client in.

Again, I do not know if I’m tired. But after an unknown amount of time in the cold cold holding cell, I decide that where ever I am directed, I will sleep… until I am freed [a long nap; a light coma… if you sleep, whatever happens around you… doesn’t, really. Not for you.] You know, this prison thing is a mild inconvenience… not so much harshing-my-gig or whatever… just that I decide that I would sleep. It is just a matter of time before I am no longer here… let loose to resume my partially truncated existence, at this point, so… why not plan to wake to consciousness toward the very end of the aforementioned ‘matter of time’?

“…shouldn’t be longer than a couple of hours”, the guard assures me.

okay. everything is good. genuine smiles. a bit of fatigue. I will sleep. whenever you put me where ever you will put me.

Yeah,

People that work for the government, in public facilities [ie DMV, prison, healthcare clinics] never know what they are talking about. But naive, new-to-this-whole-jail-thing, me, I do not know this just yet. So, by this time, a couple of additional people are put into the holding cell, including a chick in what seems to be a prom dress-like apparatus who is a completely entitled drunk bitch that belittles the guards. The guards tell us that this is the only opportunity for us to make local calls for free. As my phone sits snuggly in my apartment; the only local numbers I have memorized are the mobile #’s of the producers that I work for & the office.

…not so good.

Most of the people I know, myself included, that live out here have some sort of out-of-state number. This is not free. And “Boy J”, my sort of friend that has vowed to protect me in any situation [without my asking or real wanting], ironically lives pretty close… in Glendale [where ever… I mean, the valley, who knows?] … but I do not know his number off-hand.

I should be released in maybe seven hours, at the most. Not very long. It’s cool.

At this point, they release this motley crew from the holding cell [goodbye cold, cold air!]. Harmless-enough-seeming prison guard #1 lines us up haphazardly. We walk in line down the hall and around corners. We walk through doors. She instructs us to hold the doors open for those behind us. The prom-queen continues to belittle and complain. I acknowledge though don’t mind.

That’s the thing about meth. I am me. Comfortable and fine. Feelin’ fine… feelin’ grooooovy. I judge not the prom-queen nor the guard. And it’s not euphoria… it’s been half a day since I’ve done any meth. But that doesn’t seem to matter either, somehow.

As motley as this crew is… with our prom-dresses and sweat-shirts and cool-ass sea-foam-green Diesel, off-the-shoulder shirt dresses with leggings and ballet flats… we, or I, realize that it’s not so motley and much more CW-Kindergarten-drunken-pretty-girl bullshit… that is, when our group meets another group. Side-swiped with forced integration.

Strange. I’d bet the pot none of us wants to be here, but the little time we’ve shared bonds us into a team of sorts.

Now, there are new people… weird people. Mix and mix and mix. Older, more disheveled, strange… sad… and categorically not ‘us’. But only in shade. I doubt any of us thinks that far into it… before time hurls us into an infinately-more categorical ‘not-you’ territory.

Stop.

Another guard appears with the ‘other’ prisoners. This now, explosively motley crew is separated into two groups. FELONY. MISDEMEANOR. Somehow, I am honest [maybe that’s the invincibility behind meth,too…] I move to the felony line. Harmless-enough-seeming prison guard #1, the guard that told me that I would be released in a few short hours, tells me to go back to the other [misdemeanor] line. I feel better, though, probably, I know better. But I’ve never been in jail before… these people are guards… they know of what they speak.

In the misdemeanor line, I stand.

And I don’t know why…. And maybe this is the ultimate thing about meth…. I say something about, “Um I think I’m charged with a felony?”…. Volunterily. I just say it.

WTF? This wasn’t impulsive. I do not feel guilt. This is nothing like these things. This doesn’t even scratch this sort of surface. Because it’s all surface somehow. It’s the truth. So, I just say it. And I’m fine with saying it. I don’t take it back; I don’t cower or hide. But neither do I scream.

Guard #2 asks me for my pink slip. I slide my hand into the haphazard front pocket of my shirt-dress, pull out a quarter-fold carbon-copy pink leaf and hand it to her. She looks at it… then me… then it… then Harmless-enough-seeming prison guard #1…

Finally: “well, look at that.” She looks at me again. “She right” she says in her high-level Ebonics.

 

Story ’bout a Girl… [told in 3 parts… maybe 4, my attention span severely truncated as a result of my rendezvous with every chemical everywhere] part 1

I don’t know if I’m tired.

But I find myself on a cousin of the vinyl/plastic-y comfort of the mats that line all high school gymnasiums… as well as straight-jacket, “calm-down”-rooms in psych wards. In a very small school, in a relatively suburban New York, the gymnasiums are lined orange. …I think?… Here, I believe they are some sort of navy… ….I don’t mark the moment. …too into ‘the now’, I can’t. I don’t think that I’m tired. Just a waning meth/wine buzz that I cannot see as a buzz anymore. Regardless, this is some sort of cot or bed… something…. and so, it advises… suggests, rest. This coupled with my scratchy fiber-glass “blanket” that I am instructed to take from one in a series of large grey, rubber garbage cans that hold things like scratchy blankets and useless sheets… I mean, it all points me to “sleep”… or something. But I think that I’ve now decided that I cannot be tired… really.

And so, I feel absolutely exquisite!!!

…if not for the creeping knowledge that I just ruined my entire life and/or the fact that I now share quarters with crack-addict middle-aged women felons in the felony tank somewhere in Van Nuys. I don’t even know where Van Nuys is. I understand that it is in ‘The Valley” though. A place where, unless required to by a work commitment, or a medical emergency, one really has no reason to be. No reason to travel over the wondrous Hollywood Hills to Burbank or Sherman Oaks. It’s like living in Manhattan and going into Brooklyn or Staten Island.

Useless and time consuming.

But for now, I find myself in the Van Nuys prison in California.

The Side-Track Second:

Despite everything else, I look pretty kick-ass, I must say. My hair is still passable as awesome and I am wearing this weird trendy-like sea foam green t-shirt/dress-like, though sweat-shirt material ensemble completely off-the shoulder, it wrapped around just under my collar bone [shout out to Diesel]… with black capri leggings; lace at the bottom and ballet flats [this will become useful later].

After a myriad of finger-prints and confiscation of “personal property” ie. Ricki’s-bought Yak-Pak-default-bag complete with a thorough search and itemization: count my cash; remove all jewelry [rings, earrings, toe-ring, necklace… most of which I’ve never removed prior], I am sent to a random “room”… square-ish, box-like, small… a wooden bench tacked-on or possibly extrudes from three sides. On the fourth side… a categorically lockable door with a large window into the inner-goings-on of the precinct. Or the precinct’s inner-goings-on of me… whatever.

Slam, click, lock… I freak. Where did my arresting cops go? My Stockholm Syndrome flairs.

They are gone. Most likely to the relatively ‘normal’ side of the hill…. where I should be. But I am here. Held against my will in a room I cannot escape. A seemingly million miles away from my current abode and upwards of light years from the home that I fled in a city that I love. And they are gone…. forever.

Somehow, it becomes okay, I guess… “Hold on tightly, let go lightly”.

Off to the holding cell and my first introduction to bed-cots with aforementioned high school gym-mat mattresses… Cold cold air blows on me. It is June in California, there is no reason that cold, cold air should be blow on anyone. Though it is the valley, I suppose.

I am allowed to keep my jacket. In the holding cell, there are no scratchy blankets or useless sheets; and my exposed shoulders and bottom of legs POP with goosebumps. There is this one other chick in there when I get in. Sort of young like me, she watches some mind rotting reality-something on this television that is blares it’s sound from the ceiling with it’s friend the cold, cold air.

Like I’m rollin’ and the music stops and the trip goes horribly awry: my senses hyper-aware of all that is uncomfortable in my immediate experience of the world and, thus, rendered unavoidable. [this is theoretical, mind you, I am not on Ecstacy].

And now, we’ve reached the point wherein I stop receiving information about what is presently happening and will happen to me.