Estrella Jail in PHX…
A109

I begin this journal by hand, but I can only date it and put in the day. I have no idea what time it is, for I cannot see a clock. It’s in the early evening, though. I’m going to begin doing some journaling, although there’s always a risk of losing what I write. I have nothing better to do, though, as I sit here in jail for the next half a year.

Yes, you heard right. That ruthless judge threw me in jail for a whopping 6 months, plus 2½ years’ probation when I get out!!! And not only were my tormenters present in court but so was the lying cop who told me it was “over.” He had to be in on this, the corrupt bastard! He had to know all along that I’d end up here, and that had to be his goal all along. I hate them all! As we learned too late, no F6 charge is punishable by just a year of probation like I was told I’d get. And what the hell was the DA thinking when she recommended a ludicrous 6 months for words on paper, most of which I didn’t even write, and how could the judge side with it?! I’ve always tried to live and let live, but how do I live when others won’t let me live?!

As soon as we got into the courtroom before the joke of a judge came in, Paul first pulled Tom and I into a little room between the courtroom and the hallway. That’s when he informed us that the DA was recommending 6 months, and I was like, “Six months! For what? Let’s keep things in perspective here. We’re talking about words on paper, not violent actions.” Besides, I thought this was regarding the journals, not a letter.

The bitch lied through her teeth too, using her kids to her advantage, saying I threatened them, too. First it was supposed to have been with the gun we don’t even have, then with a knife. The bitch can’t keep her weapons or her stories straight. Can’t they see this? I guess they just don’t want to. Once they make up their minds to “get” somebody, they won’t budge, and this state obviously favors blacks.

I’m afraid these people will never give up when it comes to ruining my life. They’re obsessed with me, and obsessive behavior like this really scares me.

I’m writing this with a pencil because we can’t have pens here. People say prison is better than jail because you can get more stuff there. We can’t even have coffee here and I miss it!

If I try to write from the beginning of when I first came in, I’ll never get current, so I’ll just jump into today’s events, then I’ll backtrack along the way.

I still can’t believe I’m in here for something I supposedly wrote and not something I did. Just words on paper, yet no actions. How totally wrong and unfair! What would I have gotten if I had beaten that bitch? No time? Less time? A life sentence? Being white, childless, and female doesn’t help when you go to court these days, either. Although I had bad vibes from the start, even if I didn’t want to admit it, I never would’ve believed in a million years that I’d not only go down for writing things I didn’t (they’re trying to credit me for writing other things as well) but that I’d get a sentence fit for one who beat the shit out of 20 people! God, I am so outraged! I don’t regret a damn thing I did. Meaning, I know that no matter what the fucked up laws say that I had every right to express myself and to write what I did, and so I try to tell myself not to take it personally and that all writers get in trouble at some point. All writers. But at 6 months in jail, God knows how many thousands of dollars, plus all the other shit, I most certainly do take it personally! This is just so barbaric, like something out of the 1800s!

I’m in A Tower now where the "hole" and Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg) people are. There are 4 pods in this tower. There’s A100 where I am now for de-segs and Ad-Segs. There’s A200, which is general pop, along with A400. Then there’s A300, which is the chain gang.

There are tents, dorms and towers here. This place is huge. This is Phoenix, after all, the huge city that obviously missed me and wanted me back. There are about 4000 inmates here, but mostly women. I’m waiting for an available bed in M Dorm. D2 is the psych ward.

Before I explain how I got here, let me say that no, my life was never in danger. In fact, the other inmates have been nice to me so far. It was Officer Rule who helped me cut corners, so to speak, so I could get inside and escape the tents.

I will now describe the pros/cons of the tents versus the cells, which is what I’m in now. The pros to the tents are the fresh air and the fact that you can move around the yard there, as well as inside the day room. There are 10 big army tents, but I’ll describe the pros/cons in more detail after I finish the main pros/cons. You have fresh air, space to roam, you can use the phones 24/7, piss in private (if you use the outdoor portajohns, rather than the semi-private toilets indoors), and their showers are actually not that bad. You can shave there too, with razors they provide. You can get fresh towels, clothes, blankets, and sheets easier and more often, and if you’re into TV and cigarettes, you can have that too, although you’re not supposed to. They smuggle them in through their visits and shove them up their coochies.

The cons are the fact that it’s fucking freezing in the tents at night and the noise is horrendous! It gets noisy here too, but not nearly like with the tents. They scream over the loudspeakers all day and night, and you have more people around you. It’s a 24-hour a-day yard. Those tents hold 15-20 bunk beds, so 40 people bustling about is a bit chaotic!

Although working folding laundry helped pass time, I didn’t like the idea of working for nothing, since the cold-blooded judge wouldn’t even give me a 2 for 1, where you can cut your time in half by working. Also, I couldn’t get any sleep there, so I couldn’t keep a schedule. Not in that zoo with no Melatonin and with all the noise.

They seemed to have some pretty asinine rules. There was a rule against standing around the yard in groups. I remember when a cluster of girls was standing around singing and a male DO approached the group which then quickly dispersed. What happened? I asked someone. I just could see what we were doing wrong. This was when they explained this rule to me, and I was like, oh Jesus! Next thing you know there’ll be a rule against breathing. Really, I wracked my brain trying to think of a reasonable explanation for such a rule to exist and I honestly couldn’t come up with any.

Lastly, the cigarette smoke really annoyed the fuck out of me, and that’s what I used, at Rule’s suggestion, to get out of there. Normally they put those who refuse to work in the hole, but I wasn’t refusing to work. I couldn’t work. Those who are either unsentenced or unable to work go to dorms where you’re in a huge room with 120 people – yuck! I couldn’t just ask to go to the dorms, so as the nurse said, I had no other choice but to go to the hole as a de-seg, and Officer Armstrong was already there to take me to A Tower. I was willing to go to lockdown, though, because the tents were so bad. Just the ants alone were enough to scare me out of there! As soon as I left medical, Rule told me to hang on a sec, and she and Armstrong spoke for a few seconds, but I never heard anything they said. Armstrong glanced at me, then she headed down the hall as Rule turned to me. “Come on,” in a conspiring tone of voice, as we continued down the hall (later I would realize that she was telling Armstrong that she’d bring me to A Tower herself as an Ad-Seg, rather than have her take me there as a de-seg). This is when she told me that there was another option that’d enable me to keep my privileges and suggested I fill out an Ad-Seg form, but that it was important how I worded it. I’ll get into that after I cover the pros/cons of the cells.

In these cells, you can have up to two cellmates, or cellies, as they call them here, but you’re locked down 23 hours a day with only an hour out for phone calls, showers, or requests to the trustees (other inmates) for toilet paper, pads, pencil sharpening, nail clippers, etc.

The showers are a nightmare! Worst showers ever. You get a cool mist, rather than a warm/hot stream of any kind.

I can’t see the clock from the upper tier where I am, so I sort of judge the time by the angle of the sunlight streaming in through the narrow horizontal slit of a window at the top back of the cell wall. We sometimes ask the DOs for the time, too. I made a calendar so I can keep track of days/dates.

The DOs sit in a round station with the pods of cells surrounding them. In between them and the cells is a large room where the showers/phones are. They call this the day room. There are 15 cells per pod, but we all don’t go out for our hour out at once. They go one room at a time.

The thing I hate most about the cells is that you can’t piss/shit in private. The cells have two sets of bunk beds in this pod. One’s a regular bunk bed like they have in the tents and dorms, and the other is these wall shelves that are welded to the wall. These are better because then you can’t feel the person moving that’s above or below you. They also don’t have metal lips sticking up around the sides to dig into the backs of your thighs when you sit on the side of the bed. The mattresses are a nightmare. Hardly any cushion at all. Here I am finally losing more weight, thanks to the nasty jail food, and now I have mixed emotions about it because I’m feeling rather bony and uncomfortable against these mattresses.

There’s also a metal table bolted to the wall and a metal stool bolted to the floor. There’s an aluminum mirror, a built-in shelf for toiletries, and a sink above the toilet. The water and toilet flush are operated with push buttons. This toilet is fierce. It can flush juice containers, thick heavy pads, etc.

The cells are approximately 8x12.

Back in the tents on a dreary, cloudy day, I looked around at my surroundings and I saw not one cactus or palm tree. I could’ve been back in Massachusetts for all I knew.

At least inside I don’t have to deal with the cold or the humidity when it rains. It does get sort of nippy at times in here, but not too bad considering the fact that they’re running a swamp cooler in here and it’s November. I hear it’s miserable in here during the monsoons. I’m sure it is.

The best thing about the cells is the mice that come to visit and to get the scraps of bread I leave out. I’d prefer my own mice, though!

Amazingly, I’ve been exercising every day by jogging in place, then working the major muscle groups. I’ve even been singing every day, thanks to my cellies who encourage it.

Tom visits me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He could come on Sundays too, but Sundays are a zoo at Visitation.