By Socalbd

I woke up every couple of hours.  At some point when I was awake for a few moments, I saw a sliver of light in the pod coming from an air vent on the outer wall of the common area.  What time it was I couldn’t tell.  I assumed it was early morning, but I didn’t really know and rolled over and went back to sleep.

I woke up when I heard the pod door open. The lights had been turned on at some point.  The guard was back and ordered me up.  A bag was in his hand.  I remembered to grab the bag from the night before and we switched bags.  He walked away.

Breakfast was a peanut butter sandwich and a banana.  Prior to the experience my friends and I discussed food as punishment as part of the experience.  The topic of having the same meal in succession over and over again came up.  This was the start.

I ate the sandwich and the banana along with a healthy dose of water to wash it all down.  The bag and the leftover contents were placed on the upper bunk.

If I wanted to stay sane, it clicked in that I needed to keep some sort of routine.  I decided to keep my morning routine as close to what it is in my daily life to create some sense of order and fill time.

I started by brushing my teeth.  It’s a small thing, but it starts the day even if it was out of order with breakfast on this morning.  I took my time with this task. Why?  I had time to fill.  Lots of time to fill.  Why rush it.  My teeth got a thorough cleaning.

Next, I made the bunk up.  I pulled everything off it and stripped it down to the plastic mattress.  I put the bottom sheet back on and made sure to tuck it in all the way around to make it nice and tight.  The other sheet was next, and it got the same treatment other than the section near where the pillow would sit was slightly folded back.  I grabbed the blanket, pulled it across the bunk and tucked it in all the way around top to bottom and got a nice, tight fit.  The pillow was last and in place.  This should pass inspection.

I sat down on the bunk, back to the wall, folded my legs in front of me having to adjust the leg cuffs to not dig into my skin and then closed my eyes.  I started deep breathing.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.  Slow and methodical breathing.  I never get into a trance-like state, but this helps me center myself.  This went on for what was likely 20-30 minutes.

The next order of business was some exercise.

Still shirtless and barefoot from the night before I got onto the concrete floor and sat down.  For the next 30-40 minutes I went through my usual gym stretching routine.  It sucked not having carpet or a mat to sit on.  The hard concrete presented its own challenge as I went through the process.  The stretching takes about 30 minutes in my daily life, and I do it 3 to 4 times per week.  I took my time adding additional stretching reps since again, I had lots of time to fill.

When I was done, I put on the uniform shirt and sat back down on the bunk, back against the wall looking at the wall across from me, legs folded in front of me.  There it was. The wall.  Cinder blocks stacked and painted a dull yellow color were staring back at me.  This was my space.  Small.  Walls of block and concrete.  Alone.

I heard the pod steel door get unlocked.  There’s a unique sound about a cell key being put into the latch and turned.  It can’t be mistaken for any other sound.  It’s as unique as the ratcheting of cuffs being closed around a set of wrists or ankles.

I was ordered to get up and walk to the back wall and put my forehead against it with my hands on the wall above my head.  I hesitated for a moment and was warned to move quicker.  I complied.  I knew the strength of the guard and wasn’t going to test him in this moment.

The steel door opened behind me and he entered.  He didn’t come for me.  He came for the bunk.  He quickly pulled the blanket and sheets off along with the pillow and threw them out the door into the pod’s common area.  The mattress soon found its way into the common area, also.  Then the door slammed shut.  I was warned that inmates that resist in any way would have privileges removed.  The mattress, the pillow, the blanket and sheets were all privileges, and I no longer had them for being slow to respond.  He said there might be further punishment coming.  After that, he left.

I went to the steel door and looked through the bar area.  There, across the pod, on top of the table were the mattress and other items.  My cell was essentially stripped down to nothing other than the toothbrush and toothpaste, my medications and a tin cup to use for water.  Even in solitary, things can get worse.  And they did.

It wasn’t more than an hour when the guard returned and ordered me to the back wall again.  This time when he entered, he pulled my wrists behind my back and cuffed them, palms out.  I was walked out through the pod into the main hallway and on into the main part of the facility.  A few locked doors later I was pushed into the padded cell, still cuffed, all white walls, floor and ceiling.  This was a different space from the cell I had become used to in less than a day.

I spent a couple of hours in there contemplating if this experience was what I had anticipated.  I was getting what I asked for – long stretches of time alone, isolated, without any type of external stimulus.  It wasn’t 24 hours in, yet, and I was starting to doubt.  I kept telling myself I’ve done this before and could get through it.

When the door opened, I was pulled out and began the walk back to the main pod area of cells.  Except, this time, the guard had me make an immediate left turn and into a different pod arrangement.  This was one quite small.  The hallway door opened into a small two-cell pod.  The cells had bars across the front instead of a solid cinder block wall with a steel door like I was in earlier.  It was a tight corridor, maybe only three feet across that was just outside the cells.

The guard shoved me down to the second cell and in.  He closed the barred door and instructed me to step backwards to place my hands through the slot in the door.  The cuffs were removed.  He welcomed me to my new accommodations and he walked out.

I looked around.

This cell was smaller than the last one.  It was only as deep as the bunk and about the same width.  It was maybe 7-by-7.  Two or three feet less in depth makes a lot of difference.  On the other side of the bars was a cinder block wall.  Due to the bars and the distance to the hallway door, I couldn’t see the hallway pod door.  My view was going to be cinder block walls all around.  My world got much smaller than this morning.

My few personal items had been moved – toothbrush and toothpaste, tin cup and medications – were all on the shelf above the stainless-steel sink/toilet combination.  I was going to be here for a while.  I made the bunk up with the sheets and blanket that were there to kill some time.

Lunch was delivered not long after my move into this new pod and cell.  A peanut butter sandwich, a protein bar and a bag of almonds were in the bag.  I was getting what I asked for.  Even the meals were part of the punishment regimen.  Repeated.  Bland.  Cheap.  I wasn’t going to have anything wasted on me like real food, apparently.

The hours ticked by slowly.  I took a nap at some point in the afternoon.  There was an air vent on the building exterior wall just outside the cell and to the right high on the wall.  It was the ever most slight sliver of light that came through and eventually disappeared.  The sun had gone down.  Dinner hadn’t been delivered yet.  When it was delivered, it was the same meal again.  Another peanut butter sandwich and a protein bar.  The guard didn’t spend almost any time, either, when the meals were delivered.  It was short conversation if you could call it that.  Although, I ticked off the guard this last time.  He said not to make eye contact with him and of course, I did and kept it going almost like a defiant challenge to my situation.  He said I would regret it.

I decided not to wait for lights out and removed my shirt and socks and crawled under the sheet and blanket on the bunk mattress.  I wasn’t able to doze off soon enough.  The hallway door opened and two guards appeared ordering me up and to the cell door with my back to them and wrists into the slot to be cuffed.  I did as they ordered, barefoot and shirtless.

I stepped into the cell a couple of feet as they opened the cell door, and a black hood was put over my head.  I was marched out to another part of the facility.  I was told my defiant attitude needed adjusting and they had just the corrective experience for me.

When the hood was removed, I was in a small space of concrete walls, floor and ceiling.  This space was meant to hold in sound.  I was standing in front of a set of wooden wrist and head stocks that were at about chest height.  The handcuffs were removed and my head and wrists were positioned into the stocks, and they were locked shut with my body bent over slightly.

One of the guards reminded me of my behavior and said this was the result.  He pulled my uniform pants down as well as the boxer shorts revealing my naked butt.  He then started spanking me with full force of his hands.  There was no warmup.  This was meant to hurt.  Hurt it did.  Pain shot through my butt cheeks as he asked me to repent my ways.  It didn’t take long to break me. Between the painful swats to the butt cheeks and the awkward position I caved.  When they decided I had enough they left me there to think about my behavior still locked in the stocks.  They turned out the lights as they walked away leaving me in the dark.

The minutes ticked by as I attempted to regain my composure.  My back started to hurt.  The bent over position and weight of the stocks were working their magic as a secondary form of punishment.

When the guards returned, I received another set of spankings to remind me what would happen if I didn’t comply.  These guys weren’t kidding around.  The punishment was real.

When it was over I was cuffed up, hooded and returned to my cell.  The hood was removed and the cell door clanked shut.  I walked backwards to the cell door slot and the handcuffs were removed.  The guards walked out without saying anything further to me.  Once the hallway door was shut, the lights went out.  The space was pitch black.  Again, I had to feel around to get on the bunk.  I opted to try to sleep on my side as my butt was still stinging from the punishment.  I eventually dozed off.

I woke up a couple of times during the night.  Each time I looked towards the bars and all I saw was black.  The space was so dark.  At some point I rolled over and when I looked towards the bars, I could barely see them.  A bit of light was coming from under the pod door at the hallway and from the exterior wall vent.  It was just enough light to cast an ominous shadow of the bars against the walls.  I was alone in a dark jail cell.  This was my reality.  I was thinking it was maybe around 6 or 7 AM.  I would learn much later how far off I was on time.  I decided to roll over and go back to sleep.

To be continued …