By Johnny Utah

Ryan and I were on our fourth day inside. It didn’t take long to settle into our kitchen duty routine. Get up, go to work, go to sleep. We didn’t have a lot of contact with the other inmate volunteers.

At that morning’s headcount things changed. After the guards counted us all present, one guard strutted down to me and Ryan.  “Both of you are going up to the Sergeant’s Disciplinary Office. Get up against the wall,” he ordered. We were frisked right there in the pod, the other inmates looking on. We had a leather belt with a metal loop tied around our waists. Handcuffs went through the loop.

“Click,” the handcuffs went on. “Down on yer knees!” Leg shackles with a connector chain to our handcuffs. We shuffled out the pod door to the Sergean’’s office across the hallway. We were just outside the closed door to the office when the guard said in a whisper, “Just go along and deny everything, you’ll like it.”

The guard gave one loud knock on the door and bellowed, “Two inmates for a disciplinary hearing!”

“Come!” was the answer from inside. The guard opened the door and Ryan and I shuffled in, leg irons clanking on the floor. We remained standing. The Sergeant sat behind his desk, king of his kingdom. His tight khaki shirt had all kinds of badges on it. High and Tight haircut. I just knew he was prior military, had to have been a Marine I thought. Assholes.

“You two have been stealing food from the kitchen,” the Sergeant said. “Do you deny it?”

Ryan spoke up first, he’s better at playing along with things than me. “Naw,” he said, adding a little cockiness that I knew would just get us in more trouble.

“Well smartasses, you just got both yourselves time in the hole.”

“Get ’em outta here!” he yelled.

“Come on!” said our escort guard. I thought we’d go back to our cell to get our stuff, but nope. We shuffled down a hallway we had not been down before.

It was a long shuffle to a door marked ominously “Special Housing Unit Segregation – Disciplinary.”

“OK,” said our guard. “Once through here there’s another team. Just do exactly what you’re told.” That didn’t sound good.

We both said, “Yes, Sir.”

The guard pushed a buzzer. The door opened.

In front of us were two gorilla guards. They must have been three feet across and seven feet tall.

“We’ll take ’em from here,” was all I heard.  I don’t know who said it because immediately after that I heard the door close harder and with more dread that I’ve ever heard a door close in my life.

“Get up against that wall, noses and toes, you know the drill.”

“We’ve got simple rules here, do what you’re told when we tell you, that’s all.”

“Get in those cages.” Off to our right were two white metal boxes made from metal gratings. About 4 feet by 4 and about 8 feet high.  We were locked in these. A hatch in the door dropped open, “stick your hands out.”  They took the cuffs off. “Kneel,” a hatch at the bottom of the door enabled them to take the shackles off. “Strip” was the next command. Ryan and I each took off everything, including our slides. We went through the usual routine of a strip search except we were each in our own metal cage. I was confused. Would we be naked for our time here? And how long did we have here anyhow? The answer to being naked or not was quickly answered when a white uniform was shoved into the cage. It was a pair of white slide shoes, white sox, a pair of white boxers, a pair of white scrub pants with big black letters down the front of the left leg “SHU,” and a scrub style shirt with “SHU” in black letters on the back.

“OK, cuff up in front,” said another giant guard. We were both put back into the same chains we had worn coming into the SHU.

“Get out!” a simple command.

Ryan and I walked past a long hallway with red doors, all closed except for the end two. It wasn’t hard to guess which cells we were going to. I was in Cell 6, Ryan got Cell 7.

“Go to the back wall, put your nose on it until told to move.”

I shuffled into the back of my cell, the door closing right behind me. I expected to get told to get off the wall and come back to the door to get my chains off, but no command came. Hmmm. I guess I was to stay here until they wanted me to drop, some kind of test. So, I just stood there, nose to the wall, hands cuffed in front of me, legs shackled. My calves started hurting first, then something like shin splints started.  I don’t know how long I was up there against that wall, but my grunts and groans must have been noticed.

“Get off that wall inmate!” came a voice through the slot in the door. “Back up to the door.”

I shuffled backward.

“Time for you two to go,” said a guard.

What?  What was that?

“Strip down to your boxers and your slides — no socks.”

I did as I was ordered.

“Cuff up.”

I backed up to the door and stuck my hands out to be cuffed. The cuffs were slapped on really hard. I winced.

“Step to the rear of the cell, nose to the wall.”

I did that.  The door slid open.

“OK, back out.”

I backed out until I was out in the hallway. The door closed in front of me.

“Get your nose on the door, don’t move.”

Leg shackles went on. I felt kind of ridiculous in just boxers and my white slides. As I was standing there nose to my cell door, Ryan was brought out dressed exactly the same way as me. Ryan was placed up against his cell door. As I was standing against the door a belly chain got put around me, and my cuffs were connected to the belly chain with a padlock.

“Time to go,” the gorilla in charge said, then he said, “Oh wait one more thing.” I barely saw it coming out of my peripheral vison. A hood. It went over my head like a pillowcase. It had to be canvas or something like that, I couldn’t see shit and it was heavy.

“Let’s move.”

I had a guard grab each bicep and hustle me down the hallway, I wasn’t sure which way we were going.  I heard Ryan’s chains behind me. We kept walking and walking; I had no idea where we were going. The “time to go” comment started replaying in my head. Were we being taken out to be executed? Oh Shit! Then the realization that I was getting really hard hit me. It was the excitement! I must have looked like a freak, hooded, in nothing but my white boxers — in which I was pitching a tent. We stopped. I was pushed up against wall, it was really cold. Were we outside? I knew Ryan was next to me. We just stood there. I think I was panting. What was going to happen next? It could have been a few minutes, it could have been an hour. I heard the voice of the sergeant from the pod area.

“So, was that ending exciting enough for you?” The hood got pulled off me, and not very gently either. After my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see that we were in a walled-in area. The van was next to us. Our civilian clothes were in a pile on the tailgate of the van.  It was time to go, time to go back home, except we still had Trooper Shaw waiting for us at the Probation Office. The Sergeant took the cuffs and shackles off us.

“OK, stuff those hard-ons away, get dressed!’ Said the sergeant.  It wasn’t easy. I thought it was over; nope. No relaxing of the rules. Ryan and I were put back into transport chains. We climbed into the van for our ride.

“Say Hi to Justin for me,” the Sergeant said as the inner metal door of the van closed.

The van finally pulled into the parking lot at the strip mall. Ryan and I were both sore and cramped from the ride.

“OK, get into the office, face the wall with the map. Nose and toes to the wall!” Trooper ordered. Ryan and I shuffled through into the empty probation office. The West Virginia guards and Trooper Shaw chit-chatted outside on the sidewalk, leaving me and Ryan in the office, noses against the wall like idiots. We could just sneak a peak of Trooper Shaw and the West Virginia guards through the windows. The West Virginia guards shook hands with Trooper Shaw and left, laughing. He came in and locked the glass door behind him. “OK, get up and get into my office.”  We were still wearing our transport chains.

“So how did you two assholes like your stay with the State of West Virginia Department of Corrections”?

“Sir, it was great,” I said, using “Sir” reflexively. Ryan said it was one of the best experiences he’d ever had. Trooper Shaw had a smirk on his face. It made me kind of scared. What did he have planned?

“Now comes the hard part, boys. You both have a decision to make. I can take the belly chain and cuffs off, and you both get outta here, back to the car and drive off to jerk off over last week’s events, or you can continue this. What do you want to do”?

I was standing there with my belly chain, and a hard on. I didn’t take too long to say, “Sir, I’d like to continue.”

“What about you?” Trooper Shaw said, stepping right in front of Ryan, nose to nose.

“Yes, Sir,” Ryan said. “I mean, I want to continue, Sir.”

“Both of you get on your knees. facing the wall!”

Ryan and I got down, expecting that we’d get the transport chains taken off. Instead, I felt a band of something pretty tough go around my right ankle, and a “click.”

“Stay on your knees,” Trooper Shaw said. He got the leg irons off both of us.

“Stand up!” Trooper Shaw unlocked our cuffs, belly chain, and connector chain. “Turn around, you two are now on Probation, my kind of Probation!”  Pointing down authoritatively, he said, “those things will keep track of your asses for me.”

“You’ll both report here 0800 on Saturday. Uniform is boots, jeans and a plain gray sweatshirt.”

“Make sure you keep that prison buzzcut, otherwise I’ll take a straight razor to your head.”

“You two got that?”

“Yes, Sir,” we said.

“That’s it, get outta my office!”

On Saturday we got to the Probation Office with 10 minutes to spare. We went into the office and sat in the chairs against the wall in the outer office. I had a flash back to our first visit. Now Ryan and I were the guys with ankle monitors and gray sweatshirts.

About five minutes later two guys, EXACTLY dressed like us, came in. We all exchanged a glance that said, “yes, we’re all prisoners of Trooper Shaw.”

“OK, time to cuff up!” Trooper Shaw announced. We were all handcuffed with our hands in front of us.

We all got into a white van and drove to one of the trash dumps in the county. We got out, and still in our handcuffs, lined up facing Trooper Shaw. He looked hot even out of uniform. Well, he still was in kind of a uniform. Big highly polished black boots, brown cargo pants that were snug over his thighs — and when he turned around showed off his nice round ass, and a white State of Maryland Probation Office polo shirt, tight over the chest and biceps.

“You guys will pick up all that trash that’s blowing around in this field. Bag it and put it in the dumpster. Don’t talk to the citizens. There’s water in the van, use the Porta Pottie over there. If you piss in the field you’ll be going back to jail for real time!”

So, in front of all the people there waiting to dump their trash we were uncuffed one by one. I could just feel the eyes of the “normal” people on me. I could just imagine what they were thinking. Look at those prisoners! What horrible crime have they done. They should work them harder. The field was huge and covered with trash that must have blown out of the dumpster of just dropped out from the dump trucks. While we were out picking up trash, we got a chance to talk to each other. The two other guys on probation, John and Jim, had been pulled over by Trooper Shaw just like us.

John had been on probation for over a year and had been sent to jail by Trooper Shaw for 30 days and to avoid further problems had agreed to Trooper Shaw’s special probation program. Jim had been caught up in a simple traffic stop that turned into a 30-day sentence. He had agreed to Trooper Shaw putting him on “special” probation to avoid more time.

We worked until the trash dump closed at 7 p.m. No break, no lunch, and just water.

We lined up in front of the van and got handcuffed for our ride back to the Probation Office. We got into the van slowly, we were exhausted. By the time we got back to the Probation Office it was getting dark. “Get out and line up!” After we had formed up in a line facing Trooper Shaw, he said, “Well, that was a lot of work today, boys.”

“Get used to it,” and, after a pause, he said, “go home, be back here next Saturday at 0800 hours.”

End of Part 3

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