Christmas in the Clink

            It doesn’t matter why I’m here. But if you need to know, I copped a plea and took a twenty-one day sentence for a crime I wasn’t guilty of. It happens. I remember telling one of my professors about how unfair it seemed to admit guilt to something I didn’t actually do. I’ll never forget his response: “But think about all the stupid things you’ve done that you didn’t get caught for.” He made a good point. We all do stupid things at one point or another in our lives; things that could probably land you in jail if the wrong person was watching. And if you haven’t, then you should probably spend some time in jail if only to add some excitement to your dull life.

            Everybody here did something stupid. This is County. This is for “criminals” whose sentences are less than two years. Drugs. Theft, in order to get money for drugs. Not paying child support, because you spent your money on drugs. Drinking and driving, while on drugs. Mostly drugs. None of us really did anything that bad, except the pedophiles, who are the worst human beings on Earth, who even the other inmates despise, who never leave their beds, which are situated right next to the guard’s desk, as if he would protect them if violence struck, as if he wouldn’t turn the other way when a pedophile was getting his teeth kicked in.

            I sleep across from them. Not by choice. It was the only bed available when I was released from solitary confinement four days ago. I wake for breakfast, put on my orange uniform, and get in the back of the food line. The room we are imprisoned in is about half the size of a basketball court, with rows of beds on one side and tables and chairs on the other. In between, there is the guard’s desk, a few toilets, and a couple of showers. I grab my Styrofoam clam shell, a half-pint of milk, and a Dixie cup of grape juice. I find an open seat at a table. Inside the Styrofoam there is some burnt toast, watery oatmeal, and a banana that is so brown and mushy it appears to have been peeled the night before (they don’t give us the peel, because inmates used to cut them up, dry them out, and smoke them to get a mild buzz). There are also about fifty packets of sugar. One guy goes around and collects everybody’s packets. He also trades me his milk for my juice. He will take his collection of sugar and juice to the other side of the room and pour it into a plastic ten-gallon bin beneath his bed. He’s been doing this since Thanksgiving. Apparently, the ingredients are fermenting and should be ready to get the boys drunk on New Year’s Eve, the day I get released. I can’t say I’m sorry that I’ll miss it.

            I eat my toast, drink my two cartons of milk, and give the rest of the food away before going back to bed. I wake back up for lunch, which is a hotdog that is somehow charred black and soaking wet at the same time. I eat the bun and a small bag of chips and give the rest of the food away. I try to go back to sleep, but I can’t, so I head back to the tables and try to get in on a game of Risk. “Sorry,” the game’s ringleader tells me. “We’ve decided that you’re not allowed to play with us anymore.”

            “Why?” I ask.

            “Because you just keep rolling the dice and attacking until all your troops are destroyed.”

            “It’s called strategy,” I say. “Haven’t you ever heard of kamikaze?”

            “Yes, but it never works. You just end up ruining the game for yourself and one other person.”

            “But it’s Christmas.”

            “It is?”

            I didn’t even have to be here right now. When I took the plea, back in September, my lawyer arranged it so I could do weekends for a couple of months instead of spending Christmas in the clink. I declined the offer. It was an easy decision: spending every weekend during my last semester of college in jail, or missing a holiday that I’ve never really cared for to begin with, plus getting it all done in one stint. There was no way I was wasting my weekends, and I was pretty sure that once they let me out after the first one, I wasn’t going to go back again, which would have only gotten me into even more trouble.

            After being banished from the Risk game, I head over to the television, which is bigger than any television I have ever seen in my life. It gets a hundred or so channels, the premium package, HBO, Showtime, the works. But the guys, they only want to watch the “Bring it On” franchise: “Bring it On”, “Bring it On Again”, “Bring it On One More Time”. I sit down for a few minutes to watch a group of beautiful women spring into the air, flying, and flipping, and falling, and landing, always with a smile. “That chick is busted,” one guy says.

            “I wouldn’t touch her with your dick,” replies another.

            What are these guys talking about? I think to myself. They will never get with any woman even remotely as good looking as these women on the television. The meth must have really fried their brains.

            After listening to these guys ridicule the actresses for about fifteen minutes, I’ve had enough. It feels like I’m in second grade. In keeping with this infantile feeling, I head back to my bed and do a “word search”. I hunt through the jumble of letters and find the most beautiful word in the English language: F-R-E-E-D-O-M.

            We have a surprise for dinner. We are led out of the room in single file. Out in the hallway there is a table set up. We each get our own personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut and a Dixie cup full of soda. I choose Pepsi, my favorite. We walk back into the big room and find seats at the tables. I open my pizza box to find that it’s not a personal pan pizza after all. It’s about half the size. More like an English muffin pizza. The restaurant must have made them specifically for us. Apparently, we’re not even worth a personal pan. Regardless, it’s still the greatest pizza and the best soda I’ve ever tasted in my life.

            After dinner, another surprise! Two surprises in one day, I don’t know if we can handle this much excitement. We each get a gift, wrapped in a paper bag: a pair of socks filled with hard candy. I empty the hard candy on the table, keep the socks, and head back to bed. “Wait,” someone yells. “You don’t want this candy? Don’t you at least want to trade?”

            I shake my head. These guys have nothing that I want. I grab a thick paperback copy out of the John Grisham library and head back to my cot. I spend the rest of the night reading, and thinking about life, finding comfort in the fact that I will never again have a Christmas worse than this one. You know, unless I get caught doing something stupid…