[ When I was in Thomaston, Georgia, I ran afoul of Johnny Law. I ended up in jail because I was caught dumb-handed. What I did was stupid, real fucking stupid, but I couldn't feel sorry for myself. I was in a Georgia jail cell with 40 other inmates just as sorry as me. ]

When I got to booking at 3:45am on Tuesday morning I politely requested the O.J. Simpson suite. I guess the jailer didn’t get my joke because he looked at me like I killed someone. I didn’t kill anyone; I tried to liberate a truck because I was drunk and stuck in Thomaston, Georgia. I probably would have killed someone to avoid being stuck in Thomaston for another week, but killing people is morally wrong. Stealing is morally wrong as well, but far more do-able. Hence, the predicament you are currently reading about.

As I’m being booked into jail I request my phone call.

“Yaw’ll get a phone call in the mornin’“.

IT WAS MORNING! However, I quickly realized I was at the mercy of four black jailers that wouldn’t think twice about cracking the whip on my skinny, white, out-of-town ass. So I shut up and wait until morning, whenever that is. Ten minutes later morning miraculously arrives, much to my obvious chagrin.

“All right Sterlin’, step ova herr”.

The jailers begin asking me all sorts of typical suspect questions. Have I been arrested before? Do I have any outstanding warrants? Have I ever killed anyone? Do I know where Jimmy Hoffa is? Shit like that.

After what seems like a light year to get booked/fingers printed, the jailer drops this knowledge on me:

“Ok Sterlin’, this ain’t like no jail in Sandy Eggo. Most of tha guys herr come from county for minah offenses to serve the rest of they time peacefully. Tha rest will be long-term offendahs heading off to state, and they mo’ rowdy.  Keep to ya self if ya’ll don’t want any trouble”.

What the fuck? I’m stuck in a bumfuck Georgia jail and I’m gonna be bunking with lifers and long term offenders? Just fucking great. These dudes are going to eat me for breakfast. I figure things couldn’t get any more worse. I figured I’d chill for a minute and then be released. I figured wrong. That’s when the jailer told me to take a shower.

WHAAAT??

“In the showah, Sterlin’. The one behind ya. Strip down nekkid, put ya’ll clothes on the bench, and wait for mah instruction”.

Can you imagine my white, expressionless face when I strip down to my Miller High Life boxer shorts under the watchful eye of a very prideful black jailer? The look on his face was a combination of, “I am not getting paid enough money for this” and “I think the poor boy needs to eat something”.

Rather apprehensively he takes a gander at my malnourished, albino bod to ensure I’m not smuggling any fun stuff into the prison. Satisfied that I wasn’t butt-packing contraband, he pointed me towards the cell-turned-shower.

“Step in. Knock twice when ya’ll done showerin’”.

Before I step in he gives me a roll of toilet paper, toothpaste, comb, toothbrush, over-sized slippers, and a gray, matted slavery blanket (circa 1832) in 2XL, all in a plastic bag. I get in the cell/shower combo and laugh and think to myself how glad I am that I shaved all my pubic hair that morning.

____

I step out of the shower looking like Harriet Tubman’s long lost twin. The slippers were made for Shaq feet, so I’m forced to walk like I have clown shoes on. The slave blanket covering my upper torso goes down to my thighs so I can barely shuffle my feet and carry my bag full of toiletries because I don’t know where the fuck I’m going and I can’t look down because the shirt is so baggy. The black jailer tells me to grab a pillow and a mattress and to follow him some more. After what seems like a quarter mile hike through a concrete maze, we reach the mod I’m staying in.

–OPEN CELL B7. WE GOT ONE COMING IN–

I’m immediately greeted by a stone faced Mexican dude, a black guy that looks like Debo from the movie Friday, and a youthful white kid that couldn’t be a day over 18. I take the top bunk above the Mexican. The cell door shuts behind me and I turn around and catch a glimpse of what my freedom looked like.

My new home.

As I’m sitting in my cold, dark, barely lit jail cell I start pondering. I am catching glares because I was the inmate that woke everybody up on my cell block, I scanned my new home. Two bunk beds, a sink, an aluminum toilet with a suction force that could suck down an infant, and a frosted window pane the size of of a CD case. Welcome home, Nick.

The bunk across from mine belongs to a young white kid that is obviously scared of jail and of his bottom Caribbean-bunkie. At the bottom of my bunk is a Mexican man with a cold, listless stare. I figured if shit hits the fan, he would be the first person to kill everybody in our cell with his toothbrush and then brush his teeth like nothing happened. I made a mental note to be wary of him… and his toothbrush.

____

The morning I show up we’re in lockdown because the lady CO felt disrespected because some of the inmates made a sly comment about her weight the day before. Lockdown means we’re in our cells. No TV in the outer room, no snacks, nothing. This is probably a good thing because I’m not planning on making any friends. My other three cellmates are restless about being locked down but know breakfast is on the horizon. I get my game-face on before I go out to meet the rest of my innocent roommates. I quietly pick up a bible that is sitting on the stand next to my bunk. I think to myself, “I am less likely to be murdered this morning if I’m carrying a bible”.

Breakfast beckons. I step out of my cell and check out the prison module. My mod has about 40 men. All shapes, all sizes, all dirty lookin’ mofos for the most part. Men that look hardened from a rough life not only in jail, but on the streets. There’s maybe 20 whites, five Hispanics and about 15 or so black guys. I see braids, tats and messed up teeth. Most every race and age group was represented. One inmate was approaching social security age, another dude turned 18 a week before my arrival, and another was in his forties. They were the minority, though. The majority of us were between mid-to-late 20’s and early 30’s. And all of us were chronic fuck-ups and presumably, all innocent.

I eat breakfast and mosey back up to my cell. I quickly doze off because of the six sleeping pills I took before the black jailer forced me in the shower. My theory proves correct about the Bible. No one murdered me during breakfast.

The first time I wake up after breakfast it’s roughly 10-11AM. My cellmate tries to wake me up. He asks me a question but I shrug it off. “Aww, you better get your ass up for roll call, young blood”. I vaguely remember trying to roll over and go back to sleep but he reminds me of the cranky female CO. I realize that getting up now instead of getting up under the weight of her thunder thigh on my throat is a better option. After the head count is done I go back to sleep. Thank God for sleeping pills.

____

I skip lunch and relax until dinner. The entire time I’m thinking about my fucked up shituation. I should be back at the house with Becca and Patrick packing, but no, here I am in county jail with Thomaston’s elite. Instead of dwelling on the outside world, I chat up with a few of my cellmates. In county jail, you have the people you see on “Cops” and “America’s Dumbest Criminals”. I realize socializing with these dudes is like talking to the slow kids in school. All they do is say the dumbest shit and every thing is followed by a laugh or a dairy cow stare. Even though I’m the new kid on the block I manage to parlay with some cats playing chess. I am ruthless with my rooks and I win a few games. I purposely lose the next couple of rounds because one thing I know about habitual criminals: they don’t like losing. At all.

One of the older cats, George, takes an interest in me. I don’t know why but he and his friends refer to me as “young blood”. I’m cool with it so we chop it up for awhile.

“You gon need dat soap, young blood?”

“Maaan, ya dumbass got caught up becuz of some broad, huh? Bitches is a mothafuckah!”

“Me? Oh young blood, I got like ten, maybe 15 years. Fer fucking theft. Man I ain’t know it was the chief’s wife”.

George tells me how he landed himself in jail. See, George has been in and out of correctional facilities since he had baby teeth. He was doing good for awhile, no meth, no hookers, none of that, but he fucked up big time in Thomaston. He got high on a bad batch of crank and snatched a purse. Nothing serious, right? Come to find out the lady George jacked for her purse happened to be the wife of the chief of police. And when he snatched the purse it came with her prosthetic arm, that’s how hard George yanked her Louis Vuitton. George looks at me all serious and says, “so yeah young blood, dat chief wanted to get me for armed robbery, but…“. I stopped him. I couldn’t help it. I busted out laughing along with everybody else in the mod eavesdropping on our convo. ARMED ROBBERY? Funny shit but poor George didn’t get it. Because of all his priors and with the chief of police testifying against him, George was facing 10+ years for a crime that would normally fetch less than a year.

George was constant unintentional comedy. He asked me if any of the guards performed a cavity search on me. They hadn’t.

“yeah young blood, they don’t do that for skinny mo’fuckahs like you. They’d make ya cough and your colon would come out!”

George’s advice on how to get me bonded out:

“nah young blood, you straight. call up your bitches and ax them to make yo bond. couldn’t be more than a couple hunned. Tell em to put that pussy on the street. Thomaston niggas love them some hot white bitches”.

George on his dietary issues:

“I take me a shower three times a week. Niggas in here say I be stankin’ like a mothafuckah after dinner. I can’t help dem shits man, this jail food fucks my gut up. When I get money on mah books I’m gonna get me some Mylanta or somethin’”.

George and his friendly demeanor actually put me at ease. He had been in that mod for four or five months so he had a reputation with the other long-timers. He was funny but he cut it to me straight a few times. “You a convict now. You gotta stop thinkin’ bout the outside and focus on doing yer time. Don’t letcha time do you, peep it young blood?“.

He was right. The entire time I was worrying about whether Becca could make my bond. George lent me his phone code so I could call her and my friends to find out if I was getting out or not. The thought of spending the next 45 days in jail until my court date motivated my memory like no other. I was able to remember phone numbers from like 3 years ago. I realized most cell phones don’t accept collect calls but I got through to a few of my friends in San Diego.

Operator: Please say your name.

Me: IT’S NICK AND I’M IN JAIL MOTHERFU–*click*

Operator: Please hold while we connect you.

I can imagine my friends picking up the call and hearing I’m in jail. Most of my good friends probably hung up and figured I deserved it. I must have hogged the phones for damn near an hour. No one seemed to get pissed about it, though.

____

It was almost lights out on my second full night when Becca made my bond. “Sterling, pack up your stuff. You’re going home”. Most of the guys in the mod cheered. At first I thought they were cheering because I was getting out. Nope. I quickly found out they were happy because a few of them would be getting dibs on my left over toiletries. George waved bye to me through the frosted window on the door of his cell. I waved back knowing that I would never see him again, or for that matter, anyone else in Georgia. I was leaving the state and never looking back. I was going to become a fugitive in the state of GA. I wanted my last memory of Thomaston to be of me driving as fast as I could to the South Carolina border.

Prior to being released I had to sign some paperwork promising I would show up for my court date. In my last act of criminal defiance, I left a fake contact name, number, and address. I had no intention of stepping foot in that city ever again, let alone the state. Georgia went from an ‘is’ to a ‘was’ in an hour. Becca bonded me out at 8:30pm. I was on the road to Virginia before 10pm. Just me, Becca, Patrick, and our pets with an unplanned future in our sights. We knew, that no matter happened, Virginia couldn’t be any worse than Georgia. And you know what?

We were right.