by Juli Valenti
“Ma’am, do you have any personal items with you?” the new cop asked and she nodded.
“Yes, sir. My license is in my pocket and, um, Officer Corbin has my phone and car keys, I believe ... sir,” she stumbled over her words, fear making her shake and her tears coloring her voice.
“Wow, a polite one,” the new officer murmured to Corbin, who grunted in agreement. “All right, ma’am. We’re going to remove your cuffs. Please stand with your shins against this metal bumper, legs apart, and don’t move until I instruct you to do so.”
“Yes, sir.”
With all the strength she could muster, she remained standing where he’d guided her. The new officer released her left wrist from its metal binding first before telling her to put it in front of her left hip. As she did, he shackled it with a new leather cuff, and then proceeded to repeat the gesture with the right side. Content she was now shackled, both wrists in front of her as a nice change of pace, he opened the back door of the van.
“I’m gonna have you step inside here, watch your head. Move to the end and have a seat.”
Nodding, Sarah did as she was told, her new seat cold metal, the inside of the vehicle a freezing contrast to the intense heat outside. Mixed with the fragility of emotions in her, her shaking grew more intense, her bones aching from it. But she couldn’t stop.
In truth, she was absolutely terrified. She’d never been in trouble; like the officer had told her before - she’d never had any sort of ticket, and she’d most certainly never been arrested before. The only basis she knew of jail was what she’d seen on TV or heard in the news. It wasn’t a place she’d ever aspired to see, let alone be a resident.
Oh God, I’m going to jail. I’m going to throw up, she mourned, bending at the waist to put her head between her legs, tears coursing down her face again.
“What are you in for?” a male voice asked, loud in the silence of the van, startling her. The small cursory glance she’d given the inside had implied she was alone, but as her head snapped to the direction the words had come from, she found a man sitting, also shackled, on the other side of another black fencing.
He was possibly forty or so, though clean, except for the blood running down his scalp and staining his T-shirt. His expression was curious, not snide like she would’ve expected from a man who’d been arrested witnessing a girl who’d also gotten arrested crying her eyes out and struggling not to throw up.
“My ex got me arrested,” she answered, her voice hoarse. “He had a scratch, I didn’t. Hello, domestic battery charge. God, this is so lame. And it’s so cold in here ... and what’d you do?”
“I just got into town. I was staying with my cousin and, apparently, he had a bunch of stolen shit. He wasn’t home when they busted in, and they took me instead. Like what they did to my head?”
“Cops did that? You realize you need stitches, right? I can see the bone,” she told him, her medical training bringing her a level of calmness.
The fenced man grinned, though there was no humor in it. “Driver didn’t tell me to duck ... pretty, huh? Well, don’t worry about all this - you’ll get out. I seriously doubt any judge is going to take the charges against a little thing like you seriously.”
A part of Sarah was pleased with his reaction toward the charges against her, the other half weirdly annoyed. So what if she was small. She could do damage if she really wanted to. Even if she hadn’t ... not on purpose, at least. If Vinny had stopped when she put her hands up, the universal “stop” motion, after all, he wouldn’t have gotten scratched. Maybe if she was like the rest of her coworkers who cut their nails down to the quicks to avoid glove tearing, too ... but no, she kept hers well-maintained. Damn personal grooming.
It seemed like years before the van stopped, inched forward, and came to a final stop, the breaks squealing loudly. Even longer for the driving officer to open the door, the light from the sun bright as it shone inside, blinding her as it reflected against the silver metal surrounding her. She was shuffled from the steps, shackles remaining firmly in place, and into the jail, doors opening in front of her and slamming shut behind.
All around her the faces were unfriendly, tired, and unwelcoming. Sarah desperately searched for inner strength, to keep more tears from springing out her eyes. It was bad enough everyone around her was seeing her as pathetic as she knew she looked – red-faced, tear-stained cheeks, blotchy and running nose. More, she knew it was only a matter of time until it wasn’t just guards and law enforcement. No, soon she was going to be thrown in with the wolves, ones looking for someone weaker to prey on, and she was going to be a prime target.
The female guard manning the desk instructed her to remove all jewelry she may be wearing, an easy task since all she had were her earrings and nose stud - everything else got in the way as she worked. The woman also demanded she remove the tie holding back her hair, along with any clips or barrettes. Once her few meager possessions were on the counter, she was allowed to take three numbers from her phone - local numbers only - which she was told to write down on a strip of provided yellow paper.
Gripping the slip with numbers written haphazardly as if they were a security blanket, she stood in front of a wall and stared emptily at a camera for her booking photo. Ugly yellow scrubs were thrust at her, along with details of where to change and that she had two minutes to do so. Swapping the soft teal for scratchy yellow, Sarah realized she’d never been so tired of scrubs, and, worse, she wanted her bra back. While she was allowed to keep her panties and TOMS, they took her bra ... probably so she had no straps to hang herself with.
Time passed slowly, the walls around her closing in as she waited to be moved from the holding cell she’d been stuck in, to the processing and booking area. Finally, a new female guard gathered her, leading her into an open area with chairs separated into two sides. They were color coded, blue on the left, maroon on the right; men on one side, women on the other. There, they took photos of her lone wrist tattoo, verified her information details, and handed her a photo badge.
Scared and intimidated, humiliated, she found a seat between two other women in the last two rows, as the guards had barked, and stared at the floor. She could feel the tears trying to form and she practically choked on herself to keep them back.
“Hey, don’t let any of them see you cry. Besides, it’s just county - no big deal. Don’t even worry about it,” a raspy voice sounded beside her and she glanced up, half wanting to be left alone and half looking for a friend. The other female offender to her left was a dark-skinned woman, her hair cut short to her head, her body lithe and thin, but she didn’t scare Sarah. Plus her words had been kind, comforting.
In answer, she nodded, afraid to open her mouth. If she did she was either going to word vomit her entire situation, or she was going to start sobbing loudly - neither of which was going to help her. Luckily she was saved from having to talk by a male inmate extending something wrapped in cellophane to her.
“Sandwich and juice,” he told her, as if it was obvious and common, like she should know what was going on. She accepted it so he could move on, though she wasn’t hungry. Glancing at the clock, she found it was already five. She’d been arrested around one ... Four hours had already gone by.
“You need to eat that,” the kind woman beside her said, nudging her elbow. “They aren’t going to offer food again until breakfast at three in the morning. You’ll be so starving by then that this will have been a missed feast.”
Sarah busied herself with the clear wrap, finding a crudely made bologna sandwich with sliced cheese. A small mustard pack was wrapped with it, though she ignored it. Instead she forced herself to take a bite, and another, but her stomach churned and she tossed the remainder in the trash can behind them.
After, Janeesha, as the girl introduced herself, began talking. Telling her the routines of county jail versus state penitentiary - it was clearly not the girl’s first time being locked up, and judging by the stories she told, it wouldn’t b
e her last. But, she was nice enough, going so far as to tell her the way things would go for her; she repeated similarly as Officer Corbin did - as a first offense she’d be called in before a judge first thing in the morning, he’d let her out on her own reconnaissance, and she’d finally be free to go.
She also became somewhat of a big sister, taking her under her wing. From keeping the other women away from her to going with her to the phones as she desperately tried to reach someone, they created a small semblance of peaceful friendship and camaraderie. Unfortunately, it was short lived, as her bail went through and she got to leave shortly after eight. For Sarah, since she’d been arrested for domestic battery, she wasn’t given the gift of a bail amount - she was stuck there ... in hell.
The buzzing of a bell startled her, and she sprang to her feet, all but sprinting back to the phone. Frantically she typed in her inmate code, the one that allowed her to make phone calls, and jammed the buttons hastily. She expected it to ring and the prerecorded message that no one had picked up to sound, but this time it didn’t. Instead, a female voice answered.
“Jesus Christ, Sarah, what the fuck happened?”
Chapter Three
Sarah could’ve wept at the harsh sound of Artist’s demand and she closed her eyes against the onslaught of emotion from the familiar voice.
“Hi, Artist. I’m ... um ... I’m sorry to call. My phone time is limited ... and I can’t reach Lukas.”
“It’s all right, hun ... but seriously. Pretty sure the last thing I expected when I picked up the phone was a call from a Socorro County Inmate. Well, the last thing I expected was for it to be you as a Socorro County inmate. Spill. What the fuck is going on?”
“Um ... short story? Vinny went asshole and somehow I landed here. But, um, is Lukas there?” she asked, not wanting to go into detail. And, as relieved as she’d been to hear the woman’s voice before, she was as desperate to stop talking to her now. Spilling the entire story to one of the only female members of Hells Redemption didn’t sit well with her. No, she wanted to talk to Luke. She wanted to hear his voice, to have him tell her everything was going to be okay, and to hopefully ease the twisting going on in her stomach.
“It’s Sarah ... yeah. That Sarah. She’s in county, if you can believe that shit. I don’t know either,” Artist’s voice said, muffled, her head turned away from the phone as she clearly spoke to someone else at the HR compound. “No, Sarah, I’m sorry. Fallen isn’t here. He tore out around midday, hell bent for leather. He was pissed and none of us have been able to reach him.”
Dread filled her, practically consumed her, panic choking her at Artist’s words. Midday was when she texted him that the police where there. Midday was when he took off. Please let it be a coincidence.
“Sarah? Sarah, are you there? Are you okay? Shit, talk to me.”
“I’m here, I’m here. Could you ... could you just let him know I’m here and that I’m relatively okay? I mean, I honestly don’t want to go into major details right now, though I know you all will want to know later, which is fine, just, I’m trying hard to keep my shit together here and not fall apart again in front of all these people.”
“Of course,” the woman replied, her tone softer, almost sympathetic. “What else can I do? What do you need? Need one of us to post your bail?”
She shook her head. “No. They didn’t give me bail or bond. But ... if you could call my boss? Tell her I won’t be in tonight ... I don’t know what you’ll tell her or what excuse you can give that’ll make sense without telling her I’m in jail, but if you could find a way out of telling the truth, I’d appreciate it. Also, if it isn’t too much to ask, could someone pick me up tomorrow? From what the girls in here have told me, I should get to just leave after I see a judge in the morning, around eight. But it could be any time between ten and six that I get out ... so I’ll need someone to sort of be on standby...”
Sarah knew she was rambling, the words tumbling out of her in a rush of sound, but she couldn’t help it. The words needed to come out, to alleviate the pressure inside her, and Artist was the only legitimate friendly person around her. Even Janeesha, who’d been kind, wasn’t someone she’d consider a friend; but she trusted the members of Hells Redemption.
“Of course, anything you need - we’ve got you. In the meantime, try to keep your head up. Don’t worry about Fallen, either. Sarg can take care of himself. You worry about you.”
“Okay ... and Artist?”
“Yeah, Sarah?”
“Thanks. For talking to me, I mean. For helping me.”
Artist chuckled on the other line, the sound pulling Sarah’s lips into a small smile. “Anytime. Besides, Fallen would have all of our asses if we did anything else. But, on another level, get ready for some serious learning how to kick ass when you’re out, because this shit isn’t gonna happen again.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“Don’t need to. This shit isn’t going to happen again, even if I have to volunteer Shakespeare to teach you how to whoop ass himself.”
For the first time since being arrested, Sarah laughed. It felt foreign, like she never expected to find real humor in anything again, and, for even more than just the talking, she was grateful.
Another thing about jail time that wasn’t shown on TV, was just how slow everything went. Sarah had been put in the booking area at four, and didn’t get processed into the system until after midnight. At that point, she was freezing, desperate for a bed to lay down in rather than the uncomfortable plastic chair. She wanted to close her eyes, to take her contacts out, which were so dry from the salt of her tears she could barely see.
She’d been given a new set of scrubs, changing out of the yellow booking ones to a pair of gray inmate ones. And, when she was finally shown her cot, she could have cried again. It had been a surprise that she wasn’t thrown in a cell, the type with bars that slammed home once she was inside. Rather, the female ward was a giant open area with rooms and no doors. There were two sets of bunk beds in each, though “bed” was a loose term.
The frames were cold metal, like everything else she’d learned existed in the jail, but no mattresses. Instead there were rolled blue mats, supposedly for something soft to lay on, but they weren’t. They sort of reminded her of the vinyl pads children rested on during nap time in elementary school, only not as plush. The guard who’d guided her in had also given her a bag with two sheets, a ragged blanket, a toothbrush with toothpaste, and a cup. That, along with a sweatshirt three sizes too big, were the extent of the belongings she now “owned.” Though, the latter she was grateful for as she curled up on the top bunk, praying for sleep to seize her.
Of course it didn’t, and she tossed and turned in the darkness, ignoring the sounds of others around her. Breakfast came and went and yet she still didn’t move - she remained burrowed under what little warmth she could find in the blankets, hoping time would pass quickly. But, time moved slowly, the hands of the clock mocking her from across the room, the ticking loud like a heartbeat in her ears. It was driving her insane, the sound she couldn’t get to stop, regardless of how she tried to get her mind off it. Sleep was elusive, she was freezing, and the only thing she had were her own thoughts.
Days, weeks, months, years passed before she was called down by the twenty-four hour guard on duty. As quickly as possible, she did her business in the bathroom - which had no walls or doors, leaving her exposed to anyone who wanted to watch - brushing her teeth and doing her best to look presentable, though it was of little use. She was a hot mess, and, the only thing she could hope for was a sympathetic judge who didn’t think she looked like the crackhead who was also called for judge time.
More guards, more cold and empty rooms, and she was in another plastic chair, a TV in the corner on with a judge calling cases - other inmates in different areas of the jail, she guessed, for different types of crime. This part went surprisingly quick, doing nothing to alleviate the knots in her stomach as she was call
ed up to stand at the microphone. He asked if there was any contact with the victim, to which the district attorney said there wasn’t, and asked for prior history. His attention turned to her, asking if she could afford an attorney, and she nodded; it didn’t matter how she paid for it, but there was no way she was going to leave her fate to public defender with a thousand other cases.
Finally, after a long and excruciating pause, he announced she would be released on R.O. R., as everyone had told her he would, and she was escorted back to her cell. Naively, she’d assumed that she’d be immediately instructed to grab her things and get going, having forgotten in that instant that everything went slowly in jail. No, instead she was held for hours upon hours and it wasn’t until after two she was finally called back down, and guided to another room. She was given her teal work scrubs back, along with the little jewelry she’d given them, her phone, and ID, before being taken to a clerk.
“Here’s your free bus pass - good for one stop only. You also owe twenty-five dollars to the county for keeping you overnight, which may be mailed in to the address listed on this form. Have a good day,” the clerk said, pressing a button that buzzed open the door.
Hesitantly she grasped the handle, pushing it open and squinting in the light from the open windows. It was disorienting, the warmth from the sun. Plus, Sarah found herself somewhat lost. She wasn’t sure where exactly she was, having been transported in the meat-locker van with no windows, and there was no one around to ask. So, she followed her feet where they took her, out the front door and into the New Mexico heat.
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and pressed the power button, allowing her feet to keep her moving as she waited impatiently for it to turn on. It vibrated to life, only to continue vibrating with missed messages. She clicked the voicemail icon and held the phone to her ear, taking a deep breath when she heard Luke’s voice on the other line.