Your Biggest Problem on your First Day in Prison
Club 44: Prologue
This is the prologue for my series Club 44, my true story of having the world’s craziest prison job.
Prologue | Chapter 1: Club 44 | Chapter 2: Mr. President | Chapter 3: Big Tuna | Chapter 4: Cheeseburger | Chapter 5: Blowing Off Your Arm
There’s no bigger mindfuck than getting off the bus for your first day in prison.
You move through a haze of waiting lines, Corrections Officers who can barely use their computers trying to process you through the system, guys in different colored jumpsuits headed for different destinations, interviews with condescending dropouts wearing pretentious uniforms. Every guy in there is high. They don’t even bother to drug test new arrivals, because they know we’ve all dropped the last of whatever we had to try and make it through that first day.
You take your clothes off and bend over and spread your ass cheeks for some guy wearing blue gloves whose entire job in life is to look in there with a flashlight. He hands you a short stack of fabric. You hold it up and realize it’s clothing, sort of. A 4X T-shirt stretched to such obscene proportions that the neck hole hangs almost to your bellybutton, run through so many laundry loads with red worksuits and green jumpers that it almost looks camouflage. You put on these absurdly oversized undergarments, then you zip into a green short sleeved jumpsuit that’s far too small. The clown-sized T-shirt and underwear squeeze out through every seam. That’s what you own now.
Then you’re locked into a small cell of cinder blocks painted beige with three other guys looking spaced-out on a metal bench bolted to the wall. One guy’s been through it before and he starts telling you what’s coming up next — talks fast, lots of ink, long greasy hair. You listen gratefully to every word. But then they come in and pull him out. He’s in the wrong place. He’s headed somewhere worse. Just three of you left now.
Hours of more cinder block rooms, more interviews, more COs hitting their old monitors with their fist to speed up the processing, cursing at you. Another of your three disappears somewhere along the way; never see him again. It’s like a fucked-up Charlie’s Chocolate Factory.
Daylight. Shackles. Back seat of a K-Car. CO driving might be as old as 20, way too jovial, says it’s his first day on the job. Your first private reflection on the staff here is that you don’t think this kid is going to last very long. Drive about 50 yards to the neighboring building, takes longer than walking would have.
They lead you through a door into a cavernous military-style barracks with daylight visible through seams in the thin plywood roof. Metal bunkbeds for 200 guys are packed in here closer than airplane seats. You’ve just stepped 50 years back into time, not just the plumbing and the wiring, but the culture. Segregation is the system here. It’s mostly Mexican guys. Black guys over here. White guys over here. Hawaiians and Jews in their little districts. Yeah, this is fucking correctional. Fucking rehabilitative.
The only people who don’t completely ignore you are your new bunkie and the leader of your ethnic group. They’re both scary-ass white supremacists, but they’re super friendly; and more importantly, they’re at the ready with stacks of nice fitting clothes and most everything you need: a toothbrush, shampoo, soap. The prison is supposed to supply everyone with the basics, but I never heard of anyone getting shit. You’re even on your own for finding a blanket and sheets and a pillow. But the guys have greased their own pretty good system for keeping stock on hand for the new blood. You’re called “fresh fish”, for no reason that ever seems clear.
At the end of the barracks are a couple offices for the counselor and case manager. You might think those job titles have an auspicious sound to them, but you quickly learn those who hold them are mere thugs who took a job where they could bullyrag people with no consequences. Forget any assistance you might have been hoping for. You don’t want them to know your name, your face, or anything about you. Want to get through your time here with your nose clean? Stay as far away from the staff as you can, no exceptions.
Unfortunately you’re still dependent on them for things like buying phone minutes and adding names to your visitor list. And guess what, you can’t do any of those things until you have a job. What job did you find for yourself, they ask you? And, of course, you’re an asshole for not finding a job in a system where you know nothing, and didn’t even know you had to have a job. What CO signed off on your job? They know you’re lost and clueless, they just love fucking with your head and threatening the vulnerable. You better find a job fast or you’re headed for Vandenberg.
Vandenberg Air Force Base is just a few miles away, and it’s where about thirty of the inmates work. Road work. Swinging a hoe in the sun and busting rocks, Cool Hand Luke style. That’s where the prison sends the worst offenders. White collar guys. Entitled white boys. The root of all society’s problems. Nothing gives a CO a bigger orgasm than seeing a guy with a net worth and an education getting on a bus for a day of forced hard labor — every day. Find yourself any other job, or they’ll send you to Vandenberg.
If you’re over 70 they might let you have a job cleaning the chapel: you sit in a pew and watch the morning news, then you’re done for the day. If you’re latino, you work at the farm: you walk a quarter mile down a nice country road, meet your friends and girlfriends who drive up and pop the trunk, you smoke and drink until lunch, then you walk back and play futbol the rest of the day. Some guys work at the electrical shop, maintenance shop, machine shop. They watch TV, nap, and cook nice meals from ingredients they go and pick up themselves in their work trucks. The only guys for whom work means work — and brutally hard work, all day long, under guard — are the unlucky white collar guys at Vandenberg. That Air Force bus takes them away first thing in the morning and doesn’t come back until dinnertime. They wear red jumpsuits stenciled with FEDERAL INMATE front and back. We hear the stories: stress injuries, heat stroke, chainsaw injuries, poison oak, one guy even died. If word comes back that you don’t work hard enough at Vandenberg, you get sent to the SHU (Special Housing Unit): solitary for a month in a too-cold room with only a paper blanket and no access to any communication, almost no food, and you lose the standard 15% off your sentence for good time. You want any job you can get but Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Maybe you get lucky, your bunkie has a lead, a guy says they need an orderly in the electrical shop, you hear about a CO who signs anything. Maybe you’re able to get the right papers together, application all filled out for the right job, something you can live with. Ducks are in a row. Time to show the counselor you did your work.
The worst possible offense you can commit is to be an entitled white boy all hooked up for a cushy job. They’ve got a special assignment for you.
This blog is the true story of where life took me after that fateful afternoon when the prison posted the day’s new job assignments, and my name appeared at the top of the list, and next to it were four dreaded letters: VAFB.
