Visiting Hours. A guard came in, called my name and announced I had a visitor. I hobbled to the queue and stood in line, not knowing who it might be. Eyes to the ground and thoughts to myself, I waited my turn.

Finally, I handed-in my slip of paper and walked down a row of windows with seats in front of them and adjacent telephone receivers — just like in the movies.  It isn’t so cool when it’s you and not Kevin Bacon or Brad Davis sitting down there and picking-up the phone.

Until that instant, I had not realized that I had been in jail less than 24 hours, yet. It already seemed as though I had been incarcerated for weeks. At the same time, I had no idea how solidly I had sealed my emotions until I looked-up and saw Sue Webb sit and pick up the phone on the other side of the thick glass. There has never been a more beautiful woman than Sue was at that moment. The concern in her eyes reached across the void to me and held me as she asked, “How are you?” I lost it.

Silently, I sobbed and leaned against the glass. For a moment, I had no control; I couldn’t stop the flow of tears. Pulling myself together (I was as surprised at this unexpected flow as I could have been), I said, “Sue, this is incredible; it is the most horrible experience of my life. There’s a reason each of these guys is in here…”

From that point on, I don’t remember our conversation. My eyes stayed dry after that, I was not about to be caught off-guard again. Sue had dressed-up for the occasion, “babe’d out,” as it were, in case it was important to give the impression that she was my girlfriend (a little rape-protection insurance…ya never know).  She looked wonderful, and I will never forget that she took the time to come down there and see me. Our time was up far too soon.  We hung-up, and I returned to The Pit.

♦◊♦

The tension waxed thicker and thicker as whatever the issue was amongst the three gangs seemed to grow.

After the second night (my second night on the floor) I awoke to find one of my crutches missing. I was astounded that someone would steal a crutch!  I had naively held onto some philosophical concept of the inherent goodness of man…of Honor Among Thieves. Some fantasies take longer to die than others. From that point on, I hobbled and hopped on one foot and one crutch to get around.

On the morning of the third day, Sunday, one of the beds in the area became vacant. I was grateful that it was next to Ted, so that I didn’t have to go far from another of us White Guys. It wasn’t much safer, but I felt better about it. Of course, it was on the upper bunk. Fortunately, with the small amount of upper body strength I had left, I was able to lift myself up to the second level to get into the bed. Thereafter, I pretty-much stayed there.

♦◊♦

Ted organized some of the other guys so that, at sick call, they would all get Tylenol and he would collect it for me. I would take twenty-eight after morning call, and another twenty-eight in the evening. This fuel would imbue me with enough of a stupor that I could sleep until the next meal, and sometimes afterward. We were not allowed to remain in the room during the meals, they were obligatory.

Showers, on the other hand, were optional. I opted out. It had taken me about ten minutes just to remove my pants upon arrival in jail on Friday. Given that each group of men was given just five minutes to strip, shower and dress, I thought it best not to tempt fate or anyone else with my glacial pace. Besides, it was “only for four days.”

Gradually, I joined conversations with the guys on the other side of my bed from Ted.  There was this really funny Black guy, whose name I cannot remember, who got all excited when he discovered that I was A Producer. From then on, we maintained a conversation about this idea of his to do porno films based on fairy tales. He actually acted out all the parts for “Little Black Riding Hood;” such that it is hard to say if he were a better wolf or Ridin’ Hood.

♦◊♦

It was like a small world apart, for those of us sitting on the upper bunks, all day. Looks and comments were exchanged all across the room, upper-bunk to upper-bunk. Directly across from me was a deaf drag queen who took a liking to me. He/she had a boyfriend “upstairs,” but was down here for a week or so for some reason or other. The guys in the area noticed that I had become an object of interest (unimaginable, given my decrepit physical condition, unshaven and unshowered: uncomfortable, given that I didn’t see jail as the place to take a stand on Gay Rights), and kept ribbing me about fucking him.

Ha. Ha.

♦◊♦

Saturday afternoon, a Latino kid (who could not have been more than 20 or 22) had been brought-in with a broken leg.  Apparently, he had been caught robbing a convenience store or something and was jailed to await a hearing on Monday. They wouldn’t let him see a Doctor until the Doctor showed-up on Monday, and the kid was on a mattress on the floor by the door. The kid had a broken leg, fer chrissake! This was unbelievable to me.

Sunday morning, as we were being herded to breakfast, I found myself behind this poor creature as he hopped forward three or four times on one foot, then would lean, panting, against the wall before repeating this process as he made his way toward the dining hall.  (“Dining?” “Hall!?”  Whatever.)

I couldn’t stand it. Here was this guy with a broken leg. No drugs, no crutches, no medical treatment, whatsoever; literally hobbling down the hall and being completely ignored by these big, hulking’ bruisers who dwarfed their own bogus prostheses. I came up to him and asked if he wanted to use my shoulder as support. Jesus, the look of relief in his eyes brings tears to mine, still.

I put my arm around his waist as he put his on my shoulder and, two good legs and one crutch between us, we got to the meal. We repeated this process throughout the day Sunday and Monday. When we got back to the ward, I split my Tylenol with him, since he was in so much pain that it was difficult for him to stand in line for the meager drug.

♦◊♦

I spoke, by telephone, to a friend of mine in San Francisco, that afternoon; who let me know that my close friend, John, was laughing it up in The Midnight Sun bar that afternoon with stories of how (and who) I was probably doing, in jail. “Maybe he’ll find a boyfriend,” is the comment, which remains foremost in my mind.

Then, things really began to get serious. Apparently, there was some sort of snitch in the room. They got him on Sunday night. Long after Lights Out, we were awakened by muffled shouts from the bed next to the door. In the complete blackness, I could hear frantic scuffling sounds as two or more guys grabbed this man from his bed and shuttled him down the aisle next to my own bunk toward the bathrooms. Anyone who wasn’t awakened by this was definitely roused by what came next; as the man was thrown against the walls in the bathroom so solidly and so many times that the cinder block walls behind my head shook with the force of impact.

When they finished beating-up this man for whatever he had done, someone opened the door and spoke to the guard sitting there (and who was always sitting there) to let him know that someone in the bathroom was in trouble. The lights came on; two men entered with a stretcher and carried the broken, bleeding mass out of the room.

I was beginning to really look forward to my departure. All the next day, Monday, there were conversations about some sort of “rumble” that was going to take place that night.  Conversations were quieter, and it seemed there were more razor blade haircuts taking place.

At about 7:00 am I went to the guard at the front door. This is the guy who would call-out the guys being released each day; reading the names from a list on his clipboard.  I told him that I was slated for release today, and did he know what time that might take place. (Please, Sir, may I have some more gruel?)

“I don’t have your name here…” he said.  “You’re not leaving today.”

I called Rob and caught him as he was leaving his house for some work in Ventura.  “Rob,” I said, “they have no record or notice that I am supposed to be released today!”

“Well, I don’t know what I can do about it,” he replied.

I was dumbstruck. This is the guy who asked me to hire him outside the context of the Center Services department and pay him outside the system. Up to that moment, I actually thought he had my best interests at heart and was committed to helping me as best he could. At that moment I realized why I had the book thrown at me; this slime-ball had seen me — his most recent sucker — coming a mile away. He had taken my money, did little for me, and was planning on continuing to do absolutely nothing.

“What you can do, Rob,” I said rather tersely, “is contact whomever you made this “deal” with and see that the agreement is kept.  Isn’t that what I am paying for?”

“Okay, sure,” he said hurriedly, and hung up.

♦◊♦

More rumors of tonight’s blood bath circulated. Ted left the room and returned to tell me that they were going to move the White Guys out of the place that afternoon, due to what was likely to take place that night. Gee, I couldn’t have felt safer.

I watched the guy come in who had been using what resembled my missing crutch over the previous two days.  I continued to watch him as he walked down the aisle in front of my bunk and turned into the opening between Ted’s bunk and mine.  This was amazing; he was walking toward my remaining crutch as he looked right at me!

Finally realizing what he was about, I grabbed my crutch and looked him in the eye.  “This is mine!”  (Fuck You!)  He just looked at me, turned and walked away.

♦◊♦

The day before, a very quiet black guy who seemed pretty nice had moved into the bunk below me. I think his name was Lenny. We had talked a little, and he seemed pretty cool.

Monday afternoon, I was talking to Lenny and he mentioned the pending “evacuation” of the White Guys. I said, “Yeah, I wonder what’s up,” or something equally pithy. He looked at me and said, simply, “You’re scared.”

I looked back at him for a moment and said nothing. “Does it show?”

“Yep,” he quietly replied. “You’re scared.”

“Yep,” I said.

A while after dinner that night, the guards came in and called our names. The White Guys. We left.

They took us far from the Guard Desk and into an older section of the jail. As we passed various cellblocks, one-by-one, the other guys were taken away until it was just me and Ted and a guard, standing at the end of a grungy, dimly lit hallway. We turned, and faced a sliding-bar door. The door slid aside, and behind it stretched an even gloomier, lower-ceilinged hallway. On the right was a solid wall of rough, unpainted cinder blocks and on the left was a series of old fashioned prison cells such as one might see in Alcatraz.

The atmosphere was pretty casual back here, for a jail. There was a school-type chair in the hallway that supported an old color television that could be seen from two of the cells. Two cells in, I was stopped and the door slid open to my new lodgings. Stepping in, I could see that the wall between each pair of cells was torn-out, making two into one.  Each had it’s own toilet and shower. Not interested.

I was greeted (not effusively, but warmly enough) by the guys in the front bunks and introduced around. There were eight bunks (16 beds) on my side of the cell-pair, and another six on the other. My bed was upper bunk in the very back above a solidly massive Black guy named Tito who was definitely “the boss” in this quadrant.

Great.

Another first impression to make. Don’t be too weak. Don’t be too strong. Not too aggressive. NOT TOO PASSIVE! (Jeez, Tito was big!) Everyone was quiet and friendly enough. The nearest I could figure, the kid at the front of the cell was Tito’s “babe.” I don’t know the extent of his duties.

Finally, I climbed aboard my bunk and lay down, on my back, awaiting Lights Out. I tried not to move, because my bed squeaked with practically every breath, and I didn’t want to piss-off Tito. My imagination reeled at what it might take to reconcile were I to transgress. No, thank you.

Lights Out.

I lay there after darkness enveloped us, listening to the quiet sounds of a radio playing further back in the cellblock and the shuffling and snuffling of the men incarcerated mere feet from me. There were Breaking and Entering’s, Armed Robberies, Grand Theft Autos and who knows what else. That’s simply all I had learned in the moments before Official Quiet.

I lay there, thinking about the eighteen months that had passed since I had left San Francisco and come to Los Angeles to make my name and fortune in Hollywood.  Hollywood. That shifting, steaming, bubbling bog of evil and spite that is masked by a thin layer of sand, palm trees, tight skin and tight asses. When I left San Francisco, I left with a good reputation. I was well-known and well-liked and had been doing good deeds and setting production standards for nearly a decade.

In that mere 18 months, I had spent all my money and emotional cache, had made no friends and lost touch with most of my old ones, had had some of the most demeaning and degrading jobs and worked for some of the least worthwhile people to use up our natural resources that ever existed. Here I was on the eve of my 40th birthday, in L.A. County Jail wondering if I was going to be released before Tito decided he wanted to fuck my White Butt.

The thing is, I thought; this may surprise some of my friends, but it will shock none of them. To those who know me, they’ll probably just tack it onto all the other “unique” experiences they can depend on Kile to have while they lead “normal” lives, buying houses and cars and having lovers, wives, husbands and children.

I started to silently chuckle. Silently, that is, until the bed started to creak. Omigod, I thought; Tito’s gonna think I’m jerking-off!  That was even funnier! The future looked grim as I heard over the loudspeaker,

“Ozier, Prisoner number [something or other], stand for out processing immediately!”

Intelligently, I said “What?”

Again, the loudspeaker ordered me to get out of bed, as I was going to leave this place.  I got up and moved toward the sliding bars and heard Ted call from the end of the hallway, “‘Bye, Kile. Congratulations!  I’ll give you a call when I get out.”

“Great, Ted.  ‘Bye!” I never thought I would have a conversation like that in a place like that!

The door slid aside and I stepped into the hallway. The door clanged back into place and I was told to walk toward the open end of the hallway and the next sliding-bar door. As it clanged back into place, I saw a clock through another glass-paneled door across the hall, “11:55.” Well, I guess I’m getting out on the 4th, after all. Just twelve hours late.

♦◊♦

In the next seven hours, I did three things along with about two hundred other inmates being released.  First, they herded us all into a big area where we were given our civilian clothes (that had been laundered within an inch of their life; no lice there!) in order to change back into them. We did this, en masse. Actually, we did this all together in a big room; I don’t think “en masse” really applies to this situation.

After changing, they put us into 6-man cells in groups of 25. There was room for about half of us to sit, and the rest to stand or lean for a few hours while we waited. They wanted to be sure we didn’t forget we were prisoners and the scum of the earth too early.

After a time, we were herded down several hallways and into a final, long hallway with one of those metal benches along one side and told to wait, again. After about an hour, the noise level began to rise and guys began to talk amongst themselves. Suddenly a couple of those studjockofficers barged-in and said if we didn’t shut up, they would cancel the out processing until tomorrow or later. A Real Threat?  Who knows?  Who wants to find out if they can do that? Not me.

After about an Ice Age, the doors at the end of the hall opened and we were herded into another room in groups of 50. They would call our names and lead us in, one-by-one.  Once inside, we were seated on wooden benches, theatre-style, in the order we had been called. In here, we were to give another set of fingerprints and they better match, buddy! They all matched.

The last step was for us to file-into a passageway between two remote-locking doors, in the style of an air-lock. This was a sort of “Security-Lock,” about the size to comfortably hold four men.

In groups of ten, we were crammed-into this space. “No talking!  One word, and we forget this whole thing, assholes!”  Charming.  If one were claustrophobic, this could be terminal. They would keep each group in that space for about three minutes. It was actually difficult to breathe; though breathing was about all we did. The door at the other end opened, and we got into queues to collect our personal stuff.

Vicodin!

I could see by the clock in the storage room on the other side of the glass that it was 7:00 am. I had walked out of my cell at almost midnight and it had only taken seven hours to change clothes, give my fingerprints and pick up my watch and paraphernalia.

As the other men and I left the building and started to breathe unprocessed air for the first time on this planet, I listened to them talking to one another. “Where’s the bus stop?” “Do you know where the bus stop is?” “Is it over there?” “Is that the bus stop?”  “Yep that’s it! That’s the bus stop!” “You got money for the bus?”

Bus Stop?! I walked to the curb.

“Taxi!”

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—Photo erokCom/Flickr