Cell Life
It was a long walk, I was whistled at along the way.
I am issued a four centimeter matress and bedroll - sheets, a towel, toothbrush, soap, a plastic razor.
My final resting place: a cell for 28, nothing but steel and concrete. A narrow steel picnic table runs the length of the room, flanked by 14 bunkbeds. At the end away from the door, steel showers, and an ingenious toilet/sink unit leaves you staring in the shithole while you're getting a drink of water. |
an ingenious toilet/sink unit leaves you staring in the shithole while you're getting a drink of water. |
Above these, and to the left, the crowd control unit - TV, suspended overhead, reachable from a chair. The Price is Right, brownie mix and soap scum remover commercials are even more unnerving in jail.Obviously not for the hardened of hardened; the windows are plexiglass. Taped to the rear windows were the rules - no tobacco, no tattoo kits. No holding hands, hugs, touching, or other inmate intimacy.
Books are available, individually upon request, on Mondays and Wednesdays. Magazines and newspapers, provided by the church on a wheeled cart on Tuesdays.
Otherwise, it's cards, dominoes, chess, and Seasame Street.
Fortunately, I was housed with other protestors. The mood in the room was upbeat almost, friendly, cause united. Rumours abound, since there was no official word. We will be let out this afternoon. We will stew until Friday. There are protestors outside the jail. The charges are being dropped.
Every few hours, the news would come on, and we could see ourselves - jailed rioters that we were, alloted almost two minutes for our unjust languishing.
Non protest inmates doing work for the jail would come buy and rap with us a bit, they were always asking if we had weed.
There were four payphones on a column near the door, manned by at least one dude at all times. Representatives from Food not Bombs and other organizations came by with news and phone numbers for us to call to further our releases.
I thought I spied a familiar face... |
Sitting at the picnic bench, I thought I spied a familiar face - scruffy, scrawny, tall dirty blond dude rising from a bunk. Al Decker? He blinked, blinked again. "Oh my God. Justin Hall. I don't believe it." |
Al Decker is a friend of my brother, they've known each other since they were four. I met Al when I was a wee one, when I was a teenager, we talked about writing, computers, films, he turned me on to Hunter S. Thompson.He was a determined cynic, publishing all manner of bitter tracts during his stints on college newspapers. No school could hold him for more than a year, he bumped around until he finally ended up in Canada. I hadn't seen him since I'd visited him at St. John's College in New Mexico in 1993, but I'd heard tell of his adventures.
Al's been involved with activist environmental groups, interceeding at the point of contact between hunters and prey - whales, wolves, bears, and trees.
In San Francisco, he's been working for Food not Bombs. He was in jail, in this same cell, last week for three days. He was arrested carrying a bucket of soup down the street, spent three days in the lockup before they let him go without charges. A convenient way to hassle somebody, when there is little legal basis to do so. |
He was arrested carrying a bucket of soup down the street, spent three days in the lockup before they let him go without charges. |
He is quite an avid chessman. He beat me at both games."Justin. JUSTIN HALL!"
My stepbrother George, jr had put my bail on his MasterCard.
justin's links by justin hall: contact