Size Matters: Frog Gravy 61

Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account in Kentucky, during 2008 and 2009, in jails and in prison, that is reconstructed from my notes.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language and descriptions.

Worry not; I got the proper permission before I wrote this over-the-top, hella fuckin’ balls-to-the-wall post.

We figured what the heck, everyone knows everything else about our private life anyway…

The Gift That Keeps On Giving, McCracken County Jail, Paducah, KY, shortly before my transfer to Ricky’s World, Winter, 2008

As you can see from this reply letter that I received from the State of Kentucky, McCracken County Jail is classified as a ‘Class D’ facility, which means that Class D nonviolent, final-sentenced State inmates qualify to serve their entire sentences in such a facility.

The jail receives money for housing Class D nonviolent offenders. There are supposed to be programs, such as work, education and treatment, but in reality, when I was there, I had no work. I even got kicked out of drug class for writing letters to everyone I could think of in Frankfort, Washington DC, and other places complaining about jail conditions and the warehousing of Class D female offenders. Ironically, Frog Gravy would not exist, had I had a job. But since I didn’t, and the men did, I had a glorious opportunity to get a good look at the occasional penis that wandered by the window to the hallway, belonging to a Class D working male who happened to be pushing a broom or a mop.

One such male, let’s call him Greg, had sort of a crush on me, and so one day he wanted to show me his wares. He paused his mopping for a moment at the hallway window, garnered my attention, glanced at the cameras, and then yanked down his orange jailhouse khaki pants a little ways to reveal a very nice, circumcised erection.

By the way, those hallway cameras do not show the sides of the hallway. Or the floor next to the cell doors. In fact, I wonder what they actually do show and who watches them, because we got to see quite a few penises off camera. The guy in the broom closet down the hall, for example, who had a crush on Christie, and who was also a talented author, penned the following description for Christie and swept the note with the description under our door, off camera, in case she missed the view. It said:

Make a fist with your left hand. Okay, now make a fist with your right hand. Place your right fist on top of your left fist. Now, extend your right thumb straight up into the air. That’s how long it is. And the fists? That’s how thick it is…

“Nice,” I said, when she showed me the note. “Corn fed and nuclear-plant bred.”

So anyway, Greg is at the window showing off his erection and I say, “Hey Christie, check this out.”

“Nah, he’s got the crush on you, not me,” she says.

“Okay, but check it out. This guy isn’t even in the ballpark with my husband. Limp, even. Not even close. Thickness. That too. Look him up on Google Earth when you get home.”

So now, we are both looking and smiling but Greg does not know why we are smiling; he is just glad that we are.

On the subject of cameras, next time you visit WalMart, count the cameras. WalMart has more cameras than a prison. I swear to God. Probably not as many erect penises, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch. If I had a ranch.

So I got kicked out of drug class in jail. Can you even imagine such a thing? But it’s true. For writing letters. I was told that no one cares, and no one reads the letters, and I was kicked out of jail drug class. But it turns out they did read the letters, because one day, a woman visited from Frankfort to speak to us in our cell about jail conditions. I will not print her words, but she was serious. Maybe it was the pregnancy disaster letter. I am not sure.

Because of my letters, my days in McCracken were numbered. One day, a woman from the judge’s office arrived with some paperwork. She handed me the papers as if she were handing something to a coiled rattlesnake. She smelled like cigarettes. She said, “I am giving these papers to you because you do not have a lawyer anymore and you are going to be going to Fulton County.”

Apparently, the judge had taken away my legal representation. It was just as well because my lawyer, Chris McNeill, was about as useless as a screen door on a submarine, but still.

The woman says, “I spoke to your husband.”

“Well good!” I say. “He’s nicer than me. When is the brief due?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do,” I say.

You may be wondering what sort of letters would cause people to do such things with an inmate?

Well, here is an example. This one is to Professor Robert G Lawson at the University of Kentucky College of Law. Governor Beshear and others received the same or similar letters. Blockquoted due to dead camera batteries; I will take a photo when I can.

April 26, 2008

Robert G Lawson, Professor
U of KY College of Law
Rm 251
620 S. Limestone
Lexington, KY 42003

Dear Professor Lawson:

I have written before, regarding inhumane conditions in jails and regarding corruption in courts.

While we had a very nice chat with Tracey Montardier (Frankfort), nothing has changed. Only 5 women are working in this Class D designated facility. Only FIVE. Only in laundry. No women work outdoor jobs. “Understaffing” is the excuse. Class D women are nothing more than warehoused revenue units. We rarely leave our grave-like cement cell.

Had I killed someone, or committed a violent crime, I would have all the privileges of penitentiary state inmates. But, because I am nonviolent and because I am female, I am punished harder than violent inmates with greater likelihood of reoffending.

All I want is to work and/or attend classes, and maybe go to the outside cage for recreation once in a while.

McCracken County Jail should not be receiving Class D funds from the state for any more than 5 or 6 women. They should not receive revenue for any more. This is a men’s Class D facility. Anything else is fraudulent theft of state funds.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Sincerely, Rachel A. Leatherman

One good thing did happen.

Pregnant inmates in Kentucky are no longer housed in county jails. They are housed in ‘G Dorm’ at KCIW PeWee Valley women’sprison, and this is a very good change, for women and for unborn babies.

You Can Keep Your Bugs: Frog Gravy 37

Rose, heart balloons and crane by Crane-Station on flickr. The drawing is ink, magazine ink and colored pencil, and was done in Fulton County Jail (Ricky’s World) because McCracken County jail banned art supplies. The crane was folded at home.

Frog Gravy is a nonfiction incarceration account in Kentucky, during 2008 and 2009, in jails and in prison and is reconstructed from my notes.

Inmate names are changed, except for nicknames.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

Frog Gravy posts are gathered at froggravy.wordpress.com.

McCracken County Jail, Cell 107, early March, 2008

In the morning I do not want to wake up, because I still dream in freedom. I ask Leese how long it will be before I dream in captivity. Leese, who is on her bunk writing a poem, looks up from her writing and replies, “About seven months or so.”

Since we are only allowed religious materials to study, I study scripture each morning, and complete some bible studies. I have two bibles: a Catholic Serendipity bible with discussion questions that my family sent to me, and an NIV New Testament that I checked out from the small library. The Catholic bible almost did not make it to me, but when my family threatened to call the governor, the bible made its way to Cell 107.

I do some standing-in-place exercises. I write. I fold and refold my towels. I wash my underwear. I refold my towels again. I rearrange books. I count pieces of paper. I re-hang cards and cranes and pictures of my son with toothpaste. I climb onto the steel toilet and peer through the slit that is scratched in the ghosted-out window to the outside world. I look at the dumpsters.

Down the hall, Harry shouts from his isolation cell, HELP!! Let me out !! HelpmehelpmehelpmeHELP!”

Since January, we have been to the outside cage for recreation two times.

The day drags into evening, punctuated by meal tray arrival. Meal tray arrival becomes the focus of our lives, and someone always stands at the steel door and peers down the hall to watch for the meal cart. When the cart turns the corner in the hall so that it is visible, the watchman alerts the others with a cheery, “Trays!”

Class D men, accompanied by a guard, deliver the trays through a slot in the steel door. For breakfast we had cereal, toast, eggs, milk and one tater tot. We ate the food with an orange, plastic “spork,” a utensil that is a hybrid of a spoon and a fork. For lunch we had a hamburger patty, one slice of white bread, beans, spinach and pudding. For dinner we ate a chicken patty, black-eyed peas, carrots, bread and cake. We sound like locusts when we eat. We smack, belch, and fart. There are always spats that begin with “Are you going to eat that?” Everyone hoards. We are animals at a trough.

The cell is constantly cold, and with each passing day, I have more difficulty with my vision. I think the fluorescent lighting is damaging my eyes. The screaming and wall pounding in the jail never stops.

At 2 AM, the steel door opens and three guards enter our cell. Hands are on my shoulders and I am roughly led to the shower stall and told to remove my clothing. “SQUAT!” says the guard in a loud tone. I squat. “COUGH! she shouts” I cough. “Again! HARDER!” I cough again, harder.

After we are all stripped and after we all squat and cough in the shower stall, we dress ourselves and are placed in the hallway to wait. The guards tear the cell apart looking for tobacco and contraband. There is no tobacco and there is no contraband in the cell. The guards take down all of our family photographs and throw them onto the floor. They tear down my cranes. They scatter papers and books and letters and cards all over the floor. They upend bins with our belongings. They confiscate cups.

As they are leaving, one of the guards says to me, “You can keep your bugs. You just can’t hang them.”

“They are peace cranes,” I say. “They are birds.”

He leaves, taking a crane for himself.

We return to the cell and pick up the pieces of what we have collected and displayed to remind ourselves that maybe we belong in families somewhere. I pick up my cards with the turtle and the wolf and the birds. My cranes are crushed and torn. Ruthie picks up the only photograph of her mother, who just passed away. She cries. Leese retrieves her poem. Its four pages are scattered.

After this night in the jail, aside from one other time in prison, when I teach another inmate how to fold an origami crane, I will not fold another crane until after my release.

The next day, the same hellish routine begins. I am seated at the steel table with notes, studying scripture from two bibles.

Sally, the guard, comes by the cell and says to me, “You cain’t have nuthin’ but one bible in here.”

“Why, because you have too many books to search through when you’re looking for tobacco at two in the morning?”

“You guys is lazy. You just sit up in here like the Queen of Sheeba, havin’ everybody waitin’ on you.”

“And exactly what else are we to do?” I ask. “We have nothing. I mean nothing. You tell us we can’t have anything but religious materials, then you try to take them away. Clergy can’t even visit anymore.”

“You don’t need nuthin’ but one bible to do bible studies.”

“I study different versions.”

“Are you Catholic?”

“Oh, here we go. I happen to be studying Catholicism.”

“You cain’t study nuthin’ from two different bibles! One’s Baptist and the other one’s Catholic.”

“So?”

“Well them’s two different religions. You cain’t do that.”

“Same textbooks, except the apocrypha.”

“You cain’t study Baptist and Catholic at the same time! I was gonna be a Mormon one time, till I done read that Mormon bible. They be marryin’ all them wives and everything. I cain’t do that. I done decided I couldn’t be no Mormon.”

“Mormons don’t do that anymore. It’s against the law.”

“You cain’t study two religions.”

“I like to learn. I love to study. I’d take classes, but the jail won’t let us. This is all we have in here, Sally. First, it’s books they take away. Then, it’s classes and 12-step meetings. Then medication, and health and dental care. Then, outside recreation. And then it’s toilet paper. We have to jump in the shower after we use the toilet!”

“They’re gonna start charging you if y’all make any more hair rollers out of toilet paper.”

“Fine. Put the toilet paper on commissary then. Did you know that we get two individual paper towel squares to clean the whole cell? And then, when we use a pad, they put us all on pad watch.”

“We’re spendin’ too much money on y’all.”

“The woman next door is on pad watch, Sally. She just had an emergency c-section. She nearly died in here. Her placenta was 75% abrupt, and the baby was breach. His foot was through her cervix, and you guys walked her out of here in shackles after making her wait for an hour while she nearly bled to death! And here’s the kicker: She is on Pad Watch.” They flew her two-pound, three-month premature baby to another state, Sally, and she gets three pads a day, including the pus pad for her incision. Where is the Queen of Sheba in that?”

Sally says, “Don’t get smart with me. I don’t make the decisions.”

Actually, Sally is correct. She never did make the decisions, and, aside from this encounter that was frustrating for both of us, I found Sally to be kind-hearted. I also observed that Sally’s job was nearly killing her. I think she wanted for things to be better for the inmates.

By inches and seconds, the jail ruins inmates and guards alike.

Intermission With Clowns: Conversation In The Cell: Frog Gravy 16

Author’s note: Frog Gravy is a depiction of daily life during incarceration in Kentucky, first in jails and then in prison, in 2008 and 2009, and is reconstructed from my notes.

Names have been changed, except for nicknames that do not reveal identity.

This post is from jail.

Frog Gravy contains graphic language.

McCracken County Jail, Cell 107, February 2008

I am seated at the steel table, tearing the back blank pages out of various novels, and folding the pages into origami cranes. The novels are from the jail ‘library.’ The titles are: Killing Kelly, The Kill Zone, Renegade, Hand Picked Husband, Cold Night Warm Stranger and Love’s Stolen Promises.

Ruthie is seated next to me, watching. She wants to learn how to fold cranes. I have asked her to watch me fold a few first, and then I will teach her.

The current crane is from Hand Picked Husband.

Leese is on her bunk, writing a poem. Sirkka is on Terry’s bunk, rubbing Terry’s back. The television is on, airing The Price Is Right.

Down the hall in his isolation cell, Harry yells “HELP! Let me out! Helpmehelpmehelpme HELP!”

Christie is on her bunk, talking:

“Last time I was in the hole, I was next door to Trip, and I mean we talked all night. I am not lyin,’ he was hung just like a mule, and he’d get down onto the floor underneath the door like this…” (She demonstrates), “and stick his thing under the door and say, “Can you see it now?!””

“He was hung,” agrees Tina, “Especially for a white boy.”

Christie continues: “And he said if I send you a piece of paper will you wipe your coochie on it and send it back to me? And at first I wasn’t gonna do it, but he’d say, “Chicken, you chicken,” so then I did it.”

“And?” I ask.

“And there was all this pantin’ and everything, and then it was quiet.”

“Trip was a trip,” says Tina. “He used to jerk off at the window to the hallway when we were walking by his cell on our way to church service.”

“Didn’t he get kicked out of church for that?” asks Sirkka.

“Yeah,” says Tina. “And there’d be all this jizz on the windows…”

“That’s not as bad as Jennifer up on the table naked with a shampoo bottle up her cooch when the men walked by,” I say.

A male Class D, Walter, who has a crush on Christie, walks by the hallway window with a broom and signals Christie that he has a note for her, but he will wait until the guard passes.

The guard, Sally, opens the door flap to our cell, hands in a roll of toilet paper, and says, “You bitches is lazy.”

Sally closes the flap and leaves.

“Isn’t she going to retire soon?” I ask.

“She’s always been like that,” says Christie.

Walter comes back, and sweeps a note for Christie under the door with the broom.

Walter wants the other Class D who works the hallway with him fired, so Walter can have the whole hallway to himself. He has cooked up a scheme. He wants us to put a note out to the guards.

Walter has taken the time to compose the note for us. It reads:

“That man on Class D, second shift, askd us to suck his big black dick. We is white women and we are not enterested.”

Tina says, “I don’t want to write a note out on Cecil.”

“Neither do I,” I say. “He never hurt any of us.”

Terry says, “Yeah. He never hurt nobody.”

Suddenly Sirkka jumps up and runs across the room shouting, “OH! What the fuck was THAT?! You nasty bitch!!”

It seems that Terry has just farted.

Christie says, “She lifted her ass cheeks, just like a man.”

Tina says, “Something crawled up in there and died.”

“Put a cork in yer butt,” says Leese.

“I can’t poop. That’s the problem,” says Terry.

“Put some soap in your butt,” says Christie. “I used to do that with my daughter when she was constipated.”

“Yeah, it works,” says Tina.

I can’t believe it but Terry is headed to the toilet with soap in hand.

“Rachel, help me,” says Terry from the stall.

“Not with that, nope,” I say.

“Just put a little piece in, then pull it out,” says Christie.

“Does it burn?” asks Terry.

“Have you ever had a dick up your ass?” asks Leese.

“She didn’t just say that,” I say.

From the stall, Terry says, “I don’t believe you, Leese. Have you ever had a dick up your ass?”

“Hell, yeah. He done popped the head in and I kicked the motherfucker right off and ran to the shower, cryin.’ I cried when I shit. I don’t let no dick up my asshole.”

Tina says, “You can come with a dick up your ass.”

Terry (in the stall) says, “This burns like a dick up your ass.”

Christie says, “Put your leg up. Stick the bar further up your ass.”

Leese says, “Courtesy flush, courtesy flush!”

“What?”

“You drop ten turds…you flush eleven times. You’re gassin’ up the cell,” says Leese.

“Nice. We smell like goat herders at a vulture’s dinner,” I say.

Tina says, “These conversations we be havin.’ I ain’t never gonna be right when I git out.”

“You ain’t right now,” says Terry from the stall. “Ha! You may be right but you ain’t right now. Get it?”

“…said the woman with a bar of jail house soap up her ass,” I say.

Author’s end note: Frog Gravy posts are also located on Firedoglake.com under MyFDL