Bad Trip

I went a few days without drinking after the rec center incident. Only a few: Less than two weeks later I was again drunk, wandering around the rec center, totally out of my mind and out of control, carrying a baseball bat. The bat was hidden up the sleeve of my coat, the butt resting in my hand.

There were three or four other people with me, one being a girl who I was seeing and was crazy about. They were all trying to get me to ditch the bat but I would not listen.

I went into the rec center looking for the night manager. Luckily the police found me before I found him.

I met the police officers as I neared the top of the stairs, on my way back up from the basement. They told me I was under arrest. I asked them what I was being arrested for.

“For carrying a concealed weapon.” One officer replied, standing on the stairs above me, blocking my path.

“What weapon?” I asked, whipping the baseball bat out of my coat. They were on me before I could swing the bat, tackling me to the floor and cuffing my hands behind my back.

Again, I found myself in the back of a police car and in a blind rage. I kicked and screamed in the back of the car, driving both feet against the window again and again, finally with enough booze fueled force to smash out the window. Hands still behind my back, I tried to dive head first out through the shattered window, only to be grabbed by police offices and placed into another car.

There was no way I would be getting out this time, and the following morning while I tried to figure out what had happened and why I felt like I had been beaten with a bat myself, a psychiatrist was sent in to see me. He gave me the usual ‘slight personality disorder which is aggravated by the consumption of alcohol’ diagnosis and then put on paper that I wasn’t nuts and could stand trial. Silently I was wishing that maybe they would send me to the Waterford hospital for a while. It would likely be better than the pen, from what I had heard.

So while dealing with the standard feelings of self-loathing, deep depression, fear, anxiety, guilt, remorse, hopelessness and shame, the days in lockup turned into weeks and eventually I was sentenced and told I would be shipped back to Her Majesty’s Penitentiary.

Over time the hopelessness fades once you have been locked up for a while. I guess you start to accept your losses, including that of your freedom. If you cannot get to that point you will die. At least that was true for me. Once I had a little more experience with the in-and-out routine it got easier.

The cell time in the Labrador City Lockup was bad, and for many days I hung on by reminding myself that I would soon be back at the pen where I would be able to end it. Sounds insane perhaps, but this was not the only time when I gained some peace by looking forward to dying. Then after a while, after some acceptance and reason crept into my mind, I would become resigned to doing my time and getting out for one more shot.

For the first several days though, there was no light at the end of the tunnel, so I hung onto whatever I could. Even if it was plans for suicide.

Because I had already spent time in the adult system, raising me to adult court was done quickly without much fuss. I wanted it, the prosecution wanted it, and so it was. They could only raise me on the indictable offences though, so my sentence was to be split between adult jail and youth secure custody.

I was sentenced on 12 offences, receiving six months in jail and three months of secure custody to be served after the jail time was completed. Later they would realize that this was not a legal sentence under the new Youth Justice Act, and the secure custody should have been served first. I did not know this however and expected to go to the Whitbourne Boys Home after my jail time was up.

The good thing about finally going back to the pen was that I was getting out of lockup, where one of the guards had informed me that I now held a record: The longest straight time that anyone had spent there.

The only thing that had changed when I got back to the pen was some of the faces. As I walked through the main door butterflies raced wildly though my stomach and a wave of fear washed over me.

“Welcome home Veinotte!” One guard said as I entered the building. “That didn’t take long! What was it, six weeks?”

“Eight weeks.” I replied. “Did you miss me?” I sneered.

The guard I was speaking to was not one of my favorites and the pleased look on his face made me want to punch him in the mouth.
“Now – now. Don’t be a smart mouth. I know you like the hole but you don’t want to start off down there do you?”

“Fuck off.” I said, continuing down the hallway not waiting for directions. I knew my way. I knew I was asking for trouble and could have been taken to the hole or at least locked in my new cell for swearing at the guard, but I didn’t really care in the moment.

Once the formalities were over with and I had showered with the lice shampoo they make you use, I was whisked off to East Wing bottom, despite my silent, desperate hoping that I would go to Unit 2. The unit was preferable to the wings even if you did cook in the summertime. The wings were old, dirty and drafty with no privacy at all, unless you were lucky enough to have a cell at the far end of the row. Then people didn’t have to work so hard to avoid being in front of your cell.

I think I was back for two days before I got into an argument with a guard, one that I had butted heads with often during my first year in the pen. This time it was over something stupid that he asked me to do in an effort to piss me off. It worked. I refused.

“Then you are going to the hole.” He said with a smile on his face. I exploded, walking down the range towards him, shaking.

“Come on then!” I screamed back at him, “You put me there yourself you fucking goof!” Before I reached him, he turned and quickly left the range.

“Well guys, I guess I will see you in a couple of weeks.” I told the other inmates who were staring at me like I had lost my mind. “Hey Norm, does Shawn still work in the kitchen?” I asked.

“Yeah he gets out in a couple of months though, so keeps pretty quiet,” Norm replied.

“Ask him to send me something good to eat will ya?”

“I’ll tell him. Like I said though, he isn’t into much these days.”

“Just ask him for me.”

I sucked back two cigarettes in record time, knowing it would be my last ones in the while, and it was only a matter of a few minutes before the guard was back with half a dozen more with him. I decided to go the easy way, turning around and offering my hands to the cuffs behind my back. The only person talking much was the short ball of attitude who I had argued with. The rest of the guards were calm and we walked off towards segregation without incident.

“Wow Veinotte, that didn’t take long. You’ve only been here two days!” One guard said as I removed my clothes outside the tiny cell that I had been in many times before.

“Yeah, well, you know Scott. He was born a little prick and just got a little bigger.”

The guard chuckled a little at that. Scott however, didn’t appreciate it much. I took the opportunity to remind him what I thought of him as I stepped into the cell, feeling a little better seeing that he was still seething.

I got lucky – they placed me in cell number two, which had a concrete ‘bed’ and I was even brought a mattress. Royal treatment for segregation, especially since they also had given me back my underwear.

Once the guards were gone and I was alone in the tiny cell, my feelings changed quickly. Depression tapped on my shoulder, whispering to me, telling me how stupid I was. All the times I swore I would never be back in the hole, hell back in this jail for that matter – and yet here I was preparing for another night in the hole, counting silverfish. Yeah, I was fairly stupid.

Time again slowed to an unbelievable crawl, with nothing much happening other than a guard giving me a blanket on my first night. Silverfish were plentiful at night, as usual, and I counted over a hundred before I quit and laid down again.

Then came supper time on the third day.

I knew the inmate who handed me my meal by name (Ben we will say it was) and caught the look on his face when he passed me the food. He raised his eyebrow when he was certain the guard was not able to see his expression, and then shot his eyes down to the plate.

Shawn got my message. I was instantly excited.

I hoped that meant there were some pills mixed in my food. Valium would be good. Only once before had I ever been passed laced food while in the hole – a friend in the kitchen is a good friend to have, especially when they owe you one. Making such a thing happen was no easy task, and the pills could not be whole because the guards normally poked around in the food to be sure there was nothing being passed in. The had to be crushed finely and mixed in.

I mumbled ‘thanks’ as I took the food and stepped back. I don’t remember what the meal was, but I made sure that I ate every crumb on the plate, expecting to taste something bitter and feeling somewhat disappointed when I did not detect any such flavor. But I was sure of the look that Ben had given me. I was sure… there had to be something in the food even if I could not taste it.

I held onto the hope that I had a buzz on the way, despite the lack of any bad taste in the food. Even just a couple Valium tens would be enough to relax me and help me sleep. I should have been able to taste it though. I really should have tasted something.

As I paced back and forth the cell, waiting and hoping, I had just about given up. I had been wrong. No buzz for me.

I laid down on the concrete slab, staring at nothing, wondering how long I would be here. I had not yet been to disciplinary court, though I had thought I would have been before now. Three days that had felt like ten, and no idea how many more, but figured I was good for another week most likely.

I began to feel a tingling throughout my body. I stopped my pondering and focused on it, thinking it was all in my mind. Nothing more than wishful thinking. The tingling seemed to increase in intensity while I sat feeling it. Soon it was a mild humming that made my spine tickle pleasantly.

I stood and walked around the cell, three steps this way, three steps back, listening intently to my body. Yes, it was undeniable – something was happening here.

I looked out through the bars into the light and there was a faint but unmistakable halo around the overhead lights. The outside corridor was brighter than it should have been. Much brighter. I could hear a faint buzzing from one of the lights that I had never noticed before. Then it occurred to me what this was starting to feel like: Acid.

Just the thought of being on acid in this cell sent me into a panic. You did not do acid in jail. That was just not a good idea. To do it in a four by six cell was, well, insanity.

I stopped pacing and laid back down. My thoughts were racing so I got up and paced some more. The high (It has to be acid. Only acid feels like this. Well maybe mushrooms, but I would have found them in the food or tasted them for sure. Yeah it is acid. I am about to go on a trip in this dark little hole. Oh god this is not going to be good. If I had known I would never have eaten. How long is this going to last?) grew, filling me with its vibration, its force, and I walked faster, three steps, three steps, wishing there were more than three goddamn steps.

I thought that I had the mental capacity to handle an acid trip under any conditions, and tried to remind myself of that. It was, after all, purely in my head. It would pass. I would not go insane. This was not forever.

Sweat poured off me as I paced, and for brief moments I was able to just go with the buzz and enjoy myself. Those moments were very short though, paling in comparison to the paranoia and raw fear. Perhaps it was the stress that increased the effects of the drug, but everything around me strobed and moved and I thought I saw silverfish running sideways past my cell.

Sometime later I lay with my blanket over my head, trying to make it all stop, but when I closed my eyes I had the overwhelming feeling that the cell was closing in on me. The domed ceiling was coming down and the walls coming in from the sides. I fought the feeling, staying under the blankets, until I felt the hardness of the walls pressing against me, felt the pressure, the weight of them. I told myself it was not happening. It was all in my head. Nothing was really happening.

But the walls started to crush me, and I threw the blanket off and sat up on the concrete slab, trying (successfully I hoped) not to scream out loud. The walls snapped back where they belonged and I decided it would be best to keep my eyes open, maybe until breakfast.

I sat with my back against the wall, arms wrapped around my knees and tried to coax my mind back towards rationality. The closest I came was to forget the panic and fear for a while, drifting with my randomized thoughts.

The guards would come look in the cell occasionally, without speaking and I was thankful for that. I didn’t think I would be able to carry on a conversation without coming across as crazy.

Early in the morning I slept for a while, waking up when my breakfast arrived. I wasn’t hungry, but picked at the food thinking it would help me feel better. I was tired and strung out and determined to never experience another night like the one I had just endured. Now I fully understood what it was to ‘have a bad trip’.