East Wing Bottom
I had left home in March of 1984. I turned fifteen in Pleasantville Detention Center. I turned sixteen in Her Majesty’s Penitentiary. I was determined to spend my seventeenth birthday on the street.
I spent the last few weeks of my sentence on East Wing Bottom, and oddly enough, was on a range with Mike from my detention center days. I had beaten him to the pen but he didn’t take long to catch up. He spent his time working out in the gym when possible, and on the range using buckets of water in garbage bags when it wasn’t. The last time I saw him the guy looked just like the Ultimate Warrior from the WWF. Except for the ‘666’ tattoo high up on his forehead. I don’t think the Warrior had that.
Short time is the worst time. Time takes on weight as you get close to your release date. Time in the hole is harder, especially when you start to slip and your mind starts to crack. But short time is hard in its own slow way and there is not an inmate alive who will tell you it is easy.
My last few weeks were pretty peaceful. Mike and I quite often had some hash to smoke at night, and outside of a couple days in the hole, I didn’t get into much trouble. We had a couple of real characters on our range who kept us smiling. One was a guy who had earned himself the nickname ‘Johnny Glue-Bag’ due to his fondness of glue sniffing on the street. Johnny was extremely quiet and spent his winters in the pen, usually getting a sentence that would see him being released about the same time as the cold weather ended in the spring or early summer. If I remember correctly tough, this time he had scored a duce less – two years less one day. The ‘less one day’ made it a provincial sentence.
The effect of hard core drug use was easy to see with Johnny. He would laugh at nothing once in a while, just little bursts of laughter that he would try to stifle. When asked what was so funny he would reply “Oh nothing” with a smile on his face, blinking his eyes as he spoke. I often wondering what the scenery was like inside Jonny’s head. I imagined it was entertaining. We would give him a little hash and sit back and watch as he tried to take the unrelenting grin off of his face. It was funny.
East Wing Bottom, Gym side, was a very relaxed range at that time.
Johnny was the garbage man. He went around the jail and picked up all the trash. This gave him access to the whole jail during times when nearly all the other inmates were confined to their various units, and because you would never suspect him of being up to no good, or perhaps to even have the mental capacity to be up to no good, he was a great way to get information or other things passed around the jail. His quiet, head down movements through the jail were noticed no more than background noise. If Jonny asked for you when he did his garbage run though, you could be sure he had something to pass to you. With verbal messages he was a little less dependable, so notes (kites) was the usual method.
If you were passing pills or hash to someone on another unit, you knew it was all going to end up at its destination. Johnny, as burned out as he was, was solid.
“What the fuck is burning?” Mike asked, looking around the range.
“It’s me.” Jonny replied from his cell.
“What’s ya doing Johnny?” Mike asked him. We were watching TV and could now see smoke coming from Jonny’s cell.
Johnny appeared in his doorway, something faintly resembling a large cigarette smoldering in his hand. The stench by now was unbearable.
“Ran out of tobacco.” Johnny said, puffing on the ‘smoke’ and putting his lighter to the end of it. The end burst into flames for an instant, and began smoldering, thick smoke wafting up from it.
“You’re smoking feathers?” Mike asked incredulously.
“Yeah. From my pillow,” Johnny replied, taking a break to cough for a while before hitting the ‘cigarette’ again.
“Holy fuck man, I’ll give you a smoke! Put that out and open the windows before the smoke alarms start screaming!”
That was Johnny. He knew he had pushed his limits recently bumming cigarettes so he wouldn’t ask. To him smoking feathers made sense.
Johnny was funny, burnt to a crisp and totally trustworthy. We didn’t mind when he mumbled to himself or laughed for no reason, and when we were high he was more entertaining than the couple of TV stations we had, that’s for sure.
Then there was Leo. Rumor had it that he was once a teacher but had done too much acid, but I never did find out if that was the truth. All I know is he was mentally twisted and it was very likely due to drug use. He was a little less likable than Johnny, his strangeness being more on the weird side.
“Got any food guys?” Leo asked one night as we were sitting back staring at the television. Mike and I had just smoked a little hash and were just chilling, neither of us talking very much. I was dreaming about all of the things I was going to do when I got out in a few days, as happy as I could be considering the surroundings.
We both said no, we didn’t have any food. We had already killed the loaf of bread between the two of us just after we smoked the hash.
“Damn am I ever fucking hungry. I have to get something.” Leo grumbled.
I went back to staring at the television. I barely noticed when Leo walked by me a few minutes later, carrying the very full garbage bag with him. I was too busy daydreaming, drifting on my buzz, to really notice. That is until Mike spoke up. “Leo what the fuck man!”
I turned to look at Leo. He was sitting on a chair, the garbage bag on the floor between his legs, while he chewed on chicken bones, his face covered in grease and something dark. I started to laugh.
“I don’t care. I am hungry and there is still chicken left on these fuckin’ bones!” Leo said, looking at us like a little kid who has been told he can’t have the candy he is eating. I tried to stop laughing, but I was quickly reaching hysteria – bent over on my chair, tears streaming out of my eyes.
“I dumped the ashtrays in that after supper Leo!” Mike exclaimed.
That was it – I knew what the dark smears were on Leo’s face.
“I’m gonna piss myself!” I choked, staggering to my feet. I was laughing so hard my sides were hurting and I couldn’t straighten up. I looked at Leo – still eating chicken that we had eaten for supper, a look of childish defiance on his face.
I almost never made it to my cell and when I did I was still laughing like I’d lost my mind, horrible noises escaping my mouth as I tried to breath.
Yeah, we had a good crew on that wing. It was a good way to finish my sentence.
During my last couple of days I was a nervous wreck. I paced and smoked and chewed pills. Mike usually had a little piece of hash each night and would share with me. It helped. The worst was during the day when the weight of time pressed down with a painful force. I didn’t have a lot of pills at my disposal anymore, and tried to save what I could for the evenings.
I had no doubt that I would never be back to this hell-hole again. Absolutely no doubt. I also had no idea exactly what I was going to do when I went home. I was only sixteen so finding a job was very unlikely. I was not allowed back in school. So when I allowed myself to stop and think about things realistically, I became a little worried. What exactly would I do? What options where there for me back in Labrador?
Of course I didn’t think about it for long.
I loved to hear the sound of the gate closing after supper. That signaled the end of the day. During some time periods inside, when my stress level was high, I loved lockup time. When I was locked in my cell alone I was safe. The worries were over for one more day. On East Wing Bottom though, my stress level had been at an all-time low.
On my last day I received a few presents, mostly pills. I had planned to go to bed early as I would be getting up at around four the next morning, but I got trashed and ended up going to ‘lay down for a minute’ just a couple of hours after supper. Someone woke me up at medication time so I could get my sleeping pills and then it was lights out again until a guard woke me in the dark hours of early morning.
“Get up Veinotte. Time to go.”
I sat up on my bunk, groggy and badly strung out. It took great effort not to lay back down. I stood, staggered on my feet and made my way to the sink. After the fourth or fifth splash of cold water hit my face I began to come around. I wished I had not gotten so wasted. I should not have taken so many pills when I knew I had to get up this early. If only I could think!
By the time I was dressed and ready to go I was still in a fog that I knew was going to take some time to clear. Matt spoke to me quietly from the cell next to mine, wishing me luck and telling me to stay out. Matt was good people and I realized suddenly that I was going to miss these guys. Mike and Matt especially. We had some good times living together in this little narrow hallway. Good times by jail standards anyway. Hell, good times period.
Wow, I thought: I am actually going to miss this place a little.
“Remember man, don’t look back.” Matt said.
“Not a chance, man. Not a chance.” The saying was when you were leaving jail if you looked back, you would be back. I intended to stare straight ahead.
I was not coming back.
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REALLY love reading about your experiences in jail. I am wondering now if you ever did go back.. hope you continue writing soon. Big Fan!!
This should be a book.
Again, great work, hope your are living a fruitful life!!!!!!