Parole Denied
My classification officer was delusional. That is the only explanation I can come up with for his irrational belief that I was going to get parole. I knew better – No one who was in as much trouble as me would ever get an early release. However, he insisted that I would because of being “just a kid” and it being my first time in adult jail.
I ended up wasted on the day that I was to appear before the parole board. I didn’t mean to be, but I don’t think I had actually come down yet from the day before, and that morning I threw some pills in me to straighten myself up. It didn’t work. I was barely functioning as I sat against a wall on the bottom flat waiting for my turn to go upstairs to the room where they would say “yea” or “nay” to my parole. I knew it would be the latter.
Mr. Flynn came walking by and stopped when he saw me. “Holy fuck Veinotte, look at you!” he said. He knew what I was waiting for, though he lived in the real world and knew that I had about a snowballs chance in hell of scoring parole. He also knew that I was higher than a kite. He passed me a sandwich, which I assumed was his lunch. “Eat this. Maybe it will help.” And then walked away before he drew any more attention to me.
I took a bite of the sandwich and found that I was hungry, starving, but the turkey sandwich was dry and the pills had leached every bit of moisture from my mouth. Still I forced it down, managing to eat it all and then wishing that I could go get a drink. I couldn’t though – I had to stay and wait.
The room was up the stairs and I had trouble keeping my legs going in the right direction. I had a sudden vision of myself falling backwards down the stairs.
There was one guard, who directed me to a chair in the middle of the room. The people who made up the board were sitting behind a table towards the end of the room. I had trouble seeing them. They looked far away. I squinted trying to make them out, but it didn’t help. They read off some stuff that I wasn’t really paying much attention to. I had trouble focusing on the hearing and just wanted out of there: to go back to my unit and lay down, or maybe find some more pills. This room, in front of these people was the last place I wanted to be.
I caught what they were saying mid-sentence: “ due to your institutional misconduct we do not believe that …”
I stood up quickly. “That’s enough. Fuck off!” I said, sending my chair flying across the room. There was silence as I turned and headed towards the door. The guard blocked my exit and looked past me to the board members as I stared at him, fists clenched, anger coursing through me like a drug. “Let him go.” they said, and the guard stepped aside.
I was still raging as I got back to my unit. I went straight to my stash of pills, finding that I did not have many. I popped the couple I did have and sat on my bunk, staring at the floor. There was a knock on my door. “Fuck off!” I yelled. The door opened anyway and Steve popped his head in.
“Guess I don’t need to ask how it went,” he said.
“As expected man. Got any pills?” I said, still string at the floor.
“No,” Steve said coming into the room. He had his hand behind his back. “I have a little of that juice left though. I saved it figuring you would want something today.” He held out his hand, holding a coffee jar filled nearly to the top with a murky yellow liquid.
I looked up smiling widely. “Yes man!” I said, twisting off the top and taking a long swig of the home brew. In all my time in Her Majesty’s Penitentiary there were only a handful of times when we managed to make home brew without getting caught before it was ready. Most often the smell would spread through the unit and into the control room (the ceiling in what was once a kitchenette being our favorite spot to keep it until the guards smelled it from the control room one day and came in to do a search) and there would be a shakedown, the brew would be found. When we did succeed it was usually a very low alcohol content because we would not leave it long enough, but this batch had been sitting for two weeks before we decided to drink it and although the taste was far from good, it was pretty strong. I had drunk my share the night before, washing down various types of pills with in. That Steve had saved his brew for me meant a lot, but also made me suspect that he was not much of a drinker.
“I do have one V 10 if you want it too but that’s all I got.”
“Yeah I’ll take it. Back in a sec. Have a seat.” I said, leaving the cell. I headed to the utility room, coming back with a needle. One valium ten would not do much, but my opinion was that everything was better either crushed and snorted or in a needle. Steve passed me the little blue pill and I crushed it up as finely as I could, dumped it into a spoon and added water. Pills like this did not dissolve well, even when you heated it, but the resulting liquid, strained though a cigarette filter and injected directly into a vein would carry more punch than simply eating the pill. I only occasionally had a needle, and this was one of those occasions.
I loaded up the syringe, licked the remains off of the spoon and put the needle into my arm.
“Wait WAIT fuck!” Steve said, grabbing the arm I was holding the needle with. “Look at that fucking thing man!” He continued.
I looked, instantly seeing what he was freaking out about. I had not bothered to remove any air from the needle and a full half of the syringe was air.
“Woops.” I said grinning. “That was a close one!”
“Ya think? You crazy mother fucker!”
I fixed the air issue, then squinting to see the vein, put it back in my arm. I remember to flag it (pull back the plunger and draw blood into the needle to be sure you were in the vein) and then slowly pushed the contents in. “Better than nothing” I said grinning. “Wanna go play some cards?”
I stood up, rinsed my needle in tap water, wrapped it in plastic. “Can you put this back for me man?” I asked, passing the needle to Steve. “I am not sure I can get up there right now. I am not real steady on my feet.”
Steve agreed, and while he went to stash my needle for me I drank the remainder of the brew. I wasn’t upset anymore, and when we sat at the table out in the unit playing crib and chain-smoking cigarettes I couldn’t stop smiling. I had trouble seeing the holes in the crib board and so Steve had to peg my points for me. One of the other guys came by with a six pack for me (a small piece of hash called six pack because you would get about six butt tokes from it) and I went into my cell to smoke it with Steve. It was turning out to be a good day after all. My session with the parole board seemed to be part of the distant past and I felt fine.
That is where my memory of that day ends.
Medication time rolled around and of course, no matter what shape I was in there was no way I was going to miss my pills. I made sure I was in the middle of the line-up, trying to act sober, trying not to sway on my feet. When I got to the hatch I intended to be quiet, get my pills and walk away without saying a word. That had been my intention.
“You don’t look like you need any more pills Veinotte.” The guard said.
“I’m fine. Fucking tired is all.” I slurred.
“Well you don’t look very well. Maybe you should just go lay down.” He continued. He may have been trying to help me, but I didn’t see it that way. The other guard came over to the window now, looking at me with half a grin on his face. I knew I could be taken to the hole just for being in the state that I was, and that was probably why the guard was telling me to go lay down. But I was wasted, and apparently lacked the ability to act rationally.
“Just give me my fucking pills!”
“I think Rick is right Veinotte.” Smith, the second guard said. “You should go lay down for a while.”
“No one asked your opinion fuck head! Just give me my fucking pills!” I roared.
“Now you’re definitely going to your cell!” Smith said.
“Yeah why don’t you come in here and try putting me there! Come on – just you all by your lonesome! Come on fuck head – come put me in my cell!”
By now I was standing alone in front of the guard room, the guys in the line behind me deciding that they were not that interested in their medication right now. Someone behind me was telling me to calm down. “Just go to your cell man, and maybe they won’t take you to the hole!”
I didn’t listen. I yelled again for Smith to come into the unit, to try to put me in my cell.
I woke feeling like hell. My head was pounding and as I opened my eyes despair washed over me with a physical pain. As soon as I saw the concrete wall beside me I knew I was in the hole.
I had no idea what time it was and it was dead quiet. I stood up and staggered to the cell door.
“Guard.” I said. The guard station was not far away and I did not need to yell. I heard the scrape of a chair on the floor and a guard came around the corner.
“Good morning Veinotte!” he said cheerfully. “How you feeling?”
“Like death,” I replied though the fur that was growing in my mouth. “What am I here for?”
“You actually don’t remember?” It was obvious that he was genuinely surprised. More so than I should have been.
“No clue man. Last thing I remember is paying crib with Steve.” I knew I was being stupid, basically admitting to being on something in order to end up in the hole without knowing why, but I did not care. I needed to know what happened so I would have an idea of how long I might be here.
“Nothing too serious. You’ve done worse,” he said. He took out a package of cigarettes and passed me one. “I didn’t give you that.” He said as he lit it with his lighter, and then went on to tell me how I had threatened guards and was charged with various infractions from disobeying a direct order to using abusive language towards staff members. The worst of the list was threatening a guard with bodily harm. I knew that there must not have been much happen physically, because I was in one piece with no bruises and not changed with anything worse than threats.
Still, I would be here, in the hole, counting silverfish at night… for a while.
Earning a Nickname: Slash <– Previous | Next –> East Wing Bottom
Inside Out Index
- 1) The Beginning (Kinda)
- 2) Problem Child
- 3) Runaway
- 4) Weed and Paranoia
- 5) Dangerous Memories
- 6) Drug of Choice: Alcohol
- 7) Theft, Mushrooms and More Trouble
- 8) Into the System
- 9) The Group Home and Roy
- 10) Lockup and Blanket Ropes
- 11) Detention Center
- 12) Escapes and Growing Rage
- 13) Riot in Detention
- 14) Her Majesty’s Penitentiary
- 15) Drugs, Blood and Cell Time
- 16) Unit 2
- 17) Pills, Pills and Attitude
- 18) He’s okay, just a little nuts
- 19) Drug Reaction – Pretzelitice
- 20) Broken
- 21) Earning a Nickname: Slash
- 22) Parole Denied