Welcome To Rikers Island
By: William, Dollar Bill
Tags: Prison Reform, Memoir, Law Enforcement, Inspiration, Culture

Welcome To Rikers Island

One of the USA’s most infamous jails!

Barbara Rosner — Pixabay

Club Fed it ain’t. That’s for sure! But after spending a year at MCC federal prison, I was more or less ready for whatever Rikers had to throw at me.

Maybe I got lucky. Or maybe I’m street smart. But Rikers was not the completely threatening place many people think it is. In fact, there were several facets of Rikers life I found superior to serving time in a federal facility.

Unknown to virtually all people who haven’t been run through the judicial and penal systems, is the cold and harsh reality that many offenders get prosecuted in more than one jurisdiction for what is essentially the same crime. I was included in that exclusive club. And what that means is often, inmates will be ferried from one prison in one jurisdiction to another in a different prison to serve another term on a different but related arrest!

It’s a shit show for sure. My federal charge was tax fraud. But the feds knew how I’d made the money (as an advertising agency for escorts). As did the State. So the latter charged me with promotion of prostitution for running those ads. Why the State chose to prosecute me rather than targeting the Village Voice or New York Magazine (where those ads would be running) is a question you’d have to pose to the State.

Regardless, facing two separate cases — and the possibility of serving time not just in a federal facility — but a state prison as well — was not a comforting feeling. Still, I lucked out. When the Fed sentenced me to a year, the State took pity on me and offered concurrent time if I would plead to a felony.

Translated, that meant just so I gave the DA a felony conviction that would advance his career, he was comfortable with me serving just one year in a federal facility — and didn’t require that I do any additional state time. That was his intention — and the theory anyway. But of course, that’s not the way it happened.

For reasons I won’t go into here, this process went on for a while and my plea to a concurrent sentence and felony charge wasn’t finalized until midway through my federal bid. That shouldn’t have made a difference. But still, I had no confidence that a state idiot wouldn’t somehow make an error that would eventually have me serve state time as well. I had (and have) no confidence in the competence of governmental employees. Experience in that realm has taught me well.

The harbinger of things to come was served up by an administrator at MCC who was brought in after Epstein’s death to tidy up the clerical mess. He informed me that I had a pending state charge which as you can guess by now, had been adjudicated and pled out 3 months before. Somehow the Feds hadn’t gotten the memo. That was taken care of and I was assured that if I didn’t hear any more about the situation, there would be no fallout, and I’d be good to go on my federal sentence good time out date.

Disbeliever (in their competence) that I am (and was), I continued checking with my counselor to make sure there were no “detainers” to foil my quest for freedom — which he informed me were non-existent and I should stop my damn worrying as it was too late in the game for anything unfortunate to happen. If there was something amiss, we’d have known about it by then.

Then one day (yes, one day) before my out date, I was summoned to the case manager’s office. There was a mistake. “Call your lawyer. As it stands right now, you’re going to Rikers Island tomorrow for 82 more days behind bars.”

I was beside myself. OMG! Harpooned by yet another subpar government employee (a state incompetent this time). Not only did this individual misunderstand the meaning of the word “concurrent,” but he or she didn’t even know how to spell it (the word was spelled “cuncurrent” on the paperwork).

The problem was that whoever had calculated my time from the day I pled out rather than the day I began serving my federal time. The judge’s and DA’s intentions were not to have me serve any state time. But it was going to take more than a few hours to get all this straightened out — if at all! I knew I’d be going to Rikers the next day. The lawyers would be powerless to sort out the mess in just a few hours.

Bright and early at 7:30 AM the next day, my cell door opened as an officer barked “Pack out, Mersey! You’re going to R & D!” And thus began my voyage to Rikers Island.

From my previous two appearances in state court while imprisoned at a federal facility, I more or less knew the routine. Strip to your birthday suit, lift your sack, squat and cough, and then dress in some khakis for the trip. As before, I was handcuffed, ankle-chained, and walked out to a vehicle. That’s where the routine changed somewhat. Instead of being placed in the back seat of an undercover police cruiser, I was led to a big Ford van. It appeared I’d be riding in style — “appeared” being the operative word.

Alternately, I was wedged into a tiny plastic cubicle in the back of the van where the officer didn’t even seat-belt me in (although there was a seat belt). Any sort of accident or even abrupt stop would have rendered me bruised and battered. As it was I got bounced hard and injured my back on the rough and tumble trip to Rikers Island. A comfortable voyage it was not. Especially for the claustrophobic which fortunately, is not a condition I suffer from.

Intake at Rikers was more or less like intake at any other jail or prison in whichever jurisdiction or location. Boring…time-consuming…and foreboding. Nothing beats the first day of incarceration.

Initially, the process went smoothly. For just under an hour, I was seated all alone in a holding cell and then escorted to medical where a very friendly doctor agreed to give me all sorts of medication I didn’t really need — just because I was old and asked for them. He even gave me a little unsolicited orientation on how to handle Rikers, judging that I was way too civilized for the place and would need his help navigating the minefield.

From there, I had blood taken by a super pretty (albeit overweight) Jamaican girl who was initially standoffish but became really friendly once I engaged her in some interesting conversation. One thing I liked to do wherever I went was impress the staff with how ludicrous it was that a guy like me was locked up in the first place. When I got that “what the fuck did you do to get here?’” look, I felt fulfilled.

But once done with the medical team, I was ushered to another holding cell where I remained for hours with some typically dysfunctional criminals — with absolutely nothing to do but talk their banal crimey bull shit. I was also served my first Rikers Island meal while in that holding cell and was not particularly impressed with the cuisine.

After maybe 5 hours of sitting idly in that cell, my name was called, and I was sent with the usual bedroll, mini toothbrush, overused towel, and such to an interim unit where I would stay for a few days and then be moved on to my permanent place of residence. The few days turned into almost two weeks, and my “permanent” residence turned out to be a three-day stay. But more about that later.

Unit #1 was a large rectangular space filled with numerous single bunks (I think 84 of them) with virtually no partitions. The bathroom looked very military. There were rows of urinals and shitters along the wall. The sinks were several yards long and equipped with multiple faucets. And in the back, there were 5 shower heads and no partitions.

Close to the officers’ bubble was a central room where we would eat, congregate to play games, and/or watch the one television in the unit. Welcome to Rikers Island. Most noteworthy was the temperature that night. Some of the windows wouldn’t close properly and it just so happened that the night I entered the unit was the coldest of the entire winter.

There were only a few inmates in the dormitory and the great majority of the beds were empty. Everybody was wearing a towel like a turban and walking around wrapped up in blankets. It was really cold!

Officer Lugo took pity on me. After I told him I’d just come from MCC where I bunked with Paul Manafort and suicide-watched Jeffrey Epstein, he took an instant liking to me. “You gotta write a book and go on Fox News,” said Lugo. “They’d love you!”

More important, Lugo hired me to sweep and mop the unit and bathroom for $50 a week — and gave me extra blankets and pillows so I could stay warm. Both were a Godsend. MCC promised my commissary money would follow me to Rikers (the money that was in my account when I left MCC). But I knew (and know) all about MCC’s efficiency. And I knew not to count on them doing what they said they would. So I took the job with Lugo as insurance. A good decision as it turns out. As I write this now almost 5 months later, I still don’t have the money from MCC. And I’ve made at least 100 calls trying to find it!

With Lugo’s blankets and extra pillow, I might have had the best night’s sleep of my entire year behind bars. Something about the cold, clear air really worked.

Comparing Rikers to MCC is a six of one and half dozen of the other kind of proposition. All totaled up, they scored about equal. But each had its own advantages and disadvantages.

When it came to shitting, showering, and overall bodily functions, I actually preferred Rikers. Shitting at MCC could be a pain in the ass (no pun intended). Some of my bunkees copped a major attitude if I shat too often or for too long. One of my partners used to tell people “my bunky is taking his usual two-hour shit.” He was the type of guy who just couldn’t be in the cell if his bunky needed to take a crap. I guess it disgusted him. And when I’d say “It’s time,” he’d huff “Again?!?!”

At Rikers, the bathroom had 10 shitters in a row with no door and about a 4-foot partition between toilets. But we’d take sheets and drape them over the partitions to obtain a measure of privacy. So finally, I could shit more or less in peace for as long as I wanted. There was never a traffic jam at the dumpers. What a relief!

Showering had an odd wrinkle. As a high school track star (not really, but I did get a letter in high jumping), showering with other guys wasn’t something I’d never done before. And not being remarkable either way, I didn’t anticipate a problem. But Rikers had a policy in place I assume to curb homosexuality or any friction derived from guys checking out each others’ junk. We were told to shower in our underwear. And then it would be off to a stall with a sheet to get dressed. It all seemed a little strange but I didn’t argue. I just took showers totally naked when there was nobody around. And if somebody walked in? Oh well. Nothing he’d never seen before I was confident.

I also liked the idea that I could fart away at will with nobody hearing. The constant thrum of the overhead heaters drowned out even the loudest of flatulence. That was impossible at MCC. With some bunkees, farting was a source of great humor — and accepted as part of the human condition. With others, not so much. I had one celly who I hypothesized was a cyborg. He just never burped or farted. And I constantly held my farts as he was such a Gertrude I didn’t want to offend him.

Another facet of Rikers life that was vastly superior to MCC’s was the free phone calls we were afforded. At MCC federal prison, inmates are price-gouged mightily on long-distance calls (23 cents per minute) and still paid 6 cents for local calls. And there’s a monthly limit. At Rikers, residents could call anywhere in the country for 15 minutes every 2 hours. It was a considerable luxury to have those free calls.

And that’s not all that was better about Rikers. The jobs paid better. A lot better. I don’t think I worked more than a total of 5 hours mopping and sweeping for my $50 paycheck! At MCC, I’d have gotten maybe a dollar or two for that work. My kitchen job at Rikers also paid $160 a month (had I stayed a month) for about the same hours and workload as at MCC, where I was paid $11.60 per month. Prisoners could take a little more food back to the unit at MCC. But nowhere near enough to make up for the $150 difference. Rikers was a much better place to work!

And finally, inmates could actually go outside for rec at Rikers. That was amazing. I couldn’t get out to the yard fast enough! Yes, the entire building went out at the same time. So there’d be between 100 and 200 criminals all together talking smack as we waited in line to get frisked on our way out. But once outside, we had a vast 2.25 acres to roam. A prisoner could walk a dirt track…watch airplanes take off from the Marine Air Terminal, and even sit on grass for an hour. Yard was fucking gorgeous. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of freedom it afforded me.

Funny rec story: So a 40-something black guy befriended me at Rikers. Tremonde (his real name) was a cook who’d gotten in some sort of fight and sentenced to 15 days for the indiscretion. While he’d served 15 years in his youth at places like Auburn and Attica, Tre was not the hard-ass he once had been earlier in life. He decided I had a good spirit and gravitated toward me during our stay.

One very cold morning, we both decided “fuck it! We’re going to the yard”…and we commenced to stuffing towels in our shirt and collars and wherever else we figured would get the coldest. The prison did give us decent jackets. But it was really cold that morning and we knew to bundle up.

Tre and I reported to the front of the dorm when the officer called us, and there we waited for 10 minutes until finally Tre asked “So when are we going to the yard?” The officer in charge gave us a puzzled look and asked “You guys wanted to go to the yard? They’ve already come and gone. It’s too late.”

Tre turned to me — and I to him with a mutual look of dismay whereupon Tre questioned the officer “Yo! Could I go to a real jail?” Rikers wasn’t real enough, apparently. We all broke into laughter. It was probably just as well. A day or two later, I went to rec on a warmer day and really froze my ass off. Better that I stayed in the day they forgot about us.

Then there were things about MCC that were better than Rikers. The food for one. While MCC’s food wasn’t the best, it was plentiful. Even without commissary, a convict could get fat off of MCC’s food. Seconds were almost always available. And really, we could get almost all the fruit and milk we needed.

But not at Rikers. If we were lucky, we’d score an ounce of cold cereal and one carton of milk. I found myself eating stale whole wheat bread with shitty jelly just to fill my belly. Lunch and dinner weren’t much better. By the time the food arrived, it was almost always cold and tasteless. Thanks to Lugo’s job, I had money to load up on trail mix at commissary. It was about the only food available at the store that was healthy. Occasionally, the officers would slip me extra meals or cereal because they liked me. But still, the quantity and quality of the food paled in comparison to MCC’s.

Rikers also wanted inmates to eat that food at the speed of light. You could not simply sit and enjoy your meal — to the extent you could enjoy it given the shitty quality. You had to gobble it up and dispense with your tray quickly. Or you’d hear about it. Never mind that it’s unhealthy to eat that quickly. This was jail. No time for that bull shit.

There also didn’t seem to be very much availability of reading material at Rikers. Not once did an officer call for the library while I was there — unless it was the law library, where I assume there wasn’t any regular reading material. MCC on the other hand, actually had a decent selection of reading material — something which helped me greatly in getting through my year there.

While at MCC, I read Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, In Cold Blood, The Jungle, The Old Man and the Sea, The Hobbit, Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, Billy Budd, The Red Badge of Courage, Dodsworth, Far From the Madding Crowd, Anna Karenina, Harry Potter, numerous novels by Lee Child, John Grisham, Clive Cussler, Dan Brown, and several history books among many others. There is no way you could have a reading list like that at Rikers.

And of course, having two-man cells was in some ways superior to living in a dormitory. So MCC had a leg up there. But if I had to choose where I’d want to serve a year, I just might choose Rikers. It was a close call.

One arena in which the two were very competitive was the availability of drugs. But curiously, each place had its own contraband substances.

At MCC, guys mostly partook with K2 and suboxone, commonly called deuce and chinita respectively. There was a lot of tobacco (if you want to consider that a drug) and similarly, a barrel full of home-brewed hooch. At Rikers, it was all about marijuana and a fibromyalgia medicine called lyrica, which inmates would grind up and snort to get high. It wasn’t but 30 minutes at Rikers first dorm that I was invited to a pot party in the showers. Marijuana was that ubiquitous in the jail.

When I got my meds on the island, there were more than a few guys eyeing my stash hoping to steal something they could get high from. The Rikers crew were serious drugees. When the officer called “key” (which meant line up for your methadone), almost the entire unit queued.

Demographically, The officers at Rikers were comparable to those at MCC. Same age, disposition, background, and mostly friendly. I liked the CO’s at Rikers. Unlike their counterparts at MCC, they felt the need to be lenient with the inmates…for a very good reason.

Often, one officer would move dozens of inmates down a long hallway to either mess, to get meds, or to hit the yard. If that officer irritated a bunch of gang-bangers by being overly vigilant on the disciplinary front, they could severely fuck him up before help arrived. And I could feel that energy!

One day, a big, friendly guy from Howard Beach named Olson decided to fuck with the officer escorting us to meds just for fun. “Hey Crowley! Ya think it’s time for us to be on the news?” he baited the officer. Crowley gave off with a weak smile. I knew what Olson was talking about. He wasn’t angry with Crowley at all. He just wanted to deliver a message. And to both me and Crowley, the message came through loud and clear.

MCC officers never really had that problem except maybe at rec. And the rec officers at MCC were never the same guys we had in the unit who might incur the wrath of inmates. So it was really a non-issue at MCC. If a guard took a beating at MCC, it would only be from one rowdy inmate — and not a dozen gang bangers.

For almost two weeks, I remained in the interim unit at Rikers where I wasn’t supposed to remain for more than a few days. But then the day came that I was moved to my “permanent” unit. So with bedroll and accumulated crap, I trudged to my next stop, a gang-banging unit a floor below.

For reasons not always rational, some jails and prisons allow inmates to have and/or buy certain items on commissary while others don’t. Just for example, federal prisons do not give detainees sugar because the authorities don’t want the boys brewing hooch (which requires sugar). It doesn’t stop them of course. But still…you get the drift.

Conversely, federal facilities (or where I was) actually dispense razors to inmates as a matter of course. But at Rikers, a prisoner has to ask for a shaver during the morning hours only — and must return that shaver within 15 minutes. Obviously, inmates can break open the plastic shaver and fashion a shiv with the blades. Why the Fed thinks it’s ok to let prisoners keep razors while the City doesn’t is yet another policy with an explanation I can’t provide. Similarly, the battery cover in a Rikers radio was removed upon purchase because that too could become a shiv.

All this makes some sense to me. But one policy difference between jurisdictions with little logic had to do with dental floss. At the Fed, we could buy those flossy picks you can get in any drug store. But at Rikers, dental floss simply was not available!

This created a problem. Because I broke off a tiny fraction of a tooth on something hard in the food at MCC, food was always getting stuck in the space. As such, I was in the habit of flossing after every meal.

I didn’t think much about it until I arrived at Rikers where (drum roll) nobody had any floss. And it wasn’t long before I was developing a periodontal problem with that space between my teeth.

At first, I rectified the issue by sliding sugar packets or pill packaging edges to remove whatever was stuck. But after a few days, I was in trouble. I knew something had to be done.

Sure enough, I heard the officer call one of the inmates to the dentist. It was clear Diaz had an appointment. So I ran to catch up with whom I hoped would be my savior, and asked him to bring back some floss while he was visiting the doctor.

Diaz looked at me as if I was the rook I basically was and asked “Is this your first time in jail?” I shrugged my shoulders ambivalently as if to say “Why do you ask?” And he led me off to a plastic chair on which he sat and with a pen began digging around the cuff of his khakis. It only took 15 seconds before he’d extracted a long, luxurious thread which he handed to me and offered “This is how we do it here at Rikers.”

“Wow! Dude! You’re my fucking hero! Thank you so much,” I gushed. “You saved my fucking life!’

Off I went with my brand new dental floss never to have a periodontal problem again while at Rikers. I carefully kept that string. And when it broke and was all used up, I mined my own like the veteran I’d always aspired to be.

Crisis averted. One thing about inmates. Guys know how to make do with nothing. And that dental floss was the proof.

No sooner had I stepped two feet into my new digs when two guys who were showering with a grate separating them from the hallway I’d just stepped into shouted “Yo! You bangin’?!’ meaning was I a gang member. I stood up straight and looked at them through the grate “No! I’m not bangin’!” Seemed like a ridiculous question to ask of a 69-year-old tattooless white guy. But who knows?

Ten feet later up walked a young Hispanic: “Yo! You rape anybody? You a sex offender?” Again, I answered emphatically “No, I’m not a rapist or sex offender,” as I looked my interrogator in the eye.

“Ok! Welcome to the unit. You need any shower shoes or thermals?” And just like that, I’d aced the interview and gained admission to Harvard. The guys who’d asked the questions turned out to be Trinitarian gang members. As soon as I’d stood my ground and said a few sentences in Spanish, there was no threat in the offing. My new home would not be a dangerous place.

Right after the interrogation about my sex life, a super friendly Kirk Douglas-looking Russian guy named Reuben came up to shake my hand and ask if I wanted to work in the kitchen. When I told him I’d just come from MCC where in fact, the kitchen was my workplace, he responded “Good! You start tomorrow at 5 AM.” Instantly, I had a new gig for $40 a week. And I knew I’d be eating much better. Always good to have your prison chops down, I had come to realize over time.

Working the kitchen at Rikers was remarkably similar to working the same stroll at MCC. Work hard…nosh on food…hang with the criminals. Been there and done that. It was certainly not unfamiliar territory.

There was one sublime moment during my employment at Rikers kitchen which never could have happened at MCC — and one which I did not take for granted when it did. On a clear, cold dawning of day, we were summoned to the loading dock to unload bags and bags of garbage into the dumpsters. After throwing in a load, I looked up to see a purple sky on what would be a bright blue day. To the right was a shimmering Manhattan skyline. And to the left a jet roaring into the sky from the Marine Air Terminal, flashing its red lights at the indigo sky during the ascent.

I’ve hiked up trails and sat on top of the world marveling at our planet’s beauty. And I’d put the view from Rikers loading dock right up there with any mountaintop vista. While very different, it was equally beautiful in its own way. I stood for just a few seconds thinking to myself “Take this in! You won’t ever see it again after you leave this place.”

During my two weeks stay at Rikers, I told virtually everybody within shouting distance all about how I wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place and that eventually (and hopefully), my lawyers would get me out once they’d convinced the State that it had made a mistake.

And just two or three days into my residence in my “permanent” dormitory, I was called by the officer and asked “you’re looking for sentenced help, right?” “Oh my God,” I thought. “I’m getting out.”

Guess again! That’s not what “sentenced help” means. The phrase refers to sentenced inmates who are willing to relocate to other facilities for work duty when those facilities need workers. So when I excitedly asked the officer leading me out “So I’m going home, right?” he answered. “No. You’re going to MDC in Manhattan.” MDC is colloquially known as the Tombs, yet another city jail right next to 100 Centre Street. Yes, I was going closer to home. But I wasn’t going home home.

Thankfully, on this occasion, I was transported in the back of a corrections bus — and not in a tiny cubicle, though I was once again handcuffed and ankle-chained.

Intake was equally painless at the Tombs. Within a half-hour, I was escorted to 8 North, where an old black man met me at the door and said “Welcome to the country club.”

Like my first dorm at Rikers, this residence was almost empty. I found a nice spot off in a corner after being given a decent mat to sleep on and was greatly relieved at the move thinking to myself “I can do this bid standing on my head!” I was ecstatic. The housing was better…the place much quieter than the gang banger dorm (where I was already suffering from sleep deprivation)…and the food abundant (which I knew from residing at the Tombs previously). If the lawyers failed to get me out, I knew I could handle 66 more days (what was left on the state idiot’s miscalculation of my concurrent time) with no problem.

Within an hour of entry, I’d already fielded three job offers from inmates. Clearly, the Tombs needed inmate employees. And once again, the jobs paid typical lofty city jail wages — and not the slave rates the feds were imposing on its prisoners. By the next morning, I was out and about mopping and sweeping courthouse cells, asking evil-looking street hookers to move their feet so I could sweep and mop their holding areas.

Wanna see an unhappy biach? Check out a street hooker who just got arrested and spent a sleepless night in jail? Not pretty. I didn’t even bother to flirt with them. I could tell they would not be receptive.

After work, I got on the phone with my cousin to tell her the good news: I’d been moved to a much better situation I could handle with hardly a care, when she countered “Guess what! I got a call from Nolan” (my lawyer). “You’re getting out tomorrow!”

I’m getting out tomorrow! I just got a new job…a nice bed…and lots of food. What the fuck? I was getting that institutionalized — and ready to settle in. And here my cousin was upsetting the apple cart!

But I got over it quickly. Yes, I’d prepared myself emotionally to do another 82 days after the federal bid. But it was nice to know I’d actually and finally be going home!

Still, there were a few bumps in the road. First, they called me to say I’d be going back to Rikers soon. Why Rikers? Answer: Red tape. For whatever reason, I had to be released from that jail — and not from MDC. Then after I’d given my superior sleeping mat to Sosa, they told me “You’re not going. You’re staying here another night.” Mother fucker!

Not to worry. Winds shift constantly in jail. An hour later, they came back with “you’re going to Rikers. And then you’ll be sent home.” But before returning to the island, I needed to appear before the judge to get re-sentenced in some formality the system needed to legally set me free. That required my sitting in no fewer than 6 more holding cells for hours upon end (almost an entire day). Still, the torture wasn’t without a touch of comic relief.

While being escorted to holding cell #4 by an officer named McCann, we passed a line of inmates one of whom apparently had a history with the CO. “Hey! Officer McCann. Still suckin’ dick, huh?” I looked at McCann and commented empathetically “Wow! That was disrespectful.” The officer simply shook his head as if to say “Like I give a shit what that stupid mother fucker has to say!”

But while the insult rolled off his back like water off a duck’s, it wasn’t so much the case with some of his colleagues. Suddenly, I heard a scuffle and two seconds later, a female officer fired an order my way: “Don’t turn around!” I got the message. The CO’s didn’t need a witness to what was going on with the inmate who’d shouted the insult.

After fifteen minutes of sitting alone in the next holding cell, in walked another inmate. We did converse for a while — until I got bored. So I started in about the prisoner who wanted to know if McCann was still suckin’ dick and of course, my new celly turned out to be that guy!

“Yo, man! Them niggers beat the shit out of me!” he complained. Clearly, it was time to have a little catharsis about shitheel officers. “Check it out! We had this $3 K-mart wig-wearin’ bitch at MCC”…and that was all I could get out before my new friend busted into gales of laughter…

“Yo, man! You just made my day! A $3 K-mart wig-wearin’ bitch! Fuck outta he’ man! That shit is fuckin’ funny. You remind me of Billy Bob Thornton.”

Hey! I’ll take it. But really…I felt all fuzzy for a second. It was kind of a tender moment — in a weird, prison way. Anyway…we became buddies for the duration — which ended when at long last, I was walked in front of the judge, who actually apologized to me on behalf of the state for my false incarceration.

I wanted to say “you can apologize with your wallet, sister.” But really, just by making the apology, she already had. Her remarks are in the transcript and in evidence in my case against the city for false imprisonment.

Having seen the judge, it was back to the unit where after an hour or two more of waiting, I was summoned to be returned to Rikers where once again I was handcuffed, ankle-chained, and put in a plastic enclosure where I shook and slid back and forth en route to Rikers.

According to the officer, the trip to the island was just a formality, and I’d be on my way in a hurry. But once I got to my destination, I was told there was some glitch or other due to my having a federal charge and they were hoping to get me out by 6:30 AM — three hours later. I could stay where I was or return to my original interim unit for the night. Knowing I wouldn’t be out by 6:30 AM — and having ascertained that Lugo was on duty, I eagerly opted to go back to my old unit where of course, Lugo greeted me with the old “what the fuck are you doing here?”

Returning to my old dorm was the smart move because big surprise, 6:30 AM came and went. As did noon, and afternoon. And then finally, in the early evening, I was sent back down and at about 8 PM, finally and mercifully escorted to the bus station, sold a Metrocard, and sent on my way home.

And so ended my almost year of incarceration.

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