Dramatization of Jail

The cell had freshly painted green walls, a stainless steel sink and a toilet in one corner. I was sitting on the single bed against the wall, relieved that fate was no longer in my hands, at least for the time being.

"Fried Chicken," announced the jailer. He was carrying a large box topped with a print of a smiling red chicken.

This was a pleasant surprise. "For me?"

"We have a table out here, if you want to come out and eat. Some sodas too." The jailer unlocked the cell door.

The cops had gone out of their way to be courteous. I found their behavior ironic, certainly a contrast to the first time I was in the custody of the Urbana Police. I followed the jailer to a table where two cops were sitting drinking coffee.

"Coke or Seven-up?" asked the jailer as he put the fried chicken down by an empty chair and went to a nearby refrigerator.

"Coke, I guess…Do you treat all your prisoners like this?"

The Chief of Police walked into the room. "Only our celebrities," he laughed. "You have a little crowd outside protesting."

"Wow," I said. "That's fantastic."

"Maybe we’ll let one or two of them come in and see you later."

"Something tells me that this is all designed to convince me not to go back," I said.

"Well, are you going back?" asked the Chief.

"To tell you the truth, I haven't completely decided," I lied. I kept my options open, but the way things stood, no way in hell was I going back to sit-in. The Police Chief shrugged and left the room.

---

As I was finishing my mashed potatoes and last drumstick, Samantha and Ellen were led into the room by a cop. Ellen looked at the Chicken bones and can of Coke; "Beats Cook County."

"What is this?" asked Samantha, looking around; "The Ritz?"

"They’re trying to bribe me into going back to Chicago."

"It's not going to work." She pointed at the fried chicken. "We don't have meals this good at home."

The escorting cop and the jailer both laughed. "It's called the carrot and the stick," said the jailer. "This is the carrot." They looked at each other and smirked.

Samantha picked up on the insinuation. "We demand Dave be treated properly," she said to both of them.

"He just had a fried chicken dinner. What more can you ask for?"

"What about the stick?" asked Ellen.

The jailer and cop just laughed.

I changed the subject. "So who's out there?" I asked Samantha.

"Maura, who’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but then she always is, Reggie and his boyfriend John who’s back from Phoenix with a job offer, Simon, the police agent, and then there is dorky Debbie.” Samantha laughed. “A motley crew, Rosen.”

I chuckled. "I don’t think I know Debbie."

"Debbie Durkin, your old YSA comrade,” said Samantha. “She said to tell you she knows how you can get money from the government."

I remembered her cutting out the flyers for the YSA convention with the scrap stuck to her jeans and brown flannel shirt. It seemed to me that was the last I spoke with her. "What’s this bullshit? What—a hundred dollars a month from welfare?"

"She wouldn't say,” added Ellen. “She wanted to talk to you personally."

“What’s his bail?” Samantha asked the jailer.

"No bail set until Monday.” He snickered. “That's probably why they arranged the arrest for a Friday night."

“Don’t pay them any money,” I said. “They can hold me as long as they want.”

“We wouldn’t think of it,” said Samantha, as though she was going to tell them to throw away the key. I was a little concerned, despite my bravado. “The Earthworks collective will put us up for the night,” continued Samantha. I wondered if they got their mattress back, but never did ask. “I brought down the typewriter,” she continued, “so we can issue a press release, picket some more in the morning and then head back around noon."

"Sounds good,” I said. “Have Simon meet me at the bail hearing on Monday." I lowered my voice so the two officers wouldn’t hear. “Have him bring some cash, just in case.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, Rosen, we won’t leave you hung out to dry. Speaking of which, isn’t there some kind of shower down here,” she asked the jailer.

“You got that right girl,” said Ellen, waving her hand before her nose.

“We’re used to a lot worse,” said the cop who began to laugh.

“Please,” I said. “I don’t need to be reminded.”

The jailer joined in the laughing, looked at his watch and said, “Time to go.” I never wanted to be filthy again.

"We’ll report back to the others," announced Ellen, as she and Samantha stood.

"See you, whenever," I said, standing. The cop escorted the two women from the room.

I was led back to my cell.

---

The weekend passed without incident. The food was not quite as good as the fried chicken on Friday night, and I ate it in the cell, but it certainly beat my fare for the past three weeks. The sink had only cold water and there was no shower. I was not transferred to the Champaign County Jail. Instead, I lay on the bed, bored, whiling away the hours.

On Monday morning, at five AM, I was awakened. "You got to go to county before the bail hearing." I was cuffed and led to a paddy wagon. It was the first time I saw another prisoner, who was also cuffed and sitting on a metal bench against the wagon's wall. He had straggly red hair and a bushy mustache. His clothes were torn and his hands, filthy.

"I know you," said red hair. "You that there faggot over to city hall." He laughed. "Shit you stink." He banged on the wall. "Guards, we need some fucking air in here. That there faggot is stinking it up back here."

"Sorry," I said, trying to defuse the situation and suddenly concerned that I might meet up with Orville Jolly in jail—perhaps this was Orville Jolly.

"Sorry your ass. That's what you is, a sorry ass." He laughed.

The van started up and went a few blocks to the county jail. The two of us were brought into processing, strip-searched then given a mattress, woolen blanket, small towel and led into a cell block. I remembered it well. It was the same cellblock that Reggie Flanders and I were placed in following the sit-in at the Mayor’s office in Champaign. This time the cell block was packed. Red hair got the only available spot on one side of the block. I got the last vacant spot, a lower bunk on the other side.

No sooner had I laid the mattress on the metal shelf, than a group of four or five inmates crowded around my cell door. "You smell wicked," said a large black man with many braided pigtails on his head.

I started to tell them I was heading directly to the shower, but they weren’t listening.

"You done too many motherfuckin’ days with no shower," said his smaller and meaner looking companion. More inmates came over, and glared through the bars.

I figured they knew who I was. That was clear when I heard the radio on the table in the center of the block. It switched from music to news. “Three days now since the arrest…” I was still a top story on the local station.

The Mayor was being interviewed. "It was just a coincidence he was arrested over spring break. After a lengthy discussion with the City Attorney, the only viable course of action was to arrest Dave Rosen because his life was in danger and he had become a public nuisance. Health and safety were the only considerations."

“Don’t worry,” I said pleadingly. “I’m about to take a shower.”

But that stopped nobody. They piled into my cell. The short, mean one grabbed my legs, Pigtails grabbed my arms, and others grabbed anywhere they could. Black and white worked together. I was carried to the showers. Clothes pulled off. Someone turned on the hot water and I was thrown to the concrete floor. My butt was bruised; hot water came scalding down on my head. They threw me a bar of soap; I washed. They laughed.

Somebody got my towel, put it on the shelf. I dried off. The clothes were in a pile by the entrance to the showers. I washed them as best I could in the shower and put on the sopping wet clothes. Shivering I returned to my cell. The other inmates stared.

As the day progressed, and the drying clothes started to itch, small groups of two or three inmates came into my cell. Not to talk. They came with a rope or a belt. Made a noose and held it in front of my face. “Hey faggot, you’re going to hell.” I remember finding it hard to believe that such hatred of homosexuals was not confined to middle-class churchgoers.

"They put you up to this," I said. "I know you're just trying to scare me away from going back to City Hall."

They kept it up all day, though nobody since the showers laid a hand on me. "Did they promise you cigarettes or candy bars if you scared the shit out of me?" I asked one of the visiting groups. Nobody responded to my queries. They kept up the insults and threats as though I was mute. I pretended to be unfazed but was quite scared, frequently reminding myself that it would be a major scandal if anything really bad happened.

I ate my bologna sandwich and carton of milk, alone, at the end of the long aluminum table attached to the floor in the center of the block. There was a Muslim prayer service going on in the far corner cell, six black men. They asked for strength against the infidel in their midst and looked at me when they said it. Otherwise I was ignored during the meal.

After lunch, I had more visitors with a noose. They swung the rope back and forth till it touched my neck. They laughed. They left. At two o'clock my name was called, along with a third of the block. I gathered my towel, mattress and blanket, as instructed, and proceeded in a line to a grey room, a waiting area where my cellmates and I remained for over an hour. Nobody bothered me there. We had been merged with prisoners from other blocks. It was a new crowd and little talking. My clothes had mostly dried and probably no longer smelled horrible.

I was taken outside the building with a few other prisoners and quickly into another, a waiting area behind a courtroom. My name was called and I was led in front of a judge. Simon was there. We smiled at each other. Bail was set at fifty dollars, to be revoked if I went back to City Hall. Turning to Simon, I mouthed the words, “Pay it.” The trial was set for Friday, March 26th, four days away. I went back to the waiting area behind the courtroom. I was there for two more hours before being led out and released from custody. Simon was waiting. It was already dark.