continued from yesterday
The North County Detention Facility shares a fence with the Sonoma County Airport — an irony I find darkly amusing.
Inside, the women in the reception booth are waiting for me. "I’m here to check in," I say. "Oh!" they cheerfully reply, "You must be Jane." One of them picks up my file, which is sitting neatly on the desk between them, and asks the first in a string of questions, the answers to which she types into her computer. Along the way she jokes with me, as if I were a traveller checking into a hotel. Only I’m not a traveller, I’m a "Committment", and every piece of information I give is designed to make me easy to identify should the good officers of the law need to find me: address, phone number, job, employer, birthmark — size, shape and location, scar — ditto.
The probation officer had convinced me not to enroll in the work release programme by explaining that, in the jail system, any part of a day counts as a day. Therefore, because I’d already spent nine hours in the close company of the Sheriff’s department the night I was arrested for having too much alcohol in my system when driving home from an evening out with friends, I would be given credit for having served at least part, if not all, of my sentence. I was dubious, but he seemed so badly to want me to follow his advice that I agreed.
The women at the desk review my file. "You’re a BPR," one of them tells me, with relentless cheer. I was booked just before midnight on March 16 and released at nine in the morning on March 17, so, sure enough, as far as the jail is concerned, I’ve done my time. This evening is a formality: Book, Print and Release. I am relieved, then elated with the possibility of being home in time to see most of the Giants game. I sign the "Waiver of Extradition" ("That means that if you walk out that door we can come and get you, wherever you are." I wonder what would happen if I refused to sign.) then sit on a hard plastic chair in the visitors’ waiting area and begin to read the posters on the walls while waiting for a green-uniformed sheriff’s deputy to call me to step through the metal detector and be fingerprinted.
An hour passes. Behind the low wall with the electronically locked gate green uniforms come and go, paying no attention to me. I read all of the posters — English and Spanish (of which I understand maybe thirty words, half of which are unprintable) — then start on the bus timetables, helpfully provided in a little stand on the counter. I have worked my way through most of the Spanish version of an information pamphlet about house arrest when a female officer with a blonde ponytail barks out my surname. I leap.
I deposit my keys and license in the little plastic container and walk through the metal detector. The officer’s manner is alert and nervous. "Stand here," she instructs, then, when I don’t understand right away, she puts her hand on my shoulder and guides me. "Hands on the counter," she says, then demands, "spread your legs. I have to pat you down." I am wearing sweat pants without pockets and a t-shirt.
The fingerprinting takes ten or fifteen minutes. The officer is tired, and hungry, and loses her patience with the computer when it won’t read the scrolls on the tips of my fingers properly. "Your hands are sweaty," she complains, roughly wiping my fingers with her blue-gloved hands. Eventually, both the computer and she are satisfied and she points to an spot by the back wall. "Stand there. Face the camera." The camera is mounted just below the ceiling. I gaze up at it. I hear a click, then "Turn to your left, face the yellow thing on the wall." The yellow thing is an emergency oxygen kit. Another click and I have now been photographed front and side. Fully identifiable.
"Sit over there," she commands, pointing to a set of three plastic chairs shoved against a short section of wall between a corridor and the doors to what looks like a cafeteria with a giant kitchen. I sit. And wait.
I hate sitting. Always have. I put my feet up on the next seat and recline a little. Ms Blonde sees me and barks, "Put your feet down. You’re not at home, you know."
I have to wait because my fingerprints have to be sent electronically to the Department of Justice (a federal agency) and verified, to determine that I am who I say I am. In the meantime, I am a prisoner.
Green uniforms walk back and forth. Ms Blonde takes her break. Male officers arrive to man the post. Four male prisoners in blue uniforms printed with "Sonoma County Jail" on the back in white block lettering are brought in. While being patted down they stare at me. I stare back. The officer guarding them directs them to walk down the corridor beside where I sit. They file past, staring. The youngest one tries a smile and a "Hey, how’s it going?" Better than for you, I think, but I can’t help smiling, mainly at the surreality of it all.
The hands on the clock move past eight-thirty, past nine o’clock. Green uniforms laugh at inside jokes (pardon the pun), tear open packets of Twix and pop the tops on cans of Coke. I realise I’m hungry. A blue-uniformed male prisoner is brought into the central staging area to wait for the medic. There are two sections of plastic chairs in this area. The three where I sit, and a row of ten or twelve across the other side of the room, all of which, except for one, are empty. The prisoner is told to sit, scans the available options and sits next to me. Deputy Powell (in the absence of anything to read I have started on memorising every detail of the scene in which I sit, including the green nametags) walks in, notices my companion and, with a small smile, points at him, commanding, "You. Over there," pointing to the empty seats across the room. The prisoner smiles, resigned to the inevitability of the command and departs. I feel a curiously strong gratitude toward Deputy Powell, even though I had felt in no danger.
Finally, at around the time the Giants would have been in the sixth or seventh inning, my release comes through. The cheerful "receptionist" puts it on the Sergeant’s desk for him to review and sign. The Sergeant is on break. Green uniforms come and go. The Sergeant returns from break. Green uniforms come and go. Deputy Powell disappears to attend to something else somewhere else in the building. Ms Blonde has never returned. Legs crossed primly, I wait. I stare at the brown paper lunch sack that holds my license and keys, which is sitting on the counter across the room. I could walk over and pick it up, but I know that the second I attempted to do so I would be surrounded and — I don’t want to speculate on what else.
At last, the Sergeant strolls out of his office, walks over to the reception booth and hands the office manager my file (which is yellow — my favourite colour). Suddenly, the green uniforms don’t care about me. I walk across the room to the electronically latched gate. Deputy Powell smiles and gives me a little wave as I mouth a silent thank you.
The gate clicks open. I sign for my paltry belongings and walk out the door, hastening across to my car. On the radio, the Giants game is in the seventh. It rained, or there was a lot of scoring, or something, but I can still get home to see the end of it.
Under the terms of my 3-year, informal probation the judge gave me, I may not drive with any "traceable alcohol" in my system. That’s a habit I can get into. And stay in.
