I knew better than to resist. That only gets you trouble, I knew that from friends who'd gone through this. I let him duck my head as I entered the back of the car, and ignored my daughter's idiotic promise to visit me. Like I gave a crap.
The authorities had to process me, of course. IDing me, taking my picture, you know the drill. They had me remove all my clothes, giving me institutional crap to wear so I'd stand out like sore thumb should I ever manage to escape.
"I want my lawyer.", I said, but the guy only looked at a supervisor who grunted, "That parts over now, the court already ruled. Now behave yourself here, and focus on making a new life. It's better that way."
A year of legal wrangling was apparently now over. And I had lost. My lawyer had advised that it was a long shot, not that he hadn't held out enough hope to keep charging me fee after fee. My betraying daughter had told me that he was just draining my resources to no point, that I'd still lose.
I told her that if she'd be a real daughter and refuse to testify against me, that I'd hardly need him.
**********
You go in for the first time, and everyone there gives you the eye. They know you're new. They wonder how you'll react. How you'll be. Whether you're a potential new friend or new enemy. And mostly they're just bored. But you don't have time for them at first.
First you're took to where you'll be bunking down for the rest of your life. And you pray that the other guy will not be a thief or a bully or even just a talkative idiot. I'd have to wait to find out that, as he wasn't there when I was took there.
I put out my meager possessions, which besides the toiletries I'd got since arriving here amounted to a towel and my Bible. I was to learn that I could have a given number of books, but they had to be kept neatly put away when I wasn't reading them. And besides what any of my family might give me, there was a library that I could "earn" the privilege of going to.
You had opportunity to "earn" a lot around here. Everything was a "privilege" to be earned, and it always involved "doing as you're told", "being quiet" and "not causing trouble". Trouble being anything the guys running the place said it was. Mostly anything they regarded as "sassing" or "back talking" or "not listening".
During intake some smarmy bitch from "Orientation" had gone over with me my right to file complaints. I didn't need the others already on the inside to tell me how stupid it would be for me to avail myself of that option. I learned fast to keep my mouth shut.
Second, after they watch you get your stuff set up and your bed made? Well, with me, and most others, they just tell you when the next scheduled thing is, and leave you there to figure it out. Yeah, there's a list of the schedule and rules and such buried among your other papers, legal and otherwise, that they let you have.
I, like most, just figured to wander about, sure I'd run into someone who could give me the scoop on what was expected.
**********
I saw several guys wandering down the corridor, so followed them. They went to a great room, filled with tables and chairs with droning televisions here and there. All screens guarded, all on the same channel, signs up forbidding any but those in charge from changing the channel.
A card game was going on at one table, and with an empty seat, so I made a bee line there. Sure enough, over a few pleasant hands, in which my new friends spotted me the ante and enough to see what I had, I was able to learn how it worked. While not losing too much in the process.
Not that I wanted to win. I wanted to lose, not enough to hurt, but enough that they'd feel kindly towards a man who could so cheerfully lose! I knew this was a place that ran on favors and friendship.
They were happy to have a conversation with a new guy. Boredom, remember? I could share with them how things were on the outside, I could give them new anecdotes about what I'd done, how I'd got here, and all that. And I could lose a bit so they'd have something to look forward to when I got some money on my books.
And meanwhile, I got to learn. The schedule was easy enough. Up at 6:00am, breakfast at 7:00am, and it would be crappy as were all the meals. Mostly cereal, watered milk, stale bread, a pat of fake butter, and on Sundays, lukewarm runny oatmeal and powdered eggs.
After breakfast, we could go back to our beds or hang out in the common area that we were in now. The TVs were set by majority rule, but really by whatever those being paid to be here wanted to have on. Talk shows. Reality shows. Brain dead shows. I'd never been much of a TV watcher anyway.
Lunch at noon. Dinner at 5:00pm. Lights out at 10:00pm. Afternoons you could have some time in the Yard. There were some games available. Sometimes volunteers would come and be gave permission to do "activities" with us, which if nothing else might break up the tedium of life on the inside.
There was the library, laughable as that was. Make-work projects if you were a kiss ass or just had to have some extra privileges. A blandly non-denominational church service with various volunteer pastors on Sundays.
**********
Three months in. Three months into a life sentence, with no hope of early out, no hope of parole, no hope of release. Oh, there were the usual fools here who with a lot of time on their hands and a great memory for "Law and Order" and "Matlock" reruns could tell you how you could file this or that, or fill out this or that, or appeal this or that, and be released.
But their idiocy was kind of gave away by the fact that they were still here to tell you about those sure fire methods. They were as stuck as you, but apparently found solace in some fantasy in which they could secure their rights as men and walk about outside once more, with dignity and purpose.
Instead of stuck in here, no dignity, no purpose, waiting only for the sweet release of death.
Well, waiting for that and visiting day. Whichever came first! While Visitation is handled various different ways, depending on the facility, here visits were on a particular day. Saturday. On that day, so it was assumed, the families and friends of those here would have the most time to drive over and go through the check in process and spend some (ha, ha) quality time with those of us stuck here.
I hated my daughter with a passion, but for the sake of breaking up the terribly dull routine of my life here, I still welcomed the two visits each month she gave me. It was helpful that she brought the two grandkids with her. It was not so helpful when she sometimes brought her husband, who I guess cared to be here even less than she did.
Mostly we talked about her kids and how she was doing at her job. I had early on been firm about her attempting to talk to me about why she did this, why she felt the need to call the authorities on me in the first place. I told her that the very fact that she wanted my validation of her doing that should tell her something, but meanwhile, I didn't care to speak of it.
So it was soccer games and school report cards and how her job was going, and sometimes even about how her worthless husband's job searches were still going. And going and going, the guy had been looking for years, and I thought she was a bigger fool trusting him than I'd ever been in trusting her.
The visits helped, though. And as I had settled into the routine here, it was already harder to hate her. Hard, but not impossible, especially as I knew that she had my house for sale.
**********
Six months in. It's the little things that annoy you. Or outrage you. Or just make you feel small and tired and helpless. I could take the boredom, perhaps. The confinement. But having to be completely in the control of others, that's hard on a man.
Some folks in here turn to each other for comfort, yes, even sexually. Those in charge discourage that vigorously, unless it's them seeking the comfort. Yes, that goes on, too. Not every day, not to everyone, but here and there, now and then. And as always, it's just that "one bad apple", till the next "just one" bad apple is caught a year or so later and so on.
But worse - well, not worse, but terrible all the same - is the day in day out shit swallowing those in charge expect. You learn not to give them trouble, or make trouble, or do anything that might involve in the least way bothering them.
They say that all they want is to protect us and keep the peace, but that's more for those on the outside to hear. Those on the inside would wonder why "protection" and "peace" requires a "Yes, sir" and "Yes, ma'am" and such like they're the Lords and Ladies of Creation and we the least peasants. And to not give them the greatest of respect at all times is to be giving them lip and causing trouble.
And lead to a loss of privileges very quickly. Or delayed food. Or no meal. Or isolation. Loss of yard time or library time or common area time. Those may seem like little things, but they're not. And while it doesn't always happen, they're can be some slaps or other physical abuse if they really don't like you.
I mean, it's so rare that we mostly just hear stories, but, well, it's not so rare that those who tell the stories didn't either see it happen to another or have it happen to them. It happens. Frequently enough to be of concern - and how frequently would that have to be, anyway?
Kissing ass at all times is safer.
**********
I was teased as I approached the table, with one of my friends calling out "One year in now, you'll be an old timer here soon enough!" I said, "Shut up and deal!", and grinning, he did so. They dealt me in, then they gave each other looks, and finally one of them said, "Well? Your house?"
I said, "You heard about that? How?" They said that they'd heard it from someone who'd heard me getting upset about it during the last Visitation. In a series of visitations that had dropped to one per every other month.
True enough, I thought, I had been upset. "It's fine", I lied. Then thinking it through, I continued, "I guess it really is fine, as there's nothing I can do about it. The State insists, and the court ordered it. Can't even blame my daughter for helping sell it, except for the part where, oh, yeah, she turned me in in the first place! Hadn't been for her, none of this shit would have happened!"
"C'mon", one of them said to me. "You must surely know by now that you belong here. How long you going to hold a grudge?" I looked at him and my friends. Finally I said, "I get you. I do. But I wasn't ready. And no one likes betrayal."
My friend said, "None of us are ever ready, you know that. And sure, it's a betrayal. But it's done. So you can make your peace as best you can, or you can complain till you die. What's it going to be?"
"Just deal 'em", I said, with a scowl that all of them knew didn't mean any anger towards them. I was angry, though. As why shouldn't I be? You've just read my whole account of my year here, and to save your life you couldn't even tell me where I am!
Does that surprise you? Maybe it does. Still don't know what I mean? Well, I'll put it this way:
I'm not in prison, at least not an official one. I'm 72 and my daughter called Adult Protective Services on me, when I had an incident or two regarding my memory. I fought her for a year, but they assigned her to be my guardian over my objections, and she and that crap bum husband of hers shoved me in here.
They thought they'd sell my house for fat cash, but - to my one bit of joy - the State insisted they sell it to pay for the nursing home I'm in.
So you bet I'm mad. When I can tell my story and you reading it think I'm describing Shawshank Redemption II? How is it in any way good, decent or just that the end of life care for we elderly is the same as a murderer, rapist or thief gets?
Whatever. You can stop reading now and go about your life on the outside. Me, I'm waiting for the next exciting event in my life. Mac and Cheese at 5pm. Or death. Whichever comes first, and guess which one I'm rooting for?
