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CHAPTER 1
Dead Time
JULY 7, 2005, GOOD MORNING
It is 4:30 am on tier 1A of Division 5 at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois, and Donald "Frosty" Rogers stands alone in the day room, staring at the clock high up on the wall. The room has a distinct chill, and barely a sound rolls through the deck as Frosty absent-mindedly rubs the faded tattoo on his left arm, which reads, "No Mo' Pain."
He is 59, bald, with espresso-brown skin and a bleach-white beard that snakes downward from his ears to wrap around his chin and mouth. Spilling out from a sleeveless white T-shirt, his well-molded, densely packed upper body shames men half his age. He smiles a toothless grin, and to keep warm he begins to circle his arms repeatedly out before him, the fist of his right hand impacting over and over with the palm of his left, softly and rhythmically. Thak. Thak. Thak. Frosty hears something and looks over at the darkened security bubble. Inside the unit guard is reading yesterday's Sun-Times. Without looking up from his paper, the guard waves his arm, reaches over blindly to an archaic control panel, and begins pushing buttons.
A series of stark metallic pops like a row of demolition charges punctures the silence, racing around the tier as one after another the magnetic locks on the cell doors are released. A moment or two later, disheveled inmates clad in dirty brown scrubs with "CCDOC" emblazoned across the thigh and back slowly make their way from the two decks of cells situated above and below the day room. The inmates congregate around three stainless steel picnic tables and wait, heads propped, half asleep, until they hear the clang of the outer security door, indicating that the breakfast cart has arrived.
When the signal comes, the hungry inmates circle the doorway in muted homage to Pavlov, hoping to catch a glimpse of the day's offering. Two indolent gang-bangers in hairnets slowly begin to stack hard plastic trays one atop the other to a height of five feet, intentionally dragging out the process simply out of schadenfreude. Each tray has a small amount of dry cereal, a nondescript juice box, a small glop of cold potatoes, and a piece of bread.
Frosty hangs by the inner door waiting for the guard to buzz in the food so he can begin distributing it. Acrid smoke from hand-rolled Top menthol cigarettes hangs in the air, and the have-nots begin to case the haves. Hustling commences.
"I got a juice fo' a roll, juice fo' a roll," an inmate shouts. "Come on y'all, who goan gimme a square, mang?"
"Got chou, man," another says, flipping him a hand-rolled cigarette, or "roll." Commercial cigarettes, "squares," are expensive and in short supply. The have-nots are relentless in their begging, so people are discreet about revealing their cache anywhere near the day room.
The inmate who just received the "roll" puts it in his mouth, tips his head all the way back, lights a match, and slowly connects the two dramatically before sucking smoke in deep and blowing a cloud towards the halogen lamps high above, eminently satisfied with the day's first infusion of nicotine. In a lockdown situation, this little steam valve sometimes makes all the difference in the world in preserving order.
"Only one more month, y'all," he says, alluding to the jail-wide smoking ban that will go into effect on August 15.
"Sheeeeit. This mufucka goan go live, joe," replies the one who gave him the cigarette. "Last time they tried that shit, they were takin' White Shirts hostage on Division 9. It got buck ass wild up in heah."
An old black dude who called himself "Sensei" stares down through his bifocals at a chess board and comments, "It is an inveterate habit, Grasshopper."
"A what?" dude says.
"Consider it a favor from the state," Sensei mumbles, while scrutinizing the chessboard.
Although they rarely discuss it, inmates are visibly disturbed by this change in policy. It is true that the administration attempted once before in the late '90s to ban smoking, and there were indeed riots. It didn't even last a month. This time, they meant business, because this time it was all about cutting back on health care costs, not because they were particularly concerned about our health. For the preceding two months before the ban went into effect, every two weeks the amount of tobacco an inmate could purchase through the commissary was halved, and tips on how not to go berserk after you quit smoking were posted on every tier.
Frosty grabs a breakfast tray and stands in the inner doorway. Next to him on the floor is a milk crate filled with small cartons.
"All right, line it up!" he shouts. "Fin Ball, then Neutron, then One Love!"
The fifty-some inmates begin to order themselves sequentially into three different groupings based upon their gang affiliation, or lack thereof. In the front of the line are members of Fin Ball, a name for the five allied gangs of the largely South Side "People" Nation — the Vice Lords, Latin Kings, Blackstone Rangers (or "P-Stones"), Black Mafia, and Insane Popes. These five gangs bound together in the 1970s to protect themselves against the domination of One Love, or gangs from the West Side "Folks" Nation, who are dominated by the laws of the Gangster Disciples, the single largest gang in the Chicago milieu.
Sandwiched in between these two opposing armies are the Neutrons, or the non-gang-affiliated, an amalgamation of mostly white drug offenders, DUI cases, child support cases, and those blacks and Latinos who are either too old to have been part of the gang scene or who were fortunate enough to avoid it, only to later find themselves on the other side of the drug economy with a pesky habit.
One by one each inmate is given a breakfast tray and a small carton of milk, and then each heads for a specific preassigned area of the tier. Fin Ball is the largest by numbers and thus the dominant gang on tier 1A, entitling them to two of the three picnic tables in the day room. One Love sits at the remaining. They fall in like a platoon gathered for mess, have a moment of prayer, and then begin to eat. The Neutrons are left to sit on the floor outside their cells. Laconically, the inmates shovel the paltry portions of food into their mouths, finishing in only a few moments. Invariably, all are left hungry.
Less than fifteen minutes later, once all the inmates have finished and stacked their dirty trays by the door, Frosty calls the room to attention. The inmates are slow to muster, and voices echo loudly.
"On that noise!" Frosty yells. The room quickly quiets down and the inmates begin to pay attention. Frosty is joined on the day room floor by Joe "U.T." Owens, and another inmate calling himself "Celine." They stand behind him like hired goons, looking over the room.
Frosty begins.
"We know a lot of y'all come in on the new last night," he says, referring to the nightly delivery of new inmates to the tiers, which generally happens between 11 pm and 3 am. "So listen up! We ain't sayin' this shit twice."
The room is silent.
"Here's how it is on this deck," Frosty continues. "We all grown men here, so we gonna act like grown men. No stealin', no extortin', no fightin', don't call nobody nigger. This here is '1A.' Y'all got the best tier in the joint. We got that way 'cause we don't tolerate no boo-shit in here. We run this oursef, and the C.O.s leave us alone. So, we make the rules. You wanna fuck around on this deck, yo ass gonna get banked ... hard. Everyone here is treated equal, everyone here gets treated like a man. If you need something, ask!" Frosty pauses a second, then continues slower, with added emphasis. "Y'all new muthafuckas get yo ass in the shower this mornin'. You been sittin' in them bullpens for two three days now, and yo ass stink! No exceptions! Any questions?"
Hearing none, Frosty concludes with "Have a nice day." The inmates disperse and begin milling about.
The importance of at least the pretense of hygiene is important when you are in a lockdown situation with limited resources and a lot of men. The tiers are soulless old Modern structures plagued with a kind of textured and embedded filth that can never be scrubbed away. Perhaps in recognition of this futility, soap and other cleaning supplies are always in short supply, if not altogether nonexistent. Strict rules exist in order to maintain a semblance of decency. New men are mandated to shower, and all men are to wear plastic shower shoes at all times since the fungus on the floor rivals jungle rot from Vietnam. If you don't have soap or shower shoes, someone will usually provide you with some until you can work a hustle and get your own.
There is one communal bathroom space adjacent to the day room, with a row of toilets and urinals opposite a row of sinks with polished aluminum mirrors above them, nearly opaque by now. No spitting or tooth brushing is allowed in the sinks as they are used for clean drinking, and to hold cold water to cool milk cartons. The last commode is strictly for sit-down use, and large plastic garbage cans are stacked together next to it to provide the barest modicum of privacy. You clean up whatever mess you make ... anywhere. Slack on any of the above, and expect swift and direct retribution.
Very quickly the tier becomes loud again. The television sitting high above the room bolted to a rack in the cinder block wall is quickly switched on to BET. Some inmates array themselves along the tables to play spades or dominoes or roll cigarettes. Some congregate for morning bible study with "The Reverend," a gentle and soft-spoken older man in wire frame glasses whose sole interface with those on the deck is the word of Jesus Christ; no one knows why he is in jail. Others retreat to their cells for more sleep while the new arrivals are herded into the showers, as ordered, soon to be horrified by the foul dross that awaits them in there, but so grateful for a few moments with some soap and hot water that, for the time being, it won't matter.
Before the sun has even broken the horizon, tier 1A begins to come alive, another day in the County, unremarkable, really, from any other day. Frosty grabs a broomstick — what the inmates affectionately call "the remote" — and begins to change channels on the television looming above. 1A is allowed a broomstick because it is a peaceful deck. Most other tiers, it wouldn't be such a good idea. Frosty pauses on a CBS "Special Report," which is just breaking.
"On that noise!" he bellows. "Y'all might want to pay attention to this shit!"
The room somewhat quiets, but it's clear no one really cares. The only shows that generally capture their attention are Jerry Springer, COPS, and Soul Train.
Frosty watches the coverage in silence.
... London rocked by terror attacks. At least two people have been killed and scores injured after three blasts on the Underground network and another on a double-decker bus in London. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was "reasonably clear" there had been a series of terrorist attacks. He said it was "particularly barbaric" that it was timed to coincide with the G8 summit. He is returning to London. An Islamist website has posted a statement — purportedly from alQaeda — claiming it was behind the attacks ...
"Shit ... Ain't no mufuckin' al-Qaeda," he mumbles.
The Cook County Jail is part of the Cook County Department of Corrections, a sprawling 96-acre detention complex situated next to the Cook County Criminal Courts along California Avenue in Chicago's Lower West Side neighborhood. Most refer to it as "26th and Cal" even though the jail stretches all the way south to 32nd Street, in all a distance of nearly a mile.
The first county jail in Chicago was built in 1871 at 26th Street and California Avenue scant months before the Great Chicago Fire. That building is long gone, replaced in 1929 by what is now the oldest remaining building in the complex, Division 1. This squat art-deco structure has over the years held a fine pedigree of criminal luminaries including Al Capone and Frank Nitti, Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo, gang leaders Larry Hoover, Jeff Fort, and Willie Lloyd, and serial killers Richard Speck and John Wayne Gacy.
Between 1929 and 1995 the jail complex was expanded into 11 separate divisions that range from minimum security to supermax. Cook County is the largest single-site pre-trial detention facility in the United States (Los Angeles has a bigger overall county jail, but it is split into two separate facilities). CCDOC employs over 3,000 correctional officers and support staff and admits over 100,000 detainees a year, more than twice that of the entire Illinois penitentiary system. The reported average daily inmate population is around 10,000. The real figure, however, is quite likely higher since, due to overcrowding, it is a regular practice to put a third man in a two-man cell and have him sleep on the floor.
It is also one of the most controversial correctional facilities in the nation, referred to by inmate and officer alike as the "Crook County Department of Corruptions." In recent years the jail has come under fire for overcrowding, violence, and, naturally, corruption. There have been all manner of federal and grand jury investigations, and plaintiff lawsuits, concerning excessive beatings and inmate deaths at the hands of correctional officers. And if they didn't already have enough bad PR to defuse, between 2005 and 2006 there were a series of high-profile escapes that received national coverage.
Anyone who has had the misfortune of being behind its walls knows all too well about the violence, corruption, and squalor that characterizes this institution. Simply put, Cook County Jail is a harrowing, unforgettable experience for anyone. It is so awful that for many of its detainees a quick guilty plea and a trip to the penitentiary, even for twice as long, is preferable to staying in the County.
Or at least that was how I saw it when I was arrested in March 2005 for possession of 14 capsules of MDMA (a.k.a. Ecstasy) and was facing one year in prison.
To be fair, this was my third time in County. My first was for a month in December 1998 when I was busted for the second of three drug-related convictions I have on my record. The first two convictions came in the late 1990s, the result of nearly a decade spent in high-intensity guerrilla warfare against a cocaine addiction while in my twenties. The MDMA conviction came seven years (and really, a whole lifetime) later, following my arrest two weeks after my thirty-fifth birthday.
I had just returned to Chicago after spending most of the previous year on the road writing for Newtopia, an online magazine I published at the time, and organizing for the Green Party and other related factions of the progressive-to-radical antiwar and green movements. I was back in town to face a court case I had that stemmed from an assault by tactical officers (TAC squad) of the 23rd District of the Chicago Police Department, Addison and Halsted Street station, one year before in April 2004. I was illegally stopped and searched, and ultimately beaten and arrested on false charges, by four plainclothes police officers who discovered I was connected to a local peace and justice group that was involved in fighting police corruption.
The charges against me were dismissed, and the judge who heard the case acknowledged wrongdoing by the police. From that moment forth I can only assume that, fearing a civil rights case that I fully intended to file, these cops were committed to stopping me somehow. I was watched, I was followed, and a few weeks later I was rousted and ultimately arrested for possession of MDMA by TAC squad officers from the same precinct house, one of whom I later identified as one of the four present the night of my assault.
It's important for me to take a moment here and explain that I was not using Ecstasy recreationally. I wasn't a "raver," and I didn't merely transfer an addiction from one substance to another. I was reintroduced to MDMA in a therapeutic context in 2004. Prior to that I had not taken a single dose since the early '90s.
Friends from my community in Chicago who were fellow drug war activists were also intimately connected to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which had done pioneering work on MDMA therapy for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Many of these friends, as well as psychotherapeutic professionals I knew at the time, helped me to see that I was suffering from a form of PTSD brought on by the effects of violent experiences in my past and my prolonged addiction to cocaine, and that some form of MDMA therapy might help me.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Exile Nation"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Charles Shaw.
Excerpted by permission of Counterpoint.
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