Busted, Disgusted,and Can’t Be Trusted.

“ I am gonna sentence you thirty days for each infraction to be served concurrently, you unnerstand that boy?.” Wait! What? Did he just ay thirty days? “Um, I think so your honor, but I’ve already been here three days and I haven’t done anything wrong. I” Jimbo supercop who was standing alongside me squeezed my arm and whispered to me. “You bess shut up son, least you fine yersef here longer’n that.” The judge pouned his gavel, Look here boy, you gigttin one days credit for time served, so you bout to be our guest for the next twenty nine days and if y‘all know whats good fir ya y‘all just take it like a man. You lucky Ize inna generous mood, we on’t take kinly to y’all coming down to our fine State and causin’ uss all kins a trouble. And when you finish your time I suggest you high tail it out of South Carolina cuz if I ever see you agin I promose you I will not be so generous.” He banged his gavel on the desk again and with a dismal lack of enthusiasm, and yelled “Next case.” My two friends Jimbo and Billy-boy each grabbed an arm as the led me out of the courtroom. “Boy, youse one lucky mutha. Only thirty days!” Jimbo seemed almost sad. Maybe he was beginning to like me and wanted to hang out with me some more. It would only be a matter of minutes until I realized that my sarcastic thought, like apparently everything else in this shit state was so very far from any truth.
My jailor friends walked me down one corridor where I noticed a cigarette machine, with a paperback book on top of it. Thinking I may need some reading material over the next twenty nine days I grabbed the book as we went passed without the goon squad noticing. We had made a few turns just confuse about where I was until we stopped at a door that said “Interrogation Room” If I was confused before, I was completely perplexed now. Jimbo opened the door and they led me inside. It was a relatively empty room, they are big on minimalism in South Carolina prisons. Four chairs, three on one side of a table, and one lonely chair on the other. It was apparent which one was mine and Jimbo led me right over to it and signaled for me to sit down. Nervously, I sat. It was Billy who spoke. “Boy, we need to git an unnerstandin’ tween us here. Firstly, I don ever wanna here ya call any of us turn-key again. Got that?” I was in a very precarious position and was weighing my best options. I sheepishly let out a soft yessir. I was taken aback at how wimpy it sounded echoing around the room. Jimbo lifted up his foot and kicked me hard with his “County issue” hard leather boot. He had reached up higher than I would have thought he could manage with his roly poly body and landed the soul of that boot directly in the muscle portion of my left bicep. Both me and the chair caught off guard (pun intended) went sailing across the floor in search of the wall. My head hit it first so I knew I had found it.The chair followed behind me awkwardly. Jimbo walked over to my shaking body and got so close to me I could smell his stale coffee and tobacco stinkbreath. “He asked you if you got that boy?” He really didn’t need to say it so loud, what with me being a half inch away and all, but he felt a need to cover my ear in spit as he yelled. Now I was at a horrible disadvantage and needed to react quick to win these guys over and get out of here. I looked him in the eye and said clearly “Yes sir, I got it. I will not call you turn-key ever again.” Billy was picking me up and Jimbo got the chair. “Now that’s much better boy” Billy was now speaking with an air of superiority that he enjoyed immensely. “Sit back down now boy, we don’t want you falling off your chair agin.” Big bad Jimbo leaned down to my dry ear and began to talk in a half whisper. “Let me tell ya how this is gonna go here yankee boy. We dun like no strangers comin roun here causin no trouble. We don like you, but y’all gonna be here a while so you need to git the rules straight. Theys pretty simple. Rule one, we is your owners now and you nevah nevah talk back to yore owner. Hear?” I was nodding my head in agreement, but before I could get a word out, Billy Boy had whacked my right calf with his baton so hard it burnt like it was on fire before going numb. My calf was throbbing when Jimbo saw the book I had found. He picked it up and said “What the Hell is this? Looka here Billy, this long hair he girl stole him a book. Now ya see boy, this is the kind of thing we wants to avoid. He placed the book up to my temple, and used his baton to hit the book. A pain shot through my head like I had never experienced before. The chair and I both fell to the ground again this time much more uniformly. Billy walked over to where I had fallen, and stepped hard on my calf. “Is this the spot where you hurt yaseff boy?” Pain was throbbing all over, in my leg, my head, and now in my stomach. When I looked up Jimbo was standing over me with his baton by his side and a sadistic smile on his face. I was having trouble breathing which is when I realized I had just been whacked in the stomach with his baton. My head was spinning, my eyes teared up, and I everything looked violet and blurry from blood trickling from my head. Jimbo picked me up and locked my arms behind me. Billy took the book I had found, and placed on my temple again, and whacked the book harder than the last time. With sadistic grins they moved the book to various places on my face and continued the beatings. “Seenow boy, you done us a favor with this here book y’all stole. Ain’t gonna be no marks on yer face, but I bet its gonna hurt for a long time comin’.” Jimbo sat me down in the chair, or should I say threw me into the chair where I collapsed in pain and exhaustion. I could hardly breathe, and barely speak. I looked up through the tears in my eyes and watched them parading around with ugly satisfied looks on both of their faces. The beatings continued for what seemed like an hour, but was more likely only five or ten minutes. They applied the book and baton combination to various body parts, mostly concentrating on my arms. My entire body was throbbing and aching, and Billy got right in my face again. “So I think we have us an unnerstandin’ here, right boy?” He pointed the baton to my face and smacked it with his other hand. The hard wood made a direct hit to my nose and I could immediately feel blood flowing. It took every ounce of strength to just nod yes. Satisfied, Billy stood up and smiled at Jimbo. “I think he unnerstans Jimbo. Maybe we should get this nice young law breaker something to drink, he looks like he has a mighty thirst.” They both laughed. Billy left the room and Jimbo picked up the paperback and handed it to me. “Now don’t y’all go nowhere ya hear me son?” I looked up at him but everything was still blurry. I knew he was very close because I could smell his stale smoke breath. He grabbed my pony tail and lifted me off the chair, put a fore arm to my chest and flung me as hard as he could into the wall. I collapsed and just laid on the floor, not sure if I couldn’t move or just didn’t want to. He threw what I hope was a clean hankercheif at me and told me to clean myself up. I heard the door close and sensed I was alone. I cried as the blood from my nose thinned out the tears.
C’mon boy, it’s time to take you home.” Billy walked in with a bottle of water, handed it to me and they each got on one side of me and led me out of the interrogation room and back down some more corridors until we reached the general population of the jail. They walked me to my cell removed my unnecessary handcuffs and plopped me down on my paper thin mattress. I laid there and started to re-live the beating reflecting on the pain. My face was swollen and my spirit broken. I was barely conscience of my surroundings, but I heard noises all around me. After about a half hour, I fell asleep and dreamed. I had one of the most vivid dreams of my life. I dreamed I was going to a big mansion in the sky, and wondered if I was dying. The song “Spirit in the Sky” played over and over in my head. I was in and out of lucidity for the rest of the day and night. Tomorrow would be another day.