Chapter 20

The van pulled into the entrance to Tent City; the entire compound was ringed with razor wire and video cameras. We exited the cramped confines of the van and were led to a holding cell not much larger than a department store dressing room. I thought that worse was impossible after the Matrix, but I was wrong. The small, cramped holding cell was already filled with prisoners when we arrived. The guards crowbarred us inside with the door pressing firmly against the bodies of the prisoners closest to it when it closed. This set a new standard for inhumane treatment by the Sheriff’s Office. On the single bench, long enough to seat three men comfortably, six men sat shoulder to shoulder. The rest of us stood, butt to penis; seventeen prisoners were crammed into one tiny concrete room. The smell of years of body odor and urine in the cell was overwhelming, and the tiny room was hot.

I began to feel claustrophobic. I couldn’t breathe. I was becoming dizzy, so I asked the men around me to catch me if I passed out. A small food tray door in the main door had been left open by the guard. It was our only source of fresh air, and the inmates began shuffling around so I could be near it. At the door, I knelt to breathe through the small opening and get away from the hot stale air. I knelt there for four hours. During that time I realized what was happening to me, the sudden claustrophobia, the difficulty catching my breath, the overwhelming fear — I was having an anxiety attack, a terror I had overcome more than forty years ago had returned.

BAM! The food tray slot in the door slammed shut in my face. The shadow of a guard passed by the door’s glass insert above my head. My peering out of the cell into the open area where the guards were milling about had upset one of them. I closed my eyes and quietly began to pray. I fought to control the feelings of helplessness and panic overtaking me.

It seemed an eternity by the time the holding cell door opened and we filed out to line up against the wall for handcuffs. The lot of us resembling the typical Happy Hour crowd more than a dangerous pack of felons. Our group was led outside the building onto a concrete pad under a large open tarp where laundry bins were filled with clothing stacked in neat piles. We were ordered to strip naked in the frigid air. I stood shivering in the pre-dawn morning of January wearing only my pink rubber bath slippers. The cold wind cut into my skin like microscopic shards of glass tearing at my flesh. My teeth clattered with the loud, rhythmic sound of deer antlers colliding in the mating season.

Two guards dressed in thick winter coats and black beanie hats stood at the end of the line of laundry bins talking and laughing. From their demeanor it appeared they were laughing at us. The humiliation I felt was that of a naked slave at the market. I walked down the line of clothing donning socks, boxer shorts, and another pair of striped pajamas as quickly as the slow-moving line of shivering men permitted. I was issued one sheet, one towel, and six paper thin blankets. (The normal issue in winter, I later learned, was two blankets, but sickness had forced the Sheriff’s Office to allot prisoners four more this year.) The bins that were supposed to contain sets of cotton thermal underwear were empty by the time I got to them. One other prisoner and I stood there, without the much needed protection, waiting to see what would happen next.

“You two guys will have to come back tomorrow afternoon when more clothing arrives from the laundry to request the additional clothing,” the DO said with a shrug, his gloved hands stuffed into the pockets of his heavy, thick coat and a wool beanie pulled down low over his ears to just above his eyebrows. I would need to make due as best I could to survive the night in a cold, arctic air mass blanketing Phoenix that January of 2007. Just two weeks earlier, the temperature had reached a record-breaking low of 14 degrees. Tonight it was 35 degrees and I stood in the night air holding my bedding dressed for the searing heat of summer. I was in trouble — serious trouble.

The men in my assigned tent, strangers I couldn’t recognize in the darkness, got out of their bunks and went to work after one of the prisoners realized my condition. Several of my new tent mates were dispatched to roam the tents of In-yard for more clothing and blankets. While we waited, a young man showed me how to make a ‘Laurence of Arabia’ style head covering by ripping apart the thin, pink towel I had been issued. Its purpose, he explained, was to keep the body heat from escaping my bare head. Other inmates offered temporary blankets to protect me from the bite of the frigid air. They showed me how to make a bed for survival, tucking in the bedding in a fashion that minimized the escaping of body heat to create a makeshift igloo and encapsulate what warmth my body manufactured.

The bed sheet, more densely woven than the blankets, was used as a top cover. The flimsy foam mattress flattened under the weight of a prisoner’s body, allowing the steel frame to suck precious body heat from hips, knees, and shoulders. Two blankets were placed over the cold plastic-coated foam as a bottom sheet to partially insulate me from the danger of the steel frame beneath.

When the runners returned with four more blankets, three of them were placed beneath the foam, fully insulating it from the cold steel’s icy grip. Five more blankets, tucked in on three sides, were placed on top of the sheet. A plastic garbage bag was ripped open and draped across the foot of the bunk. Its purpose was to keep my feet from becoming frostbitten. Lying on my side, curled in a ball in my makeshift igloo, sleep was impossible. Shivering and in pain from my aching joints, I silently prayed — God, let me live until the sun comes up.

Thanks to the generosity of strangers, these young men who had been branded as less than human by the authorities of Maricopa County, I survived my first night in Tent City. The next day, two pair of tattered, but newly laundered and neatly folded, thermal underwear appeared magically on my bunk, the generosity of yet another prisoner working as slave labor for the sheriff.

Not long after sunrise, everyone was forced to roll-up and tie the tent’s sides so the DOs could see all activity inside each tent. Periodically throughout the day, DOs roamed the compound and stripped bunks of more than the standard issue six blankets, throwing the contraband bedding onto the rocks that covered the yard. Prisoners were randomly chosen for searches and patted down for contraband. Wearing more than the standard issue two pair of tattered cotton thermals was strictly forbidden. Prisoners were forced to strip on the spot, tossing the protective clothing onto the rocks. As punishment, some of these inmates were forced to walk the yard to clear it of contraband blankets and thermal underwear taken from other prisoners by the guards. By the next evening, new blankets and thermals had reappeared. Slave laborers work around the clock in Tent City, and when their shifts ended smuggle more survival gear back into the tents. Other inmates, transferred out of the tents, left their bedding behind for those remaining. This was a well-practiced ritual, and I suspected that some of the nightshift guards didn’t have their supervisor’s hard-hearted (and dangerous) approach to warehousing county residents.

Tent City is a privilege offered by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Arpaio is quick to point out that inmates living in the tent jail are happier than inmates living inside the buildings. In many respects he is telling the truth. Some of the jails are old, and even inside a new one like LBJ, filthy air handling units fill the air with particles of dirt laden lint. The tents are polluted too, but they not as bad as the indoor jails. It is during winter and summer that Tent City’s population suffers to the point of danger and death.

Inside, the jail’s have their own dangers year round. A prisoner’s movement is restricted inside, and employees can harass prisoners freely without worry of a news helicopter or a large number of other inmates viewing. In the tents, there is freedom of movement and public viewing to ward off an employee’s errant behavior. Except for the extremes of climate, life in the tents is safer with more relative freedom than the indoor jails. Of course, there is a price to pay for that privilege. Every resident of In-yard is a slave. Prisoners who refuse to work are evicted and returned to the indoor jails.

In-yard prisoners prepare the food, clean the jails, clean the ancillary facilities such as the animal stables, and provide chain gangs to harvest fruit from local residents which is given (fresh or rotten) to the prisoners to eat. Chain gangs even bury the county’s indigent dead. Inmates work seven days a week to provide free services to the county for the less than sixty cents a day in food that is given to them by the sheriff.

The hard-hearted reputation of Maricopa County’s penal system has reached as far away as Ireland, whose government refused to extradite an accused child molester because of the dangers he faced if returned to Arizona. There are, of course, those who benefit from a jail the size of a small town. Inmate clothing which is sewn in Central America and toiletry products purchased from China export much needed tax payer dollars abroad. It is commonly believed among prisoners inside the county jail that the sheriff’s friends and family receive lucrative contracts as commissary and clothing suppliers, but no one has filed charges that such corrupt nepotism exists. Still, because of the ferocity that the sheriff attacks anyone who delves into his secretive activities, it made me wonder.

By the following afternoon, I was meeting new people and adjusting to the In-yard routine. William was on the local Inmate Council and had coordinated the effort that had saved my life the night before. I was sitting on my bunk absorbing the sunshine entering the tent from the sinking sun. William was sitting on the bunk adjacent to mine.

“I would have died last night if it hadn’t been for you guys,” I said.

“I know,” William replied. “Some people do die. We look out after each other as best we can. Sometimes we hang out in the Day Room at night, but the third shift DOs usually run everyone out who doesn’t have to be there. They’re not supposed to lock it down, but they do it all the time.”

“William, if you don’t mind my asking, why are you here? You don’t seem like a hoodlum.”

William laughed. He lowered his head, found a pebble, picked it up, and flipped it thoughtfully through his fingers. “I’m here because I was screwing around on my fiancé.”

“Come on; nobody goes to jail for that,” I commented.

“Seriously, Andrew Thomas paid to have me extradited from Louisiana for a case that had been thrown out of court twice.”

“All right. I won’t pry.”

“It’s okay. Sort of funny really,” William admitted. “My fiancé and I swapped vehicles for a week. She needed my truck to move some things, so I used her car. She came into a shopping center near my house the next Saturday afternoon and saw her car parked there. She pulled up alongside to say she was finished with my truck and saw me making out with another woman, a damned hot woman, too.”

“Okay, that might be a reason to shoot you, but even Andrew Thomas can’t find a law to prosecute that,” I said.

“My fiancé reported her car stolen, and the police arrested me. I explained it all to the officers, but they said they had no choice. Two different judges threw the case out of court. After that, I moved to Louisiana to get out of this stinking county and got a job working on an oil platform. It’s shift work, on a week — off a week, because they have to ferry you out to the rig in a helicopter. Anyway, I was on my week off when I got pulled over for speeding. The cop ran a warrant check on me and said I had a warrant outstanding for car theft in Arizona. I explained everything to him, but there was nothing he could do. He didn’t even arrest me. He had me follow him to the police station. Andrew Thomas is a crafty character; I’ll give him that. Apparently, he has people dusting off old files and re-opening cases like mine to prosecute them. This time I was indicted for ‘Theft of Means’. The prosecutor told me I would get probation and wouldn’t do any time if I signed a guilty plea. I was sick of fighting this county. I didn’t have the money to spend on a third lawyer, plus, public defenders really suck.”

“What’s ‘Theft of Means’?” I asked.

“It’s a weird law. I’d never heard of it either. Basically, it means I told my fiancé I was going to use her car to go to work. Since I went somewhere besides work, I’m guilty of the crime ‘Theft of Means’. It’s something like that.”

“Yeah, I’m on probation and doing time, too,” I said.

“Oh, I didn’t get any jail time,” William said. “Their trick was for me to sign an agreement for Intense Probation Supervision. I didn’t know there were different kinds of probation, and IPS is the worst. The guys in here call it ‘In Prison Soon’ because almost everyone on IPS gets busted for something sooner or later and ends up in here or in prison for a probation violation.”

“So what happened?”

“My probation officer made a surprise visit to check up on me. They do that. Well, some friends were helping me unload my stuff from Louisiana at the time and I had bought a couple of six packs of beer for us to drink while we worked.”

“People do that all the time.”

“I know. I didn’t think much of it either, but the conditions of IPS call for no alcohol. The probation officer took a picture of me with a can of beer in my hand and busted me for a probation violation. Now I’m doing six months in Tent City.”

“You have be kidding! What does alcohol have to do with car theft?”

“Nothing, but it’s all part of their game, man. Almost everyone I’ve met in this place is here for using drugs, DUI, or a probation violation. So, what’s your story?”

“I’m here for Aggravated Assault.”

“You? Man, there must be something I don’t see. Who’d you shoot?”

“Nobody. I was in an automobile accident.”

“Was somebody maimed?”

“No, but the county attorney got pretty crafty with my case, too. I ended up taking a plea. I call it ‘Trial by Prosecutor’. The County Attorney charged me with crimes that carry mandatory minimum sentences. There was no way I could get a fair trial. It’s interesting how he does that. He holds a gun to your head and says ‘Sign here’. Then he hangs your reputation on his wall like it’s a trophy to prove how many bad people live here.”

“Trial by prosecutor... I like that,” William said. “That’s pretty much what it’s become these days with mandatory sentencing, hasn’t it? I’m sorry dude. How long are you going to be here?”

“A year, but I’m supposed to get Work Furlough. I’m worried about that. I don’t seem to be going to Work Furlough, unless this is a stop along the way, and I’ve been away from work for a week.”

“A year! Christ, dude, get yourself another attorney. You don’t want to be in this place a whole year. Why didn’t you go to prison? It’s safer in prison.”

“My family, man. I’d go through hell for them.”

“Well, that’s pretty much what you’ve chosen to do. This is as close to hell as it gets in America. I admire your courage.”

“No courage to it, William. I didn’t do it for me. If I’d gone away for ten years, it could have destroyed my marriage, and who knows what would have become of my children.”

“Man, that woman you ran into must have wanted your balls hung on a stick,” William said.

“No, actually she was quite gracious,” I replied. “She didn’t show up at sentencing, and she told the prosecutor that she didn’t want me to go to jail. They didn’t charge her with anything, so my guess is that she wanted to stay as far away from these people as possible. I can’t blame her, and I’m glad they didn’t go after her. She might have gone to prison if they had, and that would have been as wrong as this.”

“I know. This county has gone to hell.”

“It’s not just Andrew Thomas. This sort of abuse is growing all across America. People like Andrew Thomas are rising to power like weeds. It’s the damned mandatory sentencing that’s the problem. It provides a shield for political predators like him to hide behind. Almost everyone is afraid to go to trial. I know; I studied this shit for eighteen months while I was trying to figure out what happened to me. You and I are part of a bigger plan, my friend.”

“Speaking of plans, I have to go pick up the Lizard’s mail — Later.” William exited the tent to get the mail for the day.
‘Lizard’, I learned, is the male inmates’ affectionate term for women inmates. They call the women ‘Lizards’. Don’t ask me why. I can only guess what the women call the men — ‘Dumb Asses’ probably. The mail system in Tent City is clever. The mail is delivered each afternoon when the DOs are changing shifts by tossing a sock filled with letters over the fenced barrier separating the men from the women. It starts off as a pen pal thing but often turns into a love affair between two lonely, desperate people who’ve never met, both of whom are saturated with feelings of helplessness.
William returned a few minutes later with a pink sock laden with tightly folded sheets of paper and some rocks for weight. Our tent was the mail tent, so there were plenty of visitors coming from across the yard to see if they had mail. Some of the men didn’t yet have a Lizard. They were hoping for a letter from a woman looking to hook-up or a reply to their inquiry tossed across the razor wire a few days earlier. It was an exciting time of day when William picked up the mail.

“Horne, get your gear and report to the bubble,” a guard’s voice boomed over the loud speaker.

“Dan, that’s you,” William said. “I guess you’re going to Work Furlough after all. Leave your blankets and sheets, okay?”
I gathered my few belongings to carry to the office. There wasn’t much.

“William, I don’t know how to thank you enough. You guys saved my life. I owe you, but I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

“Don’t worry about it, man,” William said. “You’ll help other people too when you get oriented to this shit hole. We help each other, dude. It’s for sure no one else gives a rat’s ass if we live or die in here. You’ll get your chance to pay it forward. Now go, or the bus will leave without you.”

Proceed to Chapter 21.