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| Artwork via Wikimedia Commons |
In prison, there are two types of phones.
The first are the cell phones and just like at an AT&T store there are
many different models. There are flip phones which are smaller, more inconspicuous
and easier to hide. And there are smartphones you can use to video
chat with your people on the outside, in between binge-watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix,
thanks to the free high-speed internet service the prison provides. (The
irony of watching a show about prison while in prison is not lost in this
description.)
This first type of phone comes with a set of troubles. Cell phones are illegal contraband in the eyes of the Department of Corrections, which means that if a prisoner is caught with a cell phone, he will receive a 115. This is the equivalent of a ticket that gives the prisoner more time on his sentence. And that’s a risk that Trent Thomas is not willing to take. While it would be nice to see his girlfriend on a high-definition LED screen in the comfort of his cell, Trent is being released at the end of the month and Jenifer would be livid if he got more time on his sentence. He’d already been gone for a year.
Hence, Trent uses
the second type of phone you find in prison: the Prison Phone. They are also
known as ‘stress boxes’ because of all the bad news incarcerated men have
gotten while talking on them over the years. They are extremely inconvenient to
use. The rules are that they can only be used between 12 pm and 3 pm. They are shut down until after dinner, at 6 pm,
and again at 8:30 pm. These time restrictions are only part of the problem.
Between 4 pm and 5 pm, there is a mandatory headcount, which means all
prisoners must be in their cells. This is a guideline followed by all prisons
in the state, so while one prisoner is being counted up North, another prisoner
is being counted down South. The process takes about an hour. This is
surprising because as Trent’s cellmate Bullet would say, “You would think being
able to count would be a requirement to become a C.O.” If the count goes even a
minute past 5 pm you can hear Bullet start heckling the guards through his cell
door, “Use your fingers if you can’t count!”
During this time, the Correctional Officers make their rounds dropping off mail and picking up requests to see Medical. Lastly, they bring the phone list. Getting on the phone list is the closest thing to a guarantee that you might be able to get on one of the twelve phones available in the cell block. While twelve phones may seem like a lot, it’s not, given the fact that each cell block houses five hundred men. The phones are all in a line, with uncomfortable steel benches in front of them. These phones do not ring. Ever. They only make outgoing calls, and calls can only last fifteen minutes. The calls have to be accepted by the person you are calling. Nothing is free. Your people on the outside have to have an account with a company called Global Tellalink which manages the calls made out of the prison and charges the account belonging to the number you are calling. Every call starts exactly the same way. A robotic-sounding woman’s voice says, “You have a call from a California state prison inmate.” The inmate’s pre-recorded name is heard, and the voice asks the person being called to press 5 if she wishes to receive this call. If you get through, and the call is accepted, Global Tellalink thanks you for using its calling service (even though there is no other option) and also reminds you that your call is being recorded.
Holidays are the
worst. Five hundred men trying to get through to their family members to
wish them a Happy
Thanksgiving or Christmas, and apologizing for not being there with
them. They promise that when they get out, they will never spend another
holiday away from them. This makes for highly tense situations. Trent
remembers watching one inmate remind another of his phone time in the
middle of the latter’s call, which started late because another
inmate before him went over his allotted fifteen minutes. “Come on man, I
am talking to my kids!” said the inmate holding the phone. “I don’t give a
shit. I gotta call my old lady!” the other inmate shouted back. And just like that, a fight broke
out. By the time the guards responded, the receiver on the phone had been
broken across one of the inmate’s head. The guards activated the alarms
and sent everyone back to their cells. Merry Christmas.
In the year that
Trent has spent in prison, he has figured out that the best way to get on
the phone first is to sign up early. Then make sure that Jenifer is
available to answer. This way they can talk every day. So, at 1200 unlock,
right as everyone is going to the yard, Trent gets on the phone and calls
Jenifer on her way to work.
“You have a call
from a California state inmate. Trent. To accept this call press 5. Thank
you for using Global Tellalink. This call will be monitored and
recorded.”
“Hey, baby”, Jenifer’s voice says through the phone. It always makes Trent smile to hear
her voice. It really helps him get through the rest of his day. “How
are you?”
“I am fine.” says Trent.
“I’ve got to go to
work. Bianca is being a real bitch and has me scheduled way out, down the
highway in
Davenport.” Trent loves hearing about the mundane, everyday problems of
Jenifer. She works for a care-giving company, doing house calls for little old
ladies all over Santa Cruz County. “Isn’t that where your client Barbra
lives? The lady who has dementia?” asks Trent.
“No. That’s Ms.
Lucy.” Jenifer corrects him. “She lives in town. This is a new client, I
guess. She’s thirty minutes out of town. I don’t mind the drive but the weather
is really bad.”
“Oh,” replies
Trent.
“How about you,
baby? How’s your day?” Jenifer asks him.
The same as every
day, Trent thinks to himself. But he never says how miserable he is with
the monotonous routine of prison life. Instead, he tries to spice up his
daily activities and make them sound more fun and enjoyable than they are.
“Well, me and Bullet are gonna run a few miles and work out. Then shower,
go to chow, and probably watch Jeopardy.” Hearing himself say his
daily routine is boring even to him.
“That sounds fun.
Are you excited?”
“Excited for
what?”
“For getting
out?!”
Trent knows what she
is talking about but he doesn’t like talking or even thinking about
it. When he does, it somehow makes the clocks tick slower and the days
become longer. “I try not to think about it,” he says.
“Well, I am excited!”
says Jenifer. Then the robotic voice from Global Tellalink interrupts: “You
have five minutes remaining for this call, and thank you for using Global
Tellalink. This call is being monitored and recorded.”
“I’ll be glad when I
don’t have to hear that anymore,” says Trent.
“Me too, baby. Have
fun today and be happy—you’re getting out soon!”
“I’ll try.”
“I love you, baby.”
“I love you too.”
Trent made a mistake
a year and a half ago, one that changed his whole life. He was out with Jenifer
and had a few drinks. Trent met Jenifer during his first year of college
and they have been together ever since. They were celebrating his
graduation from college that night; he had earned a Masters in Business.
Trent was not a partier or a heavy drinker. If anything, it was
uncharacteristic of him to even be celebrating. Usually, his nose was in a
book. But graduating seemed like a worthwhile reason to cut loose.
Unfortunately, Trent cut too loose.
While leaving the
restaurant he got into a car accident driving through an intersection. No one was
badly hurt in the accident and Trent had never been in any kind of trouble
before. But the people in the other car had some scrapes and bruises and
the mayor of Santa Cruz at the time had adopted a zero-tolerance approach
to the Driving under the Influence or DUI ‘epidemic’. To make an example, he sentenced Trent to
three years in prison.
Trent is only
serving one year, given good behaviour and low points and no prior
prison terms. But one year on the inside feels so much longer than on the
outside. Especially for Trent, who has never really spent any time away
from home. In comparison to his cellmate Bullet, who is doing ten years
for involuntary manslaughter, Trent’s time is just a drop in the bucket.
He tries to keep that in mind and never openly complains about his time
in prison to anyone.
The day plays out
the same as the one before. Trent goes to the yard, runs and works
out, reports back to his cell by count time and makes sure to sign up with
the guard for his daily calls with Jenifer. Then he watches Jeopardy
with Bullet after chow and at bedtime, he lays awake watching the local
news. The prison is close enough to Santa Cruz for him to get news from
home. It’s nice to see his hometown when it does make the news. “Starting
news tonight from Santa Cruz,” the news anchor announces. “There was a
head-on collision on Highway 1. The driver of a silver Ford Explorer drove
head-on into a semi-truck heading the other direction.” Trent sits up
in his rack and gasps. Jenifer drives a silver Ford Explorer. “The authorities
have not identified the driver of the silver Ford Explorer but the accident is
still an active scene. Now in Sports. . .”
Trent turns off the
TV. The cell is pitch black. The doors are locked, and it is cold and
quiet.
Trent feels more
alone and helpless than he has been in his entire life. It is 1100. He has
thirteen hours until he can use the phone. And while he has felt like the
last year of his life has dragged by slowly, time has never stopped
before, not like this.
After the longest
thirteen hours of his life, Trent bursts out of his cell, rushes down the
hall, squeezes in-between other convicts and bolts down the stairs two at
a time to the phones. “Welcome to Global Tellalink,” says the robotic
voice. Please pick up. Please pick up, Trent repeats to himself as the
phone rings. . . and rings. . .and rings. Come on Jen. Pick up. Then the
other line answers. “You have a pre-paid call from an inmate at a California
state prison. Trent. If you would like to accept this call press 5.”
Trent waits. No one
is pressing 5. He panics and hangs up. When your person’s voicemail
answers the phone
the recording will still play, asking the voice mail to accept the
charges. Trent picks up the phone again and frantically dials, his fingers
slipping off the receiver from the sweat on his palms, his heart racing as
he pushes the cold buttons on the phone and tries to reach Jenifer again.
One ring. Two rings.
Three rings. Trent’s heart feels like it’s going to pop. What if
something has happened to her? They were talking about getting married
when he would get out. Oh God, what if something horrible has
happened to her? Just then the recording plays, “You have a pre-paid call from
an inmate at California Corrections facility. Trent. Press 5 to accept this
call.” “Hey, baby.” It was her voice!
“Are you ok?” Trent
asks.
“Of course, I am,”
she kind of giggles at the question. “Are you?” She can tell from Trent’s voice
that something is wrong.
“I just thought...I
just thought...I saw the news and I thought it was you!”
Jenifer doesn’t
understand. Trent can still picture what he saw on the television: the mangled
wreckage of the
silver Ford Explorer on the side of the highway, illuminated by the
swirling
bright lights of the
emergency response vehicles, police cars, firemen and paramedics buzzing around
the scene.
“Trent, calm down.
What’s going on?” If it had been her car, he wouldn’t have known what to
do. “It wasn’t you!”
Now confused
and getting frustrated, Jenifer asks, “What wasn’t me?”
“There was an
accident shown on the news last night,” Trent explains. “A bad one. Someone
died. They didn’t say who.” Trent pauses for a second, relieved as it sinks in
that he is speaking to Jenifer. He sits down on the cold bench in front of
the wall-mounted prison phone. “I thought it was your car. It was a silver
Ford Explorer.”
There is a pause.
Then the recorded voice from Global Tellalink plays, “You have
five minutes remaining for this call. And thank you for using Global
Tellalink. This call is being monitored and recorded.”
“Trent?” Jenifer
asks.
“Yeah?” responds
Trent.
“I am fine,” she
assures him. “Are you going to be ok, baby? There are a lot of silver
Ford
Explorers in the
world. You know that.”
Trent feels a little
dumb. She is right. He had allowed himself to get pretty worked up.
“I am fine and I
love you,” she says. “Thank you for being so worried about me.” The call
would end any minute
now. “Do you want to call me back?” she asks, sensing that Trent may still
be a little emotional and upset.
“No, I can’t. But
I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says.
“Ok, baby. Have a
good day, ok?”
“Ok.”
“I love you, baby.”
“I love you
too.”
There is a pause,
and the recording plays, “Your call has ended, and thank you for using
Global Tellalink.” Trent puts the phone back on the receiver and goes
to the yard.
Jenifer and Trent
had seemed perfect for each other from the day they met. For his class, Trent
was doing a type of light internship at a homeless project for extra credit. He
could still remember seeing Jenifer for the first time, amongst the
vibrant colours in the edible garden at the homeless project where food
was being grown by those wanting to grow it and maintained by volunteers
like Jenifer. She had been wearing overall shorts. Her hair was long and
brown, her skin sun-kissed and tan, and her dirty gloveless hands held
a gardening shovel. She almost shined in the sun. Trent knew at first
sight that he loved her.
Back in prison, his
day plays out just like the one before and the one before that: yard,
then count, then chow, then Jeopardy. Before he knows it, he is
back in his rack watching the news again. “An update from last night’s
devastating head-on collision,” says the news anchor. “The body of 29-year-old
Jenifer Davis has been identified as the driver of the silver Ford Explorer.”
Trent’s mouth falls open in shock. His skin goes pale white, and he starts to
drip a cold sweat as the TV screen fills with a picture of Jenifer,
provided by her family members. There is no denying it—it’s her. What the
fuck…but how?
Trent lies in his
bed, unable to process what he has seen on television. Maybe it wasn’t her. There
are a lot of silver Ford Explorers he remembers Jenifer saying. And there could
be another Jenifer Davis…right? He is trying to convince himself, but then
there is the picture. Trent has seen that picture before. It was taken at the
homeless garden project where she volunteered. No sleep comes to Trent
that night and at unlock he moves in a daze, like a ghost, to the phone, the
whole time thinking, what am I doing? She’s gone. Who am I calling?
He finds himself sitting at the bench in front of the phone, just staring
at it. Two feet away an inmate is speaking Spanish on the phone, and even
though Trent can’t understand what he is saying, the tone of his voice seems
comforting. He picks up the receiver mindlessly, and almost instinctually, he
dials her number on the ice-cold steel keypad.
Ring…ring…ring….and
the phone picks up. The voicemail? Trent thinks. “You have a
call...call...call,” the recording skips and cracks, as if something has
interrupted the connection. The robotic voice sounds like it is almost running
out of power. “From a California Department of Corrections inmate. Trent. To
accept this call please press 5 now.”
Trent waits…and
waits... for what seems like forever, and then he hears a voice. “Hello?” But
how? Trent thinks. She is dead—he saw it on the news. But it’s her voice. “Who
is this?” he asks.
“What do you mean,
baby? It’s me.” responds the voice.
“No…no, it can’t be!
You’re dead,” says Trent in disbelief.
“Baby, you’re
scaring me. What are you talking about?”
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