Portsmouth Police Department
I was brought to prison wearing my own clothes. I had been wearing them for the past three days which I’d spent in a holding cell in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire police department jail.
Upon entering the Portsmouth station, I was joined by a second officer and walked down a long corridor past desks occupied by police officers, all busy doing police officer things. Past the busy officers was a small room containing a table and a plastic chair.
I was told to sit down. There was an eye bolt on the floor by my feet with a chain and padlock connected to it. One officer held the chain between my ankles as another looped the eyebolt chain around the one on my ankle and locked it to the eye bolt.
These guys weren’t taking any chances with me.
Once secured, the officers left the room without saying anything, pulling the door halfway closed behind them as they left. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t see anything but the floor and wall outside of the room. The place was buzzing with activity. Phones ringing, dispatchers dispatching, papers shuffling.
There I sat, for what seemed like an eternity. My shoulders hurt from my hands being being cuffed behind my back for so long. The tender skin of my tiny wrists had become sore from the cold, hard metal. It was really uncomfortable. No one inquired. No one cared. I was beginning to wonder if I had been misplaced and forgotten about.
When are they coming back? Do they even remember that I am here? Do they know how uncomfortable this is? If I had to go number two, who would I tell. Would they even let me? How would I take care of business in handcuffs and shackles? These were the thoughts whizzing around in my head as I sat, chained to the floor of a police department in a small room off in the corner, perhaps forgotten about.
I can’t say how long I sat there. Possibly 30 minutes, possibly an hour…maybe more. It seemed infinite. What I can say for sure is that it was agonizing. I was literally trapped with no way out, and a bleak future in a child prison was about to become my reality.
At some point an officer came in carrying a box full of fingerprinting equipment, which he then began to lay out on the table. He said nothing to me as he did this. He did not look at me or acknowledge me in any way. It was like I wasn’t even there.
With the equipment set up, he walked to the partially open door and called out to another officer to assist. His name was Sergeant Stevie. They both removed their guns from their holsters and walked them out of the room. When they returned, gunless, I was told to stand and face the table. My ankle chain was still shackled to the floor. Sergeant Stevie wrapped his large hand around my left bicep and squeezed it.
The other officer grabbed my left handcuff with one hand and reached toward it with the handcuff key that he held in his other hand. I watched in silence.
Just before putting the key in the handcuff lock, the officer looked at me and said in a disgruntled voice: “I am about to take your cuff off to fingerprint you. Try anything stupid and you will dearly regret it.”
I did not think he was bluffing.
With pleasantries exchanged, the inking and rolling and inking and rolling was about to begin.
First the officer pulled a fingerprint form out of the toolbox. The form was placed in what could only be described as a fingerprint form holding machine. A flat metal cover lowered down over the form, leaving only the squares for left hand parts visible.
The guy who invented that thing must have made a bundle, I thought to myself, somewhat excited to try it out.
“Your job is to relax your hand completely and keep your hand limp while I fingerprint you,” said the officer, as he slid on whiteish-yellow rubber gloves.
“I’ll do the rest,” he added. “Do you understand?”
I nodded affirmatively and attempted to say “yes sir” but was only able to muster a crackly chirp “Y—«
He started with the thumb first. The officer held my thumb with the thumb, index and middle finger of both of his hands, maneuvering it over the black ink blotter so that about half of my thumb was now black with ink. Once inked, he would then rotate the thumb across the fingerprint form in the appropriately labeled box that was pre-printed on the paper. Once the thumb and outer fingers were printed, then the palms and forefingers were done. The officer performed this task as if he was a robot. Very mechanical. No talking. I’m in the fingerprints factory getting fingerprinted by a humanoid police officer sent back from the future to, well, fingerprint me, I thought.
When completed, the officer carefully inspected the form. Apparently, it wasn’t up to his standards. He grumbled something, set the form aside, pulled out a blank one and positioned it in the fingerprint form holding machine and repeated the procedure, this time much more to his liking.
Wash, rinse, repeat went the right hand after the left. This time flawless on the first attempt.
“Perfect,” the officer said somewhat proudly.
He then looked at me, grabbed my right hand and snapped the handcuff against my wrist with gusto, making solid contact with the bone in my forearm.
I instinctively pulled my arm back in pain.
Sergeant Stevie responded by slamming me up against the wall and pinning me there while the other officer manhandled the cuff onto my right arm as tight as it would go.
“SIT!” shouted Sergeant Stevie as he aggressively forced me down into the chair, one hand on the waist shackle chain, the other on my shoulder.
“You DON’T want to fuck with us,” he added as both officers left the room with their fingerprinting equipment, slamming the door completely shut for added effect. No I do not, I thought to myself, These fellers meant business.
I sat there for a bit. It could have been a minute, or it could have been five. With no watches, clocks or windows it was hard to tell if time was moving slow, slower or slowest. I’m pretty sure it was slowest, but again…no way to tell.
I wish they had gotten the right hand wrong too, I thought to myself. Stimulus, any stimulus, was better than the purgatory of being indefinitely chained to the floor of a police department, with no indication of what would happen next and when it would happen. Back to being bored and uncomfortable for now.
An eternity later two different police officers entered the room, one male with a mustache and one female. The female was cute.
She looked at me with kind eyes and said “Tough day, huh?”
It was the first bit of humanity that I had felt in days. The corners of my mouth immediately went south. I murmured, “Uh huh,” and then started to sob uncontrollably. I wanted to be hugged and comforted by her. I was left disappointed.
“Time to go,” she said as the male officer knelt and grabbed onto my ankle chain. She reached for her jumble of keys which were on a retractable lanyard attached to her belt. She looked at me as she bent down to unchain me from the floor.
I bet these cops have gotten kicked in the chops a few times, I thought to myself. Why else would one officer hold my ankle chain while the other works the locks?
“Up you go,” said the male officer, reaching under my right arm and pulling me up by my armpit. He wasn’t too rough, but not exactly gentle either. I really don’t appreciate how enthusiastic your “up you go” was. We’re not going to the mall is all I could think at that moment. I wasn’t in the best of moods.
With an officer on either side holding my arms by the elbows, I was escorted up two flights of stairs and down a long, dimly lit hallway. About halfway down on the right-hand side was a nondescript tan metal door. Well, it was tan originally, now it was tan/brown/scratched with red primer paint showing through.
The female officer pulled the key lanyard from her belt, fumbled with the ten or so keys on the chain and then inserted one in the lock. No dice. Wrong key. She fumbled some more, and as she did I caught a glance of her white lace bra between the buttons on her uniform. Nice boobs, I thought to myself.
I was in no rush, so I didn’t mind that she took a while to find the right key.
Inside was an open area with three empty side by side cells to the right. There were no windows in the room. The walls were grey, the bars across the front of each cell were a burgundy primer-like red. The other three walls of the cells were made of concrete blocks.
There was one fluorescent light in the room outside of the cells. Of course, it was flickering as one would expect in any respectable jail. It all felt unreal. It felt like I was on the set of a movie, and we were all actors. The bars, the grey walls, grouchy guards and the proverbial flickering fluorescent light—the set was perfect. This looked, felt and smelled like a real jail, perhaps a little too real…
The police officers walked me to the middle cell and instructed me to walk forward. They let go of my arms as I stepped into the cell. I heard the door, which was made of bars, slam shut. I stopped and partially turned to look at the jailers.
“Back up to the bars with your hands extended behind you,” instructed the male officer in a firm, authoritative voice.
I followed his instructions. The female officer held my waist chain through the bars as the male officer unlocked my ankles, followed by my wrists. Lastly, the waist chain was opened, and the shackles were slid from the cell.
Free! Finally! I thought (even though I was locked in a cage behind bars, and this cage was in a room locked behind a steel door, and that steel door was on the third floor of a police department full of armed police officers. No, I wasn’t free. I wasn’t free at all. But I was, at that moment, freer than I was before, and for a fleeting moment, I felt a little better.
The holding cell was barren, grey, hard and dirty. Very dirty. It smelled like a damp basement with a hint of urine. Really delightful. In the place of a mattress was a large, rectangular concrete block that extended up from the floor. Thread count zero. There were no sheets, pillows or blankets. It was cold. There was nothing in the cell, just bars, concrete and a steel combination toilet/sink unit that was bolted to the wall. No toilet seat. There was a round hole under the sink the size of a toilet paper roll, but no toilet paper.
Hmmm, someone should call housekeeping.
I grabbed the bars, one in each hand and watched the police officers. They had already forgotten me as they exited.
THUD! went the steel tan door as it closed. The sound could be heard reverberating off the hard concrete surfaces that adorned my world. I stood there, motionless, as time came to a full stop.
The next thought that came to mind was how cold the bars were on my tiny pale hands. I let go and pulled them away. Brrrrrr.
I reached over with my right hand and grabbed my left wrist to massage away the discomfort of countless hours restrained in handcuffs.
“OUCH!” I said out loud.
The metal from the cuffs had worn both of my wrists raw. I looked more closely. There was dirt smeared on my broken skin and in the red rash that circled my wrists. I thought about trying to wash up in the sink. I walked over and turned on the water. It was freezing cold.
Fuck it, I thought to myself. It doesn’t matter.
Maybe it will get infected, and I will die. The thought of death was strangely comforting at that moment. I wasn’t suicidal, but at the same time was not super excited about continuing to be alive. Toying with the idea of death filled my thoughts for a while. It was a fantasy path to freedom…freedom from captivity, from pain, agony and depression, and the living nightmare that was now my life.
Scratched into the walls all over the cell was graffiti. Sad, desperate messages from those who had travelled this path before me. Apparently, I was not the only soul to think dark thoughts in this place.
I felt inhuman. What was once a 14-year-old child doing as teenagers do, was now considered a dangerous package being delivered to a child prison. There was a complete lack of courtesy shown to me. No one asked me if I was warm enough, thirsty, hungry or if I had to pee. There was a complete absence of pleases and thank yous. No one explained anything to me. I had no idea how long I would be there, where I would be taken next, or what was in store for me. No one comforted me. There was no caring, no kindness, no love.
Time seems to slow when locked in a barren, cold cage with absolutely nothing to do. Seconds were minutes, minutes were hours and hours were days. The days themselves were eternities. There were no windows, no clock, no nothing, just bars, concrete and grey. The flickering fluorescent light stayed on 24/7.
I desperately wanted to know what time it was and how long I had been there. But really, why did it matter? Maybe THIS was as good as it was going to get,” and the bad part was about to happen. Why the rush?
In retrospect, the “why the rush” was a desire for answers. I didn’t know how long I was going to be at the Portsmouth Jail. I didn’t know when I would be transferred to the child prison. I didn’t even know where the child prison was, or what it was like or what to expect. I had lost control of my life and my destiny and in its place was a draconian, authoritative future in which I had no rights, no privileges, no say, no voice, no choice. They ordered, I obeyed.
This was my new life.
Not knowing what was in store for me next was pure torture, and I was scared, lonely, bored and cold. Cold to the bone. A not too distant second place from sitting on a block of ice when cold would be to sit on a giant concrete block ‘bed’ in a jail cell, one with no sheets, blankets or pillows.
I jumped up and down, paced around, did a few pushups and then sat down. I was feeling warmer until my butt touched the concrete bed. It was freezing. The cold permeated my entire body. I began to shiver, and then began to cry out loud. I wailed. But no one heard me. No one came to my aid. Eventually I stopped crying.
It was sad. It was lonely. It was scary, agonizing and, worst of all BORING! Boring and freezing cold.
I had a total of five ‘meals’ while in that cell.
Meals one, two and three: Cold baloney on white bread. No mayo, no mustard, no lettuce, no tomato. Just baloney and white bread.
Accompanying it was a plastic disposable colored sugar water drink sealed at the top with foil. No silverware. No napkin. No salt, no pepper. No Bon Appetit. The service was frankly horrendous.
Meal four was half of a subway sandwich and a cup of Pepsi. I hate Pepsi. It was definitely Pepsi, not Coke. It sucked. The sub was wrapped in paper that was definitely for a foot long sandwich.
learly, I was getting some cop’s leftovers. Piggy not so hungry today? I snickered to myself. I didn’t actually mind at all, compared to baloney and white bread, this was seriously gourmet! Also, I was able to repurpose the sub paper as toilet paper, which was a nice added bonus.
Meal five was a plain, glazed doughnut and cold coffee—black, no milk, no sugar and again, no bon Appetit. To be perfectly honest, that was the best tasting doughnut of my life. In the 39 years since eating that doughnut, I have yet to find a tastier one….ohhhh was it delicious. I can almost taste it now.
I have no idea if the meals were delivered at ‘mealtimes’ but I assumed that they were and used feedings as a way of telling time. Assuming regular feedings, I spent two nights in the Portsmouth jail before being packaged up in cuffs, chains and shackles again for the drive to child prison.
As I was being secured with chains, I remember being excited. Elated. At that point if I knew that my final destination was a firing squad, I think I would still be excited and elated. For me, sitting in a cold, concrete box with nothing do for days is unbearable torture. If I had a book it would be one thing, but NOTHING to do becomes maddening—excruciating before long.
“Here we go” said one of the officers. Yup, it was Mr. Rodgers from the day before. You’re taking me to kid jail, not the movies asshole. God, is he annoying, I thought to myself.
Good riddins, I thought to myself as I shuffled out of the room through the big, nondescript tan metal door. Down the hallway to the left we went and then down two flights of stairs to the first floor.
Going downstairs in leg shackles is a piece of cake. Being long enough to not interfere with each step, it is like they’re not even there.
At the bottom of the stairs my two new friends and I, side by side, shuffled (well, I shuffled, they walked) through the busy dispatch area and out the front door.
Brrrrrr, it’s freezing. Thanks for the jacket, guys. It was really windy that day, making it feel extra cold on my bare arms and uncovered face.
As I was escorted down the icy front stairs of the police department by two officers, I looked up to see a mother with two children, both boys approximately the same age as me. They stared at me from the sidewalk in front of the police station. I looked down in shame. It was embarrassing. I felt like a dog on a short leash.
If you have never graced the back seat of a police car, then you would be in the know that there is no leather, no padding, no felt, just one hard, cold, plastic, uncomfortable bench seat. An uncomfortable and very slippery bench seat. There was no heat vent in the back of the police car, so none of that delicious warm air was making its way through the clear plexiglass partition separating me in the back from the warm officer in the heated front seat of the patrol car.
Add handcuffs, chains, shackles and bumpy roads caked in ice and snow and what you have is an incredibly uncomfortable trip. If this were an Uber ride, I would give zero stars.
As we drove along in silence, a thought came to mind: I do hope there are glazed doughnuts where I am going.