G5

An excerpt from Terry James' autobiography, Smile Now, Cry Later.

Terry James was the first participant from the prison autobiographical writing workshop to publish a book, Smile Now, Cry Later, with Some People Press. You can read the afterword Miranda July wrote for it here. We posted another excerpt of Terry’s writing here. He’s been released for a while now, and is working on a second book. The story below is about Terry’s experience in Florida being transported from one prison to another.

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In my experience and as far as I knew, transport of inmates between jails and prisons and counties and states and such, was done by government agencies. You know, like prison transports were done by prisons, and extraditions between states was done by US Marshals or something.

Nope, turns out there’s business in that too.

The county jail in Clearwater was a two-tier shit hole, smaller than half a basketball court and louder than a cage of screeching monkeys at the zoo, with toilet paper flying around, literally.

Nassau County had like ten business days to come get me or something after I’d been arrested, or else Clearwater had to release. On the last day, when my hopes were at their highest to be released, my transport showed up.

G5 is a third-party company that picks up inmates from one place and transports them to another, all up and down the East Coast. When they loaded me up I was shackled hand to foot into the back of a patty wagon, with bench seats running down each side.

Since I wouldn’t have to panhandle for gas (like I’d done to get down there) to get back, it should have only taken the expected eight-hours...but it took five days. FIVE DAYS!

While making pickups and deliveries, the two drivers, who swapped off driving, would get chimes on their cell phones. Each chime was a new pickup. For five days I sat in the back of a patty wagon, going from one county to another, picking guys up and dropping them. More than once I watched as we passed the exit to Nassau County Jail, less than an hour away.

Come to find out that the drivers couldn’t just take me straight there because they had an itinerary to follow. They could only go where they were told. For five days my breakfast, lunch and dinner was a few items off dollar menus. If I had to use the bathroom, I was led to a holding cell briefly, while people were being loaded and unloaded at a jail or a prison.

But sleeping...sleeping was the worst.

The benches were steel, about a foot high and only about ten inches wide. Sitting on them was like squatting on an edge for hours. If I was by myself, I could try and stretch out on one, but there was no point, it wasn’t wide enough. If anybody in the transport wanted to try to sleep, you either did it sitting up, or took turns stretching out on the floor, using your sandals as a pillow.

Because my hands were shackled at the waist, with a chain connecting them to my feet, to bring my hands to my mouth to eat I had to bend down to my hands, or if I was sitting or lying with my knees bent, I could bring my hands up to my head. In other words, the fetal position would have been possible, with my hands under my head, but there wasn’t any room.

For five days I was stuck chained in a squatting position watching other guys come and go, only being let out to use the bathroom. After forty-eight hours I was in pain. My knees, my neck, my elbows, my back, all hurt from being locked in one position. Getting up and out to use the restroom was a slow, aching process.

I asked for aspirin, or Tylenol, or ibuprofen or anything, but I wasn’t allowed to be given anything while in transport, not even from one of the jails or prisons. On the third day of my transport the truck pulled over on the side of the highway, and I was pulled out the back, where I was handed a cell phone with someone on the line.

It was my dad in Oregon.

I’d been being transported for so long that people were starting to worry about me. For security reasons, the transport company had not been able to tell my family where I was or when I could be expected in Nassau County. I didn’t know it was my dad until I said hello, and he asked if I was all right. After I told him I was okay, the guard/security officer/driver, whatever you call him, took the phone from my ear, and told me to get back in the truck. He wasn’t an ass about it or anything, he was just quick because I wasn’t allowed to say anything else.

In fact, during my five days, I saw the teams of drivers switch a couple times and there wasn’t anything wrong with any of them. I’m not saying there couldn’t have been assholes that worked for the company, only that the drivers I had were all regular Joe’s just doing a job. If we were ever stopped anywhere together, they were all friendly enough and up for small talk and such. That’s not usually the case if you’re being held or transported anywhere. Not in jails, prisons, courts, or anywhere in between. You are usually just talked down to.

On the third day after that call, I was relieved to find out that I’d finally be dropped off in Nassau. With my family calling and harassing them about me, I figured they had to. Hour after hour I watched out the window for a Nassau County or Jacksonville sign to let me know I was close. Most of the time I had no idea where I was, whether I was twenty miles away or two-hundred. But at least two more times, that I remember, we passed through Jacksonville, only forty-fiveish minutes away from Nassau County Jail, and I still wasn’t dropped.

It was another two more days before I was finally taken to the Nassau County Jail. I was in so much pain in those last few days that it took weeks for me to be able to bend, straighten, or twist without grimacing. I don’t know why my transport went that way. I think it either had to do with money or I was just forgotten.

Either way, G5 is fucked up. 

In the end, I found out that it was all for not paying a fine on time. Less than three days after initially being released from Nassau County Jail, I was arrested at night, eight hours away in Clearwater, held for I think it was almost two weeks, and then transported five excruciatingly painful days, back to the Nassau County Jail, all to be released again the next morning for not paying a $100 fine!