Piper Kerman - Orange is the New Black

Jae blinked in disbelief. “Slice? What the hell is going on??”

“Fuck if I know.”

We were all herded back into the FCI so they could pack Jae out and truss her up-she was joining our motley little crew, and I was really glad to have a friend along for the ride.

Finally, at gunpoint, we were loaded onto the bus and headed into the outside world. It was disorienting to see suburban Connecticut rushing by, eventually giving way to the highway. I had no idea where we were heading, though the odds were on Oklahoma City, the hub of the federal prison transport system. Jae caught up with Slice, her actual cousin, on the bus. Neither of them would cop to knowing why they were being transported, but they were probably codefendants, as the guard had been concerned that they should have extra restraints.

“Naw, naw, we cousins, we love each other!” they protested.

The guard had also indicated that they were headed to Florida, which was most worrisome. “Piper, I don’t know shit about Florida, I’m from the Bronx, I been to Milwaukee, and that’s it,” declared Jae. “No fucking reason I should be going to Florida unless they be taking us to Disney World.”

We finally arrived at what seemed like an abandoned industrial vacant lot. The bus stopped, and there we sat, for hours. If you think that it is impossible to sleep in shackles, I am here to prove you wrong. They gave us chicken sandwiches, and I had to help the Pennsylvania hick eat-the guard had not been as kind to her as to me and had chained her tightly and put her in an extra “black box” restraint that immobilized her thumbs-this to protect her codefendant, a woman with whom she was now excitedly gossiping. Finally the bus rumbled to life and pulled onto a huge tarmac. We had company-there were at least a half-dozen other transport vehicles, another bus, unmarked vans and sedans, all idling in the cold winter dusk. And then quite suddenly an enormous 747 landed, taxied briefly, and pulled up among the vehicles. In a moment I recognized that I was in the midst of the most clichéd action thriller, as jackbooted marshals with submachine guns and high-powered rifles swarmed the tarmac-and I was one of the villains.

First they unloaded about a dozen prisoners from the plane, men in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and attires. Some of them appeared to be wearing paper jumpsuits, not the best deal in the biting January wind. Disheveled and cold, they seemed pretty interested in our little group huddled next to the Danbury bus. Then the armed figures were shouting at us over the wind to line up, with plenty of room between each of us. We performed the tarmac jig that is done when one is trying to move as quickly as possible against restraints. After a rough pat-down, a female marshal checked my hair and my mouth for weapons, and the hop was on to the stairs up to the plane.

On board were more marshals, enormous beefy men and a handful of weathered-looking women in navy blue uniforms. As we clinked and clanked into the passenger seating area, we were greeted by a wave of testosterone. The plane was packed with prisoners, all of whom appeared to be male. Most of them were very, very happy to see us. Some were making a lot of noise, declaring what they would like to do to us, offering critiques as we shuffled up the aisle as directed by the marshals. “Don’t you look at them!” the marshals shouted at us. Clearly, they had calculated that it was much easier to focus control on the behavior of a dozen females than two hundred males.

“What are you scared of, Blondie? They can’t do anything to you!” shouted the male prisoners. “Over here, Blondie!” They were proven wrong in my mind later in the trip when a big man rose from his seat, loudly protesting that he needed a bathroom, and the marshals promptly tasered him. He flopped around like a fish.

Con Air is like a layer cake of the federal prison system. Every sort of prisoner is represented; sad-looking middle-aged upper-class white men, their wire-rim glasses sometimes askew or broken; proud cholos looking vaguely Mayan and covered in gang markings; white women with bleached-out hair and very bad orthodontia; skinhead types with swastika tattoos on their faces; young black men with their hair bushed out because they had been forced to undo their cornrows; a skinny white father-and-son pair, obvious because they were the spitting image of each other; a towering black man in extra-heavy restraints who might be the most imposing figure I have ever seen; and of course, me. When I was escorted for a bathroom break (difficult to manage when one’s wrists are chained to one’s waist), in addition to lascivious invitations and threatening catcalls, I was treated to more than one “Whatcha doin’ HERE, Blondie?”

I was feeling more positively about everyone’s shackles. I was so glad that Jae was next to me, craning her head to see everything too. Still, it was unnerving that she and her cousin didn’t know what legal proceeding they were headed toward. We all agreed that if, God forbid, they had “caught another case” (been charged with another crime), they should have been told. But maybe not. They didn’t have high-end representation like me.

Con Air does not fly direct. The jumbo airliners act more like puddle-jumpers, stopping hither and yon to pick up convicts being transported all over the country for all kinds of reasons-court appearances, facility transfers, postsentencing designation. Some prisoners appeared to be fresh off the street, still in civilian clothes. They brought on a Spanish guy with long black hair who would have resembled Jesus were his face not so hard; he was so good-looking, it was like a kick in the gut. At one stop more women got on. One of them paused in the aisle, waiting for a marshal to tell her where to sit. She was a scrawny little white woman, missing teeth, with a cloud of hair that was an indeterminate shade somewhere between gray and peroxide. She looked like a woebegone yard chicken, like she had led a hard life. As she stood there, some wiseass called out, “Crack kills!” and half the plane, which must have contained some crack dealers, busted out laughing. Her homely face fell. It was like the meanest thing you ever saw on the schoolyard.

At about eight P.M. we landed in Oklahoma City. I believe that the Federal Transfer Center sits at the edge of the airport there, but I can’t be completely sure, as I never saw the outside world-the planes taxi right up to the prison to unload their heavily tattooed cargo. By default and necessity, it is a maximum-security facility that houses many prisoners during the course of their airlift experiences. Until I reached Chicago, this would be my new quarters.

We arrived at our new unit hours later, approximately twenty exhausted women who were issued sheets, pajamas, and small packets of hygienic necessities and ushered into a triangular cavern lined with two tiers of cells. It was darkened and deserted, because its inhabitants were already in lockdown. The CO was a ferocious six-foot Native American woman who barked out our cell assignments. I had never been in an actual cell before, let alone locked in with a cellie. I crept into my assigned spot, about six by twelve feet with a bunk bed, a toilet, a sink, and a desk bolted to the wall. I could see in the dim fluorescent light that someone was asleep in the top bunk. She rolled over and gave me the eye, then rolled away and went back to sleep. I crawled in and dozed off, grateful to have running water and free range of movement.

Thudding, shouting, and my cellmate vaulting out of her bunk awakened me. “Breakfast!” she said over her shoulder, disappearing. I got up and stepped cautiously out of the cell, wearing the washed-out hospital-green pajamas I had been given the night before. Women were scurrying from the numbered cells to get into line on the other side of the unit. Not one of them was in her pajamas. I hurried to get back into yesterday’s nasty clothes and headed toward the line. After receiving a plastic box, I located Jae and Slice, who had claimed a table near my cell. Our boxes contained dry cereal, a packet of instant coffee, a packet of sugar, and a clear plastic bag of milk that struck me as one of the strangest things I had ever seen. But when you mixed the coffee powder with the milk and sugar in a green plastic mug and put it in the unit microwave (an ancient contraption that looked like it belonged on a Lost in Space episode), it tasted okay. I pretended that it was cappuccino. “We’re going to starve,” Slice declared. Jae and I feared she was right. We discussed our predicament, and Slice, who was a hungry woman of action, departed on a recon mission. Jae and I retreated to our respective cells.