Ex-girl to the Next Girl by Daaimah S. Poole

Author:Daaimah S. Poole [Poole, Daaimah S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2014-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Shonda

Salter Correctional Facility was a women and men’s prison. The jail was on State Road in Northeast Philadelphia, the outer part of the city. A row of prisons lined the road. There was barbed wire around the gray, high, stone walls. I parked my car in the crowded parking lot. I didn’t wear my uniform to work—I took it out of my trunk and was going to change inside.

“Excuse me, you know which way to Salter?”

“That’s the building over there.” The woman thanked me and continued to pull her two small children toward the prison.

There was a long, pebbled road to the jail. I walked toward the prison. I saw a truck being inspected. The driver had to get out and open the back of the truck to make sure there weren’t any escapees. A little further down the road, inmates tapped the window and were holding a sign. The sign read, SHOW TITS SHOW ASS. I turned my head the other way.

I reported to C/O Riddick. She walked up and said, “You’ll be with me tonight—let me show you around.” She was a mean, big girl, like five-ten. She had a big gap in her two front teeth and her hair in corn rows going back with a part in the middle.

“There are five units, A through E.”

“How many people in each unit?” I asked, looking around the prison.

“Each unit holds, like, 115. We are so overcrowded, it’s more like 125 in each unit. You’ll probably be put on unit B on the second floor—they need help down there. Units D and E are the women’s units.”

“When will I get assigned to a unit?” I asked.

“They probably will be moving you around for the next couple of months. You can report to me to find out where they need you. We keep everybody apart. There is a little gang situation going on, but mostly we got North Philly at war with South Philly,” she said as she opened the cell for me to look at. The bed was a dark gray, steel flat bed with a thin mattress. We walked into the rec room—about fifty inmates in orange jumpsuits were watching a big television. Other inmates were in line to use the telephone.

“They get ten minutes free direct phone time and unlimited calling card calls. They have codes—do not give any of them their codes, they know them.” A few inmates were huddled around, playing cards. Riddick picked out one guy that was hiding from her and said, “Yo, Riley, if I see you again, you going to be sorry.” The inmate said, “I’m sorry Ms. Riddick. I got you.”

“Don’t play with me, Riley,” she said, then took me to meet our supervisor, Sergeant Wilson. We walked in his office—he was short with some kind of curly process in his hair. He looked up from his computer.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Riddick, what do you have her doing?”

“I was walking her around, then I was about to go to lunch.

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