Corrections in Ink by Keri Blakinger

Author:Keri Blakinger [Blakinger, Keri]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Chapter 15

Tompkins County Jail, May 2011

Behind bars, sleep is sacred. Whether it is eight minutes or eight hours, each brush with slumber is a thrilling chance at escape. It is a moment to anticipate all day: When you close your eyes, maybe you will not be in jail. Maybe you will be on the ice, spinning before a cheering crowd in a packed arena. Maybe you will be at a desk, frantically writing the last paper you need to graduate. Maybe you will be in a warm bed, cuddling with a soft dog on a cold night. Maybe you will be at a beach or a bar.

Maybe you will be free.

But once you’ve been in long enough, jail seeps into your dreams, and you discover that you are incarcerated even when you’re unconscious. By the end of my first spring behind bars, I did not dream of the outside world anymore. In fact, I did not dream of anything. Sometime after my stay in Chenango and my jolt of solitary, I stopped having dreams. When I closed my eyes, all I saw was darkness. When I opened them, all I saw was the dingy gray of jail, refracted through a kaleidoscope of fear and obsession.

Now, when I look through the yellow notepads of my jailhouse journal, I can almost see that constant dread glinting from between the lines like jagged glass. It is only today—ten years later—that I can spot the sudden shift from casually detailing every petty spat and minor oddity to spending page after page obsessing about just two things: my fear of solitary confinement and my fear of losing my marriage.

Another thing it might have made sense for me to fear—and the reason they’d brought me back from Chenango in the first place—was my sentencing. In my head, sentencing hearings were dramatic events featuring sharply dressed detectives scowling from the aisles, reporters furiously scribbling notes in the front row, and doomed defendants wailing at their disappointing fates. In reality, sentencing hearings are almost an afterthought, like checking the answers on a crossword puzzle you have already solved. Most people go into court knowing the outcome, since they’ve already agreed to it in some sort of plea bargain. The court date is just for the judge to approve it officially. Walking in, I knew I was probably getting two and a half years in prison followed by two years of supervised release—but I still expected signing away almost five years of my life to be more dramatic than it actually was. Apparently the guards did, too.

On the way to court, the transport officer warned me there might be media trying to catch a glimpse of the “queenpin” or even an angry rival drug dealer seeking some type of vengeance. But there was none of that. There were only a few strangers absorbed in their own drama—and Alex, high as a kite and too paranoid to even come into the courtroom.

Pacing outside, he wasn’t there to hear the prosecutor boast about how big the bust was.

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