I went to jail once in my life. I was a senior in high school. I got suspended; the only time I remember ever being suspended; a day or two, maybe a few days, before. I think it was for the time I ate a bowl of cereal in Miss Philyaw’s class, which I did for a laugh. It worked. The class laughed, but she wasn’t amused. She sent me to Mister Kidney, a sort of department head, and it was him who suspended me.

I wasn’t supposed to come back without a parent or guardian. I came back alone. It was May 27. I think my plan was to explain to Mister Kidney why it would’ve been difficult to bring a parent or guardian; I didn’t live with one; but I never really got the chance to. As soon as he saw me walk into his office alone, he got mad and started yelling at me, telling me he was going to call the police. I stood there as he did.

I was chuckling at how he was acting; he was being unprofessional to say the least; which probably made him even angrier. I probably should’ve left, but I stayed and soon a police officer (Marsalis) was there in the office. Mister Kidney told him to arrest me and that’s what he did. He even cuffed me. I remember us walking by Miss Gilchrist, one of my favorite teachers, and her staring with a look of bewilderment.

I don’t remember if we talked during the drive, but when we got to the jail, the cop took me to a room and asked another cop; I assume it was his boss; whether or not to put me in a cell. He probably asked that because of both my age; I was 17; and the pettiness of the crime, which I later found out was classified as a school ordinance violation. The boss said yes. Perhaps he would’ve said no if I weren’t standing right there.

Before putting me in a cell, they searched me; they made me take off my shoes and empty my pockets; in an area with an inmate I recognized. It was a guy I either went to school with years prior or knew from the neighborhood, but we didn’t speak. They let me make a phone call. I think I called my grandmother. I figured she’d answer and would call somebody to come get me. She’d stopped driving by then.

From there, they locked me up. I had a cell to myself. I don’t know if every inmate had their own cell; the man across from me did; but I was glad to have my own. I certainly wasn’t glad to be in jail, but neither was I distressed or worried. It was more of an “Okay, let’s see how this plays out” type of thing. I was even slightly amused by it all. I kept thinking of Jerry and his friends going to jail on the final episode of Seinfeld.

The worst part of the experience wasn’t the man across from me staring creepily as I peed in the toilet. It wasn’t even the hard uncomfortable bed I had to lie on. At one point, I complained aloud, part-jokingly, about not having a pillow to which someone I couldn’t see responded by reminding me we were in jail. The worst part was the temperature. It was cold. I hate being cold. Still somehow I managed to fall asleep.

I awoke what seemed like several hours later; I thought it was night; to the sound of more voices than there were before. They were inmates conversing between cells. I don’t remember what they were saying, but a lot of it was funny. It was my one source of entertainment in an otherwise boring cell. All I had, other than the clothes I was wearing, was a toilet and a bed, which was actually more like a concrete slab.

The best part of my jail experience was when a cop walked by with bread and baloney slices. He was giving it out to whoever wanted it. I took it, of course, as I’d gotten hungry by that time and had been eating baloney sandwiches since I was a kid. I preferred them fried with cheese, lettuce and mayonnaise though. This was just a baloney and bread sandwich, but it was damn delicious under the circumstances.

Eventually they came back to let me out. I remember sitting or standing there as they unlocked the cell. A feeling of relief came over me. I was happy to go. The first thing I wanted to do was warm up. I didn’t know it was my mother who bailed me out until I walked to the lobby area. That’s when I realized it was still daytime. I could see the sun shining thru the windows. I thought I’d been in jail a lot longer than I was.