So after our “free” time, we are not allowed to do much other than sit around a table, or eat our breakfast. A breakfast which I have already ruled out by the way, —I then find myself trying to fit in, without much success of fitting in of course. These guys are from another planet-or maybe I am, but nevertheless. We don’t really click, let’s put it that way. Not sure why I am trying to fit in, but it seems to be the thing to do. People are basically hanging out, chatting around a table, but I am not really chatting with anyone. “Bubba” is still on the phone, and I forget about that thought. It’s not a phone call in the cards for me, and the 8 o’clock appointment with the State of South Carolina has turned from a business meeting in the Government building to a coffee meeting on the other side of town, and these guys are not writing any orders for me, yelling orders maybe, but not signing any purchasing agreements. We are told to head back to the cells, and I go in to my cubby on the second floor. The door shuts behind me, without anyone telling me anything. I lie down on the bunk, with the itchy blanket under my head, and have to reflect a little: I am in overnight jail in a cell in Columbia South Carolina. I feel I haven’t done anything wrong- I basically asked some guys –they were actually beating up on a defenseless older gentleman- to stop doing what they were doing. They attacked me, and I defended myself. Yes I beat them up after they attacked me, but I was defending myself. It might not be easy to convince the judge, but I will tell it as it was, and let him decide. Interesting what can happen to you, in just a blink of an eye. You walk down a street, find yourself in a situation that you cannot get out of, and a few seconds later, things are drastically changed, sometimes forever, and sometimes so drastically that it can change the course of a persons life. I feel I am fortunate, in that I am sure I can not get in any trouble for this, or in more trouble than I am already in, but I can surely get out of this one–being that I am innocent. Maybe if I had known that it would escalate the way it did, I might not have helped the old man, but one does not think like that when something actually happens. Then again, right now, sitting in this cell, I am sure I will be ok; it will surely be something that I can get out of, if I just tell it as it is. But then the thought of how many people have been in very similar situations, taken a left turn instead of a right one, and all of the sudden their life is on the slide. You take a right turn and walk home to your family and its all smiles and early good night. You take a left turn, and you are mugged, beaten, maybe killed, just because you took the left instead of right turn through the street. Is life just a stream of coincidences, or is it faith that brings you where you go? You turn your head and see a woman, then you date that woman, get married, have children, and many many lives are created or changed, just because it took you some extra time to find the Corn Flakes at the grocery store and the woman that you now are married to happened to stand next to you looking for the Lucky Charms?
My thoughts are interrupted by the voice through the speaker and I am told to go outside, we are to get in front of the judge, he says in a southern drawl. I walk downstairs, I approach the woman in the booth in the middle of the “free” area, and she sure is high up just like a pharmacist I think to myself. I can see why she is sitting a bit higher than us inmates, but I also think to myself that it is peculiar that a pharmacist have to be higher than the customers. “What kind of pills are they hiding up there behind the counter in the local pharmacy?” I think , before the woman, a guard, not a pharmacist tells me to sit in the chairs in the row next to the window. We will apparently wait there before heading to see the judge. This will apparently happen at 9:30am, at least that is what she tells us. I look to my sides, there is another white man, at around 35 year of age, or maybe more, he looks a bit tired– six younger African American guys, all chatting with each other, and then me. One of them, a young man at about 20-22 years of age -at least from what I can see- with an almost bald hair cut- he is actually very handsome except that when he smiles – which he does consistently I might add-he smiles even if he is just like me, actually in jail-but when he smiles he reveals that he is missing the four front teeth. Two of the other guys next to me are also very young, somewhere between, 18 and 22, not easy to guess, because they are all pretty good looking young men. We are of course all dressed the same way, so you can’t judge us based on the dress code. Well you could of course argue that we are indeed wearing prison suits, but we are all dressed the same, so no discrimination, at least not based on what we are wearing in here. Well, I am betting to myself that I am surely the only one with $200+ shoes, but then again a pair of Nike Air Jordan’s is pretty expensive these days so I might be wrong. We sit there for a while, and I start to attract some attention from the other guys. “What the hell are you doing here” the toothless Jimmy is asking me. “What you in for?” “I got in a fight last night” I explain, and as I am opening my moth, they all look at me again with wonder “Where you from nigga?” Well, I explain that I am from Norway and I am here by a mere misunderstanding as last night I try to defend a man downtown Columbia. “Are you the guy that beat the Sh#@t out of those mo$%#$-fu#@%rs last night?-I saw you come in right behind those f$%#4rs”—Aparently he saw the guys that I defended myself from, and it seams to have impressed him. I am also a few inches taller than them all, and they seem to give me some respect, and I can relax a little. After a few minutes I understand that all these guys have been her all before. Toothless Jimmy apparently have a restraining order from the mother of his child-yes the young man has child- and he has been making one booty call too many to his old girlfriend. He knows what’s going on in the jail and explains that we are walking together to see the judge. The other guys are in for drug possession, attempt to distribute of whatever drug related. We are lined up, next to the wall, and we have a guard in front and behind the pitiful group there up against the wall all dressed in blue. The guards both have tasers and guns so nothing is happening, and we are walked through several hallways-countless times reminded that we needed to keep space between us all. We end up in a room, where we are to wait until we are called in. We sit here and a bailiff comes in and gives us some advice, “Don’t address the judge without being ask a question. He is a very grumpy judge and you must treat him with respect, Say Sir after every sentence, and keep you answers short. If he ask for an explanation, give him one, but if he does not ask you- do not- I repeat-do not give him one. You will just find yourself spending additional nights here.” I also learn that the other white man that is with us has been here for almost a month. He is accused of murder and his lawyer is working on the case. He can’t make bail, so he has been her for 29 days. “I am not staying here longer than on more hour” I tell myself, but the guy you would maybe call a redneck, not to him of course, because he is not a guy you would want on your bad side. We all sit there for a while and finally I am called in to the judge. I am waiting in the small court room, as two prostitutes are asked some questions before he sets their bail. The judge miss pronounce my name, “Hanes Johnson”, but I do not correct him, he tells me that I am brought in for fighting, and asks if I have anything to say? I have nothing to lose I tell myself, and tells him what happened-the short version of course, I don’t want to piss the old grumpy man off. He looks at me, and says calmly” Seams like you have had your punishment and it looks like we need to release you”. I try not to smile too much, but I am sure he could see my smirk, and I feel great. “Thank you sir” I say, and I as I am taken out to the crowd in the waiting room. Wow, I tell myself. Its 11:30am, I can probably be out of here by lunch, and maybe I can get back to Raleigh before too late. Well, I am proven innocent; I am told I am to be released, but hold your horses and not so fast cowboy. There is something called bureaucracy and in the South Carolina prison system there is plenty of it. After waiting for the other fellas- most of the released either because they have been proven guilty or will serve later, or because they are making bail- but we are all marched back to the cells to get our stuff. I feel like a million dollars, as there is prospect of getting back out to the land of the free, but it has to be put on hold. There are certain procedures that need to be followed. We are placed back in our cells. There I wait for about an hour before the voice in the speaker tells me its lunch time. “Lunch?” I ask to the speaker, but the beep in the door tells me that I am coming out of my cell. (Note to self- I learn quickly as I already have learned that the door beeping means I am to walk through it). I don’t eat my lunch either, the other guys seems to like it, as it’s a free meal for them, but Mr. Johnsen decides to have yet another cup of coffee, the Sloppy Joe’s looks a little too sloppy for me.
After lunch, or coffee in my instance, I am told that if I want to, I can take a shower before being released. Watching the men parade naked in there does not excite the Norwegian at all, I have seen too many prison movies, and the shower room is probably the last place I would want to walk in to, even with clothes on I would rather run naked through downtown Raleigh than take a shower inside of Alvin S Glenn Detention Center; without or with clothes on. Nope- no sirri bob–no mas on the shower proposal. I am asked to pack up my stuff, roll it all in the blanket, and bring it downstairs. We are lined up again, the same eight men minus the murder suspect of course, he is still in there for all I know, but the seven souls that now have gotten used to each other, lined up as we are the same way as earlier was going to see the judge. We are taken to the area where we turned in our regular clothes and possessions the previous night. And we are each given a small tiny room where we can change in to our street clothes. Well, I say street clothes, as if I stuck out from the others before the change back, now I am standing there feeling like a fool, with a white shirt, a black suit, belt and black shoes looking like a salesman on a mission, while they all , without exception have baggy pants, T-shirts, and sneakers. We are now all put together inside a waiting area, and all seven of us are crammed together. We make small talk, and they are all joking around about “James Bond” as they now have renamed me after the English agent, when they have seen my suit. I am the oldest, they actually are ok guys, all of them of course probably back in trouble the minute they are back in the hood, but they are all just young boys, probably not with many options in life. No excuses from me, but they are just petty criminals. I say that to them as well “What the hell are you guys doing in here? You should be out dating girls, cruising down Main Street in a souped up car and having fun. This place has no future” I try, but I know I might as well not waste my breath. They know I am right of course, but I am sure it’s not an option. Drug dealings, possession of fire arms and other stupid decisions made on a daily basis doesn’t get you anywhere but to Alvin S Glen Detention Center. The bureaucracy continues as I am now told that if you don’t have a ride, which I don’t have of course-you need to take the ride provided by the center. It leaves at 3:00PM exactly, the 2 bus just left, and we are to wait for another hours before getting out. It is actually 3:55 before we get out, after being told we are to go at 10:30 I might add. You got to love being innocent, but what to do I tell myself. Maybe I can write a story of this one day?
The vehicle we are to take is embarrassing to say the least. It’s a van with two sections in the back. One for women, and one for men, and we are all sitting sideways, back to the wall divider between the men and woman, and we are crammed up with bars on the side. The guys are actually trying to set up a time to meet the girls, unseen on the other side of the wall, but they all just joke and laugh back and forth. Toothless Jimmy tells me that this is the most embarrassing of the whole experience; “They let us out in the middle of the business district down at the bus terminal, and everyone looks when you jump off the bus” . “Don’t worry, I say, you have nothing to be embarrassed of, didn’t you say you where innocent”: Well if you are innocent, just hold your head high, and walk out of the bus like you own the place”. They smile and say that maybe this weird German dude isn’t too bad after all,-they have of course never heard of Norway and couldn’t the land of the midnight sun on the map more than they would place Moldova anywhere. I lend one of them my cell phone so he can catch a ride from down town, and the bus stops. One guy ask if he can borrow five bucks from me-but I smile and say that I am not planning on coming back to Columbia, and I am sure hes not heading north to Raleigh and I am not about to give away money. I tell the boys that it was good meeting them, and walk out from the bus- Didn’t really look if anyone was watching, but I did walk down Main Street Columbia like I owned the place, and I never looked back. I almost hope the guys wasn’t too embarrassed, but I didn’t turn and look to see if they did.
What would you have done if this happened again? I ask myself, “Probably nothing different”, but at the same time I tell myself that “Just make sure you don’t take a left turn here and you’ll be home in a heartbeat”. Then I round the corner (to the right of course) I start making calls to explain what had happened. I am sure everyone thought I was dead by now……….
