Travelin Monkey

I came home from Europe and found something I had not expected to find. There, in the pile of bills and garbage mail was a letter from a friend I hadn’t communicated with for about 6 years now. He was staying in Calipatria, about to celebrate his 9th birthday December 2, 2006, this year in a maximum security jail.

I can’t believe it’s been 9 years since then, but time does fly. I had visited him 4 times prior, the last time he said “I know what is going to happen, you are going to continue on with your life and so will everyone else while I stay here frozen in time in jail and soon everyone will forget about me.” Those words echoed in my head for the next 5 years. I had lost contact with him. His parents sold their house and moved to pay for the lawyer bills, he got transfered to a different jail, and there I sat with no way of writing him. I had since moved from my undergrad apartment, I had a stint in Washington DC for 3 months, then I moved to San Francisco for 4 years! So, it was a very nice surprise to see the letter. It took me a while to write back, mainly because I still had all my crap from SF in boxes and I had just come back from Europe, so I had some massive organization to do.

I wrote back and told him I would visit him for his birthday. He sent me a letter with his parents phone number and I coordinated. It turns out that Calipatria is about 230 miles west from Pheonix and about 100 miles north of Mexico. I went to sleep Friday night at 11 pm, but didn’t really get much rest because the guys were getting wasted at the house, laughing about how I was going to go for a conjugal visit in the morning. At about 3 am I got out of bed, found all of my breakfast food eaten, and aggravated, I hit the shower. I got in the car, filled up the tank, got a nasty cheese burger from AM/PM (it sucks to look for food that early in the morning), and made my way out to Calipatria.

KROQ had a concert in Indio and another one in Cochella. People told me that these places where in BFE, but let me tell you, when the place you need to go to is about 40 miles PAST that, wow wow wee wow wow! 102 miles on the 10 to the 86 Spur South was interesting. But then I drove past the ENTIRE FREAKIN LENGTH of the Salton Sea. At first I thought it might be interesting to check it out, but it sucks. I have no idea why anyone would ever EVER want to visit the Salton Sea, but hey, who am I to judge?

I got on the road at 4 am and arrived at Calipatria Maximum Security prison at 7:30 am. I parked my car behind a long line of cars and took a little nap. At around 8 am the cops opened the gates. They gave me a number, and I went to park at the visitor’s section. All jails look the same, it doesn’t matter what level of security you are at, they all look, smell, and feel the same. The difference is what happens on the inside.

I walked into the room and quit frankly, wasn’t surprised. There were a bunch of single mothers, mostly mexican and black, with their boyfriend/husband’s/gangster’s names tattooed on their necks, breasts, arms, wherever. The kids were not tamed at all, and just observing them the 2 hours that I stood around waiting for #109 to be called, I could tell that already at that young age they showed no respect for authority. Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand that kids will be kids and are expected to not sit still, but I’ve seen children all over the world and it is very obvious when a child is being a brat vs when a child has no respect for authority. They just aren’t the same.

Luckily, I had already visited before and was cleared for entry rather quickly. I hoped on the bus the inmate was driving, headed to Building B, walked in through the door, and had it locked behind me. I sat at the table and continued to wait, but I was having a good time just people watching, observing, and attempting to understand. The women were interesting. Most of them were fat, and like I mentioned before, tatted up, but their reactions when they saw the inmates was ridiculous. They were legitimately heart broken, could you claim that they were in love?? I have no idea, but there they were sneaking to corners to make out and have a couple of cheap feels.

My friend finally came. It was interesting to see him. He, obviously, has changed. He explained the rules of the game inside, the different gangs that exist, how they take respect very seriously because the slightest disrespect gets you killed. He explained the initiation system and who gets hit first (rapist and child molesters). Basically, once you are in, you are either part of the mayhem or one of the people they ask to get hit for gang initiation. It makes for an interesting argument. See, jails started to seclude people whom were deemed unfit for our society, in complete solitude. That progressed to a ‘correctional’ institution you have today. People are removed from society, but to be taught how to integrate back into it, or so we think. What really happens is the behavior they are tried for is reinforced, even needed, for the basic animal instinct of survival.

We chatted for about 6 hours, after which I realized that his life froze 9 years ago. What he knows, what he asks about… you could tell that all he does is sit in his cell and think about memories of his past. He is allowed out for 5 minutes a day. 2 minutes to shower, 3 minutes to make a phone call. It’s Max security after all. He has a 2 foot 1.5″ window that faces another building. I asked him what he does all day… he watches TV and reads books. It’s weird talking to someone frozen in time 9 years back, but on the other hand, he was semi versed on world affairs and books. It was the first time I had a semi-intelligent conversation with the guy.

The drive home sucked. I hadn’t slept all day, visiting hours closed at 3 pm, all the women were off to go bang the pimp they probably worked for to make ends meet for their kids, and I got lost on the way home. The shit SoCo drivers mixed with some rain made for a crappy drive home. I got back at 8 pm and passed out.

And so ended my trip out to Calipatria…

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