The Toyota Corolla steered off the court onto a double-lane road and took Debbie to the Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brownsville, where she would be spending the next five years. With the police car whizzing down the road, Debbie knew she won't be able to see her normal landscape for a while. She tried to memorize everything from the flowers, trees, the smells, aware that these beautiful memories would keep her sane and motivated enough to stay alive.
Even though she was weighed down by dread, her heart leaped into her throat and her hands were cold and clammy, Debbie tried to calm the panic and steady her nerves by taking deep breaths.
As the car entered the juvenile premises, a weird sense of helplessness washed over Debbie. She knew she had arrived and had no inkling of what would happen next. Paralyzed with fear, she was rooted at the entrance of the building, her feet turned into lead. Debbie suppressed the shiver surging through her.
Debbie dragged her feet through the door, and a supervisor accosted her to the front desk. The officer--Agnes , asked her to stand up against the wall and patted her down. Searching all her pockets, she took everything out. After a brief orientation and explanation of the rules, Ms. Agnes removed Debbie's handcuffs.
Debbie was given a copy of the rules to make sure she understood them well and she undertook not to break them by signing on them. She quietly studied them.
1) You are allowed ten free minutes to call your legal guardians each week. You are expected to attend school each day. The school typically follows the local school holidays and breaks. PE and recreation time will be available on a near to daily basis.
2) There will be surprise visits from their Probation Officer and from Psychological Services at various times during the week to check you. Medical staff makes at least three rounds a day.
3) Your free time in the facility will be largely yours. You can play card games, board games, draw, write and read, as long as there is a sense of discipline.
4) Showers are provided once a day.
5) Girls and boys are housed separately and any effort to contact the opposite sex will result in month-long quarantine or total isolation.
6) From time-to-time, volunteers will attend the facility to minister and teach life skills. They will be screened and their credentials thoroughly checked so that the inmates get the best education.
7) The facility also boasts of religious figures to regularly to pray with and talk to the juveniles. Every effort is made to allow the juvenile to practice their form of religion.
8) In addition to education, the facility also provides opportunities to earn money by volunteering for some internships or doing charity work. Details of which will be given to you by your attendant or supervisor.
9) Three meals a day are served at regular times of the day in addition to one snack.
10) And last but now the least: Time in detention varies, as there are many factors in each individual case. They can expect a detention hearing every couple of weeks, as well as court at least once a month.
As Debbie read them, she realized that she was no longer an ordinary high school girl who could hang out with Lizzie. She was an inmate standing at attention and supposed to shout "Yes Ma'am!" at every command.
Agnes leaned towards Debbie and gazed intently into her eyes. Debbie shuddered inwardly at the thought of what was in store for her. She was surprised when officer Agnes said, "We are going put you up with Julie Wilson."
Her sombre expression and firm smile showed that she knew the ins and outs of her job. Debbie was clueless on how to deal with her.
I'll figure her and everything out in a couple of days. After all, I've got all the time in the world... mused Debbie.
Agnes told her, "We have to complete your paperwork before your booking process could begin, Deborah. Stay in the holding cell while we finish them."
After the formalities, Debbie was taken out from the holding cell to the shower room and strip searched to see if she had any contraband and also to make sure she wouldn't harm any other people. All her pleas fell on deaf ears. Debbie was forced to take off all her clothes, and during the search of all her body parts thoroughly, Agnes came upon the mark etched on Debbie's back. As she ran her hands over it, she felt an electric shock run through her body
"Argghhh... what's that mark on your back? I-It gave me a shock as I touched it. I swear I saw a spark coming out from there." Agnes's voice was thick with fear.
"I don't know. I really don't know. Wish I knew, but I honestly don't." Debbie felt very cold and her legs felt heavy and numb, even though the airconditioning wasn't on.
Still reeling under her parents' death and the subsequent events that followed, reminding her of the mark, broke the dam of memories--especially one, Debbie had surpressed for so long. Tears flowed down her face.
Out of sheer embarrassment, Debbie tried to hide her face in her hands as she wished for the earth to swallow her. The female officer looked at her for about a couple of seconds without saying anything—disgust etched all over her face.
"Listen young lady, You are a juvenile inmate now and in our custody. I suggest you do not try my patience." She said in a voice dripping in ice. "I've tons to work to attend to."
After some more awkward few seconds had passed, Debbie was ordered to keep her body straight, eyes forward, and her feet flat to the floor and put her hands behind back.
Looking at Debbie's mortified expression, the officer softened a little and explained that the search was for everyone's safety; and if the other juvenile inmates aren't searched, they could bring something that had the potential to hurt her. Agnes promised her that she wouldn't touch the mark on her back.
When the search was over, Debbie was asked to take a shower and given the standard dress of sweatpants, basic sneakers and a blue tee shirt.
The officer added, "The tee shirt would be in different colors. The color signified the amount of trust the inmate has built with the staff during their tenure. It changes to a light colour as they progress with their behavior and become more trustworthy. if they are caught fighting or exhibit some bad conduct, their shirt color could go back to the darkest colour."
She then took Debbie's mugshot and put an ID tracker and wristband on her wrist. And asked her if she wanted something.
Debbie was starved. Due to the trial and the fright of being arrested, she hadn't eaten for two days. All she wanted was--something to eat, but her dry throat made it difficult to ask for food.
The officer, led Debbie in the elevator ride to the third floor, hardly speaking to her on the way. On the waty to her cell, Debbie noticed some walls had no paint and on some, the paint was chipped off in places..The floor had grey tiles with white faint seams separating them. Darker bricks still lined the corridor's inner walls, floor to ceiling. Debbie observed the outer wall's upper half was made of glass with steel frame reinforcements, through which she could see the barren concrete courtyard, around the size of her local park.
She resorted to counting her steps as a way to stop fright from taking over her mind. Thirty paces down the hallway, Debbie turned to her left to find herself staring into an empty cellblock N. As the officer opened the steel-framed glass door with her master key, Debbie stepped behind her and marked her first entry into a cellblock.
A desk nested to the left of the door in the cellblock's middle. Twenty feet ahead stood fifteen cell doors, all grey steel-frames and most with plexiglas windows. Just below the ceiling, in the space between cells seven and eight, hung a square wall clock. A wall of glass partitioned the block's TV area. More tiles enclosed the right end—the bathroom area. Multi-colored plastic-coated fiberglass tables and chairs filled the middle space common area, along with a faded, cracked, green table-tennis table.
The supervisor left and Daniel Gray--children's attendant on 3G, sauntered out of the TV area. His time started from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Without a look at Debbie, attendant Gray begun to talk. "Right now, all our resident inmates are at school, except for room nine. He's in Confinement," With a bald head and a peppered beard, he didn't tower over Debbie. Unlike the other trainees in orientation, his deep voice boomed and was more ear piercing than the all the voices Debbie had heard there.
All the inmates faced the fifteen-cell row and the clock centered between cells seven and eight. Time was everything for Daniel Gray and he loved being punctual.
The boy locked behind door nine was asleep on a brown mattress laid over the floor. From his size, Debbie guessed his age to be around fourteen or fifteen. His lips and body were pressed into the expansive, nearly full length window.
Attendant Gray explained that the kid had committed a major rule violation and would remain there all day—Confinement. Time is always a means of jest for this kid so much so that he can't even see the clock even when awake.
Moving behind Debbie, Daniel picked up a book off the console along with a clear plastic board. She noticed his hands to be hard and there were scars all along the arms, as if they belonged to an oilrig worker.
Gray refused to acknowledge Debbie. Instead, his focussed his attention on the plastic board—like a marine proudly marveling at the badge cradled at his chest. Pasted to the see-through plastic rectangle were three columns of brass name tag holders.
"Let's us go back there, Miss Steele," he beckoned toward the TV area. Past the half dozen tables with multi-coloured chairs-- a donation from McDonald's. The sky blue, canary yellow, lime green, and candy apple red furniture appear like a the facility's apology for the living quarters' gory-of-grey color scheme.
Gray and I eased down onto cushioned low-back armchairs at the rear of the TV area, positioned in front of the first cells. He set the board on his chair arm.
"Here are all our residents. Right here." He pointed his fingers to the inmates standing infront of him.
Slid inside most of the nameplates are strips of tag-board, with the name written in blue or black ink, a cell number, and an admission date to the facility, be it last week or last year. The plastic board is an oversized roll sheet.
Gray tapped his tobacco stained forefinger near the first name cards in the second column, on numbers nineteen and higher. "We have sixteen rooms. So those resident inmates right here are overflows. Or extras. Whatever you call them." He shrugged. "Block 3G has more inmates than cells. Overflows sleep on cots."
Debbie was confused by attendant Gray's free run in regard to extra residents and less rooms. She had heard supervisor Agnes using the same words, but the rules circular didn't mention anything.
She remembered the rights clause the police officer had read to her after her trial where residents were explained as:
"Children charged with committing a delinquent or criminal act, failing to appear for a court hearing, adjudicated pending disposition and/or placement, serving a disposition up to 30 days per offense or placed on a violation of probation pending hearing/disposition. The extra are sent back to police custody."
And for the umpteenth time that day, Gray--with a stern look towards Debbie, instructed the juveniles or inmates, as they were called, not to call them girls. He cited the manual with its reference to all the girls brawling simultaneously in the courtyard as a creating a riot and a form of third-level group disturbance.
Debbie listened to all the intructions and warnings and thought, If the administration pretended that the girls' legal predicaments wasn't serious stuff, then how would months and years of being stored away alleviate the depressing reality of their childhood. One where they couldn't even change a television channel without proper sanction from one of the attendents. Nothing could scar a girl's soul more than sleeping in a cell.
As Debbie glanced into the rectangular brick-walled chambers, hardly wider than her arms' span, she couldn't deny that they were real cells with two tiny beds. Where inmates live. She no choice, but learn to adjust with her inmate- Julie Wilson. Another thing--she was supposed to address everyone by their surnames. No personal name basis here.
A red tag with the letters CONFINEMENT above her cell and on her slot-- was a reminder that cell nine's kid was in Confinement. No one would let her out by accident.
"Confinement helped in keeping order and instilled discipline," Attendant Gray explained.
Debbie sensed his mood and thought it better to not inquire about his offence.
Attendent Gray proceeded to tell her about his past glory days in the late 1990s when he worked at the Adult Home. There were no cells in which to lock unruly adults—inmates slept on bunks. He went on to inform Debbie about the capital-lettered codes such as AT. At Debbie's confused look, he went on. "Unlike the CONFINEMENT tag, AT's were permanent residents and not overflows, which meant they had to be in a room."
With his eyes on the board, attendent Gray showed Debbie the list. All ten AT name cards occupy a slot somewhere between cells one and sixteen—none are overflows. There was a serious guidelines violation if an AT bunked down on a cot.
Unable to contain her curiosity, Debbie asked, "What's AT mean?"
"Automatic Transfer. They go to court on the 23rd and Illinois." He replied.
"Oh..."
Even though Debbie wasn't familiar with "23rd and Illinois", she didn't dare to ask him, at the risk of sounding stupid. And she wasn't interested as it was none of her business.
Not my circus, not my monkey. She thought.
Through the overload of unwanted information, Debbie eventually learned that when ATs turned eighteen (a legal adult in NewYork), they could no longer be housed with the children at the Crossroads Juvenile Center. They must be imprisoned with women, because their court is prosecuting them as adults. Thus, they are transferred to the McCavanaugh County Prison.
Attendant Gray gave the bare details about ATs and what pertains to them here on 3G—ATs must be in a room.
Through her interactions with the inmates, Debbie would learn more about Automatic Transfers like her on specific AT charges namely: First-Degree Murder, Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault, Aggravated Vehicular Hijacking also known as carjacking, Armed Robbery With A Firearm, and narcotics or weapons possession within one thousand feet of a school or housing project.
Attendant Gray next pointed to a SW tag on top of several other name tags. "These residents are Suicide Watches, so they can't have a bed frame or any sheets in their room. And their room has to be right across from the console."
He touched a name tag with the SW label. "Dr. Antonio was of the opinion that she wanted to kill herself."
Gray showed Debbie the name of the confined girl- Victoria, on the roll board. When Victoria had threatened suicide, Dr. Antonio, their lone full-time psychiatrist, deemed her a Suicide Watch and got her bed sheets removed and had any other dangerous items were removed from the area, such as: sharp objects and some furniture, or they may be placed in a special , which had nothing outcropping from the walls (a clothes hook or door closing bracket) to provide a place for a to be attached, and with only a drain-grill on the floor. They may be stripped of anything with which they might hurt themselves or use bras, shoes, socks, shoelaces, suspenders. In extreme cases the inmate may be undressed entirely as a safety precaution.
Victoria's cell contained no desk or chair or a bed frame for the mattress. Her entire floor was exposed, save for her mattress covers.
Debbie felt Gray's detachment and cold behavior with the kids when he didn't refer to them by name, but rather by their room numbers.
He disparaged them. "The resident in room twelve. The girl in cell three. The inmate in eight."
She was amused at no mention whatsoever on doing anything to make them better people.
In the silence of her empty cellblock, Debbie was genuinely puzzled on why attendent Gray was giving information about what he knew about each inmate—their positives, their negatives, their sore spots and soft spots, what she needed to help them.
Her cellmate, Julie entered the cell after Gray's departure. She reached out with her hand, saying, "Hey there. I'm Julie--your cell mate. I think you must be Deborah."
Debbie grasped her hand with a bright smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Julie. Yes, I'm Deborah. You can call me Debbie."
As they shook hands, both of them felt a sudden tingling sensation run through their skin. A connection of old.
YOU ARE READING
Debbie's Vengeance
Teen FictionFourteen-year-old Debbie isn't all that she seems. Her love for money is well-known in the neighbourhood. When she is arrested, accused and wrongly implicated in a drug deal gone awry, the law sentences her to a life in juvenile prison. Through her...
