Harris County Jail #2

This place was unbelievable the second time I was there. This tank was for women waiting to be sentenced.  The first time i was sentenced in court the 7 year suspended sentence with an immediate 30 days so i was in a tank for women serving a sentence.  It was Dark, dingy, dirty, and overpopulated with 80 women in a tank designed for 40. I entered at night and was lead into the "day room" which had a row of picnic tables and women were sleeping all over them and on the floor. I had to be very careful not to step on anyone as I looked for a place to sit down.

I was Dressed Out  before being taken to a cell block. The "dress" they provided was a rag with arm holes and a head hole shaped like a small tent. No two women had the same fabric but all had the same "design". Looking for a place to sit I passes a woman with a mangled foot missing toes and almost screamed! Then I found an empty space at the very back and sat down and waited for morning.

Morning was less terrifying and I figured out ways to "get along" with the women locked up with me.  I had laryngitis and there were several dykes in Harris County who fell in love with my husky voice.  Protection for me!! There were about 10 cells along one side of the Day Room that had 8 beds,  4 sets of bunks,  and the Privileged got to have a bed in one.  Day 2 I was waking by the cells and a black woman pointed at me and said "That one!" I stopped and asked,  "This one What?" and she waved to the upper bunk across from her.  Someone had gone on to the prison or been released and they had a bunk to fill and I was chosen!! I wish I remembered all of my cell mates names but i remember the woman who chose me,  the one who ran this cell,  was Dora Fisher and she was just amazing to me.  They all were! We were very close and also had a close friendship with a woman named Brenda Gunther.  I asked if she was a prostitute and she said "No! Get it right,  I'm a HO!!" I was not street savvy at all and had to have a few things spelled out for me.  And I often called "Brenda 'pick' or 'shovel' to joke with her.  We were very childish together. I remember one night the guards didn't close the cells. They were supposed to lock those doors at night.  So Brenda and I waited until everyone was sound asleep and we ripped a sheet into strips and snuck around tying everyone to their bunks just to hear the yelling and cussing and some laughter when we were all called out for morning head count.  Goofy.  I was in there for "Absconding" my 7 year probation,  Brenda was there for drugs and prostitution,  i.e. hoing. I really don't remember mother Dora's crime but I doubt it was a violent one.  I only remember hanging out with one woman who was in there for violence,  the woman with no toes poured gasoline on someone and lit them on fire burning off her own toes in the process.  She was a really sweet big black girl, but not in our cell.  Oh, but I remember another one in the top bunk at the back,  Crystal Abernathy, proudly in there for crystal meth.  These women shared their commissary until I could get my own and taught me how to survive in Harris County. First I was taught how to climb up on the toilet to get in and out of my bunk and how to fold down the edges of a grocery bag so it stayed open and standing up as a trash bag.  I was coached on how to behave with the guards and even how to handle court when I went.  

One morning I woke up covered in huge,  black, boils that seeped blood. We were all terrified.  I was sent to medical for 24 hours. There was a young girl in there huddled and alone.  The guard whispered to me that she has been there three weeks and hadn't said a word.  She was in there for something horrific,  something about her baby being thrown out a 2 story window but no one was clear if she did it it just saw it. That night she crawled into her bunk and was laying there quietly crying.  No guard was present so I crawled over next to her bed and I took her hand. She didn't object and after a few minutes she squeezed my hand back.  I had no plan, I just opened my mouth and the story of the birth of Jesus poured out like it was being beamed through me!! We sat like that all night until the guard came in and the guard saw the girl give me a tiny smile and whisper ""Thank you". It was one of the best nights of my life but I'm not real sure that i was the one there.  I definitely felt a Divine Presence with her.  The guard thought so,  too, and from then on all of the guards treated me like I was almost an equal. I think they were afraid to abuse someone who the believe could call on angels. I absolutely was not one myself!! But this would happen over and over throughout my time in jail and prison. 

Some of it i have only recently really thought about,  and wondered at.  

I went back to my bunk to get ready for court. No one knew what to do about the boils on me but medical gave me thick gauze bandages to cover the ones on my chest and stomach so they wouldn't soak through my court clothes. 

There were,  of course, some totally insane,  crazy,  women in there and one of them offered me her dose of thorazine for 2 cigarettes, everyone said it would stop the nervous trembling I had going on.  I had never taken a drug anything like thorazine! and probably should have taken an 8th of her dose or none. I KNEW i was getting sentenced to prison. I was going before the Honorable Judge Ron Hughs whose daughter had recently died of a drug overdose. Dora told me about him and that he had no mercy for Controlled Substance inmates. I barely remember court. My lawyer had told me that I would do at least 30 years if I took this to trial, that my only hope would be to plead guilty and accept whatever Hughs sentenced me and said the plea would probably get me no more than 10 years. Then I went before Hughs and plead guilty and had to say that I was not coerced or promised anything for pleading guilty.  AND THAT IS TOTAL CRAP FOR ALL OF US WHO TAKE THESE PLEAS!!! Judge Hughs looked me up and down and said, "I sentenced you to no less than 3 and no more than 20 years in the state penitentiary" and that just rang through my addled brain for days. No les than 3 no more than 20. What the hell did that mean?? It means exactly what he said.  I was told that my mother rushed the judge after I was removed from court and begged him to lock her up in my place.  That broke my heart!! 

Dora, Brenda,  and the others took care of me and comforted me while the thorazine wore off, which took a couple of days.  A song started ringing through my head for my mother,  for all of our mothers,  and on day 3 I opened my mouth and started singing.  All 90 women in the tank fell silent and my song echoes all through the day room,  into the cells,  and out into the guards hall where they all gathered listening. 

I think it went something like this:

Mama was once a shining girl

Seeing life as a shining pearl

So happy to be lead 

Down the aisle to be wed

A woman at last

With a woman's pain.

When Mama first held 

Her baby child 

Like pink bows 

And an innocent smile

Such beauty to behold

But then Mama didn't know

The sorrow to come. 

"Mama come get your baby!

She's crying all alone''

And with sobs that shook

And broke her heart 

Her Baby hung up the phone. 

Little girl playing in the sand 

Always reaching for Mama hand

Has gone away

To learn to pray 

In the devil's land

And her baby cries.

"Mama come get your baby!

She's crying all alone"

and with sobs that shook 

And broke her heart 

Her baby hung up the phone. 

Now Mama can't help

She's done all that she can!

So she stares through bars

That forever leave scars

At her Baby 

Lost Lady

And Mama remembers 

that tiny hand

And Mama just can't

Understand!

"Mama come get your Baby!

She's crying all alone!!"

Now she stares through bars 

That forever leave scars

Oh Baby 

She's a lost lady

Abd Mama remembers.

That song became our anthem.  Every night when the cell doors locked Dora would say, "OK  Girl, sing it!!" and then others started singing harmonies and coming up with their own songs. I remember Crystal did a remake of House of the Rising Sun that was Harris Countys rising sun about us that was really good. 

Harris County was disgusting back then, 1977/78. Everything was dark and dingy. We always felt dirty in there. The only soap you got for bathing/washing was a harsh lye soap that burned your skin and fried your hair. I started scrubbing the mold off of a shower stall and a friend stopped me saying I could get another charge for doing that because some of the paint came off with the mold.  Destroying County Property.  

You weren't told when you would be moved to the penitentiary,  obviously, so you couldn't arrange some kind of escape along the way.  One you were sentenced you just kept what you could take with you together so you could grab it and go when you were called.  Dora and I said good bye every night and promised to look for each other in the pen. I was called out in the wee hours about a week after I was sentenced.  No Less Than Three No More Than Twenty. There were about 10 of us loaded into a prison transport van. We were silent as they loaded us and the fear and uncertainty was so thick it was hard to breathe.  I thought of a Collier crew song that I could make fit our predicament and I started singing, 

"Here we go again

Brand new show again -"

and unbelievably a mixed young woman started singing it with me!! Not the original version of the song,  but she knew the Book Business version! and she was right with me on the changes I made to the words to make it a 'going to prison' song!! It brightened up the group and definitely lightened the atmosphere! Afterwards I asked the girl how she knew the song and she said that she used to work for Christine Campbell,  too! Her name was Donna Green and she would be a hugely important part of my Texas Department of Corrections (hereafter referred to as TDC) life.  

Brand new show again.  Next will come being booked into the TDC Goree Unit in Huntsville, Texas.