“You’re a good guy, Lewis. But stay out of jail. I’m getting tired of these collect calls. Can you call back tomorrow night after Jeopardy!?”

“What time does Jeopardy! come on, Luisa?”

“Do you have cable in there?”

“I’ll call somewhere around eight, all right?”

“ Muy bien. And I’ll give you the scoop. Like that? The scoop?”

“I gotta go, Luisa. Thanks. And say hi to your son for me.”

“Remember there’s three!” I hear her say, but I’m already hanging up, even though I pick the handset right back up and wave it to the dude who’s been waiting for me. When he gets up, I go get his Top Ramen from the vending machine and give it to him. I go sit back down and pick up a GQ magazine, then toss it back on a pile and pick up Life. I flip to a picture of some gold hills that look just like a desert, and then to a whole page of fog, and then comes an emerald-blue sea with a boat sitting out in the middle of it, just sitting there, doing nothing but floating. I betcha that would be nice. To be out in the middle of some water in a boat, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of nothing but waves. I bet I could sleep like a baby and dream in color instead of black and white, like I’ve been doing in here.

I look around our unit at all these black and brown men. Only about thirty of the 170 dudes are white. But all of us are in here for doing stupid shit like stealing and driving drunk and getting caught with a little dope but not enough to be considered a felony. And then there’s people like me that they don’t consider violent enough to put in a maximum-security pod with murderers and people who shot somebody and shit, but we’re still guilty of domestic violence, so they put us here in minimum security. One deputy even calls some of these dudes “felony stupid”—things they shoulda taken care of or they wouldn’t be here: driving without a license, warrants for unpaid parking and speeding tickets, and failure to appear in court. I just keep my mouth shut, ’cause all my numbers ain’t up yet.

Everybody’s watching the NBA playoffs. I don’t even know who’s in it. And don’t care. I’m trying to strengthen my mind while I’m here and figure out what to do when I get out. I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing, that much I do know, ’cause I ain’t getting nowhere fast. Except here: and this ain’t exactly a hotel. It could be worse, that much I can say. A lot of people would be shocked if they were to come in here, if they’ve never been inside a jail. Everybody thinks it’s these little cells with bars on ’em. But not here. Not in this day and age. We’re in dorms. And instead of bars, it’s Plexiglas that faces out here where I’m sitting. We’ve got two TVs and they’re mounted up on the wall in metal boxes. But, hell, everything in here is metal and mounted to something: our bunk beds are molded into the wall; the sinks and toilets are stainless steel; the tables and stools we eat at are metal and drilled into the floor. At least the walls are off-white, so it ain’t as depressing as it could be. Volunteers come in here twice a week with a cart full of books, and then a few of these dudes that’re in here for a year or more get magazine subscriptions to Playboy and Penthouse, but they won’t let Hustler in here, ’cause they say it’s too freaky, but, for a pack of cigarettes and a Top Ramen, sometimes a dude might let you “rent” a few pages of something for a half-hour.