“You can’t take any money into the prison,” the woman said sternly. “You’re not allowed to give money to the inmates.” For just a moment, her hand rested on her riot stick. Honestly, I think it was an unconscious gesture, not intended to send a message, but I got one just the same. Don’t give me a hard time. That was the message I got.

I am not a big fan of getting whacked in the head with a riot stick. But at that moment, honestly, it’s hard to imagine how it could have made things any worse than they already were.

I’d never been in a prison before, let alone a women’s prison, and I’d only been at this one for about five minutes, and already I was pretty certain it was not a nice place to be. I got that impression as I approached the main entrance. I walked up to a ten-foot chain-link fence looped at the top with barbed wire, and pressed a button on a small speaker mounted next to the gate.

“Hello?”

A voice, no doubt coming from the building fifty feet beyond the gate, crackled, “Name?”

“Uh, Walker?” Like I wasn’t really sure. “Zack Walker?”

Then, nothing. I stood by the gate a good ten seconds, wondering whether I wasn’t on the list even though I’d phoned the lawyer—he was supposed to have pulled some strings, called in favors, name your cliché, to get me in here. But then there was a buzzing sound, which was my signal to push the gate wide. I glanced up at the surveillance cameras as I walked up to the main building, which, without the fencing and barbed wire, might have passed for a community college. Once inside, I approached the counter, where I encountered the humorless guard with the riot stick.

“So,” I said, trying to make conversation and forget how grave the situation was while I fumbled around for my wallet, seemingly forgetting that it was in my right back pocket, where it has been since I was fifteen, “is this where Martha Stewart did her time?”

Nothing.

Wallet out, I glanced into it, counted seven dollars, before dropping it into the tray with my cell phone. Seven dollars. Then, from the front pockets of my jeans, I dug out fifty-seven cents. How much would $7.57 buy in prison? How many smokes? Wasn’t that what everyone wanted money for in prison? Smokes?

The guard slapped a short, stubby key with a square of orange plastic at the end onto the counter, then pointed to a bank of airport-type lockers against the far wall. “You can put your stuff in there,” she said. I took my tray of belongings, found the locker that matched the number on the key, and stowed it. I had to print my name in a book, then sign next to it, put down the time of my arrival. They ran a wand over me after I stepped through the security door, making sure I wasn’t sneaking in with any weapons.