Click here to read chapter two.

Three months have gone by, to be exact, and I’ve had about three court hearings. At the first one, the judge asked me, “Have you ever been arrested?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Unfortunately, I’ve been arrested three times before this detention,” I answered.

The judge and prosecutor said, “NO, YOU HAVE BEEN ARRESTED OVER TEN TIMES.”

I looked at my lawyer, and he said, “No, Your Honor, he has not been arrested more than ten times. I would know about it.”

And the judge said, “Here in my court of law, I count traffic tickets as arrests. And since you’re not being upfront and you lied to me, I grant you no bond!”

And that was that. Twenty minutes of nonsense. No justice at all.

Imagine how I spent the whole month waiting for my next hearing, knowing I’d have to see that judge again. In the meantime, I became the one in charge of the recreation office. Since some rooms have T.V.s and DVD players, people can come to that office and rent movies. They don’t have to pay. They just have to give their alien number, and that’s it.

But I had a hookup with an officer. If anyone wanted a particular movie, for a couple of bucks (twenty), I could get the officer to bring us bootlegs from downtown Miami. They cost him five bucks, I gave him ten per movie, and that’s how everyone was happy. I soon became the one who had what you needed and could get it there. Even drugs, but that wasn’t my business. In places like these, you don’t need drugs. You need games and recreational stuff. That’s what I did all day, every day.

# # #

Finally, the second court hearing came. I went in, and the judge remembered me. He said, “I hope you have a good reason to come and waste my time again.”

We explained how unfair his reason for denying me bond would look if the Supreme Court reviewed the case in Virginia, where his bosses were. But he didn’t care. He said, “You can appeal my decision if you would like.”

My lawyer said, “No, I’m going to ask you one more time for a fair bond hearing a week from today under the application of the (I. 130).”

He gave me no bond again, but another hearing a month from then. So there goes another month wasting time in B.T. Motherfucking C.

The third court hearing comes, and by now I’m already thinking, I’ve got no way of getting this judge to like me. So I walked in with God by my side, ready for anything.

He made me read my traffic tickets out loud. I have two speeding tickets. Some other tickets are thanks to the crappy cars I’ve had in the past: no brake lights, tag lights, like three tickets for driving with a suspended license, and that kind of thing. I know it sounds bad, but in the meantime, he’s let people out on $25,000 bond with battery charges, domestic violence, and more.

So there goes the judge again: “I think you are a criminal, and if I let you out on bond, you are probably going to kill somebody with that driving record. So I grant you no bond, and if you keep coming back, I will keep refusing your bond. Do you understand me, boy?”

But this was my fate, I guess. So my lawyer decided to appeal.

# # #

After four months in B.T.C., I got woken up at 2 a.m. with a “PUT YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, YOU’RE LEAVING!”

I’m half asleep, getting all my stuff together, packing it in a plastic bag and saying goodbye to my friends. The ones who are left, anyways!

They pulled all of us out of our cell units to join the rest of the detainees being transferred. While we were walking from one place to another, I found out that the paper said:

TRANSFER TO: KROME.

I calmed down because I’d heard from other people who’d been there that it wasn’t so bad. They put us all in an office to give us our property and all our stuff. It’s about 4 a.m., and they finally realize that five out of the 25 of us have court hearings that morning. So we have to sit there until 5 p.m., waiting for the hearings to be over.

By this time, they’ve already changed the plan. We’re now going to GLADES COUNTY CORRECTIONAL SHERIFF’S OFFICE.

So we jump on the bus, cuffed from feet to waist to wrists, and get there at 7:30 p.m.

They start by putting us in frozen fucking cells with piss, vomit and food all over. There are only two people to process all 25 of us, so we have to sit tight. They give us our uniforms, and we get to the medic. They ask us a bunch of stupid questions, and a prick officer who came out of nowhere screams, “THIS IS NOT YOUR HOUSE. YOU CANNOT SLEEP WHERE YOU ARE SITTING!”

Even though they know we’ve been awake since 2 a.m., and it’s now 3 a.m. the next fucking day.

We haven’t slept, they’re harassing us, and they’re not even done with the medical questioning yet. It’s now 7 a.m. when they finally finish with all of us. They send us to our pods. B-1 is where I landed.

Here I see some familiar faces from B.T.C., so I say what’s up. But all I really want to do is sleep. I choose a bunk, #35, a top one, fix it up and crash right away.

I wake up at 10:30 a.m. for lunch. The food is beans with water in them, potatoes and salad. No food in these places has flavor or color, so you just have to eat quickly, get full and forget what you ate.

# # #

My routine here is to wake up for breakfast at 5 a.m. and go back to sleep. Wake up at 10:30 or 11 a.m., eat lunch and go back to sleep. Then wake up at 4:30 p.m., have dinner and, after that, walk around an area of about 1,400 square feet for an hour, until 6 p.m. or so. Then sit down and play some dominoes, cards, chess, or stop people from fighting.

Here people fight over the smallest fucking things, like T.V. channels or volume, or even moving a chair without picking it up off the ground. But unless I see something unfair going on, I stay out of trouble and laugh and chill in the background. Most of you who know me know that about me.

Here in Glades, lockdown is at 11 p.m. on weekdays and 1:30 a.m. on weekends. So during the week, I work out from 11 p.m. until midnight so I can go to sleep tired. Sometimes after midnight everyone is asleep, and it’s very quiet, which is rare. I read a lot then, meditate and think of new ideas.

Besides, by then I feel like I’ve been forgotten and left to rot in there because I haven’t heard from my girlfriend or even my mother.

In the two and a half weeks I spend in Glades Correctional Jail, I get one letter from my girlfriend and one from my friend Andrea (thank you, by the way, Andreita). Maybe it’s just me expecting too much from the people you love and the ones who love you. But in here it hurts every minute when you’re reminded, apparently, that you’re asking too much just wanting a letter now and then.

OK, well, leaving the drama aside, because all of that just makes you stronger and more independent in more than one way. By that time I start reading a little Bible, so I have God very strongly in my heart and soul. Then I figure God is the only one I have to prove myself to.

Four days before leaving Glades, they were having human resources come visit the jail, so they moved and organized us the way they should’ve done before. We’d been together with rapists, murderers and that type of scum. We landed in A-1, where the friends I’d come with in the first place were. So we got together and had a good time for those four days.

Then one day I get that letter I told you about from Andrea, so I write back right away. But no one has any envelopes. I go into the commissary computer to order some so I can send that letter, but my account is closed.

It’s around 7 p.m. This normally means two things: the system is down, or you’re leaving to be transferred that same night at 11:30.

I tell my buddies to check their accounts. Most of theirs are closed too, but some are still open. That tells us we gotta get ready to get the hell out of this fucking hole. It’s a great feeling, but I’m also leaving some good friends behind, like Carlos Garcia (alias “El Jupi”).

This man has been a United States resident for over 20 years. He’s about 41 years old, owns a U.P.S. store in West Palm Beach, and has two beautiful kids and a very supportive wife. But when he was in his teens, before he turned 21, he got busted selling a great deal of drugs. He served his time, but now the law says that even if a resident has a conviction involving more than 30 grams of marijuana, that person is automatically deportable, no matter what.

Not even paying a $25,000 lawyer helps. Carlos had one, and this lawyer just stole his money because he should’ve known that. Another lesson learned.

Some lawyers have a license to steal your money, and they do it so shamelessly to poor people, sick people, desperate people. Remember that.

So we say our goodbyes, and at 11:30 we all get picked up to go. WHERE?

Good question! Where the fuck are we going now?