PRISONER EXPRESS

It's four a.m. and here I am, trying to get out the door to go stand in the damn pill window line, and these asshole guards won't stop talking long enough to notice there are two or three guys at every door, wanting out.

"What do you want?" asks one guard.
"Pill window, boss. They called pill window," I answered, with an "asshole" under my breath.

Finally, they let us out and I'm on my way to the pill window. Another fucking day off to another start. The pill window. It's a gathering place or sorts. It's so that you sort of known everybody and you become a regular. It gets so that if you sleep in one day, it's noticed.

"Hey Tick, I didn't see you at breakfast. What's up? You OK?"

At first and most of the time, I get mad and think to myself, "Why don't you worry about yourself?" But then later, on reflection, I realize that I do the same thing if I miss one of the guys, and that in a crazy way we've bonded, the pill-line regulars. Truthfully it is sort of good to hear someone expresses any concern. Lord knows the medical department couldn't give a fuck.

So there I am, me and the rest of the pill-line regulars. It sort of reminds me of when I had to report for probation, or when I was going for food stamps or at the employment office, or at the labor hall wanting work, or at the VA hospital in the rehab program.

We're all a group of people who find themselves somewhere they don't really want to be, and maybe even ashamed to be there, but there none the less -- castaways on our own little island. The pill window is where you also see who is still around on the unit, or who you don't see. The pill window is where you hear and see all kinds of crazy bullshit: arguments, yelling, near collisions and collisions of wheelchairs racing to the pill line. It's where you hear all the latest gossip and rumors about what happened to whom and where and when. It's almost like the latest UFO sightings. You hear about deaths, then the see the person alive an hour later. The pill line is where you hear and sometimes even see the latest scandal on the Jester III, where you hear the latest in the sports word, and also the pill line is the contraband connection, whether it be a stamp or two, a food pouch, or maybe just a book.

It's crazy! Having to wait in line, you take every step forward as a leap. Neil Armstrong's step on the moon means less than one on the Jester III pill line. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes into even more minutes. Time seems to almost stop, just as the movement forward does. Even worse if when the line seems to grow dramatically in front of you. All of a sudden, two or three guys appear in front of you who "were already in line," only they had sit-down passes. The same guys that only minutes before I was discussing legal work with, now I'm calling assholes in my head. Even only one or two people added to the line in front seem to add hours to my wait for meds.

Finally, the pill window! Almost like a ticket counter at the theatre. If only it was! So I give my ID to the lady who swipes it across the scanner to check what medication I get, then turns around to dig in one of the six or seven filing cabinets full of pill packs to find my meds. Then even when she gives them to me, I check to make sure I got the right pills and correct amount. As hard as it is to get meds, when I need them it's hard to get them; then sometimes I get the wrong shit or the wrong dose. Instead of getting better, I could get worse.

After close to an hour or more in the pill line, sometimes I almost need a sedative or tranquilizer to calm my ass. I'm tired and pissed off after all the bullshit and waiting. I go to meds for one problem and almost need meds for another problem. Anyway, finally I got my shit! My little generic, non-narcotic pills. All this for these pill I could just as easily have in my locker. Fuck it. At last I finally got it. Now I only have to come back later this afternoon. FUCK!