Disconnected
A Short Story About Using the Phone in Prison
Still 3 years and 6 months until freedom
A part of my daily routine since the start of my incarceration was to call Celia in the evenings. I was sitting in my bunk writing a letter to her, but I hadn’t gotten very far. It was almost time to call her anyway.
Dan, my bunkie, got up from his perch below me and peered over to see what I was up to.
“Who’s Celia?” he asked.
“My girl,” I said.
“Oh, you got a little girl?” he said with excitement in his voice, “how old is she? I got 2 girls.”
“No. Not my kid. My girlfriend,” I corrected him.
“Oh! You mean your old lady,” he corrected me back.
Old Lady is the term to be used for any significant other, but when Celia learned of this she very firmly informed me not to refer to her as my Old Lady because she is, in fact, not an old lady.
Jack was my cut partner — he was in the bunk next to mine and our lockers were in the same cut of space between bunks — and he overheard the exchange.
“Dear diary,” Jack said in a nasally voice he adopted when he was making fun of me. “Today I learned what Old Lady means. Maybe tomorrow I won’t be made of wood and I’ll be a real boy!”
Jack and Dan shared a laugh at my expense, but it was all in good fun.
I put my letter away for later and hopped down from my bunk to make my way to the phones in the day room. There were 5 phones in the pod for the nearly 75 inmates to share. Back in jail there were twice as many phones for the same amount of inmates. Today all 5 phones were occupied.
The guy I saw playing chess when I first moved into the pod was on one of the phones. I walked over to the wall next to him — a respectful 10 feet or so away — and tried to make eye contact. He looked up and I pointed to him with my finger, then to me with my thumb, and them back to him with my finger — a ritual I had observed others performing when they wanted to get in line for a phone. He nodded in response.
I waited on a nearby bench, making sure I kept my place in line. A few minutes later the guy hung up the phone with his finger and then started dialing numbers again.
Damn, I thought. He’ll be at least another 20 minutes.
The phone system limited call duration to 20 minutes, but there was no limit to the number of calls you could make — except for the money on your books. A local 20 minute phone call cost something like 60 cents. Long distance calls could cost several dollars. The problem is that nearly every inmate here was not local, and the dollars for phone calls would add up fast.
Tech savvy folks on the outside would get a Google Voice phone number setup with a local exchange to save money on calls. But this was too complicated for a lot of people, so there was this guy Max who would help. If Celia wasn’t tech savvy enough to get her own Google Voice number, I could have given her number to Max — another inmate — along with $10. He’d then have his tech savvy friends on the outside create a local Google Voice number that would forward calls to Celia. And then I could call that local number to reach Celia and only have to pay the local fee of 60 cents.
Meanwhile, another 20 minutes went by and the guy redialed again. I watched as other people who had gotten in line after me for different phones got their turns to be on phones. There must’ve been 5 or 6 people who joined a line after I joined my line who got to their phones first. I was frustrated.
By the time I got to the phone it was 9pm. I picked up the receiver and wiped it down with my t-shirt as I’d seen others do. Unfortunately, the halitosis could not be wiped away so easily — I had forgotten that this particular chess player had horrible breath. I made a mental note to never get in line behind him again.
I dialed Celia’s number and she answered with a “hello.” I waited while the automated phone system gave its spiel.
“You have received a prepaid phone call from,” followed by a recording of me saying my own name and a bunch of furious beeping as Celia pressed the 1 number on her end of the call. “An inmate at the state correctional center. To accept this call press 1. To block this call and future calls from this number press 9. Otherwise you may hang up.” The message could not be shortcut with a press of a 1 until it was completely finished.
Finally the call was connected.
“It’s late,” said Celia.
“Sorry,” I responded. “I was trying to get on the phone but they were all busy.”
I could tell she was frustrated. I also got the feeling that she didn’t believe me. I asked her about her day and she told me about her new job. She was excited for something new and different. I couldn’t relate, but I listened to her talk while another guy came up to me and did the finger point thing.
“I gotchu,” I said to him.
“What?” came Celia’s voice through the receiver.
“Oh nothing,” I said. “Somebody’s just trying to get on this phone after me.”
“Are you even listening to me?” she said. “If you have something else to do then we can talk some other time.”
“No I’m here. I’m listening”
Eventually she asked me about my day and I told her how Jack and Dan were making fun of me for not calling her my old lady.
“You’re not calling me an old lady,” she said, “we’ve been through this.”
“You have one… minute remaining on your prepaid phone call. The call will disconnect at that time.”
“I can call you back,” I said.
“No it’s late. I need to go to bed,” said Celia.
“Ok. I’ll call you tomorrow then.”
“Ok.”
“I love you.”
“I love…”
dial tone