One Phone Call

I had just unsuccessfully made my first attempt to contact the free world. I attempted to call my buddy Doug; however I was using another inmate’s PIN. It was very kind of the guy; unfortunately the system used to make outgoing calls from the Boulder County Jail was designed to make such kindness pretty much futile. To catch up with this story, you might need to read my Stuck in the System post. Heck, if you’re just joining this story here, it’s actually the 5th episode. It all starts at What Happened??? I will now continue with the story of the longest day of my life…

It had become blatantly obvious to me that I needed to get my own PIN (Prisoner Identification Number) in order to even have the possibility of getting Doug or Matt (the only numbers I currently had) to answer the phone. Who knows? Maybe they wouldn’t even be willing to take the collect call…? Whatever the case, I needed my own PIN.

Interestingly enough, the guard that gave me my dinner tray just happened to be the same one that spoke to me prior to lockdown ending. He mentioned – whilst handing me my orange tray – that he would be delivering this PIN to me shortly. After the failed attempt to call Doug, I decided to just wait for this guard to contact me with my PIN – it’s not like he wouldn’t be able to find me… (Side note here: I never received my PIN from this guard…)

So I sat in a chair watching the silent TV on the wall for some time. I quickly noticed that using the phones might be difficult even if I had my PIN – there were only two phones and finding a period of time where either was available was rare. I don’t know how long I had been sitting there before the guy I gave my dinner to suggested that I should probably head over to the (oh, how do I explain this???) “cage” and ask for my PIN. Sounded like a good idea to me…

So I made the short walk to the metal slot in the wall that was the only access we inmates had to what I have decided to refer to as the cage. You see, there were guards (cops, police, whatever…) sitting in this cage although I seem to remember that none of the windows between this cage and the cell area were unobstructed. I most definitely could not see in and it is my impression that they (the cops) could not see out – I could be mistaken here, but that is the image I have… There was however a very low (I think it was put in the wall at about waist level) metal slot that the cops could open to interact with inmates. This is what I walked to…

Unfortunately there was already another inmate standing by this slot who appeared to be waiting for something from inside the cage. I’m not about to even try pushing my way in front of this guy so I just stand back a bit and wait. (Did I mention that I had absolutely no desire to be starting conversations with anyone in here? I figured the quickest way out was to be a model inmate and the less possibility of causing a scene, the better… Naïve, I guess; but this wasn’t my world…) In time I make it to the slot, lean way down to see in and ask the guard inside for my PIN so that I can make a phone call. I receive a piece of paper with the following written on it: “0907519____” The guard mentions that the last four digits are a code that I need to pick and then closes the metal door sealing off the slot.

Okay, I’ve apparently got my PIN. Time’s ticking away and I’m thinking that we had one hour for dinner before we would need to go back to lockdown. Not sure why I was thinking this – perhaps somebody told me – but that’s the way that whole day was. I would either be aware (or, more usually, unaware) of things and have no recollection of why. Whatever the case, half of that time was already gone and I needed to make a call or two…

I take a seat where I can see both phones and wait for an opportunity to use one. Luckily enough, I didn’t need to wait too long before one of the phones was free and I quickly rose and walked over to it. Okay … now how does one go about using these phones…?

I pick up the handset and am told to press “1” for English or “2” for Spanish. I press “1”.

I am then instructed to enter my 11 digit prisoner identification number followed by the pound sign. The number I was given is 7 digits and 4 blanks. I enter the 7 digits, 4 other numbers (I believe I used 5654) and hit “#”.

The recording then says something about, “since this is your first time use, please enter a four digit security code.” I enter the 5654 again and am requested to speak my full name after the beep. This I do…

It seems like the only option I was given at this point was to press “0” to make a collect call – which I do. I then dial the first number I have written down for Matt and hope for him to answer. As before, I get the message about receiving a call from {my name in my voice, this time} at the Boulder County Jail … blah blah blah… I hear this message a couple of times before I get a new message.

The new message says something about the number I called not being able to receive collect calls; however my call was going to be connected as a one-time complementary call from some company that I don’t remember the name of and that money could be deposited to said company at the end of this call to make future calls possible. Shortly after this, I heard Matt say, “Hello?”

Now here’s the funny thing about this – although the message mentioned that I was receiving a one-time complimentary call to my destination number, it said absolutely nothing (to me at least) about the length of the call being limited. Therefore, I was under the impression that I could chat with Matt as long as need be. I was wrong…

I inform Matt that I’m in the Boulder County Jail. He asks, “Why?” to which I obviously have no valid explanation. I give him the quick story of being at my hotel bar the night before and waking up in jail this morning. I then begin my plea for him to come bail me out. I tell him it’s only a hundred dollar bail and I will pay him back as soon as I get back to my hotel. (Oh, yeah!! The hotel issues…. Aaarggg…) He then says that he was just heading out to his kid’s school for some show that was from 6:00 to 7:00. My response was that it didn’t matter; I just needed to get out of here. Matt was then cut-off. The message I got was that the party I called had been transferred to whatever phone company was mentioned earlier where he could deposit money to receive future calls from me.

Oh no … this can’t be happening… Is Matt coming at 7:00? Did he get all the information he needed? Does he know what jail I’m in or even where it’s located? I had faith that Matt would do whatever he could – Matt’s a good guy – unfortunately there was palpable doubt in the air that he received all the necessary information. Shit! What do I do now…? Oh well, I actually did believe that Matt would come and there was always the possibility that my request to pay my own bail might, in time, make it to somebody that would do more than “look into it”. It was approaching 5:30 anyway and (once again, I don’t know why…) I was under the impression that lockdown would be coming soon enough. I sat down and stared at the silent TV…

And with that, I will leave you. I think I’m going to go grab something to eat. Don’t worry though … I do not believe there’s much left in this story. Of course the truth of the matter is that it’s not done in real life yet so I can’t quite say when this thread will conclude. Thanks for reading…

bis später,

Coriolis