I arrived at the jailhouse at the usual time. Visiting hours are 7:30 to 10:00 on Tuesday - Thursday.

Tuesday is filled with baby's mammas and their crack-kids going to see daddy for the first time since he beat them down last weekend. Thursday's are pretty much the same thing 'cept they realize daddy ain't getting out this week.

I go on Wednesday about 5 minutes before opening time. It's not that I'm worried about beating the crowd. No more than 10 people have ever shown up. Besides, getting there early will make absolutely no difference in how long you wait. That's cleverly designed by the people that make other people's misery a career. I get there early so I can have time to sit alone and think about what I'm going to say to my friend. We only get one visit a week and it lasts just 15 minutes. The last thing I want to do is run out of things to talk about.

The dimly lit waiting room is like a portal to hell. Two rows of chairs, facing each other, are in the center of the long room. At the end of the room, the female guards sit behind bullet-proof glass with the sneer of empowerment etched permanently on their faces. Don't take it personal, they hold everyone in contempt. I'm disappointed when I see there are more than one working. It goes much smoother when it's only one working. You get 3 ladycops working together and they are all pissed off. I imagine that the reason for the jealousy is that one of them got a nice haircut or ate the last apple-jelly doughnut and have to bite my tounge not to snicker.

Handwritten signs line the walls and the glass of the guard's cubby hole. They all begin with the word 'No'. The first few visits, I identified every misspelled word.

One, in particular, puzzled me. OUTERWEARE. I ran through the possible meanings. Outer we are? Out er we are? It took me awhile to figure out they meant outerwear.

At 7:30, all the visitors stand up and form a line at the guard's window. I go through the motions. I have to tell the main ladycop who I'm visiting, show my ID, and sign a form. They'll tell me what floor my friend is on. He's always on the same floor so I've stopped listening by that point. Once, I gave the lady my credit card instead of my license by accident. I made some kind of joke. She didn't laugh.

After clearing that hurdle, we move to the next line. This line forms in front of the the door to the metal detector room. After everyone is finished signing in, then they start letting groups of about 6 into the metal detector room. It's only big enough to hold 4 normal sized people and there's always a fat black woman in the group. You know it's time to go in when the buzzer sounds. It's a very quiet buzzer and you'd better hear it and open the door in less than 2 seconds or the ladycop is going to yell at you. She's going to yell at you at some point anyway, but it's best to keep it to a minimum.

I'm prepared. I've removed every single piece of metal, pack of chewing gum, sunglasses and anything else that would possibly set the detector off and stuffed them into the glovebox of my truck when I arrived. Once on one of my first visits, my shoes set the thing off. There's no metal in them but the detector just didn't like them. I found a pair of shoes that the machine did like and I wear them each week. I even wear the exact same clothes each week. I don't want to take any chances. Still, I'm relieved when I make it through without the red light flashing.

I stand and wait on the other side of the detector for the other people to make it through. I know it will be a long wait. Often, people will bring their children. They are generally around the age of 4 and have week-old snot plastered all over their faces and hands. The kids think the detector is some kind of Burger King Playplace and run back and forth through it while the ladycop screams through the glass for them to stop. At this point, I actually start to empathize with her.

Then comes their mama who has forgotten that her 5 necklaces, 3 bracelets, anklets, rings, toe-rings, glasses, zippo, belt, hair-clips, inkpens, lipstick, cigarette case, and enough other stuff to fill a grocery cart are actually made of metal. She passes through and sets off the alarm. By this time her kids are rubbing snot on me or climbing up my leg. She takes off about half the items and goes through again, setting off the alarm once more.

By this time, ladycop is spitting through gritted teeth "One more time and you dont' get to visit this week!"

Mama says 'HUH?'

Ladycop jabs her finger toward the posterboard sign directly in front of the metal detector that says "NO EXCEPTIONS!!! Failure to pass metal detector after 3 times and you will not get to visit. NO EXCEPTIONS!!" Without fail, mama always manages to get it the 3rd time.

Sadly, the woman behind her in line was too busy thinking about something crawling in her coochie to notice what just happened and the scenario repeats itself again.

Once everyone is clear, a door on the other side of the detector opens and we are in a larger room in front of an elevator. It always stinks like pepperegg-poots in this room. About 10 minutes later, the elevator opens. Mama and kids shove their way past me before I have a chance to demonstrate chivalry.

All the buttons are already prelit to take people to the correct floor. Of course, Mama still tries to push the buttons. It won't work. They don't respond to manual command. Mama pushes the buttons 15 times and cusses up a storm all the while. As a veteran of all this, I could explain it to her, but what's the point? They've made it clear in the past that they won't take no 'structions from no white man. I laugh when I imagine what would happen if they actually did let these idiots have control over the elevator.

Finally, the door opens and I step into the visiting room. There are 4 sections, separated by a urinal partition, with 2 seats and one phone on our side of the glass. One phone for 2 visitors had to be the misery designer's idea. The walls are made to echo every sound so there's no way to hear through the plate glass without a phone. So, if you come with somebody else to visit your friend in jail and they've got the phone, you just nod and pretend you here what your friend is saying. Although there are 7 inmate floors in the building, everyone always seems to end up in the same room with me.

I rub the phone vigorously against my shirt to remove the parasites. My orange-clad friend arrives on the other side of the plate-glass grinning like crazy and chewing on the same plastic coffee-stirrer that he's been working at for months.

He's happy today. He just got paid $45 for the job he worked in the state prison for the last 6 years. Six years. Forty-five dollars. And he's smiling. He spent $30 of it on a radio to pass the time.

Before we reach the end of my predesigned conversation topics, the p.a. system announces that the visit is over. What it actually says is "barah brah brah bah brah bah bah", but I know what they mean. I thump my hand against his on the glass and tell him I love him. There is no embarassment. Prison makes a man not mind saying that to another man every time he gets the chance.

As I head back to join the ignorant at the exit, I realize that it's worth it all to have someone look forward to seeing you that much.