Count Time

"It is count time, couuunnt tiiime" screams the officer over the speaker system. The message is loud and clear. We all know what the announcement means, and it is the most stressful moment of prison life.

Yes, we get counted a few times a day: at 4:15 p.m., 9:00pm, 12 midnight, 3:00am, 5:00 am. At work we are counted at 7:30 a.m. and at 12 noon, and on weekends at 10:00am. When the announcenment is made we must run to our cubicle, we must stop everything we are doing and just wait for them to count. The most stressful count is the 4:15pm (daily count) and the 10:00 am (weekend) count because we must stand 'STILL' in front of our cubicle as long as it takes them to clear count. It was very hard on me at the beginning of my incarceration to get adjusted to count schedule. After 10 years it is still hard but I just make fun of it. The experience of being counted as a prisoner for the first time may be very traumatic and scary for some people (it was for me) especially when you do not know anything about prison life(only what we see on TV )and it comes to us as a shock if we are first-time, non-violent offenders.

I remember about 1 and 1/2 year ago I had a new roommate, she was a self-surrender and came to serve a 10 month sentence for a tax fraud offense. She was born in Honduras, and in most of the Latin-American countries only real hard violent criminals serve time in prison. When she arrived at the camp, she was really scared of the unknown. She was sent to my cubicle just before the 4:15 p.m. count and the announcenment was made and I told her: "you must stand here in front of the cubicle until the officer counts us," and she did not move, she became speechless and started turning red. I kept telling her: "you must hurry-up." Still she did not move. Finally, I said to her: "You must stand here now. The officer is coming and if you do not stand here he will take you to the hole." I grabbed her with my hands, she stood next to me and her face was turning different colors and she started shaking. After the officer passed by and counted us, I was very worried about her and I asked her" are you sick?"," what is wrong?" "do you want me to call the doctor?"she said: "no, no I am ok, I just thought we had to stand there to be in a position to be executed."

I felt sorry for her and I explained to her the facts about prison count time. Yes, those stand-up counts are rough. When the announcement is made, as I said before, we MUST stand still in front of our cubicle, we must hold our urges, we cannot talk or move and we just stand there like a prisoner condemned to death waiting to be executed for as long as it takes to count us. It may take as long as 15, 30, 45 minutes or more than an hour if the count is not correct.

A long time ago I decided to make fun of count time, so while we waited to be counted, I danced, played karate with some of my neighbors, I threw paper airplanes, I make faces, I put my hair up just like a clown and I laugh and make my fellow prisoners laugh. We cannot allow "count time" to destroy our nervous system. Well, last Saturday was one of those days when the count was not correct in our unit When the count is not correct, the staff gets stressed out and dozens of officers arrive at the scenes. They all count, recount and recount again as many times as it takes. We must pull out our Id's, have it in our hands next to our face for the officer to see our picture and compare it to the picture on their records. We must say our last name and number when the officer is looking at us and his records and some of them get very stressed out and start screaming: "who is hiding?" "do not play with my count" "nobody moves", etc, etc. So last Saturday the ordeal was a little bit longer than usual. It took a little over 1 and 1/2 hour and all the officers that arrived were females. Sometimes female officers are harder than male officers, so I did not know what else to do to keep the situation fun for us. I had already exhausted all my clown tricks and then I saw a very handsome young officer. I told my fellow prisoners: "girls look un papasito." They all turned and laughed. There is a young girl that lives accross my cubicle and when the officer was approching her, she sucked in her stomach and stuck out her breasts and you know gave him those natural female sexual vibes. I started making fun of how she reacted when the officer was close to her. Then I chose to make my own natural female vibes, and I fixed my curly hair so that it was loose around my face and I combed my eye brows with my finger with all my exagerrated moves. I did not notice that my ID was upside down, and there was an officer in front of me looking into my face and turning his face to me and saying "gua, gua Gua what?" I did not know what was wrong, when I looked at my ID I notice it was upside down. I got scared(that is considered a serious violation of the rules) and I said: "oh, I am sorry, I do apologize. My name is Guanipa # 44865004." I was so scared that he was going to write me up or take me to the hole. He looked at me and just smiled. I was red and shaking. The girls started making fun of me. I was laughing too, but inside I was devastated. I said to myself:"I am going to stop having fun during count time," but I also said to myself: "but I do not want to be stressed either."

I feel very sad, after serving 10 grim years of incarceration, I do not know what is wrong or what is right anymore, neither what I should or should not do. Unfortunately that is what long years of incarceration does to human beings. I love you all. Yraida Guanipa (Leo)