Waiting

As I sit here in jail and the day tick off the calendar inching closer to my release date, I am thinking of what and how I will do and survive. My sentencing date is January 3, 2022. I am to be sentenced to fifteen years probation at the age of sixty-one. My court is scheduled at 1600 hours on this date. I have been down this road before with the courts of you are getting out to where I didn't order any library books and had nothing to do. This time I ordered the books.

It is the actual day of court and I am awaiting for 1600 to arrive. It seems like I've been sitting here for an hour, but it has only been ten minutes. I am doing my best to occupy my thoughts on anything but the clock on the wall. I have already, showered and shaved for the day. I know where I will be staying. It is just a matter of getting through this day.

I am writing stories for vocal, I have written three other books since my incarceration and I just need to get them ready to publish. I am now reading a book which helps the time pass. They announce it's time for lunch which means I have four hours until court. I already know what my sentence will be, because of the plea deal I signed. But I still think the sentence don't fit the crime. I feel like fifteen years probation is way too long of a sentence to give to a sixty-one year old man.

After lunch, they called for afternoon lockdown from noon until eighteen hundred. Around fifteen hundred I was called to come out for court as was another inmate. We were taken to an area where they put wrist cuffs on us, that wrapped all the way around our bodies and then the dreaded ankle cuffs. I almost fell trying to walk so a deputy had to hold onto my arm to keep me from falling because he said he didn't want to have to explain bruises to the judge. I laughed when he said that and so did he. My legs were so swollen from cellulitis that the deputies had a difficult time putting on a pair ankle bracelets.

We were locked in individual holding cells while waiting our turn to see the judge. My time was sixteen hundred so I had to sit in the cell at least another hour. As I sat there and waited, I was thinking of all the things I was going to do then I was released. So many places I wanted to eat at and all at once. But I knew that wouldn't be possible.

Finally it was my turn to see the judge, and to accept my punishment. I was ordered released that day. It had finally come, I was leaving jail after four months. I can't say that it was that bad because in that time period I read ninety-two books. I wrote around forty book reviews, four books, and around sixty stories for this forum.

After the judge handed down her sentence she told me to report immediately to probation first thing the next morning. She also told me if I had anything I wanted to say to the courts now would be a good time. I asked the bailiff to remove my hand written note and to hand it too me. I read the note which thanked the judge, prosecution, and my public defender for all the time they spent on my case.

I went back to my pod and around 1830 (630 pm), I was told to call the tower from my cell which I did. They told me to bring all of my possessions to the red line because I was being released. As I was leaving the pod for good all of the other inmates started to clap for me as I left. It took me nearly three hours to be checked out.