Dani DeRosa, My Experiences at the County Jail and Trying to Avoid a Return

Having being cornered at the 4th street bus station when dehydrated and simply trying to meet my visiting friend, the last thing I was expecting to do that day was shouting things like "neurodivergent lives matter, BLM please just take us with you," as I was arrested for trespassing. People still don't understand developmental disabilities, especially for assigned female at birth people. Many females are middle aged when they finally earn their proper diagnosis. It is easier to diagnose women with personality disorders than assess for things like autism and even ADHD.

PART 1

I did not have to survive by drinking from a jail toilet this time. A month I’d been in that hole last time getting attacked, brought in for “trespassing” at a bus stop and yelling at cops for getting in my space when I was trying to go home. I’d just wanted to find my friend who was visiting from out of town.

Between the two jail visits I was hallucinating from heat stroke in a shed where I tried to build a temporary shelter.

Sick, prone to dizzy spells, unable to find water, delirious. Becoming homeless can happen to anyone. You may be so lucky to survive it.

I find myself now on a perch, what I’ve been calling temporary respites. A week in a hotel room. Gouging into my precious savings. But surviving above desperation and therefore priceless. A trip to Reno Behavioral Health [Reno Behavioral Healthcare Hospital] to find glorified babysitters but also professionals working to be the change. They make it so hard to survive these days, sometimes it feels like.

Smart phones when I just need analogue and simple interactions and old fashioned manners. The pursuit of simplicity and towards thriving. I get to sit comfortably and write right now-that is a privilege. It connects me to all the other marginalized writers living and passed who’ve been through the same “character building” adversity. Writers already have character. In fact we have billions of characters.

Conditions Inside

Jail. I did my best to keep the toilet clean. A steel, industrial beast next to a broken sink. Trying to organize, sort, clean the trash that they would not come and get. Weeks in I scrubbed the floors down with shampoo and sandwich bags for scrubbers. I’d used bread to muffle my cries when I was in so much physical and emotional pain and I knew I was still just being observed. I passed out and my glasses broke. That’s Parr Blvd for you. Cat food sandwiches and justice is a box marked n/a. They don’t always have you do the medical intake. There’s a box that asks if you think there’s a chance you’ll be raped while in jail. When you know you’re being drugged and you wake up to the smell of K-Y Jelly there, the question never leaves you. 

This last time when I was there for 12 days I finished an entire book in about three days, a feat for me: Antoinette’s Sister. I missed my own sister terribly. Getting into a groove where my glasses-less eyes squinted over the words, stinging but blinking through it, I remembered my best memories with my sister. How she’d visited and tried to plan a nice time for us at the spa and how my actions catapulted me back into trouble and them into worry. I lost my job. I won’t lie about it.

This is homelessness. It does not give you a break to catch your breath or save money for next week. Even if you have support it is viscious. It makes you especially grateful for the people you keep on your side though. They are precious as ever. 

Conditions at the jail: this time they actually changed our clothes. I still painted murals on the walls with the flavored vitamin powders.

The P and anchor combo of the Kotwica, Poland Fighting. One of the many emblems in the world simply saying “they’re not going to get away with it.” Breonna Taylor with a heart. A drawing using soap as chalk on the Nevada blue door of her. “Say their names.” When you’re stuck in a garbage Petri dish, rights not recognized, you cling to dreams.

A freedom fighter ally, you know other people are in there for similar reasons who’ve come in at the same time as you. Other people subject to performative cruelty and suicide attack groups. That’s where a person is targeted, say in the controversial gang-stalking way, and pressured until an already vulnerable person loses their grip on mental health. There is cause to believe there may be a correlation between this phenomenon and the “stop it hurts” #stopithurts article regarding performative cruelty and the torture of, if memory serves, a man with autism. I’d give my pinky toe to find that article right now but I’m coming up empty. 5 minute search be damned. 

Autistic Lives

I watched TV briefly while they transferred me to a different cell when I was first brought in the 2nd time out of 3; the Obamas looking concerned and a little pale. I stared back at their eye contact with the camera. I’d looked at the American flag earlier that day and felt pride in hoping there’d be an autistic movement to follow the Black Lives Matter one.

Autistic Lives do Matter so much. We are often people on the cusp of or at brilliance yet so hindered by the trappings of social and everyday functioning; usually the social aspects that don’t serve anyone anyway such as undue ridicule, passive aggressiveness, any indirect communication, which is why sometimes humor can be difficult and people on the spectrum can be perceived as emotionless. Not that females can prove they even have it once they’re adults. It is costly if you can even find a doctor who is up to date on the research.

I was strong, not emotionless in my cell. Hours went by in the beginning when I was naked, only with my imagination and old, green Velcro garments which barely stuck together to close. I was not given my insomnia or any other medication besides the dosed porridge and soft bananas they gave once a day.

Hours of torture passed and I couldn’t speak.

I had to just lie there on the concrete like some discarded dog. I couldn’t believe we were on US soil.

This last time though when there was actually cause to arrest me, officers beat me down and pushed me into the concrete of that first intake cell for no apparent reason. They laughed. There was even a person of color with cute red glasses that looked like they might be queer based on the pixie cut. The last twelve days were waking up and trying to beat the pain in my spin and left side to sleep. #policebrutality is alive and well. It is still laughing at us. 

The first two times there I had seizures and no one did anything. It was entertainment to them. I braced myself against the blue bed tray and its pad for dear life. I bit down on the toilet paper roll so as not to bite my tongue. I banged on the door with all my power. I was not entirely alone. There were the other inmates. We could not leave to interact but we suffered and communicated together. There seemed to be others who were free to move around more. They’d gossip, laugh, yell down things like “suicide!” Their hate was enormous. I still consider those who could have acted and instead stayed voyeurs to be Nazis. 100% American Nazis. I made this opinion known. I dished back, trying to throw education back at their obscene stupidity. What’s worse, they lied and told my family I’d left and that’s why I missed my trial hearing. I thought I was going back to them in a box.

First time brushing your teeth in about a month is an experience. Just now doing isn’t after 13 days is practically a luxurious experience what with the new toothbrush and paste. That’s what it comes back to after tragedy: well, sure is nice to not have rotting gums now. What a pleasant turn of events.

There was the terrible rumor of me being like Pocahontas going around. I’m not entirely sure why but my theories will stay private for now. My heritage is mine. And there was having had to live in an actual tent. In my mind and with witnesses of the other inmates I embraced the rumor to symbolically steal back the land.

All the US land was a stretch even for our bored, tortured minds so I said I wanted the prison torn down and given back to the Native people.

All we have is poetic justice. It was a beautiful moment, say what you will. Because this is nothing short of a war. Our side gets filtered in in waves without organization while the oppressors need only wait and watch. It is a fact everything is under surveillance. In my dreams I cut the proverbial ribbon to demolish that hellhole.

PART 2

Wake up at 5 am. Leap out of bed to receive tray of porridge and a banana of varying conditions. A weak but much appreciated coffee. The milk always smelled off but I’m not used to drinking dairy milk. If you got a reusable tray they’d be back in about fifteen minutes to get it. Then you’re lucky if you have a decent book to read or are excellent at keeping yourself amused. 

Today I’m having coffee at the Nugget in Sparks.

They have the most beautiful ceiling fans all throughout the restaurant. They glide around easily; four wooden blades set into ornate brass work. A spinning cog mechanism, lovely to watch glides smoothly above the fixture.

A vanilla yogurt parfait with berries and granola is an excellent choice. There’s so much beauty in being able to sit here without pain, having stretched out the new kinks from Parr’s latest beat down. 

Getting to listen to mellow music, background chatter of mellow conversations, the clanking of dishes and the comfortable feeling after bathing and getting fresh clothes you’ve picked out for yourself.

I like to think I’ve always been appreciative of the little things but these harsh experiences definitely make the little things all the more pleasurable. The privilege of owning capable technology, the almost miracle of being in good health, the simple kindnesses exchanged with the waiter. I readjust and feel my left glute and tailbone flare up slightly. The damage could be deep and affect me when I’m older but I’ll do something close to my best to keep the machine of my body well maintained. 

The warmth of the ceramic coffee mug, classic shape, heavy with thrice refilled freshness.

“You doing okay, hun?” The waiter, she scratched gently on my jacketed shoulder. “Probably a lot better if I left you alone,” she says in an undertone. I laugh. I am such a puppy dog.

This is blissful compared to the bark of “DeRosa, meds!” Or “DeRosa, face the wall with your feet together and arms crossed. Bring your left arm down like a chicken wing.” Chains, cuffs. Then off to the court room of chaos where, unbeknownst to me it would be the last day, they have me and another woman kneel on a back row bench to apply an ankle chain with cuffs of bright yellow.

They don’t leave any wiggle room and readjust the chains around my waist to make them more secure. Breathing is still possible so that’s always a triumph when dealing with police. 

They take us and a group of about seven men to a transport van. There are three windowless blue sections in the white windowless vans. The seats are padded with seatbelts. “Watch your head,” one of the deputies says.

Then we’re closed in darkness until they turn on the engine. Sterile white light illuminates the small area and there are two cameras on us. About twelve minutes later we’re at an unknown location squeezing between the van and a garage wall.

I was told we were going to court but was surprised when it wasn’t in the usual zoom format in the jail courtroom. We are brought, ankles pinched by the metal cuffs, to a large room with plastic chairs in rows before a tv.

Why bring us from one zoom court to another? They have us females sit two rows behind the males. Then a movie starts playing.

The Joker and my Beautiful Lawyer

It’s the first one with Heath Ledger as the joker.  What the hell?

The men laugh, everyone sitting with a seat or two in between them. About twenty minutes later they start to call us one by one.

When my turn comes the deputy asks if I can see him because he knows I have sight difficulties. I appreciate that. He tells me to go to an elevator that’ll lead me to another officer. I comply.

Strange to be in the same routine where the most exciting thing to happen is wether you’ll get egg salad or cat food as a sandwich to suddenly watching Batman and standing solo in a random elevator.

I exit and am told to sit at a desk. A moment later my beautiful lawyer is there, blonde with a muted navy suit, manicured pink nails, kind.

She reexplains the plea deal we’ll be taking and I’m shown into a proper court room. We’re at the Liberty courthouse in Reno proper. I sit off to the side and wait as others present their cases to the young judge. She always tells the defendants her hope for them.

Basically “I hope you turn your life around” but with more caring than you’d expect from the rigid, straightforward experience. This room probably saw a lawyer I knew present many cases.

I imagined not too long ago if I saw the inside of a courtroom it’d be as a reporter not as a criminal.

A wave of shame has me lower my head and face the wall. But I remember that no one worthwhile would judge me too harshly for the mistakes made when dealing with mental illness. I knew I was disappointed and concerned by my actions and the over $1000 fine was enough, if anything could be, to ensure I didn’t do anything like it again.  I also have to stay out of trouble for just under 200 days, meaning don’t get arrested, or it’ll be six months in jail. No thank you! 

I’m about three cups of coffee in wondering what else I can share about the experience of this year. I’m not out of the woods yet. Seven nights at a hotel with a restaurant nearby though comforting does not stability make. 

The first mural I painted was a collage style. There was the image of my future published and printed novel, The Kaleidoscope, with polaroids over and around it. The portrait of me or perhaps a younger version of my father. The rasplemon flavor vitamin drink mix with a few drops of water made for a decent red color. A list of people we’ve lost from BLM and my friend Laurie Frost. Rest in power. Rest In peace. 

Writing by Dani DeRosa shared with Our Town Reno

Dani is currently working on a novel and is available for writing/photography and design work. Dani can be reached at tbaubles@gmail.com