Scribbles and Ink Publishing

I didn't know a third world country until I landed in Incarcer Nation - and it was so close to home. To think it was a mere forty-five minute drive door-to-door from my house on a sunny mountaintop in Southern California. It was worlds apart from that place. No airfare needed. No passport required. Complete with the incessant drip-drip, drip-drip of water from rusty ill-fitting faucets, grout crumbling from tiles in the shower room, and door missing altogether from toilet stalls. Not to mention it couldn't be more cliche if it was staged at Hollywood Center Studios. Hollywood wasn't that far a drive either. I'd been there. The inevitable cracks in the concrete foundation wouldn't pass a building inspection without a pay-off to someone.

It was like the remote island of Flores in Indonesia I once visited where it was very hard to find an atm to get the right currency for essentials, where phone reception was not guaranteed, and a monotone menu plan guaranteed you were left wanton without soy sauce - but there'd be none of that here. I'd had better meals deep in the Peruvian jungle than from the jail-house kitchen that was operating, by the way, without a care for county health department standards. Different rules apply in foreign countries. Here in the United States of Incarcer Nation, I was struggling with a new language - wondering if I'd ever find my way home.