Welcome to Texas! Part 8 of 10...or more(?)

This blog was originally posted by tgdindenmark July 2, 2014

(Image Copyright: The State of Wyoming...to which I photobombed their Bucking Horse!)

“As the last booking papers were about to be signed, I noticed that my address was absent on the record. Given the fact that Rock Springs is a small town and that I had already recognized some of the guards from the days while living there, I assumed that one of the guards must have looked at the Danish address and thought it a mistake. I asked the guard why I was referred to as ‘homeless’?, In return I was given a stare as if I had just landed from Mars (which, is a look I get…a lot!) I asked to get into my property in order to retrieve and present my Danish ID, and to assure that I was, in fact, not a homeless person. As I was focused on the mistake regarding my residence status, I did not pay attention to the other mistakes on the document. (We will take a look at that a little later, as it is quite dumbfounding). At the present time I had no energy to argue my case pertaining to my residence status on the booking sheet, rather, all I had on my mind was to be assigned a bunk bed in the Big House of little Rock Springs, and try to rest after the long road trip from Hell, which had recently ended.

Throughout the next few days, I was able to get caught up on rest. The pod which I was assigned to was quite different from the one in Dallas, Texas. There were private cells intended for two inmates only. I was lucky to share the cell with a rather chatty young woman, whom, in addition her outgoing nature also had the common sense to leave the cell when privacy was needed. The jail’s budget reflected itself all over the jail’s facilities; it was reflected in the newest technology such as water-based fingerprinting machines, retina scanners…and in the meals. Instead of grey bologna meat and white Wonder Bread, the inmates were indulging in meals such as Shepherd’s Pie as well as Chinese food...well, at least, the American version of Chinese food; and the breakfast was served...with FREE coffee! As there was no need to order comfort foods from the commisary, I spent the few dollars, which was taken from my wallet and placed into the inmate trust account, to call one of my former husbands, begging for a money transfer of a marginal amount, to be used to place additional telephone calls to potential attorneys whom may be willing to handle my case, and to purchase undergarments. Despite the solid budget which the jail operated on, it provided neither brassiers nor panties for female inmates. ‘Will you please repeat that?’ asked my former husband. I again started to explain why I needed the money. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘ I clearly understand why you need money for phone calls; it is the issue of having no undergarments provided which has left me utterly confused.” Equal to his confusion was my annoyance over the fact that I had to beg for money to purchase such items at a very high price, when I had brought in abundance such items in my broken suit case! Replaced was my annoyance with confusion equal to my former husband’s when I asked a guard why female inmates weren’t provided with such items. I was informed that it was not a budget issue; rather, it was a decision made by the jail to stop providing the undergarments because the inmates ‘failed’ to return them as they were released from jail. I don’t know what left me more confused regarding this issue...the fact that female inmates chose to steal state issued underwear (did they not wear any of their own during the arrest?!) or, the fact that a jail with all the newest toys of security technology, had not been able to catch undergarment theft in mass quantities! I guess this will be a mystery to which none of us will ever know the answer...

For a bookworm such as myself, I appreciated the abundance of books provided by Sweetwater County Library to the inmates (bound in one piece and not handed from inmate to inmate in ‘fragments’ s while waiting for other inmates to finish the rest of the missing book, as was the case in Dallas County Jail). The selection of books left me wide eyed as a hungry patron at a smorgasbord! I chose a classic book, “Schindler’s List”. However, for anyone carrying the characteristic traits of an ‘empath’, the combination of reading about such injustice done to Jews during the second world war while staring at the white brick walls which captured my very own freedom, in addition to the sound of the quiet sobs from the young inmate whom I shared the cell with, not because she felt sorry for herself, but because anyone whom she believed might care about her had failed to help her by paying the small amount of one hundred dollars for the bail and her freedom; it amplified the reading experience of Schindler’s List times one thousand, to the point that I felt as if I was suffocating. I chose to return the book half-read, and replaced it with a crime story written by Patricia Cornwell instead, as I deemed such reading material more suitable for the current jail setting. As I, once again, found myself with plenty of time on my hands while waiting for the big day in court when I would be able to meet my accuser, I had the opportunity to mingle with the other inmates when time wasn't spent reading, being reminded of the massive drug problem to which Wyoming has on its hands. The experience triggered yet another wandering of the mind down the memory lane: 
Wyoming is unique to other states in America. It is a state in which only the toughest of toughest can survive its rugged terrain, harsh climate, and equally harsh society. If one is not already rough around the edges once arriving in its small oil and gas towns, you are assured that any finesse which may have come along with your persona will be chipped away faster than realized. The primary industry of the state of Wyoming is energy, as the land is rich in everything from coal to gas to soda ash (Sodium Carbonate). As most familiar with the energy sector know that coal mining, and the oil/gas fields never sleep, neither do the towns of the people providing labour to such fields. Rock Springs is no different. It is a place where you will be met by trucks at two o’clock in the morning, loaded with crews ready to work ruthlessly for a duration 24-72 hours, under all unsatisfactory weather conditions. It is a place which have more convicted felons working in such fields than found inside its jails, as it is a place where anyone with a previous ‘hard crime’ criminal record can work without prejudice, as long as he can provide the labour required by the oil field. It is a place you learn to judge no one, because it may be the person whom has served time for manslaughter whom will save you from being robbed by hardcore drug addicts. It is a place where a young man with no formal education can to start as a ‘worm’ (a word used to describe a rig work hand, level: novice) earning twenty-two dollars an hour (a wage which is higher now than at the time I resided in Wyoming). But the high wages and the promise of financial comfort come at a high price. Most have left families behind in other states as the town is not suitable for young families with children. It is a place where, in spite of plenty of money, the selection of nice homes is scarce. Even most, while making a living above the average American, are forced to live in run down trailer home parks, and a large percentage of newcomers live permanently in the hotels. In fact, the statistics, at the time when I resided in Rock Springs, stated that eighty percent of the hotel occupants was that of permanent residents, accommodations provided to newcomers by large companies such as Haliburton and Sclumberger, as a bargaining chip used to attract the new into the sector with a high turn-over rate due the harsh working as well as living conditions. It is a place where the evil cycle of hard work followed by sedation of alcohol and drugs in the leisure time is recurrent for many, and not easy to end as there are ‘water holes’ for thirsty beer drinking, Jack Daniel’s shooting rig hands, found everywhere within the perimeter of downtown Rock Springs, and can be found open as early at six o’clock in the morning, just in time to greet returning workers with the alcohol of their choice; it is a place where methamphetamine is prevalent and keep the work hands going. It is the place where ‘mary jane’ is not a shoe, but what people put into their cannabis pipes. 
Being the fact that Rock Springs lies right in the beltway of the drug trafficking from the south moving their highly illegal cargo to Colorado and California, there are plenty of stops made in this little town, dropping off illegal ‘goodies’, in order to make the rig hands, while providing the average American with the energy to heat their homes and the fuel for their vehicles, going. It is a place where ‘don’t ask, don’ tell’ does not refer to person’s sexuality while serving the military, but to an employee’s recreational drug use. As long as a person can pass a drug test no one seems to care what happens between the shifts. I don’t know how many times my heart bled, seeing young and fresh men dwindle due to hard work as well as drugs and alcohol, only to witness their road to success coming to a screeching end once they failed a drug test due to mandatory testing after rig accidents. I should know...as I was hired to dispatch these crews back to the offices in order for them to be mandatory tested by the gloved (and often tired) laboratory team, sometimes at four o’clock in the morning after someone, most likely due to fatigue rather that being drug induced, put the whole crew at risk by making stupid but fatal mistakes. It was common to see all but two persons of a crew either suspended or fired due to testing positive for various drugs. So utterly sad...

For the short period of time while residing in this little but harsh town, I had no problems finding work. Rumours travel fast when someone does not have a drug problem and are able and willing to work. And as I established exactly such a reputation quickly, the jobs were always available as long as one was not terribly picky. I chose to change the job from the Casing Company where I was initially hired, only to work as an independent contractor, through my LLC, with and for Mr. Slumlord, as the oil/gas field did not bring me any closer to the other immigrants in the little town, as I had desired.

While sitting and looking out the little window in the jail cell, I was able to see the road leading in to the downtown area, and to the many apartment complexes I had once been in charge of. Letting the mind go to the past, it started retrieving and releasing memories from such time; while gazing through the window and at the view to the the rugged outside world it was as if the tiny window in the jail cell became my own little movie screen flashing such memories before me in form of my own personal movie of the past, presenting a potpourri of scenes from the previous life in Wyoming which seemed to have been suppressed by the mind due to the chaos of current life. It brought back the memory of sitting in the hotel room provided by Mr. Slumlord and Co., after sometimes ten hours of hard work, ensuring the maintenance of apartments and preparing them for newcomers, bringing with them hope of a new and better future for not only them, but also the lives of their families, in this little dirty but lucrative town, quietly sobbing by myself in the middle of the worn hotel bed which slightly and awkwardly curbed in such middle, and the very reason that it was at times impossible to get proper sleep. Sometimes, after ten hours of work an extra task was added to the agenda: whomever was in charge of feeding and cleaning up the stable of the company's lucky charm, Jasper, an older horse kept for the sole purpose of entertaining the children of Mr. Slumlord, had not reported to the dung-cleaning duty; the responsibility therefore fell upon Ms. Responsible herself...moi! The sobbing was not a sign of anything other than due to pure physical exhaustion from the hard work. Why this memory is embedded deeply within, may be because, while this form of work was to me but temporary and experimental, it is the everyday reality for so many...day after day; year after year; decade after decade.

Another time of the past flashing before me was the time of the first day spent walking through, and inspecting unoccupied apartments in the largest apartment complex of which I was put in charge, remembering opening the drawers in the the first kitchen while gasping when watching such drawers become alive due to countless uninvited house guests, also known as cockroaches; only to realize that the experience would be re-lived in the next apartment, as well as the next apartment…and the next. In fact, it wasn’t soon after that, I realized along with a couple of co-workers, that the whole complex was infested with these little carriers of intestinal disease. They had proven science wrong , and showed that mutation had made them capable of staying alive and well in a climate considered ordinarily unsatisfactory for survival of their species. Along with a SWAT team of termites annihilators, a co-worker and I were going into battle with only one goal in mind: we were going to terminate and eradicate Senior and Senorita Cucaracha (and all of their thousands of family members) at all cost...we were going to win the battle! I don’t blame Mr. Slumlord for not solving the problem until it became so big in which the only solution was to bring in a termite crew. Knowing that the he spent most of his time trying to juggle tasks such as trying to find out who stole rolls of carpet which was meant for three apartments with lease agreements already signed and people ready to move in...and now had to scramble to find new carpet in order for the apartments to be ready in time, as well as trying to appease his mistress and mother of his youngest child by staying silent about her spending habits, while at the same time trying to play an evil game of legal chess in the divorce court with his former wife whom was trying to win all of his assets, not because she needed it, but out of spite due to leaving her and their children for a younger woman, all while also trying to appease the office staff who were complaining and threatening to quit their jobs if the situation of having to concentrate while his two parrots constantly fought and screeched at each other for hours on end everyday didn't change, thereby having to make the tough choice between letting go of staff members or his beloved parrots...thus it became clear that the reason he had no idea that one of his apartment complexes had become a utopia for mutated cockroaches was because he simply had no time to spare for the inspection of such apartment complexes by himself as such time was spent attempting to unchaos the chaos of all chaos!

It was here, in these apartments, I was able to see yet another side of my fellow immigrants. Observing them thus far, through interactions at the office, usually in the first days of the month as they would enter with either a money order or cash to pay their monthly rent; always polite, always smiling, and always paying on time. Not once, had any of these immigrants complained about the nasty and, oh, so inconvenient little insects, hence, we were not aware of how bad the problem really was. I don’t believe it was because they did not see the hundreds of cockroaches as a problem; rather the problem was (as I found out later) that it was out of fear to say something which may put them in the spotlight; and as most of them were not documented, they believed that speaking out about unsatisfactory living conditions may be a way of putting themselves in jeopardy, immigration wise. No one had to say it. The fear was indented in their facial expressions every time there was a confrontation of some sort. So, in silence they politely paid their rent on time for themselves and their families…as well as the 101 unwanted house guests living in their drawers, their closets and under their microwaves, the ovens and behind the refrigerators. I remember asking one of my colleagues why no one had addressed the problem earlier, since it was evident that the problem initiated quite some time before I had started working there. ‘Who cares,’ he replied when asked, ‘they’re used to living like that.’ From that day on, I did everything in my power to ensure that this person was working elsewhere, as his ignorance as well as other colleagues with the same mindset and ignorance were, in fact, reason and problem to the infestation of the cockroaches.

While knocking on doors and asking for permission to enter the apartments, and allowing the terminator crew to spray, hoping for sudden death of not hundreds but thousands of insects, it became clear that the problem of the infestation did not derive from my fellow immigrants, as hispanic men and women opened the doors to clean and well furnished units. The problems, however, were identified later. As the opportunity to knock on the doors to gain entry to spray, also presented an opportunity to verbally remind in friendly manner certain residents that rent was due weeks before, and thereafter asking if an arrangement could be made for them to come to the office and pay the overdue amount, I was met by rugged white men, willing to immediately find their checkbook and pay the overdue amount. It soon became evident that the overdue rent was not due to the lack of money, quite the contrary. Many of such were in the midst of 'extracurricular activities' of the shady sort, inside their darkened apartments, curtains replaced by yards (and yards!) of tin foil glued unto the windows, and remaining there for days after hard work in the fields, thereby failing to come to the office as they, obviously, were too high on drugs to go anywhere…! On several occasions I was invited inside the apartments to wait while they were looking for their wallets, and every time I politely declined the invitation to enter. Mostly, because I feared a ‘contact high’ from the fumes of either Cannabis or methamphetamine, laying as thick as a cloud in the entrance hall of the apartment; but, also I feared that I may slip and fall on one of the many beer cans on the floor and permanently disappear into the mountains of pizza boxes, and remain there along with the cockroaches dining on the leftover pizza crusts! Unless one is given a chance to see this environment with their own eyes, one would most likely think that I am telling a story deriving from my imagination; but, as I still have the memo written (in Spanish, nonetheless) to the residents regarding time and date when the ‘terminators’ would arrive and go into battle against the brigades of cockroaches, stored as evidence, I think it speaks for itself that this did, indeed, happen!

It was such memories along with many other ones, which was in conflict with the accusation of stealing a vehicle from this company, as anyone in the town considered me as one of the ‘good guys’. And as Mr. Slumlord had on several occasions entrusted me with assets far more valuable than the tattered Pontiac Grand Am, including the several occasions I was entrusted to transport large amounts of cash from his many restaurants and bars to the office and to the bank, without a single penny missing, thereby reaffirming over and over again that I was a person whom Mr. Slumlord (A.K.A:  Owner of the largest Cockroach Community of the Wild West) could trust, it didn’t make any sense that he would accuse me of stealing this utterly sad excuse of a car. I found myself in a Ms. Poirot moment and pondered, ‘If it wasn’t Mr. Slumlord behind the accusation, then who?’...”

TO BE CONTINUED!