There's No Skateboarding In Jail

By d.s. Dufresne

On the night of February 19, 1999, Daniel Dufresne, while intoxicated crashed his pickup truck into 13th Division Police Station nearly killing one of his best friends. Subsequently he was sentenced to one year in jail. This is the raw, unedited journal he kept during his incarceration.
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• Language: English
• Publisher: d.s. Dufresne
• Release date: Nov 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781773024578

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Cover-Front.jpg

There’s No

Skateboarding

In Jail.

#rizeordie

d.s.Dufresne

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

BOOK FOUR

BOOK FIVE

BOOK SIX

BOOK SEVEN

BOOK EIGHT

BOOK NINE

BOOK TEN

COPYRIGHT

BOOK ONE

September 30, 1999

One way or another, for over a decade now, I’ve kept a journal. From writing about teenage love or tripping on mushrooms, to the wonders of child birth, the crazy country side of Tunis, North Africa, the silent islands of Algonquin park, and now this, my one year prison sentence! Why do I always feel the need to write about my experiences? I don’t know but it always makes me feel better... The last time I wrote in my journal was at home on my 24th birthday. September 8, 1999 at 7:00am, right before heading to court with my father. I wrote to myself: Good luck douche bag, your gonna need it! I hoped I wouldn’t actually have to serve time in an institution but in the back of my mind something prepared me, even told me I was going. It was as if I could see my destiny before it happened. This kind of insight would have been more helpful the night of my drunken car crash... but here I am.

Most of my day in court was bullshit and I didn’t really understand what was going on or what my lawyer was saying. She didn’t seem to be helping my case much. When the judge took a break to decide on my sentence I went outside to have a smoke. My dad thought everything would be fine and that I’d get probation and be leaving with him, I knew he was wrong and told him so. Dad, I smashed my pickup truck into a police station drunk and almost killed one of my best friends. This judge can’t let me go with only probation. I said.

When we went back inside everything seemed surreal. The judge rambled on for quite some time. She expressed how she believed I was sorry for my actions. She spoke to the fact that most people say prove it, prove it, prove it and only say they are sorry and beg for forgiveness and leniency once found guilty. At least I took responsibility for my actions right from the get go... this seemed promising. However I did crash into a police station and seriously injured my friend and for this she had to sentence me to one year in jail, two years probation and three years suspension of my driving license. Did the punishment fit the crime? I think it did. I was extremely lucky, I could have killed someone, and in fact almost did! I think my dad and my lawyer were more surprised and upset at my sentence then I was! Like Mark in the work range said: cut your loses and do your time.

Everyone except Mark told me I should appeal my sentence but I’m not going to because:

I’m afraid I’ll get more time.

I can live with the punishment I’ve been given.

So... that brings me to the Toronto East Detention Center. A building I have seen from the outside a million times growing up and a place I entered once a long time ago to visit J.S. with S.S. and C.S. – but not K.S. I don’t think he was born yet. Sad I can’t remember that... anyway the East detention center is a place I feared and never imagined I would enter as an inmate.

On my way to the East from court I was hand cuffed to a big bearded biker looking guy, who after bitch slapping me real hard in the face, gave me a few pointers.

DON’T WHISTLE IN JAIL. ONLY FREE BIRDS WHISTLE. (that was my infraction, I whistled in the Sheriff’s van. I’m not sure why I did. That’s why he slapped me.)

YOU’LL BE HERE FOR ABOUT THREE WEEKS. THEY WILL BE THE HARDEST OF THEM ALL.

KEEP TO YOURSELF AND SHUT THE FUCK UP.

I wish he’d also bluntly told me to watch out for what I say to the guards but maybe that’s a given!

Here’s why.

Upon arrival at the East they take your picture, take all your clothes, search you thoroughly, and then give you a nice bright orange jump suite. It’s all very humiliating. They also ask you some questions. It’s called A and D. Admission and Detention? I’m not sure what the D stands for...

My interview was short and went as follows:

( C.O. Stands for correctional officer and what you call a guard in jail)

C.O.-name?

ME -Daniel Stephane Dufresne

C.O. -Are you here waiting bail or sentencing?

ME -Neither. I’ve already been sentenced.

C.O. - Oh, for how long?

ME – One year.

C.O. -I see, what’s your date of birth?

ME – September 8th 1975.

C.O. - (laughter) That’s today!

ME – I know.

C.O. - Happy birthday, you ever try killing yourself?

ME – (with sarcastic tone) Ya this fucking morning, what do you think?

C.O. -(smile now gone from her face) I think you need to see a nurse about suicide watch.

Next thing I know I’m trying to explain that I was only being sarcastic. Of course they wouldn’t listen and put me under suicide watch.

My first night (ever) in jail, on my 24th birthday, and I spend it in the fucking hole.

There I was locked in a tiny room, more like a walk in closet really. Six feet wide, twenty-two feet long. I had nothing on but this thick clear plastic poncho type thing. No mattress to sleep on. Nothing to read. They pumped the room full of cold air and checked on me every twenty minutes. I was in that cell for about 28-32 hours. (Just a guess.) They felt like the longest X amount of hours of my life. Time felt like it didn’t even exist anymore or at least matter. I cried, I laughed, I counted cracks on the walls, the ceiling, the floor. I looked out my tiny window at Victoria Park and Eglington Avenue. I paced the cell a few hundred times that I counted and got bored of that. I shut my eyes and tried to sleep but couldn’t. I thought about my kids. About all the good and bad I’ve done in my life. Then I cried some more. Then I tried to force myself to smash my own face against the wall until the lights went out, but I couldn’t. Finally at some point I gave in and stop really thinking at all. Just stewed in my own self loathing, wishing I was dead. I waited to snap and go insane. Become a lunatic. As if that just happens. It never did.

How does it go? This to shall pass. Eventually it did. The sun came in through the little window and created a warm spot for me to sit in. Then someone slipped me a coffee and some breakfast threw the slice in the center of the door. I tried to eat. No appetite. Drank the coffee and day dreamed about a cigarette.

Some time later a female C.O came and asked if I wanted to take a shower. At that moment I understood the K9 mind as I jumped up barking YES YES YES.

I was broken – nothing more then a dog in a cage.

I took a shower (watched the entire time by two female guards) then placed back in my cage, a sad dog once again.

A few hours (?) passed and a doctor finally came to talk to me. After a few brief questions he quickly ordered a C.O to give me a mattress, a uniform, some juice to drink, something to read and to have me placed in a range as soon as possible.

Now dressed and able to lie on a mattress with a pillow and a blanket I was the happiest man alive!

Pathetic is a man who rejoices over nothing more then getting back his clothes.

More time passed.

Next I’m taken to the 4B East range.

This unit has ten cells.

Two inmates per cell.

The cells line the left side and back wall looking in from the main gate. The showers are located on the right.

In the center are three metal tables.

A TV mounted into the wall behind Plexiglas sits near the main gate.

Three pay phones are also located on the left wall near the main gate.

People are always coming and going from the range.

The range has a very simple routine.

6:30am wake up eat breakfast.

7:30am cell doors open, clean up cell and range.

8:00am cell doors are locked and you sit in the open area until 11:30am.

11:30am cell doors open and you