N 'Toya..."Toya"

I went to Oakland County Jail in 2011, there was a woman there named N'Toya. She was young, maybe 24 years old. She was real pregnant, real, real pregnant. When I went out on my break, I went down to see her, because I lived just above her and I could always hear her singing through the vent. She was pregnant, but still weighed only about 130 pounds. She stood, roughly 5'4". I went down to see "Cat". I called her an "egg with legs". She was the loudest and most ignorant woman in the POD. They said that she was kicked out of all the other general population PODS and forced to live in the disciplinary POD, because everyone hated her. She claimed the women kited her out. In reality, "Cat" was kited out by the women that knew what was going on. They complained, because that was their job, and getting "Cat" to cell #1, the "fuck me" cell, was their goal and objective. She ruled the POD, unless I had something to say. I didn't bow down to her, ever. It irritated her, but I was her reality.

"You see Toya?" I looked at her with a blank face, because I was lost. "Toya, the girl down in 5. She gone have her baby in here!" She was talking like she had some real news. I pulled up my chair and settled in for the gossip. She would only tell me what she wanted me to hear, because they listened to everything. Another reason why they kept me locked up in there. We were only allowed out one at a time. At least I was, and that meant if I wanted to talk to someone, I had to be at their door and all the speakers were two-way intercoms. So, when I settled in for a talk with anyone, we could hear the click of the speaker hearing us in the "Bubble". She asked me, "What is she doing?" I answered, "I don't know." "Go see!" She whispered, like she had a secret. I walked the four Bam-Bam cells and looked in on her. N'Toya was fast asleep, curled up in a ball, hair all over her head, looking wild. I just walked back and reported, "She sleep". It made "Cat" feel good to get me to do something. I never listened to her, like the other women had to. She was the "mother" of the POD, but only to the prostitutes. I wasn't included in that group.

"She gone have that baby, soon! She might not get out this POD, and gone have it right in that cell." "Why?" I asked, now curious. She replied, "She keep saying that she in labor. She keep doing that and they not going to believe her when she really go in labor." She was right, I was laying in my bed when she called out to everyone, they just took Toya to the hospital. A few minutes later, she called out again. "Hey, y'all Toya didn't make it to the hospital, she had that baby right outside the door!" I laid in my bunk devastated. I went to my door and said, "What she have?" "A little boy", she cried out. "They say he look just like Toya!" I didn't wonder how she knew that, Beane stopped at her door every morning he came to work and I could hear them whispering from my cell. In the afternoon, whoever was on, which varied, she would shoot the breeze with them, too. POD mom got all the information, because they wanted the women to believe that she was more than she was. Once Comisha told her to shut up and Ms. A came to get her straight when she asked to call her mother at work. Prostitutes get to use the phone, too. Later that day, after phoning her mother Comisha apologized to "Cat" and she went to talk to her during her walks.

So one day, while on her walk, N'Toya went to "Cat's" door. They talked for a while, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. Minutes later, "Cat" was yelling out her door, "No Toay, don't do it! NO, TOYA, STOP!!!" Then there was a scream and a hard thump, like something hard hitting the floor. It was Toya. "Cat" told me the next day, when I got out that she had told her that she was feeling depressed about her baby. It had been her fifth, and she had to give him up to the State. Her grandmother was supposed to come get him and hadn't showed up. Her mother had told her that she was too old. Her aunt who had two of her children, already, and didn't want to take anymore. There was two other ones that were ward of the state and she had no idea who any of their fathers were. At some point, most women go through postpartum depression. She had went to the top of the stairs and jumped from the mezzanine. They rushed in with neck braces and stretchers, only to bring her back an hour later. I went down to see her again. She was half naked, only her jail issued shirt on, no pants, no panties, walking around her cell singing, again. I think Luther Vandross...

I later learned from "Cat" that she was a regular. They had been using her for years, but this time she was defiant. Beane had to snatch her out of her cell to make her take her psychotropic shot. Like Lisa, they were mandatory to keep her in check. When she refused, Beane first grabbed her by the hair, but when he saw I was watching him, he let go of her hair and grabbed her shirt. Then dragged her out the cell and held her for the nurse to administer the shot. When it was done, he pushed her back in the cell using his knee. She only said, "Ooh, Mr. Beane, you know you didn't have to do me like that. That was bough!" He just looked down at her, and said with disgust, "You need to do what your told." She peeped through her food slot and looked up at him and said, "You don't even have to treat me like that. I'm telling my people." He walk on like she hadn't said a word. "Cat" also told me that her mother had been out on the street, too. I wonder to this day, if her mother was also a victim of  the OCJ ring. 

I would go back four times and of those four times, N'Toya would be there three times. She had accumulated 45 misdemeanor loitering tickets from being outside different stores and gas stations on the Eastside of Pontiac. George's, M&K up on MLK and South Blvd. and the Sunoco on the corner of Woodward and South Boulevard. If ever she is spotted at any of those stores, they call the police and she is arrested and sent back to OCJ. This has obviously taken place 45 times over time, not to mention that she has very few prostitution arrests. She tells me that she stands outside the stores and asks for dates. I thought, if you were a prostitute that would be an easy way to get a date, but why those stores. I asked her about Cole's. It's right up the street from the gas station, but she said, "Nah, I don't be up there." As always, I lay in my bed and thought extra hard about why she only hung out at those places. Then it came to me, she is a crackhead. But, why would the police allow stores to sell drugs out of stores and gas stations. I know that there is this White cop that is coming in and out of People's all the time on Auburn.

It seems that every time I go past the store, he is either coming out or going in. Like the guy at George's them boys drive white cars and SUV's. Real nice ones, too! One of them had a white Porche. Just like the thieves that work at Sears. It all comes back to me and I just sit and think. They are selling drugs out of these stores and gas stations in Pontiac. The Chaldean are drug dealers and I think they've always have been. It's unbelievable to me, because my Mother worked for families my entire life. They helped us and took me to basketball games and to get McDonald's. They had swimming pools and good food in the fridge. Now, I know why. I loved going to work with my Mother. Their homes were beautiful and it was my first chance at seeing excess, and spoiled children and comfortable living. Those people were my friends, but I also remember that my father was able to sit and talk to one man for hours. My father was a hustler. The only thing a hustler could talk to another hustler about, was hustling. I didn't know then, but I know now and they gotta get out our 'hood dealing dope that ain't cool.

Then Toya know and is being targeted, because all the police do, when they call is take her to jail. Where she is then sold to make the deputies money. So, the police making money all around, because they getting money from the stores and the prostitutes. I don't know who Elvis is, but it seems that he's the leader of them. She says that he always gets her and I think at this point she is scared, because I was her yesterday at CNS she seemed to be afraid to talk to me. She has never been afraid, before. I told her that I'll see her in the street and maybe then she would talk to me. She just turned away. I left and went home. I saw the look on the security guards face, as he watched us. He looked at her as if to ask if she was willing to take the chance. She's no stranger of these streets at night, and they never give her any real time, because they know she'll be back at the streets as soon as she gets back and Elvis, will be waiting for her...