A Day in Queens Central Booking

I’m back in Montreal now, but a few days ago I was in New York City. The night before my bus back to Canada, I walked around Brooklyn drinking beer and writing graffiti. Around midnight, I was on Myrtle and Wyckoff, just a few blocks from my friend Allee’s place in Ridgewood where I was staying. I was fairly drunk and listening to Almighty So 2 — headphones in. I wrote a tag on the side of this industrial-looking building covered in graffiti. Right after finishing the tag, an unmarked black vehicle turned on its lights. Three NYPD officers hopped out.

I don’t really remember the first thing they said. Probably something like “you’re under arrest for doing graffiti.” They told me to show them which tag was mine, and I pointed at an illegible squiggle done with a chrome pen, even though I had a whiteout pen in my hand. They didn’t notice. I tried to play the dumb tourist card, saying something like “oh there was so much graffiti on this building, I didn’t realize you weren’t allowed.” I tried to make it out as if I had never really written graffiti before, and they had happened to catch me writing one of my first ever tags. One officer pointed out that my hands were covered in paint. I told them I was Canadian, and that I was heading home tomorrow. I offered to give them all my markers, and assured them I wouldn’t be doing any more graffiti in the United States of America.

“Put your bag on the ground. Put the pen on the ground. Put your hands behind your back.” 

I was handcuffed in the back of the squad car headed to the Ridgewood 104th Precinct. They put me in a holding cell with two other guys who were sitting there in silence. Most of the cops were going through my bag in the other room, except for the one officer sitting in the room watching us. Eventually he asks me “Yo Canadian, Drake or Kendrick?”

I tell him I think Kendrick won the beef, and he says he disagrees and doesn’t understand how I can say that as a Canadian. But he also said that he can’t fuck with 6ix9ine anymore because he snitched, and didn’t see the irony in saying this as a New York City police officer. Later he said that Tory Lanez should be free and that he thought Tory didn’t shoot Meg so he was clearly just a moron which would explain why he got a job with the NYPD. At some point, I got him to play ‘Special’ by xaviersobased off his speakers in the room. One of the guys in the cell — a Hawaiian dude — finally started talking, telling the cop about some stupid conscious lyrical Australian rap or whatever. I learned later that he was arrested for a domestic dispute with his wife. 

Even though the other two people in the cell at the precinct were there before me, I was taken out first and brought down to Queens Central Booking around 2 am. The cops told me this was because they felt bad for me and hopefully this would help me get out sooner, even though they’re the ones that fucking arrested me. They told me that I would have to speak to a judge, and would probably get a ticket or a slap on the wrist when court opens up at 7:30 am. They assured me I’d still be making my bus back to Canada. 

I was brought to a room with a big cell, with about ten other dudes in it. The AC was cranked. Most of us had been picked up in shorts and t-shirts, so most people in the cell had their hands inside their shirts, wrapped around themselves for warmth. Anyone wanting to try and sleep would pull their t-shirt over their head to try and block out the huge fluorescent lights. There were a few benches, but the people that had been in there the longest were lying down on them to sleep, and everyone else got the floor — which was filthy and had a toilet occupying one corner. Any time a woman - inmate or officer - walked by, every cell erupted with whistles and catcalls, as if they had been locked up for years and hadn’t seen a woman since.

The oldest guy in the cell was probably in his 40s, and was lying on the ground moaning about how sick he was, how he was in hell, and about how awful of a situation this was. I mostly agreed with everything he was saying, but he was being fucking annoying, and clearly pissing off a room full of dudes in jail who were trying to sleep. One of the corrections officers was coming around taking everybody’s info. On my turn to speak to her, I had to repeat my Montreal postal code to her about six times before she got it right, and had to spell out my street name to her twice, which she still got wrong — the form I got later said “AVENUE DESERABLES.”

It was kind of fun sitting around in the cell asking people what they were in for. Almost everyone was in for violent offenses. Domestic disturbance, menacing, assault, resisting arrest. One guy I was talking to, who told the CO his job outside of being arrested was in private security told me that he was in for beating the shit out of someone over some french fries. It had been like two hours and the old guy was still yelling and moaning about being sick and in hell. 

“Yo officer!” I yelled. “This guy’s sick, he needs to go to the hospital.”

“Fuck you fuck you no I don’t, I’m not going to the fucking hospital,” he snarls, snapping out of whatever trance he had been in. 

“Then shut the fuck up man. You’re double my age and you’re fucking whining all night keeping everyone up, it’s pathetic.”

“You don’t want to fuck with me right now kid, I can’t feel anything,” he says, trying to sound threatening from a fetal position on the floor. 

At the first sign of a threat towards me, the guy who said he was a private security guard stands up. The old guy apologizes, and says that he’s going through withdrawal. The Hawaiian dude from the precinct had shown up at some point during all this, and started asking the guy why he doesn’t use this as an opportunity to quit — to get out and stay clean. “I can’t,” he responds. “I love heroin.”

There was no clock in the cell, so we had to ask passing COs and police officers what time it was, many of which would act like they didn’t hear it and we didn’t exist. I found out eventually that the court actually opened at 9:30 and not 7:30 like the police told me. At some point a CO brought around cartons of dry cereal and milk, no spoons. I let some other guy take mine and I tried to sleep a little longer.

Around 9:30, we got moved down the hallway to the next cell, and most of us were sorted into the misdemeanor bin. I was lucky that it was a Sunday night when I got picked up and that court would open in the morning. If it had been a Saturday night, I'd still be waiting until Monday. A few dudes in the misdemeanor cell had been there all weekend. 

Every hour, they would call a few names, and those people would get to leave their cells to go talk to a lawyer and see a judge. Every hour, we would crowd around the cell doors, hoping to hear our names. Every hour, I was convinced my name would be called, and I would walk out of the complete hell that my reality had become. Every hour, I’d sit back down, with nothing to do but convince myself I’d get called next time around. 

It was now probably around noon, and the only thing to pass the time was to socialize. Conversations mostly revolved around what you were in for, how many times you’ve been in before, how long you’ve been in this time, or how soon you think you’re going to get out of here. Almost everyone’s story was about how they pretty much didn’t actually do anything and that they shouldn’t even be in there. I think anyone that actually did something that they undeniably deserved to be in for kept it to themselves. Everyone thought it was a combination of funny and fucked up that I was in for writing on something with a whiteout pen.

One of the COs came around with lunch, which were probably the grossest peanut butter and jam sandwiches ever made sealed in plastic bags. A faded piece of paper just outside our cell confirmed that this had been the lunch menu since at least 2006. 

“Pillows are here!” One guy said. People lined up to grab two or three sandwiches. I again passed on the meal. Most people didn’t actually eat them or open them out of the plastic, but stacked a few on top of each other to put their heads on while they tried to go back to sleep. I had mostly given up on sleeping, and talked with some of the other guys.

The Hawaiian guy from the precinct explained to me how he had “finally stood up for himself” after his wife got physical, which he said had been going on for years without him ever doing anything about it. He said he stayed with her because of their two kids, both of which are autistic. He told me that one of his kids was awake and saw the fight, which resulted in both him and his wife calling the police on each other. He told me multiple times to “be careful who you marry.” He said that this was probably it for their marriage, and that he might have to move back to Hawaii.

A short guy with dreads that got in a few hours after me was the most visibly shook out of everyone. He was near tears, and when I talked to him told me he might have to kill himself. This was his third violation of his probation, meaning he would probably end up back in jail to serve the rest of his three-year sentence. 

An extremely flamboyantly gay black man got in some time in the afternoon. He said that he was in for threatening to kill someone, and that the cops tased him 4 times, and each time he never went down — just ripped the taser dart out. He talked a bit about being a part of the summer 2020 riots in North Carolina, and about how many pairs of shoes he looted from various stores. Eventually, he started yelling for the COs, saying he was sick of being locked up with dudes, and that he wanted to be in the cell with “the bitches.” They ignored him, so he started yelling about how he was transgender and they had him in the wrong cell. They also ignored this. His name was called a few hours later, and I never saw him again.

A spanish guy, Jay, who was in the cell when I got there seemed to be talking to everyone, and had clearly been in a few times before. Maybe he was talking out his ass, but he knew how most things worked in booking and was answering everybody’s questions. He claimed that all he did was slap his neighbor that had accused him of stealing packages. He told me that if your name wasn’t called by 10 pm that you were probably staying the night. His name was called around 7 or 8 pm. 

In the cell, there was one phone. It was free to use as many times as you wanted, as long as you waited your turn. Around 1 pm, I decided it was time to make a call. Ivy was flying to Montreal tomorrow to visit, and I was supposed to be spending the day with Allee today before taking the bus back to Montreal in the evening. Both of them would probably start to get confused regarding my sudden disappearance. I didn’t know either of their phone numbers so I couldn’t contact them directly, but I knew my Dad’s phone number, and could call him and hopefully instruct him or my sister on how to contact them over Facebook or Instagram. 

I pick up the phone after waiting my turn, and a tall guy who had been in since Saturday speaks up and says to me, “yo Canadian, who you trying to call?”

He explains that the phone can only call New York City numbers, but that he can call his friend for me, who can make a three-way call so I can speak to my dad. He connects me to his homie. “Who should I say is calling?” the guy asks. 

“Uh, tell him his son is calling from central booking in New York City, I guess.”

I explain to my dad what happened, and how to contact the people that need to be informed of my whereabouts. He was surprisingly calm considering the circumstances, but I guess so was I. I assured him I was safe, and likely wouldn’t be charged with anything, that I just didn’t know when I’d get out. I might miss my bus back to Montreal, and one of the COs said that we could be held for up to 72 hours before seeing a judge. I felt fine, but if I had to sleep on the cell floor another night I think I’d have a nervous breakdown.

An hour or two passed. Some names were called, but not mine. The tall guy called his friend again for me so I could talk to my dad, and confirm that my messages were received by Ivy and Allee. 

Eventually, the tall guy's name was called. He had been in longer than almost anyone else. The cell erupted in cheers, and people started dapping him up as he got up to leave. A few minutes later, it sunk in that I wouldn’t be able to call my dad again, unless any of the dudes left in the cell had a friend they could call who was down to make a three-way call for me. At this point, most of the people left only spoke Spanish, and most of the dudes I had been talking with already had their names called. Suddenly, a CO came back to the cell doors.

“Alright, who’s the Canadian white boy?” she asked. The entire day, I had been the only white guy in the misdemeanor cell, nevermind the only Canadian. “That’s me,” I responded. The CO hands me a strip of paper with a phone number on it — the phone number of the tall guy’s friend. I sat down and held back tears.

It’s 9 pm, and at this point, I’ve been in the cell longer than anyone else. I had seen everyone who was in before me get called, as well as a handful of people who had come in hours later than me. There was seemingly no order to it. The CO came by with another small stack of names. If I don’t get called this time or next, I’m pretty much guaranteed to be staying the night. I started to pray. I almost never pray, except for a few weeks ago when I went to church for the first time in years — but if there was ever a time to pray, this was it. 

The CO called my name. 

I finally got to leave the cell, the last of three cells that I had been locked in for the past 20 hours. I got to step out, and walk with my hands behind my back down the hallway and around the corner, like I had been watching people do all day. I didn’t know what was around there, but I imagined some room with comfortable chairs, like a dentist waiting room or something, that we would get to sit in as we waited to speak to our court-appointed lawyers. I turn the corner, and am led into another cell. Most of the people who I had watched get their names called over the past few hours are standing around in there. Jay, the young kid who used to write graffiti, the short guy with dreads who wanted to kill himself, the guy with long hair who had been to central booking in every borough — nearly everyone was still there.

Jay explained to me that we were waiting to speak to our lawyers, who would call us into a tiny room attached to the cell, and speak to us one by one. He assured me that being in this room meant we were getting out tonight before the court closes at 1 am. He started explaining that many porn stars were actually escorts, and that he follows them on Instagram to see when they’re in New York City, so he can pay to have sex with them. He would film it, so he could watch himself have sex with porn stars. He talked about all these designer shoes he had, and all this money he would spend on things. But we were in jail. Neither of us had shoelaces in our shoes. 

Suddenly, an officer opened up the cell door. “Eden DaSilva?” I walk up to the door and step out. “The DA has dismissed your case. You’re good to go.” I walk through the final hallways of booking, out to the back door. A police officer explains to me that all my charges have been dropped, and that I could head back to the precinct to collect my belongings. 

It’s around 11 and I’m running down the street without shoelaces in my shoes, looking for a taxi. I don’t have a phone, so I have no idea where I’m going. I find a cab driver waiting on the side of the road, and he tells me it’ll be $25 cash to drive me to the precinct, and that he’s turned the meter off. My wallet is the only thing I was allowed to have on me in central booking, and I have $27 USD inside. I hop in the cab. The driver speaks almost no English, and clearly has no idea where he’s going. He stays stopped at green lights on empty streets, and has done at least one complete loop of a city block. Finally, he passes me his phone and asks me to look up the 104th precinct on Google maps. After passing the phone back, he still ignores the directions the GPS gives him. 

I get back to the precinct, where I was first locked up nearly 24 hours ago. I have my form which I’ve been holding onto all day, listing my belongings to be reclaimed. A shift change has just happened, and it’s social hour for the NYPD. There’s at least 20 officers there, drinking energy drinks and showing each other shit on their phones. After a while I finally get someone’s attention. He says it will be a while before they can get around to it. None of the officers are doing anything. An old Italian woman waiting at the precinct says this is the third time she’s been here today and she still hasn’t been helped. A woman comes in with a baby and she is immediately seen and brought into a room. I realize this is the wife of one of the officers. After waiting in the precinct for nearly an hour, an officer begrudgingly returns my belongings. None of my markers are in my bag — even though I wasn’t charged with any crime. The markers were not listed on the sheet either, nor were my watch and gold chain, which I have to remind the officers to also find and return. I couldn’t be bothered to spend another second with or talking to the police today. I put my shoelaces back in and walk to Allee’s. 

Free all my guys fuck the NYPD.