Prisoner Sandwiches

They’re just fried egg sandwiches; buttered white bread, egg hard over, the yolk broken and lots of salt and pepper, simple fare but much appreciated in my house.  I first encountered this delicacy over fifty years ago when I was working as a police cadet serving at 57 Division in downtown Toronto.

That location had the distinction of being the city’s sole repository for female felons. The building had the standard floor plan for lockups of the period. A large dank high ceilinged gymnasium-like area with a sizeable central portion encased in bars surrounded by individual small cells. At all the other stations in the city the bigger area was referred to as the “bull pen”; we called it the “cow pen“ or when there was a particularly large consignment of younger hookers the “heifer pen”.

When I first arrived at the division and heard these references I felt that those who were serving there were being vulgar and insensitive, particularly since they were dealing with the weaker sex. I wasn’t long learning that working with male prisoners was a walk in the park compared to looking after their female counterparts.  Never then and never since have I encountered a baser debauched violent segment of society, particularly those women destined for the “drunk tank”.  

I got my first clue of what was in store for me while parading for duty on my first evening shift. There was a long narrow room adjacent to the garage where all of us, constables and cadets alike, were lined up for inspection before hitting the streets. The regulations required that we all stand at attention in a long row, forearms raised with gun in one hand and memo book in the other. We had to hold that stance until the attending Sergeant finished his inspection and dismissed us. It was while we were suspended in this position that a paddy wagon backed into the garage and offloaded a cargo of some mature ladies of the night. The sergeant, distracted, failed to “say as you were “and so we were left hanging, no pun intended, as the women filed in. Encouraged by a boisterous grey haired veteran floozy, they each, in turn, groped our crotches and offered disparaging criticisms as they passed by. While I was being subjected to this indignity I turned my attention to a large framed print hanging on the wall in front of the line of smirking cops. It was a colourful cartoon print titled the “Ascent of Venus.”   It depicted several Keystone type cops carrying an aging stereotypical old time prostitute up jailhouse stairs. It sort of set the tone of the place.  Apparently, to survive and maintain my sanity in this environment I was going to have to develop a perverse sense of humour.

That initiation was a harbinger of things to come. The first time I was detailed to remain inside and monitor the cells I entered the area hoping to initiate a firm but fair and friendly rapport; this approach was short lived. As I got to the first individual cell and looked in, a woman who had been lying on the hard metal shelf that served as a bed threw the army blanket that had been covering her off revealing that she was totally naked. She then rushed towards the bars that separated us, grabbed hold and proceeded to perform a lurid dance. Astonished and embarrassed I beat a retreat and, red faced, went to the desk sergeant to report the incident. “Sergeant there’s a naked lady in there,” I stammered. Peering over his glasses with feigned concern on his face he replied,”You don’t say. Well, we can’t have any behaviour of that sort in an establishment like this. You better take me in there at once.” I escorted him in and after staring at the woman for some time he simply said “Yup she’s naked alright and she also seems to be double jointed.” Then he went away. Several more constables ventured in to watch her perform and establish the fact that she was indeed naked then one of them took me aside and whispered in my ear, “Grow up, sonny!”

I guess, after a time, I did. I got used to the dishevelled bruised bodies lying sprawled on the floor of the drunk tank. I became adept at ducking the spit and sometimes feces that were flung at me through the bars. I listened to what seemed like a whole new vocabulary of profanity, familiar words that somehow seemed different and dirtier when hurled from a woman’s mouth. Mercifully female minors were not exposed to that environment. There were facilities for juveniles across town and a room upstairs in the station for the more sensitive customers.

One my jobs was to maintain a constant flow of the thick bitter tasting coffee that was offered to the prisoners in the hopes that they would be sober enough to face the magistrate the following day. Since it was a bed and breakfast of sorts we also offered a limited menu to see them on their way to court in the morning. One fried egg sandwich and nothing else.

There was a Greek restaurant across the road from the station that catered the daily event. In truth the cuisine at the establishment was not totally unpalatable. When the orders were placed in the morning sometimes the number of sandwiches accidentally exceed the number of prisoners present and the cops would have to take up the slack. And that was where I acquired a fondness for Prisoner Sandwiches, as they were called, particularly if I could select ones that were not liberally sprinkled with ash from the cigarette that was ever present and hanging from the old chef’s mouth.

My wife Andrea was an early convert to this comfort food and one by one my kids have followed suit. You can’t order prisoner sandwiches by name at any restaurant and if you could explain and get a specially prepared substitute it wouldn’t taste quite like the ones I make at home. The watery pale yolked commercial eggs of those establishments don’t hold a candle to the ones produced by our free range chickens and to be fully appreciated the sandwiches need to be consumed in a kitchen warmed by a cook stove with just a hint of wood smoke wafting around and the air buzzing with family chatter.