"We be talkin' like that all night," Torrado says. "So then when I see it's daylight, 'Baby, I'm going to bed.' 'Me, too, baby. I'll see you in the morning.' "
I am sitting next to Todd Clayton, a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. I ask the women how Clayton, if he were a new prisoner in the jail, would get hooked into the bowl phone system.
"They be like, 'Fresh meat in the building,'" Pabey says.
"So you'll be like, 'OK. Hold on. We got a girl in such and such room that's lookin' for a guy,'" she explains. "Everybody ends up hookin' up."
"Girls come and be like, 'You talkin' to my man on the bowl?'" Torrado says. "I be like, 'Girl, that ain't your man! Next time I hear you talkin' to my man it's gonna be a problem.'"
"Eventually a woman literally sticks to the person that she's dealin' with," Pabey says.
"That's where the complications come from," Blount says. ... "Cause you fall in love with that person."
"I did it over there," Torrado says. "I met my boyfriend through the toilet bowl. We been together nine years."
"Toilet bowl love," Blount mutters.
"This one girl used to be loud, but I done used to let her talk for a long time," Blount says. "She was a bowl ho 'cause she stayed up -- I mean day and night -- and be, 'Hey, blah blah blah' 'cause you be on, yeah, you be talkin' to different people you a prostitute. You a ho, on the bowl."
Pabey offers an example of jailhouse romance: "[Say] I'm datin' Todd. We're on the mic. I'm like, 'Hey, baby, whatchu doin', you know what I mean? 'How was your day?' Whatever. And then, without knowing, Todd gets released."
Blount lets out a gasp of empathy.
"That hurts," Blount says. "That can [be] heartbreaking. I seen a girl cry. She like, "I know he goin' come to the window. They used to pray and stuff before they go to sleep. And he all of a sudden he got released. So she was at the window waiting for him to come by the window and say hi or whatever. She say, 'I know my baby comin' to the window.' I know she came to the window looking for him. She be cryin'. I said, 'You ain't think that man really goin' come to the window? He goin' home.'"
"Ah, he goin' get him some p*ssy," Pabey says. "Scuse my language, but it's the truth. He goin' go get him some pootang."
"He went out," Blount says. "He was gone. You know what I'm sayin'? She was cryin', her heart breaking. People get hurt. People fight."
I ask what most of the prisoners like to talk about.
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