The Soup Tank

These memories are from the same interview I had with Jerry last Tuesday. Jerry spent a little time telling me how when he was 19 he entered the Navy for about 2 weeks. He was discharged honorably due a heart murmur that he didn't even know that he had. The truth was that Jerry did what he did best--he split in the middle of the night from boot camp. Long story short, the Navy wasn't for him. He found out later that they discharged him honorably because at the time he ran, his medical evaluation came back. He was going to be let go anyway due to his heart murmor. What was interesting was that Jerry inadvertently remembered that before and after the Navy experience, he was incarcerated at Orange County Jail in California of course. The charges rarely changed--Petty theft with priors.  He told me he was locked up in a 6-man cell affectionately known as the "Soup Tank". These cells were originally formed for inmates that would not cut their hair or shave. Being the hippy that he was, Jerry qualified. In the tank there was enough room to hold 3 double bunk beds a toilet and a sink. There was enough walking room to move in between beds and that was about it. The Sheriff's officers that ran the jail paid little attention to what happened in the cells. Jerry described the Soup Tank as a gladiator hell. Everybody had 5 enemies. Tensions were high to say the least. Jerry tried to make himself invisible but that was impossible. Everybody wanted to be in charge and everybody literally battled for his rank. If you looked at someone wrong, you fought. If your toilet use smelled too much, you fought. If you accidentally moved the property of a cell mate, you fought. There was no yard time; there was no time out of the cell for any reason other than visits or medical treatment. There was no commissary or printed material allowed. The worst part was you literally could not escape your enemy. There were no weapons, only fists. Jerry has spent most of his life locked up. He has witnessed every horrible thing that occurs in prisons and jails. Jerry feels that his time in the Soup Tank contributed the most to his mental twistings. "The paranoia I developed was at a new level." "Looking over my shoulder was a gross understatement of how I lived after the Soup Tank". 

The fights in the tank were no more brutal than any fight Jerry was involved in. The problem was you couldn't escape your opponent. When asked to describe what it was like sleeping right next to the guy that was pounding your face just hours prior, Jerry could not. "Sleep was difficult in general. Sometimes I would finally get to sleep only to wake to the sound of flesh falling and hitting the cement."  In normal incarceration, battle participants usually got split up. Either by the guards, rubber bullets or by an emergency trip to the infirmary, opponents were split up any way you looked at it. Not in the Soup Tank. It was the psychological aspect of being in the same cage as the guy you beat down or the guy that beat you down. "It was torture", Jerry says. Everyone was in terror waiting for the next battle. "You didn't know who or why, but you knew it was coming. That was for sure." Jerry tells me he would meet guys years later and swap Soup Tank stories. Soup Tank survivors shared a common bond. They were like survivors of the Titanic. "There was an instant connections with guys that survived the Soup Tank", Jerry says. "We all got fucked up physically and mentally." When asked how the name "Soup Tank" was coined, Jerry says that every day at lunch (and most dinners too), the jail would serve warm water with salt and called it chicken soup. To make matters worse, the Soup Tank was a cell for those serving out a sentence. This was not a temporary place for anyone. Jerry said he served three sentences in the Tank. First was a month. Second was 8 months and the third was about 6 months. Jerry was fortunate enough to be among some of the last inmates to serve time in the Soup Tank. In his last stint, Jerry got word that members from a Grand Jury was to visit the facility to assess the conditions of the Soup Tank. Jerry was chosen to be in group that was to be interviewed about life in the Tank. Long story short and thanks to Jerry and other inmates interviewed, the Soup Tank shut its doors and inmates were dispersed into the main population. There were a total of 6 Soup Tanks in Orange County Jail. Each holding 6 inmates.

So I attempted to get more information about the Soup Tanks on line.  Jerry figured it was about 1985 give or take a year. It was no surprise to me that there was no reference to a Soup Tank in Orange County during those years. There was no Soup Tank at all that I could see. The name "Soup Tank" was given by its occupants not the jail. It's not that I think Jerry was lying, I just think that if there were any articles written about the Soup Tank it was probably referred to as "Mod J" or something like that.