Insiders
Page 18
‘I know that,’ Jennifer responded, hearing how defensive she sounded.
‘Do ya’?’ Movita asked her. ‘There’s a difference between knowin’ there are others around you and knowin’ that you are around others. Ya’ get what I’m saying, girl? We’re all in this together.’ She gestured with the envelope. ‘It ain’t ‘bout any one of us, it’s ‘bout all of us. That’s the only way we can make it here. Ya’ understand that?’ Jennifer nodded, and Movita continued. ‘And it ain’t about forever, either,’ she said firmly. ‘Ya’ got that?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Jennifer told her.
Movita said nothing for a moment. She only stared directly into Jennifer’s eyes, and Jennifer didn’t like what she saw in them. The pain in those dark eyes was almost more than she could bear, but she sensed that she could not look away – that she must not look away. ‘I’m gonna die in this place,’ Movita finally said. ‘Ya’ know what that means? I’m never gettin’ out of here. Never.’
‘But …’ Jennifer tried to speak.
‘Shut up, girl,’ Movita said, raising her hand. ‘Shut up and listen, ‘cause I ain’t never talkin’ about this again. I killed a man. My man. Earl Watson. He beat me, sure, but I hit him back plenty. One day he went for my daughter. That was it. Still, all of the reasons and justification in the world don’t mean shit anymore. I killed him. And I’m gonna live the rest of my days in here. That’s my reality. It can’t be changed.’
‘But they can’t keep you here forever,’ Jennifer protested, horrified. Somehow she hadn’t thought about Movita’s crime or sentence.
‘That’s what I’m sayin’ to ya’, girl. They can, but they can only keep me here one day – one moment – at a time. I just gotta stay in that moment. Ya’ hear what I’m sayin’ to ya’?’ Jen, shocked, barely managed to nod her head. ‘I don’t think about tomorrow and I don’t think about yesterday. I don’t even think about ten minutes from now. I just stay in the moment, and honey, if the moment’s good, I’m happy. If the moment’s bad, like the one I had over this here report, I let it pass. I just take it just one moment at a time, and that’s what you have to do, too.’
Jennifer could not begin to accept the reality of a life sentence in prison. What she could sense, however, was the great strength, compassion, and wisdom that were with her in the cold, sterile holding cell. The moment was a good one – good because she was not alone. Movita was there with her. Jennifer looked deeply into Movita’s eyes and nodded, and Movita saw that she understood.
‘Ya’ got more than twenty-four hours in here,’ Movita told her, ‘so I brought ya’ a little readin’ material.’ Again, Movita referred to the envelope that Jen held in her hand.
‘What is it, exactly?’ Jennifer asked her, hoping it wasn’t some stupid religious tract.
‘It’s the worst damn thing that’s happened to me since the day I picked up the knife and cut Earl’s throat,’ Movita told her, and motioned to the envelope.
Jennifer, really curious, looked at it. She read the return address: JRU International. It meant nothing. ‘What is this?’
‘It’s all in there,’ Movita said quietly. ‘I want ya to read it.’
‘Won’t they see me with this? Will I get in trouble?’
‘No to both questions. It’s been taken care of. I don’t have no more time to talk. Shift’s gonna change. Once Byrd is off, we both get our asses in a jam over this.’ She looked down at the envelope. ‘I don’t understand all the bidness talk in there, but I do know that if what’s in them pages comes true, then I can’t go on here. If they do what they say they’re gonna do, it will be ‘bout forever, and I can’t …’ She stopped and turned away toward the door. Jen wanted to reach out and hold her but knew she shouldn’t. ‘I gotta get outta here now,’ Movita said. ‘Read that up and figure out what we can do about it. I got a lollipop for you from Sally to make the readin’ more enjoyable.’ Jen looked down at the envelope and Movita left as quickly and mysteriously as she had come.
The moment Jennifer heard the key turn to lock her in for another twenty-four hours, she opened the wrapper of the lollipop and popped it into her mouth. The burst of flavor, of sugar, was an incredible comfort. Sugar was the legal drug in Jennings and no inmate could do without it. Tears came into her eyes at the simple pleasure flooding her, and the kindness of Movita. Then, after a few moments, she opened the envelope and began to read.
She read and read. When a meal came in she ate it without tasting it while she was reading. When she finished she didn’t even pause – she went back to the first page and began again. She was appalled. JRU International couched their intentions in the politically correct verbiage of ‘rehabilitation and job training’, but what the privatization plans really described was not unlike a slave owner’s plantation in the old South. The report cited ‘underutilized’ beds and called for an immediate doubling of the inmate population. ‘Cost per unit’ would thereby be reduced, and with round-the-clock work shifts, the prison would be able to ‘more fully realize existing and proposed profit centers’.
She finally looked up from the world she was in to find herself back in her cell. The proposal was an unbelievably callous and cruel assessment and Jennifer grew angrier with each and every word that she read. JRU International was going to turn the place into a factory. In the name of rehabilitation, the women – the ‘units’ – would be worked twenty-four hours a day. And double the population? Jennifer scanned the rest of the report. Where were the plans for increased health care and better nutrition to keep this slave labor force working? Where were the cost estimates for the repairs and modifications that would transform this hell hole into something better than a kennel? Where was the reality, the humanity in this report?
Jennifer knew she wouldn’t be at Jennings for long, but Suki and Theresa and poor Springtime and Flora – all of them would. Who and what was this JRU? She would have to get in touch with Lenny and ask him to do some research. But not over the phone. Nor could she write to him – letters were read. Maybe he’d visit. They could talk about it more then. Just as these thoughts were going through her head, her eyes focused by chance on the page before her and landed on the word ‘visitation’. She read the paragraph closely.
Research shows that inmate visitation frequently leads to unrest and deviant behavior. In addition, far too much space is dedicated to this purpose. While we cannot eliminate visitation entirely, we can reduce the magnitude of the problem by a general dispersal of the inmate population to other JRU-controlled facilities across the nation, and in turn, transfer new units into this facility. Research shows that relatives and friends will rarely travel more than three hours for a prison visit.
People were ‘units’. Visitation caused ‘deviant behavior’. Jennifer could not read one more word of the report. She thought back to what Movita had told her: ‘It’s not about you and it’s not about forever.’
‘Mealtime, Spencer,’ a woman CO’s voice said. Jennifer scrambled over to push her old tray out the slot in the bottom of the door. Then another meal was silently shoved into the room, without a mention of the contraband report in front of her. She was so upset, so angry, that her first impulse was to kick the damn tray. Instead, she picked it up, sat back down on the floor, picked up her spork, and started to eat. She needed to think, but not too far ahead. She had to stay in this moment.
Tom might not love her, he might not want to marry her, but he wasn’t going to abandon her without counsel. But it looked as if, without possibility of an immediate action from the governor or a judge, she would be here for some time at least. Perhaps she could use the time to do some good. She looked at one of the charts in front of her. This was what she knew how to do and it would keep her busy, as well as make a difference to her quality of life. She could focus on this for distraction, and help a woman as powerful and tragic as Movita Watson.
23
Gwen Harding
A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoleon I
Angry at herself, she got out of the car, slammed the door behind her, and went inside, stopping at the employee lounge and going straight for the snack machine. She put in change and got two candy bars. The hell with it. She’d eat them and make coffee in her office.
Movita was at her desk while Miss Ringling was working at the copier. Movita looked up at Warden Harding and smiled. ‘Nice lunch?’ she asked. It was unusual for the Warden to go out during the day and she knew Movita well enough to know she noticed every little thing.
Gwen again felt a rush of gratitude, embarrassment, and shame. For several nights in a row she’d dreamed of her drunken tour of Jennings, and although each dream differed slightly, in all of them she was caught by COs and fired. It had been a narrow escape. How fortunate she was that Movita and Roger Camry had found her and not anyone else! But how had Movita managed to get out of her cell? Did she remember the inmate saying ‘infirmary’? Well, these women were clever and resourceful. That Gwen knew for sure. She wouldn’t ask and Movita wouldn’t tell. At least the story wouldn’t get all over the prison. She self-consciously reached up and touched the bruise on her jaw. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Just a sandwich with a friend.’ Movita smiled and went back to her work. Movita Watson was a fine person, Gwen thought, a very fine person. What a pity …
‘You got one message, Warden,’ Movita said. ‘Somebody called from that JRU. They wanna make an appointment for a tour.’
Gwen felt her face flush. It made the bruise more tender and she hoped Movita didn’t see. She turned away and tried to compose her features, but found herself instead thinking of the gin in her desk drawer. How she would’ve loved a drink at that moment! Don’t think of it, she told herself firmly. ‘Fine,’ she told Movita, and turned to her office, where she’d at least have the comfort of privacy, caffeine, and chocolate.
But Movita continued. ‘And there’s somethin’ else I expect you’d like to know ‘bout.’
‘What’s that?’ she asked, though her feet kept moving her to her office. Movita followed her and stood just inside the doorway while Gwen sat down at her desk. She could feel the gin, behind the drawer front next to her left leg.
‘Well, I know what caused Spencer to go berserk. I heard all about it.’
The Warden looked at her. ‘I’m interested,’ she said, and meant it. It had been a disappointment to see the new, highly visible inmate so out of control. Perhaps she’d been taunted, or worse. ‘What was it about?’
Movita crossed her arms and leaned back against the door. ‘She had provocation.’
Warden Harding gave her a skeptical look. ‘Movita …’
‘Warden, I ain’t excusin’ it. You know I ain’t. But she’s just a kid and it was a terrible thing for her.’
‘Okay Movita, I believe you,’ the Warden said, folding her hands on her desk and putting the thought of a drink firmly out of her mind. ‘Tell me.’
‘She met with her lawyer and apparently one of the other women heard mostly everything,’ Movita began. ‘She said the man was very good-lookin’, wearing a suit and a shirt that was starched and ironed so stiff it looked like it could cut his neck and wrists. But he was also stiff and mean lookin’ too. Well, it seems he wasn’t just her attorney. He and Spencer was engaged, and he comes here and breaks the engagement. He tells her he can’t be involved with no convict ‘cause a his family and his position so he’s breakin’ it off.’
Gwen Harding shook her head. ‘Bad timing, I’d say. They love to kick you when you’re down.’
‘But there’s more,’ Movita added.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, Jennifer’s sayin’ to him, “but you know I didn’t do nothin’ except what you said I should do.” Or somethin’ like that. I didn’t hear the whole rap, but it sounded like she took the fall for him, or someone else.’
The Warden sat very still, biting her lower lip. Her eyes were staring across the room. She was thinking. How many, what percentage of women were imprisoned because of their involvement with men? Far more women’s lives were destroyed by men than the opposite, she thought. Maybe that was painfully obvious. But why? The women were often smart, clever women, women with jobs and children, educated women, women who should know better. Even in her own life she’d …
‘Anyway, he left and she got twisted.’
‘Did she love him, you think, Movita?’ Gwen asked.
‘How can we know that? But if I had to guess, I’d say she did. She don’t seem the kinda girl to get hooked up with someone she don’t love.’ Movita opened the door. ‘She didn’t have no fight over the TV show they was watching or nothin’ like that. She just went crazy.’
Gwen nodded and Movita left her alone.
She fully intended to write up a report for the file on Jennifer Spencer. That was what she always did when an inmate went into the SHU. It would, of course, affect Spencer’s time and parole. After Movita’s news she thought that maybe she should forgo the report. This was all disturbing, and the JRU call, and her drunken incident were all on her mind at once. Hadn’t she been granted another chance? She’d never been tempted to hush up an incident before. Was she being a more responsible person or was she disintegrating? She wasn’t sure.
The Warden had to call the people at JRU. No hurry on that one. She’d eat her junk food and take a look at Spencer’s file, then she’d make the phone call. There would be plenty of time, once JRU took over, for her to jump at their command.
One of the tragedies of prison was that prisoners with relatively light sentences, a year or two, increased their time through breaking rules and bad behavior. She knew that sometimes the women were provoked by others, sometimes they acted out of self-defense and, shamefully, they were occasionally egged on by COs. She’d known a woman who’d started with a twelve-to-eighteen-month sentence and ended up serving nine years because of her troubled reactions to authority. She’d tried to help that poor soul, but couldn’t get through to her. She certainly didn’t want the same thing to happen to Jennifer Spencer. The trouble was, it became a vicious cycle: Every punishment increased the anger and the anger led to worse behavior.
Gwen wolfed down the Butterfinger bar and felt better. With her sugar high she might be up to calling JRU and setting up an appointment. But after she’d done that her mood soured again. She looked at her watch. It was only three-thirty. She looked down at her drawer, the one with the gin. This was impossible. She took out the bottle, secreted it in her purse, and stood up. ‘I have to leave early today, Miss Ringling,’ she said, ignoring the surprise in Movita’s face. Did the fact that she hadn’t left early more than once in almost a decade mean she had to explain why? No, it didn’t, she told herself.
She walked out of the office, a false front over an unquiet interior. It was okay, she told herself, for while Movita saw all, Movita didn’t judge.
Back in her car she felt the same terror that she’d felt earlier in the day. She was amazed at the deep and simple quality of the terror. She hadn’t been this frightened since childhood. Then her misbehaviors had always been minor. Now, her misbehavior was not. Being drunk at work was terrible. It was shocking. And she had done it. She was so distracted by her thoughts that she nearly went through a red light. She stopped just in time. What was next? A DUI?
She rolled down her window, took the bottle from her purse, and poured it out the window. There.
She was spurred on by that act of courage to drive directly back to the church. It was important that she go. That she do something.
This time, afraid she might not go in if she didn’t
do it immediately, she got out of her car as soon as she had parked. Putting one foot in front of the other, she walked up the narrow path between two patches of well-kept lawn, and entered the side door of the stone building. There was a sign on the wall directing her to the basement. Not so easy. She held the rail firmly as she descended, because her trembling had increased.
She heard people talking and went toward the doorway the voices were coming from. Then she entered the smoky room and stood in the back. She was just in time to see a woman rise and hear her say, ‘Hello, my name is Pat, and I am an alcoholic.’ Gwen heaved a big sigh. She was where she ought to be.
24
Jennifer Spencer
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
Henry Van Dyke, The Prison and the Angel
Jennifer Spencer came out of the SHU a different person from when she went in. It wasn’t just the rage, the disappointment, and the pain that swept through her, leaving her empty as a broom-swept New York apartment. And the change wasn’t all internal either. As she was led back to her cell Jen caught sight of herself in a smudged stainless steel door: The white face, the gray around the eyes, the dark marionette lines between nose and mouth, all looked like they belonged to someone else; none of it looked like her. The face she saw looked ugly to her, but what the hell did she care? It didn’t matter anymore without Tom.
When she got back to her cell, just before head count and lights-out, all she longed for was darkness. She wanted to climb into her bunk and collapse.
But Suki had other plans. She was lying on her narrow lower bunk clutching her belly. ‘Wow! You’re out! We were worried about you.’
‘Really,’ Jennifer managed. She couldn’t imagine who the ‘we’ was.
‘Time in the SHU is tough. Are you okay?’
Jennifer shrugged, too tired to talk. ‘NBD,’ was all she could manage. She heaved herself into her bunk, and pulled the pillow over her face. Then she remembered Suki’s condition. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘How are you feeling?’