Lockdown on Rikers (12 page)

Reluctantly, I said, “No, I will not repeat this.”

“'Cause that wouldn't be right,” she said. “After all, I've been talking to you freely. I always thought I could trust you.”

“Yes, I know. And you can,” I said, with a little more conviction. “You can. But this is still a big problem.”

“He's a good guy,” she protested. “He's helping me. We have plans.”

“Tiffany, this isn't a good way to start a relationship. You're not on equal footing, and he's taking advantage of that. My concern is for you.”

But she could see none of it. From her perspective, she'd found a way to get special treatment in jail—no small feat. But from my standpoint, her relationship with this guy was a replication of her affairs with drug dealers in the streets. There, it was sex for drugs; here, it was sex for priority treatment.

But her jaw was set. She was on top on the world, and I was bringing her down. Although I tried to get us back on a more familiar track, the session ended awkwardly. The following week she missed her appointment, and she never showed up again. I can't say I was surprised, but I still had a hard time believing the relationship was over. Out in the halls, I tried to get her attention, but she stared straight ahead. No more yelling out to me, no more big smiles. Looking back, I realized that I'd broken the cardinal rule of refraining from judgment. If I'd been a more experienced therapist, maybe I wouldn't have reacted as strongly. But as I was forced to accept that it was over, I took comfort in knowing that through our work together, Tiffany Glover had still come a long way.

12

With stars splashed across an early April sky, inside a dreary Rose Singer housing unit the adolescent group started out quietly. To add a bit of structure to the group, I'd started bringing in coloring books, and the girls were happily coloring. As they shaded in outlines of bunnies and tulips, much of their “tough girl” facades vanished. The coloring seemed to bind up their energy, and I noticed they were a little more thoughtful and contemplative with this added bit of structure.

“Maria,” I said casually, “your hair looks a little different today. Are you wearing it in a new style?”

“Yes, but I won't leave it like this for long. I'll change it back.”

“Can't keep razors in a style like that one,” chided Ebony.

“Shut up, Ebony.”

As Maria colored, she cleared her throat. “When I'm out on the street, Miss Mary, I keep razor blades in my hair.”

“Why?”

“Protection! The streets are dangerous.”

“Yeah,” chimed in Polite. “Just before I got locked up, I was out late and I hear, pop-pop! pop-pop! Next thing you know this kid comes crawling around the corner. He was on his hands and knees and he crawled right up to me, and there was blood pouring out of his ears, and he says, ‘Help me, help me,' and then he just kind of fell on his stomach and didn't say nothin' else.”

“Was he dead?” asked Michelle.

“Dead as a doornail!”

They all laughed.

“Well, get this,” said Diana, “I was at this club one night and a guy asks this girl to dance. And when she says no, he pulls out a gun and shoots her in the face. Party over!”

“Yeah,” said Ebony, “and I saw a guy get shot up on the roof—the force of the bullet knocked him clean off the building. Splat!”

They all laughed again.

“Miss Mary,” said Carly. “Haven't you ever seen somebody die in front of you?”

I shook my head. “I can't say I have. How many of you have seen someone die?”

Every hand shot up. I was stunned. Not only by the violence, but their numbness to it.

“Hey, life in the big city,” said Crystal. “No big deal.”

There were knowing nods as they fell into a terse silence, grinding the crayons into the bunnies and tulips. Despite the grim dialogue, the hour ended on a mellow note, and in what had become a closing ritual they walked me to the bubble, their parting words a key part of the ritual. Ebony cleared her throat and began: “Be careful of the bushes when you're walking home tonight, Miss Mary, and if anybody jumps out, then you tell them”—and here she would cue the others with an invisible baton—“that—you—got—friends—on—Ri–kers Island!” And we all laughed.

On our way back, Wendy and I talked about the violence. “Can you imagine?” I said. “The thing is, we're not in some third world country here. All this shooting and killing happens right here—upper Manhattan, Queens, Bed-Stuy, the South Bronx. It's a whole other world, right under our noses—a world that the rest of us don't even know exists.”

“I know,” Wendy agreed. “Same with the girls on my side. It's unbelievable.”

On the stretch of corridor common to the men's jail, our conversation was interrupted by angry shouts. To our left were long rows of bars, and on the other side empty patches of darkened
space. Behind the bars, four or five COs were surrounding a male inmate. “No, man! I didn't do nothin'!'” shouted the inmate.

“Shut the fuck up!”

They were pushing the young man into a corner where a set of bars intersected. All we could see of him were his jeans and sneakers as his legs were being spread apart—
“Nooh!”
he shouted. Just then, a white-shirted captain coming down the hall spotted us. “Move along!” he ordered. No smile, no “good evening” nod. We hesitated momentarily. “Keep moving!” We did just that. As we neared the end of the corridor, Wendy said, “They're going to beat the crap out of him.”

As much as I tried to think up another explanation, I knew she was right. I felt dazed. The next day, I told Janet about it. She just shook her head, and for the first time my wise mentor didn't have a ready answer. “Some bad things do happen in here, Mary—there's no denying it. We do the best we can,” she sighed. “We do the best we can.”

After a couple of days of dwelling on what I had seen and heard, I decided to let it go. I didn't know his name. I didn't even know for sure if he'd been beaten. Obsessing about it was only keeping me upset while doing nothing for him. I just hoped he was okay and that this was an isolated incident. Years later I would learn otherwise. But then, I simply said a little prayer for him and tucked it all away.

* * *

There was always some sort of drama in the jail, and the three of us were constantly jumping up from our table to investigate. One afternoon, Overton was leaning out the doorway, checking out some hallway commotion. We jumped up just in time to see a gurney flying by with a shrieking woman on board. “I told them the baby was coming! I told them!” Overton shut the door and scrambled over to the inner door leading to the medical side of the clinic. He unlocked it and we plowed through, joining a growing mob of nurses,
pharmacy techs, clerks, and officers, along with a crowd of inmates who'd abandoned their waiting room seats. “Sit the fuck down!” the officers ordered the inmates. But no one budged and the orders became halfhearted, and then they stopped. For a moment, duties were ignored and hierarchies dissolved, as everyone was pulled toward something much larger.

“Ambulance on the way!” shouted a nurse.

“Too late!” yelled the chief physician, stepping out from behind a wall of white curtains. Pulling on a long gown and fastening on an elastic face mask, he ducked back in. The crowd waited, held back by a three-foot-high cement partition. The doctor barked, “Push harder! One more time—push harder—harder! One more! There we go!” And then the dingy clinic was filled with the sweet sounds of an infant's first cries. Everyone was beaming, from high-ranking correctional personnel all the way down to the lowly inmates, many with hands over their hearts. Even the mirthless Captain Murphy looked a little misty. After a few moments, the doctor stepped out from the curtains and raised his arm high up overhead. In the palm of his large hand he held the tiny new life for all to behold.

13

The air was finally warming, and purple and white crocuses were pushing up from the thawing earth, and the Canada geese had returned. Bus drivers were slamming on their brakes to avoid the fluffy goslings meandering along the island's roadways.

“Spring is here,” said Allison, pulling out her trusty calendar. “And that means we'll be out of here soon.”

Wendy and Allison were counting down the days, but I was in no hurry for the year to end. Regardless, the weeks were, indeed, winding down; we were no longer assigned new cases, but rather called upon for quick referrals only. Janet started pushing me to discuss my impending departure with the patients on my shrinking caseload, particularly Rhonda Reynolds, whom I suspected had forgotten I was a student. “She's come a long way with you, Mary, and this is going to be tough on her. She needs time to process this.”

After Rhonda had finally revealed the source of her nightmares, she talked of nothing else, needing to express every aspect of the brutal attack that she'd barely survived. As we talked it through, I helped her to understand that although she was a drug addict and needed to address this, she bore no blame for the assault. Slowly, she began to view things differently, shifting the blame to where it belonged. She never stopped pushing for sleep meds, but her requests were halfhearted. “Hey, I gotta try!” she smiled. And as she spoke more freely, initial reports of an idyllic childhood gave way to uglier memories—beatings with extension cords, a stepfather's
drunken tirades, of growing up in constant fear. Her eyes glazed over as she talked, but she was on a determined path to releasing so much pain, to getting it all out.

And then on an ordinary morning, her demeanor was strangely different when she arrived for her session. She was looking at me, but somehow seemed far away.

“Are you okay, Rhonda?” I asked.

Gazing into the distance, she softly whispered, “I didn't mean for her to die.”

“What, Rhonda? What did you say?”

And then, louder, “I didn't mean for her to die. I never thought she'd
die.
I just made up my mind that no one would ever hurt me again—no one was ever going to jump on me.
But I never meant for that girl to die.
”

“I know you didn't.”

“But she's dead.”

“Yes.”

“And I killed her.” Rhonda dropped her face into her hands.
“Oh! God! Oh! God forgive me! God forgive me! Oh! . . .”

It was a moment of profound sadness. Sadness for a young woman who never could have known that innocent horseplay would cost her her life, and sadness for Rhonda, who was now headed to prison for an act that was borne not of malice, but of perceived self-protection.

When she slowly lifted her tearstained face, she said, “My lawyer's trying to get the charge reduced from murder to manslaughter, but even so, it'll be ten, fifteen years. Why did this happen to me, Miss Buser? Why? How can so many bad things happen to one person? I thought the rape was the worst thing ever—but this? Why?”

I shook my head. There were no ready answers to her questions. It seemed to me that the hard in life, such as Rhonda's miserable childhood, ought to be balanced out by good things later on. It only seemed fair. But more often than not, it's the opposite. Without intervention, the bad just keeps snowballing. I kept thinking that if only Rhonda had received help following the rape, this
stabbing might not have occurred. But a thousand “if onlys” would change nothing. A woman was dead, and Rhonda was going to prison for a long time.

When our session ended, it was on a somber but peaceful note. Afterward, I caught up with Janet and told her. “I never thought she was going to be able to face it,” I said.

“You've done very good work with her, Mary Mac,” Janet smiled.

I muttered a thank-you, knowing Janet wasn't one for gratuitous praise.

“Now, have you reminded her you're leaving? What about the others—have you brought it up?”

“No . . . not yet.”

Janet looked at me sharply. “You have to begin this conversation. It's not fair to them, Mary—they've put their trust in you, and that's not easy for these women to do.”

I knew she was right, but saying good-bye is just so hard. Recognizing the difficulty in terminating these relationships, a professor at school suggested a method of softening the news. He said that after discussing our upcoming departure, we might then “step out of character.” He gave an example of perhaps meeting a client for a cup of coffee as therapy neared its conclusion. I thought it was an intriguing idea, although in my case the local coffee shop wasn't an option. Nonetheless, I tucked the idea in the back of my mind.

In the meantime, I was in for a shock one morning when I was walking to the MO and a nurse pulled me aside in the crowded hall. “Get this,” she said. “I was just down in the receiving room and guess who just arrived? Millie—Millie Gittens.”

“
What!
There must be some mistake,” I said. “Millie Gittens is dead.”

“Well, looks like she's back from the dead. It's her all right. Oh, and another thing—she's pregnant. Baxter's down there now.”

I was stunned. I didn't know what to do. Reflexively, I started toward the receiving room, unsure whether I wanted to hug Millie or throttle her for the needless grief we'd all been put through.
But then I stopped. What was the point? I had never been able to reach Millie. Maybe the next therapist would. I hoped so. I turned around and continued on my way.

* * *

I began my farewells with my short-term cases. Regardless of whether these women were to be released or were destined for prison, I encouraged everyone to continue seeking guidance and support, and above all else, to never ever give up on themselves.

Next came the nursery. Ever distracted by demanding babies and their own fatigue, the mothers took the news in stride. And I wasn't worried about Lucy either. She would be departing for prison at about the same time I would be leaving. Lucy had been sentenced to two-to-four—two years in prison, two more on parole. Since she'd already been at Rikers close to a year, she only had a little over a year to serve upstate, as the time spent in detention was credited toward the sentence.

After the slapping incident, Lucy had gotten herself right back on track. Her efforts extended beyond the jail's walls as she wrote letters to the family who'd long ago given up on her. “I had to swallow my pride,” she said. “They said some pretty nasty things about me—calling me a useless crackhead.”

Her letters initially went unanswered, but then an elderly aunt who'd always had a soft spot for Lucy wrote back. The letters led to phone calls, and then—a big break—the aunt offered to take in baby Michael while Lucy was upstate. And when Lucy was released from prison, the aunt agreed to take Lucy in, provided, of course, that she remained drug-free.

“It's a miracle, Miss B—a miracle! God answered my prayers! I'll never touch drugs again—never! Never! I'm done. Done! I still don't know about my little Junior. I have to get my little guy back. But I'm just going to keep praying and working on it, same as I've been doing all along. That's all I can do, Miss B—do the best I can, and leave the rest in God's hands.”

Lucy was due to go upstate at any time, and not knowing exactly when she'd be leaving, we said our good-byes. “Oh, Miss B,” she cried in a parting embrace. “Thank you for believing in a useless crackhead.”

“Oh, Lucy!” I bit back my own tears, recalling just how far she had come—from a lost soul lying on a subway platform to a poised woman with purpose.

A couple of days later, Lucy Lopez was gone, having boarded an early morning bus for Bedford Hills Prison. Somehow, the jail wasn't the same without Lucy tearing around the corners clutching stacks of legal papers on one of her many missions. I already missed her.

The tougher good-byes were still ahead, and with little more than a few weeks remaining, I began the dreaded conversation with Rhonda Reynolds. “Do you remember when we first met back in the fall—that Miss Waters told you I was a student?”

“No.”

“Well, I am—and what that means is that in another month, I'm going to be leaving.”

“What!”

This was going to be bad.

“You're kidding me,” she said, with a hopeful little smile.

“No, Rhonda. I'm sorry, but I was assigned to work here for the school year.”

“So, that's it? Your school year's over, and now it's—‘
see ya!'
”

“Rhonda—this isn't easy for me either, but I thought it would be better to remind you in advance so we still have time to talk . . . time to say good-bye.”

Her hand was over her mouth, her eyes welling up with tears. “I trusted you. Can't you tell them you want to stay?” she asked, alternating between anger and hope.

“It doesn't work like that, Rhonda. It has nothing to do with you or the importance of our relationship.”

She was sobbing now. “I want to go back to my house.”

“Oh, Rhonda.” But she was on her feet and out the door.

When Overton called for her the following week, she was a no-show. “Don't worry,” Janet said. “Not unusual. If you're going to leave her, she's going to leave you—at least for now.”

For the first time, I wondered if it was worth it. Was it really worth getting so close to these women, just to break their hearts?

But Janet viewed it differently. “Would she have revealed the rape, Mary? Would she have faced it that she killed someone? Some very important things happened here. It's sad that it's ending, but it's far more important that this relationship happened. She'll be back.”

I prayed Janet was right. In the meantime, I broke the news to the adolescents, who did not take it well either. “So you'll be back in September?” asked Ebony.

“No—I won't.”

“You're just going to leave us?” said Veronica.

“I'm not
leaving you.
My internship is ending.”

“What's the difference?” said Maria.

“The difference is that this group—all of you—you mean a lot to me. The reason I'm leaving has nothing to do with any of you.”

Crystal got up and walked away, followed by Carly.

But Ebony wasn't ready to give up. “Can't you tell them you want to stay—you know, sometimes you have to push things a little, Miss Mary.”

Looking at this group of expectant faces was breaking my heart. “Listen,” I said, “most of
you
are leaving Rikers pretty soon too. Ebony, you're going to be released for time served—and the same with you two,” I said to Maria and Veronica. “And the rest of you will be leaving also—Rikers isn't permanent. You know that.”

“That doesn't matter,” said Ebony.

And in their eyes, it didn't. To them, I was just one more person letting them down. When the hour was up, I made the trip to the bubble alone, where a concerned officer let me out. It was a depressing walk back.

Time was dwindling down, and Allison and I visited the nursery for the last time. Many of the faces had changed from that first
day when Janet had introduced me to the mothers. Lucy was gone, as were Addie and Marisol. Now there were new faces, new mothers trying to make a go of it with their babies.

In recognition of our final gathering, Camille Baxter brought in a cake that read “Good Luck, Mary and Allison,” and she handed us each a small box. Inside was a simple silver bracelet. “This is from all of us,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Tasha, “we all went to Macy's and picked it out—the warden said we could go, as long as we promised to come back.”

“And here we are!” said another. “Who says we can't be trusted?”

We laughed, ate cake, and showed off our bracelets.

The little farewell party was actually fun. For a few blessed moments, not one of the babies was crying, and for the first time, I rocked one of the infants in my arms. Always wishing to maintain a professional demeanor, I had enjoyed the babies from a distance but had never actually held them. But now it was time to “step out of character.” It felt nice.

When it was all over and time to go, Camille Baxter, mothers, and babies walked us to the door, and with a final wave from the whole gang, the door with the Mickey Mouse decal closed behind us for the last time. I wiped away the tears on the walk back.

The only remaining business was Rhonda Reynolds and the adolescent group. I called Rhonda a third time, and this time, to my great relief, she came. “I've missed you,” I said.

“I was going to hang up,” she said, using the jailhouse term for committing suicide.

“Oh, Rhonda.”

“It's just that any time something good happens, God pulls the rug right out from under me. You've been something good, and now you're going away.”

“Yes, I'm leaving, but the thing is, Rhonda, the work we did together—the changes you made, which have been very big—those are yours to keep. Our work together will never,
ever
go away. It's in your heart, Rhonda. It's yours—forever.”

She looked at me with a flicker of hope. I laid my arm across the desk and reached out my hand. She took it.

Later on, I got an idea that had to do with my professor's suggestion, and I ran it by Janet. “What would you think if Rhonda and I had lunch together for our last session?” Janet scratched her head. “I don't see the harm in it, but you've got to clear it with DOC.”

I went directly to Overton's desk, hoping to get the okay from him, bypassing another Captain Murphy tape recorder fiasco.

“You wanna
what?
” the beleaguered officer said.

“I want to know if it would be all right if, instead of our session, Rhonda Reynolds and I could have lunch together?”