Redemption (26 page)

Who Has the Power?

wasn’t happy all the time. For one thing, a messed-up officer named Miss Wilby had targeted me. She was in her fifties, and she looked like one of those mythic centaurs, half human and half horse, because her butt projected out so much. I have never seen a human being built like her since. She picked on me all the time. Every day when we came back from work—my first job was in the yard—we had to get pat-searched before we could go into the building.

Everything we owned had to be okayed and on file at the property shed. I wore this gold cross necklace every day, and I had the proper court order for it. Wilby knew this. She had seen the necklace, and she had seen the file many times. Yet every day when I came in from yard crew, she sent me to the property shed to get a photocopy of the court order showing that I was allowed to have and wear the necklace.

Other days, Wilby would get me on something else: “Where’d you get your shirt?”

My mother had sent me all the stuff I was allowed to have, like personal T-shirts, pants, and soap. “It’s on file,” I answered.

“Go get a copy from property,” Wilby said.

I started calling her Wildebeest.

One day she did a random search of my cubicle—officers did that whenever they felt like it. She wrote me up for having two extension cords and two blankets. I really had only one of both—as per the rules. The others belonged to Sabrina, and she had found the extras on Sabrina’s bed. She was just after me.

Wildebeest sent my only blanket, a cheap gray state-issued thing, to the laundry. She took my cord, too.

When she left, I found Sabrina and told her she needed to get rid of her extra extension cords and blankets right away—like immediately. She passed them off to one of our friends for safekeeping for a few hours while I went to the captain.

I told him, “I’ve only been here a month, and this officer harasses me every day. She confiscated my extension cord and my only blanket. All I’ve got is a radio, a light, and one state blanket. Now I’ve got nothing.”

Captain called Wilby in. He asked her to bring him my extra extension cords and blankets so he could see them.

Sabrina had hidden everything, so Wilby came back to the captain empty-handed. My violation was dismissed. I didn’t get to bask in glory for long though. It turned out that I had awoken the Wildebeest. Instead of patting me down after work, she came and searched our room daily. She didn’t just look around; she destroyed our little home. She’d take everything out of my locker and spread it all over my bed. Everyone could see what I owned, and I was afraid some of it would get stolen. In the meantime, Wilby found dumb reasons to write violations against me—my first ones.

I finally went to Miss Case. “Wilby is searching me every day, and she’s only supposed to search once a month.”

She said, “There’s nothing we can do about it because an officer has the right to do that.”

“Doesn’t she at least have to lock it back up?” I asked, trying not to get too worked up.

“No.” She gave me the
Oh grow up
stare.

I went back to our room ranting and raving. I was ready to cuss this centaur out myself. Sabrina advised me not to do it. She said she knew how to put a stop to the searches. She set up our lockers real close together, right in front of the entryway. We were skinny, and even we had to turn sideways to get into our cubicles. When Wildebeest came in the next day, she got stuck. She couldn’t get her big old behind into our room.

She complained about it to the same caseworker. The caseworker told her that prisoners were allowed to arrange their lockers however they wanted.

She glared at me from then on. She gave me a look like
You beat me this time, but you won’t the next
.

Sabrina and I couldn’t stop laughing about it. We had trapped the beast.

Captain Miles was a nice old guy. Captains wore white shirts, and he was the shift commander for the officers, who wore blue shirts. Captain Miles called me into his office one day. He asked me, “How’s it going?” Inmates never knew captains’ and officers’ first names.

“Why? I’m just doing my time. I’m staying out of trouble,” I said. Something was going on, and I wished he’d stop beating around the bush.

“Well, you’re kind of upsetting my officers,” he said. He had white hair and a white mustache. He was smiling, so I was able to relax a little. “They’ve got a bet about who’s going to get you into the hole first, and they each want to be the one who gets you.”

“Oh.” My heart sank. I didn’t know what this meant. Was I doomed?

“They’re going to push you until they break you,” he said, leaning close to me. “I’d hate to see that happen to you. So you stay as calm as you can, and you just comply.”

He was giving me advice I could take. I definitely knew how to comply. So when different officers nitpicked me later, I followed their ridiculous, ignorant orders. I never got heated. I never cussed them. I never even talked back.

Captain Miles wasn’t done with me yet. He asked me if I liked to run track. I told him yes. I explained that I had gained a little bit of weight in Gumbo, and I ran on the track to get back into shape. Mom had even sent me my high school track shirt. I’d warm up and practice: run, sprint, run. I liked working out.

“A young lifer named Lisa Harris just escaped before you got here,” Captain Miles said. “The officers are worried that if you climb the fence, you might get away. You run fast.”

Of course, there was an electronic monitor on the fence, but Renz was old, and most of the monitors were broken. He knew I knew that. He didn’t have to say it.

“They think you’re a flight risk. They want you in the hole.”

I was so thankful to Captain Miles. If he hadn’t tipped me off, I would’ve fed into their game. I would’ve let the officers push my buttons like Wildebeest had. He taught me something priceless: if I react to the officers, I give them power. If I stay calm, they have no power.

Harassment comes from every angle in prison. You can’t be too much of a Goody Two-shoes. I had a little game of my own I liked to play.

Sabrina liked to stay inside, but one day, I made her come outside and walk the yard. I told her I was going to practice running, and she should watch the officers.

Run, sprint, run
.

They stared at me. The officers around the perimeter shifted in their positions and placed their hands closer to their weapons. Sabrina cracked up. After that, I got her to exercise with me. After our work shifts were over, we ran like hell to keep the officers on their toes.

On May 28, 1993, I turned twenty-one. I wasn’t feeling great that day. I had just written an article for the
Survivors of Incest Anonymous Newsletter
entitled “Stone Walls.” My mom had been sending me the newsletters, and I read anonymous stories with interest. I had turned in my own account to see if I could find the words. I kept everything general, writing mostly about disassociation. It felt good to start to open up. I received a letter from a woman who read “Stone Walls,” Chris Sitka from Australia. She wrote me letters and supported me all the years I was in prison.

But I just didn’t feel good about that birthday. I knew it was the first of many I would spend behind bars, and the reality of it was starting to sink in. My only hope was a woman I had just met, my court-appointed appeals attorney Ellen Flottman. She was tall and thin and kind. She seemed to believe in me, and I hoped she’d be able to pull off some sort of appellate magic.

Later that day, Jennifer and Sabrina surprised me. They had bought a cake mix that needed only water and a microwave. They made me cards and a wonderful dinner of burritos and microwaved pizza. They gave me twenty-one presents, each of them equaling twenty-one items. I got twenty-one pieces of paper, twenty-one stickers, twenty-one envelopes, and so on. They even scored a birthday candle somewhere, which was contraband.

When I blew out that candle—and I still wonder where on earth they got it—I wished that my appeal would be granted, and I would one day be free to make my own home.

Sabrina’s and Jennifer’s efforts meant everything to me that day. We didn’t get to crack open any Champagne, but we didn’t need any. I tried not to think too much about my future. I stayed in that wonderful moment. I was safe and content.

The Munchies

hen you first get to prison, you have to work kitchen or yard crew. Neither of these was a high-paying job, only $7.50 a month. Big Faye was still in the kitchen, so I chose yard crew. It turned out there wasn’t much work to do in the tidy gravel yard. We swept it, but that hardly took up a six-hour shift. The maintenance staff did the mowing, after all. Our supervisor tried to keep us busy, so he gave us these big hoses and told us to wash rocks off the cement blocks. I’d stand there and spray for hours. Eventually, I wasn’t allowed to do that anymore because the water bill was so high.

So Sabrina got me a job in her department: data entry. It was one of the jobs that paid. My salary depended on my keystrokes. If I were fast enough, I could make $30 to $60 a month to support myself. I entered the data from ambulance reports and hunting and fishing licenses. It was so freaking boring; I hated it. Sabrina did the job while listening to her cassette-tape Walkman. Her fingers flew; mine didn’t. I made only $20 a month.

I finally called Mom to complain. I told her I needed only $40 a month, and then I could find a different job that I liked. She said she’d help me, and I went into the laundry, which paid only $20 a month.

Laundry was great. I got to walk all around the campus delivering stuff. My boss, Dick Hickman, was the best. If we weren’t paying attention to our folding, he’d hit us with a huge laundry cart, and we’d fall in. Then he whirled us around the room. He was seventy years old and incredibly laid back. He brought coffee, donuts, and bologna in from the outside. Sabrina would stop by to grab a bite. Any food that was left over at the end of the week magically appeared in a bucket outside my cubicle. Eventually, another woman in laundry, Shirley Lute, got jealous and poured water down the dryer engine. When we turned it on the next morning, it started smoking. Shirley tried to cover it up, but eventually got caught and was fined $90. It was a big mess.

I couldn’t help but break rules in prison. There were so many of them. If I wanted a fresh tomato, somebody had to steal it out of the kitchen, and I had to pay her $1 for it. I would buy it, cook it in the microwave, and eat it right away, so I wouldn’t get caught with tomato contraband. Those first couple of months, I did the same thing with pot. I bought it and smoked it right away so I wouldn’t get caught. All my friends did it out in the yard where the officers couldn’t smell it.

Drugs are common in prison. There was always a way to do anything you wanted to do if you were willing to take the risk. Every kind of illegal substance was available for a price. Jennifer would get our pot during her visits and bring it in. For instance, there might be a trash can, a good meeting place, right before the visitor walked into the communal area. Another inmate—someone who wouldn’t get searched—could reach out and touch someone else’s visitor without any supervision. I never did that, but I saw it happen plenty of times.

At the time, I hadn’t been there long enough to be scared of what I was doing. I stuck with my friends who’d been there a long time. I trusted their judgment. After all, they kept me out of fights. If someone started picking on me, Jennifer would step in and stand up for me. She had built up respect, so she could do that. Slowly, I learned I had to stand up for myself, too. If I took shit from someone outside of my group, I’d have to continue to take it. I had to mouth off. I was firm and to the point, just like Kathy Tucker had taught me in Gumbo. I figured out that no one wants to throw the first punch. If someone’s really tired of you, they’ll do something dirty instead.

Jennifer and I had gotten high one day, and some girl was mad at Jennifer over something small and stupid. I can’t remember what it was exactly. But the girl told on Jennifer about her pot smoking and threw my name into the tattle.

I was mad at myself for smoking. But even worse, I was scared. Punishments could be harsh.

I’d seen women spit at officers and get slapped with another year of prison.

If someone threw human waste at an officer, they’d get five more years of time. One crazy woman had a five-year sentence and wound up with twenty because she racked up so many infractions.

They couldn’t give me more years, but the hole was punishment enough. Once I got there, I was sure the eager officers would cook up something dirty for me.

But I lucked out. My laundry supervisor, Dick, got involved. He found our urine specimens and threw them out. Then he gave me a big lecture.

“Don’t do that again,” he said in a private spot in the laundry room. He was not smiling.

He told me I had disappointed him, and I knew I had.

I never smoked anything stronger than a cigarette again.