Insiders (16 page)

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?'

‘I'm better. I haven't passed out since that once. And I'm not nauseous all the time anymore,' she explained. ‘Only when I eat something my stomach don't like.'

‘That could never happen at Jennings,' Jennifer said with as much sarcasm as she could muster. She replaced the pillow.

Through it she could hear Suki laugh, but Jennifer kept her face covered. Nothingness was all she wanted. The nothingness of sleep to match the nothingness inside her.

‘You know something funny?' Suki asked. Apparently it was a rhetorical question because she continued. ‘I keep having this appetite for German potato salad. The kind with vinegar and bacon bits. Isn't that weird?'

Reluctantly Jennifer took the pillow off. ‘No,' she told Suki. ‘Pregnant women crave all kinds of things. It's normal.'

‘Is it? Oh, good.'

Silence reigned, for which Jennifer was grateful. But lying there she couldn't help but wonder how much Suki knew about pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing. She assumed that the baby picture on the wall was hers. But she had never asked. Jennifer turned on her side so that she could speak quietly but Suki would be able to hear her.
‘With the food here, how can you be sure you're getting enough nutrition for your baby?'

‘Oh, I got some vitamins,' Suki said proudly.

‘From the dispensary?' Had they finally figured out Suki's condition?

‘No. I don't dare go there till it's too late for them to take the baby. Cher's sister sent ‘em.'

‘They're not enough,' Jennifer told her. She pulled her knees up to her chest and her blanket up to her nose and retreated back to her pillow. ‘Goddamn place,' she muttered. ‘I have to sleep now,' she said, and merciful darkness closed in over her.

Jen wasn't able to retreat from reality for long. It seemed only minutes before the morning bell rang. It was her time to shower, and even if it was with a group that was being watched over by an officer, she didn't care; the SHU had to be the most disgusting place she'd been in, and she had to wash all of it off. She could hardly believe that she was supposed to get up and shuffle along with everyone else as if everything were fine. As if being locked in an SHU was just one more life activity you learned to deal with. As if giving up your future and your entire former life and accepting this present one was no big deal. But she just had to stay in the moment.

The next task was breakfast. As she set her plate of reddish beige glop on the table and sat down at her place, a surge of anger made her exclaim, to no one in particular. ‘Fuck!'

Theresa looked at her from across the table. ‘Keep your chin up,' she said. ‘Better times are coming.'

Jennifer rolled her eyes. ‘How do you know that,
Theresa? Maybe
worse
times are coming.' She thought of the JRU proposal and how that would make this ghastly place so much worse.

‘Can't be a pessimist, you know,' Theresa said cheerfully. ‘It gives you wrinkles and makes bad things happen.'

Jennifer, expressionless, looked across the table. ‘Optimism makes bad things happen, too.'

Theresa smiled nervously. ‘I don't think so,' she said softly.

‘Fuck!
Anything
can make bad things happen,' Cher said, joining them. She sat down across from Theresa, Movita right behind her. ‘They're just out there, like accidents, only more so, waiting to happen.'

Theresa looked down at her plate.

‘Shut the fuck up,' Movita barked at Cher. ‘Theresa's just tryin' to make Jennifer feel better.' She looked at Jennifer. ‘You might try to be grateful when someone's nice to you,' she said.

Jen made a face and took a few more stabs at the Cream of Wheat on her plate. ‘What the hell is this stuff? Boiled packing peanuts?' She looked over at Suki. ‘Can
you
eat this?' she asked her.

Suki shrugged. ‘Sure, as long as you pour fourteen teaspoons of sugar over it.' She loaded her bowl with the sugar and so much margarine that the yellow grease made a puddle across the top of her bowl. ‘It's okay,' she said with a shrug. ‘I like it better than most of the stuff they serve.'

Jennifer dropped her spork on the table with disgust. The others pretended not to notice. She sat perfectly still, ate no more and said no more. Why bother?

When Suki reminded her that they were supposed to be in the laundry soon, Jen rose and followed her like a robot.

As they walked to the laundry, down one after another of the bleak institutional corridors, the vision of her life as empty and frightening came back to Jennifer, as it had when she had been down in that dreadful hole. Even if she could actually stay here at Jennings and serve her time, remain in this horrible place for years without going crazy – which she strongly doubted – there would be nothing, not a goddamn thing, waiting for her when she got out. The thought of the endless emptiness ahead made her exhale a puff of air, leaving her lungs as empty as her life. The horror of it all suddenly made her want to scream in terror, to clutch at Suki for comfort, for help. But Suki, so little as she walked in front of her, pregnant in this women's prison, couldn't help her. Suki was helpless herself.

‘Are you okay, Suki?' she asked her.

‘Fine. How about you?'

‘Fine.'

Jennifer wouldn't have a job when she got out, no money coming in at all, and that terrified her. She wouldn't be able to go into stores and buy what she wanted. She wouldn't be able to travel. She would be poor. And she would have a criminal record.

A feeling of panic was coming over her. Poverty was like prison, she knew that. Poverty kept you from living, just like prison did. It kept ahold of you, it kept a grip on you, it said no to this and no to that, no to everything. Just like Jennings. It made you eat crap, made you sleep on an uncomfortable bed, made you wear shit, made you do without good medical care. Just like Jennings.

They'd reached the laundry room. Jen followed Suki mechanically but she was so out of it she was almost in a trance. Suki was already lifting the piles of dirty laundry
into bins to sort it out while Jen just stood there, a broken machine. Then she remembered Suki's condition. Wasn't there something easier for her to work on?

‘Don't!' Jen said to her, snapping out of her fog. ‘Don't lift that.' Suki looked up at her. ‘Come on, I mean it,' she said when Suki didn't stop immediately. ‘I'll do that. You just do the sorting.'

‘It's okay,' Suki assured her.

‘No it's not.' Some of Jen's emptiness got filled with anger. ‘Jesus! They don't give you any medical care, or tell you how to take care of yourself! Or your baby.' Then the anger was gone. ‘At least let me do the lifting here, okay?' Jen asked. ‘I can't stand it otherwise.'

Suki looked at her with a touch of confusion. ‘Okay,' she agreed.

So Jen did the hard work, while Suki did the smaller but tedious tasks: the emptying of pockets, the sorting of colors. Still, it was hot in the laundry room and after less than an hour, when Jen looked across at her, Suki looked pale.

‘Sit down,' Jen commanded. ‘You're white as one of these sheets is supposed to be. I'll get Flora.'

‘You are, too,' Suki said and laughed. ‘But don't call Flora. I'll be okay,' Suki reassured her.

Jennifer looked down at Suki's stomach. Suki had never told her how she'd gotten pregnant, only how much she wanted the baby. She spoke about it nearly every night before she went to sleep. She was just starting to show, but the uniforms were roomy enough to camouflage her for quite a while longer. Her plan, she said, was to keep the pregnancy going until abortion wasn't possible. Jennifer sighed. Suki would never win any awards for intelligence, but she was optimistic, generous, and good hearted. She'd
be a good mother. Jennifer was afraid to ask at what point they separate mothers and babies.

As they folded sheets she thought about the JRU threat. Whatever punishment Suki might get because of her pregnancy now, it would be mild compared to what JRU would probably have in store for her. Since she'd first read the proposal, Jennifer had backed off a little bit. After all, getting involved too deeply could get her into a world of trouble. But poor Suki. Jen didn't know what her sentence was, but armed robbery had to be years and years.

The shift was endless. Breaks were short, lunch inedible, and when the day finally finished Jen could barely stand. She realized it was time to go back to their ‘houses' and cook something for dinner. Now that she was in the crew, it was her turn to cook. While she could manage a hostile takeover or an IPO, she didn't know how to cook very many things. This was no time to try anything new; that would only open herself up to Cher's contempt. The idea of being in the crew – something that she'd kind of liked at first – now felt like a burden. She didn't want to talk to these people today or any day. She wanted privacy. But when she thought of the cafeteria, she knew that she
had
to stay in the crew to survive. She'd just cook, eat, and not try to get involved with them beyond that. She'd have to order something decent from next week's canteen that would fit the bill for an acceptable meal.

Everybody was gathered when Jen and Suki walked in. So what? She didn't greet any of them because she wasn't thinking of anything but how the hell she was going to make dinner. Groceries were spread out on the makeshift counter. Her eyes rested on the chunks of beef and unidentifiable pale green vegetables that sat with it. It looked like
she was supposed to cook Chinese, which she had never done in her life, thank you.

‘What am I supposed to make out of this?' she asked bluntly.

No one answered.

‘Well, if you don't know –'

‘Will ya' please cut the brat attitude?' Movita suddenly shouted at her. ‘We know you were in the fuckin' hole, but you're not supposed to bring it back up here to us. Do I have to tell ya' that we got it bad enough already? And that many of us been down there ourselves and don't need no revisit? Go back to ya' cell till ya' get over it.'

‘I'll shut up and cook,' Jennifer said, as coldly as she could.

‘Awright,' Movita said. ‘Then go ahead and make somethin' good.'

Not knowing what to do, Jen started heating up the oil in the pan over the electric coil. ‘Where's my knife?' she asked. She got only chuckles in reply. She tossed the meat into the smoking oil, and as soon as it started to spatter, tears started streaming down her cheeks.

‘It'll be okay,' Theresa said, putting her hand on Jen's arm.

Jen didn't reply. She felt sullen and wanted to be left alone. But Movita wouldn't do it. She came up to the stove. ‘You're gonna burn this meat, girl. And if you do, you're outta crew.'

Being yelled at was the last straw. Jennifer began to sob uncontrollably, but she continued to cook. She turned the meat quickly and lowered the flame, sobbing all the while.

‘Just a minute,' Movita said. ‘We don't need no tears in our food. Theresa, take over here. Jen, come with me.'

Jen set the spatula down and followed Movita, still sobbing. She tore a scrap of the crude brown paper towel off the roll and held it to her face.

‘Siddown,' Movita ordered.

Jennifer sat.

‘You got a choice, Missy. And you gotta make it right now.'

‘I don't have any choices,' Jen wailed.

‘Shut up. That's just what I'm talkin' about. “
I don't got no choices
,”' Movita mocked. ‘You got as many as the rest of us. No. You got more. But what you got that's a problem is feeling sorry for yourself, thinkin' you're some kinda special. Well, let me tell ya' somethin', ya' not. You let those lousy cracker dudes leave ya' with the rap. I think that's a dumber move than anybody else here did. Ya' think ya' educated – hate to tell ya' babe, Maggie in the library is more educated than you. Your education is nothin' compared to the life experiences of these women. So what ya' got left that makes ya' better'n us? Nothin'.'

Jennifer felt the words come down on her like weights. She had nothing left and now she was supposed to be nothing. All she'd lived on all her life was being special. Being special was what got her scholarships and good jobs and rich. So now she was supposed to be nobody special.

It made her feel sick.

The jury, passing on the prisoners life, may in the sworn twelve have a thief or two guiltier than him they try.

Shakespeare

A tragic heroine. That's what I thought of when Jennifer Spencer walked into the library about a week after she'd been released from the Special Holding Unit. She looked ravaged, an Antigone, with perhaps a pinch of Medea underneath. In other words, the rage was there too, but buried under the grief.

I know my literary allusions make me seem both a bluestocking and a heartless observer. Rest assured, I never share them with anyone. Not that there's anyone to tell. The point is, it's important in this place to keep one's thoughts to oneself and one's feelings small. Waste none of them on pity. But there are times when I am sympathetic, and this was one of those times.

Jennifer Spencer looked pounds thinner, years older, and hollow eyed, as if she'd glimpsed something horrific. And of
course, she had. She'd been in ‘the hole'. I remembered the last time she had come in here, when I'd been reading the JRU information and felt as if I were having a heart attack. She had tried to help me. Now our roles were reversed.

She approached my little table. ‘Movita asked me to come and talk to you,' she told me. ‘Is this a good time?'

I smiled. She may have faced the horror of prison, but she hadn't yet fathomed the meaninglessness of the word ‘time' here. Of all things, boredom is the greatest torture in prison. There is nothing to do for hours on end. Except for the endless daily head counts, lineups, and occasional lockdowns, all excruciating in their tediousness. Not to mention the hours and hours in your ‘house' – a cruel joke of a term – and finally the monotony of prison labor. Time is meaningless. ‘It's fine,' was all I said.

She lowered her voice. ‘She's told me about this JRU thing.'

‘I know.' Ever since I had read the report I had not been sleeping well. Or eating well. Or doing anything well, even breathing. I repeatedly called my sons, but I was afraid to speak about it openly (our pay phones are computer recorded and randomly monitored). At any rate, Bryce was in Hong Kong while Tyler was in London for business. They had both promised to visit as soon as they returned.

Jennifer stood there, clearly not comfortable. ‘She wants me to help.'

‘I know,' I said again.

She was displaying reluctance even to talk about it. ‘I'm not sure I should,' she said finally.

‘I see,' I said, making it clear by my tone that I didn't see at all. If anyone can spot denial and a resistance to being involved, it's me. After all, I lived denial through thirty
years of my marriage. And here at Jennings I'd been totally uninvolved for years. Oh, when I first came to the prison I tried to teach reading and set up child-care, GED, and other classes, but I gave up long ago. Now I could see that Jennifer Spencer had reluctantly accepted being stuck here at Jennings – at least for now – but she wasn't ready to get involved. She certainly wasn't going to start hatching plots with fellow inmates. I totally understood. But unfortunately we needed her. I knew what my role was, and I began to do it. ‘You might give it some thought,' I said blandly. ‘After all, what else have you to do?'

‘It's not that,' Jennifer said, lowering her eyes, ‘It's … well, you know where I was last week.'

‘Yes, I know.' I could see her shame. ‘I'm afraid you have the wrong impression of me,' I told her. ‘Maybe because I was a school headmistress and I've now become the staid librarian of Jennings.' I paused. ‘Sounds like an epic poem, doesn't it?
The Staid Librarian of Jennings.
' She looked at me and smiled, at least a bit. ‘Anyway, when I first arrived here, I was down in the hole so often that I was called “The Old Woman Who Lived in the SHU.”'

Jennifer looked at me in amazement. ‘No! What did you do? And how did you stand it?'

‘Oh, I don't know. I was adjusting, I guess. And for me the hole wasn't any worse than above ground. I had a lot of thinking I needed to do.' I looked at her. I believed Jennifer Spencer needed to do some thinking as well. I smiled. ‘Not to mention the fact that I was in such a rage at that time it was almost better for me to be alone.'

‘God,' Jennifer said. ‘I could never stand to go down there again.' Her lip trembled. ‘It was horrible. Horrible.' Then she paused. ‘Look, I don't expect to be here long. And
I'd like to help, but I never want to be put through that again. And I don't want to spend one more day here than I have to. Not one more day.'

I asked her to sit down. And I smiled at her before I began my lecture. ‘They won't put you down there for trying to do a little business deal. Warden Harding is humane. They can't. It's for contraband and violent offenders only.'

‘A little business?' Jennifer said. ‘What an understatement! And even if it's not violent, working in any way on this JRU thing is a SHU violation. Even the report is contraband.' She paused again. I could see she was a woman used to being in control of herself as well as others – or at least having that illusion. Losing that control had been decimating. ‘Look, I'm planning on being good. I want time off for good behavior.'

‘That's good behavior in the most passive sense,' I replied. ‘The kind of good behavior you're talking about is actually, according to ethicists, the opposite. The worst sin is for good people to stand by and do nothing when they see evil being done.'

I was surprised to see her face redden. Ah, guilt. The working class is rife with it, but I didn't think she would respond so readily. No doubt nuns had educated her. Worse than Jesuits. Of course, she was also still raw from the SHU.

‘Even if I help, there's not much I can do,' she protested. ‘I mean, I worked in the private sector. I have no government contacts and I'm not sure my lawyer …' She paused yet again. ‘Well, Hudson, Van Schaank has close contacts with the governor but …'

‘We don't know how or what we're trying to do yet,' I told her. ‘And it isn't all your responsibility. I've already
spoken to my sons and once they get back to the U.S. and hear about this they'll be willing to help. You know that they have … connections, and power. They may even add an air of respectability to the endeavor.'

‘That depends,' Jennifer said.

I was offended. There were those who accused my boys of playing fast and loose but Jennifer Spencer was in no position to throw stones at glass houses. ‘Why not? Aren't you being very negative?' I asked, trying not to get upset.

‘No. It's just that there's very little we or they can do. Look, I'll ask my contacts to find out all they can about JRU and I'll see if there's anything … shady or questionable about them. If we're lucky the CEO, Tarrington, is a declared Satan worshipper and the public will rise up and make it a political hot potato. But that's a long shot.' She turned to the door, as if to leave.

I sighed, the way I used to sigh at my students when I wanted more from them. I can be so manipulative, I thought as she turned around. But it was as much for her good as mine.

‘Jennifer – may I call you Jennifer?' She nodded. ‘Aren't you being incredibly selfish? Didn't Movita tell you what kind of changes JRU will impose? Doesn't the idea of what they're going to do scare you?'

Before the girl could respond I heard the heavy footsteps of Officer Byrd coming down the hall. ‘Shhh,' I whispered, and put my index finger up to my lips. ‘He's trouble.' Then I quickly sandwiched the papers in between two boxes of books that had to be reshelved.

‘How's the book business today, ladies?' Byrd asked as he stepped into the little room. Neither of us responded to him. ‘I think it's time for a little spring cleaning in here
don't you?' he asked as he started reaching for a book and then dropped it on the floor. ‘Oops,' he said and continued down the wall pulling out books and dropping them on the floor. He often liked to come in and toss part of the library, just for fun. I was used to it by now, but Jennifer froze in horror.

I gave Jennifer the look that meant ‘stay in your position'. Karl Byrd had an attitude and arrogance about him to the point of being repulsive. He went around the room disrupting everything from books to magazines to chairs. I eyed Jennifer when he got close to the boxes that hid the JRU papers. He took both hands and caressed the top of the box and looked right at the scared girl but she didn't look away from him. Then he moved his hands away from the box and went to the edges of a table and felt the underside of the wood. Jennifer tried not to show anxiety because, like a dog, Byrd could always smell fear. He ran his hands down two legs of the table and knocked it and its contents onto the floor. ‘I guess you ladies have some cleaning up to do in here,' he said with a sneer.

Once he was gone, we both sighed in relief. ‘That was a little too close for comfort,' I said.

‘He's such a jerk,' Jennifer said. ‘And if one thing is going to happen with this transition with JRU it had better be that he's removed from this facility. But none of this can be done single-handedly. It's obvious that the public wants prisons to cost nothing and warehouse monsters. I'm just one person. I can't change that.'

‘Look, you won't be doing this all on your own. Responsibility will be divided. And I think the main thing you have to remember is that if JRU gets a hold on this place, gets a
hold on
us
… well, we'll all wish we were down in the SHU. It's going to be much worse being up here.'

‘Listen, I'll ask my sources on the Street about JRU. I'll try to think of anything I can but I …' she trailed off, but I thought she was weakening and I pressed on.

‘That's all I ask. We can get you reassigned to be my assistant here in the library. And you can use the time to do research. I'll give you whatever help I can,' I volunteered.

‘All right,' she sighed, but I felt like dancing. Well, dancing as much as my arthritis would allow. Still, I managed to conceal my elation.

‘So, first – if you can stand it – reread that proposal and give me your notes,' Jennifer told me. ‘Anything about the prison that is incorrect, unlikely, or unlawful.'

‘Already done,' I smiled at her and pulled my notes from inside my copy of
Waiting
– a rather slow-moving but excellent novel by Ha Jin.

‘Fine,' she said, and took them, folded them as carefully as a kite and put them in her uniform. ‘I'll look for irregularities in the financing or management of JRU, and for unrealistic projections in their business plans.'

‘Good,' I said, and watched her leave. I sat there after she was gone, stunned for a moment. I was experiencing a kind of pleasure I hadn't felt in years. It was excitement. And even the tiniest bit of hope. I didn't know what, exactly, I was hoping for, but it felt good.