Running The Books : The Adventures Of An Accidental Prison Librarian Part 7

In one of her window-gazing a.s.signments, Poor noted that the prison looked like a hotel. Sometimes she liked to imagine that she was on a trip, staying in a nice hotel, waiting for room service, like in the movies. She'd never actually stayed in one. I was amazed at how many different perspectives could be brought out of one prison window.

As an introduction to these a.s.signments we read Plato's Allegory of the Cave from The Republic The Republic. Socrates imagines the world as a cave and all its human inhabitants as chained prisoners who "see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave." These prisoners' view of reality is fundamentally skewed, and yet they cannot realize it. In cla.s.s, we discussed this problem not as a general allegory but more literally, as a description of actual prison life. It wasn't hard for the prisoners in my cla.s.s to relate to the problem. They lived their lives right on the edge of the "seeing problem," as one of them described it.

And yet, this prison did have a few windows. The window writing a.s.signments turned out to be an addendum to Plato's seeing problem: that, given a window, a person's sense of sight might actually be heightened heightened in captivity. That's why some inmates refused to look. But those who did tended to see the world more vividly, and certainly differently, than a visitor to the prison. in captivity. That's why some inmates refused to look. But those who did tended to see the world more vividly, and certainly differently, than a visitor to the prison.

All of this served only to increase my curiosity about what Jessica was seeing.

So I asked her. It happened one afternoon after cla.s.s. I was reluctant to quiz her on it but she seemed to want to talk. We stood in front of the window. She pointed her son out to me. He was playing basketball. I asked how she knew it was really him. She had friends on the outside who knew the boy, she said. They'd told her he'd be showing up in prison.

She didn't write about him for cla.s.s, she told me, because she didn't trust the other women to "check their mouths." But she was happy to tell me. He hadn't changed at all. He'd been a happy child, friendly, physically precocious, affectionate, mischievous. Just from watching him in the yard, she could still see all of these qualities on display: the way he talked and laughed with the others. People seemed to like him. She'd always known he'd grow up to be that kind of guy. And he was so handsome. She choked up a bit. She thanked G.o.d that he was still a happy person after all he'd been through. She didn't want him to end up like her, in prison forever. That was all she could say. She cried.

And then, in a brutal, self-lacerating gesture, she swallowed up her emotions. There was something else she wanted to say. She dreamed about him. "In the dream," she told me, "he's playing basketball in the prison yard."

There is no one else there. He may or may not be wearing a prison uniform. It is a peaceful scene. The boy is in no rush. There is an indefinable sense of his somehow existing happily in this place. He glides in long, savory motions, as though skating gently over a frozen pond. The light is purplish and lush. He dribbles the basketball, fakes out invisible opponents, makes shots, misses shots, collects his own rebounds, leaps up-as though floating for a moment-and gently tips the ball into the hoop. It's like a dance. His body is pure joyful movement, unconstrained. The ball itself seems to move of its own volition, floats into and through his hands, weightless. The sound is the boy breathing, the ball bouncing, a satisfying rhythm. Inhale. Ball to pavement. Exhale. Ball to pavement. A deep humming silence as the ball arcs through darkness. And as the ball meets the net, a swoosh, like wind in trees. She hears it, feels it pa.s.s through her lips. His breath is her breath uniform. It is a peaceful scene. The boy is in no rush. There is an indefinable sense of his somehow existing happily in this place. He glides in long, savory motions, as though skating gently over a frozen pond. The light is purplish and lush. He dribbles the basketball, fakes out invisible opponents, makes shots, misses shots, collects his own rebounds, leaps up-as though floating for a moment-and gently tips the ball into the hoop. It's like a dance. His body is pure joyful movement, unconstrained. The ball itself seems to move of its own volition, floats into and through his hands, weightless. The sound is the boy breathing, the ball bouncing, a satisfying rhythm. Inhale. Ball to pavement. Exhale. Ball to pavement. A deep humming silence as the ball arcs through darkness. And as the ball meets the net, a swoosh, like wind in trees. She hears it, feels it pa.s.s through her lips. His breath is her breath.

That shared breathing sensation is familiar to her from dreams she'd had when she was pregnant with him, she said. Until now, she'd forgotten about those dreams. Every night she goes to sleep and prays that G.o.d will send her the breathing dream. Sometimes he does.

Skywriting Kites continued falling out of library books, bringing me messages almost by the hour. Eavesdropped bits. The occasional saga. Commentary on the latest prison incidents, geopolitical events. The notes also continued to fill gaps in my knowledge of prison culture.

Skywriting, for example. Starting from my first week in prison, I'd noticed the phenomenon, though I wasn't sure what it was. As I walked through the prison yard, I'd spied male inmates standing at their barred windows, furiously signaling skyward. The signals involved large sweeping hand motions-formal, almost nautical-that I later learned were letters scripted backward. I followed the invisible trajectory of these messages and found their recipients standing in barred windows way up in the Tower-the women inmates. Through the silent darkness of the prison night, there were at least five conversations soaring back and forth. This was skywriting, sometimes known as window-writing. Along with gambling, fighting, basketball, chess, and sending kites, it was the biggest prison pastime.

As with kites kites, the word skywriting skywriting had a poetic sound to it. Indeed the word sometimes appeared in inmate poetry. One of Nasty's haikus: had a poetic sound to it. Indeed the word sometimes appeared in inmate poetry. One of Nasty's haikus: cell in late winter skywriting to skinny dude darkness in the yard That darkness in the yard, together with backlighting from the cells, made skywriting a dramatic spectator sport. Or perhaps more like a puppet show or silent movie. It was a dialect as mesmerizing to observe as sign language. I often recognized the skywriters. But they rarely noticed me. Too busy reading the signals and responding, which, I was told, takes a great deal of concentration. Though aware of the existence of skywriting-anyone working the night shift would be-I could only guess what was being said.

That's where the kites helped. They were full of references to these nightly window dramas. As I learned by reading the kites, these airborne conversations were full of pa.s.sionate promises, jealousies, quarrels, and reconciliations. From the earliest inklings of courtship to the bitter residue of breakups.

Lady Dee to Bill, says: "Well let me say yes I was upset cause I thought you was writing someone else at the window, but who am I to get upset cause we're just friends." "Well let me say yes I was upset cause I thought you was writing someone else at the window, but who am I to get upset cause we're just friends."Another woman to Papa Duck: "One of my celly's just told me you were sky writing her in May, so know one thing my friend, I'm on to you Mr. Loyal!" "One of my celly's just told me you were sky writing her in May, so know one thing my friend, I'm on to you Mr. Loyal!" In case her point hadn't been clear enough, she concludes, In case her point hadn't been clear enough, she concludes, "Stay the f.u.c.k out the windows, I know everyone here." "Stay the f.u.c.k out the windows, I know everyone here."A woman of conflicted emotions: "You are so sweet to me I love you baby. Why are you talking smack in the window. I'll bite ya d.i.c.k off, don't play." "You are so sweet to me I love you baby. Why are you talking smack in the window. I'll bite ya d.i.c.k off, don't play."Mario to T-Baby: "I did see you in the window last night (Sunday July 23) again getting your flirt on. Why? Daddy ain't enough for you!!! You act as though I'm second hand smoke. Please check my pedigree. For the last time, I'm a thoroughbred. Well I trust & demand you got the message and the dumb s.h.i.t stops now. I know your window. It's the busiest window upstairs. You obviously ain't writing me because you ain't sure what cell window is mines yet or if it's me you've made contact with. And if you did notice me last week you couldn't understand me or I couldn't understand you because I'm new to this s.h.i.t and honestly if it weren't you upstairs I wouldn't play myself out with this window writing bulls.h.i.t!! My window writing skills suck so we must go slow and be patient with eachother until we get better. On Wednesday, we have a window date. Be there! f.u.c.k who's outside in the yard!;) Post up in your cell window. When I see you I'm gonna click my lights five times (5) and then shape two hearts. Wait for you to do the same back to me (5 clicks "I did see you in the window last night (Sunday July 23) again getting your flirt on. Why? Daddy ain't enough for you!!! You act as though I'm second hand smoke. Please check my pedigree. For the last time, I'm a thoroughbred. Well I trust & demand you got the message and the dumb s.h.i.t stops now. I know your window. It's the busiest window upstairs. You obviously ain't writing me because you ain't sure what cell window is mines yet or if it's me you've made contact with. And if you did notice me last week you couldn't understand me or I couldn't understand you because I'm new to this s.h.i.t and honestly if it weren't you upstairs I wouldn't play myself out with this window writing bulls.h.i.t!! My window writing skills suck so we must go slow and be patient with eachother until we get better. On Wednesday, we have a window date. Be there! f.u.c.k who's outside in the yard!;) Post up in your cell window. When I see you I'm gonna click my lights five times (5) and then shape two hearts. Wait for you to do the same back to me (5 clicks, 2 hearts). Feel me! Then to be exactly sure it's us and to throw off any possible pranksters & haters who may be playing the window after you signal me back I'll do two more clicks and one more heart and wait for you to do the same (2 clicks, 1 heart) and then you'll be sure it's me and we can start to show love." 2 hearts). Feel me! Then to be exactly sure it's us and to throw off any possible pranksters & haters who may be playing the window after you signal me back I'll do two more clicks and one more heart and wait for you to do the same (2 clicks, 1 heart) and then you'll be sure it's me and we can start to show love."A lady: "I like putting on a show for you, but I hope you know I ain't just a show, daddy." "I like putting on a show for you, but I hope you know I ain't just a show, daddy."Killa Kim, who is actually a killer, reflecting on a past window love: "I really did fall for him hard. But I couldn't stay out of the window forever." "I really did fall for him hard. But I couldn't stay out of the window forever."On page 9 of his letter, one of Killa Kim's numerous pen pals indulges in some window nostalgia: "I'm thinking about the closeness we share and all the good times we've spent in the window." "I'm thinking about the closeness we share and all the good times we've spent in the window."Shaheed: "Please don't deny that you ain't been in the window talkin please. I was in the yard waiting and I KNEW you were there in the window looking. Now, any other time you'd be there signaling your a.s.s off, but today nothing. But you know what, I understand, your friend may get mad. It's cool." "Please don't deny that you ain't been in the window talkin please. I was in the yard waiting and I KNEW you were there in the window looking. Now, any other time you'd be there signaling your a.s.s off, but today nothing. But you know what, I understand, your friend may get mad. It's cool."Lauren to Baby Boy: "If you sit on the last bench near the 4 bldg. gate I can see you. I'm the second window from your left when you look up at the towers." "If you sit on the last bench near the 4 bldg. gate I can see you. I'm the second window from your left when you look up at the towers."A pimp: "I ain't with that window writing s.h.i.t, leave that for those n.i.g.g.as who got nothing better to do." "I ain't with that window writing s.h.i.t, leave that for those n.i.g.g.as who got nothing better to do."Iyssyss to Big w.i.l.l.y, on a change of address: "Oh, and babe, just to let you know I moved out of the window. I am in the brown unit now. 1-11-1. So, holla!" "Oh, and babe, just to let you know I moved out of the window. I am in the brown unit now. 1-11-1. So, holla!"Again, Shaheed: "Anyhow baby how can you question my fidelity? Don't you know I ain't studdin none of those women in the window. So they telling you I'm saying 'let me c'? See what?! They out of shape a.s.ses need to stop. It ain't nothing to 'c'. Like I told you already, they envy what we got. They don't understand or comprehend how what we have is very real. It ain't window talk & just something to do." "Anyhow baby how can you question my fidelity? Don't you know I ain't studdin none of those women in the window. So they telling you I'm saying 'let me c'? See what?! They out of shape a.s.ses need to stop. It ain't nothing to 'c'. Like I told you already, they envy what we got. They don't understand or comprehend how what we have is very real. It ain't window talk & just something to do."A worried woman: "I guess this will give us time to work on ourselves cause G.o.d knows I was real busy in the window! I might lose my child to DSS for crissakes. I need to get my head together." "I guess this will give us time to work on ourselves cause G.o.d knows I was real busy in the window! I might lose my child to DSS for crissakes. I need to get my head together."K*Shine to Lady D: "You just opened up to me on Sunday the day we was dancing in the window." "You just opened up to me on Sunday the day we was dancing in the window."Killa Kim on evolutionary selection in skywriting: "He wasn't good at skywriting. I couldn't understand a word he said. He's not as good at it as you daddy." "He wasn't good at skywriting. I couldn't understand a word he said. He's not as good at it as you daddy."Prison Windows: A Short History Like everything in prison, window-gazing has a long history. In the old days, prisons were designed to bring the attention of inmates toward a focus in the yard. Based on the design of monasteries, some eighteenth-century prisons placed an altar or a chapel at the center of the yard. Some prison cells had no windows at all, only a long shaft that blocked out everything from view-everything but the altar.

This was intended as an object lesson: criminals are alone in the world, cut off in the dark cell of their sin. But not completely. The way of G.o.d and repentance was represented literally as the single tunnel out, the sole source of light. This was also intended to remind these sinners that G.o.d, in turn, was still watching them. As far as a prisoner in one of these cells could see, G.o.d-or the Church-was the only only thing that still existed in the outside world. thing that still existed in the outside world.

In later prisons, a governor's house or some creepy all-seeing eye-a guard booth-was placed in the yard. This was both a security measure and a reminder to the inmate that a dread sovereign stood over him, that this ever-present ruler watched him, that he could be free if, and only if, he'd bend to the ruler's laws. These concrete symbols of G.o.d or the State and, in some cases, both, were placed directly at the focal point of the prison. These prisons had clearly delineated visual centers.

At the prison where I worked, which was typical of the modern American prison, the center of the yard was anch.o.r.ed neither by an altar, a governor's residence, or a guard booth. Instead, there was a basketball court.

It wasn't clear what this was supposed to symbolize. Or, in what direction it was meant to turn the mind of an inmate. Perhaps it was an example of moral neutrality: the prison's job is not to offer any object lesson nor to impose any sense of dread, but only to allow you to stay healthy while in custody. Or perhaps it was a sign of the modern prison's ident.i.ty crisis-it doesn't know what its job is. It has no core. Or perhaps the basketball court was not intended to arouse any feeling, but the opposite: to lull, to distract.

The basketball court at the center of the prison yard struck me as a failure of imagination. But for some inmates, this wasn't so. These courts were, after all, their Nature. Their only earth and sky. The place where seasons were observed, if not quite experienced. By default, the prison basketball court figured into the imagination of some inmates, and often appeared in writings and drawings. For Ming, a recent addition to the inmate library staff, the court was a recurring image in his poetry. Most notably in his poem Sightseeing: Sightseeing: The sightseers in us like the way the rain or sun keeps coming down- outside the alarm-rigged windows, the pigeons will not fly, and without their uniforms on briefly my fellow convicts leap toward the hoop, crowned by rings of sweat, the heated plumes of youth unfurling at gunpoint.

But it was Jessica, and her vivid G.o.dsent dreams, who had the most immediate stake in the imaginative properties of the prison basketball court. Her prison was built around a focal point; her prison yard had a definite center. From a window in the prison tower she beheld not a symbol of the Church, but a son. Her lost son. An altar would have been superfluous.

Sabbath Children During my supper break, I take a walk outside. I brave the sallyport, the heavy security doors, and make my way to the front of the prison. It is a chilly Friday night. The sun, like all day-shifters, rushes toward night. Even though I don't observe the Sabbath, this remains a spiritually charged moment, when workaday concerns vanish, when the vicious voices and petty falsehoods of the week glide away, and a divine breath drifts over the world, caressing all of creation. If one is tranquil enough, one will feel it. Even in my skepticism I can't deny it. I still make a habit of being outside to receive it.

I cross the treacherous highway interchange. An ambulance wails helplessly in traffic-it is stuck behind a hea.r.s.e. Some drivers think this is funny. Some don't. I walk past the Boston Medical Center and into the South End, a rough Boston neighborhood that continues to gentrify. By day, the park on Washington Street is full of nannies pushing fertility-treatment twins and triplets. In the evening, children are attended by parents. By night, the park is given over to fiends and hookers.

I arrive at dusk. The park is full of young families. A pack of neighborhood hipsters-whose clothing lends them the look of nineteenth century circus performers-loiter by the gate.

A thirtysomething man in a gray wool suit, a young attorney type, paces. His muscular greyhound, who appears to be wearing a sweater set, is leashed to a park bench.

"Honey," I hear him say into his cell, "we both know you weren't a good wife, but that's water under the bridge, okay? But please don't take this out on our son."

Later I see him blow up at his misbehaving dog and pull it violently into submission.

I see a mother speak to her early tween daughter as though they are compet.i.tive girlfriends. "Why were you shy when you were talking to that man?" asks the daughter. Her mother gets defensive: "I wasn't shy," she says, "why were you you shy?" shy?"

A young yuppie family wheels by, a father, mother, and one-year-old in a thousand-dollar stroller that appears to have anti-lock brakes. I hear the mother say to the child, "We're going to make a big big circle around the park-Wow-wee!" She claps ecstatically. I don't know whether this gesture is touching or unspeakably grim. I decide to call it even. On the other side of the park, a seven-year-old in a tutu is overtaken by a spirit: she runs full speed, leaps onto a park bench, howls mightily at the moon, and then rushes back to mommy. The young professionals take this as a sign. They relinquish the park to the fiends for the night. circle around the park-Wow-wee!" She claps ecstatically. I don't know whether this gesture is touching or unspeakably grim. I decide to call it even. On the other side of the park, a seven-year-old in a tutu is overtaken by a spirit: she runs full speed, leaps onto a park bench, howls mightily at the moon, and then rushes back to mommy. The young professionals take this as a sign. They relinquish the park to the fiends for the night.

Back at the prison, I stand at the top of the outdoor stairs, taking in a last fresh breath. A toddler comes over to inspect me. In his tiny one-piece winter suit, his giant eyes peering at me through a tightly pinched hood, he resembles a little s.p.a.ce explorer, roving a strange and foreign territory. And so he is. He examines my shoelace for a bit, and perhaps likes what he sees, because he smiles broadly. He continues on his journey, and discovers a fascinating discarded lottery ticket.

The line in front of the prison has swelled considerably in the thirty minutes since I began my walk. A ma.s.s of worried people, like refugees trying to cross a border. For many, these visits are a complex ritual, often political in nature, a single mother's diplomatic mission to secure a reliable ally in her man. While children from my community sit in marble synagogues in other parts of the city, followed by a warm Shabbat dinner at home, these children wait in the cold to visit a mother or father, or both, in a steel and concrete prison.

About now in the synagogues, the congregations are singing.

L'kha dodi l'krat kallah...Go my beloved, the Bride to meet, the face of Shabbat, let us greet...

Here the line moves forward a few inches.

Standing apart from the crowd, on the side of the steps toward the prison tower, is a young mother. It is unclear at first why she is standing there. Suddenly, she lifts a tightly swaddled infant over her head, as though presenting the child to the tower itself, offering her baby up to some remote mountain deity. The contrast is startling: the baby, limb-heavy and soft as wet cotton, hoisted up against the cold wind and a tower that bears down ma.s.sively. It's almost as though she's trying to make a point about the overwhelming fragility of this creature in her hands. For a moment, I fear, irrationally, for the infant's life, as if it's about to be crushed by the tower.

It is now dark. Inmates are visible in the building, floor by floor, moving about, the fluorescence of their cells matches the frigid light of the moon. I notice an inmate near the top of the tower, stirring. He stands as a distant silhouette in his window, one arm up in a sort of salute, as though skywriting in slow motion. From this distance, he seems almost as small as the baby, and as helpless against the weight of the tower. The silhouette man lowers his arm, which is the woman's cue, I suppose, to lower their baby. She nestles the infant safely back into his warm nook. Covers him fussily. His kindergarten-aged sister leans, sleeping as she stands, wedged between her mother and the stroller.

There are children everywhere in prison. Even before my first day of work, when I sat guiltily in the lobby, waiting to take my drug test, I'd noticed them playing, unaware of the adult solemnity of the surroundings. The children that day had been busy devising games, sporting events, entire Olympiads designed especially for that s.p.a.ce. I watched as a little girl-whom I took as a prison lobby veteran-took the hand of another and showed her the best places to hide, initiating her as a member of the prison lobby gang. By now, she herself was probably a veteran.

And since then, I'd seen hundreds more. And not just in the lobby, or waiting outside, but inside the prison itself. During my first month at work, a prison shrink cautioned me, casually over lunch in the staff cafeteria, to be aware of juvenile behavior among inmates. Regardless of their actual ages, she said, a surprising number of inmates were the emotional age of children. The result, she said, of a lifetime suffering abuse, physical, emotional, s.e.xual-a profile that was so common among inmates, especially women, that it was almost the norm. I had been skeptical of the shrink's ma.s.s diagnosis.

But it was hard to ignore daily instances of stunted behavior. I learned that even a hardened criminal capable of murder was equally capable of dissolving into a terrified child under the slightest pressure. Although machismo veiled these impulses somewhat among the men, immature behaviors were present in a variety of small actions: childish pranks, fibbing, attention seeking, acting out. I recognized a childlike earnestness in the inmate, aged thirty-six, who pleaded with me to give him tape so that he could stick his name, which he had printed out in a colorful, calligraphic font, to his school folder.

Play took on many different forms. Through a hallway window I once witnessed male inmates clutching dolls during a cla.s.s. After the lesson was over and the inmates had dispersed, I popped my head into the cla.s.sroom and asked the teacher, "What was that that all about?" all about?"

She'd borrowed the dolls from the prison's parenting cla.s.s, where they're used for demonstrations. But in this cla.s.s, the teacher told me, the dolls served no direct educational function.

"They're just there for the guys to play with," she said, as if this made perfect sense.

Apparently, some of the men simply liked holding the dolls, pretending to care for them, to change their diapers. They made a joke of it, used it as a way to flirt with her. But even after the joke was over, they'd keep the dolls in their laps as they worked on their school material. They handled the dolls with excessive care, she told me, and placed them gently onto the desk as though they were actual infants. The teacher believed that the inmates felt more comfortable engaging in this type of playacting around her, a woman.

"I have to laugh about it," said the teacher, shaking her head, "otherwise I'd definitely cry."

But with the women inmates, these kinds of revealing behaviors were not subtle at all. They were impossible to miss. Almost every night in the library, a woman inmate would demonstrate some variety of childlike behavior: crying helplessly when a problem with a simple solution arose; writing a note, riddled with misspellings, in big curly letters; talking in a toddler's voice when she wanted me to do her a favor; painful shyness; hyperactivity; clumsy lying; squabbling over whose turn it was to talk to me. In the library, I saw a murderer suck her thumb. I broke up games of tag. And this was all reinforced by the structure of prison, where inmates have about as much control over their lives as children. And yet, almost all are parents.

Many inmates, especially women, felt comfortable in the library, one of the least prison-like s.p.a.ces in the facility-and, whether I liked it or not, their need for child play would manifest itself on my watch. This was yet another unexpected use of the library s.p.a.ce.

Outside, during my dinner break that Friday night, the line of visitors is calm. The prison is about to change its visiting policy from an open first come, first served policy to a policy of advance reservations made only by certain designated people. Each inmate will be allowed visits from a list of three people, plus attorneys. This is to help curb long lines and to ensure that children aren't hanging around prison after bedtime, like tonight. But mostly it's aimed at ending the era of fistfights in the lobby between women visitors who hold conflicting claims of wifey-hood or babymom-dom babymom-dom to a particular man. to a particular man.

The service in the synagogues is wrapping up with the kiddush: And on the seventh day He completed His work And on the seventh day He completed His work. Somewhere in town, my friend Yoni is having a beer with friends, celebrating the completion of his contract working in prison. The woman in front of the tower with the stroller is gone. The toddler s.p.a.ce explorer is asleep in his mother's arms, next in line to enter the prison.

That's where I am headed, too. Time to go back into the library and greet the women inmates from the tower. I pin my badge back to my shirt, cut the giant line of tired refugees, pa.s.s through the lobby, wink at Sully, the prison night guard, slip through the metal detector, and wait for the heavy door to roll open.

The Church "It took me years to realize what I did to Chrissy."

Jessica leaned over the library counter and whispered to me. The escort officers had just arrived.

For some reason she always began major conversations with only minutes to go before the end of her library period. Perhaps this was a deliberate effort to unburden herself without having to go through with a conversation.

A week earlier she'd come to me with a minute left and told me about the first time she went to court. She'd been a precocious seventeen-year-old with a fake ID. She'd turned a few tricks to earn the two hundred bucks necessary to buy a certain dress. "Took me one night to get the money," she said. "I was a f.u.c.king r.e.t.a.r.d, though, you know? I wanted to see if I had the guts to do it. It was in New York. Fleet Week. I figured, what the f.u.c.k, I'll probably end up with one of them guys anyways. That's why I was going down there. Might as well make a little on the side." Because it was Fleet Week, the police were cracking down.

In jail, she began perseverating, obsessing over the question of how to address the judge.

"So," she said, "I'm in this holding cell, right, going f.u.c.kin' nuts. I've never been in this much trouble. And for soliciting! soliciting! Holy s.h.i.t. I was a kid who hung out with the wrong people, mouthed off. Shoplifted a little. Was into some really bad drugs. But this was a new one for me. And so far away from home." She kept fixating on the question of what to call the judge. Holy s.h.i.t. I was a kid who hung out with the wrong people, mouthed off. Shoplifted a little. Was into some really bad drugs. But this was a new one for me. And so far away from home." She kept fixating on the question of what to call the judge.

Sir?

Judge?

Do I use his name?

Isn't there another one I'm not thinking of?

There is. f.u.c.k.

She'd heard it on the People's Court People's Court once. She'd never watched that much TV. Television was corny, the street was much more entertaining. But now she couldn't remember what they called that old judge guy. She fell asleep and had anxiety dreams about her teeth getting yanked with a wrench. When she woke up she asked an older woman inmate what to call the judge. The other woman laughed at her. once. She'd never watched that much TV. Television was corny, the street was much more entertaining. But now she couldn't remember what they called that old judge guy. She fell asleep and had anxiety dreams about her teeth getting yanked with a wrench. When she woke up she asked an older woman inmate what to call the judge. The other woman laughed at her. Don't call him an a.s.shole. They don't like it Don't call him an a.s.shole. They don't like it. But when she saw the girl was distressed, she gave her a break.

"'Your Honor,' hon, call the judge, 'Your Honor.'"

"What if he's a chick," Jessica recalls asking.

"Whatever's up there, wearing a robe? You call, Your Honor. Your Honor Your Honor. Your Honor. Just say that and you'll be fine."

When Jessica got into the court she was shaking so hard it was difficult to stand. She was asked to plead. This was the moment. She hesitated for a long painful second. And then another. Everyone stopped to stare. The court stenographer shot her a glance. She'd forgotten what to call the judge.

Wait, no. She remembered.

"Your Highness, I..."

The court erupted in laughter. She heard her court-appointed defender mutter, "He wishes." wishes." The judge's face softened into a sympathetic smile. She'd messed up-that was clear. But she was too distraught to stop. Again, she tried. The judge's face softened into a sympathetic smile. She'd messed up-that was clear. But she was too distraught to stop. Again, she tried.

"Your Highness, I..."

That was more than anyone could handle. "The judge almost had to clear the court," recalls Jessica, "there was so much laughing. The cops, the lawyers, the typing lady, the tranny hookers, the f.u.c.kin' dopefiends, okay, all f.u.c.kin' laughing their a.s.ses off." Later, she'd slipped and called him "Your Highness" again. But that time, she'd quickly corrected herself.

"But, tell you what," Jessica said to me, "it was the best defense I ever had. I got off with a warning."

That had been the comic version of her experience with crime and punishment. That night, with two minutes to go in the library period, she wanted to tell the other version.

With Chris, there'd been warnings, she told me. One Friday night, when she was rolling on any pill she could get her hands on, plus some Jameson to make it interesting, she'd left the boy with a babysitter, a girl her age whom she had met in a court-mandated NA meeting. One problem: the babysitter herself was f.u.c.ked up that night. So f.u.c.ked up she didn't notice the toddler run out of the house. Didn't notice his absence until 3 a.m., when he'd already been gone hours. A neighbor found Chris crouching at the side of a street. The boy was mute. After he calmed down, Chris asked for "Mumum." Jessica returned at about 11 a.m. The neighbor didn't report her. But she'd got the message.

Then one morning Jessica woke up, unsure that she'd been asleep. Her consciousness was often so hazy it was hard to tell. She was still high from the night before, and the day before that, and the night before that. She didn't remember going to sleep. But she remembers waking up and knowing, Today is the day Today is the day.

On the back of a used piece of gift-wrapping, she scrawled a note. Laid out the facts in brief, without dwelling on emotions. I'm a junkie I'm a junkie, she wrote. That's not going to change That's not going to change. She was eighteen, barely in touch with her family. They didn't even know about the kid. She loved her son, but it wasn't enough for him. He's a good boy He's a good boy, she wrote, Please give him a good home. G.o.d bless Please give him a good home. G.o.d bless. She didn't sign it in any form.

She and Chris took the T to a rich neighborhood on the other side of town. They went for a walk. Played on a jungle gym. Rode down the slide together. The boy got tired. And that was the idea. She slipped into a church and took a seat in the back. She laid the sleeping child on a pew, with the note slipped into his pocket.

Within half an hour, she was waiting to board a bus at South Station. She bought a Greyhound ticket with the little money she'd sc.r.a.ped together-she had been planning this for weeks. By nightfall, she was in New York. By daybreak, she was in Tallaha.s.see. She wanted a whole new landscape, new trees, new architecture, new accents. Never wanted to see New England again, wanted to pretend it didn't exist, had never existed.

"I was so f.u.c.ked up and confused," she told me, "I felt I I was abandoned. I really did." was abandoned. I really did."

Months later, in a moment of lucidity, it finally sunk in: What happened in the church that day didn't happen to her, it happened to him. It wasn't she who was abandoned. When this finally occurred to her, she stopped feeling sorry and began instead to hate herself. She almost jumped off a bridge in Tampa. Her sense of victimhood had been the only thing keeping her alive. She'd committed many crimes already in her life. But abandoning her child was by far the worst-and it was the only one she hadn't been punished for. Of course, this itself was a form of punishment.

"There's no forgiveness for endangering a kid and then leaving him," she told me. "I kept thinking, his skin, his skin, his skin his skin, his skin, his skin. His skin was so soft. I imagined, I imagined bad things happening to that soft skin, his chubby little hands, how I wasn't there to protect him. Nothing's gonna make that right."

The officer entered the library. "That's a wrap," he shouted. Our conversation was over. I watched Jessica get into line. As the officers started their count, the other inmates chatted loudly, joked, bawled each other out. On the concrete, steel, and linoleum of the hall outside of the library, the din of their voices was almost deafening.

Inmates are counted repeatedly throughout the day. Sometimes an officer does his count gently, almost tenderly. But some do their count with a frustration that verges on rage-not necessarily at the inmates, but at the interminable nature of the count itself.

On that night the officer counted the inmates with undisguised hostility. And while most inmates deflected it, tuned it out, Jessica stood in line, silently absorbing the hatred. She didn't speak to anybody, n.o.body spoke to her. She wouldn't have a relationship with anyone around her-this would require her to divert her focus from the past, and this was impossible. She would remain alone and unforgiven.

The closest she got to a friend was her cellmate, a tiny Vietnamese woman who spoke not a word of English. The inability to communicate was essential to their relationship. They'd play cards silently for hours, she told me. Occasionally, accidentally, they'd exchange a shy smile.

The officer finished his count. Shut. Up Shut. Up. I could hear him shout from behind the library door. The women fell silent. The train rolled down the hall, through the yard, back to the 1-Building, and then up to the tower.

The Flowers Bring the Dogs I recognized Chris from the time Jessica had pointed him out. He was not a library regular. The one time he'd visited, to pick up a legal form, he'd been awkward, almost reverent. Like he was holding his breath the entire time. He was no prison nerd. The shelves of books spooked him. In the library, he was nothing like the guy's guy of the prison yard.

Occasionally I'd walk past him out there. From up close I could see certain details not evident from up on the eleventh floor. The pained concentration in his face when he played basketball, as though his life depended on how well he shot the ball. There was little enjoyment in it. He'd labor hard to run up and down the court. He'd get winded, rest his hands heavily on his hips during breaks. And was brutal with himself if he missed a play. He took the game more seriously, more personally, than most of the other inmates.

When he wasn't playing, he'd goof off aggressively, systematically, with whomever would tolerate him. A small gesture spoke volumes: two fellow inmates exchanged a knowing look after he'd left off chatting with them-one leaning in and whispering something to the other. Were Chris's efforts at socializing making him as many enemies as friends? He was trying too hard to fit in.

When I pa.s.sed him in the yard, I instinctively glanced up at the prison tower. From down there, the dark window where Jessica watched him during my cla.s.s was more than just nondescript. It seemed inconsequential. Remote. There was some part of me that wanted to walk up to Chris and point out the window, explain its significance. To bring the thing into focus. Wouldn't he want to know? Or perhaps he'd just be creeped out by the whole business. He was, after all, being watched by a near stranger. Two, as a matter of fact. I didn't know him, and had only a staff-inmate relationship with Jessica. It wasn't my place to meddle. And anyway I had other things on my mind, my own family drama.

My mother was about to fly to California to visit her mother on her deathbed-for the fifth time. Or maybe it was the sixth. I'd lost count. When is she going to die already When is she going to die already, I thought. It was a cruel thought. I wasn't proud of it.

I'd seen my grandmother, Fay, only a few times in my life. My formative encounter came when I was eight years old. In my grade-school presumptuousness, I'd asked if I could take full possession of her silver dollar collection. She barely regarded the question and flicked me away like a gnat. No No. Then I asked if I could have just one silver dollar. Again, No No. Then I asked her if I could hold one coin for just a moment. Finally, she turned to me and gave me her full attention.

"When I die," she said in her thick Polish Yiddish accent, eyes bulging and finger wagging, "you can dance dance on my grave with them!" on my grave with them!"

It took me roughly a decade to see the humor in this comment. And then a few more years to sense the tragedy. At eight years old, however, it was much simpler: it filled me with horror. To me, a young American kid, my grandmother was a hideous demon who had emerged from the flames of the shtetl to curse our happy, safe lives in the New World. She'd survived death in all its European forms-typhus, pogroms, revolutions, world wars-for the sole purpose, it seemed to me, of blowing death's secondhand smoke into our faces. Why was this grown woman so protective of her silver dollars? What did my request for her coins have to do with her grave? And why did she command me to remove a Michael Jordan poster and call him that schvartzer that schvartzer when she knew he was my hero? when she knew he was my hero?

My mother's feelings toward my grandmother were, of course, much sharper, and complicated by feelings of a daughter's love and compa.s.sion. Fay had been a harsh and often unforgiving mother. She'd kept her house immaculately, terrifyingly clean and free of any ornamentation. Her food was bland. Her children called her "Mother." She banned friends from the house and kicked out those who'd slipped in. My grandmother dished out the emotional abuse, which was constant, and delegated the physical abuse to my grandfather, a good-natured but pa.s.sive man who obeyed his wife's orders to beat the children.

When I'd asked my mother to tell me about Fay's life, she'd take a deep breath and tell me what she knew. That Fay's mother, a saintly woman, had time for everyone but her daughter. What my mother knew, or cared to remember, often came in the form of isolated facts. Fay read the newspaper cover to cover, she told me. I always got the feeling that her internal world wasn't known to my mother, and that it was better left that way. Glimpses into Fay's soul mostly disturbed my mother. Why, for example, had she once advised my mother to not hug my sister, then a toddler, and wondered aloud why my mother verbally expressed love toward this child? For my mother, this was a shattering insight into her own unloved upbringing by this woman. And it wasn't just love that went unexpressed. There were other things that could not be discussed.

"I would have to beg her to tell me about her life in Poland," my mother once told me. "She would begin to tell a story, but as soon as she mentioned anyone's name, she would cut it off and say, 'But what does it matter? Hitler killed all of them.' Every story was like that."

For my grandmother, who escaped Poland as the clouds gathered on the n.a.z.i invasion, storytelling was something worse than painful. It was a simple impossibility. As far as she was concerned, there were no stories. Stories develop, move in some direction. Stories have endings, need need endings. Tragedies have a final act that implicitly allows the storyteller and the listener to believe that even cruel deaths retain some value-namely, their worth as a story for the living. endings. Tragedies have a final act that implicitly allows the storyteller and the listener to believe that even cruel deaths retain some value-namely, their worth as a story for the living.

"I am dead, Horatio," says the tragic Hamlet. "Tell my story."

My grandmother did not believe in this. For her, murder ended more than life. It ended the possibility of telling the life's story. "He has my dying voice," says Hamlet, "the rest is silence." Even in life my grandmother didn't have a voice, just silence.

As a child my mother was not satisfied with this silence. She wanted to know. She'd sneak into her mother's room in search of clues. Hidden in her mother's drawers were photos full of mysterious people, mostly cheerful girls. My grandmother's girlfriends and cousins. When my mother asked Fay about the people in the photos, she would begin a story and then cut it off. It doesn't matter, they were all murdered It doesn't matter, they were all murdered. And that was it. When my mother persisted, Fay pointed to one of the smiling girls in the photos and told her young daughter that the n.a.z.is had hanged this girl in a well by her pigtails. This was the only detail she would divulge. The only one that mattered.

A few years before she died, I visited my grandmother at her nursing home in Northern California. She was very frail and had mellowed considerably. But she never lost her edge. I asked her how she was enjoying the surroundings, the nicest weather in the known universe. She shrugged dismissively. I suggested she walk in a nearby garden, resplendent in gorgeous plants. She glanced skeptically at the garden and said, with her pitch-perfect comic timing, "The flowers bring the dogs." My grandmother was terrified of dogs.