Orange is the New Black - Страница 57

Visiting hours were very short in Chicago. I sat nervously watching the clock. The Jansen sisters sat nervously watching me. “He’ll be here,” they assured me. It was sort of touching how invested in his visit they were, how they had started to talk about Larry as if they knew him. I felt bad that Hester/Anne’s husband was not able to come visit her in Chicago -he lived not far from the prison where she was serving her seven-year sentence.

After over an hour of the visiting time had elapsed, I was beside myself. I knew what was happening. The morons who ran the MCC had turned him away. I was sure of it-these people were completely incompetent in every way I had observed so far; why on earth would visitation be any different? I was beaten and furious, a horrible combination.

And then the security door opened, and a CO walked in and conferred with the CO on duty in the unit. “ Kerman!”

I bolted across the room.

When I finally got into the big, dirty visiting room, I felt calmer. There were a lot of prisoners with their families in there, and at first I didn’t see Larry, but when I did, I felt faint. I hugged him, and he looked a little faint too.

“You wouldn’t believe what they put me through. These people are just unreal!” he almost shouted. We sat where we were told, facing each other on molded plastic chairs. I felt truly calm for the first time since I left Danbury.

The remaining hour flew by. We talked about how on earth I was going to get home, what was going to happen. “We’ll figure it out, babe,” he soothed me, squeezing my hand.

When the guards called “time,” I wanted to cry. After I kissed Larry goodbye, I practically backed out of the room so I could see him as long as possible. And then I was being herded into a room with a handful of female prisoners. Everyone had the postvisit glow of happiness, and they all looked a lot better for it.

“Piper, you had a visit?” someone asked.

“Yeah, my fiancé came to see me.” I grinned like a fool.

“He came all the way from New York to see you? Wow!” It was as if he had come from the moon.

I just nodded. I didn’t want to be boastful of my great fortune to have a man like Larry.

I HAD been hearing about the roof since I got to the MCC. Apparently there was a recreation area up on the top of the building, and when the weather was agreeable, an officer might bring us up there. I had been indoors for weeks now; I was dreaming about the track and the lake at Danbury every night. Finally one day it was announced that we could sign up for roof time. As many women crammed into the elevator as could fit. At the top there were nylon coats we could throw on, and then we were out, high in the sky, albeit caged under razor and chicken wire. There were a couple of basketball hoops up there, and the temperature was in the forties. I immediately got hiccups from the oxygen differential and just breathed as deeply as I could. The roof reflected the building’s triangular footprint, and you could see far in every direction. In one direction were railway yard tracks. A nearby building had a fabulous art deco statue at its pinnacle. And to the southeast I could see the lake.

I walked to the south side of the rec deck, which was fenced with black iron. The bars were wide enough apart that I could wedge my face between them. I stared out at the lake, scanning the city below me.

“Hey! Nora. Come here!”

“What?” She came over.

I pointed through the bars. “Isn’t that the Congress Hotel?”

She stared through the bars for a moment, trying to find the spot where she had packed a suitcase full of money for me to carry, more than ten years before. “I think you’re right. You are right. Jesus.”

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

“What a dump.”

THE TRIAL finally began. Jonathan Bibby, the guy who had taught Nora how to smuggle drugs way back when, claimed that he had been an innocent art dealer who happened to hang out with a lot of convicted drug smugglers. But the feds had detailed evidence against him, including records of him traveling to Africa on the same flights as Nora, Hester/Anne, and others. Hester/Anne was taken away to appear in court first. She had known the defendant for years. She came back teary-eyed; the defense attorney had ripped her apart.

Nora went out next. I remembered that George Freud was somewhere in the building; I figured there was no way they weren’t calling other codefendants as well. On February 14 I was called to R &D. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” cracked Nora. She had no idea how close to drowning she was.

My escorts to court this time were older, burlier, and more confident. They were also solicitous. “Is there anything we can get you, Piper?”

I was stumped by that one. I didn’t smoke. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to give me scotch. “I would love a good cup of coffee?”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

I had never seen Jonathan Bibby until I was marched into the courtroom in my best orange jumpsuit and stepped into the witness box. Yet I spent what seemed like hours on the stand recounting my own experience, while the jury listened. I wondered what they made of what they were hearing. All of the defense attorney’s questions to me centered on Nora, so it was obvious that she was the star witness. I truly hated testifying for the government, but I was also pretty peeved that this jackass didn’t have the good grace to plead guilty as his codefendants had and spare us all this hassle and discomfort.

On my ride home my escorts pulled over under the El. One of them hopped out and returned with a piping-hot cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. He uncuffed me. “There’s sugar and cream in there, I wasn’t sure how you take it.”

They sat in the front seat and smoked while I enjoyed every sip of that coffee. I listened to the roar of the train above and watched people going about their lives on the street. I wondered if this was as weird as it was going to get.

When it was all over-the jury found Bibby guilty-no one felt good. All I wanted to do was go back to real prison, meaning Danbury. And then go home.

WITHIN THE stifling women’s unit, Crystal “the mayor” made an effort to maintain a faint semblance of prison protocol. Of course, this involved the Lord. Crystal was a big fan and liked to listen to a local minister’s daily morning TV broadcast turned way up loud. She was a much more persistent proselytizer than any prisoner I had known in Danbury. Every week she would swing by when they called for the church group to go out of the unit, Bible in hand. “Coming to church, ladies?”

The Jansen girls would scowl. Although Hester/Anne had been born again, she shared my distaste for prison religious ceremonies. “No thanks, Crystal.”

She wasn’t giving up easily. I figured you had to fight fire with fire. The next time they called us for gym time, I went looking for Crystal.

“You coming to the gym, Crystal?”

Looking at me as if I had lost my rabbit-ass mind, she squawked with outrage, “What? Gym? You won’t find me in no gym, Piper. Tire myself out!”

That Sunday she was back, optimistic as ever. “You comin’ to church, Piper? It’s a good one this week!”

“I tell you what, Crystal. You go on to church, and I’m gonna ask you to pray for me. And this week when I go down to the gym, I’m gonna work out for you. Is that a deal?”

She thought that was the funniest thing she had heard in months. She cackled all the way out the door. From then on, whenever they called our respective faiths to action, we would sing out to each other:

“Work it out for me, Piper!”

“Pray for me, Crystal!”

I CORNERED the unit manager in his office during his once-a-week appearance on the women’s floor. I tried to remain calm as I explained that March 4, my release date, was drawing close, and I needed to know what was going to happen next. Would they ship me back to Danbury? Would they release me from Chicago?

He had no idea. He didn’t know anything about it. He was not concerned.

I wanted to break everything in his office.

Nora and Hester/Anne cast worried eyes on me as I emerged after my conversation. I had kept the fact that my release date was just a week away a secret from everyone in Chicago, especially them. They both had years left to do. Plus I didn’t trust any of the other prisoners not to mess with me in some way, a very typical prison paranoia. So as far as the sisters were concerned, I was losing it over Con Air, which was very un-Zen of me.

“Let’s make dinner,” said Hester/Anne. I went to retrieve the hard-boiled eggs that had been on ice since breakfast that morning. Anne carefully sliced each oval in half, and Nora mixed the yolks with packets of mayo and mustard, plus generous dashes of hot sauce from the commissary.

I tasted it. “Needs something.”

“I know.” Nora produced a packet of hot dog relish.

I wrinkled my brow. “Are you sure?”

“Trust me.” I tasted again. It was perfect. Now I carefully filled each half of the egg whites.

Nora sprinkled a bit more hot sauce on the top.

“Not too much!” said Hester/Anne.

Deviled eggs. We had a feast. The other women admired our dinner, wishing they had saved their eggs too. The three of us had carved out a place among the few sane women in Chicago. But my God it was hard.

I SAID goodbye to the sisters when the next Con Air flight left days later-with them on it. They were mystified as to why I had not been called with them to do the shackle dance on the tarmac. They said goodbye to me with sadness and pity in their eyes. I was so upset that I could barely look at them. Part of it was that I wanted so badly to be on that airplane escaping from Chicago. Part of it was that I knew I would probably never see them on the outs. It felt like there was a lot more to say.