Part 7 (1/2)

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 s.h.i.+ft 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 courts.h.i.+p 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*s.h.i.+ne 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-s.h.i.+fters, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton Street is full of nannies pus.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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.