Tom Schreck - On the Ropes

“Start talkin’ girl. That’s what this is for.”

“I can’t take this.” Sherrie sniffled back the tears. “Michael made me steal for him. If I didn’t, he beat me-I can’t stand this-I don’t know what to do.”

“Waaa…” Lori mocked Sherrie to her two friends. “Poor baby.”

Jane’s attention left Sherrie and her eyes were like daggers at the three of them.

“Lori-you got something to say?” Jane’s stare would melt steel. “You got your life together so well you think you can mess with someone else? Let me see… the last I remembered your three kids, by three different men, if I might add, have all been taken away. This is your fourth trip inside and you’re still on crack. I guess when you’ve got your life so together you can make fun of others.”

Lori tried to flash a look that said “Whatever,” but she didn’t pull it off. The other two losers looked down into their laps.

Jane went back to Sherrie.

“What did you try to do to help yourself?” Jane said. “Was getting high helping? Did it make you more or less powerful?”

“I needed it.” Sherrie bowed her head. “I was so messed up because of him. I needed to get high.”

“Bulllllllshit,” Jane said. Having seen her work before, I knew it was coming. “You got high because you were an addict, period,” Jane said.

Sherrie’s head hung down in shame. Jane was tough, but this is what Sherrie needed. She was about to be released, and Jane’s goal was to keep it real for her. I also knew Jane well enough to know that she would make sure to address the abusive boyfriend issue before she left. It was important, right now, for her to blow away any denial about the addiction Sherrie still harbored. Despite the horrendous circumstances that some people face, getting high remains a choice. Sometimes a likely choice, but in Jane’s mind it never stopped being a choice. In her world, she was right. Jane believed that no matter what your circumstances were, you had to get the addiction under control before you could do anything else.

Jane moved on to Stephanie, another one of the in-black trio. She was a slightly younger version of Lori. She was thin and pale with long, dirty blonde hair and a disproportionately large chest, the kind that just had to be fake. She tried to look disinterested when Jane called on her.

“Stephanie, the last time you said it was no big deal to have your eleven-year-old daughter taken away.” Jane’s eyes locked on her. “You were supposed to do some thinking on that.”

“So?” Stephanie said.

“Don’t give me that ‘so’ bullshit. Did you?” Jane said.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Well?”

“Well, I think it’s none of your fucking business, bitch,” Stephanie said.

“Excuse me?” Jane said, but not with surprise or concern in her voice. The “excuse me” was her way of making it clear that that kind of talk was not permitted.

“Whatever…” Stephanie said.

“Don’t give me that ‘whatever’ bullshit, girl.” Jane didn’t raise her voice. “You don’t have to be here and don’t count on scoring any jailhouse kiss-ass points for showin’ up and being like this.”

Stephanie raised her right hand slowly and very dramatically extended her middle finger. As she did, I noticed a small indigo mark, some sort of tattoo in the loose piece of skin between her thumb and forefinger.

“Fuck you, bitch,” she said.

“Fuck me?” Jane smiled. “I don’t think so-guard, get these three out of my face.”

The disinterested CO stepped in the threshold of the door, stick in hand, and silently motioned to the trio to move. They did, but not before Lori and Melissa took the time to flip off Jane. They all had the identical mark in the same spot on their hand.

Jane was not ruffled; this is what she did, day in and day out. She saw it as a mission, and she was one of the few who did human service work in the jail who lasted more than a month. It was important to her. Without missing a beat, she moved on to Katherine.

“Katherine, talk to me,” Jane said.

The group went on another half hour in a much calmer fashion. Katherine talked about making things different this time and really following through with NA. The rest of the group sort of cheered her on. Jane didn’t do any more confrontation with the rest of the group, choosing to let the group end on a positive note with some hope for the remaining members.

While they were lining up, waiting for their escort, she called Sherrie aside, put an arm around her, and told her to come see her in the morning. Jane was an expert at gaining respect. Sherrie knew she was rough, but she also knew she cared deeply for her-enough to be hard. It’s what made the difference and what allowed Jane to connect when others never had a chance. Sherrie caught up with the others and Jane and I were alone.

“Well, Duff,” she said. “Wha’dya think?”

“It’s a pleasure to watch you work, Jane,” I said.

“Yeah right, Duff. Stop the bullshit.”

“What?”

“You’re here to find out about Walanda,” Jane said, not asking but stating.

“It’s that obvious?”

“Hell yeah,” she smiled. “You’ve been taking my referrals for three years and this is the first time you come by? C’mon, man.”

“Jane-I’m trying to get a sense of what happened to her, that’s all.”

“Duff, in this place, who knows?” She put a hand on my shoulder. “We both know Walanda was a little nuts and a lot aggressive. That’s a bad combination in here.”

“You got any ideas?”

“Nah… though I don’t trust those three I threw out.”

“What’s their deal?” I said.

“They’ve been in for six weeks. All three were busted for a liquor store holdup. They hang together all the time in here, watching each other’s back,” Jane said.

“Gang stuff? They all seemed to have some tattoo on their hand.”

“Not real gang shit,” Jane took a seat behind her desk. “They’re from out in the boonies, near Forrest Point, outside of Eagle Heights-not exactly the South Bronx.”

“What’s the tattoo?”

“Got me.” She put her feet up on her desk. “It looks like some sort of crosshatching pattern, like tic-tac-toe. Over the years I’ve stopped paying attention to colors, earrings, belt buckles, and tattoos. I don’t want to treat anyone different because of some goofy accoutrement,” Jane said.

“Gotcha.”

“Hey Duff, you could do me a favor. I’m going to send you Sherrie tomorrow for follow-up. Will you take her on your caseload? I think she’d work good with you.”

“Sure. How bad is it at home?” I said.

“Bad. Douchebag boyfriend is some sort of macho shithead who gets off on the whole power thing.” Jane put her feet back on the floor and picked up Sherrie’s file. “She gets high and makes being under his control easy.”

“I’ll make sure she gets on my caseload, and I’ll see her tomorrow,” I said. “Hey, if you hear anything about Walanda, give me call, okay?”

“I will, but I doubt I’ll hear anything in here, Duff.”

I headed back to the office not sure if I learned anything. My gut told me that the three women Jane threw out of group knew something or did something, but that was only natural because they acted so evil in the group. Jail was full of evil people and not all of them necessarily had something to do with Walanda’s death.

Not necessarily, anyway.

Jail just plain sucks. The handful of times my job brought me there I always felt like it gave me a hangover. Part of it was that it was such an obvious failure as a system for the people incarcerated and part of it was some of the pure evil that lurked in there. I’m not naive enough to believe we don’t need jails or that jails should be philosophical retreats where everyone gets hugged all day. People like Jane seemed to have the right mixture of common sense and the desire to help the problem. She didn’t spend time trying to figure it out. She kept her world and her goals small and focused. I guess it’s what the twelve-steppers call “Keeping it Simple.”