Джойс Оутс - Prison Noir

My neighbor, three doors down, was carried away in a body bag. If only I could escape as she had, like the seven others before her. It’s almost a certainty that this prison, Women’s Huron Valley — what I call “Death Valley”—is cursed, that there’s a dark prophecy about it that hasn’t yet been fulfilled. It’s not just inmates hanging themselves; seemingly healthy officers are hauled away in ambulances, never to return. One was pronounced dead from a brain aneurysm. Strangely, no one noticed her car parked in the middle of the lot, wrecked by a crash she was involved in on the way to the prison. It was as if she needed to arrive here before the fog of death in this valley sucked out the last of her breath. Visitors drop dead in the visiting room without explanation. No more visits with that inmate’s sister. Death surrounds this place, and I crave it like iced tea on a summer day.

Death brought me here, and death could set me free. It’s been ten years to this very month since I’ve killed.

Click, click, click. That damn gun was empty, yet I could still hear him screaming, You fucking bitch! deep and harsh, echoing in the room.

Adrenaline like I have never felt rushed through my veins.

Get out, get out, get the boys out! my only thought. There’s no turning around this time.

Never would I have imagined me — a Catholic schoolgirl raised in a loving, middle-class family with a stay-at-home mom, college-educated, mother of three children — becoming a murderer and a prisoner. But some of the most significant moments in our lives happen with no choice at all. There are many like me sprinkled among the addicts, the criminal-minded, and the socially inept. We keep the balance and are a testament that the most horrible things can happen to the kindest people, and the kindest people can do the most horrible things. I did a horrible thing.

It is a mother’s most basic instinct to protect her children, and that is what turned me into a killer. There was no choice. The morning I shot him to death, we were up before sunrise, fucking. I was on top, straddling his body, riding him as rhythmically as the waves crash onto the shore. His hands were on my hips, thrusting me a little harder, both of us sweating to the grind. He suddenly lifted me off his fully erect dick and rolled over without a word. Dead silence filled the room, except for the sound of our heavy breathing.

Are you kidding me? Not this again.

His favorite mind game was to make me feel guilty because he could not get off. The routine was to kiss the back of his neck, slither down his body, and finish him off with a blow job. Five times a day he demanded sex, which seemed excessive for a man who couldn’t cum. Like clockwork, every day, it was my duty, and always my fault.

On that day, I got up and left him to tend to his own needs. I could hear my oldest son pouring cereal downstairs, and I went to join my children. Big mistake — huge!

Earlier that year, he had taken me to a total of four gynecologists, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I used to sneak into the bathroom and place K-Y Jelly up as far as I could, because God knows I could no longer get wet with him. When all the doctors insisted I was perfectly healthy, he felt humiliated, still insisting I was the problem. Once he finally admitted the doctors were right, he tied me up by strapping my arms and legs to the dining room table. I was bound, naked and trembling, and beads of sweat bubbled up on my stomach when I saw him plug in the hot glue gun. That glue dripped onto the inside of my thigh, and I screamed as if I was giving birth. Next came my vagina. I was gasping for breath, pleading, twisting like a fish on a hook.

“Please, please don’t. I’m sorry. It’ll get better. I promise, I’ll do anything. We can do it right now! Please, please don’t do this!”

To this day, that pain is indescribable. But it was not nearly as painful as what came next. He sliced that dried glue from my lips as if it were rotten sushi. I passed out.

Apparently, he had decided that if I wasn’t “working” properly for him, I was never going to be attractive to anyone else, ever. As if I wasn’t faithful. Hell, I had three young children, worked, and put up with all of his madness on a daily basis. Over 2,102,400 minutes of nonsense. The glue incident took only about forty-five of those. I was exhausted.

I’m still exhausted. Every day I try to bring something positive into my life and into someone else’s, even in here, at the Valley of Death. For years I was a positive role model for those less equipped, but it seems impossible lately. I’m even losing my sense of humor, which has always been my favorite coping mechanism. After a decade, here I am: sarcastic, crass, cynical, and impatient. I can hardly stand myself.

The daily routine is easy and familiar. Like an abusive relationship, prison is full of the mentally ill, there are officers on power trips, and there are strict structures that lack any form of common sense. Even though you are never alone, you are lonely. No one is able to speak the real truth about what is happening or about how they are feeling. Worse yet, you are unable to help others in any natural way. There is no comforting, consoling, or human contact allowed. You learn that all souls in prison are damaged and there is not one person you can trust, even yourself. There is nothing normal about hell except death.

Three Doors Down was lonely. She didn’t last eight weeks here at Death Valley. My bunkie at that time had lasted thirteen years of her life sentence. Still, she has unsuccessfully tried to take her life at least five times that I’m aware of.

When I first moved into the cell she was quiet, living mainly in her own mind, consumed by her thoughts of what was and what could someday be. Slowly, we started to talk. She shared intimate details of the abuse she’d endured as a child — graphic details similar to those in the book A Child Called “It.” We became like sisters: shared food, shared secrets, shared the TV, laughed and cried together. She became my prison family and gave me an odd sense of purpose.

Then one day, out of the blue, after two years of living together, it all changed. The significant moment that I had no control over happened. She stopped talking, started sucking her thumb, started banging her head against the wall at lockup time. Her tantrums grew violent. The officers gave her tickets, not expecting this behavior from her. She lost over fifty pounds within two or three months. She looked like a walking skeleton, and I pleaded with the officers to call mental health. Together, we colored pictures with crayons to relax. I made a swing out of a sheet and would swing her at count time so she would stay in the room. I cooked three different foods, and when she refused each one, I fed her milk and cookies. These episodes would last days, sometimes weeks.

On the days she was an adult, she was increasingly frustrated and angry. Overwhelmed by all of it, she took a handful of blood pressure pills. That was her first suicide attempt. She was fine, and only received a substance abuse ticket. I continued to plead with the officers to move her to the mental health unit, telling them that she was a danger to herself. Finally, she was cuffed and moved. I watched as she looked at me with contempt, as if I had turned her in for the murder she is serving time for. I felt relief then; now, I only feel regret. She wanted her iced tea like I crave mine. I didn’t save her like I thought — I tied her to this hell.

Six months later, she was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. That made sense. At Death Valley, she attempted suicide four more times. The last time, she hung herself with a bra and was cut down by the brain aneurysm officer. She is now on medication. She walks around like a zombie on good days and remains violent on the bad ones. She’s a shell of the person I knew, truly the epitome of the walking dead. Now a level-four prisoner, she is considered strictly a management problem instead of a mentally ill patient. There is no true help in the penitentiary. I bet she hates me for saving her.