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One day I got a new letter from my best friend, Kristen, whom I had met in our first week at Smith. In the envelope was a short note, pe
CHAPTER 5. Down the Rabbit Hole
After two weeks I was getting much better at cleaning, as inspections took place twice a week and there was considerable social pressure not to fuck up-the wi
There was tension in Room 6 over who cleaned and who did not. Miss Luz, who was in her seventies and sick with cancer, was not expected to clean. The Puerto Rican woman in one of the top bunks spoke no English, but she would silently help me and A
The new girl who took her place in Room 6 was a big Spanish girl. At first I used the politically correct term “ Latina,” as I had learned to do at Smith, but everyone, regardless of color, looked at me as if I were insane. Finally I was firmly corrected by a Dominican woman: “We call ourselves Spanish around here, honey, Spanish mamis.”
This new young Spanish mami sat on the naked mattress of the top bunk, looking dazed. It was my turn to show someone else the ropes.
“What’s your name?”
“Maria Carbon.”
“Where are you from?”
“ Lowell.”
“In Massachusetts? I’m from there, I grew up in Boston. How much time do you have?” She looked at me blankly. “That means, how long is your sentence?”
“I don’t know.”
That stopped me cold. How could you not know your own sentence? I didn’t think this was a language problem-her English was unaccented. I got worried. She looked like she was in shock. “Listen, Maria, it’s going to be okay. We’ll help you. You need to fill out your paperwork, and people will give you the stuff you need right away. Who’s your counselor?”
Maria just looked at me helplessly, and finally I retreated to enlist one of the other Spanish mamis to assist with the new arrival.
ONE EVENING the PA system boomed “ Kerman!” and I scurried to Mr. Butorsky’s office. “You’re moving down into B Dorm!” he barked, “Cube Eighteen! Miss Malcolm will be your bunkie!”
I hadn’t been down into the Dorms (which were “out of bounds” for A &Os). In my imagination they were murky caves populated with seasoned convicts. “He likes you,” said Nina, my expert on all things prison, who was still waiting to get back into her A Dorm cube with Pop. “That’s why he put you with Miss Malcolm. She’s been down a long time. Plus you’ll always be honor cube.” I had no idea who Miss Malcolm was, but I had learned that in prison “Miss” was an honorific conferred only on the elderly or on those who were highly respected.
I gathered my few belongings and nervously advanced down the stairs to B Dorm, aka “The Ghetto,” clutching my pillow and laundry bag stuffed with uniforms. I would have to retrieve my pile of books on a second trip. The Dorms turned out to be large, semisubterranean basement rooms that were a maze of beige cubicles, each housing two prisoners, a bunk bed, two metal lockers, and a stepladder. Cube 18 turned out to be next to the bathroom, on the sole wall with narrow windows. Miss Malcolm was waiting for me in her cube, a petite dark-ski
“That’s your locker.” She indicated the empty one, “and these are your hooks. Those hooks are mine, and that’s just the way it’s go
“Of course, Miss Malcolm,” I agreed.
“Call me Natalie. I’ll make your bed.”
Suddenly a blond head popped up over the cubicle wall. “Hi, new neighbor!” It was the tall, baby-faced white girl who washed dishes in the dining hall. “I’m Colleen!” Colleen looked at my new bunkie cautiously. “How are you, Miss Natalie?”
“Hello, Colleen.” Natalie’s tone expressed tolerance for silly girls, but tolerance with limits. It wasn’t unfriendly or mean, just a bit stern.
“What’s your name, neighbor?”
I introduced myself, and she bounced out of the top bunk and around to the opening of the cube I now shared with Miss Malcolm. I was pelted with questions about my cool weird name, how much time I had, and where I was from, and I tried to answer them one at a time. Colleen was the resident Camp artist, specializing in flowers, fairy princesses, and fancy lettering, and she said, “Oh shit, neighbor, I gotta make your name tag! Write down the spelling for me.” Colleen illustrated cubicle name tags for all new B Dorm arrivals in feminine script with sparkle details on each one-except for the people who had spent time down the hill in the FCI, and thus already had official-looking black plastic ones with white lettering, like Natalie’s.
I had won the bunkie lottery. Natalie, a woman near the end of an eight-year sentence, was a reserve of quiet dignity and good counsel. Because of her heavy accent, it took careful listening on my part to understand everything she said, but she never said anything u
How Natalie got to sleep at eight P.M. was a complete mystery to me, because it was LOUD down in B Dorm. My first evening there I was quiet as a mouse in my top bunk, trying to follow the hooting and hollering that took place across the big room filled with women. I was worried that I would never get any sleep, and that I would lose my marbles in the cacophony. When the main lights were shut off, though, it quieted down pretty quickly, and I could fall asleep, lulled by the breathing of forty-seven other people.
The next morning something woke me before dawn. Groggy and confused, I sat up in my bed, the room still dark, the collective slumber of its residents blanketing everything. Something was going on. I could hear someone, not shouting exactly, but angry. I looked below me-Natalie was already gone, at work. I leaned forward very slowly, very cautiously, and peeped out of my cubicle.
Two cubes away I could see a Spanish woman who’d been particularly loud the night before. She was not happy. What was pissing her off, I could not figure out. Suddenly she squatted for a few moments, then stood up and stalked off, leaving behind a puddle in front of my neighbor’s cubicle.