Seraphic Disclaimer: This post contains some language that is a bit, actually, a lot more graphic than is normally found in Seraphic Secret. So if you are young, under 18, religiously modest, or secularly modest, the following, which deals with life in a women’s prison, might not be appropriate reading matter for you.
EXT. PRISON – DAY
The Screenwriter, alternately known to the inmates as Mr. Hollywood, Mr. Screenplay Writer and Mr. Clueless, sits with Eden, an attractive prisoner who is: mother to three children, a lover of Jane Austen, and a fine dog trainer. She also committed murder and has agreed to talk about it. One long take. Think Orson Welles deep focus photography, meets Anthony Mann’s movement within frame.
“The thing y’gotta know is I’m not the same person I was back when I did what I did. But I still take full responsibility for, uh, what happened.”
In prison I keep hearing three tedious words: It. Just. Happened.
I have learned that when dealing with inmates, women who have killed their parents for insurance money, women who have killed husbands because the toilet seat was down, women who have killed their children because—
There are no words, there is no comprehension, there is only a terrible rip in my consciousness.
—your brain has to go through some pretty strange convulsions to process the twisted information.
Eden and I are outside the dog training shed. Her dog, Scout, is lazing in the sun, tail thumping contentedly on the grass. A few minutes earlier the extremely bright and eager-to-please mutt ran through an amazing series of exercises: grabbing a rag tied to the door of a refrigerator, opening the door, and bringing a quart of milk to Eden who was sitting in a wheel chair.
I watched, amazed, as Scout opened a dryer, took out articles of clothing with its teeth, and dropped the laundry into a basket with far greater dexterity than I could ever manage.
Scout opened a clothing drawer and with great tenderness brought some clothing over to Eden.
Holding open the front door with its body, the dog waited ever so patiently for Eden to maneuver her wheelchair through the narrow doorway.
Of course, Eden does not need a wheel chair. She’s an inmate playing the role of a disabled person. The program trains dogs for disabled people, and Eden is one of the best trainers.
I am here researching a film, Within These Walls, for the LifeTime cable network.
Now, C.O. Cindy has called a break and Eden and I are outside on a small patch of grass, surrounded by a chain link fence, crowned by coils of barbed wire.
Every once in a while a clot of prisoners walk by and throw angry, very angry glances our way.
“What’s their problem?” I ask.
“They’re jealous, buncha skanks.”
“This is a good gig, huh?”
“Hey, what would you rather do, mow the lawn, pick up the garbage, do the prison laundry, or work with the pooches?”
“Gotcha.”
Eden lights a cigarette, the sleeve of her blouse rises and I glimpse thick white scars, like worms under her skin, testament to her former life as a junkie.
“Here’s the thing, I’m not saying I wasn’t responsible for what I did, I was, I was a bad person filled with sin and evil, but that’s not who I am anymore. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Sure.”
Eden’s riff is a vast improvement over what I have heard from the majority of the other inmates. Over and over again I hear them automatically regurgitate the language of the therapists who infest the prison like new age locust.
Basic Prison Litany 101, choose your favorite:
a) ”I lack self-esteem.”
b) “I am learning to love myself.”
c) “I have to be less oppositional.”
d) “I have no impulse control.”
e) “I have abandonment issues.”
The inmates repeat these cozy phrases like mantras, magic formulas without true emotional inflection. They tell me that they love their therapists because they don’t judge them, nor judge the crimes the women committed.
It’s only the religious ministries who insist on bringing good and evil into the mix, thus Eden, a born again Christian, admits to committing an evil act and seems truly contrite.
Or am I being manipulated by a master sociopath?
A very real possibility.
“It was me and Billy Ray, my husband—well not really my husband. He was my suitcase pimp. I danced, he copped drugs, and, well, turned me out when we ran low on cash. Which was pretty much all the time. We were in El Paso, in really bad shape. I was shooting speed to dance and junk to come down. You couldn’t even imagine what I looked like.”
“Skin and bones and the teeth were rotting in you’re head.”
“How’d you know?”
“Film I once wrote, had to research addiction.”
Eden hits me with a knowing look. Maybe I’m not so dumb after all.
“Billy Ray tells me about this biker who’s a major dealer. Billy Ray says he’s been coming to watch me dance every night. Got a thing for me. Wants a private session, willing to trade lots of dope for a big night. I’m like fine. For dope, I’m up for anything. That’s who I was. Then Billy Ray says, thing is this biker owes him money. I go, what? This is a new twist. Billy Ray says this biker is like bad news, ripped off Billy Ray for tons of money. I’m like so confused. Where the f**k is this going?”
“Did you love Billy Ray?”
“Love,” she says, her tone flat and contemptuous.
Eden takes a long drag on her cigarette. She shakes her head.
“He copped for me, pimped me out, beat up on me. I called it love. What does that tell you, Robert?”
I say nothing.
Eden continues: “I’m in the motel room. The biker comes in. Billy Ray has arranged the whole thing. The biker’s this typical beer-gut slime ball dealer. All’s I gotta do is keep his back to the closet. Billy Ray’ll take care of the rest. I do what I gotta do. Get biker’s attention like I know how. Suddenly, Billy Ray’s behind him with this huge ball-peen hammer and I hear this sickening sound, like a melon getting crunched and the biker goes down. Billy Ray said he was just gonna knock him out. But this guy’s skull was just all caved in, I mean…”
Eden takes a series of deep breaths.
“We go through his pockets, come up with a little dope, and a couple of bucks. Right then and there we fix. Meanwhile, the biker’s still breathing. You have no idea how hard it is to kill a man. His breathing’s really labored. I’m so high, and all I hear is this rasping sound and it’s driving me crazy. I tell Billy Ray to make it stop, but he’s nodding. Useless.”
Thick tears cut silvery channels down Eden’s cheeks.
“So I take the hammer and put him down.”
I look at her long and hard. How far do I push her?
“Eden, that’s the language you use for a dog.”
Eden looks surprised, then thoughtful, then she nods her head and mutters:
“Yeah, yeah, I guess.”
She takes a long pause, wipes snot from her nose
.
“I did it,” she says, “so I could enjoy my high. Re-store quiet. I still hear the breathing.”
Is this woman playing me?
The product of a sheltered yeshiva education, yours truly is no match for a talented inmate slash actress.
“How’d you get caught?”
“Billy Ray turns me out. We need what we need and I’m the one feeding the need. Undercover cop busts me. They find blood stains on the bottom of my shoes. Like brilliant police work, huh? I turn state’s evidence, make the best deal I can. Like I give a s**t about Billy Ray.”
“You’re in for life, right?”
“I’ll be up for parole in fourteen years with good behavior.”
“What would you do, on the outside, I mean?”
“That’s easy. I have a skill. I’ll be a dog trainer. Like I am now. Train dogs for the disabled. Eventually open my own shop. Join a church. Find a guy. He won’t be just a square, but a total cube,” Eden draws a sharp square in the air, “with a really normal job. He’ll wear white shirts with what’s it called, that plastic thingee in the front pocket?”
“Pocket protector?”
“Right. He’ll wear that and I’ll tell him everything, and he’ll forgive me, and we’ll live in a nice house with a little fence and we’ll watch television together and we’ll read the Bible at night and nothing exciting will ever, ever happen.”
Eden has to go inside and continue the training session.
I stay and rewind our conversation. I think about the ambush, the murder, the cold-blooded nature of it all.
What to make of Eden’s fantasy of life after prison? I hear her spitting out the word love. I imagine this fantasy man, this cube she plans on marrying. What will she feel for him? What can she ever feel for any man?
Could she actually live a life where nothing exciting ever happens? Is such a life possible for Eden?
C.O. Cindy exits the shed to check on me.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You can’t let these women get to you.”
“They don’t get to you?”
“No way.”
“I don’t quite believe you.”
“That’s because I lied.”
“Me too.”
“Now you know why they call this home.”
“Why?”
“Because home is where it all started, home is where all the bad stuff happened to them. Home is where the ladies feel most comfortable.”
“And you, where do you feel most comfortable, Cindy?”
Cindy plays with the wooden baton looped to her thick leather belt. She ponders a long moment, then looks up and says:
“I wish you wouldn’t ask me those kinds of questions.”
“Why?”
Her voice is tinged with a simmering mixture of anger and resignation: “’Cause one way or another I end up on the wrong side of the answer.”
“Sorry.”
“This place is filled with sorry.”
Feeling out of my depth, I mumble that I have to go inside the shed and watch the inmates and their dogs.
I take a few paces and Cindy calls out:
“Mr. Screenplay writer?”
I halt, look over my shoulder.”
C.O. Cindy throws me a contrite smile: “Somebody’s a total bitch, huh?”
I shrug, tell her not really.
“Now you got me doing it.”
“What?”
“For Chrissake sake, Robert. I’m f*****g sorry, okay?”
I smile: “Okay.”
Stay tuned for Part VI. Thrills and chills galore!
Copyright © Robert J. Avrech
I have always wondered why some are able to overcome a bad homelife and rise above it, while others can only merely perpetuate it.
Sara (Lurker:)
Thanks so much for, um, de-lurking. It's actually a great compliment. And of course thanks for all your votes.
The next installment will be posted in a little while. Hope it lives up to your expectations.
I am waiting with baited breath for the next installment – your blog posts are simply mesmerizing… And thought provoking. And funny. And fun. Scary. And soothing. Addictive. And more… all at the same time.
Just had to de-lurk to tell you what a fantastic time you are giving me and probably all your readers – the reason I voted for your blog for the JIB awards every time I was allowed to!
(Since you have quite a few Sara readers… am signing as Sara – Lurker 🙂
Brian:
No argument from this corner. Thanks so much for your comment.
"Can Eden make it on the ouside? Someday, we might know."
And what a terrible injustice that will be if "Eden" ever gets the chance. As Lisa correctly noted, she didn't render assistance to the doomed biker. She killed him.
Jack:
Yes, you are right, and that is why I called this series Our Island Home, — from the poem by Tennyson. As those who read this series must intuit by now, I became very fond of CO Cindy and found her to be truly wise in her dealings with the inmates. I was a babe in the woods and she, on more than one occassion set me straight. Her comment about home struck me as the central truth of my whole visit. Oddly, I had it in the script, and it ended up on the cutting room floor. That just killed me.
Pearl:
Nice of you to suggest, but you know, publishing it here in Seraphic Secret is for me the best audience in the world I can possibly reach.
“Because home is where all the bad stuff happened to them. Home is where it all started.”
There is something tremendously sad in that statement.
Robert, I know the setting and background for this multi-part story were already made into an award-winning film. But is there nowhere — magazine, newspaper, anthology — that you might resubmit these blog entries and the next ones in the saga in their entirety? This story is truly captivating, whether on-screen or in the printed word format. It deserves a wider readership.
Just add it to your every-growing “Need To Do” list…!
Suz:
I’m going to keep the prison confidential. That’s an agreement I have with the prison.
There is more about Eden and I’ll write it up for you.
Thanks so much for your true vote of confidence, I’ll make sure and remind you to vote once more before the Thursday deadline.
p.s. I voted in the contest on Sunday. I believe I still have one more vote available to me? Be sure and give us the heads up so we dont forget Robert, ya’ll deserve to be #1. I LOVE SERAPHIC SECRET, go Robert, go Robert 🙂
…working her way towards a set of true moral values….redemption is a beautiful thing. I’ll be interested in following Eden as far as you can take us, Robert. Can you tell us which prison unit you were in? Or did you tell us earlier and I missed it?
Lisa:
I felt that Eden was honest enough not to scratch my eyes out. I was right. She took it like a, well, like a woman who was working her way towards a set of true moral values.
The passage where you call Eden on the “put him out of his misery” comment was (IMHO) the most powerful so far. You had the courage to make her accountable even in the way she tells her story. She didn’t help the guy out in the long run…she murdered him. Awesome. Can’t wait to hear about Cindi.
Sarah:
Thanks for your comment. The workings of the parole boards are quite weird and mysterious. As for keeping up with the inmates, well there are certain doors that just have to be closed for many reasons.
Tamara:
Thanks so much. Cindy is a pretty amazing woman. She always had my back. She copes with her job by, well, read about it tomorrow.
Robert, this is a great series. Too bad it’s too late for the awards, lol. It also reminds me of Shawshank, but the way Morgan Freeman only gets out of prison when he stops parroting the lines he’s supposed to say to the parole board and actually tells them the honest truth. I can’t wait to hear about Cindy. Do you ever get updates about these women?
Robert, this is truly gripping and sad.
I can't wait to read about the CO Cindy. She seems interesting. I wonder how she copes with her job. My guess is she keep some serious boundaries – physical and emotional.
Dovid:
Thanks so much.
Randi:
Eden was atypical in that she was one of the only women who admitted that she was guilty in ever manner possible. Most of the women were somehow “innocent.”
Can Eden make it on the ouside? Someday, we might know.
It got to me. It’s still in me. It will never leave me.
Wow. That was unbelievable. This story gets only more interesting with each new installment. Robert, great writing.
Reminds me of Shawshank Redemption when Morgan Freeman says, "I'm the only guilty man in Shawshank".
You wonder if a woman like this could really make it "out there".
And…how could this NOT get to you?
Irina:
As I said in the post, I believe that a good number of inmates who embrace religion and get a dose of good old fashioned guilt ultimately face their crimes; whereas those who simply rely on therapy and self-esteem groups simply parrot what they hear and throw it back at their facilitators.
Wow, this is getting more and more interesting with each new part!
Why do you think Eden was able to understand what she did, and the other inmates didn't? Or do you think she was just being more manipulative than the rest?