September 6, 2002

• RiottGyrrrl and TheHorseYouRode both remarked on how my description of a women’s prison differed from their expectations.  I have seen some movies about prison that were accurate enough, but no titles come to mind.  They weren’t memorable movies.  Fiction  makes more memorable movies.  I think women’s prisons now are probably more violent than they were then, because women as a group tend to be more violent now.   There were also some women’s jails and prisons with violent reputations, even then.  Terminal Island in California was one, and one in Dallas, one in Miami, as I recall.

  
  

  A big segment of my generation resented being called “ladies” and being expected to behave like ladies.  Our daughters and granddaughters are not, in general, as ladylike as we were.  Thank us, grrrls.  You’re welcome, any time, I’m sure.  As much as I deplore violence, it’s a relief to see women less repressed, and more able and willing to defend themselves.  Aggression and hostility are problems anyway, they are just a different brand of problem if the urges are repressed or covertly expressed.  I’d rather face open aggression than sabotage and passive aggression.

  
  

  There was some talk among us women of rioting in sympathy with the men, when a riot erupted inside that big wall across the railroad track from our fence.  We sat in the yard one evening and heard the riot start, saw smoke rising inside the wall.  Then we were hustled inside and locked down in our rooms for the duration of the disturbance.  We made a lot of noise but didn’t, as far as I know, break anything.

  
  

  My Hulk was in there.  I could hear shots fired.  I was scared.  I remember being so scared it gave me an asthma attack, and I remember recalling then that Che Guevara died of an asthma attack.  Che’s book, Venceremos, was in print then, but was banned in the joint.  They didn’t need any stirring up on the men’s side.  It was a time of social unrest, dissent, riots everywhere.  I gasped and wheezed and sobbed until some shred of consciousness took over and brought me back to the meditative state.

  
  

  I did some out of body travel during the riot, and reassured myself that Hulk was not involved.  We sent letters back and forth daily, but mail was interrupted by the riot.  I got confirmation of what I’d seen in my travels, on Saturday when I got to visit.  Two of the women didn’t go that day because their men were on lockdown following the riot.  Hulk and a couple of other guys gave us the story to take back to the little joint.  The riot had been brewing for months if not years.  Overcrowding, inhumane guards, lack of all sorts of amenities, privileges and such were the fuel, and it was ignited by a really bad meal.  I told you, didn’t I, that meals were important to us?

  
  

  I did a few more OOBEs to visit Hulk in his cell, until he asked me not to .  It weirded him out a little bit, and he said it really freaked out one of the other men, who had seen me in the visiting room and recognized me.    It’s hard work, anyhow, and much more fun just to dream.

  
  

  My first appearance before the parole board was horrible, torture of the worst sort.  I wanted out so badly… and I didn’t have a chance.  I didn’t know I didn’t have a chance.  If I’d had a momma or a daddy in there, or if I’d been in with the lifers, I’d have known.  Not that a hippie doper in there for three would ever get in with the lifers, but it would have helped to have had some insider info.  I thought an impassioned plea based on reasoned principles would get me out.  Heh.

  
  

  At least the Board was specific about what I needed to bring next time I saw them.  They met quarterly, so I had three months to prepare my parole plan.  It couldn’t involve my previous associates and couldn’t be back to Eugene and Springfield where I had lived before.  I needed gainful employment or a subsidized training or educational program and a place to live, in some other part of Oregon.  I started collecting college catalogs. I got a list from the office, of citizens who had volunteered to give cheap board and room to students fresh out of jail.  I put together a plan.

  
  

  And meanwhile, life went on in the joint.  The 4th of July picnic when I ate a chicken and a half was the day after Jim Morrison died.  Jimi Hendrix had died on my previous birthday, and then a few weeks later, Janis Joplin.  The world changed.  The law changed. Oregon substantially decriminilized cannabis and my felony had become equivalent to a traffic ticket.  And a few days after my 27th birthday, I got out.

  
  

  

  • 6:12 pm
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