Goree, Womens Prison

 Maybe you've noticed that I haven't said anything about beatings,  rapes, etc. in jail or prison.  That's because I never experienced or even saw anything like that.  It wasn't going to a dangerous Hell. It was just a completely different reality.  Yes, of course there were some fights,  but never anything serious.  The Dykes at Harris County and Goree did really like me but it was always an invitation,  not a demand or even anything disrespectful.  I saw some womwn who were couples but never unwilling partners.  There were women with full beards and hair on their chest,  I'd never seen that before! but I didn't know any of them personally.  No gang stuff either but that might be the decade I was there.  Sure,  there were gangs in the world but I never knew anything about "gang activity", cryps or  bloods. The only gangs I had heard of were motorcycle gangs like the Hells Angels in California and the Banditos in Texas. This was before Crack came around,  too. I know that changed things.  Also, back then you got one phone call when you were arrested and didn't see a phone again until you were out.  I guess it was before they figured out how to make money from inmates getting phone calls.  You wrote and received letters, if you were lucky, and had an occasional visitor of you were even luckier.  I had always been an avid letter writer so I just stepped up my letter writing game but mostly I lost touch with the outside world.  Goree was a 2 hour drive for my Mom and my brothers so I only saw any of them once a month. Larry Wells visited and Tom Rogers.  The visits were a break from the prison routine but they were also painful.  The first time they brought Jami for a visit she fell off the chair and got hurt and I jumped up and it hit me Hard that I couldn't go to her,  comfort her. I never forgot about her but I had to detach by telling myself that she was being taken care of and loved and picture her happy or I would have lost my mind.  We all had to do that.  What else can you do? Oh,  yea, there were no 'contact' visits. We sat across from each other and talked through a thick glass. Mom, Mike,  Terri and Herbert all came when they could and Mom or Mike brought Jami when they visited.  

There was a lot to learn in Goree. I was assigned to work in the Information Office.  I was one of 4 inmates working in there with Officer Cruze, a hateful, gross woman!! Each inmates had a card on file and our job was to type updates on their cards and every little thing was recorded.  The cards were color coded,  white cards for white people,  blue cards for black people,  and orange cards for Mexicans. I guess they didn't know what to do with me so I had a white cards.  624 inmates. The women working in there were ok and there were a few that worked in the office next to us that I would get to know a little bit,  too. 

I didn't have a "close" relationship with many women in Goree. I kept my circle pretty small. Fayrene and I were friends.  Donna Green was assigned to another block so I seldom saw her.  When Dora Fisher got there 3 months later we were very excited to see each other but she,  too, was assigned to another block so I wasn't about to be a close to her as before.  I knew of and occasionally saw some of the "famous" women in there.  The woman from the book "Blood and Money" was in Goree and went around like some kind of royalty.  Cindy Stout worked in the office next to mine.  Her infamy has faded,  thank God! but when I knew her she was still in the news and whispered about. She is the only one i remember bring interview by the need about her story while I was there.  She was convicted at 16 for liking her mother but I still don't believe that she was guilty.  I looked her up a while back and she was parole and living under a new name.  I'm very glad.  She was the only one allowed to have aguitar and she played and sang very well.  When she heard my song she asked if she could play with it and she made another version that was better.  

I never got in serious trouble in my short time. The women in the Information Office showed me how they would put their drinks in the window AC in the office,  yea, the offices were air conditioned! We could but soda pop on commissary but we had no way to chill them. Not like after I got there I was called to the Warden's  office and found my coworkers anyway in there and the warden during there with 4 cans of soda in front of her. I honestly think she admitted the ingenuity a little bit.  She threatened us,  warned us to not step out of line again,  and let us go and i swear she was trying not to smile.  

Besides working I signed up to do everything I could to make the time pass.  I enrolled in the college classes offered, joined the Goree Choir, joined the Toastmasters Club and I joined Alcaholics Anonymous but they would make me post off the  Alanon group when I had to admit that I wasn't an alcoholic.  And I would get to know more of the women through doing these things.  

College classes were held in a building next to the main prison.  It felt like a long walk from Caladium and I passed through several search check points to get there.  Once I was goingvto the building regularly something odd started happening.  The was an old, white, inmate who was always sitting in the hall in a metal chair and whenever I walked by she would start muttering,  "Gonna cut you! Slit your throat! Gonna kill you!" Over and over as I went by and after a while she started adding in my name to let me know that she knew who I was.  It spooked me but when I asked others about her they told me not to worry,  that she was just crazy.  Did I mention that Donna Green was my doppelganger? Well,  one day Donna walked past her and she jumped up and slit Donna's throat! I saw it in the incidents I had to type in the Information Office.  The head of the school department liked me and she called me in to talk about it.  She said that there had been some concern because it was in my records that I had a grandfather and a brother-in-law who were police officers and even that I used to work security  and that they were supposedly trying to keep that under wraps,  but maybe they didn't. 

Wow.  I am realizing how sad it is making me to write this.  Not because I was in prison or anything like that.  It's the sad stories.  Donna, Cynthia, Fayrene,  others I haven written about. I just want to cry for all of them.  Yea,  and maybe for how young and clueless I  was when I went through this.  I just want to sob. 

I'm out of here for a while.