Cold Prison, by Carolina Soto
I kicked off the quilt and pulled one of my thin Nepalese goat's hair shawls over me, one foot sticking over the bedside.
Ray was lost to the world, sleeping, as he would say, like a bug, wrapped up in the quilt as if it were ten below zero in the room. He usually takes up two-thirds of our queen-size bed. The room was dark from the blackout shades; when my eyes adjusted, I could see the mahogany dresser and antique round mirror, my gold buddha of wisdom and old age next to the gold-framed four-by-six photo of my Dad. I sank back into the two feather pillows, deciding not to get up and open the window.
The memory just snuck in, and now I didn't want to go back to sleep. I would fall into a dream about prison, the last thing that I wanted. Twelve years later, they still had me, little tortures left in my subconscious, unable to get away, and unable to get out, trapped.
"Get dressed, Skelskey. As soon as count clears, you have to go and shovel."
Before the 5 AM count, it was early. No one would leave before the all-clear at six.
"Meet up in front of Deneen's office."
The snow started at 4 PM the previous afternoon and had become hard, heavy, and wet. Connecticut is a chilly place, and Danbury Prison Camp is in the Berkshire Mountains watershed leading to Connecticut's largest human-made lake, 16 miles long and two miles wide. Rolling hilly wetlands spill into Candlewood Lake, leaving plenty of frozen groundwater for a good part of the winter. In the winter, you felt the icy cold, and in the summer, the camp was muggy, hot, and damp with a vicious crawling mold growing everywhere.
I unrolled from my cocoon of two soft white cotton blankets and off my bunk into the dark and dressed. My room, number 6, had three bunk beds and six lockers. My roommates were all still asleep except my friend, Ardeth. She greeted me and said very quietly, take care of your body while you work, be careful. Having a sweet, sweet soul in your room was a blessing. I counted every day I shared a room with this amazing woman. I folded my blankets neatly and put on two pairs of socks. I never walked with my two work partners because I enjoyed walking down the hill in the dark quiet.
That morning it was a full-blown blizzard, and the C.O. required the early shift to leave together. I knew the only way I would stay warm was to shovel hard and fast. All the gear they distributed was old army issue leftovers from some other era. If you wanted to keep warm, you took what they gave you. Later you would trade up for a better coat when someone your size was leaving. Some people were around longer or came up the hill to the camp from the medium-security prison with more suitable gear and more winter clothing. I didn't have a scarf, but they issued me a wool cap and wool gloves. I had put in a requisition for a scarf from R&D, but they didn't have them yet.
Many women on this larger crew had health problems, CHF, congestive heart failure or COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lupus. Everyone seemed to have a bit of PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder, meaning you did not ask or say anything unnecessary to them unless they were one of your friends.
They salted the walks, went back inside, and did the reception lobby's mopping and cleaning. Mopping was a continuous activity during a big storm. We would finish shoveling out the staff's cars parked near the entrance when Perimeter would come around with a plow to make sure there was always a little more snow plowed into the areas just cleared. Perimeter guards were armed but sometimes rode with mounted plows in heavy weather. They were never nice unless they wanted to have sex with you. When the guards came on duty, they said things like, "Make sure there is no snow around my car when I leave at 4." "Make sure my driveway is done by 3."
They could not conceive of being humane with a convicted felon. You will never hear a guard say "The weather's terrible today,” or “Are you warm enough?"
I don't mind hard work; I am very physical and athletic, but my knees had many hundreds of stitches in each and swelled quickly after a car accident 30 years earlier. A drunk had hit me head-on, passing two lanes of traffic coming up a hill, leaving me to choose the guard rail in front of a fifty-foot drop or him. At the time of the accident, there were no surgeries available. Now, 30 years later, my lawyer had suggested orthoscopic knee surgery two months before going to Danbury, hoping that I would qualify for drug boot camp and chop four months off my sentence. I was almost 50, and arthritis wreaked havoc. After the surgery, I would unexpectedly swell in the joints, making sitting or standing painful.
Every day I went down the steps backward, counting the 110 wooden steps, including the landings. When I reached the gym, I would do my rehab exercises. It took almost two months of daily training before I could go down head-on.
After an hour of shoveling, my knees swelled, but I felt I was keeping a good pace. After two hours, I could feel a twinge at each bend to lift the wet snow. Somehow each shovel full was getting heavier. My legs ballooned into two fat sausages. I kept moving.
We shoveled until 11, when the C.O. called a lunch break. I could barely walk. My stiff legs refused to bend enough to walk like a normal human being, but I stayed in motion instead of going to lunch. I walked across the field to the warehouse.
Once a month, we queued at a specific time for the one box of free soap the admin allocates for washing your personal (bought) clothing and bedding. I missed my time slot; I was not there at 10 AM and would have to speak to the Warehouse CO. He was a randy, nasty man who lorded over the few goods they allowed us to buy if we had the money posted for commissary.
My knees were no longer bending.
I made my way with some significant concentration across the icy snow against a fierce wind. I walked side to side like a straight-legged cowboy. The visibility was so blurred and the wind so strong, I could not see the track and barely the black gym roof below.
I have delicate skin, a blonde curse that makes me cut easily in the cold. Something had cut my arm, and there was blood dripping off of me onto the snow. I noticed a little naked chapped spot between my coat and my gloves. My gloves had frozen into uncomfortable shapes.
They were finishing the last of the soap rotations when I arrived. A woman working for the supply officer called him to ask if it was okay to give me my box of soap out of the rotation. He said no. I protested as politely as possible, speaking with the necessary salutation: "Excuse me, please sir, I work in the lobby, and I was shoveling during the 10 AM rotation. I only had one break since starting my shift at 5:30 AM."
Brusque, with just the slightest note of deliberate meanness, he said, "Go back and get your counselor to call me, and I will give it to you."
He was calling me a liar. I knew I was screwed because my counselor was probably in his car having his lunchtime drink. My counselor, Murkowski, was a constant source of irritation.
Calling him a counselor was a stretch of the imagination. He kept a schedule of appointments posted on his door, each name scheduled for two minutes. He did not want to be bothered. Murkowski was lording over my life because I smoked pot, and he drank alcohol. I never smoked during the day, only at home in the evening, and this guy was out in the car hitting the bottle since 11 in the morning, every day, then driving home snockered every evening. I did my slow, stiff-legged walk back across the ice to the camp. Furious, I counted steps looking forward to a reward of three aspirin from my locker.
Not far inside the door I ran into Beatrice. She was previously the head of the Latin Queens, which landed her prison; this is a complex story that deserves its own telling. Bea was in the facility down the hill for 12 years before coming to the camp to finish her 16-year sentence. She was an expert on the prison's inner workings, writing up situations and complaints with all their numbers, forms, and red tape. She was always available to help. We became friends from Buddhist services. After telling her what happened, she suggested that I walk into Marcelin's office and ask her to help.
Ms. Marcelin was a social worker and determined which women were eligible for the different prison programs. I met her when my mother died just after I arrived. Today, she was pleasant and made the call. I left her office to set off again on the treacherous trek across the ice and snow.
It surprised the requisitions C.O. to see me. I told the C.O. that Marcellin had called, and I was there to pick up my soap.
"She didn't call me, so no soap."
"I was in the office with her, and she looked up the warehouse number and called while I was there, so perhaps someone else might know?"
"Maybe she called external but not here."
"Is it possible that you could call her?" I asked.
"If you want the soap, go back and tell her to call the right number."
I was furious at this senseless and painful humiliation over a box of free soap. It was painful in every sense. I was freezing, but my blood boiled. I try to always act like a good person with peaceful and loving intent, but this was more than a simple humiliation. I could not have one of the few free items provided by the prison administration. They awarded us the privilege of buying for yourself every personal item you need. Shampoo, shower shoes, toothpaste, toothbrush, pen, paper, soap bars, combs, sweatshirts, hairbrushes, hair ties, and tampons were a few of the daily necessities you could purchase at a high price from the government. As I left, I closed the door a little forcefully and got an immediate callback.
"Skelskey, who the fuck do you think you are slamming my door! Get back in here. You are nothing but a piece of shit, and you have no right to slam my door or question anything I say - ever! You better learn that a piece of shit like you does not come into my warehouse and be disrespectful - ever! "
He went on in this vein for a long time, and I just cast my eyes down and became the humiliated dog that he intended for me to be. I only answered when I heard, "Do you understand me, Skelskey?"
I understood. If he remembered my name, I would never get what I wanted from the commissary. Bastard, he could see that I could barely walk, my face chapped with blood caked on my wrist. He had seen me in the lobby many times. He knew exactly where I worked.
I went back across the ice, so numb by now that I could barely feel my feet let alone my stiff knees. I had to be even more careful than on my first trips.
Again, I ran into Beatrice. She said, "Don't worry about that prick. I can give you some soap. It is not worth the irritation you are going through. We will buy some." She disappeared, and I went to my room and laid down on the bunk. It couldn't have been over five minutes after I got to my room that Beatrice showed up with a generous amount of detergent folded into a paper towel. Prohibited to possess plastic bags, the soap powder came neatly folded into a paper towel from the bathroom dispenser.
I smiled and thanked her.
A few minutes after that, Roz came in with inquiries about my legs, saying, "You look better. It seems a little warmth is good for you. It has stopped snowing. We are off the hook for a little. I brought you some soap."
Carolina and Elisa, the two Colombian women I watched novellas with, showed up next with sympathy and soap neatly folded into paper, their contributions to my crisis.
The next day at work, I took several of the thin plastic bags from the roll kept under the liner for the wastebasket. Oddly, there was an ice machine in the camp near the kitchen accessible to everyone. I often took the chance of "stealing" a few plastic bags to fill with ice for my knees. The third bag was for soap powder.
My homemade ice packs were perhaps explainable, but a plastic bag filled with soap was contraband. Could I be risking the SHU over this detergent? The cold in the rooms took the pleasure out of icing my knees, but the relief was imminent. I got up after twenty minutes to sign up for a washing machine. I saw Veronica as I looked at the list. She gave me her washing time slot, saying she didn't really need it. She loved her friends.
I was teaching a yoga class in the morning, wondering whether to cancel or modify the asanas that I could do with the swelling. The reason I had walked across the ice to the warehouse was to wash my sweats before teaching a class. A vanity? How could I have been so caught up in their game? This is how the Bureau of Prisons operated. I was the bug they were waiting to squash. I let them play me. My missed rotation meant I could not expect to take my turn just because I was working for them. That is not punitive. That is not how it works.
Here are a few photos from this time. Ardeth is mentioned as is Veronica but the picture is blurry and I can’t remember Angela’s last name (the woman with the diploma) but she was a good friend! She came with Carolina to give me soap. I have blocked a lot! She took a phone call for her boyfriend who handed her his phone and said, “I don’t want to talk to him, find out what he wants.” It cost her 7 years on a conspiracy charge. She found out he was a dealer after 6 months. They never lived together but she took one phone call. She never did any drugs in her life. Veronica and I are still in touch. She came to my wedding, and her daughter calls me Auntie.
One of “the real women of Orange Is the New Black,” Carolina Soto is one of the founding members of the Re/Creation writing workshop at Restoration Plaza in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Unlike the fictionalized Yoga Jones, Carolina has a long history of work in social justice and advocacy, and is a seasoned painter and visual artist. Since beginning her work with Re/Creation, Carolina has increased her confidence and aptitude with both the written and spoken word, composing speeches and essays for her advocacy work and as well as written memoir. In particular, her essays and memoirs illustrate her vast capacity for empathy in her descriptions of people with whom she shared time inside. She now splits her time between living in New York City and the Dominican Republic.