Part 3: Who Decides What Justice Is?
The author ponders this question as she serves time for an old drunken-driving arrest and fines she failed to finish paying. This is the third of a three-part story in Truthdig’s “Violence Against Women” series.
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I throw up the Motrin as soon as I take it.
During the next five days, I throw up everything I eat, even crackers and water the other women give me. I become terribly weak. I can’t sleep. I write out two more medical requests for the naproxen and something to control the nausea. Nothing happens. I lose 22 pounds in a week. I am so dizzy I have trouble walking. I spend most of the day lying on the mattress on the floor. I cannot get to the shower. The guards, when they do the count at night, ask me if I am detoxing.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t do drugs.”
I am called to medical after five days. The male nurse behind the desk has a copy of a letter sent by a pastor Walt reached out to for help. In the letter, the pastor tells the warden he will organize a prayer vigil outside the jail and inform the local news outlets unless I am treated.
“You must be pretty important,” he says.
He gives me the naproxen and an injection for nausea.
I thought I would die. I can only drink Gatorade right now. I have no strength. I continue to vomit up any food. I am sleep-deprived. Women keep asking me how I feel. I never imagined I would die in jail. I want to talk to my loved ones. I want to tell them I love them. I don’t want to be a hashtag, but if I must, say my name, too.
I had made peace with death. What is justice, really? Eye for an eye? What, to my loved ones, is worth my life? My mother’s only baby. My father’s only child. If they lose me, what is justice? Ensuring no one else loses their child? Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, couldn’t pull it off. All the Beyoncé videos in the world won’t bring back Sybrina’s precious baby boy. Justice, I guess, is learning. Knowing that being innocent is the fastest way to go. Being ignorant is a close second. Parents want their children to go to the best schools. What are schools? Institutions. What am I in right now, dying? An institution. Institutions are for training. I don’t want my children trained or programmed the way the elite want them to be. Maybe justice is passing on a little more freedom to the next generation. I will never entrust an institution with my babies. My mother said to me, before I came here, “Why don’t you keep doing the weekends? At least you’ll be safe.” As usual, she was right. She’ll never have to worry about this shit again.
Miraculously, I am feeling better. As if the demon possessing me got tired of hearing me talk to God and just vacated me. I was able to talk to my parents and Walt. He will visit. I want to see how he handles the way I look. I look like a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. I am emaciated and frail. I’m kind of upset with myself for being so willing to die. I understand, though. It was for justice. The way I was being treated could only be justified if I had died.
Commissary is in the wide open. My bed is in the back of the room. It’s a long walk, lugging that big clear bag of commissary goods from downstairs through the room. I’m prepared for a turbulent final week. I didn’t have anything anyone wanted until now, except a listening ear, personality, a nice demeanor and a few card tricks. I ordered commissary to pay back those women who gave to me on faith. I can’t even call it faith. They just gave to me out of good nature. They’re considered criminals, though. Outside these walls, we are all criminals. Stigmatized by getting caught.
Krystina lost her son today. He was adopted by a wealthy woman who cannot make her own child. This is a cold world. I thought adoption was a safe and selfless thing one woman could do for another. Having endometriosis makes it difficult for me to get pregnant. I love children. I want my own. I was always comforted knowing that, in the end, adoption is an option. But adoption, like everything else, is painful.
Phone calls are getting stale. There’s so much I want to say. I’m constantly reminded that the calls are recorded, as several pair of eyes watch me because their owners want to use the phone. It’s been more than 30 days since I got here. One question remains: Who decides what justice is for the people here? Who decides that a woman on probation deserves six to nine months for relapsing?
My last day here. My $600 debt is paid. I am going home. Forty days that changed me. Forty days that I clung to the Lord.
Some of the women celebrate with me. It is sweet and touching. I am taken back to Intake. The jail lost my clothes. I am released in my blue uniform, with the letters MCCF on the back of my shirt. Walt is waiting for me.
I wouldn’t have been open to friendship with these women unless I was in jail. I got to know them as women, not criminals. I’m torn up. I’d like them to be able to go home. I won’t be able to talk to these women for months. The holidays will come. I will know where they are. I will know what they are doing. Maybe this time next year, I can reach out to them. Maybe they will be doing well.
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