Walking the Dog (26 page)

CUSTODY REVISITED

The courtroom was smaller this time. I wore a denim skirt, white blouse, and blue-and-white striped jacket, in which I felt actually decent. My hair was longer, and the white Susan Sontag stripe had grown more prevalent and even whiter. Tina had given me some Kiehl's face cream a few months back, and, although I refused to wear makeup, my skin seemed smoother. I had acquired a pair of Toms, simple canvas shoes. In other words, I'd done the best I could to appear clean and normal.

“I don't know why you're doing this,” Harry said. “It hasn't even been a year. What can change in a year? Wait. Don't tell me. Everything. Everything can change in a year. But petitions like this—”

The judge began to speak.

“On the matter of Carleen Kepper/Ester Rosenthal and her petition to gain visitation rights to see her birth daughter, Batya Shulamit Salin, we have heard the petition. She plans to be released from the halfway house and is in search of an appropriate apartment. Her employment is steady and she pays all her expenses. There are several letters here that say she has an unusually loving relationship with her animals and that she works overtime for free to get them properly trained. She has had no difficulties with the law and carries no debt. She
attends NA meetings regularly and is on her way to establishing a life as a solid citizen of this city. At the very least, Ms. Kepper Rosenthal would like to have supervised visits with her daughter and obtain permission to attend her bat mitzvah, which will be taking place within the next three months. She would like to buy her daughter a present and personally congratulate her.”

The judge looked at Harry.

“Anything else?”

“Not at this time, Your Honor,” he replied.

“May I hear from the other side?” the judge asked.

Leonard's fancy lawyer was much younger this time. He looked like an associate, clean cut, frisky, and wearing an expensive suit. He smiled.

“Batya Shulamit's family is very pleased to hear of Carleen Kepper's progress, but there are several items that prevent us from going along with the petition. We can't overlook the severity of her crime nor the length of her time in prison in comparison to her time in the civilized world. Eighteen months or so as a member of our city is really very little, and she has only been released from supervised living in the last week. That her first act was to file this petition reflects what might be an unhealthy obsession to get what is not legally hers—a pattern that has been prevalent throughout her whole life. Furthermore, her employment is dog walking. The defense would hardly call this a skilled, reliable, or steady job. It is a transitional job, and we see no evidence of what Ms. Kepper plans on doing next. If she plans on being a serious trainer, she is not registered with any legitimate company.

“We'd also like to say on behalf of Batya Shulamit, the little girl in question, that she is now on the verge of a sensitive time in her life, puberty. Due to Ms. Kepper's tough years in prison,
we are afraid she might speak too coarsely or be unintentionally provocative at a time when the child's parents report moodiness. She doesn't need a mother's notoriously ugly past to figure into her calculations as she begins the journey of finding herself.

“Finally, the bat mitzvah itself is a celebration for which Batya Shulamit has been preparing for three years. This precious, essential ritual should not be marred by the girl worrying if her irresponsible mother will show up or not. And if she does, will she behave properly in the synagogue and not draw attention away from Batya Shulamit? Carleen Kepper's notoriety could overwhelm the peaceful—indeed holy—atmosphere. When a young girl passes into womanhood, it should be celebrated in the purest, most religious, most joyous atmosphere.

“Once again, as in the last session, I will read a statement from Batya Shulamit herself which makes her feelings on the subject clear:

“To the court, I don't care how much Carleen Kepper née Ester Rosenthal has reformed. She is still a stranger to me. My feelings about her grow more and more complicated, and I need my life to be simple so I can concentrate on Torah, Haftorah, and the day of reckoning. I do not want her at my bat mitzvah, nor should she contact me in any way about it. And I ask that she stop petitioning the court because it causes me extreme agitation. I would like the court to tell her not to send me presents or notes. When push comes to shove, I never want to hear of this woman again.”

The judge sat for several moments and then rubbed his forehead.

“Well, all middle school kids hate their parents, so I don't take this letter too seriously. And I think an ex-convict with
over a year of good behavior deserves a break. I'm concerned about the mental health history of the plaintiff, however, and whether she's ready to keep control of her emotions in stressful situations. I also think she needs to settle in and prove to the court that her current job is truly a serious long-term vocation that she plans to make her life's work. She might attach herself to an established city- or state-certified organization to help the court take her accomplishments more seriously. The bat mitzvah is out of the question. It is a day too loaded with meaning for Batya Shulamit to have any major psychological distractions. However, in three months' time after the bat mitzvah, I am going to allow for a supervised visitation between the girl and her mother to see how it goes. We will have a social worker present, and her observations will determine whether any further contact is desirable or detrimental. I am canceling the writ of protection in that there is no evidence that Ms. Kepper has made any effort to contact the girl. And as my colleague said before me, it would be to the child's advantage not to denigrate the mother any further. Let the girl make up her own mind.”

Court was dismissed.

Harry knew by now not to hug me, but he shook my hand.

“We moved an inch forward? Or I didn't help you with shit.”

I pulled my hand away.

“It's not you, Harry. Your loyalty, despite my insane wishes, is very real. I won't forget. I can pay you now, and I want you to quote me billing hours that a top family lawyer would lay on the client.”

“I'm not giving up.” Harry shook his head. I moved slowly through the courtroom. I didn't know what I'd expected. Suddenly I decided to can it with Pony, permanently. I was exhausted from her jerking my chain. I was angry at myself for
this odd masochism, and once again I asked myself what my motivation was. What would be accomplished by building a relationship with a kid who really didn't want me? What did
I
want? Zip. Nothing. Let it go. But, still, it was difficult.

Why was I trying to be a mother? The itchy ache of it made me jones for a distraction. I missed my scams. How to acquire good, cheap stuff at the seaports, airports, train stations, truck stops. New faces, new names, new ways of hiding, new ways of pacing back and forth. The rides. The speed of vehicles. The love of an engine like a beating heart. I missed always wondering if I was going to get caught. Those feelings would be more real than some kind of worthless visit three months away with a PhD observing my body language. She'd probably be the kind with glasses hung around her neck and a clipboard. I saw the Henry Moore statue in my head again. Why couldn't I crawl permanently into one of his holes and disappear?

THE HONORS COTTAGES

After a two-month stay in the hospital wing at Clayton after finishing the mural, I was released to an honors cottage. The honors cottages were tiny, but each was its own small house made of brick and had a bed, a dresser, a kitchen sink, enough room for a table, a hot plate, a minimum of cooking utensils, a bookshelf, and most importantly, its own toilet.

There were the honors cottages and the double honors cottages—two- and three-star hotels. I think there were about twenty little houses in all. They were set apart from the rest of the prison on an acre with grass and sporadic trees. There was a volleyball court and a tetherball pole. The area reminded me of a run-down, abandoned prep school campus. The women who occupied the cottages were prisoners of all types. There were lifers who were too elderly to cause trouble but were still sharp, functioning, and in charge of various aspects of prison life—groundskeeping, garbage disposal, food delivery, funerals. They shared a pay phone to take care of their diverse chores. There were a bunch of women who'd shown themselves to be exemplary by honestly reforming, changing from vicious criminals to strange, repentant women who counseled both newbies and long-timers in trouble. Some of them were up for parole, close to leaving, but some would never leave. I
thought my years of terrors and mental illness could find their end here. I wasn't necessarily correct, but it seemed that way in the beginning.

Twelve women—all honors prisoners—and Sam, Sister Jean, and Warden Jen Lee made up the jury that met several times a month. Normally I would've gone in front of them to make a plea to be moved to an honors cottage. I would've prepared a portfolio of my accomplishments and gotten signed letters from monitors and supervisors speaking to my improved behavior. I had none of that.

The committee sat behind a line of tables like at a court-martial, and there was a single chair where I was to sit and face them.

“You haven't gone through the required regimen to be living in an honors cottage,” one lady said, picking her teeth with a toothpick. “Someone wanna tell me why she's taken up some deserving black woman's space on the waiting list? Did her color give her advantage?”

“You know that's not true,” Sam said. “I'm the only white in the honors cottages.”

“So what'd she do that's so special?” This came from a tall Latina named Beet who helped many women with gender issues in prison.

“She's a psycho,” exclaimed a tiny woman named Midge. “She'll blow up our corner.”

“She's not
that
crazy,” Sister Jean said. “Like all of you, she has serious problems. However, we don't believe she is a danger to anyone but herself. If she misbehaves, she'll be returned directly to the general population.”

“So if we find her hanging from a light fixture she goes to solitary right?” Midge asked. A couple of women laughed.

Warden Jen Lee's gruff voice cut in.

“Let's cut the shit, okay? Carleen has been approved for an honors cottage not because of what she did, but because she's going to need the room.” The committee looked puzzled and shuffled through their papers.

“What the fuck?” I heard someone say under her breath.

“That's correct,” the warden said. “The Association for the Blind has asked if we would experiment in training Seeing Eye dogs. We are starting with one dog. It's a rigorous day-and-night training and requires the kind of extreme commitment Carleen has proved capable of displaying.”

“What're they, pit bulls?” a woman named Amanda chimed in. “My cousin, he used to fight pit bulls for a living. They'll rip your throat out.”

“If the committee approves, Carleen will receive a puppy tomorrow, and for the next year and a half she will train it to comply to strict commands. The dog will become a more than suitable companion to a handicapped person. There are hundreds of signals and skills the dog will have to learn.”

“Why Carleen?” Sam asked. “She has demonstrated no facility for bonding or getting along with anyone.”

“Could be a good fit,” Midge suggested. “Lots of people say she's an animal.”

“I want a puppy,” chirped a young member of the committee. “I created the whole toddlers program at the birth center. I could love a puppy, too.”

“Love isn't the point. Training is. Carleen's detachment is exactly what the association says is necessary for the process of building a proper dog. It's a mutual development of trust and affection. Not smothering.”

I tried hard not to laugh. I felt as if I were standing before the pearly gates and the angels were discussing whether I should go to hell or purgatory.

“What about your temper?” Sister Jean asked me in a firm tone. “We can't have any abuse or physical punishment because an innocent animal isn't learning fast enough.”

“I'd be much more likely to go after a person hurting an animal than any animal itself,” I said with a smirk. “They are creatures. They're more like me than humans. That's why you want me—you even admitted it. That's why you brought me here. This wasn't my idea.”

“Are you even interested?” Sam asked.

“When has that ever made a difference for any of us?” I replied. “But truth is, I wouldn't mind living with a dog. I wouldn't have to make conversation.”

“Let's try for a few months with Carleen and see how it goes,” the warden said. “If the training works out, we'll let her continue and see if it's an appropriate match between inmates and dogs. The techniques for training are strict, complicated, and time-consuming. There are books to read, and Phyllis Gelb, a woman from the Dogs for the Blind Association, will bring the dog and talk to you about techniques and attitude. She will visit regularly to check in on your progress.”

There was a silence, a shuffling of papers.

“How do you feel?” asked a blond-haired, suburban social worker. She tried to sound kind, but she was the most scared of me of all.

“Not there yet,” I said.

The first woman I met in the new cottage was Amanda, a large woman like myself, in her fifties, who played the viola. An aunt of hers had bought it at a yard sale and no one knew what to do with it, so Amanda's mother brought it up when she came for a visitation.

“I thought that was a mighty big fiddle,” she told me, but
Amanda had been in a church choir before her downfall and had an ear for music. She said about twenty years ago she got permission to go to the gym on off hours and “squeak her heart out.” She developed a self-made repertoire of gospel and blues on the viola that was, to my ears, like listening to the ocean—low, melodic, and complete. Her confidence grew and she began to sing again. And through music she evidently found the forgiveness of God. Over the years as she scuffled and scammed through the general population, she convinced another administrator, Laura Phillips (a charitable tennis-playing WASP), and Sister Jean to find organizations that would contribute instruments. Many of the instruments were unplayable, but some could be restored over at the male penitentiary a few miles away. I discovered that with my past mechanical abilities, I could weld a cap or two on a saxophone and stretch a drumhead over some toms, keeping the tension without ripping the material.

She said God had given her joyful music to drown out the voices of her husband, Justin, and brother whom she'd shot in cold blood after they stole three thousand dollars she'd been saving for years. She'd planned a long and loving visit to Georgia where her mother and the rest of her family lived. Her dream was destroyed when they stole her savings.

“I just took Justin's gun. They begged: ‘Amanda, baby, baby, don't. Amanda, I'll get your money back.' Then I shot them both in the head.” When she imitated them her voice was mocking. “Some things turn you to ice,” she said. But the Clayton Family Band and Choir was her “Christian” redemption, and she made sure they were good.

Another woman who caught my attention was that tiny, fast-moving insect of a lady named Midge. Midge was an impatient little woman and had no tolerance for litter, windows
without screens, lights left on, or unarmed guards. She was always in a rush and one could rarely have a conversation with her. She was a cranky old bitch, but she showed generosity in strange ways. She'd been an English teacher in some other life and was appalled by the lack of literacy in prison. “They're gonna say Negroes are stupid and they're gonna be right,” she'd growl. I heard that she'd made it her goal to read every book in the prison's paltry library. But she decided she'd read them out loud. You could walk by the library anytime, day or night, and hear Midge reading
The Invisible Man
,
Uncle Tom's Cabin
,
The Sun Also Rises
,
The Encyclopedia Britannica
—whatever was her fancy—in a low, nasal voice. Her sense of drama was keen, however, and she somehow made all the descriptions and characters talk out the windows of the library, ringing down stairways and bouncing off ceilings. It was as if a loudspeaker were reciting
Moby Dick
.

Women began to gather. At first it was to laugh at this tiny, crazy black woman reading out loud a mile a minute, as if nothing mattered but the stories she told with grizzly drama. Then the listeners began to get caught up in the stories. And after six months or so she would have fifty or sixty women gathering at the library on their free hours to hear Midge's rendition of worlds they knew nothing about, not even how to get to them.

One day Midge called out, “I've got a permanent sore throat. I refuse to share my books with you anymore. You want stories, you learn to read!”

Thus began Midge's reading classes. From what I was told, she taught as if she was constantly annoyed and aggravated. She treated every student as if she were an idiot. She slammed her chalk against the blackboard, threw erasers at students, and insisted on quiet and absolute discipline. Fights broke out between her attackers and protectors. She spent time in solitary,
but knew a great deal of poetry and books by heart and would screech them out in a scratchy bird voice from within her cell. Nothing seemed to faze her.

“You're the psycho” was the first thing she said to me at the cottage.

“I hope not anymore,” I said.

“Once a psycho, always a psycho,” she said. “It just gets rearranged, but it stays psycho.”

On my doorstep the next morning I found copies of Sylvia Plath's
The Bell Jar
and
Ariel
, and a thick book about African art and sculpture filled with brilliantly colored photographs.

As a thank you, I left a thick book on her doorstep called
Politics as Poetry and Prose: The Fist with a Pen
. It contained sermons, polemics, poems, and satires from all around the world dating back to the ancient Greeks and finishing with writers like Ginsberg and that ilk. I'd bought it once when the Salvation Army visited the prison with books and clothes for the inmates. I got a pair of overalls that I still wear and black clogs. I picked up several books that day, and the poems and short polemics actually taught me something. I'd never thought about suffering other than my own. The book showed me there were worse prisons than Powell, women who'd committed terrible crimes and yet struggled to make sense of it all through writing. Despite the rapes. The beatings. The painful, demanding, menial cleaning-lady work. The boot camp. The random searches. The fact that they arrived at Clayton as low as a woman could be to begin with. Sam told me that most of the women at Clayton were there because of the abuse of men—what they did for men, what men drove them to do. I often didn't appreciate Sam's politics, but when I thought about this I came to a definite conclusion: I had been my own man. I did all my crimes for myself. Not Miko. He got me high.

But I was my own hungry animal. I was the man who made me do what I did.

But
The Fist with the Pen
turned me on to men and women who risked their lives to scribble their opinions on leaves or the pages of other books. And the famous voices, too, whose books were burned in the streets. Care! I yelled at myself inside my head. Care about this! All this shit! All this injustice! This pain! This death! Care, you bitch.
Feel
it. And I almost did. But not enough. I needed to build up my empathy muscles.

Midge returned it a week later with a note. Her penmanship was as small and precise as she was.

Yes. Fairly good book. But remember, Ms. Kepper, good causes do not always make good writing. There are many selections in here, however, that one might say meet in the middle. Top rate writing. Worthy of the oppressed.

        
Thank you.

M.

        
P.S. I don't know what you thought of the Plath, but I find indulging certain mental illnesses rather raw and unattractive, don't you?

When I moved in, Midge came immediately to visit me. “You just keep the dog away from me, you hear me?”

“It's just gonna be a puppy,” I said.

“I don't give a damn what the hell it is—it's a dog and they bother me to death,” she practically shouted.

“Okay, calm down,” I said. “I'll absolutely avoid you. If we cross paths it'll be by accident.”

“No accidents,” Midge said through clenched teeth. “Out of my sight.” She rolled up her sleeve and showed me an embroidery
of scars that covered an entire arm. “You went to Powell, I went to Georgia Federal Detention. If they thought you had an attitude, those fuckin' Southern state troopers took you to a field, fucked you, and then used you to train their dogs. They really liked me because I was so little that the shepherds could carry me around. I got patterns and patterns of teeth all over me. Don't make me kill the dog and ruin my life.”

“Take it easy,” I said. “I'll make sure you're safe.”