America’s insatiable hunger for novelty is a constant source of bewilderment to me. I, who have never hula hooped, visited any Disney Kingdom, eaten buffet in Branson, Missouri, or petted a rock (domesticated or wild), find it inconceivable that there are those who have not only done these things, but who have willingly parted with generous sums of their cash in order to do so. As Mr Barnum would say, well, we all know his theory on the frequency of patsy births.
That great showman’s maxim was never so gloriously affirmed as it was at the Jennings Correctional Facility for Women. With suckers proliferating nationwide at a rate of one per minute, it only stood to reason that whoever came up with the next ‘new thing’ to satisfy their infantile oral cravings would become very rich indeed. And what better way to satisfy a sucker than with a lollipop? That is how ‘Prison Pops’ came to take America by storm – and for an even ‘buck a pop’. It was a glorious thing to behold.
Ice was long the rarest of commodities here at Jennings. In the pre-privatization days, residents here were forced to rely on primitive methods of refrigeration to keep any precious food provisions from spoiling in the prison cells. One’s weekly allocation of ice was used for this purpose, and rarely did it last long enough to do the job adequately.
A greedy but ingenious woman in Unit B by the name of Sally Waterman had come up years ago with a marvelous confection that came to be known as ‘Prison Pops’.
It was a really rather simple recipe that required only coloring, gelatin, enough caramelized sugar to rot the teeth of an entire kindergarten class, and a secret flavoring that Sally wouldn’t disclose. Richer than a Tootsie Pop and a Sugar Daddy put together. Prison Pops were the new taste treat that the suckers in America longed for. Initially we produced only small batches of the pops during the new professional cooking classes that had been instituted as part of the training courses. Lacking proper sticks, the sweet and icy delight was served in bowls and eaten with a spork. It was actually Suki Conrad who suggested that the pop be frozen right onto the spork, and old Springtime who observed, ‘These are good enough to sell in a store Outside.’
Well, that’s all Theresa LaBianco had to hear. Given the new technologies of the computer and the Internet, it wasn’t long before that business-mad mind had developed a telephone sales plan, an outline for a mail-order catalogue, and a Web site. Jennifer Spencer got behind it and made a presentation (including a taste test) to my boys. Well, Bryce had always had a real sweet tooth. Soon we were, as they say, in business. I don’t really want to speculate as to why Internet users might be searching for Web sites with the name ‘Prison Chic Candies’, but it seemed to be an immediately popular site. We had thousands of ‘hits’ within just hours, and hundreds of orders within days. Theresa trained a staff of nearly twenty women to handle the orders. Jennifer bought the equipment to mix and make and wrap the stuff in big batches. It was nothing short of amazing. Dear old Gwendolyn Harding was delighted to see that this burgeoning new enterprise was equipped with everything it needed for success. It was a rare occasion that you didn’t see the Warden with a pop in her mouth.
At first the demand was nearly overwhelming, but Theresa managed to turn our inability to meet the orders into a brilliant marketing ploy. ‘PPs’ became as rare as those homely stuffed dolls once were at Christmas, and shops like Neiman Marcus, Gump’s, and the like clambered for them. They weren’t to be found in supermarkets or candy stores but only via the exclusive shops, our catalogue, or the Prison Chic Web site. As I say, it is our nation’s insatiable hunger for novelty. You just can’t underestimate gullibility.
Anyway, when Prison Pops were unexpectedly ‘picked’ by People magazine in their ‘Picks and Pans’ column, the visionary Miss LaBianco was ready to take Prison Chic Candies to a whole new level of operation. Sally was testing recipes for new flavors while the Web site was constantly updated with ‘Sweet Thoughts from the Prison Chics’. It was originally thought that I might be of some help with this project, but it soon became apparent that this particular old prison ‘chic’ did not possess the verbal skills that Web-browsers were surfing for. You might say that I laid an egg. However, as the new products emerged from Sally’s lab, my tongue was loosened by their sweetness, and it was I who dubbed her pistachio fudge nut brownies ‘Prison Bars’. They were an immediate success. It was also I who named the hard confectionary division ‘Jailhouse Rock Candies’. They became big holiday sellers. I even tried my hand at advertising copy, but it seems that I’m far too verbose for the succinct and ‘punchy’ requirements of that particular medium. Well, we all do what we can.
This unexpected revenue stream provided not only cash flow, jobs, and training but also secured for JRU the kind of publicity on Wall Street that you simply cannot buy. The stock skyrocketed as everyone wanted to cash in on the phenomenon that was called ‘the next Ben & Jerry’s’ in Barron’s and ‘a sweet deal’ in Forbes. Meanwhile every inmate in the joint came up with some family recipe or secret ingredient that could be the next big thing. Several of them are actually in development, and two look promising. As if all of this wasn’t enough success for Jennifer Spencer, it wasn’t long before our cottage industry captured the attention of several food-manufacturing giants across the nation, and Miss Spencer and my sons are currently in negotiations for a buyout. Tyler and Bryce were both instrumental in securing billions for a similar operation that was begun by two hippies in Vermont. They are working on this as I write. In the meantime, I understand Frances, the ice queen, is concocting her own version of a marshmallow-based puff that will be ready for Halloween. I’ve been conducting focus groups to determine a name, but thus far we have not decided between ‘Gallows Ghosts’ or ‘Dungeon Devils’. The girls in copy are anxious for us to make up our minds in order that they can develop the verbiage for the Web site. Then, of course, the packaging must be designed.
As they once said back in the seventies, ‘We’ve come a long way, baby.’
I do wish I could write a punchy line like that.
42
Jennifer Spencer
A business with an income at its heels furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
William Cowper
Jennifer thought that Movita was a hoot. She had never seen anybody become as totally obsessed with anything as Movita had become with fashion. She begged Maggie to use library funds to subscribe to every fashion magazine and though Maggie refused her most of them, Movita did prevail with W and Women’s Wear Daily. She spent her own money on Vogue, Bazaar and even more arcane ones. She pored over them night and day and was always sketching improvements and additions to her line of prison wear. Only Theresa had the patience to look and listen to her constant stream of fashion talk, and even she eventually grew tired of it. But no matter how long Mo worked on a shift in the sewing room she always came back excited and filled with new ideas. Jennifer felt just a little bit as if she’d unleashed a monster.
She was also worried about the financial realities of running the prison. Although the IPO had raised money that could be used for capital improvements or the actual budget, there didn’t seem to be a lot of income re-creation possibilities. Prison Pops and Bars were selling strong and the new catalogue they were producing would probably increase sales, although right now it was just cost. But Jennifer knew she couldn’t count on the candy to support all of them. It wasn’t as if they were a tiny convent and baking bread would do the job. In its original proposal that won the bid, it was clear that JRU had planned to take a loss simply to build a presence. Unless she wanted to be taken over by one of the larger prison management firms – which she definitively did not – Jennifer couldn’t see a way to make their projection and she knew what that would do to the company’s financial rating. Wall Street analysts went nuts when there was any surprise. They weren’t even thrilled with surprise profits. Well, okay, they were thrilled with surprise profits but they went nuts buying stock as if it was the first offering of Bell Telephone.
Movita wa
s trying to talk Jennifer into doing a mail-order catalogue of casual clothes, but Jennifer felt it was far too risky and that the catalogue business was probably saturated. After dinner that evening she actually missed Cher, who, if she had still been there, could have probably come up with some thieving scheme that might actually work. Just then Theresa, who was thumbing through one of Mo’s magazines, interrupted her thoughts with an expletive that she rarely used.
‘Holy shit!’ Theresa said. ‘I don’t believe this and I’m seeing it with my own eyes. Did you see this, Movita?’ she asked.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Movita said. ‘Isn’t that a scam and a half.’
‘What’s that?’ Jen wanted to know.
‘It’s this company, a French one called Imitation of Christ,’ Theresa said, the outrage in her voice apparent.
‘A charity?’ Jennifer asked.
‘No, a fashion company,’ Theresa said.
‘Well, it does make a statement,’ Movita said.
‘Like what?’ Theresa said. ‘That French people are fuckin’ nuts? It says here that they buy old clothes from the Salvation Army and other shelters and thrift shops and then they tear them up or draw on them or add different buttons and sell it as high fashion.’
‘Well, it is high fashion,’ Movita said. ‘First of all they’re French and they have good taste and secondly they don’t pick just anythin’ from the thrift shop. And it’s what they do with it that makes all the difference.’
‘Let me see,’ Suki said, shifting the weight of baby Christina from one hip to the other, then bending down to take a look at the magazine. ‘God, that stuff is ridiculous. And the prices. Holy …’
‘Let me see that,’ Jennifer demanded. She took the magazine from Suki. It all seemed to be true, hard as it was to believe. Well, two years ago she might have been convinced that homeless chic was a look. She speed-read the article looking for the names of the American distributors and retailers who sold the garbage. She shook her head and wrote the names down.
‘You gonna buy some?’ Suki asked and moved the baby to a cradle position in her arms.
Jennifer didn’t even deign to answer her.
The next day Jennifer got on the phone as quickly as she could. Her French was lousy – she hadn’t used it since college – but she managed to get in touch with Imitation of Christ, and through them with another firm that was larger and less avant-garde. She spoke to a Pierre Duchamps who, luckily for her, spoke English and was a big fan of Con Air. ‘I love zee cinema of Jerry Bruckheimer,’ he said. ‘We can get zese real prison clothes? But for women? C’est fantastique. Merveilleux. Can you fax me zee choices? You have many sizes, many styles?’
Jennifer looked up into the air at the library ceiling over her head and wasn’t sure if she was thanking God or giving up. The world Outside was sometimes so very, very weird. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’ll fax them to you.’
‘But with prices you must also tell me if it is exclusive for Duchamps Couture. We will pay more but it must be exclusive to us. Comprenez-vous?’
‘Oui, je comprends.’
Jennifer made almost four hundred and sixty thousand dollars from the uniforms and realized that after it caught on in Paris there was a good chance it would move to London and New York. And, she thought, she had an endless supply of used ugly prison gear because the candy were still being issued jumpsuits until they settled in. When she and Warden Harding discussed it, neither one of them could keep back their laughter. But conservative projections indicated that they could expect to make close to a million dollars in pure profits as long as the trend lasted.
In the meantime, virtually every prisoner was bringing in recipes from their grandmothers, their great aunts, their mothers’ sisters’ cousins who had candy recipes that couldn’t be beat. After dinner in the cafeteria on Thursdays and Sundays they had tastings as a kind of rough market research. Though Jennifer noticed there was definitely a tendency to go for milk chocolate instead of the more expensive – and delicious – dark chocolate that she preferred. She figured it was a class thing. Two winners that they added to the collection were hard candies that were beautiful to look at and stored well. That was important, because while they valued freshness, it was impossible to guarantee at what temperature and for how long things would be stored while they were being shipped.
At Jen’s insistence, Maggie had begun joining them at dinner and once Maggie had even cooked, making coq au vin. ‘I don’t think anybody makes this anymore,’ she admitted to all of them. ‘But in my day it was the classy dish, sort of like my mother’s chicken à la king.’ Everybody ate the chicken happily, simply because it was something different. ‘I had to cheat, of course, with the wine,’ she said. ‘I suppose you can’t call it coq au vin when you’re using flat grape soda.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But I did add a little alcohol. Bryce smuggled it in to me. He injected some vodka into oranges that he brought me.’
‘Man,’ Movita told her. ‘You lucky with your sons but you stupid with your cookin’. I would have rather just sucked that orange instead of eatin’ this chicken.’
Maggie smiled. ‘Believe me, Miss Watson, I had already sucked several of them.’
‘You bad,’ Movita said. ‘And smart. Tell your boys to bring me a few dozen oranges next time.’
Maggie laughed. Jen smiled as everyone else at the table began clambering for the liquor-laced fruit. ‘Bryce is coming up on visiting day,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s to talk business with Jennifer.’ She looked across the makeshift table at Jen. ‘Apparently, our little JRU is doing very well,’ she said. ‘It looks as if my ship has come in.’
‘What does that mean?’ Suki asked, holding little Christina to her breast.
‘It means we all made money,’ Theresa explained.
Jen smiled at her naïveté. ‘No, it means that JRU made money for its stockholders. You only make money if you own stock and get a dividend or if you own stock, its value rises, and you sell it.’
Theresa smiled a big smile and said, ‘I do own stock and the value has increased and I may sell it.’
‘You own stock in JRU?’ Jennifer asked.
But before Theresa could answer Movita began bobbing her head. ‘I own stock,’ she said. ‘You think I’m gonna let the two smartest financial women I ever met get into a new venture without me takin’ some of the ride?’
‘Are you serious?’ Jen asked.
‘Um-hum,’ Movita told her.
‘Where did you get the money?’ Jennifer asked. ‘You’ve been in here for quite a while. How did you …’
‘I’ve got some money on the Outside. I got my ways,’ Movita said. ‘There are quite a few of us that got on board.’
‘But you weren’t supposed to say or do anything with this, Mo, it was too much of a risk. You could have lost everything.’
‘Yeah, well, considerin’ we’re in here it doesn’t really much matter if we win or lose, now, does it? Besides, we didn’t lose – we came out rich as we ever been.’
Jennifer sat herself down on the bunk in total shock.
43
Movita Watson
A deer with a chain of gold, if she escape, will run to the forest to eat grass.
Malay proverb
A couple of weeks before my kids were gonna be comin’ to see me, I sent off to a toy store catalogue and got ‘em all presents. I got a dall for Kiama, a chapstick for Talitha, and an art set for Jamorah.
Of all the things that Jennifer Spencer has done since she got started improvin’ conditions at Jennings, helpin’ kids come to see their mothers on visitin’ day is the best of all. By far, I think, and I’m not alone in this. I hadn’t seen my kids in four years and you can bet I could hardly stand the wait once I knew I was gonna see them. We had been writin’ to each other all the time and I talked with ‘em on the phone but of course none of that’s the same as bein’ actually with them. I couldn’t sleep for the excitement and got myself so worn down that I was cryin’ about the slight
est thing.
‘Can you please stop?’ the candy who had been assigned as my new cellmate said to me, puttin’ her face over the side of the bunk. ‘I can’t sleep.’
‘I would if I could,’ I answered her. ‘I just can’t.’
She put her pillow over her head and I buried my face in mine. I don’t know why I was cryin’ so much, but I guess it was just because it was such a terrible thing, me bein’ separated from them for so long.
The day finally came. I got dressed in a pair of denim pants and a white shirt and a jacket. I had stopped cryin’ and now I couldn’t stop smilin’. The presents were wrapped up and sittin’ on my bunk.
I went to the cafeteria but I couldn’t eat lunch. I was so nervous. Then, finally, it was almost one o’clock. I took the toys and the wrappin’ and went to the visitor’s room. People were already comin’ in, but I had time to quickly put the paper back on, lookin’ up at the door constantly. Then I saw ‘em.
I don’t suppose there’s any better sight than your kids after you haven’t seen ‘em in a long time. I was so amazed at the looks of ‘em that I couldn’t even speak. I just stared, smilin’ and even laughin’. They were smilin’ too, except for Kiama who’s six and hardly knows me. She came walkin’ over, real serious.
‘My babies,’ I cried, holdin’ my arms open big enough for all three.
‘Mama!’ Jamorah said, and then Talitha after her. ‘Mama! Mama!’
I scooped ‘em all together in my arms and we was kissin’ and huggin’ and cryin’ and laughin’. I couldn’t get over how beautiful they were. It made me sad that they weren’t dressed nice enough, but they were so beautiful! They were pictures of health to me.
‘I got somethin’ for each a you,’ I said, after we’d calmed down.
‘What, Mama?’ the two older girls asked together. Kiama looked at me, still wonderin’ who the heck I was.
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