by Wendy Dale
“You bet. I’ll meet you here at five.”
Bonded by liquor, nationality, and a mutual desire to see Francisco get out of prison, Saúl and I quickly became good friends. We had known each other only briefly in college but our bouts of drinking were having the effect of bringing us close fast.
As I ran between embassies, lawyers’ offices, and government buildings, I’d look forward to our Fridays out, when we’d go to the university village, huddle together around a small table in one of the student bars, share secrets, and make each other laugh. He was the bright point in my otherwise lonely existence. Now that I was no longer on speaking terms with Jessica, it was such a relief to hang out with someone who knew the whole story of what I was going through, though ironically enough we didn’t discuss Francisco all that much. For me, these nights were a time to escape—for a few hours over beer and Costa Rican appetizers, I was just a normal twenty-six year old again.
Our sober hours were spent together at the outdoor produce market eating El Salvadorian pupusas and browsing around as I explained to him the names of the strange Costa Rican fruits. This particular habit confused the Costa Ricans terribly because with Saúl being Latino, they figured he was from Costa Rica and they wondered why a gringa was telling a Costa Rican the names of foods he’d been eating all his life.
However, my platonic affection for Saúl was showing and was making Francisco a bit jealous. After learning that Saúl and I had a standing date for drinks every Friday night, Francisco complained, “Wendy, a man doesn’t ask a woman out for drinks because he wants good conversation.”
“Francisco,” I explained patiently, patting him on the hand, “I was the one who asked him out for drinks.”
Seeing that Francisco wasn’t particularly pleased with this response I added, “Besides, he’s not just my drinking buddy; he’s your human rights representative.”
There were two possible ways to have sex with someone who was at La Reforma. The first was to pay two dollars to a prisoner to stand on the lookout for any guards while you and your companion went to a secret enclosed area and did the deed hidden behind a sheet. Not wanting to shell out the cash, Francisco and I chose the second option.
To get conjugal visit rights, Francisco had to submit himself to a host of HIV and STD tests while I had to undergo an interrogation by the social worker.
“Name?” the dour-faced woman behind the desk asked me.
“Wendy Dale.”
“Nationality?”
“American.”
“Occupation?”
“Writer. Journalist.”
The woman looked up at me for the first time.
“Journalist?”
“Uh-huh,” I said with a smile, conveniently neglecting to mention that I had been a celebrity journalist and that the weightiest news I had ever tackled was an interview for a gay magazine with (straight) actor John Lithgow.
“Do you know why your companion is in prison?” the woman asked me, no emotion registering on her face.
“He was transferred to top security for a prison escape for which there is no proof.”
“I see. And why is it that you are requesting your conjugal visit privileges?”
To have sex, you dummy, I wanted to say. “I would like to be a support to my companion in this difficult time,” I managed to get out with a straight face.
Apparently pleased with my answers, the social worker scheduled our conjugal visit for the following week. There was just one small, insect-sized problem. Its name was papalomoyo. As of my first visit to Central America, I had lived in dread of this parasite, which has the nasty habit of imbedding itself in the skin of its host and living there contentedly for an indefinite period of time. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the insect had chosen my leg, my arm, or my foot as its new abode, but one week before my scheduled conjugal visit, I began to fear that every time I took a seat, my butt wasn’t the only thing I was sitting on. There was a dime-sized swelling on my left cheek that had begun to make sitting and sleeping nearly impossible.
“Looks like papalomoyo to me,” Doña Cloti said to me after I had immodestly removed my underwear and allowed her to take a look.
“Lucky insect,” her husband declared, after learning where it had chosen to make its new home.
Not thrilled with the idea of sharing my hindquarters with any creature not of my own species, I decided to take matters into my own hands: I was going to scratch.
“Well, whatever was there isn’t there anymore,” the doctor said to me several days later, looking at the quarter-sized hole that remained in my left cheek. “But you have a terrible infection.”
He brought out a mirror and showed me the purple circle I had on my rear, the source of the incredible pain I was feeling. “Give it a couple of weeks. The antibiotics should clear it up by then.”
But I didn’t have a couple of weeks. I only had two days to have an insect-free, infection-free bottom.
As it turned out, it was nothing like your typical Hollywood movie love scene. There was no champagne or soft lighting. No orchestra played in the background. The scene was a musty-smelling room containing a stained twin-sized mattress, cockroaches scampering about on the floor. The main characters were one limping American writer and one imprisoned Colombian. The script read: “They embrace.” But in the end, not even a Hollywood film director could have imagined it any better.
Minutes passed. Days passed. Months passed. Francisco had spent eight months in prison, nearly two of them in top security. I had been part of his life for five of those months.
I had used my time to study his case, to learn the legal code, to gather evidence if and when he was going to have a trial. The lawyer had used the time to steadily increase his fee and to constantly remind me that we hadn’t any proof.
I spent my Sundays with Francisco, arriving at the prison at six in the morning, waiting in the interminable line of women for the eight o’clock bell that would signal the beginning of entering the gates: prison guards requesting passports, checking lists, inspecting groceries, and performing body searches.
Francisco spent his time reading about famous criminals who had successfully escaped from some of the world’s harshest prisons.
And finally, the letter came. Francisco showed it to me at our next Sunday visit.
“They know you’re here,” Francisco said to me.
“What do you mean?”
“They know that my girlfriend is an American journalist.”
“And?”
“And so they cleared me of the prison escape charges.”
The letter explained that there was “no irrefutable proof” implicating Francisco in the breakout and that he was to be transferred to minimum security immediately. Francisco was to be given more liberty, including library privileges and an hour outdoors each day.
We celebrated with Coke and potato chips, realizing the long way we had come to end up exactly where we had started from. Francisco was now in the same position as when we had first met: two cases facing him, two trial dates that had yet to be set.
By now, I had gotten used to the bustling scene outside the prison gates. Twice a week, on visiting days, enterprising housewives converted the whole area into an open-air market, hawking tamales, fruit drinks, and sundries such as toilet paper, vegetables, bread, cigarettes, and soda that shoppers could pick up at the last minute to take in to their incarcerated loved ones. However, the heart of all activity had nothing to do with the business transactions going on all around. Rather, it was the lines, the four roped-off rows filled with visitors (nearly always women) that set the stage for what occurred here.
I had learned the hierarchy early on. It wasn’t based on power or beauty—it was a happiness hierarchy. Those in the first line, indiciados, were there to see men whose fate was still up for grabs, men who hadn’t yet been given trials, who still had hope of being declared innocent and set free. Women in this line laughed, complimented each other’s clothes, cha
tted away about their children and their homes, even spread out blankets and had picnics on the dirt.
The next two lines were quieter, filled with women whose husbands had been convicted, lesser offenders in either low or moderate security who were biding their time, waiting day by day for their debt to society to be paid. But the last line, mediana cerrada, was unmistakable. No one put on the finishing touches to her makeup or dished out cookies to her friends. This was the smoking line, the line of silent exchanged glances of commiseration, where the only question to be overheard was “How long does he have left?”
It had been my line for the past two months, the place I had waited hours at a time, counting the minutes until I would be allowed in. But today, as I climbed out of my cab and walked toward the handful of women who had already gathered at the roped off area near the entrance, it suddenly hit me how much Francisco’s situation had improved. I had gone straight from the misery line to the line of hope.
After my two-hour wait had passed and the women began slowly filing into the prison, I realized that entering La Reforma from now on was going to be significantly less painful. Before, I’d had to go through a passport check, a body frisking, and then a detailed inspection of the bags filled with food I was carrying in with me. After this, I’d cross the prison courtyard, attempting to fend off the inmates who would tail me begging for money, and I’d head over to maximum security to begin the search process again. There they’d keep my passport, take away my keys, and rip apart all of the food I was carrying—squeezing my bread, opening my milk, and invariably confiscating one or two forbidden items such as fruit that fermented too easily or bug spray that was too flammable.
But today as I walked out of the first examination area into the courtyard, Francisco was there waiting for me. I wasn’t going to have to go through a second intensive inspection, nor would we spend the next few hours in the dark fetid area of maximum security. We got to roam about outside in an area bigger than a football field, sit in the sunshine, and have a picnic on the grass. What a difference a prison escape charge makes!
Two days later, I learned that conjugal visit protocol for indiciados was going to be significantly improved as well. In the past, as much as I had enjoyed the “quality time” these visits afforded (not to mention the sex), I had always hated how unspontaneous they were. The joke about blocking off time on your calendar actually applied to me. Every two weeks, “have sex with Francisco” appeared on my list of things to do.
The planned nature of my love life made these conjugal visits feel just the slightest bit sleazy. Someone else was dictating when and where I was to have sex. Since this translated into four precious hours twice a month, Francisco and I tried to cram in as much as possible during our allotted time, and the unfortunate result was that quality took a backseat to quantity (backseat being a somewhat appropriate metaphor here). The first hour was great, but every subsequent hour was controlled by nervous glances at the clock, constant reminders of how little time remained.
What I hated even more was the dreaded knock on the door signaling the end of my visit and my subsequent exit to face a bunch of horny guards who always smirked, reminding me that they knew what I’d been up to for the past few hours.
However, now that Francisco was living in mínima, conjugal visits here were all night long. For the first time, we were actually going to be able to sleep together—and unlike other rendezvous in my past, there was no need to worry about him leaving when the sex was over—having a group of armed guards outside the door just a hundred yards away was enough incentive to cuddle for even the most commitment-wary man.
On the day of my scheduled conjugal visit, I arrived at the prison showered and perfumed, wearing my best lingerie, a bit frazzled as usual. The line was always short for conjugal visits, but if you arrived even five minutes late or forgot your conjugal visit ID card, you wouldn’t be allowed in so I always showed up a bit nerve-racked, having checked and rechecked the contents of my bag a half-dozen times on the harried cab ride over.
After the usual inspection (frisking my body, rifling through my bags, inspecting my change of underwear, my bra, my condoms— God, how I resented this invasion of privacy), I waited by the entrance, until my assigned guard showed up to take me to the conjugal visit area in mínima. We sauntered across the prison courtyard, my escort moving at an unbearably slow pace, a man obviously getting paid by the hour. I was supposed to stay at his side until we arrived at our destination, but when I spotted Francisco in the distance, I gave the guard my best pathetic pleading look, and apparently an old softie when it came to young couples in love, he shrugged his shoulders and let me race on ahead.
Thirty seconds later, I was in Francisco’s arms, hearts pounding, our lips all over each other’s faces.
“I’m making you dinner,” Francisco whispered in my ear once our lips had run out of respectable places to wander. He proudly held up a bag of groceries that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Where did you get that?”
“There’s a store here in mínima. I can get a pass to walk across the prison grounds and buy stuff there once a day.”
At the prison minimart (I couldn’t help but wonder how many times a day that place got held up), Francisco had picked up potatoes, yucca, plantains, chicken, and rice. It was a nice gesture, but I had no idea what good the raw ingredients would do us.
“There’s a stove, too,” Francisco explained, grabbing my hand and leading me in. “Come on, I’ll show you our room.”
We wandered into a covered patio area equipped with a small outdoor kitchen. There was a sink, a double-burner stove, and an outdoor picnic bench. Next to the patio was a courtyard that was encircled by numbered rooms, a rudimentary Motel 6 in need of a good coat of paint—or at least a different color choice, something a little more romantic than florescent lime green.
“Isn’t it great?” Francisco beamed.
I had to admit that it was. Twelve hours was an incredible length of time for us to get to spend together and we had the freedom to wander back and forth between our private room and the communal open-air area half the size of a basketball court.
We raced to Room 12, set down our bags, and suppressed the urge to fling ourselves on the bed until we had fitted it with the clean sheets that I had brought along for the occasion.
“It’s a double,” Francisco announced proudly, distractedly tucking in the sheets. On other visits, we had always shared a twin bed that we had struggled not to roll out of. “And we even get our own bathroom!” he added, pointing to the room off to the left. “Come on, let’s take a shower!”
He left the bed half tended and nearly shoved me into the tiny room. Within seconds, we were both naked and standing in the cement-walled cubicle under the showerhead.
“Water!” Francisco announced, turning the knob. And it sure was—a gushing stream of cold water. I screamed in agony.
“Make it warm!” I insisted. But I noticed that there was only one knob.
“There is no warm. You’ll get used to it.”
Francisco joyously splashed me with handfuls of freezing water until I pleaded with him to stop. Suddenly serious, he began running his hand over the goose bumps on my arms, my waist, my hips, and then he embraced me, distracting my mind from the cold.
So making love in a prison shower wasn’t the warmest or most romantic of places, but when it came to playing the game, “Where is the strangest place you’ve ever done it?” I was now guaranteed to win every time, hands down.
After we had dried off and gotten dressed (the bed still remained unmade), Francisco and I headed out to the patio area where we succumbed to the fantasy that we were just a normal couple out on a regular date. It was a childish thing to do—I felt too old to be playing make-believe—but it was a pattern we inevitably slipped into. We were just two people sitting outside on a patio watching the rain. The illusion worked for a while. As long as I focused on Francisco’s face or the courtyard, I could successful
ly avert my gaze from the bars that encircled our fantasy motel.
How simple my needs had become. Once I had dreamed of strolling along the Champs-Elysées, traveling by Italian gondola, munching on creamy Swiss pastries. I had even gone to Honduras thinking of heading to the Estée Lauder counter. How foolish these desires seemed to me now. They were the wishes of some other person, a woman who had little to do with my life.
Now I was content with the diluted fantasy that the man in front of me was my boyfriend (sometimes he became my husband) cooking me dinner in our home.
“It smells wonderful, honey. Are you sure you don’t need any help?”
“No, dear. Just keep reading your Harper’s. I’ll call you in when it’s ready.”
Later we’d go for a walk, perhaps run into our friends on the street, watch a movie on cable before curling up together to sleep.
My fantasy was made all the more realistic by the very real dinner preparations going on in front of me. Francisco had refused my offer to help, and now that I saw the way he prepared the meal, I realized I probably wouldn’t have been of much assistance to him anyway. Granted, I knew how to chop up vegetables, but I came from a wimpy country where we generally accomplished this activity with the aid of a knife.
“They don’t allow knives at the prison,” Francisco explained, noticing my astonished stare as I watched him dissect tomatoes, yucca, and parsley, using nothing more than the sharpened end of an aluminum can.
The stove was also a mystery to me. It looked like a hot plate, but instead of plugging the two burners in, Francisco expertly hooked the entire apparatus up to a hose connected to a metal canister filled with natural gas. And with one swift stroke of a match, the flame sprang to life. I tried not to look amazed, the way I was always impressed by men capable of shaking a few wires under the hood of my car and making a previously useless vehicle sputter and hum again, but I felt very much like Jane dropped suddenly into the unfamiliar jungle, forced to rely on Tarzan for the simple necessities of life.
I pretended to read my magazine but watched Francisco every time he wasn’t looking as he added ingredients to the pan, lovingly stirred the soup, tested the broth for salt. I was thinking about him, but it was different than what I usually felt in the presence of men involved in my life. It wasn’t desire or the wish to enflame his desire. In fact, it had nothing to do with sex. What I felt was safe.