Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro

by LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole

  Milagros’s caution offended Coco. “Nothing is happening,” Coco said to Milagros. In front of the children, she never so much as kissed Frankie. Like Milagros, Coco had trained her daughters to turn their heads away from the television whenever anything romantic or sexual came on. But Coco and Frankie’s intimacies weren’t what worried Milagros.

  Milagros trusted no man. Night after night, she said, she’d seen her own mother beaten by her boyfriend, and the next men were no better. Too many friends had been molested by brothers or stepfathers or uncles or somebody’s friend. One girl she knew had been raped by a police officer. Milagros had also had to deal with interrogations by the Bureau of Child Welfare after she’d brought Serena to the doctor for a complication from her earlier abuse. Her rules about men were nonnegotiable—exempting blood family. Sometimes Serena snuck over anyway, and if Milagros paid a surprise visit, Serena hurried upstairs and hid. But mostly, Frankie was out and Coco cooked and Serena sat on the counter, swinging her legs, keeping her aunt company. Then Coco leased a washing machine from Rent-A-Center for $39 every other week and Serena sat on that.

  Browsing through Rent-A-Center—a few minutes’ walk from Corliss Park—was like wandering through a catalog. Coco strolled through the model rooms, each a tiny stage set, but completely coordinated, hooked up. The living rooms had stereos and lamps flanking couches behind coffee tables on rugs. The TVs had their own home cabinets. Firm mattresses lay beneath fluffy puffs and bright quilts. Stuffed animals adorned bunk beds. Kitchen appliances lined up for duty. Sets of glass dishes waited patiently, stacked in see-through cabinets.

  The furniture beckoned to you: a mirror said, Rent me! None of the cheap wood bore scrapes or stains from spilled juice or children’s fingerprints. A sign listed the price variations, depending upon whether you wanted to buy or rent: brand-new cost, cash price; previously rented; total rent to own. There were rings you could have for $16.99 a week. Free jewelry cleaning while you wait! Free setup for your stereos! Everything was cheaper at Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart required a car. Rent-A-Center didn’t make you wait while you paid layaway. They delivered free.

  The Rent-A-Center people treated Coco respectfully. “Miss Rodriguez, we just want to know a time when you gonna come in for the payment” was the kind of thing they said. She was supposed to pay on Saturdays, but they gave her until Mondays, and whenever she was late—which was usually—it was a $5 fee. Five dollars was a lot, but it was better than borrowing from Delilah, the loan shark in the Bronx.

  Although Cesar was married, he continued to call Coco—first twice a day, then four and five times, always collect. Coco ignored her growing telephone bill. They reminisced about their youth like sentimental senior citizens. The precision of his memory flattered her. She said, “He remembers everything—the last time we made love, all of the positions. I told him, ‘That’s cuz you have all that time in there, to think.’ ”

  Cesar congratulated Coco on her independence. He alone acknowledged the significance of her move away from her mother and the Bronx: “You did it. You live there, are you proud of yourself? You should have done it when I was on the run.” She shared her next ambition—to learn how to drive. They imagined his release date and fantasized about taking Mercedes and Nautica somewhere far away—maybe the Poconos—where they could be a family just once, before Cesar returned to Giselle. He said, “I wish all the kids I had by other girls I had by you.”

  Coco pretended more generosity toward Giselle than she felt: “Who knows? You could fall in love with your wife. It happens over time.” Cesar asked for photographs—sexy ones of Coco, happy ones of their daughters. Serena took photographs of her aunt for her uncle. Coco posed seductively in underwear. She turned coyly over her shoulder with her hands up against the wall, as though being searched. She sucked on one of Nautica’s pacifiers. She added suggestive captions on the back. But Coco worried that Serena, at ten, could understand the nature of the posing. “Even though she’s a girl, that ain’t right,” said Coco. Eventually, the picture-taking became Mercedes’s job, because she was only five.

  During her phone calls with Cesar, Coco promised to send photographs, but also told Cesar she was better off for not having married him. “I woulda been working my ass off trying to impress you, and you would be having these bitches on the side,” she said. They avoided the subject of Frankie, except for Cesar’s admonishments that Coco make sure his daughters didn’t call Frankie Daddy. Mercedes didn’t, but Nautica did.

  Toward the end of one conversation, Cesar said, “You don’t know how much I want to break down and cry. I got no family out there, just my kids.” Coco used to brawl with girls who so much as looked at him when he was on the street; now she no longer even declared her love for him. He added, “You don’t tell me no more, I gotta keep asking you.”

  Coco still loved him absolutely, but felt foolish telling him—not so much because he’d married, but because she’d let him down again. “I feel so fucked up what I did,” she blurted out. He began to cry. She held in her tears until the connection cut off, as it did, automatically, after half an hour.

  Soon enough, the telephone company shut off Coco’s service for the unpaid bills, and she and Cesar were back to writing again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Two months into her affair with Torres, Jessica discovered she was pregnant. Panic-stricken, she claimed that she’d been raped in the bathroom, thrown to the floor by someone—perhaps a repairman—whom she was unable to identify. Unfortunately, she didn’t give close thought to the details of the fabrication; in a report chronicling her allegation, she described the crime scene as the bathroom in her old unit, a part of the prison she no longer had access to. The investigation, however, was already pointing toward Torres.

  Even before the pregnancy, guards and prisoners alike had volunteered their suspicions about his relationship with Jessica. The reports seemed to be less concerned with the sex than with the benefits their relationship brought: official memos noted the “big” pizza and “big box” of doughnuts; a prisoner mused about the frequency with which Torres washed his hands (“must be getting himself a handful”); another sniped, “When Torres walks by he smells like Martinez’s perfume.” One guard used Torres’s declining popularity to file a four-page typewritten complaint about his politics, all in caps:

  LAST I WOULD LIKE TO SAY IN PAST CONVERSATIONS WITH TORRES ABOUT TOPICS SUCH AS GUNS, DRUGS, AND WELFARE, THAT TORRES HAS SAID TO ME THAT HE FELT ALL DRUGS SHOULD BE LEGALIZED AND THAT ANYONE IN PRISON FOR SELLING DRUGS SHOULD NOT BE, FOR THEY WERE ONLY TRYING TO SUPPORT THEIR FAMILIES AND MAKE A LIVING.

  The prison authorities had given Jessica a pregnancy test that August, which was negative; but by October, the blood test came back positive. Jessica asked for an abortion but said the prison refused to give her one unless she paid for it. She didn’t have the money. She called her former pro-bono attorney, but by the time he had intervened and the abortion was scheduled, Jessica had spoken with Torres and changed her mind.

  Jessica’s devotion to Torres complicated an already complex situation and put her at further risk. First, by signing an affidavit claiming rape, Jessica had committed perjury; if convicted, she could face additional jail time. Because the alleged attack had taken place on federal property, the FBI opened its own investigation.

  In early November, Jessica retracted the story about the rape, admitted she’d had sex with Torres, and refused to say anything more. Torres was eventually suspended. Jessica’s loyalty to Torres had unwittingly earned her the reputation of a snitch. Ostensibly for her own protection, she was transferred to what was known as the camp, a minimum-security facility up the hill. Shortly after the move, Jessica’s old cellmate Player was transferred to the camp as well. Their room, which they shared with four other women, had three bunk beds, lockers, one window, and enough space for a small table with chairs. Jessica took the bottom bunk and covered the underside of the upper bed with pictures of her girls.

&n
bsp; Minimum security meant fewer restrictions. They still had count three times a day, but the women could roam the unit, make ceramics, or sit at picnic tables beneath the trees. Like mothers and grandmothers shut in their Bronx apartments, the inmates watched soap operas and played spades. On Saturday nights, the camp screened outdated movies in the visiting room. Someone always saved Jessica a seat. On Sundays, the women enjoyed listening to Radio Suave, a salsa music program broadcast from New York. To amplify the small sounds emitted from prison-regulation Walkmans, the women crafted speakers out of empty toilet-paper tubes. They danced and held hands if a friendly guard was on duty; otherwise, they danced with regulation distance between them.

  Jessica took little pleasure in her new freedoms. She rarely left the darkened space of her lower bunk. “She was in her own little world,” said Ida, one of her roommates. Jessica corresponded with Torres, using Player’s mother as a mail drop. Jessica memorized his words and flushed the letters. She fantasized about the family she and Torres would have with their baby, his two other children, and her three girls. She said that one night, aided by a sympathetic colleague, Torres came onto the prison grounds and met her on the camp’s back lawn. Beneath an enormous elm tree, they kissed.

  Meanwhile, the investigation droned on, parallel to the pregnancy. Jessica reported to a job in the camp’s kitchen. In the morning, she dragged herself to work. She complained a lot. She’d always surrounded herself with women who indulged her, but the investigation created extra burdens on her friends. Bending rules was necessary to make prison life bearable, but Jessica’s notoriety meant that she—and anyone she hung out with—was held to the book. Guards would tear apart the room in search of evidence.

  Still, the women gave Jessica extra leeway because she was pregnant—and then even more leeway when it turned out she was having another set of twins. Babies were about hoping and growing, not just surviving. They pulled you into the future, even if you were literally imprisoned by your past. Any belly—inside or outside of prison—required at least the perfunctory gestures of optimism. One night, a guard with whom Jessica was friendly placed his hand on Jessica’s belly to feel the babies stirring and blessed it with a kiss.

  Ida was the cook of the bunch, and she made it her business to keep Jessica full of food. Ida had been pregnant when she was arrested and still regretted her abortion; Jessica’s pregnancy offered her a second chance to do right. Jessica loved Ida’s special treats—banana pudding, plantain-chip cake, and chilikidas—a special jailhouse dish made by mashing together everything sweet (or savory) you could lay your hands on and spreading it over crushed Oreos (or plantain chips). The women also made hooch by mixing fruit with bread from the cafeteria and stowing it above a ceiling panel to ferment.

  The FBI wanted to run a DNA test on the fetuses, but Jessica refused. At one point, the FBI agents checked her phone list and visited her sister in the Bronx. Elaine worried that Jessica was about to get her heart broken again. But Jessica maintained her faith in Torres, even when he dropped out of touch.

  That spring, in 1995, Elaine and Coco brought her daughters and Jessica’s girls to Danbury. Jessica was nearing the end of her pregnancy. The visiting room at the minimum-security camp was light and airy. Vending machines lined one end. At the other end a play area posted an intricate list of rules. Another sign said Welcome Back! Because some children believed they were visiting their mothers at work or in the hospital, visitors weren’t supposed to say prison or jail.

  Jessica carried a clear plastic bag of crocheting. She wore a teal cotton sweat suit. Her white T-shirt, which was perfectly ironed, hung loosely from her belly, which was firm and big. The red jailhouse dye in her hair had grown out, revealing her brown-black roots. She wore no makeup, except for lipstick. Her face looked full and vulnerable.

  Serena and the twins ran to her and hugged her. Brittany and Stephanie drifted toward a dollhouse they’d spotted, but Serena hovered by her mother. Jessica tried to defuse the awkwardness between them by showing what she’d made: two sweaters for the unborn twins, a cloth-covered photo album for Elaine for Mother’s Day, and, for Serena, a peach-and-yellow coverlet that matched a skirt set she’d sent her long ago.

  “That’s one good thing about being locked up,” Coco mumbled encouragingly. “You get all creative.”

  With an eye on the guard, Jessica slid out a sheet of plastic from one of the photo albums. It was a copy of her most recent sonogram. She introduced Serena to her brothers. “See, Baby A, that’s his head, his eyes, the ears.” Jessica carefully traced the body with her fingernail. “There’s Baby B. His eyes there, his ears? You can’t really see him on that one, but there’s his head. They real big, right? That’s what the doctor said, they got big heads.”

  Jessica untied Serena’s straggly ponytail and combed out the knots with her fingers. She scooped up the strands and twisted a perfect topknot on the crown of Serena’s head. Her hands moved unconsciously, expertly. Serena loved to be touched. She leaned into Jessica’s side and bit her lip. Jessica rested a hand on her large belly. Serena lifted it and placed her own hand beneath.

  “Mommy,” Serena whispered. She reminded Jessica of what had become their special ritual since their visit in Florida—sharing a bagel from the vending machine. Jessica helped Serena count change and, holding hands, they walked over to the bank of food. Serena slipped the coins in the slot and pressed the button; inmates were not allowed to touch money.

  The click-click—the inmate photographer—suggested they take a picture outdoors. Ordinarily, Jessica loved having her picture taken. When George was in the MCC, he would say, “Baby, take a roll of thirty-six.” He sent her magazine pictures of poses for her to copy. In prison, on picture days in her unit, she and her roommates planned and traded outfits. They styled their hair and experimented with makeup and choreographed each pose as if they were on a fashion shoot. Jessica never went into debt for food in prison, but she often borrowed money for toiletries. That day, however, outside the camp’s plain entrance, Jessica seemed uncertain. Instead of turning to the side to show off her profile, as most pregnant girls did, she faced the camera with an expression of apprehensive resignation. She removed the clunky prison-issue eyeglasses she detested and stood beside a prickly bush.

  Serena never liked being photographed. At birthday parties, she had to be dragged to join her sisters and her cousins and cajoled to look pretty, to be sexy, to unpeel herself from the wall. Now she looked as though she wanted to hide behind the bush’s scratchy branches. “Come on,” Jessica said quietly, hugging her in. She clasped her daughter’s hand. Serena placed her other hand on her hip and tried to smile.

  Children born to women in federal custody must be taken by family within forty-eight hours of their birth, or they become wards of the state in which the mother lives. Jessica gave birth to two baby boys in a local hospital near the prison. Some inmates were required to give birth handcuffed, but Jessica’s doctor wouldn’t tolerate it. He had no say over the armed guard, though, who stood watch during the labor. Right up to the delivery, Jessica had held on to the hope that Torres would come to see their children being born, but she didn’t hear anything from him. The birth had been his cutoff date. “Whatever I felt for him, it all turned dead when he didn’t turn up in the hospital,” she said coolly the following afternoon. She claimed she’d named the boys Michael and Matthew out of affection, but the impulse seemed closer to longing and spite. Michael was Jessica’s father’s name. Matthew was the son of a prison friend whom Jessica had met earlier in the MCC; the friend had been released, but Jessica then coincidentally befriended Matthew’s sister, who was serving time at Danbury. Jessica and Matthew talked a lot on the telephone. He and Jessica were becoming closer as Jessica became more disenchanted with Torres. “I’ll never regret my sons,” she said stonily.

  She hardly saw them in the hospital, however; the guards on duty weren’t always willing to walk her to the nursery. When they finally agreed to let her peek a
t them, she inched slowly down the hall, the guards flanking her as she pushed her rolling IV. She tried to engage in small talk, perhaps to defuse the embarrassment of the stares of the other patients. She complimented one guard on her diamond engagement ring.

  In her room, the guards jotted down notes of Jessica’s conversations with visitors. Handcuffs lay on the table at the foot of her bed, beside a rose that Matthew had brought. He also surprised her with some Crabtree & Evelyn lotion from the hospital gift shop. He later returned with Lourdes and Elaine to collect the babies, and Jessica was discharged from the maternity ward. She managed to sneak the Crabtree & Evelyn lotion back into prison, but the female officer assigned to escort her confiscated Matthew’s and Michael’s baby footprints; they were considered contraband.

  Lourdes promised to help raise the babies, but the burden fell to Elaine. She and her husband, Angel, had agreed to look after them while Jessica completed her prison term. Angel had recently graduated from a drug treatment program and was maintaining himself on methadone. He worked long days at a factory in Queens. Elaine had completed her GED and volunteered at her sons’ school as a teacher’s aide. She wanted to work, but her husband discouraged it, and she felt obligated to stay home and try to bring together her scattered family.

  Elaine had gone into therapy to learn how to control her temper with her children, especially her youngest son, who had Cesar’s quick energy. She felt ambivalence about the strong instinct for self-protection that might have saved her from her siblings’ fates. She’d discussed her guilt about not helping Cesar more when he was a child and also while he was on the run after shooting Mighty: she’d worried about exposing her sons to his lifestyle, and with her husband’s history of drug use, she had feared unexpected visits from police. Even though Angel now seemed to be shaping up, she was losing confidence in the marriage. She was ashamed to have a man who lined up for his Dixie cup of methadone. Elaine had no clue how she’d manage with two infants—the apartment she and her husband shared with their two growing boys was no bigger than a studio—but she also couldn’t live with the thought of her nephews in foster care.