The Lost Chapters

by Leslie Schwartz

  I laugh. The other women at the table laugh, too. Everyone knows what we know. You don’t have to explain bullshit in jail. At least not when it concerns the police and their version of reality.

  “How about you?” I ask.

  “I got a DUI, too,” she says. “But I killed a po-lice.”

  That’s when the chill of a lifetime runs through me.

  “By any chance . . .” I say. Maybe it is the tone of my voice, but everyone else at the table stops to listen in on our conversation. Maybe it is suddenly quiet. Or maybe what I’m hearing is the loudest roar of the surreal I’ve ever heard. “Was he a motorcycle cop?”

  “Yes,” she says. Her eyes grow deep and curious.

  “Did you smash him into another car?”

  Her eyes open wide. “Yes, I did.”

  But I already know that she did. I already know who she is. My skin rises to gooseflesh. I remember my life. I see my past predicting this future, as time marks me down for the present right there, right now. Our matching books—the ones that brought us together—glow between us.

  “Was his name Cortijo?” I ask.

  She nods. “He had just made his three hundredth arrest for DUI before I hit him.”

  “You’re Qaneak Cobb,” I say.

  “I am,” she says.

  Our table falls quiet. It is the clamor of stillness. The entire room has stalled; the women, their hands in midair, their faces locked into hope, madness, and sorrow, are bronzed into statuary. The only things moving are the birds in the rafters and the dog that wanders aimlessly, looking for freedom.

  “I read about you,” I say. “I prayed for you every day since the day of your accident. I wanted to find you. I was sober then. But I don’t know what happened. I drank again. I forgot about you. Till now. Till just now.”

  Tears pool in her eyes.

  “Did you know that today is April 9th?” she asks.

  Of course I know what day it is. I am a counter. I am married to my calendar. And I am leaving, if they don’t forget me, the next day.

  “He died a year ago today,” she says.

  “I read about you on that day,” I say.

  For only the third or fourth time since I began my sentence, I begin to cry. And then I feel the shut-down, unnavigated portion of my spirit flower. I touch the book she had given me. To be the recipient of the words she gave me in that little volume of helpfulness was the offering of benevolence, the gift of love. To borrow a line from Márquez, my bones “began to fill with words.” To my surprise, everyone at the table began to cry, including Qaneak Cobb.

  “You see how God is,” one of the women says. “Mmm-hmm. Ain’t no coincidences in this place.”

  There are no coincidences. I could ask myself over and over again, what possible chance was there that among a total of twenty-five hundred inmates, I had sat next to—on my last day—the very woman who had penetrated a drinking binge so deep that she was practically the only thing I remembered of it? What were the chances that this meeting would occur exactly a year to the date that I read about her?

  Time had collapsed. On April 9, the year before when I had read the story about the intersection of Qaneak’s and Cortijo’s lives, I didn’t know that this moment, April 9, one year later, had already come to exist—a “reversal” in Márquez’s terms—and was waiting for me here, in this place, on this day of my life.

  Sitting there that day, I had jumped through the looking glass and the glass had shattered behind me. I would never return to old ideas, old ways of thinking, the old world that had enslaved me. The day I met Qaneak was the day I found my freedom. And at the last minute, too, of course. In less than twenty-four hours I would be asleep in my own bed.

  As Márquez wrote far more eloquently than I would ever write, “Wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.”

  I no longer existed in time. Only in being. Only in love, and its impermanence. We took each other’s hands. There is no measure of the distance we crossed.

  “I will never leave you,” I say.

  And I don’t. For more than two years, until she was transferred three hundred miles north to state prison, I visit her every two weeks. I help her out with money and books when I can, and once our friendship had grown, she learned to trust me enough to ask for the things she needed. But really, I can’t calculate or quantify my love for her. Our love for each other crossed the usual boundaries and limitations of time and language. I love her vastly, in a way I’ve never loved another person.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Processing Out

  You must love deeply. There will be pain. . . . You will lose what you love and the more you have opened your heart the more grief you will feel at the separation. But there can be no real love without pain. Do not worry about the hurt. Look past it. Open yourself to the wonder of every living thing. Explode with love!

  —Tolbert McCarroll, Notes from the Song of Life

  About ten days before I was let out I had stopped going to the Pentecostal services. They were so unhinged and emotionally hairy for me. But on Maundy Thursday, I was popped from my cell for a special service involving the washing of the feet with the Catholics. I only vaguely remembered the term “Maundy Thursday” from my James Joyce days. I knew Good Friday was when Jesus was crucified. But I had to be reminded what Maundy Thursday was.

  “It’s when Jesus washed the feet of his apostles after the Last Supper,” Rose told me as I sat down next to her.

  That day there were about fifty of us sitting in a huge circle in the Dayroom. On the other side of me sat Nina, who was an opiate addict. We’d become close during the four days I was in Dayroom in the bunk next to hers. She often shared her journals with me, another uncommon act of trust. And we would talk for hours about what was inside the pages, and how much she hurt. Nina had lost everything to prescription medication and was inside on a felony for writing fake prescriptions for oxy. Her mother was dying and, in fact, would be dead the next day, Good Friday. Another victim of alcoholism. Sitting between Rose and Nina was like being surrounded by the jailhouse Holy Grail. Rose was a traditional Mexican Catholic, Nina a traditional Italian Catholic. They were earthy and pretty and spooky with their omens and superstitions and their love for the Virgin Mary and for baby Jesus.

  It was the largest circle I’d seen in jail, comprised mainly of Latinas and white women. We waited in that circle for a while before the service started, so I borrowed someone’s Bible to give myself a quick lesson on what Maundy Thursday was. It turns out that after Judas left to betray Jesus, Jesus wrapped a towel around his waist and filled a basin with water. Then he began to wash the feet of his disciples one by one. I wondered if that made them feel weird. Apparently Peter protested, but Jesus told him that if they didn’t allow the foot washing, they could not be part of him.

  “You also should wash one another’s feet,” he told them. “I have set an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:14–17).

  It was a humbling idea. I couldn’t picture the sheriffs thinking like this. Or anybody in power for that matter. But it blew my mind on a basic level. I wasn’t shocked that Jesus would do such a thing. I mean, it wasn’t surprising given not just who he was but who Christians made him out to be. But to accept something like that from another person, especially your superior in all ways, is definitely a confusing idea. It would take a lot of self-control not to wiggle while someone you respected washed your feet.

  Finally, a very small lady in her fifties entered the circle carrying a tub, a couple gallon containers of water,
some oil, and a few rolls of paper towels. She was tiny and had long, silky black hair. She wore simple white pants, a red shirt, and clogs. Two inmates volunteered to help her, carrying her supplies to the center of the circle. The woman spoke only Spanish as she read some Bible passages, speaking very softly and modestly. Even if I could have understood the Spanish, I wouldn’t have been able to hear her because she was so soft-spoken. Everything about her emanated light and restfulness. In my entire time at Lynwood, I had not come into contact with a person like her, so humble as to appear almost meek, yet strong with her intention and conviction. Her expression was plain; I might even say it was sublime, without any appearance of self-righteousness or pity.

  After the woman finished speaking, she kneeled in front of each inmate one by one to wash her feet. When she was finished drying her feet, she administered a few droplets of oil. At first the inmates were giggly and nervous and rowdy, like always. But within a few moments, the woman appeared so seraphic, so achingly saintly, that a hush fell over the room. You could feel the power of this gift, the devotional quality of her efforts, the absolute humility of her actions. All around me, my fellow inmates began to weep. It was one of the most unbelievable things I had ever seen in my life, and I felt myself softening in a way I may have never before.

  When she had gone around the circle—it probably took an hour or more—she went to the center of the room again and bowed in front of us. Then, out of the blue, one of the hardest inmates in that place, someone who never spoke to anyone but who we all knew was on her third year in Lynwood waiting to be tried for the abuse and death of her own child, ventured forward. Her name was Helen. She spoke quietly to the woman who had just completed the foot washing. The woman nodded her head ever so gently and sat down, and Helen slid the woman’s shoes off and gently placed her feet in the tub. She tenderly washed the woman’s feet then dried them, after which she sprinkled oil on them.

  It was in that moment—perhaps the most silent and still moment of my life—that all my hope and all my fear, all that had hurt me and everything that had healed me, found its place in my heart. I had no judgment of self, no self-hatred, but no defensiveness nor overmuch self-love either. I openly wept.

  The women beside me were crying, too. Everyone was. The pain and the suffering and the joy and the peace were brutal and glorious because they all came at once, seemingly unbidden. I held onto Nina, knowing her mom was dying. I held onto Rose, knowing her son was sick. They held onto me for what they knew of me, whatever it was they thought. It didn’t matter. We all locked onto each other. We were one person. There were no differences between us. We had been crowned, it seemed, by light and by knowing. A wise rabbi once said, “There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.”

  I wish it could have lasted. But before we knew it, the deputies were shouting, “Back into your cells. Hurry up. Clean that mess up. Move it along, ladies. Goddammit, you’re slow.” So then it was over. But I won’t forget that moment as long as I live. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t Catholic. In that room, love was just love. It was delivered by that soft voice of humility that shattered our hopelessness, acknowledged our pain, and gave us reprieve. After I was locked up inside my cell again, I watched the little, quiet lady leaving the dorm with the few paper towels she had left, her empty water jugs, her tub, and her bottles of oil. I could almost hear those oil bottles clinking together as she walked. I recalled then that day that seemed so long ago now when I had come out of my roaring detox in New Mexico and saw the crescent moon and the glittery stars and thought that if I were going to carry on and survive, I would have to learn how to love. And that’s when I understood that when you truly love, you aren’t conscious of it; it just arises out of the mist, halcyon and golden. I think of that mythical bird breeding in her nest that floats in the sea during winter solstice, charming the winds and waves into calm and peace. That was how I pictured the way love looked.

  * * *

  On my last night, for the first time ever, I sleep like the dead. Of all my experiences in Lynwood, meeting Qaneak brought me to a presence that I can’t define. A laying down of my sword, an opening for a new God.

  At 4:30 a.m., I wake up to pee. Outside in the Dayroom it is quiet. The brown light bathes the module. I can see the dog below in shadow looking out, its eyes lighted. I know that I am leaving. I am not afraid. I have lost all fear. As I pee, I hear the sound of boots on the steps to upper tier. I know he is coming for me. I don’t even bother to cover myself. As I take my last piss in jail, the deputy says through the glass, “Schwartz, 531, roll up.”

  Tiffany is awake. She is smiling. “I’ll write to you,” she says.

  “So long, girl,” I say.

  I roll up, taking my time. I give Tiffany my stamps, my envelopes, my shower shoes, my commissary, which includes my vending card—there’s never anything in the machines anyway, but she can have it—my shampoo, my baby oil, my toothpaste, my extra T-shirts, my flannels, my Keefe coffee, and my fireballs.

  “Here’s some pencils. Go to town on the fake-up,” I say.

  “Thanks.”

  “Hurry up,” the deputy says.

  “Cool your jets,” I say. Then under my breath, “You asshole motherfucker.”

  He leaves the door open and stomps his way back down the stairs. I look at Tiffany. “He’s gotta hurry back to his perch cuz it hurts for him to have to stand up,” I say.

  She laughs.

  The only thing I take are my books, my letters, my apple tree, and all my writings, including my thinking reports, my EBI journal, my tests from school, my calendar, my handmade sixty-day recovery chip, and the poems that Tiffany and I spent time writing and sharing. The last book I pack is the one my friend Lisa Dee sent me. It’s the weirdest book I’ve ever seen. It’s called Notes from the Song of Life: A Spiritual Companion. The book was written by a former lawyer from Portland, Oregon, named Tolbert McCarroll, who became a lay monk of the Starcross Monastic Community, which probably most people have never heard about.

  After his wife died in the late 1970s, McCarroll gave up his law practice and bought property in northern coastal Sonoma County, in the redwoods of California. There he established a retreat center and commune where they supported themselves by making and selling award-winning olive oil. McCarroll, known as Brother Toby, had bought the ramshackle property from the sale of a Victorian house he owned in San Francisco. He wanted to spend the rest of his life reading and in quiet contemplation. But that wasn’t in the plans for him. When the AIDS pandemic hit, he and his fellow lay monks, Sister Marti Aggeler and Julie DeRossi, resolved to help the AIDS babies who were abandoned and isolated in US hospitals. He eventually became father to six AIDS babies. He once told a reporter, “There is absolutely nothing more contemplative as being with a child who is dying.”

  I hardly knew Lisa Dee, but my friends had given my booking number and address to people in my recovery community, so many of them sent me letters and books. Lisa had sent it from Amazon, along with a note: Thinking of you, Sweet Leslie, sending warm hugs. Love, Lisa Dee. When I saw her after I was released, she was fighting breast cancer. Then her father died. She was a pillar of strength. Once, I went to watch her sing in a gospel choir, but in her real life, she played in a punk rock band and worked a regular job. I am tied to her forever for this gift that came unasked for, surprising me, the pages holding me, as if they were her arms. And while I tried to find traces of crazy or cult in the book, I couldn’t. I found only strength.

  I turn to it in my last minutes before release and open it on a random page. “Check this out,” I say, reading it to Tiffany.

  The gateway to the spiritual path is you. . . . Within every self-absorbed person is a divine flame. It may take many years for the flame to be liberated, but it is there. No matter how hard it is to accept, you must understand that the only difference between you and any holy person you admire is that your hero has discovered her or h
is own nature.

  “Nice,” Tiffany says, yawning.

  She’s a millennial. She thinks she knows everything.

  “See you on the outs,” I say.

  I will see her on the outs. Once. Then she will relapse and disappear.

  I walk downstairs.

  “Make your call,” the deputy says.

  I call Greg. “Come,” I say.

  Everyone is asleep. Denise sees me with my roll-up and my duffel that Duckie found for me a million years ago. She leaves her Dayroom bed and comes over to hug me.

  “Godspeed,” she says.

  “See you,” I say.

  She doesn’t cry. Her face is gaunt, skeletal. She looks devastated.

  “Keep up the yoga,” I say.

  She walks back to her bunk, crawls in, and, in the darkness, fades from view. This is the hour they come for us and let us go home. But we can’t leave till our ride gets here on account of the projects across the streets.

  “Too many rapes and dismemberments while girls walked to the train station,” a deputy said once. Was it me being paranoid, or did he sound disappointed about the mandated safety precautions? He probably found getting up and releasing people too much exertion for his corpulent body.

  The thing about releasing us at 4:30 a.m. is that most people don’t have rides at that hour, so they are returned to their dorm to be released at sunup instead. This way they can get raped and dismembered walking to the train station by daylight.

  The deputy is about to take me back when all of a sudden Wolf Eyes appears.

  “I’ll take her,” she says.

  She’s like the Witch of Buchenwald. She has some weird accent—maybe German or Eastern European. Her hair is fuzzy and buzz-cut and her eyes are bluish gray. She has no waist, and her body is sausage-like, stuffed into too-tight khakis. I remember her from Exit Dorm. She was constantly punishing us for being “too loud” or not tucking in our shirts. This way she didn’t have to program us, which meant she didn’t have to do any work. If she did program us, she’d give us fifteen minutes then lock us up. If anyone was still in the shower after fifteen minutes, she’d take program away from us the next day.