Lockdown on Rikers

by Ms. Mary E. Buser

  Although initially excited, I found the nursery group to be an uphill battle. Marisol and Addie were eager and interested, but the others less so. Tasha and Swanday never budged from the end of the couch, Millie was off in her own world, Lucy stayed to herself in the rocking chair, and the rest were otherwise distracted. This wasn’t at all what I imagined of a therapeutic group, and it certainly didn’t measure up to the ideals touted in the classroom: “The group is a vehicle for change!” At the rate things were going here, I didn’t see how this could be a vehicle for much of anything. It was quickly obvious that the biggest obstacle to a good discussion was the babies. Sweet as they were, babies cry. Not only did they cry as their mothers fussed with bottles, but they also cried from their cribs, meaning that the mothers were continuously jumping up and running out to the cribs, creating a constant, nerve-wracking distraction.

  One afternoon, after yet another challenging session, I had an idea. I stopped off at Camille Baxter’s office and ran it by her. “What if we used women from general population as babysitters? They could tend to the babies so the mothers could attend the group in peace.”

  Baxter smiled, but with a knowing look. “Babysitter,” she said, was already an official job, just one that was hard to fill due to two criteria. “First,” she explained, “the babysitter can’t be facing a murder charge, which isn’t much of an issue—most of these women aren’t killers. But it’s the second one that gets you: a babysitter can’t be here on a drug charge. We’ve got over a thousand women in this jail, Mary. Months can go by before someone qualifies for the job.”

  I was stunned. I knew from my assessments that drugs were a huge problem, but I never imagined it to be on this scale.

  “Sad, isn’t it?” Baxter said.

  With the babysitter idea dashed, Allison and I had little choice but to slog through the crying and distractions and try to generate a meaningful discussion. But the dialogue seemed to go around in circles, rarely moving to deeper levels. As much as I hated to admit it, the high point was usually the end, when everybody got a donut. Allison felt we should be serving fruit instead of donuts, but when we put it to a group vote, not one hand shot up in favor of an apple or a banana.

  But all was not lost. While everyone was relaxing afterward, someone would often sidle up to me or Allison, eager to talk—just not publicly. Addie sought out Allison, while the pleasant Marisol waited for a moment when I was alone. “Miss Buser,” she whispered. “I want to tell you something that I don’t want everybody knowing about.” Bobbling Teresita on her hip, she said, “I did something that was really hard for me to do—I got tested for HIV. When I was out on the streets, I’ll be honest with you, Miss B—I used needles. So I’ve been really worried that I might have gotten the virus. But I got the results this morning at the clinic. I don’t have it—I’m negative! I can’t stop smiling. I waited six months before I got tested so I wouldn’t get a false negative, but the HIV counselor said it’s definite!”

  Marisol’s relief was understandable. It had only been a decade earlier that the deadly virus that causes AIDS had been identified, and the country was still struggling to understand this baffling new disease. Fear of AIDS loomed large, especially for inmates, a population highly vulnerable to HIV primarily because of drug addiction, which often involves dirty needles and can lead to casual and unprotected sex; both are major modes of transmission. As the newly arrested recovered from drug use, the possibility that they’d contracted AIDS was a constant worry.

  “I feel like this is a second chance from God,” Marisol asserted. “Now I know that I can get through this jail stuff and stay off drugs when I get out and, well—just be a good mother to Teresita.” Smiling down at her baby, she said, “That’s all I want in life, Miss B, that’s all I want.”

  And then in a big surprise, the aloof rocking chair mother approached me. With a little gap-toothed smile, Lucy Lopez had a certain attractiveness. “Could we meet privately?” she asked. “I don’t want everyone in here knowing my business.”

  I pulled out my appointment book, and a few days later, I greeted Lucy in the clinic, curious why this distant woman wanted to talk to me.

  “Oh, I know you think I’m not paying attention during group,” she started off, “but I’m listening, all right.”

  “Then, why don’t you ever say anything?” I asked.

  “It’s like this, Miss B. I take care of my baby and mind my own business—I stay to myself. I don’t want to fool around in here and get all silly, ’cause if I do, I just might forget.”

  “Forget what?” I asked softly.

  Lucy Lopez looked me in the eye. “Miss B,” she said, “I’m going to keep it real with you. I’m a crack addict. Hard-core. I’m not going to dress it up like the others do and call it cocaine—no, crack! Now that I’m in here and I can see just how far gone I was out on the streets, it scares the hell out of me! This one time, I was so high that I was laying on a subway platform in the Bronx and my arm was dangling right over the edge. I was looking down at the tracks, they were shiny and so close. And somewhere deep inside of me, a little voice was whispering, Lucy—what are you doing? You’re gonna get killed, you’re gonna die. But there wasn’t a thing I could do—I could no more pull myself off of that platform than I could get off drugs and get a job and take care of my son. And then, like in a really bad dream, I could hear the train coming. ’Cept it wasn’t any dream,” she whispered. “It was getting louder, so what I did was—I shut my eyes, tight as I could. And just when I thought it was gonna all be over, I could feel somebody picking up my legs and dragging me back. That happened to me, Miss B—it happened,” Lucy said, her face crumpling into tears. “I need help.”

  I scrambled for a box of tissues, barely able to believe that this young mother had been sprawled out on a subway platform, inches from a horrific death.

  Wiping away the tears, she composed herself. “I gotta believe that getting locked up happened for a reason, that there’s a reason God didn’t let me get killed that day—and that somehow, my life’s gonna get better. I don’t know exactly how, Miss B, but I’ve gotta find a way, ’cause if I don’t—when I get out this time, I’m gonna die for real. I will, I know it. That’s why I thought I should talk to you. I started going to NA meetings in here, and they have this one saying that keeps going through my head: ‘If you do what you’ve always done, then you’ll get what you always got.’ And the thing is, I never asked anyone for help before. But maybe this is something I should do different. I hear you when you talk—I just don’t like the group. I’d like to meet with you privately, if that’s okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay. I’m so glad you’re reaching out like this, Lucy.”

  “Me too,” she said, struggling to hold back a new round of tears.

  As Overton announced the start of the afternoon count, we set up our next appointment, and Lucy Lopez dashed back to the nursery.

  * * *

  As I continued meeting more of Rose Singer’s inmates, tales like Lucy’s were common—young women who’d lived on the edge in a drugged-out haze, now “coming to,” growing disconsolate about their lives and frantic about their children. Much of the chatter in the waiting area centered on children, prospects for regaining custody, and dealings with BCW—the hated Bureau of Child Welfare. It was a long road back for most, and while not everyone had Lucy’s level of motivation, many did. And for those in denial, the absence of drugs and their continuing incarceration usually brought them around to their sad reality, which is exactly what finally happened to Tiffany Glover, who continued to insist that her arrest and incarceration was one big misunderstanding.

  So it was somewhat of a shock when Tiffany was waiting for me one afternoon when I arrived at the MO. “Oh, Miss Buser,” she beamed. “Things are going great!”

  “They are?”

  “Yes, see, I go to court tomorrow and I�
�ve been on the phone with different drug programs, and I found one that’ll accept me. Not that I need it, but if it gets me out of here, then why not? Gotta do what you gotta do,” she laughed. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a folded paper. “I got this today—a letter saying I could come. It’s a day program. I’m bringing it to court and when I show it to the judge, he’ll release me.”

  “Hold on a second, Tiffany—what does your lawyer say about all this?”

  “Oh, him! He’s a joke. Every time I try to call him from that card he gave me, I just get a machine and my call’s wasted. It makes me realize I gotta take matters into my own hands. This is my life, and I’ve gotta be in charge of my own life—right?”

  “Well, it’s a good effort you made here, but it doesn’t mean the judge will go for it.”

  “He’s gotta let me go. I gotta think positive. Everyone deserves a second chance.”

  “Yes, but there’s no guarantee—”

  “You’re just bringing me down,” she interrupted. “I’m going home tomorrow! Home!”

  Tiffany’s spirits were soaring. This was the first time I’d even seen her smile, but I had a bad feeling. Try as I might, I couldn’t get her to at least consider the possibility that her plan might not work. As soon as I got back to the clinic, I talked it over with Janet, who feared that if she wasn’t released, the soaring spirits would plunge. Janet showed me how to place Tiffany Glover on an enhanced suicide watch.

  The next day was Tiffany’s big day in court, and I wondered how it was going. The following morning, I scanned the daily census, a thick computer printout of every inmate at Rose Singer. Had she been released, her name would have been gone, but it was still right there.

  When I got to the MO, Tiffany’s faithful broom was propped up against the wall, but she was nowhere in sight. I tapped on her cell door. Through the window I could see her limp figure lying diagonally across the cot, laceless sneakered feet dangling off the side.

  She lifted her head. “Miss Buser?” She slowly righted herself and stumbled to the door.

  “I guess things didn’t go well in court,” I said softly.

  She shook her head.

  “What happened with the program?”

  “What program?” she whispered hoarsely. “I wasn’t allowed to say anything and my lawyer wouldn’t even tell the judge about it. They want me to take a one-to-three. Oh, Miss Buser, I’m not a bad person. Why am I in jail? I can’t take this—I just can’t!”

  When I suggested we sit down together, she finally agreed. We found an empty cell where she fell into a chair, dropped her face into her lap, and sobbed. “This can’t be happening—it just can’t. I can’t be going to prison. I can’t do it—I just can’t!”

  “Tiffany, I know this feels like the end of the world—”

  “It is the end of the world. Okay, so maybe I do have a drug problem, but I’m not bad! Why am I being punished like this? I have a baby boy. Who’s going to take care of him while I’m in prison? Huh?”

  “Who takes care of him now?”

  “My mother.”

  “And who took care of him before you were arrested?”

  “I did!”

  “Tiffany,” I said carefully, “you came in here bone thin. You couldn’t have been eating very much, or taking care of yourself. Are you sure you were taking care of a baby?”

  “Yes!”

  “So it was you who put your son to bed, got him up, fed him, bathed him—every single day—or your mother?”

  “No! Stop! I love my baby! I love him! I would come home to see him—at least once a week. That was my rule! Once a week!” she cried, pounding her fist on the desk.

  As the truth crashed through, her thin shoulders heaved and her face turned the color of scarlet. “I’m going to prison,” she sobbed. “Prison! This can’t be happening.”

  “As awful as it feels,” I said gently, “it could have been a lot worse than this.”

  “What could be worse!” she snapped.

  “You could have died, Tiffany. You could have been raped—overdosed—murdered—you were vulnerable to a lot of terrible things, things that happen to people every single day.”

  She sniffled and stared at the floor. “I’ll tell you one thing—I’m never going to touch drugs again. Ever! I’m done!”

  “That’s a good beginning. What do you say you and I keep working on this?”

  “I guess that would be okay,” she said, looking up at me as though seeing me for the first time. “Guess it couldn’t hurt.”

  “Good,” I smiled. “It’s about time we got started.”

  7

  Just as my work was getting under way in earnest, my Rikers mission was threatened by an unlikely health crisis. Several cases of tuberculosis, a disease thought to be long eradicated in the United States, had cropped up in the city. When the source of the outbreak was traced to released inmates, Rikers Island was in a frenzy. An airborne virus, tuberculosis isn’t a threat where fresh air circulates, but in the stagnant, germ-ridden confines of jail, TB had found a foothold. Overnight, Rikers Island, normally a vague footnote to the larger city scene, had jumped to center stage.

  The resurgence of tuberculosis made front-page news, and on our morning drive to work, the three of us read aloud the New York Times’s daily coverage of the outbreak. Our families were understandably alarmed, and Columbia was considering halting the Rikers program and pulling all the students off the island. Montefiore Hospital, the jail system’s health-care vendor, responded swiftly and aggressively, adding TB testing to the battery of inmate medical exams.

  But it wasn’t only the inmates who were to be tested. Tables sprung up in the jails’ lobbies, where officers and civilians stood by with rolled-up sleeves. Long lines of navy blue uniforms and white lab coats became a familiar sight, and like everyone else, Allison, Wendy, and I stood in line and waited. The test, called a PPD implant, is injected under the skin of the forearm. If the skin remains flat, there’s been no exposure to TB. As the needle was slid under the skin of my arm, the area reddened and a Band-Aid was placed over the puncture wound. For the next few days I couldn’t stop checking it, fearful of a rising mass of angry tissue. But the redness disappeared and the skin remained flat. I had not been exposed! Nor had Wendy or Allison. In fact, all the Mental Health staff tested negative.

  That news was reassuring, as was the medical department’s insistence that the TB cases were isolated and few, and that contracting the disease was highly unlikely. Jailhouse seminars on disease transmission were scheduled daily, where questions were answered and fears quieted. Columbia stepped back cautiously, as did our families. Still, just the idea of tuberculosis was frightening, and the three of us decided on stringent precautions. To keep our workspace air as fresh as possible, the small windows in our conference room would remain open. We were into November now, and with winter approaching, the next few months would be spent in coats. It would be semimiserable, but well worth it. Not everyone, however, was appreciative of our novel strategy. “What are you trying to do,” demanded Officer Overton, “freeze out the entire clinic?”

  “We’re trying to avoid TB.”

  “Avoid TB, huh? What about pneumonia? Ever hear of that? That’s what you’re going to get, and that’s what you’re going to give everybody else! I’m closing this door—if you want to freeze to death, that’s your choice!”

  But before shutting the door, he took the opportunity to sound off on a few other matters. “Every year, you students come in here thinking you’re going to help these inmates. Let me tell you something—they see you coming, they just play you!” And then, looking directly at me: “Did Millie Gittens get her sleeping pills? That’s all she wants,” he taunted, slamming the door before I could respond.

  Overton’s impression of the inmates was typical of h
is fellow officers, and frankly not far from most people’s opinions of the incarcerated. One evening after work while the three of us waited for the route bus, a couple of police officers exiting the jail offered us a ride. When we described our work, they said, “You mean you actually talk to these skels?” Skels is the term the police routinely use to characterize drug addicts, the homeless, the mentally ill, the down and out. Behind bars, these people are bodies; on the streets, they’re skels. Try as we did to defend our jailhouse mission, their only response was a rolling of the eyes and knowing smirks. But their opinions aside, my interest in this work was only deepening. The skels they referred to were Lucy Lopez, lying on the edge of a subway platform; Annie Tilden, lost to a terrifying mental illness; and Tiffany Glover, a scrawny, delinquent mother. Not pretty pictures. But while their behavior may have hit the societal bottom, they were still human beings with the inherent dignity of all life, and with the ever-present possibility for change. And changes they were making. Lucy was battling back against drug addiction, Annie was adjusting to a radical brain change, and Tiffany was tuning in to a dawning awareness. Still, Overton’s dig about Millie Gittens did sting—probably because in my heart I knew he was right.

  The brighter news, though, was that Millie’s mind-set was soundly outnumbered by those who wished to remain drug-free and were prepared to do whatever it took to put drugs behind them and get their lives on track. And as these more motivated women came to their sessions and shared the intimate details of their lives—of the degradation of prostitution, of helplessness in the jaws of addiction, of surviving a fringe-type existence, and of humiliation in the face of scorn and judgment—I felt privileged to be their confidante.

  Most of my nine cases were from general population, with a few from the Mental Observation Unit. It was through my work on the MO that I was getting a solid grounding in the nightmare of mental illness. Ever since our first session, when I happily realized that Annie Tilden wasn’t readying to throttle me, a bond had developed between us. When I arrived for our sessions, she was no longer in her cell, but waiting for me by the staircase. Together we bounded up to “our office.” Despite her insistence that she always took her meds, the daily compliance report showed otherwise. “Well, it seems like I take them all the time,” she said. I challenged her to do better and we made a contest out of it. And as I became her trusted counselor, Annie offered me a glimpse into the tormented world of schizophrenia. “Sometimes,” she told me, “I’d be lying in bed and a person’s head would pop up out of the mattress! And other times this same head would pop up out of my stomach. Now I know that heads don’t pop out of mattresses and stomachs, but I’m telling you, Miss B, the heads were right there, plain as my hand,” she said, holding out her palm. “And it was so scary—terrifying. And the TV? When the news was on, I just knew Dan Rather was talking to me—so I would talk back to him. People would run away, but I’m telling you, it was so real. Sometimes now, when I’m watching the news and I see Dan Rather, I just shake my head.”