Lockdown on Rikers

by Ms. Mary E. Buser

  I shook my head. There were no ready answers to her questions. It seemed to me that the hard in life, such as Rhonda’s miserable childhood, ought to be balanced out by good things later on. It only seemed fair. But more often than not, it’s the opposite. Without intervention, the bad just keeps snowballing. I kept thinking that if only Rhonda had received help following the rape, this stabbing might not have occurred. But a thousand “if onlys” would change nothing. A woman was dead, and Rhonda was going to prison for a long time.

  When our session ended, it was on a somber but peaceful note. Afterward, I caught up with Janet and told her. “I never thought she was going to be able to face it,” I said.

  “You’ve done very good work with her, Mary Mac,” Janet smiled.

  I muttered a thank-you, knowing Janet wasn’t one for gratuitous praise.

  “Now, have you reminded her you’re leaving? What about the others—have you brought it up?”

  “No . . . not yet.”

  Janet looked at me sharply. “You have to begin this conversation. It’s not fair to them, Mary—they’ve put their trust in you, and that’s not easy for these women to do.”

  I knew she was right, but saying good-bye is just so hard. Recognizing the difficulty in terminating these relationships, a professor at school suggested a method of softening the news. He said that after discussing our upcoming departure, we might then “step out of character.” He gave an example of perhaps meeting a client for a cup of coffee as therapy neared its conclusion. I thought it was an intriguing idea, although in my case the local coffee shop wasn’t an option. Nonetheless, I tucked the idea in the back of my mind.

  In the meantime, I was in for a shock one morning when I was walking to the MO and a nurse pulled me aside in the crowded hall. “Get this,” she said. “I was just down in the receiving room and guess who just arrived? Millie—Millie Gittens.”

  “What! There must be some mistake,” I said. “Millie Gittens is dead.”

  “Well, looks like she’s back from the dead. It’s her all right. Oh, and another thing—she’s pregnant. Baxter’s down there now.”

  I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do. Reflexively, I started toward the receiving room, unsure whether I wanted to hug Millie or throttle her for the needless grief we’d all been put through. But then I stopped. What was the point? I had never been able to reach Millie. Maybe the next therapist would. I hoped so. I turned around and continued on my way.

  * * *

  I began my farewells with my short-term cases. Regardless of whether these women were to be released or were destined for prison, I encouraged everyone to continue seeking guidance and support, and above all else, to never ever give up on themselves.

  Next came the nursery. Ever distracted by demanding babies and their own fatigue, the mothers took the news in stride. And I wasn’t worried about Lucy either. She would be departing for prison at about the same time I would be leaving. Lucy had been sentenced to two-to-four—two years in prison, two more on parole. Since she’d already been at Rikers close to a year, she only had a little over a year to serve upstate, as the time spent in detention was credited toward the sentence.

  After the slapping incident, Lucy had gotten herself right back on track. Her efforts extended beyond the jail’s walls as she wrote letters to the family who’d long ago given up on her. “I had to swallow my pride,” she said. “They said some pretty nasty things about me—calling me a useless crackhead.”

  Her letters initially went unanswered, but then an elderly aunt who’d always had a soft spot for Lucy wrote back. The letters led to phone calls, and then—a big break—the aunt offered to take in baby Michael while Lucy was upstate. And when Lucy was released from prison, the aunt agreed to take Lucy in, provided, of course, that she remained drug-free.

  “It’s a miracle, Miss B—a miracle! God answered my prayers! I’ll never touch drugs again—never! Never! I’m done. Done! I still don’t know about my little Junior. I have to get my little guy back. But I’m just going to keep praying and working on it, same as I’ve been doing all along. That’s all I can do, Miss B—do the best I can, and leave the rest in God’s hands.”

  Lucy was due to go upstate at any time, and not knowing exactly when she’d be leaving, we said our good-byes. “Oh, Miss B,” she cried in a parting embrace. “Thank you for believing in a useless crackhead.”

  “Oh, Lucy!” I bit back my own tears, recalling just how far she had come—from a lost soul lying on a subway platform to a poised woman with purpose.

  A couple of days later, Lucy Lopez was gone, having boarded an early morning bus for Bedford Hills Prison. Somehow, the jail wasn’t the same without Lucy tearing around the corners clutching stacks of legal papers on one of her many missions. I already missed her.

  The tougher good-byes were still ahead, and with little more than a few weeks remaining, I began the dreaded conversation with Rhonda Reynolds. “Do you remember when we first met back in the fall—that Miss Waters told you I was a student?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I am—and what that means is that in another month, I’m going to be leaving.”

  “What!”

  This was going to be bad.

  “You’re kidding me,” she said, with a hopeful little smile.

  “No, Rhonda. I’m sorry, but I was assigned to work here for the school year.”

  “So, that’s it? Your school year’s over, and now it’s—‘see ya!’”

  “Rhonda—this isn’t easy for me either, but I thought it would be better to remind you in advance so we still have time to talk . . . time to say good-bye.”

  Her hand was over her mouth, her eyes welling up with tears. “I trusted you. Can’t you tell them you want to stay?” she asked, alternating between anger and hope.

  “It doesn’t work like that, Rhonda. It has nothing to do with you or the importance of our relationship.”

  She was sobbing now. “I want to go back to my house.”

  “Oh, Rhonda.” But she was on her feet and out the door.

  When Overton called for her the following week, she was a no-show. “Don’t worry,” Janet said. “Not unusual. If you’re going to leave her, she’s going to leave you—at least for now.”

  For the first time, I wondered if it was worth it. Was it really worth getting so close to these women, just to break their hearts?

  But Janet viewed it differently. “Would she have revealed the rape, Mary? Would she have faced it that she killed someone? Some very important things happened here. It’s sad that it’s ending, but it’s far more important that this relationship happened. She’ll be back.”

  I prayed Janet was right. In the meantime, I broke the news to the adolescents, who did not take it well either. “So you’ll be back in September?” asked Ebony.

  “No—I won’t.”

  “You’re just going to leave us?” said Veronica.

  “I’m not leaving you. My internship is ending.”

  “What’s the difference?” said Maria.

  “The difference is that this group—all of you—you mean a lot to me. The reason I’m leaving has nothing to do with any of you.”

  Crystal got up and walked away, followed by Carly.

  But Ebony wasn’t ready to give up. “Can’t you tell them you want to stay—you know, sometimes you have to push things a little, Miss Mary.”

  Looking at this group of expectant faces was breaking my heart. “Listen,” I said, “most of you are leaving Rikers pretty soon too. Ebony, you’re going to be released for time served—and the same with you two,” I said to Maria and Veronica. “And the rest of you will be leaving also—Rikers isn’t permanent. You know that.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” said Ebony.

  And in their eyes, it didn’t. To them, I wa
s just one more person letting them down. When the hour was up, I made the trip to the bubble alone, where a concerned officer let me out. It was a depressing walk back.

  Time was dwindling down, and Allison and I visited the nursery for the last time. Many of the faces had changed from that first day when Janet had introduced me to the mothers. Lucy was gone, as were Addie and Marisol. Now there were new faces, new mothers trying to make a go of it with their babies.

  In recognition of our final gathering, Camille Baxter brought in a cake that read “Good Luck, Mary and Allison,” and she handed us each a small box. Inside was a simple silver bracelet. “This is from all of us,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Tasha, “we all went to Macy’s and picked it out—the warden said we could go, as long as we promised to come back.”

  “And here we are!” said another. “Who says we can’t be trusted?”

  We laughed, ate cake, and showed off our bracelets.

  The little farewell party was actually fun. For a few blessed moments, not one of the babies was crying, and for the first time, I rocked one of the infants in my arms. Always wishing to maintain a professional demeanor, I had enjoyed the babies from a distance but had never actually held them. But now it was time to “step out of character.” It felt nice.

  When it was all over and time to go, Camille Baxter, mothers, and babies walked us to the door, and with a final wave from the whole gang, the door with the Mickey Mouse decal closed behind us for the last time. I wiped away the tears on the walk back.

  The only remaining business was Rhonda Reynolds and the adolescent group. I called Rhonda a third time, and this time, to my great relief, she came. “I’ve missed you,” I said.

  “I was going to hang up,” she said, using the jailhouse term for committing suicide.

  “Oh, Rhonda.”

  “It’s just that any time something good happens, God pulls the rug right out from under me. You’ve been something good, and now you’re going away.”

  “Yes, I’m leaving, but the thing is, Rhonda, the work we did together—the changes you made, which have been very big—those are yours to keep. Our work together will never, ever go away. It’s in your heart, Rhonda. It’s yours—forever.”

  She looked at me with a flicker of hope. I laid my arm across the desk and reached out my hand. She took it.

  Later on, I got an idea that had to do with my professor’s suggestion, and I ran it by Janet. “What would you think if Rhonda and I had lunch together for our last session?” Janet scratched her head. “I don’t see the harm in it, but you’ve got to clear it with DOC.”

  I went directly to Overton’s desk, hoping to get the okay from him, bypassing another Captain Murphy tape recorder fiasco.

  “You wanna what?” the beleaguered officer said.

  “I want to know if it would be all right if, instead of our session, Rhonda Reynolds and I could have lunch together?”

  “Whaddya think this is—the Russian Tea Room? This is Rikers Island!”

  “I’ll bring in the food and we’ll sit at our usual desk.”

  “She’s goin’ up the river, you know.”

  “Yes, thank you for that. Any objections?”

  “Hey, you want to waste your money—feel free.”

  “Thank you, Officer Overton, thank you very much! After I’m gone, I’ll always have such fond memories of you!”

  “Baahhh!”

  Just as Rhonda had rebounded from my departure news, so did the adolescents. When I next met with them, I pointed out their changes, reminding them of how they used to lunge for the donuts and of their new strategies for handling anger. In the same way I told Rhonda that her changes were for keeps, I told them that they had matured, and that that could never be undone. Although they weren’t happy, they were a resilient bunch, and, skilled listeners that they’d become, they heard me out. And then there was giggling and impish looks. They had a secret, and when they could contain it no longer, Ebony pulled a big pink homemade card out from under the table.

  “Read it! Read it!”

  On the cover was a carefully traced rose, and inside were the words: “If this was a perfect world, and if dreams really did come true, then our dream would be that you would stay with the group.” It was signed by each of them.

  I wanted to cry. Instead, I looked up at their beaming faces. “Thank you,” I said. “I can see that a lot of thought went into this—and it means so much to me.”

  “You really like it?”

  “I love it!”

  The hour went by quickly, and just like old times, they walked me to the bubble for a final “You—got—friends—on—Ri–kers Island!” And then this bunch that had become so dear to me gathered in front of the bubble window, waving. I walked backward, waving back, holding up my big pink card. It wasn’t till I turned a corner that I let the tears flow.

  After obtaining Officer Overton’s grudging approval for lunch with Rhonda Reynolds, I told her about it in our second-to-last session.

  “We’re going to have lunch together—you and me?”

  “Yes, I thought it would be a nice thing for the two of us to do.”

  She looked a little suspicious but said, “Okay.”

  We decided on pizza, soda, and cupcakes for dessert.

  On the appointed day, I poured soda and nuked the pizza.

  “I haven’t had soda or pizza in over a year,” she said.

  “How does it taste?”

  “Delicious,” she smiled.

  After months of intimate conversation, all of a sudden we were a bit like strangers. “Hey,” I said, “remember the first time I met you, when you came down in that fuzzy blue headband?”

  “Sure do!” she laughed. “I loaned it to someone. Reminds me, I need to get it back!”

  As always, time sped by and our little luncheon was over. She started to cry again, but this time just a little. We stood up and hugged. “I’m so glad I got to know you, Rhonda. You’ll be in my thoughts and prayers.”

  “Good-bye, Miss Buser,” she said. “Thank you.”

  As Overton unlocked the clinic door, she turned back one more time and waved, and then Rhonda Reynolds was gone.

  * * *

  On our last day at Rose Singer, the three of us were packing up our papers from our anti-TB room, leaving early since our supervisors were taking us out to lunch. We had toyed with the idea of closing the windows in April. After having made it safely to spring, we figured we were home free. But then Wendy said, “Wouldn’t it be something if we got through winter, let our guard down now—and got TB?” That did it. The windows stayed open. But now, on our last day, we shut them, stood back, and clapped. We made it!

  “Yeah, sure,” said Overton, who’d poked his head in, “now that it’s warm out—time to open the windows—you decide to shut them. Thanks a lot!”

  “Oh, Overton!” said Janet. “Say good-bye to the students. Today’s their last day.”

  “Yeah, and in September there’ll be three more to ruin my life. Least I’ll have the summer in peace.” But as he walked us to the door and unlocked it for the final time, he gave up a smile. “Baahhh—good-bye, already!”

  Out in the lobby, I gazed up at the portrait of Rose Singer, recalling her wish that this jail be a place of hope and renewal. For many of the women in here, it had been just that. Change comes slowly, and while it remained to be seen just how these women would fare once released, those who had sought support were certainly better positioned for managing life on the outside. For my part, I was thrilled to have been part of their growth and, of equal importance, to have given something of value to the most beaten-down among us. I knew I’d found my niche, and as we stepped out of the gritty jail and into the sunshine of the day, I also knew that I would be back.

 
14

  As a reward for trekking out to Rikers Island, all the Rikers students were handed plum assignments for our second and final year of fieldwork. For me, this meant a family services agency in Midtown Manhattan, just a few doors down from Carnegie Hall. From this smart new address, I continued to hone my therapy skills, branching out to work with troubled families and children. But much as I appreciated the pleasant surroundings, my mind always drifted back to Rikers.

  In the spring of 1993 I received my master’s degree. To celebrate, my mother hosted a backyard party, and friends and family stopped by to offer congratulations. This degree was a long time coming—four years, in fact, including night classes for two years prior to the Rikers placement. To support myself while attending school, I’d worked for a Manhattan investment bank, first as a late-night word processor and then as an evening receptionist.

  After graduation, I considered job possibilities, with Rikers at the top of my list. Since I’d left Rose Singer, Janet and I had stayed in touch, and we’d been discussing my return—not if, but when. “But this time around,” said Janet, “we’ll be working side by side. How does that sound?”

  As much as I loved the idea, the memory of my rich experiences at Rose Singer was starting to fade, and I was growing ambivalent about an immediate return. As a full-timer, things would be different: three days would become five, and nine cases would balloon to over thirty. And then there was the practical matter of getting to Rikers. As a student I was lucky to have been in a carpool. But without a car and on my own, accessing the island would be a two-hour ordeal by train and bus. But something else was bothering me. Although family and friends had been supportive of my jailhouse internship, a return was another matter. While my mother was enthused, my father and others echoed Wendy’s first-day-at-Rikers sentiments—that it was one thing to work in jail as a student, but to choose it—no!

  Between practical considerations and this unexpected wave of anxiety, I thought I might try something else for a while, maybe work with a similar population, but just in a different setting. Janet understood, adding that the island was in the midst of staffing changes and that it made sense to hold off anyway until the right position opened up. This sealed it for me, and with a decision made, my interest turned toward drug addiction. If nothing else, my year at Rikers had shown me that our jail and prison populations are driven by addiction, and I wanted to learn more about this modern-day scourge. With this in mind, for the next couple of years I worked with parolees at a South Bronx–based drug rehab facility called El Rio, followed by a stint in the alcoholism unit of a Manhattan outpatient clinic. My immersion in the world of drug and alcohol recovery was a rich and valuable experience, but two years later, my interest in returning to Rikers had not waned. During this time, Janet and I had continued to stay in touch, and she’d kept me up to date on the doings at Rikers. By now, the staffing changes were complete, and with this came the bombshell news that Janet was no longer at Rose Singer: she had been transferred to a men’s jail. As always, Janet took it in stride. “It’s working out very nicely,” she said. “I actually think I like working with men better—they’re quieter. Not so much drama.”