Orange Is the New Black

by Piper Kerman

  It was Rosemarie who set up all the chairs in the visiting room for movie night. This meant that she controlled the setup of the special “reserved” chairs for certain people, including our four at the back of the room. Next to our reserved chairs was one of those random pieces of prison furniture, a tall narrow table, which served as our sideboard. I had the job of setting up another Tupperware bowl filled with ice for Pop’s sodas and bringing up the food and napkins when it was time for the movie. Pop, who reported for work in the kitchen at five A.M. and worked all day long through the evening meal, was rarely seen in anything but a hairnet and kitchen scrubs. But on movie nights, just before the screening was to begin, Pop would sweep into the room, freshly showered and clad in pale blue men’s pajamas.

  The pajamas were one of those elusive items that had once been sold by the commissary but then were discontinued. They were the plainest men’s pajamas, of a semisheer white cotton-poly. (Pop’s had somehow been dyed for her.) I had wanted a pair desperately for months after arriving in prison. So when Pop presented me with a specially procured pair, I did an ecstatic dance around her cube, hopping madly until I beaned myself on the metal bunk bed frame. Now Toni and Rosemarie would say, “Do the pajama dance, Piper!” and I would dance around in my PJs, as ecstatic as Snoopy doing the Suppertime Dance. The pajamas were not for sleeping. I only wore them on the weekends, to movie night or other special occasions, when I wanted to look pretty. I felt so damn good in those pajamas.

  Pop loved Walking Tall. She preferred a straightforward movie storyline, with maybe a little romance thrown in. If the movie was sappy, she would cry, and I would make fun of her, and she would tell me to shut up. She wept at Radio, while I rolled my eyes at the Italian Twins.

  After House of Sand and Fog, she turned to me. “Did you like that?”

  I shrugged. “Eh? It was okay.”

  “I thought that was your kind of movie.”

  I would never live down the shame of having enthusiastically recommended Lost in Translation when it had screened earlier in the year. The ladies of Danbury widely and loudly declared it “the worst movie ever.” Boo Clemmons laughed, shaking her head. “All that talking, and Bill Murray doesn’t even get to fuck her.”

  Movie night was as much about eating as anything else. Pop would prepare a special Saturday movie meal that was a respite from the endless march of starch in the dining hall dictated by the BOP. The competitive tension of the salad bar on a rare day when broccoli or spinach or—miracle of miracles—sliced onions appeared was a welcome change from the monotony of cucumbers and raw cauliflower—I refused to live on potatoes and white rice. I would wield the plastic tongs with a smile, eyeing Carlotta Alvarado across the salad bar as we both tried to fill our little bowls with the good vegetables faster than the other—me to wolf down immediately with oil and vinegar, she to smuggle out in her pants to cook later.

  Chicken day was pandemonium. First of all, everyone wanted to get as much chicken as the kitchen line workers would give them. This is where it came in handy to be in tight with Pop. The rules of scarcity govern prison life: accumulate when the opportunity presents itself, figure out what to do with your loot later.

  Sometimes, however, there were plans for that chicken. Often on a chicken day Rosemarie would plan to cook us a special meal. Toni and I would be asked to abstain from chicken-eating in the chow hall and to instead stick the bird in our pants, to be smuggled out for use in some elaborate, quasi-Tex-Mex creation later that evening. This required a plastic Baggie or a clean hair net, procured from a kitchen worker or an orderly. Slip the foodstuffs into the appropriate wrapping at the table, shove it down the front of your pants, and stroll out as nonchalantly as you could with contraband chicken riding on your hip bone.

  The list of important things a prisoner has to lose is very short: good time, visiting privileges, phone access, housing assignment, work assignment, participation in programs. That’s basically it. If they catch you stealing onions, a warden can take one of those things away, or can give you extra work. Other than that, the only other option is the SHU. So will a warden be willing to lock up onion thieves and chicken smugglers in Seg?

  Let’s put it another way: room in the SHU is a finite resource, and the warden and his staff have to use it judiciously. Fill the SHU up with chickenshit offenders, and then what are you going to do with someone who’s actually done something serious?

  BIRTHDAYS WERE a true oddity in prison. Many people refused to reveal theirs, whether out of paranoia or simply because they didn’t want it observed by others. I was not one of these holdouts and was trying hard to be upbeat about celebrating my birthday in Danbury, telling myself things like “At least it’s only one,” and “At least it’s not forty.”

  In a peculiar Camp ritual, a prisoner’s pals sneak in the dark of night to decorate her cube with handmade “Happy Birthday” signs, magazine collages, and candy bars, all of which they would tape to the outside of her living quarters while she slept. These illegal decorations were tolerated by the guards for the day but then had to be taken down by the birthday girl. I hoped I would get a Dove chocolate bar.

  The day before my birthday found me doing my laps after the dinner meal, when Amy materialized by the side of the track. “Pop wants you, Piper.”

  “Can’t it wait?” This was highly irregular.

  “She says it’s important!”

  I trotted up the steps and started toward the kitchen.

  “No, she’s up in the visiting room.” I followed Amy up through the double doors.

  “Surprise!”

  I was really stunned. Card tables had been pushed together to make a long banquet, and around the table were an odd assortment of prisoners, my friends. Jae, Toni, Rosemarie, Amy, Pennsatucky, Doris, Camila, Yoga Janet, Little Janet, Mrs. Jones, Annette. Black, white, Spanish, old, young.

  And of course there was Pop, beaming and gleeful. “You were really surprised, weren’t you?”

  “I’m shocked, Pop, not just surprised. Thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me. Rosemarie and Toni planned the whole thing.”

  So I thanked the Italian Twins, proclaiming the effectiveness of their surprise strategy and thanking everyone profusely. There were lots of Tupperware bowls filled with goodies. Rosemarie had worked “like a Hebrew slave” to produce a prison banquet. Chilaquiles, chicken enchiladas, cheesecake, banana pudding. Everybody ate and chatted, and I was presented with a big birthday card hand-drawn on a manila folder featuring a celebrating Pooh Bear winking lecherously. Jae slipped me her own handmade card, featuring leaping dolphins, the cousins of my tattoo. What she said in that card was echoed by the notes the others had written in the group card: “I never thought I would find a friend like you here.”

  After the party had broken up, Pop summoned me to her cube. “I got something for you.” I sat down on her footstool and looked at her eagerly. What could it be? Pop wouldn’t have gotten me anything from commissary—she knew I could get anything I wanted myself. Maybe it was some treat from the depths of her giant locker—SPAM, perhaps?

  With great ceremony she presented me with my gift—a beautiful pair of slippers that she had commissioned from one of the skilled crocheters, a Spanish mami. They were ingeniously constructed: double soles from shower shoes were bound together and then completely covered in pink and white cotton yarn crocheted into intricate designs. I held them in my hands, so moved I couldn’t speak.

  “Do you like them?” Pop asked. She was smiling, a little nervously, as if maybe I wouldn’t appreciate the gift.

  “My god, Pop, they’re so beautiful, I can’t believe it. I can’t even wear them to walk around in, they’re so beautiful I don’t want to ruin them. I love them so much.” I hugged her hard, then put my new handmade slippers on.

  “I wanted to get you something special. You understand I couldn’t give to you in front of that whole crew? Ah, they look nice on you. They’ll look nice with your pajamas. Don’t let a
CO catch you with them!”

  That night, not long after lights out, I heard whispering and tittering immediately outside my cube. Amy was the ringleader of the decoration team, and her couple of shadowy helpmates sounded suspiciously like Doris and Pennsatucky.

  In typical form she was soon cursing her accomplices under her breath. “Don’t stick that picture there. What are you, stupid? Put it over here!”

  I kept my eyes shut and breathed deeply, pretending to be asleep. It must have been my dreams that were making me smile.

  The next morning I stepped out of my cube to survey their work. Glossy photos of models and bottles of liquor decorated my cube, along with “Happy Birthday Piper!!!” I had my Dove bar taped to the wall, plus more candy than I would ever eat. I felt great. All day I received birthday wishes. “Thirty-five and still alive!” said my boss in construction, laughing when I made a face.

  In the afternoon I found a delicate little white paper box perched on my locker, hand cut into lacy designs, with a card from Little Janet.

  Piper, on your birthday I’m wishing you the best of everything good—health, strength, security, peace of mind. You are an extremely beautiful person inside and out and on this day you are not forgotten. You have been such a good friend I never thought I’d find that here. Thank you crazy girl just for being you. Stay strong and don’t ever feel weak, you will soon be home with the people who love & adore you. I hope you like the little box I made for you :) I made it thinking about you, of course it’s not much but it’s something that should make you smile and it’s different. I will have you in my heart from now and always.

  Happy B-Day Piper, may you have many more to come.

  Love, Janet

  CHAPTER 14

  October Surprises

  The more friends I had, the more people wanted to feed me; it was like having a half-dozen Jewish mothers. I was not one to turn down a second dinner, as you could never be quite sure when the next good one would be served. But despite my high-calorie diet, I was getting pretty competent at yoga, I was lifting eighty-pound bags of cement at work, and running at least thirty miles a week, so I wasn’t getting fat. Detoxed, drug- and alcohol-free, I figured the minute I hit the streets I would either go wild or become a true health nut like Yoga Janet.

  I was going to lose Yoga Janet very soon. She was going to be a free woman, so I’d do yoga with her every chance I got, trying to listen carefully and follow her guidance on my postures. I had never had mixed feelings about anyone going home before, it was such a happy thing, but now the prospect of her leaving felt like a terrible personal loss. I would never have admitted this to anyone, it made me feel ashamed. But I still had more than four months to go and couldn’t imagine getting by without her comforting and inspiring presence. Yoga Janet was my guide on how to do my time without abandoning myself. I learned from her example how to operate in such adverse conditions with grace and charm, with patience and kindness. She had a generosity that I could only hope to achieve someday. But she was tough too: she wasn’t a sucker.

  Janet’s “10 percent date,” the point in one’s federal sentence when a prisoner is eligible to go to a halfway house, had come and gone, and she was wigging out because they had still not given her an out date. Everyone got edgy before they went home. These numbers and dates were something to cling to.

  But Yoga Janet finally got to go home, or rather, to a halfway house in the Bronx. On the morning of her release, I headed up to the visiting room during the breakfast hour, where all Campers depart through the front door. For some reason, custom demanded that the town driver would pull up her white minivan to this door, where a small crowd gathered to say goodbye, and then Toni would drive the soon-to-be-free woman fifty yards down the hill. Most women just walked out the door with nothing more than a small box of personal items, letters, and photographs. Janet’s friends had gathered to wave goodbye to her—Sister, Camila, Maria, Esposito, Ghada. Ghada was sobbing and carrying on—she always went bananas when anyone she liked went home. “No mami! No!” she would wail, tears streaming down her face. I still didn’t have any idea how long Ghada’s sentence was; long was a fair assumption.

  Usually I loved saying goodbye. Someone going home was a victory for us all. I would even go up there in the morning to say goodbye to people I didn’t know very well—it made me that happy. But this morning, for the first time, I understood what Ghada felt. I wasn’t about to throw my arms around Yoga Janet’s legs and sob, but the impulse was there. I tried to focus very hard on how happy I was for Janet, for her nice boyfriend, for anyone who was getting their freedom. Yoga Janet was wearing a pink crocheted vest that someone had made her as a going-away present (another tradition that flew in the face of the rules). She wanted to be gone so badly that it was obviously taking all of her considerable patience to bid each one of us goodbye.

  When it was my turn, I threw my arms around her shoulders and hugged her hard, pressing my nose against her neck. “Thank you, Janet! Thank you so much! You helped me so much!” I couldn’t say anything else, and I started to cry. And then she was gone.

  Bereft, I went down to the gym in the afternoon. There were some VHS exercise tapes and a TV/VCR down there, and a couple of yoga tapes among them. In particular, there was one that Janet liked to do by herself. “Just me and Rodney,” she would sigh. The tape was by a popular yogi named Rodney Yee—“my prison fantasy object!” she would laugh. I looked at the cover, at a guy with a long ponytail in the chair pose. He looked familiar. I popped it in.

  A beautiful Hawaiian beach appeared on the screen. The waves of the Pacific were lapping on the shore, and there was Rodney, a smoothly handsome Chinese guy in a black banana hammock. I had a flash of recognition. This was the yoga guy who had been on the in-hotel channel in Chicago where Larry and I and my family had stayed when I was sentenced to this human warehouse! I took this as a sign, a powerful sign… of something. I thought it meant that I’d better stick with the yoga, and if Rodney was good enough for Janet, he was good enough for me. I fetched a yoga mat and got into Downward Dog.

  ON OCTOBER 8 Martha Stewart was finally headed up the river. A week before, it had been announced in the press that she’d been designated to Alderson, the large federal prison camp in the mountains of West Virginia. Built in 1927 under the auspices of Eleanor Roosevelt, it was the first federal women’s prison, intended as a reformatory. Alderson was an entirely minimum-security facility for about a thousand prisoners and according to the BOP grapevine by far the best facility for women. The ladies of Danbury were deflated by this news. Everyone had been hoping that against all odds she’d be sent to live with us, either because they believed that her presence would somehow raise all our boats or just for the entertainment value.

  As we headed to work that day, news helicopters hovered over the federal plantation. We gave them the finger. No one appreciates being treated like an animal in the zoo. The staff was irritable too. Allegedly the perimeter guards had caught a photographer trying to infiltrate the grounds, crawling commando style on his belly. This was amusing, but overall the collective mood was dejected—we were missing out.

  Homegrown drama quickly erupted to distract Campers from their disappointment. Finn, who cared so little about enforcing most of the prison rules, had been waging a somewhat covert war against Officer Scott and Cormorant.

  As soon as I arrived in the Camp, I had noticed something odd that happened when Scott was on duty. A skinny white chick would materialize at the door of the CO’s office, where she would remain, talking and laughing with him for hours on end. She had a job as an orderly and would spend several hours cleaning the tiny office whenever he was on duty. “What gives?” I asked Annette.

  “Oh, that’s Cormorant. She’s got a thing with Scott.”

  “A thing? What exactly do you mean, Annette?”

  “I don’t know for sure. No one’s ever seen them do anything but talk. But she’s in that doorway every time he’s on duty.”


  Other prisoners complained about this curious situation, out of spite, jealousy, or genuine discomfort. Even if the relationship was platonic, it was still totally against prison rules. But Scott was widely understood to be Butorsky’s buddy, so nothing had ever been done about the odd, perhaps unrequited affair taking place in plain view. No one had ever caught them doing anything but talking, and everyone watched them like hawks. Amy was Cormorant’s bunkie, and she said they passed love notes, but Cormorant was never missing from her bed.

  Whatever the weird relationship entailed, Finn didn’t like it, so he did the only thing he could within the reality of how prisons work: he went after Cormorant. Rumor had it that he had warned her that if he caught her hanging around Officer Scott, he was going to give her a shot (an incident report) for disobeying a direct order. All summer long they had been playing a cat-and-mouse game; when Finn was off duty and Scott was on, Cormorant was still a permanent fixture at the CO’s office. Finn would probably never confront another prison staffer, and when he wasn’t present, it was business as usual. Until now. Quite suddenly Cormorant had been taken to the SHU, at Finn’s behest.

  This was shocking to all. Butorsky had retired in the spring, and it was rumored that Scott and Finn couldn’t stand each other. Cormorant now seemed to be a pawn in a disturbing power play, and as soon as word spread throughout the Camp that she was gone, everyone wondered what Scott would do.

  He quit. This was far more shocking. No one ever quit the BOP. They were all doing twenty years until their pensions kicked in, although some staffers daydreamed loudly of transferring to other federal agencies, like Forestry. No one quite knew how to take the dramatic Officer Scott development, but when we learned that Cormorant would not be coming back from the SHU, the prisoners who had been around for a long time were not surprised. The BOP had changed her security level, and she’d be down in the high-security FCI for the rest of her sentence.