by Tayari Jones
So that’s all I got in terms of atmosphere. Or all that I want you to know about. Don’t ask me questions about the details. Just suffice it to say that it’s bad in here. Even if you killed somebody, you don’t deserve to spend more than a couple of years in this place. Please tell your uncle to get on it.
There is so much here that makes you stop and say, “Hmm . . .” Like there are about fifteen hundred men in this facility (mostly brothers), and that’s the same number of students at “Dear Morehouse.” I don’t want to be some kind of crazy conspiracy nut, but it’s hard not to think about things in that way. For one, prison is full of people who call themselves “dropping science,” and second, things here are so bent that you think somebody must be bending it on purpose. My mother wrote to me, too, and you know her theory—“the devil stays busy.” My dad thinks it’s the Klan. Well, not the Klan specifically with hoods and crosses but more like Ameri–KKKa. I don’t know what I think. Besides thinking that I miss you.
I finally got to make my visitors’ list and right at the top is you, Celestial GLORIANA Davenport. (They want your full government name.) I’ll put Dre on, too—does he have a middle name? It’s probably something religious like Elijah. You know he’s my boy, but when you come the first time, come by yourself. Meanwhile, keep the letters flowing, baby. How did I forget that you have such a pretty handwriting? If you decide not to be a famous artist, you could go be a schoolteacher with that penmanship. You must bear down on the pen because the paper buckles. At night, when the lights are out—not that they are ever really out—they make it dark enough that you can’t read but too light to really sleep—but when they cut the lights off, I run my fingers over your letters and try to read them like Braille. (Romantic, right?)
And thank you for putting money on my books. You have to buy everything you think you might want in here. Underwear, socks. Whatever you need to try and make your life a little better. This isn’t a hint, but it would be nice to have a clock radio, and of course the main thing that would make my life a little better would be seeing you.
Love,
Roy
PS: When I first started calling you Georgia, it was because I could tell you were homesick. Now I call you that because I’m the one missing home and home is you.
Dear Roy,
By the time you get this letter, I will have already been to visit because I’m mailing it on the way out of town. Andre has filled the tank and the car is stocked with snacks. I have practically memorized the visitors’ guide. There are clothing regulations and they are extremely specific. My favorite detail is that “gauchos and culottes are strictly prohibited.” I bet you don’t even know what those are. I recall them being very fashionable when I was in the fourth grade, and thankfully, they have never come back in style. To summarize the dress code: show no skin. Don’t wear an underwire bra unless you want to fail the metal detector test and get sent home. I imagine it’s like going to the airport . . . on your way to a convent. But I’m ready.
It goes without saying that I know this country and I know history. I even remember a man who came to speak at Spelman who had been wrongfully imprisoned for decades. Did you see him? He spoke along with the white woman who pointed the finger at him in the first place. They both got saved or something. Even though they stood right there in front of me, they felt like a lesson from the past, a phantom from Mississippi. What did it have to do with us, college students piled in the chapel for convocation credit? Now I wish I could remember what they said. I’m bringing this up because I knew that things like this happen to people, but by people, I didn’t mean us.
Do you ever think about the one who accused you? I wish I could have a sit-down with her. Somebody attacked her in that room. I don’t think she’s making that up, you could tell that just from her voice. But that somebody wasn’t you. Now she’s gone back to Chicago or whatever, wishing she never stopped in Eloe, Louisiana, and she isn’t the only one. But you don’t need me to tell you this. You know where you are and you know what you didn’t do.
Uncle Banks is preparing the first appeal. He reminds me that it could be worse. Many people have run-ins with the law and they don’t live to tell the tale. There’s no appealing a cop’s bullet. So at least there’s that, but it’s not much.
Do you know that I’m praying for you? Can you feel it at night when I get down on my knees beside my bed like I did when I was a little girl? I close my eyes and I can picture you the way you were when we were last together, all the way down to the freckle over your eyebrow. I have a notebook where I wrote down every word that we said to each other before we fell asleep that night. I wrote it down so when you get home, we can pick up where we left off.
True confession: I am extremely nervous. I know it’s not the same, but it reminds me of when we were first going out, when we were trying to be a long-distance couple and you sent me a ticket. After all the buildup with our phone conversations and email, I wasn’t sure what to expect when we finally saw each other again. Obviously it all worked out, but I feel the same way writing this letter. So I want to say in advance that even if things are awkward between us when we finally lay eyes on each other, please know that it’s because it’s all very new and I’m so agitated. Nothing has changed. I love you as much as I did the day I married you. And I will always.
Yours,
Celestial
Dear Georgia,
Thank you for coming to visit me. I know it wasn’t easy to get here. When I saw you sitting there in the visitor’s room, all classy and out of place, I have never been happier to see anyone. I could have cried like a little girl.
I won’t lie. It was strange to have to see each other for the first time in front of so many people. And the truth is that I was quiet because you said that you didn’t want to talk about what was really on my mind. I didn’t push it because I didn’t want to ruin our time together. And it wasn’t ruined. I was very glad to see you. Walter teased me all the next day about being lit up like a Christmas tree. But I’m sorry, Celestial. I have to tell you what has been troubling my soul.
I know that I said that I didn’t want any son of mine having to say his daddy was in jail. You know I don’t know much about my biological father except his name and that he is probably a criminal. But since Big Roy raised me as his own, I didn’t have to wear shame around my neck like a giant clock. Sometimes, though, in the back of my mind I could hear that clock ticking. I was also thinking about this kid I knew named Myron whose father was in Angola. Myron was teeny-tiny and his clothes were all donated by the church. One time I saw him in one of my cast-off jackets. They nicknamed him “Chickie” because his daddy was a jailbird. To this day, he answers to “Chickie” like it’s his real name.
But our kid would have had Mr. D and Gloria, Andre, and my family, too. That’s a village and half right there to take care of him until I win my freedom. He would have been something else for me to look forward to.
I can see why you didn’t want to talk about it. What’s done is done. But I can’t stop thinking about him. Of course, I don’t know that the baby was a boy, but my gut is telling me he was my junior.
This is painful to ask, but if we had more faith, would things have worked out differently? What if it was a test? What if we kept the baby? I could have made it home in time to see him crown into the world, innocent and bald-headed. This whole ordeal would just be a story we would tell him when he was older, to teach him how to be careful as a black man in these United States. When we decided to have the abortion, it was like we were accepting that things weren’t going to work out in the courtroom. And when we gave up, God gave up on us, too. Not that He ever gives up, but you know what I mean.
You don’t have to answer this. But tell me, who knows about it? It doesn’t matter, but I’m curious. I put your parents on my visitors’ list and I wonder if they know what we did.
Georgia, I know I can’t make you talk about what you don’t want to talk about, but you should know what i
t was that was blocking my throat so I couldn’t hardly talk.
Still, it was beautiful to see you. I love you more than I can say here.
Your husband,
Roy
Dear Roy,
Yes, baby, yes, I think about it, but not constantly. You can’t sit with something like that every single day. But when I do, it is with sadness more than regret. I understand that you’re in pain, but please do not ever send me another letter like the one you sent last week. Have you forgotten the county jail? It smelled like pee and bleach and all these desperate women and kids surrounding us. Your complexion was so gray that you looked like you had been powdered over with ashes. Your hands were rough like alligator skin, and you couldn’t get any cream to stop the cracking and bleeding. Have you forgotten all of that? Uncle Banks had to find you a new suit because you dropped so much weight waiting for your “speedy trial.” You were your own ghost.
When I told you I was pregnant, it wasn’t good news, not in the way it should have been. I hoped the idea would stir you, bring you back to this life. You did come back but only to moan into your tight fists. Remember your own words: You can’t have it. Not like this. This is what you said to me, your grip on my wrist so tight my fingers tingled. You can’t tell me that you didn’t mean what you said.
You didn’t mention a boy named Chickie or your “real” dad, but I saw the forest, if not the trees. This is something that I was sure about at the time, and I’m still mostly sure about now: I don’t want to be a mother of a child born against his father’s wishes, and you made your wishes clear.
Roy, you know I hated to do it. However much it hurts you, remember that I am the one it happened to. I am the one who was pregnant. I’m the one who isn’t pregnant anymore. Whatever you feel, think about what I must feel. Just like you can say I don’t know what it is like to be in prison, you don’t know what it’s like to go to a clinic and sign your name in the book.
I’m dealing with it in the way that I do, through my work. I’ve been sewing like a crazy person, late at night. The dolls remind me of a doll I had when I was little, when you could go to Cleveland, Georgia, and adopt a “baby.” They were a little beyond our means, but Gloria and I went out there to at least have a look. When we saw all the dolls on display, I said, “Is this summer camp for dolls?” And she said, no, it was like an orphanage. I was so sheltered, I didn’t even know what an orphan was, and when she explained, I sobbed and asked to take all the dolls home.
I don’t think of my dolls as orphans; they’re babies that happen to live in my sewing room. I’ve made forty-two so far. I’m thinking I’ll try and sell them at craft fairs, at cost, about fifty dollars each. These are for children, not collectors. And truth be told, I want to get them out of the house. I can’t have them staring at me all day, but I can’t stop making them either.
You asked me who knows. Are you asking me who knows what I did or who knows that you asked me to? Do you think I took out a billboard? If you’re a grown woman and you have more than ten dollars in the bank, nobody understands why you can’t have a baby. But how could I think about being a mother with my husband in prison? I know you’re innocent, there is not one doubt in my mind, but I also know that you’re not here. This isn’t a game, a drill, or a movie. I don’t know that it hit me until I was two weeks late and getting ready to pee on a stick.
I didn’t tell anyone but Andre. All he said was, “You can’t go by yourself.” He drove me and he covered my head with his jacket as we made our way past the chanting demonstrators and their disgusting signs. When it was done, he was waiting for me. Afterward, in the car, he said something that I want to share with you. He said, “Don’t cry. This isn’t your last chance.” Roy, he’s right. You and I will have babies in the future. We will be parents. Like they say, “A girl for you, a boy for me,” or was it the other way around? But when you get out, we can have ten babies if that’s what you want. I promise you that.
I love you. I miss you.
Yours,
Celestial
Dear Georgia,
I know I said that I would let this go. But I have one more thing to say. We took our family and pulled it out by the roots. Reading your letter, you make it sound like I forced you, like you came into the county jail excited to be having my child. You said, “I’m pregnant,” like it was cancer. What was I supposed to say? And besides, let’s say that I did push you in one particular direction, don’t act like you were being an obedient little woman. I’ll never forget our wedding when, in front of everyone, you got into a stare-down with the minister who asked you to say the word obey. If he didn’t back down, we would still be standing at the altar, on the outskirts of matrimony.
That day at the County, we had a discussion. You and me. Two grown people. It was not about me telling you what to do. As soon as I mentioned the idea of not keeping the baby, I saw the relief on your face. I loosened my grip and you snatched the ball and ran with it. Everything you remember is true. I said what I said, but you didn’t try and argue the other side. You didn’t say that we could make it. You didn’t say that this was a child we created. You didn’t say that maybe I could be free by the time he was born. You tucked your head and said, “I can do what has to be done.”
Yes, I get it. Your body, your choice. All of that they taught you at Spelman College. Fine.
But we should have known there would be some consequences. I’ll take responsibility for my role in it, but it wasn’t me by myself.
Love,
Roy
Dear Roy,
Some background:
In college, my roommate told me that men want a woman to be a “virgin with experience,” and therefore you should never talk about your past relationships with a man because he wants to pretend like they never happened. So I know that you’re not going to want to hear this, but I feel like you’re forcing me to share this sad story.
Roy, you know that I spent a year at Howard University before Spelman, but you don’t know why I left. At Howard, I took Art of the African Diaspora, and my teacher, Raul Gomez, was the diaspora himself. A black man from Honduras, he spoke Spanish when he was excited and he was always excited about art. He said that the reason he didn’t finish his dissertation was because he couldn’t bear to write about Elizabeth Catlett in English. He was forty, married, and handsome. I was eighteen, flattered, and dumb as a box of rocks.
When I figured out that I was pregnant, we were unofficially engaged. I had no ring, but I had his word, but—there is always a “but” isn’t it? But he needed to get divorced and he didn’t think that after twelve years of marriage, his wife should have to bear the shame of a “love child.” (And here I was, encouraged that he used the word love.)
I believe that you know where this story is going. It’s clear to me, too, looking back on it. I was recovering when he came to my dorm room to tell me that we were done. He was all dressed up in a dark blue suit and a tie the color of ashes. I was wearing sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt. He showed up outfitted like the Harlem Renaissance and I didn’t even have shoes on my feet. He said, “You’re a beautiful girl. You turned my head and made me forget right from wrong.” And then he left.
He was gone, and I was gone, too. It was like I slipped on a patch of ice on a dark road inside my own mind. I stopped going to his class and then I stopped going to all classes.
After a couple of weeks, one of my dad’s friends from the chemistry department alerted my parents. Black colleges are serious about that in loco parentis thing. My folks were up to DC faster than you can say “civil lawsuit.” (Yes, Uncle Banks was the attorney. The suit was frivolous, but the goal was for Raul to lose his job.)
The experience broke me down, Roy. I came back to Atlanta and just sat there for a month. Andre would come over and I didn’t even want to talk to him. My parents were seriously thinking about sending me somewhere. It was Sylvia who snapped me out of it. (Every girl needs a wise and reassuring aunt.) I was telling her the same
kinds of things that you’re telling me now—how I thought I jinxed my own life. That if I had been brave enough to keep the baby, I would have been rewarded with what I really hoped for, which was to be Mrs. Gomez. That life was a test that I kept failing.
Sylvia said, “I am not about to judge you. That’s between you and Jesus. Sugar, tell me the honest truth—do you wish you had a baby right now?” I really couldn’t say. The main thing was that I didn’t want to feel the way I was feeling. Then Sylvia said, “When you took the test, were you hoping for a plus or a minus?” And I said, “Minus.”
So she said, “Look. What is over with is over with. What are you going to do? Get in a time machine? Go back to last fall and unfuck him?”
And then she pulled out a dozen socks, embroidery thread, and cotton batting. This part of the story you know, everyone does. She showed me how to make the sock dolls that would be donated to Grady Hospital to comfort the crack babies. We went over there sometimes and held the poor little ones who were so strung out that they rattled in my arms.
It wasn’t charity. I sewed those first dolls to work the guilt out of my system. I never thought of poupées, commissions, contests, or exhibitions. I felt like every time I made something to comfort a motherless infant, I was repaying the universe for what I did. After a while, the dolls and DC weren’t connected anymore. I had a weight pressing on my soul and I dolled my way out from under it.
But I didn’t forget, promising myself I would never find myself in that predicament again. For a while, I was scared to try, thinking that maybe I ruined myself, not in a medical way but in a spiritual one.