200 Letters

by Amy Watkins

  The day came for me to transfer into the general population. I carried my duffle bag as I was ushered into an area called a sally port—the gateway from freedom to imprisonment. It was a small room with clear walls. There were two doors on opposite sides, and neither could be unlocked at the same time. It was a controlled measure to keep inmates from escaping. The other inmates watched as I stood there waiting for the door to open. I looked, smelled, and felt like shit. I had nothing but the duffle bag and its contents. The guard told me what cell I was in and told me stand by the cell door and wait. I did as he instructed, looking awkward.

  The cell door opened and I entered. There was only one guy in the cell, a white guy with a lot of tattoos. I glanced at some of his ink, searching for swastikas or confederate flags. The last thing I needed was a racist roommate but I didn’t see anything concerning.

  “Play nice,” the guard said as he slammed the door.

  I set my duffle bag down and proceeded to make up my rack. It being December, the cell was cold. The jail had no heating system. My new cell was a little bigger than the previous one, but it had a similar layout—metal beds, cheap uncomfortable mattress, and a silver toilet behind a short divider. The divider offered very little privacy. Everyone could still see and smell you as you took a dump.

  “Hey man, you alright?” my new roommate asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good.” I answered.

  “They call me Busy, and you are…” he asked.

  “I’m Ethan” I answered.

  “Looks like you been in holding a few days. They may let you out to shower if you ask,” he suggested, he motioned over to the call button on the wall.

  I pressed the button and a guard answered, “What you want?”

  “You think I could get a shower?”

  “Yeah, you got five minutes.”

  I gathered my stuff and headed to the shower. The water was freezing cold. I had some state-issued soap which dried out my skin and caused me to itch all over. When I got back to my cell, Busy offered me some lotion. It was like water, but it helped.

  “Get some sleep, we in for the rest of the night,” Busy added.

  I lay there on my rack, still pissed at God and wondering how I could let my family know where I was. I still didn’t have anyone’s number. And how the hell was I going to get out of jail? I drifted off to sleep and at five in the morning, Busy woke me up for breakfast.

  The food was disgusting. Slapped on my plate was some sort of meat product claiming to be ham, yellow colored, lumpy grits with no flavor, a biscuit so hard that I could probably use it as a weapon and watered down fruit juice. I only ate the ham and gave the rest to Busy.

  “You need to eat,” Busy said. “It’ll be a while before lunch.”

  I tried the biscuit. Once you got past the hard shell, it wasn’t so bad.

  Busy turned out to be a pretty cool dude. They called him Busy cause he was always busy on some hustle. He was smart and used his resources to make trades and turn a profit. He could move items to certain people and into locked-down places without getting detected.

  He told me about the daily routines. We had recreation time, but how long and how frequent depended on which guard was in charge. That day, we were only let out once.

  Just like in the story of the Good Samaritan, sometimes sinners are kinder than saints. Judge Wilcox is a saint. A bona fide White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Probably married with three grown children. Successful and rich, he was the all-American Saint, but he had not shown me one ounce of kindness.

  Busy was a sinner. A drug using, alcohol abusing, fornicating, church avoiding hustler. Unsuccessful and poor, he was the all-American hardened criminal, but he treated me with kindness.

  “Conner!” a guard called for me during recreation.

  I turned around and raised my hand, “Yes sir.”

  “You have a visitor.”

  I wondered who it could be. I thought it might be Tracy coming to gloat. Or maybe my family got wind that I was in jail and came up to help me. The guard directed me to a room with several monitors where there were a few inmates already in the room.

  “Monitor three,” The guard said to me.

  I sat down in front of monitor three and waited for my guest to appear.

  It was Angela. I was surprised and overjoyed. I wanted to jump through the screen to hug and kiss her. I wanted to whisper in her ear that she was a blessing to my eyes, but I was also ashamed for her to see me in jail with my orange jumpsuit.

  I did my best to hide my emotions—hurt, fear and anger had no place in my life now. I could see it in her eyes, she was sad for me, but kept smiling and she showed no outward signs of despair. I knew, then, I really loved Angela and she loved me. I knew I really hurt her with my actions before going to jail and being inside made our bad situation worse.

  Angela had every reason to leave me but she still stood by me. In that moment, I knew I needed to get my shit together for her, for us, and for our kids.

  I picked up the phone, “Well, hello,” I said with a smile.

  “Hi, babe. You okay?”

  “Oh, you know. How’d you find me?”

  “When you didn’t come home after the hearing, I got worried. I looked on the court’s website, pulled up your case, and saw that you were being sent to jail. I called the court clerk who told me that you were being held here. They said you could be held up to a year. I looked on the internet and figured out how to put money on your commissary account, which by the way I did, and I deposited five-hundred bucks. I figured you’d need some money while you were in here. I also found out how to write you and how to schedule visits with you, so here I am. I figured you didn’t have my number. You got a pen?”

  “Yeah. Hold up…” I grabbed my little pencil and a scrap of paper and wrote down her number.

  “I’ve been talking to your family, too,” Angela said.

  “What?!” I was shocked and happy. I wanted my family and Angela to get along. Maybe God had me go to jail so they would come together and stop all this foolishness. Angela told me that she unblocked Caroline and Naomi’s numbers and called them as soon as she found out that I’d been arrested.

  They decided to bury the hatchet and work together to get me out. Angela gave them all the information about how to write and visit me. Naomi and Caroline were making plans to come visit me, and Angela even suggested they stay with her to save money. Angela gave me their numbers so that I could call them, too.

  “So, I’ve been talking to Caroline a lot over the last few days,” Angela said after I wrote down all the numbers, “and she told me some things. She told me that you guys slept together more than once.”

  “Oh God,” I buried my face in my hands. My lies were unraveling, one after the other. Angela was hurt and upset that I had been caught in another lie. It was time for me to come clean. I knew that I could lose her when I needed her the most, but she deserved the truth.

  “Yes,” I said, “Yes it was more than once but...”

  “You lied to me, again!” She blinked away tears and shook her head in disbelief. “Are you still sleeping with her?”

  “No! No, I haven’t slept with any one since I started talking to you.”

  “How am I supposed to believe that?” She angrily swiped away a tear before it could fall.

  “I don’t know. I’ll understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore.”

  “Is that what you want?” she asked.

  “No. I want to be with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. As soon as I can, if you’ll have me, I’m going to marry you.”

  Angela looked up and sighed.

  Chapter 12 – Angela

  I couldn’t believe he lied to me again. And it wasn’t like he confessed it on his own, I had to hear the truth from Caroline and confront him before he confessed. I sat there looking at him on the other side of the monitor and I just hurt. Ethan told me they only slept together o
nce, but Caroline had informed me through our conversations that they slept together almost every day while he was staying in Kentucky. She assured me that it was before I got with him. I wasn’t mad that they slept together more than once. I was mad that he lied.

  I wanted to cuss him out, hang up the phone, leave the visiting room, and never return. This was the lowest point of his life and I knew Ethan needed me. I had to be strong and forgive him. So, I tried to ignore my anger and pain, pulled myself together, and changed the subject. “Well, the kids are doing well. They ask about you. I’m not sure what to tell them.”

  “Just tell them I’m away on business or something. I don’t know.”

  We talked until our time was up. The monitor went blank and I was ushered out along with other families who were supporting their imprisoned loved ones. I got in my car and was able to spend some time with God while I drove the two hours home.

  David, Abigail, and Aaron were still up when I got home. “Mommy, mommy, where were you?”

  “I went to go visit Mr. Ethan.”

  “Where is he? I miss him,” Aaron asked.

  I didn’t want to lie to my kids, but I didn’t want to worry them either. I also didn’t want them to have a negative opinion about Ethan. So, I changed the subject. “Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Muhammad Ali, the apostle Paul, and Jesus Christ. What do all of these people have in common?”

  “They were all good people,” Abigail stated.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “What else?”

  “Ummm, they all fought for a good ’cause they all fought for our rights,” David chimed in.

  “Yes, and what else?” I prodded.

  “Ummm, they all died?” David guessed.

  I laughed. “Yes, that’s true. But there is something else. They all went to jail.”

  “Huh, what!” all three kids murmured in disbelief.

  I smiled, “Yes, sometimes good people go to jail, too. It may be because an injustice was done to them or because they were trying to fight for what was right. But yes, they all went to jail, and so did Mr. Ethan. He is in jail.”

  Abigail looked shocked and held onto Aaron as if she was trying to protect him. Aaron was too young to understand how serious jail was, so he just smiled.

  David remained cool. “What did he do?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s complicated. He owed the court money and he wasn’t able to pay it, so he was put in jail. Don’t judge a person just because they went to jail. Some people who go to jail have done very bad things and deserve to be there. But some people go to jail and it isn’t fair because they’re in bad situations.”

  They all nodded their heads in understanding. I kissed them on their foreheads and ushered them off to bed.

  That night I had a dream—and that’s unusual for me—but during this time in my life, a dream periodically invaded my slumber. Usually, they were good dreams of a beautiful future where Ethan was my husband and we were raising all our children together. At times, I was holding Trinity and loving her as if she were my own. Other times, I dreamed of future Ethan and I and we were ecstatic that I was pregnant.

  Occasionally I’d have a nightmare. That night, Terrell was in a dark place and he was yelling, “God doesn’t love you. You are not a child of God. You are a disgrace.” Then Terrell put his hands around my neck and choked me. While I was gasping for air, Terrell’s face changed into a female’s face but I couldn’t make out who she was. She snatched me off my feet and swung me around like a rag doll, laughing crazily. I heard a baby crying, looked to my right, and saw Ethan standing with his back towards me. I tried to yell for him to help me but I had no voice. He turned to face me and his hands and feet were shackled. He tried to run to me, but a black whip emerged from the darkness, wrapped around his neck, and dragged Ethan into the inky black void.

  I woke in a cold sweat and wished Ethan was there. I got off my bed, dropped to my knees, and prayed, “Lord, what is it that you want me to do. Do I end this relationship? Why is this happening? Lord, I know that you are an almighty God, powerful and loving. You could get Ethan out of this situation in an instant, so why don’t you?”

  The answer came to me the next day while I was driving to work, “Angela, you asked me why I made your heart the way it is—strong, open, loving, forgiving. This situation is why I made your heart like this. Ethan needs you. Stay and fight. Do all you can to help. I need to keep some people in the fire a little while longer; that’s why Ethan is not yet free.”

  I knew exactly what God meant by fire. My favorite scripture, Malachi 3:3 NIV, “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver…” A silversmith refines and purifies silver by putting it in fire and knows the silver is ready when he sees his reflection. God does the same with us. He sometimes has to keep us in a heated situation to remove all the toxins, dirt, and impurities from our hearts and knows we are ready when He can see himself in us.

  With everything going on, who was God purifying? Ethan? Me? Naomi or Caroline? Tracy? Maybe Judge Wilcox? Or maybe all of us. Either way, I knew God’s hand was in this and I knew the right path was to support Ethan.

  I wanted desperately to get Ethan out of jail, but I didn’t have ten thousand dollars so he could make bail. I talked with his family daily to try to come up with a solution. I knew not to trust Caroline and Naomi. Sometimes they would be sweet to me and then they’d be nasty.

  Even though Caroline and Naomi were toxic, I kept the lines of communication open with them because we had a common goal—to get Ethan out of jail. We tried to come up with plans to get him out or raise the money for his bond. Caroline asked me to take out a loan to get him out but I thought that was a horrible idea. Part of Ethan’s current trouble was because he took out too many loans he couldn’t pay back and I refused to make the same mistake. A better idea was for me to refinance my house. We had just moved in, but I agreed to refinance anyway. The payout was small and, even though I financed at a lower rate, the refinance put me further in debt. It wasn’t enough to get Ethan out of jail. It was barely enough to hire another lawyer. Caroline then suggested that I fake a car accident and make a claim on my car insurance, but I wouldn’t sink to doing anything illegal.

  I asked if they could talk to the rest of Ethan’s family. He had several cousins, brothers, uncles, and aunts, maybe they could pool their money to help raise his bail. Naomi said she already asked the family and they were unwilling to help. Their position was that Ethan got himself into this mess so he could get himself out; but promised she and Caroline would contribute towards his bail and legal fees.

  The first letter I got from Ethan he expressed how glad he was that Naomi, Caroline, and I were getting along and working together to help him.

  I wrote Ethan back and explained that I felt like I was being used:

  I am kind but I’m no fool. I know when someone is trying to use me. The only reason Caroline reaches out to me is to either push me down or ask for something. Honestly? They are only being somewhat nice because they want me to pay your entire bail. Once you get out I’ll be “that horrible bitch, Angela” again. They said they would chip it but I haven’t seen a dime.

  A week later, Caroline called and asked if I thought they were using me. I figured Ethan had gotten my letter and discussed it with Naomi and Caroline.

  “Yes,” I honestly replied.

  “We are not using you. I honestly think you and Ethan are great together. I was thinking Trinity could come up there and live with you and Ethan when he gets out of jail so I could finish school.”

  I was ecstatic. Maybe those dreams I’d been having would come true—Trinity would be my daughter, too.

  “Really?” I chortled, “That would be awesome.”

  “Okay,” Caroline said. “Imma talk to Ethan about it and we will make it happen.”

  Those words gave me the encouragement I needed to press on. I tried everything to get Ethan out of jail. I sent letters to multiple lawyers ple
ading Ethan’s case but no one wanted to touch it.

  I researched case law pertinent to his case and found you could not be held in contempt of court if you were trying to obey the court’s order. Ethan was paying all he could for child and spousal support, therefore he could not legally be held in contempt. I copied it all down and sent it to Ethan so he could write an appeal. When he was denied twice, I also tried to write appeals on his behalf.

  I wrote to the courts in Northern Virginia, the Virginia State Appellate Court, and The Virginia Supreme Court. Those were also denied. I made a request to The Virginia Judiciary Inquiry and Review Commission that Judge Wilcox be investigated for unjust and illegal practices. That was also denied. I requested that Ethan’s case be tried by a different judge. That was also denied. They informed me that Ethan needed legal representation and that, because the case was ongoing, nothing could be done. Judge Wilcox could not be investigated and the case could not be reassigned.

  I talked to Ethan every day. That was expensive. Four-minute conversations cost five bucks. The system was set up as a corrupt business designed so wealthy investors kept their pockets full. I wondered if Judge Wilcox owned stock in that jail, which would explain why he was so eager to lock Ethan up. I tried to do an internet search to see if that was true but couldn’t find a list of investors in the regional jail where Ethan was being held captive.