200 Letters

by Amy Watkins

  “It only takes one night to make a baby. I know that. I trusted her, so I never questioned it.”

  “Hmm…. she also told me that you got upset when she went out on a date with someone else. Is that true?”

  “What? No! It wasn’t like that. I was mad because I thought it was a double standard that she had the freedom to go out with whoever she wanted but they felt like they could dictate who I could or couldn’t see. I don’t care what she does. I was just mad ’cause they didn’t accept you.”

  “Hmm…” I heard Angela’s fingers drumming on the table.

  I wasn’t sure if Angela was convinced or not, but I did know that Caroline was a liar. I thought about all the things she had said to me. Were they all lies? Was my mom in on these lies?

  “There’s obviously a lot of bull going on,” I complained. “I talked to Caroline yesterday and she told me that Deidra told them she would not let me see Cierra as long as I was with you.”

  “Yeah, Caroline told me that too.”

  “And did she tell you that my mom tried to get the family to help but they refused?”

  “Yes,” Angela agreed.

  “I haven’t spoken to Deidra or anyone since I been in. Just you, my mom, and Caroline. I’m not sure what to believe.”

  I was frustrated, confused, and angry. Why were Naomi and Caroline lying? Was Angela lying to me too? It seemed like the people who were supposed to have my back were digging me a deeper hole. I needed to reflect, so I got off the phone and went to the pod.

  I kept to myself the first few months in jail. I’d quickly walk around the pod just trying to blow off steam. The pod was not very big. There were no windows, only cold concrete walls. I’d walk around in circles. Inmates would joke about it, “You look like you goin’ somewhere.” I’d just smile and nod.

  The guards always tried to fuck with us. There was a small outdoor recreation yard, but we rarely got to go outside. “Looks like it’s going to rain today, sorry can’t go out,” a guard mock when asked.

  “Oh, it rained yesterday. Sorry, it’s wet. Can’t go out,” they’d say the next day.

  There was a law library in the jail, but you had to write a request to access it. You had to make a written request to do anything. Want an appointment with the magistrate? Request it in writing. Want access to the commissary? Request it in writing. We even had to write a request to get a book from the library. The guards always “accidentally” lost our requests or pretended they never got it.

  They put us on lockdown because they didn’t feel like watching us in the pod. The worst? They were so petty about letters—and they’d brag about it.

  “Looks like you got a letter but there’s some unidentified substance on it, so we had to send it back.” It would be a smudge.

  “Someone sent you a Christmas card but it has glitter on it. Sorry, can’t give it to you—glitter is against the rules.” They made up the rules as they went. Glitter wouldn’t have hurt anyone or anything in that jail but they knew that a Christmas card would have lifted my spirits.

  “Sorry, we couldn’t send that letter out for you. You are supposed to put your name, then your inmate number, then the section, and then your address. You put your address then inmate number then section.” And I’d have to spend money on another stamp and another envelope to put things in the correct order.

  The guards’ little petty games were demoralizing, but I just dealt with it and turned the other cheek. I had bigger things on my mind.

  Occasionally, another inmate would ask me what I was thinking so hard about while I was on one of my walks. “Nothing,” was my response, but I knew they could see right through me.

  On one of those walks I heard, “You don’t belong in here.”

  I turned to see who spoke to me. There was an older Black gentleman sitting on one of the metal benches. His graying hair was kept so short, he almost appeared bald. He was about my height and very thin. He walked with a slight limp and coughed frequently between his sentences. His eyes were dark and wise, like they had seen and learned a lot. His spirit was calm and understanding.

  “Sir?” I stopped and asked.

  “You don’t belong here. You’re not like the rest of the folks in here.”

  I sat down next to him.

  “I’m Key,” he introduced himself, holding out his hand for me to shake.

  I shook his hand. “Ethan. What do you mean I don’t belong here?”

  He shrugged. “I can tell. You got some shit with you, some real genuine problems. I can see the anger and hurt in you. But you keep to yourself. You’re patient. You’re quiet. You’re always thinking. You don’t let petty shit get to you. I been watching you. Those guards and some people in here, they try their best to get under your skin, to demoralize you, but you just shrug your shoulders and keep on moving. What’s your story?”

  I initially contemplated not telling him about my life, but there was so much wisdom in his eyes that I decided to open up. I started out kind of general, “I grew up in Kentucky, joined the Navy, went to the war…”

  He listened quietly and intently. So, I kept going. I told him about Tracy, Naomi, Caroline, Quentin, and Angela. I told him about all the things Naomi and Caroline had been telling me about Angela and all the things Angela had been telling me about them. I told him about the rest of my family not helping me when I had helped them out so much in the past.

  Key’s eyebrows shot up. “Have you talked to the rest of your family since you’ve been in jail?”

  “No, my mom hasn’t given me anyone’s number yet, so I haven’t been able to call. After she reached out to them, she told me they were disappointed in my poor decisions and wanted nothing to do with or the mess I got myself into.”

  “What about before you went to jail. Did you talk to anyone then?”

  I hung my head. “No, my mom said they didn’t want to talk to me. There’s been a rift in the family ever since my grandma died. My aunts and uncles were disrespectful to my mother because grandma’s land was not split up evenly in the will. In her defense, I wrote them a few not so nice emails and haven’t talked to them since.”

  Mr. Key stroked his chin. “Sounds like your mom and Caroline are the ones causing all the trouble,”

  I looked at him, my brows raised. “You think?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, think about it. Why would Angela be trying to set you up? She the only one helping you. She gave you money, she made several four-hour trips just to see you for forty-five minutes, she answers your calls, and she writes you letters every day. If she was really trying to set you up, why would she sacrifice so much to help you? And with Caroline and your mom, nothing seems concrete. They say all this crazy stuff. A secret society that Angela is in? Come on, now. I mean, I know there are secret societies out there but why would they be trying to set you up? You ain’t got nothing. Your family been telling you all this stuff and then tell you not to tell anybody. They isolated you from your other family members. That’s suspicious. If your family wasn’t lying, they’d want you to talk to other people who could back ‘em up. And why does everyone always contact them when it comes to you? Tracy calls Caroline, your mom’s roommate, to talk about you and the evil plans she has for you? That don’t make sense. If I was trying to hurt someone, I wouldn’t contact their peoples to tell them I was going to do it.”

  I thought about what Mr. Key said. I didn’t want to believe my mom was cheating me, but Mr. Key was right. Nothing that Naomi or Caroline told me panned out to be true. They just wanted me to be their little puppet. They wanted me to do what they said, when they said it. They wanted me to go to Kentucky, pay all the bills, cook, clean, and take care of Trinity so that they didn’t have to do anything. So, they saw Angela as an obstacle to that and were trying everything they could to break us up.

  They had no regard for my safety or my happiness. They thought it was so important for me to see Trinity but I’d been locked up for
months and they still hadn’t come to visit me—not even once. They barely answered my calls. I had depended on them to have my back. I gave them money when I should have been using it for lawyer fees and child support. They told me they needed the money to pay Naomi’s hospital bills, to pay for Trinity’s care, and to hire a lawyer for me—and I believed them—but here it was, months later, and I still didn’t have a lawyer. They hadn’t contributed one red cent towards my bail.

  I wondered if Trinity was even my child. Did my mom really have breast cancer? They lied so often none of it may have been true.

  Mr. Key let out a friendly chuckle as he saw the wheels in my head turning. Turned out, Mr. Key was a preacher’s kid, born in Georgia and raised in Virginia. He understood my Southern boy mentality, upbringing, and innocence. I was brought up to respect, listen, obey, defend, choose, and trust my mom without question and at all costs. That’s what I did because that’s what I was taught. “Honor your father and your mother,” Naomi would quote anytime I questioned her. But honor was different than worship. I could still honor her and not do everything she requested or believe everything she said, especially when I knew it was wrong.

  He also understood family hurt one another. He didn’t tell me much about his family, just that they had hurt him. While he was wallowing in his pain, he made some wrong turns in his life and he was now in jail paying for those poor decisions. He had since made amends with God and had been growing spiritually.

  I went to sleep thinking about Angela and thanking God for sending a blessing like her into my life. She helped me out more than I realized. She put up with more than I realized and, through it all she still had my back.

  I spoke to God in a long prayer asking for guidance and discernment. Then I realized He had been answering my prayers all along. I just hadn’t been listening. It took an old preacher’s kid from Georgia to get me to listen. Angela was helping me and trying to build a relationship with me. She did it before my incarceration and after. I was the problem. I believed lies and treated her badly because of it. I believed the wrong people. I followed the wrong people. All the signs were there, I just ignored them because I believed more in my mom then I did in my own heart.

  I wrote Angela the fiftieth letter and told her about Mr. Key and that he said I didn’t belong there. He wasn’t the first inmate to say it, he was just the first I didn’t ignore. I also asked her to go through my phone and send me more numbers. She was able to send me Deidra’s number as well as my brother Ricky’s. I wasn’t ready to call and face them yet, but at least I had their numbers. And I planned to call them as soon as I developed the courage to face them.

  Letter 51:

  Dear Ethan,

  I got your letter about Mr. Key and the inmates that keep saying to you that you don’t belong there. That’s God’s grace. I really believe that God is covering and protecting you. Others can see it too. Praise God…

  One of the guards interrupted me as I was reading Angela’s letter. “You’re request got approved.”

  “What request?”

  “You can go to the law library now.”

  The law library gave inmates access to information regarding their rights but, like every other “privilege” in jail, you had to make a request and have it approved to go. I’d put in that request months ago, hoping the information there could help me with my appeals. I had forgotten I even made the request in the first place.

  Filled with hope, I went to the library with my short pencil and paper. When I walked in, it was not at all what I expected. The law library consisted of one stand-alone computer that still used DOS programing. There was no internet access. The program only contained old outdated court cases. There was nothing useful.

  Angela had a lawyer and she asked him to review my case. He had and had come up to visit me a couple of times; but after the review, he thought it be best if a lawyer from this area—someone who knew the judge and the opposing lawyer—took the case. He figured I'd have a better chance with them than if he were to represent me. He still gave Angela and me some legal advice. Apparently, you can't ask for an appeal unless you are a lawyer or the person. That's why Angela's appeals were denied. He wasn't sure why my appeals had been. He also advised me to try to get into a work release program while I was in jail. I had already written a request to do so but hadn't heard back.

  Angela had no success finding an affordable lawyer in Northern Virginia who would take my case.

  I went back to my cell and wrote my third appeal. I had very little legal guidance, but I had my prayers and I had faith that God would come through.

  I went to church that Sunday, Mr. Key had taken over as church lead and his message was amazing. It hit me hard. He read Genesis 19 and compared it to Judges 19.

  Genesis 19 is a well-known scripture: the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Two angels went to Sodom, a city corrupted by evil. Lot was a good man who lived in that bad city. He met the angels, greeted them, and invited them to stay with him in his home. That night, the local men went to Lot’s house and tried to rape Lot’s guests, but Lot refused to sacrifice his guests. He risked his own life and his daughters to save his guests from harm. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, but Lot and his family were spared.

  Judges 19 is not as well-known. It was similar to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but it did not have a happy ending. This was the story of a traveling Levite and his concubine. They were invited to stay with an old man in his house and they paid for their stay with bread and wine. As they were feasting and drinking, local men came to the old man’s house and tried to rape the Levite. The Levite threw his concubine outside in an attempt to save himself. She was brutally raped throughout the night. In the morning, she died clinging to the front door of the house.

  “Damn,” I blurted when Mr. Key read the story. “The Bible is brutal.”

  “It can be,” Mr. Key responded. “What do you think it means? Same situation. Evil men trying to rape and kill, but in the first story, they were not successful and they were destroyed. In the second story, the ending was tragic. This poor young girl was tortured, violated, and killed. Why? What was the difference in the two stories?”

  “Because, in the first story, God was with them. And in the second story he wasn’t there,” an inmate said.

  “Bingo,” replied Mr. Key. “These stories are the same situation, but one shows what happens when you invite God into your life and the other is what happens when you reject God.”

  I pondered over the message. When I was with Tracy, I had rejected God. I didn’t go to church. I didn’t pray. I didn’t read the Bible. Maybe that’s why my outcome was so devastating.

  “Lord Jesus,” I prayed, “please fill me with Your precious spirit. Please live in me. Please make Your home in my heart.”

  I sat in the cell for the rest of the day; not by choice but because, once again, the guards had us on lockdown for no legitimate reason. The only time we were let out was to grab our food trays. The food was always nasty on Sundays and the amount of food was less than usual.

  Busy and I were still cellmates, and they had added another inmate to our cell; a guy named Mike. Mike was a drug addict; heroin was his drug of choice. He came in on a Friday night and he was already in full blown withdrawal. Those first few nights with him in our cell were horrible. No one got any sleep.

  He sneezed, his nose ran uncontrollably, he dripped with sweat, and shook until his teeth rattled. He ran to the toilet vomiting or shitting every few hours. He’d toss and turn and often yell out, “Help me! I’m cold! I’m hot! Oh God! It hurts!”

  Busy and I tried to help him as best we could. I bought some extra blankets from the commissary and gave them to him. Busy bought some extra juices.

  “He needs to stay hydrated,” Busy said.

  “I don’t want no fucking juice!” Mike yelled.

  Busy shrugged and left the juice there. It had been drunk by the time morning came around.

&nbs
p; I silently prayed for him, a lot. Busy didn’t pray much, but sometimes in the middle of the night I’d hear Busy shout, “Please Lord help this man so I can get some fuckin sleep!”

  Don’t judge, it was still a prayer. And an answered one. Mike improved after a few days and turned out to be a pretty cool guy.

  We were all sitting in our tiny cell that Sunday after church. They were both bored, but my mind was active.

  “What you thinkin’ about?” Busy asked.

  I shrugged. “Just life. Bullshit and stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Mike agreed, “life and bullshit.”

  He started to vent about his issues. Mike came from a good family but he had been a hard-headed rebellious teen. He got caught up in the excitement of partying and drugs. He kept trying harder drugs and, before he knew it, he was robbing and stealing just to get his next fix. It was his family who called the police on him and had him arrested. They said it was for his own good. Truth be told, they were rich and could have gotten him into one of those rehab centers. The whole time he was in jail, he hadn’t heard from them once. No letters. No visits. He tried to call but they never answered. He felt betrayed.

  It was refreshing to hear that I wasn’t the only one with family problems, but sad at the same time.

  “Man, sometimes family don’t have your best interest at heart. They just want what’s best for them,” Busy chimed in. “My mom was bipolar and a pathological liar. When I was younger, I fought with her a lot. But now, she be talkin’ and I just listen without feeding into it. I know its bullshit what she be saying, but what’s the use of arguing? She crazy! You can’t reason with unreasonable people.”

  Busy was right, no use in arguing. I could listen to my mother, but I didn’t have to let it bother me or believe it or argue about it.

  I called her the next day. Caroline accepted the call and started telling me that Angela was being disrespectful to Naomi. She said Angela called her a bitch and that she’d never see her son again, then she called Trinity retarded and wished she’d die. I just listened.