by Donna Hylton
And I remember that she left suddenly, which disappointed me. When I asked Roy and Daphne why, they told me she decided to go away to the army. She was a beautiful, delicate type, and for the first time it seems glaringly obvious to me why she really would have left. She probably couldn’t stand life with Roy.
When she hears a little about my past, Judy emphasizes to me that even though I’m in prison, I need to continue to learn, to keep my mind busy. At rec, she passes books to me and encourages me to share my thoughts and opinions with her about what I’ve read. There’s so much screaming and discord in our unit that Judy becomes a safe place for me.
With her friendship and wisdom, I’m able to keep my mind occupied in a positive way. I’d never met anyone like Judy on the outside—so passionate and effective in activating change in the world. She becomes the first of many role models that I’ll meet in prison who will stir my mind and spur me to use my brain for something positive for the first time since I earned my GED.
And so it begins, the point where my prison experience has an unexpected and profound effect in transforming who I am. Following a past in which my decisions, my judgment, and my actions hurt people, this relationship will be the first torch in the darkness that will light the way to my redemption. It’s inside the Box, at the most isolated moment of my life, that I begin to find sisterhood and community.
The emotional resources that I’m learning to cultivate here, like Judy’s encouragement about parenting, become especially important in mid-1988, when after ten months I’m released from the Box. This is when I finally get an opportunity to attend a family court hearing to fight for visits with Adrienne. This will be the first time in two years that I’ve gotten to see my daughter, who’s now seven years old.
In leg irons and handcuffs, I’m led into the courtroom to try to work out my visitation rights—
And that’s when I see her.
In blue jeans and a T-shirt, Adrienne stands next to Alvin. I have to catch myself from breaking down in tears as I notice the most basic of details: her hair is falling out of her ponytail. It’s a symbol of a little girl’s natural, carefree innocence, but in Adrienne’s case I fear it may be a sign of her father’s negligence. As officers walk me down the center aisle of the courtroom, it stabs me in the heart to walk her way without the ability to touch her. My little girl stares at the ground until I walk by—when she turns her head just slightly in my direction.
She’s the same age I was when my mother gave me to the Hyltons. I would never have made a conscious decision to let someone else have my daughter, and I know the peril of a child’s future if she doesn’t have her mother to nurture her, to praise her, to cry to, to count on. It takes every cell inside me not to fall to the ground and beg the court to let her come with me.
As I take my place at the podium, I have to lean for emotional strength onto another resource I’ve learned is available for incarcerated women: a Catholic nun named Sr. Elaine. She’s accompanied me to court as an advocate who works to keep families in close contact after the mother has been incarcerated. With her skilled understanding of the law, Sr. Elaine has prepared me for court and written a letter to the judge to state that since I entered prison, my daughter’s father has not complied per the visitation rights that the court granted me. “When you went to prison,” Sr. Elaine has explained to me, “you didn’t give up your rights as a mother.” She explains that unless Alvin brings Adrienne to see me, he’ll be in contempt of court.
Alvin challenges the judge with defiance and tells the court I’m a bad mother. When the judge directs a few brief questions to Adrienne, she keeps her head down and only responds with nods or shakes of her head. I can’t tell whether she’s angry with me, or whether Alvin has primed her with what to say with the threat of beating her. The only thing that’s clear from my daughter’s behavior is that this whole ordeal has hurt her deeply.
This is all your fault, Donna.
The court orders that Alvin begin to bring Adrienne to visit me twice a month. Sr. Elaine grips my hand in victory, but as I watch Adrienne exit the courtroom next to her father, this outcome has only stirred a different worry in me. It’s likely Adrienne will take the brunt of Alvin’s defeat. When he’s not in control, he turns vicious.
When the date for our first visit arrives the following weekend, neither Alvin nor Adrienne show. I contact Dalida, my former manager from the gift shop at the Milford Plaza, who has graciously kept in contact with me. She goes out on a search for my daughter and informs me weeks later that Alvin had moved without formally changing his address. She found Adrienne near her school in the Bronx, hungry, scratching at the lice in her hair, looking for ways to earn money to eat.
As my mind leaps into crisis mode, I relay this information to Sr. Elaine, who quickly writes a letter to the court and goes to a hearing for me. Her advocacy on my behalf shows me that there are ways I can grow more empowered if I have an understanding of the law and my rights.
Having experienced a sense of camaraderie and support for the first time, I feel determined to seek out Judy’s contemporary, Kathy Boudin, as well as any other women who can guide me. I want to begin to build a family around myself—not a family who makes me earn their love, the way I had to do as a child, but a family who will foster my heart as well as the growth of my learning and my peace of mind for my daughter. When I first entered prison, I couldn’t even get my mind around the magnitude of twenty-five years to life. Now, as I begin to deal with the realities of life in prison, I know that I need to learn how not to be that isolated little girl. I need to find a group of women who can provide wisdom and support to help me navigate this life emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and legally.
As I engage with more of the women, I begin to understand the kind of place Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women is. Bedford houses some of the most infamous female convicts whose crimes took place in New York State. There’s Jean Harris, once a prominent boarding school administrator who was convicted of second-degree murder for the 1981 death of her ex-lover, Dr. Herman Tarnower, author of the best-selling The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet. There’s also Elaine Bartlett, who was sentenced to twenty-five years to life for a first-time drug offense of selling cocaine (and who now is fighting for her release to get back to her children), as well as Betty Gal Tyson, a former prostitute from Rochester who was convicted of murdering one of her clients, who was an executive at Kodak.
By the time I arrived at Bedford, Betty was the longest-serving woman at Bedford and regarded as the Mother of the prison. I first encountered her in the rec yard shortly after I arrived from Rikers Island, and I heard that she was known outside as a “cold-blooded killer.” But right away, my perception of her was nothing like that. The first time I saw her in the yard, Betty Tyson was impossible not to notice. She walked tall, her long, shapely legs rising out of red high heels. How does she get away with those? I wondered, continuing to take her in. Her skin was dark brown and so smooth that it glowed, her hair long dreadlocks that coiled into a neat bun at the crown of her head. I was drawn in by her dress and appearance, polished and beautiful from head to toe.
Now that I’ve been released from the Box, Betty Tyson and I are housed on the east wing of the prison, where in the kitchenette she cooks small meals from things she buys in the commissary. One night, she invites me to join her for dinner, and as we talk quietly, she sees something in me—my young age, perhaps, or maybe it’s my quiet nature—and she promises to look out for me. We begin to eat like this together. Most every night, Betty uses these meals as opportunities to advise me on how to speak to the correctional officers and the administrators in the prison. Out in the rec yard, she introduces me to people I need to know. This is an invaluable gesture that helps me feel a little more included, as an introduction from Betty means you’re “good people,” part of the “in” crowd—finally.
As I get to know her, I’m seeing that her beauty and the power of her influence at Bedford
radiate from inside of her. She has a way of commanding respect from both the women and the staff that I never would have known was possible—not like the respect on the prison TV shows and movies I watched as a child, which was based in fear. The respect that Betty attracts is based in love. She’s very maternal, warm, and comforting. This is a quality that I’ve longed to find in someone since my early childhood.
She seems to recognize this desire in me, my trust and vulnerability, the same way that I recognize her strength. But she doesn’t use this pureness about me against me, as so many in my past have done. Instead, she gently takes me under her wing. While most of the women here call her “Ms. Tyson” or “Nanny,” after close to a year of living on the same unit, Ms. Tyson tells me: “You can call me ‘Mom.’”
My heart soars with happiness. No one has ever in my life embraced me like this before. For me it’s an honor to be one of her “own.” Mom opens up to me about the crime she was convicted of, never wavering that she was innocent. She admits that she was indeed a prostitute, but that she didn’t kill the man she’s been accused of killing. She says she feels she was targeted for the conviction because of the way she made a living—but that she wasn’t the one who killed him.
My prison mother is working to create an outward security for me here, but I don’t know if she’s aware that when she shares with me her own experience with our justice system, she’s helping me establish a certain security within myself, also. In just the short time I’ve been at Bedford, I’ve listened to the ways women talk about how they got here. Some, like Judy, completely own the part they played in a crime. Others, like Betty Gal Tyson, hold steadfastly to their innocence. In both cases, and even among women whose guilt or innocence is less black and white, there’s a personal strength, a commitment to self, that comes from bearing witness to the truth of the events that brought them here. As citizens—defendants—and now as incarcerated women, we might have no control over the court’s decision to have sentenced us here… but we do have power over our response to it, and who we choose to be while we’re in this place.
I continue to observe some of the better-known women here. Judy Clark’s one-time co-defendant, Kathy Boudin, often sits on the ground during recreation, singing while she plays her guitar. Women gather around her, sitting and listening, and Kathy utilizes these gatherings as an opportunity to discuss the issues that are happening in the prison. I’m seeing how genuine passion gives way to a generosity of spirit that truly sparks the possibility to create change, and how even inside prison, it’s possible—maybe even necessary—to decide on something we believe in, and stand for it.
The friendships I make during these first years at Bedford begin to have a profound effect on me. I’m learning what true friendship is, and what it is to have a stable support system for the first time in my life. These women become the basis, the womb, from which my rebirth will come.
6
AGENTS OF CHANGE
My experience among some of the strongest women at Bedford will give me the example I need to involve myself in the first of several causes that I’ll begin to fight for. By now, in the late 1980s, a mysterious illness has begun to hit our facility strongly—the same illness I’d been warned about after my altercation with Ursula. There are some women who are locked in for the nighttime count, but the next morning, they don’t wake up because they’ve died during the night. There are three or four of these deaths each week, and the prison staff won’t open up about what’s happening.
We women, on the other hand, are talking. The illness is called HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, in which the body attacks its own immune system. In its final stages, HIV is referred to as AIDS, or autoimmune deficiency syndrome.
It so happens that in my wing, I’ve met a young woman named Helen who’s in for attempted murder and prostitution. I’ve learned that these two crimes too often go hand in hand: by the time a woman is in a position to sell her body for money, she’s so vulnerable to abuse that she could easily end up dead. Often, to make it out of a situation alive, she has to kill the man who’s paid for her services or the one who’s selling her body.
Because I know sexual trauma personally, I can sense this experience in Helen. She tends to keep to herself and protect herself from interactions with others. As I continue to push myself beyond the comforts of my own introversion, I try to strike up conversations with her. She has trouble looking in my eyes, but I can tell she appreciates my effort from the hint of a smile she gives me. I try to include her in conversations and activities with the other women, until I notice that for a couple of days, she hasn’t left her cell. “Where’s Helen?” I ask a few of the women in our unit.
They shrug. “She won’t come out,” one of them says. “An officer said she’s too sick to eat.”
“Does anybody want to check on her?” asks a nearby officer.
“I’m not going,” some of the women say. Something about it reminds me of the time I wanted to feed Mr. V, when Maria told me: “I’m not gonna feed him.”
“I’ll go.” Helen’s cell is near the unit door opening, cracked ever so slightly partway—almost as though she’s inviting one of us to take enough initiative to check in on her. I pull the door farther open, and there I find her: Helen is curled up, in a fetal position on her bed. Again, the feeling of this takes me back to my experience with Mr. V and reminds me of the very thin line between life and death when I realize that I can’t tell if Helen is breathing.
My first reaction is a panicked anger: Why hasn’t anyone checked on her?!
But I pause for a moment and remember what I’ve learned here: I can choose my response. I can choose to do what’s right. In this moment, I choose compassion.
As I enter Helen’s cell, some of the women in our unit begin to gather outside the door. “No, no, don’t go in there,” a few of them say. “She has that thing! You’ll catch it from her!”
I walk to her bed and lean over her. “Helen?” She blinks weakly.
I rest my hand on her forehead—she’s burning up, clammy and hot.
Oh my God.
I take a washcloth from the small stack of linens in her room and push the cold water pedal on the floor next to her sink to moisten the washcloth. I return to her and wipe her forehead, wipe her face, wipe her neck and chest, trying to give her some relief. She blinks again, faintly, but as if to say: Thank you, Donna.
I step out to the crowd in the corridor, which now includes the officer on duty in our unit. “She needs help. Everybody—she fucking needs help!”
They look at each other, not knowing what to do.
I march back inside Helen’s cell, where I spot a small carton of juice. I drop the straw that’s lying next to it inside the carton, and place it to her lips. Slowly, gently, she sips. After she’s taken a few drinks and signals No more with her face, like a baby learning to eat, I pick her up. “Where are you going?” the corrections officer asks me.
“I’m taking her to the hospital, that’s where I’m going. You’re not helping her, but I’m going to help her. Somebody’s going to see her.”
This most urgent situation becomes my initiation into the rest of my life.
As angry as I am at the corrections officer and the other women for the way they judged Helen, I’m thankful—thankful that for the first time, I had the strength to stand up and say: This is not right! I wasn’t able to do that for Mr. V, and I’ve regretted it and blamed myself every day since. In a certain sense, regret is the same as judgment or a lack of forgiveness: a disempowering feeling that we have no control over something that took place before the present moment. This pain I’ve carried since that day in April 1985 is enough. I can never let that happen again.
As I watch the nurses transfer her to a bed, take her vitals, and connect her with IVs, it begins to dawn on me how fear and ignorance cause us to lose our compassion. We label other people, dehumanize them, slander them when what they need is our love. So many of us here know it very per
sonally: without love, we can’t survive.
I spend days on work detail and my nights visiting Helen until she’s released from the hospital and housed back in her cell. I buy food from the commissary and cook for her. I clean her living space so that she can rest peacefully there. During recreation, I take her to get fresh air outside, where we play cards and listen to Kathy Boudin sing along with her guitar. Helen visibly relaxes to the sound of the strumming, and when she laughs, it floods my heart with profound satisfaction. On the rare occasion she forgets the shame of her life long enough to allow her eyes to meet mine, I hear Mr. V’s words to me from that half-decade ago:
You’re different than the others.
After the agonies I’ve been through, witnessing the way life shines through Helen gives me something I can only describe as spiritual fulfillment. During this season of my friend’s life, I discover a new way to experience the world and the inexplicable healing of the self that emerges from the act of serving others. After all my years trying to escape my reality in one way or another, I’ve found a way that’s real and meaningful to truly get out of my misery. That way is simply to help someone else.
After about a year since that day I found her curled up and alone inside her cell, it’s clear that Helen’s time with us is approaching its end. She’s housed in the hospice unit of the prison, where I care for her each day until it’s time for me to report back to my cell for the nightly lock-in. “I love you like a sister,” Helen tells me one evening.
I kiss her forehead and squeeze her hand. “I love you, too. Now you try to get some sleep.”
The next morning when I return, one of the nurses meets me. Her face is sullen—she doesn’t have to tell me the news.
“Can I see her?” I ask.
In sadness, she shakes her head no. “They’ve already taken her body, Donna.”
I stare, blankly. She won’t suffer anymore.