Exorcise Room - Visiting Time

Mundane thoughts and observations on “Visiting Time.”

The scene where Denny’s talking to Josh and she asks Crystal for some tea bags:

Denny: Yo, Crystal. Give us some of those tea bags.
Crystal: Why? So you can sell ‘em to buy drugs with?
Denny: No. So I can make a cup of tea, bitch.
Crystal: Well if you want tea, you can go to the servery.

Now, I have no idea why Denny wanted the tea bags. Being an American, and a hardcore coffee drinker, I’m not with the whole tea subculture. But it’s possible that Denny did just want to make tea (and really, Crystal – whose gonna trade up tea bags for drugs?? I know you Brits like your tea but that’s just fucking retarded).

A side note on caffeine products: they are critical to surviving in places like that. When I was upstate, I tried to use tea bags once to make coffee: I emptied a tea bag, filled it with coffee, and tried to brew it (it didn’t turn out well). Yep, even at 16 I was jonesing for the java. I did eventually learn to brew coffee in a stocking with hot tap water. And make grilled cheese with an iron.

(Oh, “up north” and “upstate” are euphemisms for “prison” or “institutions,” at least here in NYC. Because most of them are, you know, up north and upstate).

Coffee was so critical to your overall well-being that having your own personal coffee stash was considered a “privilege” – kind of like being on Enhanced. So if you’d been in for at least 9 months (and didn’t get in trouble), you had the privilege of keeping jars of instant coffee for your personal use.

And yes, when you only get 3 or 4 hrs sleep a nite, even instant coffee will keep you going.

There were times we'd sneak into the kitchen early in the morning to steal some coffee. Not really steal so much - there were huge urns brewing it for breakfast anyway. We were just having ours a little early. Anyway, we had jars with lids we'd fill up and stash in our coat pockets. One morning, I got caught by the director. I tried to play it off all casual, making small talk, until we both noticed drops of brown liquid dripping down around my feet. Apparently, I didn't screw the lid on tight enough. So I got to chop ice outside that nite, till about 4 am in 10 degree weather. With no coffee.

And I'm realizing that all my tales here end with some variation of 'yes, I got in trouble for that.'

But I digress. My point is, I fucking HATE Crystal. There’s always at least one uptight, self-righteous twat like her inside (and what the fuck was she doing at the top of the stairs anyway? Did Jesus tell her to push Sylvia)??

And no, it’s not just about Crystal’s bible thumping, tho that certainly doesn’t help. It’s mostly her hypocrisy. And her self-righteousness. She’s judgmental and thinks she’s better than everyone else. She judges the rest of them even while she’s in prison for five-fingered discounts. I hate hypocrites. And really, why the hell does she care if Denny wants tea bags?? It’s not like it’s Crystal’s own personal stash – that shit belongs to Larkhall. Share the booty, bitch!

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But the Julie J storyline is just beyond sad. I can’t count how many women I knew who lost their kids, usually to the system (as opposed to family members). Yeah, some of the kids were better off, but many were not.

In the last exorcise room, I mentioned the power that’s conferred to someone who works in an office. For awhile, I worked in the staff office as I was one of the people who could type. On a typewriter. Yes, this was the Dark Ages, before computers. We even used carbon paper back then.

Anyway, one of my jobs was to type up staffs' court letters for people. One woman I loved and adored, DB, was going to lose her 2 kids. So I simply rewrote her letter: instead of talking about the recent trouble she’d been in, I said she was working hard to change her life and become a responsible and effective parent yadda yah. I also had pretty good forging skills, so it wasn’t hard signing the staffer’s name (yes, I got in trouble for that. And lost my job in the office). But in the meantime, DB got an extension in court. Nearly losing her kids was kind of a wake up call for her tho, and she really chilled out after that. She did eventually get her kids back, a year or so later.

That’s one of the few happy stories I have about mothers and their kids. More often than not, it didn’t turn out well for any of the parties involved. And of course, more than a few of the people there were products of the system themselves, having been taken away from their mothers years before.

Another woman, PT, had 2 kids that her mother was caring for. Course PT's mom had turned her out on the stroll when she was only about 16. While we were upstate, her mom got busted for selling coke and her kids went into the system anyway. PT was with me the night I had to chop ice for "stealing coffee." I forget what she did to get on ice patrol, but I slipped on the ice and broke my arm. The night staff didn’t want to take me to the hospital but PT yelled at them until they finally took me for xrays.

If you ever want to scare women like that here in NYC – women with children - just yell “BCW!” (I think they’ve changed the acronym since then, but it used to be “Bureau of Child Welfare”). You do something like that on the street, women everywhere go running for their kids. And rightfully so.