I can’t say that I enjoyed my stint in prison, but I did settle in to a regular routine that made it almost bearable. I embraced the rigid structure of our schedule, rather than fighting against it. By facing a shortage of even the most modest luxuries in life, I learned to appreciate the simple things.
Since I wasn’t big or tough-looking, I banded together with a group of older women in my bunk hall. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but the mother hen of the group, Bea, took me under her wing. When others tried to bully me out of my meager supplies, she was there to defend me.
I worked in the library and read as many books as I could get my hands on, even though most of them were ridiculously dated. I tried to research financial aid programs that might help pay for Nana’s nursing care while I was imprisoned. Before I left her facility on my last morning of freedom, I had given them a jar with every bit of savings I had accumulated, including my apartment rent, which I no longer needed. The money had been enough to ensure she could stay where she was for a few months, but not for the entire time I was incarcerated.
Finding a solution to cover Nana’s living expenses proved to be more difficult than I could have imagined. When Tanya stopped by during visiting hours one random Sunday, I begged her to do some internet research and make some calls to help me find a way to keep Nana in her facility until I was free to take care of her myself.
It was the longest two weeks of my life, while I waited and wondered if Tanya had followed through on my request. To my astonishment, she returned with the best news I could have hoped for. An anonymous donor had paid Nana’s living expenses for a year in advance!
The only person I could think of who would do such a thing was Nana’s boyfriend, Glenn. Maybe he was concerned that she would be transferred to a cheaper facility where they would no longer be together everyday, so he paid her room and board to ensure that wouldn’t happen. Regardless of his reasoning, I owed him big time and would make sure to repay him when I was out of here and back on my feet. It was such an enormous weight lifted from my shoulders to know that Nana would be taken care of while I was unavailable to see to it myself.
Once Nana’s needs were covered, I found myself with loads of free time and nothing worthwhile to fill it. I hated to waste this year of my life, but I wasn’t sure what to try to accomplish during my time behind bars. The answer came to me thanks to my fierce protector, Bea, who had recently suggested that I start calling her ‘Aunt Bea.’ The funny and endearing nickname suited her, and I felt privileged to officially be included in her prison family.
I noticed that Aunt Bea focused on my lips whenever I talked. She also seemed to miss part of our group’s rowdy conversations. Any time that happened, she blamed it on us being too boring to pay attention to or her mind wandering, but I had suspicions about what was really going on.
When the two of us were alone in the bunk hall, I decided to ask her about it. I wanted to approach the subject delicately because I feared that she might be sensitive about it. “You know, I met the sweetest little girl just before I was arrested. She was almost completely deaf, so it gave me a chance to brush up on my sign language, which is really rusty.”
I paused to let that sink in. Acting as if I had just thought of it, I added, “You know, I think I would like to study sign language while I’m in here. If I worked on it a little bit every day, I would really be good at it by the time I’m released.”
She nodded, giving me a somewhat wary look. I was fairly certain that she was afraid to admit that she was becoming hard of hearing because the other prisoners might use it against her. If they knew they could sneak up on her, it would make her more vulnerable to a surprise attack.
“It would be a lot easier to work on if you and the girls learned it at the same time.” I didn’t want to directly suggest that it would make communication with her easier for our group. Instead, I snapped my fingers and said, “It would be like having our own secret code language. No one else will know what we are saying––including the guards.”
This revelation made Aunt Bea’s eyes light up with excitement. The guards were always listening in to our conversations. In fact, there was no privacy in prison at all. A secret language would give us a hint of autonomy. I could tell by her expression that I had won her over.
Aunt Bea took care of getting the rest of the gang on board with our plan. Before long, I was teaching the group what sign language I knew. We used it throughout the day to increase our familiarity with it. Sometimes, we spoke as we signed. Other times, we simply signed to make others wonder what we were up to.
It drove the other prisoners, as well as the guards, crazy. They were all dying to know what we were up to with our quick hand motions.
Before long, we had reached the extent of what I was able to teach, but we all yearned to learn more signs. I found an older ASL manual that had pictures to illustrate the signs in the library. We quickly devoured that book and craved more.
Once we had mastered all of the signs we had access to, I worked on a presentation to try to convince the prison’s administration to fund a new program to certify interested prisoners as American Sign Language interpreters. I didn’t have access to a computer, so the plan was limited to pages in my spiral notebook, but our group worked together to make it look as professional as possible with our limited means.
Aunt Bea drew fancy lettering, one of the other women worked on graphs, charts and pictures, and all of us brainstormed key points we wanted to address. After our paperwork was in order, I was nominated to be the mouth for our cause.
I started out talking to guards and anyone else who would listen. Before long, we had a movement started that many prisoners, even some outside of Aunt Bea’s group, felt passionate about. Our collective voices finally garnered us the attention of the warden’s assistant, who promised to secure us a quick meeting with the warden during which we could champion our cause.
The group voted that Aunt Bea and I should present our plan to the warden. Even though we were prepared, I have never been so nervous for a meeting in my life. So many people’s lives would be improved if we could institute this program. Not only would it give participants something positive to focus their time on during their incarceration, but it would also give them viable job skills once they were released. It felt like a win-win situation to us, and we presented it as such to the warden.
He sat back and stared at us with his hands clasped in front of his mouth. It seemed like an eternity before he spoke. “Ladies, you’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this, and you make some valid points.”
The dramatic pause he inserted seemed to be interminable, so I prompted him. “But?”
“But the budget is tight. Finding money to fund a program like this is challenging, to the point of being nearly impossible.” He answered my question, simultaneously confirming my fears that he was going to shoot down our idea.
Aunt Bea and I both slumped in our chairs, visibly deflated, like three-day old balloons, after hearing his initial response.
The warden gave us a half-smile under his unkempt moustache. “You two look like I just stole your puppy.” He informed us before adding, “I said it’s nearly impossible, not impossible. Let me see what I can do,” he offered.
That glimmer of hope was all we needed to re-inflate us. We both thanked him profusely as we backed out of his office.
“I haven’t done anything yet.” He chuckled at our obvious enthusiasm. “Save some of this energy for when we have the program in place.”
We nodded, both of us beaming from ear to ear. Then we bolted from his office before he had a chance to change his mind.
“Did you hear that? He said when we have the program in place, not if,” Aunt Bea asked me excitedly.
“He sure did.” I couldn’t wipe the proud grin off my face.
Faster than I had ever before seen her move, Aunt Bea ran forward and jumped up to clack her heels together in the air. After that, our giddy laughter could be heard echoing all along the dreary prison hallway.