The Lost Chapters by Leslie Schwartz

Author:Leslie Schwartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

EBI Module: Dayroom

In the process of discovering bodhichitta, the journey goes down, not up . . . It’s as if the mountain pointed toward the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We jump into it. We slide into it. We tiptoe into it. We move toward it however we can.

—Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

Every act of resistance, however small, was a victory. Wynell was a master at getting away with shit. In addition to the “falls” she took from her upper bunk, which allowed her up to eight hours in medical, a change of scenery, extra lunch, and maybe some good meds, she took full advantage of the fact that our sink broke and remained that way for days. She managed to convince the deputy to leave our door open so she could refill her water when it emptied. The bottle seemed to empty with astonishing swiftness.

“You’re filling that an awful lot,” the deputy screamed at her. She called him Bologna because once she’d seen him pick the rubberized, imitation bologna from a sandwich and throw it at an inmate in medical.

“Bladder infection,” she said. You could get a male deputy to do anything for you if you used the words “blood,” “vagina,” “bladder,” “ovaries,” or anything else related to the female body.

Almost every time she went out there to fill up the bottle, she hung around and chatted with her “ho” friends in Dayroom who sat under the stairs laughing at everything. When the deputy would shout at her to get back to her cell, she would calmly finish filling her water—this would take surprisingly much longer than the drinking part—and then saunter majestically up the stairs, that crown I imagined on her head sparkling under the grim lights.

I didn’t have the same courage. Or at least I thought I didn’t until one day, during program, I saw the usual twenty or so inmates line up for Life Skills class. I’d been watching this lineup occur every day, wondering what the criteria was for the privilege of going to class. I was envious that they were allowed to leave the module for hours at a time. One of the students told me that on Fridays their teacher, Ms. Kiara (an aspiring comedian on the outs), let them watch movies.

When the deputy called out, “Life Skills, line up,” she accidently popped our door and I was suddenly outside, walking down the stairs and into Dayroom where, without a thought, I lined up. I can’t explain why I did it. It was almost as if I were being pulled into that line by an invisible hand. Somehow—perhaps legitimized by my association and friendship with Wynell—the trustees, who were all black and noticed that Wynell trusted me, were “distracted” as I slipped in while they checked people off. I remember one of them nodding at me to hurry up, keep my head down, just go.

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