Old Iron Pants had Tracy Whitney assigned to the laundry. Of the thirty-five work assignments available to prisoners, the laundry was the worst. The enormous, hot room was filled with rows of washing machines and ironing boards, and the loads of laundry that poured in were endless. Filling and emptying the washing machines and toting heavy baskets to the ironing section was a mindless, backbreaking job.
Work began at 6:00 A.M., and prisoners were permitted one 10-minute rest period every two hours. By the end of the nine-hour day, most of the women were ready to drop from exhaustion. Tracy went about her work mechanically, speaking to no one, cocooned in her own thoughts.
When Ernestine Littlechap heard about Tracy's assignment, she remarked, "Old Iron Pants is out for your ass."
Tracy said, "She doesn't bother me."
Ernestine Littlechap was puzzled. This was a different woman from the terrified young girl who had been brought into the prison three weeks earlier. Something had changed her, and Ernestine Littlechap was curious to know what it was.
On Tracy's eighth day working in the laundry, a guard came up to her in the early afternoon. "I got a transfer here for you. You're assigned to the kitchen." The most coveted job in the prison.
There were two standards of food in the penitentiary: The prisoners ate hash, hot dogs, beans, or inedible casseroles, while the meals for the guards and prison officials were prepared by professional chefs. Their range of meals included steaks, fresh fish, chops, chicken, fresh vegetables and fruits, and tempting desserts. The convicts who worked in the kitchen had access to those meals, and they took full advantage of it.
When Tracy reported to the kitchen, she was somehow not surprised to see Ernestine Littlechap there.
Tracy approached her. "Thank you." With difficulty, she forced a friendly note into her voice.
Ernestine grunted and said nothing.
"How did you get me past Old Iron Pants?"
"She ain't with us no mo'."
"What happened to her?"
"We got a little system. If a guard is hard-ass and starts givin' us too much of a bad time, we get rid of 'em."
"You mean the warden listens to - ?"
"Shee-et. What's the warden got to do with it?"
"Then how can you - ?"
"It's easy. When the guard you want to get rid of is on duty, hassles begin to happen. Complaints start comin' in. A prisoner reports that Old Iron Pants grabbed her pussy. The next day 'nother prisoner accuses her of brutality. Then someone complains she took somethin' from her cell - say a radio - and sure enough, it turns up in Old Iron Pants's room. Old Iron Pants is gone. The guards don't run this prison, we do."
"What are you in here for?" Tracy asked. She had no interest in the answer. The important thing was to establish a friendly relationship with this woman.
"Through no fault of Ernestine Littlechap, you'd better believe it. I had a whole bunch of girls workin' for me."
Tracy looked at her. "You mean as - ?" She hesitated.
"Hookers?" She laughed.. "Naw. They worked as maids in big homes. I opened me a employment agency. I had at least twenty girls. Rich folks have a hell of a time findin' maids. I did a lot of fancy advertisin' in the best newspapers, and when they called me I placed my girls with 'em. The girls would size up the houses, and when their employers was at work or outta town, the girls would gather up all the silver and jewelry and furs and whatever other goodies were around and skip." Ernestine sighed. "If I told you how much fuckin' tax-free money we was pullin' down, you wouldn't believe me."
"How did you get caught?"
"It was the fickle finger of fate, honey. One of my maids was servin' a luncheon at the mayor's house, and one of the guests was a old lady the maid had worked for and cleaned out. When the police used hoses on her, my girl began singin', and she sang the whole opera, and here's poor of Ernestine."
They were standing at a stove by themselves. "I can't stay in this place," Tracy whispered. "I've got to take care of something on the outside. Will you help me escape? I - "
"Start slicin' up them onions., We're havin' Irish stew tonight."
And she walked away.
The prison grapevine was incredible. The prisoners knew everything that was going to happen long before it occurred. Inmates known as garbage rats picked up discarded memos, eavesdropped on phone calls, and read the warden's mail, and all information was carefully digested and sent around to the inmates who were important. Ernestine Littlechap was at the head of the list. Tracy was aware of how the guards and prisoners deferred to Ernestine. Since the other inmates had decided that Ernestine had become Tracy's protector, she was left strictly alone. Tracy waited warily for Ernestine to make advances toward her, but the big black kept her distance. Why? Tracy wondered.
Rule number 7 in the official ten-page pamphlet issued to new prisoners read, "Any form of sex is strictly forbidden. There will be no more than four inmates to a cell. Not more than one prisoner shall be permitted to be on a bunk at one time."
The reality was so startlingly different that the prisoners referred to the pamphlet as the prison joke book. As the weeks went by, Tracy watched new prisoners - fish - enter the prison every day, and the pattern was always the same. First offenders who were sexually normal never had a chance. They came in timid and frightened, and the bull-dykes were there, waiting. The drama was enacted in planned stages. In a terrifying and hostile world, the bull-dyke was friendly and sympathetic. She would invite her victim to the recreation hall, where they would watch television together, and when the bull-dyke held her hand, the new prisoner would allow it, afraid of offending her only friend. The new prisoner quickly noticed that the other inmates left her alone, and as her dependence on the bull-dyke grew, so did the intimacies, until finally, she was willing to do anything to hold onto her only friend.
Those who refused to give in were raped. Ninety percent of the women who entered the prison were forced into homosexual activity - willingly or unwillingly - within the first thirty days. Tracy was horrified.
"How can the authorities allow it to happen?" she asked Ernestine.
"It's the system," Ernestine explained, "and it's the same in every prison, baby. There ain't no way you can separate twelve hundred women from their men and expect them not to fuck somebody. We don't just rape for sex. We rape for power, to show 'em right off who's boss. The new fish who come in here are targets for everybody who wants to gang-fuck 'em. The only protection they got is to become the wife of a bull-dyke. That way, nobody'll mess with 'em."
Tracy had reason to know she was listening to an expert.
"It ain't only the inmates," Ernestine went on. "The guards are jest as bad. Some fresh meat comes in and she's on H. She's strung out and needs a fix real bad. She's sweatin' and shakin' herself to pieces. Well, the matron can get heroin for her, but the matron wants a little favor in exchange, see? So the fish goes down on the matron and she gets her fix. The male guards are even worse. They got keys to these cells, and all they have to do is walk in at night and he'p themselves to free pussy. They might get you pregnant, but they can do a lot of favors. You want a candy bar or a visit from your boyfriend, you give the guard a piece of ass. It's called barterin', and it goes on in every prison system in the country."
"It's horrible!"
"It's survival." The overhead cell light shone on Ernestine's bald head. "You know why they don't allow no chewin' gum in this place?"
"No."
"Because the girls use it to jam up the locks on the doors so they don't close all the way, and at night they slip out and visit one another. We follow the rules we want to follow. The girls who make it out of here may be dumb, but they're smart dumb."
Love affairs within the prison walls flourished, and the protocol between lovers was even more strictly enforced than on the outside. In an unnatural world, the artificial roles of studs and wives were created and played out. The studs assumed a man's role in a world where there were no men. They changed their names. Ernestine was called Ernie; Tessie was Tex; Barbara became Bob; Katherine was Kelly. The stud cut her hair short or shaved her head, and she did no chores. The Mary Femme, the wife, was expected to do the cleaning, mending, and ironing for her stud. Lola and Paulita competed fiercely for Ernestine's attentions, each fighting to outdo the other.
The jealousy was fierce and frequently led to violence, and if the wife was caught looking at another stud or talking to one in the prison yard, tempers would flare. Love letters were constantly flying around the prison, delivered by the garbage rats.
The letters were folded into small triangular shapes, known as kites, so they could easily be hidden in a bra or a shoe. Tracy saw kites being passed among women as they brushed by one another entering the dining hall or on their way to work.
Time after time, Tracy watched inmates fall in love with their guards. It was a love born of despair and helplessness and submissiveness. The prisoners were dependent on the guards for everything: their food, their well-being, and sometimes, their lives. Tracy allowed herself to feel no emotion for anyone.
Sex went on day and night. It occurred in the shower room, in toilets, in cells, and at night there was oral sex through the bars. The Mary Femmes who belonged to guards were let out of their cells at night to go to the guards' quarters.
After lights out, Tracy would lie in her bunk and put her hands over her ears to shut out the sounds.
One night Ernestine pulled out a box of Rice Krispies from under her bunk and began scattering them in the corridor outside the cell. Tracy could hear inmates from other cells doing the same thing.
"What's going on?" Tracy asked.
Ernestine turned to her and said harshly, "Non'a your business. Jest stay in your bunk. Jest stay in your fuckin' bunk."
A few minutes later there was a terrified scream from a nearby cell, where a new prisoner had just arrived. "Oh, God, no. Don't! Please leave me alone!"
Tracy knew then what was happening, and she was sick inside. The screams went on and on, until they finally diminished into helpless, racking sobs. Tracy squeezed her eyes tightly shut, filled with burning rage. How could women do this to one another? She had thought that prison had hardened her, but when she awoke in the morning, her face was stained with dried tears.
She was determined not to show her feelings to Ernestine. Tracy asked casually, "What were the Rice Krispies for?"
"That's our early warnin' system. If the guards try sneakin' up on us, we kin hear 'em comin'."
Tracy soon learned why inmates referred to a term in the penitentiary as "going to college." Prison was an educational experience, but what the prisoners learned was unorthodox.
The prison was filled with experts in every conceivable type of crime. They exchanged methods of grifting, shoplifting, and rolling drunks. They brought one another up to date on badger games and exchanged information on snitches and undercover cops.
In the recreation yard one morning, Tracy listened to an older inmate give a seminar on pickpocketing to a fascinated young group.
"The real pros come from Colombia. They got a school in Bogot
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