Crimwife (2 page)

And then there is the pain we share. The horror that is jail as we come to know it. The torture, the depravity, the humiliation, the grief and the terror that all inmates face, and that we absorb too. We are each aware that we will never know what our loved ones go through. We soak up the pain when we go into jails and we carry it out and wear it home when the visit time is up. We witness a side of humanity that we cannot unsee. And yet, we stand up to the taunting we perceive all around us, from the guards and from the system itself, and make our way through to be with the men let out from their cages to see us.

When it is over, we leave our partners in the decidedly cold hands of Her Majesty, step outside the walls into the fresh, free air, into a liberty we cannot share with someone we just saw face-to-face. Crimwives may have very little in common for the most part, but the obstacle courses we crawl through and the lessons we learn from the authorities change us, permanently. As women, we already know about the power of the state. As crimwives, we are reminded all the time.

I looked around at the women in the van; their young, old and middle-aged faces were all locked up, just like mine. Their emotions were tucked into the corners and folds and wrinkles of their flesh. Their hairdos were protected by the cotton-poly scarves and their makeup was perfect. Their nails were long, curled and colored. Their clothes, like my clothes, were for the most part, their Sunday best. I absorbed those women, my sisters, (myself) as though we were a masterpiece painting.

We were like an Easter parade on crack.

—Asha Bandele,
The Prisoner’s Wife

Angie was devastated when her husband, Christian, left her, mainly because she hadn’t seen it coming. He was the quiet, stable type. He went to work and was home by 5.30. They had two young sons and had bought a house. On weekends they had barbecues. They barely argued. When Christian told Angie he was leaving her for a family friend, it was a complete shock. Her parents had been married forever and she had believed her life would be the same.

Having no choice but to go back to work, Angie quickly took a job to support her boys. She needed to fast-track her career plans, so she re-enrolled in her second year of a nursing degree, which she had left when their first baby was born.

The positive side to the break-up was Angie’s reintroduction to the world after a long time at home with the boys and an even longer time with Christian. University gave her the social life she’d been missing, as well as a sense of her own identity.

She and her new friend from uni, Maddy, were soon inseparable. Maddy thought the boys were adorable and often babysat. Angie also got to know Maddy’s family, since Maddy still lived at home with her father and sister. She also had a brother, who wasn’t around much. According to Maddy, he was a druggie and had caused lots of fights in the family. He was the black sheep by far. The rest of the family was close, and he drifted in and out of contact with them.

Angie hadn’t thought much about him until, one day, Maddy started talking about this brother, Luke, who had gone into rehab. Luke, it seemed, was making his way back into Maddy and her family’s good books.

“He’s lonely in there, you know,” Maddy said. “He’ll never say it, but I know it’s hard for him not having anyone. Why don’t you go visit him?”

“I don’t know him,” said Angie. “I’ve only seen him in photos. And one time in your cousin’s car.”

“Just go,” said Maddy. “You don’t have to stay long. Think of it as a good deed.”

From the time she was a child, Angie’s family had been used to her bringing home stray animals. Angie knew Maddy was aware of her sympathetic nature. It went against her better judgement, but Angie decided to visit Luke, if only to make Maddy happy. She’d never been around people who took drugs or went to rehab, but she prepared herself for the worst.

The rehab visits room was very low-key. When Angie sat down with Luke, she was amazed at “how normal he was.” He told her about the new life he was looking forward to, and she believed everyone deserved a second chance. Luke was shy, but funny and easygoing, and except for the fact that they were meeting in an unusual place, he was just like any other guy. Angie was struck by how easy it was to forget how serious his situation was. Luke thanked her for visiting and she left relieved, wondering what she’d worried about. It was as if she’d been visiting a sick person in hospital.

A few days later, Luke left rehab suddenly, and, because staying there was a parole condition, he went straight to jail. Having braved rehab without any problems, Angie decided to visit Luke again in his new home.

Luke was beaming when he entered the visits room and saw her waiting there. It made Angie happy; she had to admit it. He hugged her as though she were his best friend and kissed her cheek. They sat down, and Luke told her about rehab and why he’d had to leave. It was a terrible story of injustice, corruption and misunderstanding, and Angie agreed that she would have done exactly the same thing if she’d been in that situation. Jail was worse than rehab, but Luke had been to jail before for a couple of months. At least you knew where you stood in jail.

Angie spent the next seven years as Luke’s girl. In total, they spent six months of those years together with Luke out of jail.

The first time Luke got out, he lasted a week. The next time, it was six weeks. Each time the drugs got him sent back. Sometimes he was sorry, sometimes he blamed Angie for making him turn to drugs. Then he would be gone. And there was a huge void where Luke had been for a few months, until he got out again.

Angie’s first criminal conviction was for bringing contraband into a jail. She had held the drugs for someone else, but the officers found them on her, so she was charged and banned from visits for two years. This ban helped her when she wanted to get away from Luke, but usually she wanted to stay close to him.

The second mark on her record happened on a drive to Goulburn to put money into his account. Luke would demand money from her, and Angie was scared of what he would do if he didn’t get any. So she became used to the routine of driving to Goulburn during the week as well, to deposit cash. One time, Luke’s best friend went with her. He didn’t tell Angie he’d just done a run of robbing letterboxes and had mail under the passenger seat that didn’t belong to him. When the officers searched her car, he owned up to the syringe, but not the credit cards in other people’s names. Angie was charged with possession of fraudulent instruments and intent to commit fraud.

Over the years, the intensity escalated. In the last year of their relationship, Luke went on the run. Confused and exhausted, Angie went with him. She left her sons with Christian and stayed in motels with Luke while they planned what to do next. Christian called her and offered her a break. He understood, he said, that she wasn’t coping, and suggested that the boys stay with him in the short term. Grateful, Angie agreed. She had already lost the support of her parents and sisters. When she arrived to meet him, he had papers for her to sign. It was only later that she realised she had signed over custody of her boys for good.

Angie adored Luke, and although she knew he would go away again, she was thrilled to discover she was pregnant. Her parents weren’t. They insisted she terminate the pregnancy, and with Luke missing, they convinced her. Four days later, her hormones free-falling, Angie found Luke and tried getting pregnant again.

Luke knew nothing of the pregnancies. He was running out of money and constantly looking over his shoulder for police. One afternoon, he took Angie for a drive and they heard the familiar sound of sirens. He sped up, and spent half an hour leading a high-speed chase, until Highway Patrol threw spikes on the road that ripped their tyres to a halt. Angie remembers screaming as the police beat Luke with their batons and kicked him as he lay on the ground cuffed and struggling. Luke went back to jail. Angie was charged with aiding and abetting an unlicensed driver.

Angie went back to her house and found it nearly destroyed. Friends of Luke’s friends had broken in when they heard the couple was away, and stripped her house of anything valuable. She had a list of charges against her name. Her family was in tatters, each with their own passionate opinion on her situation. Luke had taken her money and ruined her reputation. And she was pregnant again. This time she miscarried.

*

Two years later, Angie says she’s a different person, very hard-line and uncompromising. She managed to get a good job, after explaining her record to many panels of interviewers. Christian relented on custody, so she has her children back with her. Her parents and brothers are on speaking terms with her, but they still fight about what happened with Luke. She’s close to finishing her two-year good behaviour bond, but in her small home town, she still sees contempt in the eyes of many of the people who know what she went through.

Angie has a new partner who’s loyal and stable and loves her, despite his jealousy of his predecessor.

“He knows what I did for Luke,” she says, “and yet I won’t do anything like that for him. I try to tell him I’m a completely different person now, I’m not like that anymore, but he still gets upset. But I don’t want to be like that anymore, so why won’t he be happy for me?”

Yet, despite her new life and the opportunity time provides to see clearly, Angie misses Luke. She has nothing but remorse, she says, for her children’s experience and her parents’ grief. During the course of our talk, though, she relaxes, begins smiling more about Luke. Despite being full of regret, and determined never to hurt her loved ones again, she says, “I’d still be with him, if my family hadn’t intervened.”

So it wasn’t a lapse in judgement, a phase, a psychotic episode? She still wants to be with him?

“Yeah,” she says, and closes her eyes as if daydreaming. “I’d be with him now.”

I know not whether laws be right nor whether laws be wrong;

All that we know who lie in jail is that the wall is strong;

And that each day is like a year,

A year whose days are long.

—Oscar Wilde,
The Ballad of Reading Gaol

So, you’re thinking about dating an inmate? Liked what you saw in the gym scenes in
Oz
? Keen to find true love with someone who actually gets what a life sentence means?

At first glance, you might think that having a partner in jail makes life simple. Things are easier to organise: no more uncertainty about how many places to set at the table or who’s taking out the garbage. You know where he is all the time, so you can sleep easy. He fits neatly into your life, instead of you always having to compromise for him. You can do what you like with all your free time, while still being loved just the same. No boring football games or cleaning up after his friends.

Maybe, you think, it’s like having a secret lover you can bring out of their cage when you feel like it, your own gimp, who will always be happy to see you. They’re smart and if only they put their brilliance to use for good and not for evil, they will make big money, that’s for sure.

And, of course, they can’t cheat on you in jail, right?

Well, while you’re thinking about that guy you like but who seems a bit dodgy, allow me to provide a job description of sorts for the ambitious criminal handbag. There are some essential criteria you need to fulfil, and then the desirable ones.

The first prerequisite is eternal loyalty.

And second, there is a code of conduct that must be kept to at all times.

There are two people involved in his criminal life, and you’d better catch on quickly to the reality that you do jail with him. From the first slap of the cuffs, you will be there. Being a crimwife is just like serving time, institutionalisation and all – an unpaid full-time job.

Prison routine doesn’t change, so when the person you love is in jail, you adapt to it along with them. The routine makes all the rules. It affects your life directly, in the same repetitive, unyielding way that it shapes the inmate’s world. You are bound by its laws and sparse allowances. It will dictate what time you wake up, when you should be at home, and when you should be out.

Your former concept of time will change. Before too long, you’ll grow an internal jail clock. Time is measured in phone calls and lockdowns and buy-ups and court dates, not the days and months of a regular calendar. Your jail clock will wake you before the morning phone call. It will remind you when you need to send mail. After lock-in for the day, you will feel a distant sense of relief that he made it through another day alive.

Prison routine is important to inmates. It’s all they have to rely on, maybe all they can count on to keep them sane in an otherwise random existence. It’s wise for you to adapt to his routine within the routine as best you can.

You can’t call him, and he can only call at certain times. So, if he calls every day at 7.32 as part of his routine, it will become yours. You will develop ways to make every second count. A lot can happen in seconds in jail.

The non-negotiable part of your role is the commitment to communication. There are three ways of communicating with an inmate: phone calls from jail, letters both ways and visits. Each one of these requires dedication, since the jail makes none of this easy.

Phone calls are precious. The inmate submits a form requesting that money from his general jail account be put into his phone account. Once that form is processed – which takes however long it takes, maybe till next Friday, maybe earlier – calls can be made during certain times. There are often long queues for the phones. An hour is a long time to wait if, during a lockdown, you’re only allowed out for one hour in twenty-four. And if there are ten equally desperate men waiting, things can turn ugly. The richest man in jail may still get only six minutes a day, if that.

A good crimwife knows this. When the phone rings, it could be a casual hello, or it could be six minutes that were hard-won. You must never miss a phone call. If you go into another room, you must take the phone with you. If someone is willing to stand in line for an hour and punch on to speak to you, you’d better have a damn good reason not to pick up the phone. Leaving the house is not one of them. He can call your mobile from jail, but when it costs so much more than a local call, it’s usually best just to stay at home. If you live too far from the jail for it to be a local call, you may need to move closer.

Even after lock-in for the day has happened, you must still stay alert. He may send a message to you through a sweeper, who stays out of his cell longer to finish work and makes the call for him. It may be urgent, or it may not. Best not to take any chances.

Phone calls are recorded and monitored through a private phone system. Some jails may have officers listening to calls as they happen or that were recorded previously. I listened in from the Intelligence room once. Most calls went along these lines: “Yeah, hi Mum. Did you put the money in? Why not? Well, can you get up there today? Get Darren to drive you.” But, amazingly, some crims spoke freely about their plans to attack an officer or sell drugs.

If Intel discovers an inmate has evil intentions, his calls may be flagged so that they can be focused on. Many phone calls aren’t screened, but as with everything in jail, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Once you know there’s a chance you’re being listened to, you live as if you are. Same for being watched or followed.

Knowing that there’s a good chance of your intimate conversations being replayed during officers’ card games is enough to contaminate the conversation, much as you try to ignore it.

If your last phone call before lockdown is an emotional one, the only thing left to do is write a letter. Prison officers don’t pass on messages as a rule. There is no ringing him back, no SMS, no online chat, no meeting up later over coffee to talk about it. If you haven’t solved your relationship problems by 3 in the afternoon, you wait till tomorrow.

Letters are different. Outgoing mail is usually not read, so unless the inmate has been flagged by Intel, it goes unopened. Mail going into jail is read and searched for contraband. Senders try all kinds of ways to sneak drugs and plans past those who read the mail. It may only take a day for the mail to get there, but if the officers are busy peeling acid tabs from the envelope seal, it can take days to reach him.

Receiving letters is vital to those on the inside. Proper crimwives send cards written in coloured pens with stickers all over them to break the bland monotony of prison. Daring crimwives send revealing photos of themselves, but these pictures have been known to end up in the wrong cell, whether accidentally or boastfully. If there’s any chance your self-portraits will get into the hands of someone who has no one, don’t send them. Especially if he’s getting out before your man. There have been some pretty bad endings.

Writing mail is also important to the inmate. There is no love letter like the one from jail. I would later discover how much of Jimmy’s letters was fantasy, with fictional characters who bore no resemblance to anyone living or dead. But in those letters were the hopes and dreams of what life could be like if it weren’t made up only of prison, a cell, a yard and the daily fight for survival.

The letters were simple and honest and earnest. Jail was a bad place to be. When jail was over, life could happily and easily begin. Writing was therapeutic for both of us. I decided what I was willing to share with jail staff. And Jimmy wrote about whatever was happening at the time in a stream of consciousness. But his conclusion was always that our relationship could save anything. It could cure cancer and solve world hunger.

OK, well what can I say, except I love you so much and I am missing you madly.

It’s a fucked reality I live in, babe, it goes something like this.

If it’s cold I know I would be warm next to you. If I’m in pain I would feel nothing while you’re around. If I’m tired I will be awake next to you and if I’m lonely it’s because you’re not around to talk to. My whole world would be better if I could be closer to you. Babe, I love you. I know my thoughts are not logical but neither is my love, so, my beautiful, you make my life worth living.

These are not the sort of letters you get with online dating. That guy who’s stable and secure from the IT department will never send you letters like these. People will tell you that “They change when they get out,” but pay no attention. If he wrote it, it’s true. Never question the letters.

For years you can have a relationship subsisting on a mishmash of writing and phone calls. No letters for a week, then three in one day. Time becomes blurry when you read about events that were catastrophic at the time of writing, but have changed before you even knew about them. Get used to it.

You understand when you are writing the letters that your mail will be read. You know that your I-love-yous will be heard by the snickering staff in the phone monitoring room. You give away that right to privacy, anonymity and intimacy when you first sign a letter with your name and mail it.

If privacy means anything to you, the thought of strangers listening in, reading your thoughts, knowing your bad days and your failures, will be hard to get used to. Then, over time, these strangers become just another part of the system, this multitude of strangers who know how much you miss your boyfriend and how you slept last night.

Over time you will care less and less about who knows what. Your relationship is deemed to be public property, and under that spotlight the challenge to outwit them becomes a private game and often a unifying bond.

The greatest priority in life will become organising a successful jail visit. You will know it is time to book a visit, if the jail requires bookings, because your internal alarm will go off two days before. Booking times vary among jails, and while the big ones are open every day, the smaller ones may only take bookings once a week for four hours. There might be only enough room every weekend for half the inmates to get visits, so the phone lines can be busy. One white-collar crimwife raffled a bonus to the staff member at her call centre who could get through to book visits during her husband’s sentence in remote jails.

Your partner won’t accept that his cellie got a visit and he didn’t, so you keep those four hours free and the phone fully charged. Just when you start to think that pressing redial for another hour is pointless, you get the operator’s voice, and you take the sessions that are left, hoping you won’t get the inconvenient leftovers. Then your jail clock starts ticking louder than your heartbeat until you are sitting across from your partner in the visits room.

Visits mean different things for different crimwives. Some have to drive for hours, and they will pile the kids in the car, sleeping in it all weekend. This may happen every weekend, if that’s when visits are. Others visit three times a week for an hour and a half in maximum security. Some will be expected to smuggle in drugs. Some will put them in their baby’s nappy and may teach their toddlers to insert drugs and be ready to produce them at the right moment. Most crimwives are required to bring money.

What could a crim need with money in jail? Did you think the state took care of all their needs? Well, not quite. Bedding, clothing and food are provided, but it’s not nearly enough for most men. Some don’t complain, but most find themselves getting hungry when dinner is at 3.30 and breakfast is not until 6 or 7 the next morning. Besides, the more you have of anything in jail is an asset, if only to trade.

The inmates can buy a selection of items every week, depending on how much money they have. There is a limit for the buy-up, as it’s known, maybe in the order of $60. The weekly buy-up is for tobacco, canned food, rice, eggs – quite a variety for the well-looked-after. Then there’s the monthly “activities” buy-up, where inmates can purchase kettles and rice cookers, and sneakers and TVs. Jimmy says there is nothing that cannot be cooked with a rice cooker and/or a Breville toasted sandwich maker. Old TVs, which retail for $80 in the shops, go for $300, so the jail makes a tidy profit along with the supplier.

You wouldn’t want him to have no TV, would you? That forces him to stay awake listening to the screaming in the halls or in his own head. It’s very lonely in there, so best you find $300 and set your jail alarm to go off when buy-up forms and money are due.

Then there’s the matter of getting money into his account. Unless you want him doing illegal things in jail for money, which could cost him more time, or have him taken off visits or calls, you’ll put the money in. If he can’t get a job, he gets only $12 a week on the dole – yes, the dole – in jail, while a small pouch of White Ox tobacco is $13. All he wants is to call you; but he needs some money for the phone.

There are two ways of getting money into an inmate’s account. A money order means waiting in post office lines, but at least they can be mailed in. The jail also takes cash in person, during office hours or at the end of a visit. My guess is that’s in case people change their minds during the visit and want their money back. In any case, there’s the whole visit to think it over.