Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again (19 page)

She told me not to ask anyone any questions. Nothing. She also told me not to trust anyone in there because most of them were criminals.

She told me that you could find whatever you needed in prison, if they didn’t sell it in the commissary. What’s that saying? Neurology is the mother of invention? (Just kidding . . .) I mean, necessity is the mother of invention? In there, it sure was. She told me that the more creative types made and sold sleeping masks, curlers out of toilet paper, and dildos by wrapping a maxi pad around a toothbrush or two, taping them together, and sticking that in a rubber glove they got from the kitchen. If you wanted a thicker dildo, you just used more maxi pads. I was like, “
WHAT?!
” I, for one, would
not
be buying a homemade dildo, thank you very much.

But she also said that if you got caught with one of these “inventions,” you would be given what they called a “shot,” a formal write-up documenting your bad behavior. If you were unlucky enough to get a shot, you would get punished in some way. You could have your free time, your calls, and your emailing privileges taken away, and in worst-case scenarios, your visiting hours. If you got caught with something really bad, like a gun or knife, you could be shipped out to Brooklyn. Even though people may not have snuck these things inside the prison, they were still considered contraband because they weren’t allowed. The biggies—cigarettes, drugs, weapons, and pills—were obviously illegal. But I was surprised to learn that stamps were, too.
Stamps?
At first, I couldn’t figure out why, but I found out later that people could stick drugs, like heroin, on the backs of the stamps and smuggle that into the prison. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but wow—that’s something I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years. Chewing gum was also considered contraband because inmates could stick it in the locks to prevent the officers from getting in—or out.

Even though contraband was off-limits, it didn’t stop the women from bringing it in. Another thing I learned during my stay was that women would hide taboo items like drugs, cigarettes, dildos, and other sex toys in all kinds of nooks and crannies in the building. If you were really bored, I guess you could go on a contraband scavenger hunt . . . God only knows what you would find.

I found out that the officers listened in on all of your calls. I also learned that if you really did something bad in there, they could either send you to Brooklyn or put you in the hole—aka the Special Housing Unit, which they called the SHU. When you go to the hole, you are in a cell, by yourself, for twenty-four hours straight, unless they give you an hour a day to exercise or take a shower. You eat in your cell. You go to the bathroom in your cell. Usually there’s no TV or radio in there. You may get to read a book. Maybe not, depending on what you did. Again, I made sure to follow
every
rule because I wanted to keep my privileges and be able to leave in December 2015, when I had heard I was scheduled to be released to home confinement. Plus, I had this weird feeling that
if
I did anything wrong, it would somehow make news in the outside world. It was that pressure that kept me walking the straight and narrow in prison. The proverbial knife edge my father was always warning me about.

I
couldn’t wait to go to sleep that night because I was really tired and drained from all the new information, people, and situations coming at me. I changed into the T-shirt and sweats I had bought to wear to bed, climbed up to my bunk, and settled in for the night. I shut my eyes, said my prayers, doing the sign of the cross before and after, and had started to fall asleep, when I smelled something fishy. I thought, “Who’s cooking in their room at this hour? That’s weird.”

The smell got stronger and then I heard some kind of muffled sound. At first, I thought it was the heating system. I wasn’t sure. It was really dark in the room, but as my eyes adjusted to the blackness, I could see two women on top of one of the two other bunks, writhing around on the bed. They were totally going at it.

Oh my God
 . . . I flipped over, faced the other way, and pulled the blanket over my head.

I cannot believe this is happening!

I don’t want to sound naïve, but I did live a pretty sheltered life before I got there. I had heard that this goes on in men’s prisons, but for whatever reason, I had no idea this went on with women. I didn’t say a word, though, and just let them do their thing.

It was just my second night in there, sleeping in my “home away from home.”
Well, Teresa, you’re here,
I thought to myself
. Welcome to prison.

T
he next morning, I didn’t say anything to anyone about the live porn show I’d seen in my room the night before. But I couldn’t get that gross image—or that strong
smell
—out of my head. I found out later that one of my roommates was a lesbian—who had a girlfriend also serving time at Danbury—and that another one, although she was married and had a bunch of kids, was what they call “gay for the stay.” Her girlfriend was called a bulldagger—a butch lesbian who turns a straight woman gay (at least that’s what I think it means). I love sex and all, but I didn’t miss it enough to find a lesbian playmate while I was there. Nooooo way—that’s just not my thing.

I saw women disappear into the woods together near the track to frolic with each other alfresco. I remember walking into the shower area many times and seeing four legs behind a curtain with sound effects, like grunting, and shouting out words I’d rather not write here in case my daughters or parents read this. (And I always saw crazy things going on when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. One time I saw this girl holding a dildo in her right hand. I guess I interrupted her. She looked at me like, “Get the fuck out of here . . .”)

Another time, one of the inmates was showering with the curtain open in front of her girlfriend, who was sitting on a chair watching her lather herself up, let’s just say. I looked the other way and just went about my business. But
Madonna mia
 . . . I did a silent sign of the cross in my head when I saw that. All I could think of was how my dad wouldn’t let me wear a cheerleader skirt—and here these two were acting like they were at home, in the privacy of their bedroom . . . I just kept walking
real fast . . .

I have nothing against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or transgender people. I have a lot of friends who are gay. I saw Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of
Vanity Fair
and then on the ESPY Awards on TV and thought she looked absolutely beautiful. But having sex with another woman? I’m just not into that. My feeling was
Hey, go for it.
It’s none of my business—unless it’s happening a couple feet away, in my own bedroom, when I’m trying to sleep! Let’s put it this way: I would feel uncomfortable if a guy and a girl were having sex in the bunk next to me. That said, I still wasn’t going to say squat about any of this because (a) that’s not my style and (b) I was starting to learn what happened if people thought you were a rat and (c) I still had to live with these women for months and months and months.

The ladies in my dorm had their quirks, for sure, and could be territorial over some things. If you accidentally sat in “their” seat in the lunchroom, they would let you know about it. Or if you used the computer they liked to use? They would snap at you and give you some lip. Not the biggest deal. But if you were a snitch? Watch out. That’s when you could get the shit beaten out of you or have the whole camp hating you and tripping you up every chance they got. So I stayed quiet. And humble. If you know me, you know that I’m really down-to-earth. I have no airs about me. I’m a girl’s girl. But a lot of people only know me from TV and the stuff they read in the tabloids. If other inmates thought I was a stuck-up bitch at Danbury, I was truly done for. I had to be careful about that, too.

My feeling was this: no matter where these ladies came from, we were all in this together. For all of us, it was about survival—getting through each day so we could get back to our families and our lives. So why cause trouble? I didn’t like to be the target of drama and I didn’t want to do that to anyone else, either. But not everybody thought the same way I did.

As much as I tried to fly under the radar and avoid having a drama target on my back, I couldn’t, because of my pals in the media. We used to get all the magazines in there. We laughed when we saw stories in the tabloids about me being a diva while in prison. So untrue. And that I had other inmates doing things for me at my beck and call. Again, not true. And lastly, that I got special treatment. No way. Hey, I wish I did.

At the beginning of my stay, there was a story that said I feared for my life. We laughed at that, too, because that was so far from the truth. I didn’t fear for my life, but I
was
watching out for people who gave me nasty looks, the people I knew wanted something from me or wanted to cash in on me in some way. It’s like celebrity radar. I was glad, though, that other people were starting to see
all
the lies that are written about me . . . and that yes, I am decent, kind, and laid-back. I found out later that a lot of the inmates in the men’s prison—the massive building at the bottom of the hill with all the scary fences around it—read the story, thought it was true, and were worried about me. Especially the Italians and the mob guys. They sent a message up the hill to some of the inmates that said,
“Make sure nothing happens to Teresa.”

This was only my third day, and I was really starting to get into a little routine. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. for breakfast. I had pancakes and bran cereal that a sunny cafeteria lady in her late sixties served to me from behind a counter. I don’t know how she could be so upbeat in the morning, but I was happy to see her.

“Good morning, Miss Teresa,” she would say.

So far, everyone in there had called me Giudice because they usually called you by your last name—and mispronounced it (but I’m used to that by now).

“You know my name?”

“Of course. You are so sweet and so beautiful. How could I forget you? Have a nice breakfast and a wonderful day.”

I usually sat alone at breakfast because it was pretty empty there in the morning. Just the early risers—some of the older ladies and me. I liked mornings there, too, because it was
quiet
. When everyone started getting up, it got so noisy, sometimes I couldn’t even think straight. It got really crazy there at night, when all I wanted was to go to sleep. Some of my roommates were night owls and social butterflies who were practically throwing block parties in our room. I was hoping I could get moved to a quieter area at some point, because it was hard to concentrate when I was reading or writing in my diary—or when I was just trying to fall asleep sometimes.

I was still tired from the night before, because I learned about another fun thing they do in prison: shine a flashlight in your eyes during a 5 a.m. head count to make sure you are still there and didn’t escape. I bolted upright in bed when the officer shined the bright light in my eyes.

“Oh my God! What happened?” I shouted. I thought someone had turned on the lights and that we had to run out of there because of a fire or something. “Nobody told you about this?” said the officer, a sweet woman in her late forties. “We just do this to make sure no one decided to take a walk—a long walk—outta here. Go back to sleep, hon.”

Of course, I couldn’t. I was still shaking from that rude awakening. That morning, I tried to keep my eyes open during my mandatory appointments with the prison dentist and the prison doctor, who gave me a physical. They wanted to make sure you were healthy when you arrived. If you weren’t, they would either keep you in the infirmary or house you in a room with other inmates who were sick or ailing in some way. The dentist said my teeth looked good, and I got a clean bill of health from the doctor.
Buona!

After calling my family and checking emails each morning after breakfast, I started heading to the gym right after that so I could do the bike and some weights. I went to lunch at ten-thirty. It was pouring out and the ceiling was leaking, so they had buckets all over the place to catch all the water coming in. Someone told me part of the ceiling had actually collapsed at one point because of all the rain. The whole place really needed a huge makeover. The only bathroom that was halfway decent was the one near the computer room. It looked a little newer and maybe that’s why it looked cleaner. I tried to use that one whenever I could.

After lunch, I ran into Tonya, who invited me to go watch TV with another girl. We went into one of the TV rooms to watch
Sex and the City
. It was the first time I had watched TV in prison—not that I watched much at home, anyway. It was nice to actually sit and watch an adult TV show because all that’s on at my house is the Disney Channel . . . hour after hour after hour.

After the show ended, Tonya, her friend, and I talked a bit. They were asking me how it was going. I said everything was fine and that I missed Joe and the girls so much. But I was still thinking about the sexcapade in my room the night before. I was dying to talk to someone about it, but I thought,
I’d better not. Not just yet . . .
I was still feeling my way in there and didn’t know who I could really trust, so I kept these things to myself. I didn’t want to get the reputation as a rat, even if I was just venting.