Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again (27 page)

I also bought little crocheted crosses that my friends made in there, to send to my friends and family to thank them for being there for me while I was in prison. I had someone make a crocheted soccer ball bookmark for Gabriella, a butterfly bookmark for Milania, and flower bookmarks for Gia and Audriana. I also sent some of my Jewish friends, including Andy, crocheted Stars of David. Those were small gifts that I could get nowhere else—Danbury’s version of Etsy couture! The women who made these small gifts really changed the energy of prison life. I couldn’t have been more grateful for their talents!

Though there were tons of women who brought only positive energy to each day, there were of course plenty of troublemakers. And with trouble comes consequences, doled out by the poor guards. I mean, I had to give those guys and gals credit. They had to break up fights all the time, and had inmates running to them every minute to rat out their enemies over the most ridiculous things, like who stole whose “reserved seating” in the TV room by ripping the piece of paper with their name on it off the chair they had picked out, who gave who the side eye, or who cut in front of who in the phone line. Each prison guard also played the roles of police officer, disciplinarian, psychologist, babysitter, peacekeeper, diplomat, and hand holder, all rolled into one. Once in a while they even had to be firefighters. Literally. In October, one of the women accidentally set a garbage pail on fire by tossing a lit cigarette into it when she thought she heard a guard coming. I think the pail contained rags that were covered with turpentine or something, so the whole thing went up in flames. The guards came running to put out the fire with buckets of water.

I got along great with all the officials and guards. They treated me very fairly. I was respectful to them, followed the rules, and tried to stay under the radar, and they treated me, in return, with respect. Again, I can’t even believe I am saying this, but I miss some of them, too. They were good people with a very hard job babysitting a lot of people over there at Danbury Daycare.

I
made friends with a new inmate who came to Danbury in the summer, who got hit with girl drama the minute she set foot in the camp. Right after she got there, she walked by two women who were smoking cigarettes outside behind the gym. They knew she was new, so they came up to her later on and said, “We are gonna beat the shit out of you if you say one fucking word.”

Shannon was a really sweet woman from New Jersey, who was in prison for mortgage fraud. I had a feeling she was a Jersey girl because she came to prison with a spray tan. She had never dealt with anyone like these two thugs in her life. They were part of a new group of tough-ass women who came to prison around the same time. They called themselves the Brooklyn Crew, and caused so much trouble in the dining room by short lining it—going to the meal lines early when they weren’t supposed to—that the officials ended early mealtimes. They cut in line for the phones and the computers. They told everyone that they were the new leadership at Danbury.
Lead away,
I thought,
but don’t ruin it for the rest of us.

I felt bad for Shannon because she was so scared. But I wasn’t. I realized early on that people respected me in there because I stood up for myself. I didn’t run away from anyone and I think they knew I was one tough Italian cookie. No one was going to mess with me, and secretly, I loved that respect. I had transformed myself into someone stronger—mentally and physically.

So I had a talk with the thugs. “Why are you picking on her?” I said. “She’s new. She’s not going to tell on you. Why would she? She’s just trying to get used to the place. Leave her alone.”

They gave me some lip, calling me a skinny punk-ass bitch.

I didn’t back down. “Are you finished?” I asked after their rant. “Leave her alone.”

They cursed me out as I walked away. But they never bothered Shannon again. She thanked me over and over.

“No problem,” I said. “Their bark is worse than their bite. They just wanted to test you and see what you would do. They just didn’t know you had me in your corner.”

We laughed. I was happy to help her because I remembered how I felt when I got to prison. I knew nothing, and it was my fellow inmates—the decent ones—who gave me the lay of the land. Now it was my turn. Just like Nikki had done for me, I gave Shannon a bunch of the things she would need for the first few days. I told her about the official—and unofficial—rules in there and invited her to sit with me in the dining room so she wouldn’t have to eat alone. Her smile was infectious and her attitude was full of good vibes. I’m so lucky that she ended up being one of my closest friends in there.

T
he longer I lived in Danbury, the more I learned about my fellow inmates and their, um, colorful pasts. One woman defrauded an investor who was mixed up with the mob. Another one had a boyfriend who was a well-known hip-hop producer. One woman who loved to sing was bulldagging everyone she could get her hands on. So we called her Beyoncé and we called her girlfriend at the time Jay Z.

We had a lot of white-collar criminals in there, from doctors to lawyers to politicians. One former politician was in there for supposedly taking a bribe, even though she says she didn’t. A lot of women were in there for scamming people—and huge companies—out of millions of dollars or for running credit card games. I also found out that some of the Russian women in there had gotten prosecuted for stealing millions from Holocaust survivor funds. I had no details on any of their crimes because I had no access to the Internet. I couldn’t wait to get out and Google them all!

Just as you would expect in prison, there were a lot of power players in there. We called them the “crime bosses.” They were the inmates in charge of each of the different departments, including recreation, the kitchen, educational classes and the chapel, the grounds, and the warehouse and commissary. They controlled everything. If they didn’t like you, you would never work for them, and if you really pissed them off, you might have a hard time getting the things you wanted.

I liked them all because they were strong women, like me. I never had any problems with them, but I saw how hard it was for troublemakers to get things they needed or wanted when they clashed with the crime bosses.

One of the crime bosses I really liked was Shaniqua, who was considered the godmother of the prison, like the godfather in the mafia. She was the go-to person if you wanted anything. She would tell you how to get it done. Like other leaders in there, she was called in to defuse fights between women. Another crime boss I liked was a girl named Koolaidra. She was a petite Puerto Rican who was in prison for drug-related crimes and for bank robbery. She was one cool chick and, unsurprisingly, was one of the leaders—an unofficial enforcer who was told to watch over me and others if we had some kind of issue with another inmate. Shaniqua would have done it, but she was “hot,” meaning she was being watched because she had a temper. While Koolaidra laid low and avoided being on the guards’ radar, inmates respected her because she was so tough and never backed down from anything. They said she had “street cred” because she came from a tough background and wasn’t scared of anyone or anything. As tough as she was, she was also friends with a lot of people. One of my favorite sayings of hers was, “You bleed just like I bleed.” I actually learned a lot about standing up for myself, and for other people, by watching her. People in there told me that if I had stayed there longer, I would have become one of the unofficial “leaders” in there, too, because I was seen as the voice of reason so many times. Yes, me.

O
ne day, I decided I wanted to reach out to my fans and to the people who had supported me on Twitter. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I called Gia and told her to tweet a message for me on my Twitter page, saying, “Thank you everyone for all of the cards, letters, and kind words of support I love, love, love you all xo T!” Some of them even sent me money for my commissary account. It blew my mind that people took the time to do that and were so kind to me. So I wanted to let them know I loved and appreciated them. It was the first time I had tweeted since Christmas, before I went away. I just wanted to let everyone know I was doing OK. I thought it was crazy when I found out that that one tweet made headlines everywhere—and somehow caught the attention of prison officials.

The following Tuesday, I got called down to the office. One officer was sitting behind an old, worn wooden desk and another stood on each side of him.

“We want to know how you were able to tweet something,” said the officer at the desk. “Do you have a phone?”

Mannaggia
, I thought to myself (which means “damn” in Italian . . . Joe loves saying that, too . . .).

“I don’t,” I said. “I had my daughter tweet that for me. I wanted to thank my fans. Check my locker and my room. I don’t have a phone.”

But to help clear things up, I asked them if they wanted me to have Jim tell the media that my daughter was the one who tweeted for me.

“Yes, please,” they said.

Then they said I could go. I let Jim know about this. I did not want a shot. Another crisis averted.

S
ince I got to Danbury, I had been working out three times a day for about five to six hours a day and was getting into such amazing shape. Every muscle in my body was rock hard. I had veins in my arms from all the lifting, planks, and push-ups I did in there. I loved doing Bob Harper’s workout DVDs and Travis Eliot and Rodney Yee’s yoga DVDs. One Saturday, after visitation, they held a competition between two of the workout classes, with four people on each team. I won the plank contest by staying in place for nine minutes and nineteen seconds!

I was proud of myself. I am very competitive and it felt good to win. But really, in the end, it was just about the workout for me. I love to exercise and always have—and was glad I was getting so much stronger and leaner. I took a running class while I was there, and after six months or so, I became the leader of the advanced group and instructed them on what to do. It felt really good to help other women out and motivate myself at the same time. I love teaching so much that I want to get certified in yoga and start a line of yoga clothes and gear.

Even though I exercised so much while I was there, I only lost eight pounds or so. But I went down maybe two or three sizes from all the running, walking, weights, yoga, and exercise classes I was doing!

I was happy and proud that I was reaching one of the goals I had set for myself when I got in there—to get into the best shape of my life. I have to say, though, that there was one person who wasn’t so thrilled with how lean and mean I was getting: Milania. She emailed me and said, “Don’t get too skinny or else you will be too bony!!!”

Milania made Joe laugh (and me when he told me later) when she asked him for pasta saying, ‘’What do you want? I’m Italian! We love our pasta!” We would also laugh when she would tell him, “I quit you!” when he would get mad at her.

One night, Tonya and I went to watch TV, put on the movie
Double Daddy
on Lifetime, and were in the middle of watching it when a woman named Abby came in and sat down.

“You know at ten that we are changing the channel,” she said, looking right at Tonya.

Tonya didn’t like the fact that Abby always tried to take control of this TV room. The movie was going to end at 10 p.m. anyway, but they had butted heads over the TV before. Tonya had been there so long that little things bothered her. That night, she had had enough of Abby.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up and mind your fucking business,” Tonya said.

“Mind my fucking what?” said Abby. “I hope I didn’t just hear you right. I’m watching whatever I want at ten. And stop being such a bitch all the time.”

“What did you just say to me?” Tonya shifted in her seat and was facing Abby, who stood up and got right into Tonya’s face.

I was sitting in between the two of them and couldn’t believe things got this bad, this fast.

“Calm down!” I said. “This isn’t worth it!”

They didn’t listen and were both screaming at each other at this point. Abby made a move toward Tonya like she was going to hit her, so one of Abby’s friends grabbed her and held her back, while Shaniqua held Tonya back. I knew this wasn’t going to get physical because Tonya wouldn’t risk hitting Abby and getting shipped out of there and sent to Brooklyn. I’m sure Abby felt the same way.

“Tell your friend here to back the fuck off,” Abby yelled at me. “You really need to rein her in!”

I felt like I was being pulled into this fight and was now right in the middle of it, even though I really had nothing to do with it. It was between Tonya and Abby.

“I’m outta here,” I said. I wanted nothing to do with their stupid fight over a TV show. All I was concerned with that day was missing Audriana’s recital.

While I was walking back to our cubicle, inmate after inmate kept stopping me and asking me about the fight. “What happened? Were they fighting? I heard they punched each other. I heard you punched Abby.”