Orange Is the New Black

fenced with black iron. The bars were wide enough apart that I could wedge my face between them. I stared out at the lake, scanning the city below me.
    “Hey! Nora. Come here!”
    “What?” She came over.
    I pointed through the bars. “Isn’t that the Congress Hotel?”
    She stared through the bars for a moment, trying to find the spot where she had packed a suitcase full of money for me to carry, more than ten years before. “I think you’re right. You are right. Jesus.”
    Neither of us said anything for a moment.
    “What a dump.”
    T HE TRIAL finally began. Jonathan Bibby, the guy who had taught Nora how to smuggle drugs way back when, claimed that he had been an innocent art dealer who happened to hang out with a lot of convicted drug smugglers. But the feds had detailed evidence against him, including records of him traveling to Africa on the same flights as Nora, Hester/Anne, and others. Hester/Anne was taken away to appear in court first. She had known the defendant for years. She came back teary-eyed; the defense attorney had ripped her apart.
    Nora went out next. I remembered that George Freud was somewhere in the building; I figured there was no way they weren’t calling other codefendants as well. On February 14 I was called to R&D. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” cracked Nora. She had no idea how close to drowning she was.
    My escorts to court this time were older, burlier, and more confident. They were also solicitous. “Is there anything we can get you, Piper?”
    I was stumped by that one. I didn’t smoke. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to give me scotch. “I would love a good cup of coffee?”
    “We’ll see what we can do.”
    I had never seen Jonathan Bibby until I was marched into the courtroom in my best orange jumpsuit and stepped into the witness box. Yet I spent what seemed like hours on the stand recounting my own experience, while the jury listened. I wondered what they made of what they were hearing. All of the defense attorney’s questions to me centered on Nora, so it was obvious that she was the star witness. I truly hated testifying for the government, but I was also pretty peeved that this jackass didn’t have the good grace to plead guilty as his codefendants had and spare us all this hassle and discomfort.
    On my ride home my escorts pulled over under the El. One of them hopped out and returned with a piping-hot cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. He uncuffed me. “There’s sugar and cream in there, I wasn’t sure how you take it.”
    They sat in the front seat and smoked while I enjoyed every sip of that coffee. I listened to the roar of the train above and watched people going about their lives on the street. I wondered if this was as weird as it was going to get.
    When it was all over—the jury found Bibby guilty—no one felt good. All I wanted to do was go back to real prison, meaning Danbury. And then go home.
    W ITHIN THE stifling women’s unit, Crystal “the mayor” made an effort to maintain a faint semblance of prison protocol. Of course, this involved the Lord. Crystal was a big fan and liked to listen to a local minister’s daily morning TV broadcast turned way up loud. She was a much more persistent proselytizer than any prisoner I had knownin Danbury. Every week she would swing by when they called for the church group to go out of the unit, Bible in hand. “Coming to church, ladies?”
    The Jansen girls would scowl. Although Hester/Anne had been born again, she shared my distaste for prison religious ceremonies. “No thanks, Crystal.”
    She wasn’t giving up easily. I figured you had to fight fire with fire. The next time they called us for gym time, I went looking for Crystal.
    “You coming to the gym, Crystal?”
    Looking at me as if I had lost my rabbit-ass mind, she squawked with outrage, “What? Gym? You won’t find me in no gym, Piper. Tire myself out!”
    That Sunday she was back, optimistic as ever. “You comin’ to church, Piper? It’s a good one this week!”
    “I tell you what, Crystal. You go on to church, and I’m gonna ask you to pray for me. And this week when I go down to the gym, I’m gonna work out for you. Is that a deal?”
    She thought that was the funniest thing she had heard in months. She cackled all the way out the door. From then on, whenever they called our respective faiths to action, we would sing out to each other:
    “Work it out for me, Piper!”
    “Pray for me, Crystal!”
    I CORNERED the unit