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 BogotŠ±, called the school of the ten bells, where you pay twenty-five hundred bucks to learn to be a pickpocket. They hang a dummy from the ceilin', dressed in a suit with ten pockets, filled with money and jewelry."
"What's the gimmick?"
"The gimmick is that each pocket has a belt on it. You don't graduate till you kin empty every damn pocket without ringin' the bell."
Lola sighed, "I used to go with a guy who walked through crowds dressed in an overcoat, with both his hands out in the open, while he picked everybody's pockets like crazy."
"How the hell could he do that?"
"The right hand was a dummy. He slipped his real hand through a slit in the coat and picked his way through pockets and wallets and purses."
In the recreation room the education continued.
"I like the locker-key rip-off," a veteran said. "You hang around a railroad station till you see a little old lady tryin' to lift a suitcase or a big package into one a them lockers. You put it in for her and hand her the key. Only it's the key to an empty locker. When she leaves, you empty her locker and split."
In the yard another afternoon, two inmates convicted of prostitution and possession of cocaine were talking to a new arrival, a pretty young girl who looked no more than seventeen.
"No wonder you got busted, honey," one of the older women scolded. "Before you talk price to a John, you gotta pat him down to make sure he ain't carryin' a gun, and never tell him what you're gonna do for him. Make him tell you what he wants. Then if he turns out to be a cop, it's entrapment, see?"
The other pro added, "Yeah. And always took at their hands. If a trick says he's a workin' man, see if his hands are rough. That's the tip-off. A lot of plainclothes cops wear workin' men's outfits, but when it comes to their hands, they forget, so their hands are smooth."
Time went neither slowly nor quickly. It was simply time. Tracy though of St. Augustine's aphorism: "What is time? If no one asks me, I know. But if I have to explain it, I do not know."
The routine of the prison never varied:
4:40 A.M. Warning bell
4:45 A.M. Rise and dress
5:00 A.M. Breakfast
5:30 A.M. Return to cell
5:55 A.M. Warning bell