10,000 Violent Women and One Screenwriter, Part I
by Robert J. Avrech“I killed him by mistake,” she says.
“Mistake, what kind of mistake?”
Josepha, serving a life sentence for murder one, is known to be one of the most violent and unpredictable women in a society of violent and unpredictable women. She stares at me with gray eyes that are surprisingly warm and endearing.
I have to be careful. I’ve been in this women’s prison for three days and I don’t understand the social rules that make this place go round. I’m terrified of saying something really dumb, and then seeing my insides, well, outside.
I have already witnessed one violent skirmish between snarling inmates, and the CO’s, the Correction Officers, whisked me away before I got hurt.
They do not want the blood of a Hollywood screenwriter on their hands. Me, I just want to go home to my wife, Karen, and our children. The sooner the better.
Prison. One thing I’ve learned about the inmates: they lie. Whatever they say, you have to read between the lines to discover anything resembling the truth.
I’m doing research for a film.
This is the best part about being a Hollywood screenwriter: travel to exotic locations and mixing with beautiful, glamorous people. Well, every screenwriter but me. I get the scary stuff.
Josepha is in her mid-twenties, she’d be pretty if she didn’t weigh over 200 lbs. and stand barely five foot one. Oh, and there’s the matter of the ink. Her body is a living canvas of lurid images. Some are of her Lord on the cross, suffering horribly, with copious amounts of blood spouting from shoulder to knuckle.
Alongside the traditional religious imagery are gang tattoos, tagger images that are a blight on the Los Angeles landscape.
I suppress the urge to inform Josepha that her images typify the worst of Early East L.A. Rococo, totally low-rent decadence, like Betsey Johnson—on a gallon of acid.
And, oh yeah, the tats are not slimming. In fact, the opposite. Most unfortunate on a woman already grossly overweight.
It’s a good choice on my part—not critiquing her ink, for Josepha has three blue teardrops dripping down her left eye. This informs her homies that she has killed three people.
Impressive.
My art criticism would probably not be appreciated. And as the warden of the prison said to me in a private briefing, “The one thing all these women have in common: absolutely no ability to see beyond the moment, to control their urges. These women are emotional morons.”
I love the warden. She’s engaging, funny and utterly unsentimental about, “My ladies.” That’s what she calls these 10,000 female killers, thieves, drug addicts, prostitutes, and G-d knows what else: my ladies.
Anyway, back to Josepha’s confession:
“I killed him by mistake.”
Josepha is telling me about her husband, Silvio. “Well, not really my husband,” she admits. “I mean, it’s not like we wuz married in the Church or nothin’. Silvio, he says, what we need a piece of paper for? He says, we got love.”
“Very romantic,” I say.
Josepha smiles dreamily and lights a cigarette. It’s something I have to get used to in prison. The inmates smoke all the time.
“Did I tell you how ol’ I was?”
I shake my head.
“Twelve.”
I control the urge to scream.
“You were a child.”
Josepha giggles. She’s now in her mid-twenties, but when she laughs, she becomes a little girl.
“Silvio, he was older, thirty-two, that was like part of the thing. My therapist, Mrs. Zuckerman, she taught me that because my Papa up and left and I grew up without a father, well, I grabbed on to Silvio as part husband and part father. Thing is, Silvio was full time bastard.”
“You had a rough time, huh?” I’m all Freud 101, totally predictable and totally dopey.
“How come you not writing this stuff down?”
“I used to take notes, carry a tape-recorder, but found that it made people self-conscious. What I do is, I pretty much remember what we say, go back to my hotel room and write everything down.”
“You gonna put me in your movie?”
“We’ll see.”
“Who gonna play me?”
I shrug.
“Some skinny-ass white bee-atch, right, all skin and bones and like soooooo beautiful.”
“Hey, I’m just the writer.”
The cowardly writer. If Josepha doesn’t like the film I’d prefer she blame the director. He’s the auteur, or so I’ve been informed by the French.
“Hey, don’t get me wrong, that’s what I want. You think I want some fat slob puta playing me the fat slob puta?”
“I’ll let the casting department know.”
“Like I said, I killed Silvio by mistake. I caught him doin’ my bestest girlfriend.”
“Cheating on you?”
“Can we just say, duh.”
“But you didn’t kill your girlfriend.”
“Nah.”
“How come?”
“Women, we can’t control ourselves. With guys, it’s all their game. So I banged at Silvio.”
“But you killed him by mistake. That’s what you said, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Mind explaining?”
Josepha examines the long ash of her cigarette. She takes a drag and blows a plume of smoke—right in my face. I cough and heave and feel a migraine blooming in the left side of my skull.
“I shot him right between the eyes.”
There’s a long pause. Her eyes take me in me. Measure me.
Silently, I thank G-d for prisons.
“I meant to hit him in the shoulder,” she says in a flat and utterly unconvincing tone.
“Mind if I ask you how you felt?”
“Felt?”
“After you shot Silvio.”
Josepha ponders a long moment. She’s genuinely puzzled by my question.
I persist. “Did you feel guilty, did you feel sad, did you feel—”
“Hungry. I was real hungry. I went down to the Taco Bell. I wuz supposed to be doin’ Weight Watchers, but I figured what the hell.”
Usually, there are worlds within worlds. But sometimes there are no worlds set within other worlds, sometimes there is just a vast and awful emptiness.
Josepha gives that little girl laugh. This time the sound sends a chill up my spine. “Now I’m home.”
“Home?”
“Home, baby-boy, that’s what we inmates call prison. Welcome to my home.”
To be continued…
Copyright © Robert J. Avrech
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43 Comments
“I wuz supposed to be doin’ Weight Watchers, but I figured what the hell”
She does have a point.
This was a great article. Thank you Mr. Avrech. I can’t wait for part 2.
Great read, and the “Caged Heat” poster is nicely lurid. I loved the Taco Bell/Weight Watchers line.
:: crickets chirping ::
Yikes. Can’t wait for the next episode. And you do this stuff on purpose?
Mr. Avrech, your sizist bigotry detracts from an otherwise fine piece.
Thanks for reinforcing my decision to carry this gun every day
This bit I found rather illuminating:
…as the warden of the prison said to me in a private briefing, “The one thing all these women have in common: absolutely no ability to see beyond the moment, to control their urges. These women are emotional morons.”
I look forward to future installments.
“Hey, I’m just the writer.”
The cowardly writer.
You have more guts than I. I wouldn’t want to be within a country mile of these “ladies”.
Josepha seems comfortable with her “home” – but I would be interested to know whether or not she and the other ladies feel that they deseerve to be incarcerated.
I wonder, is she playing you during the interview? One thing these tipos understand is the importance of image.
Greg Marquez
I was thinking the same thing, Greg Marquez — how likely is it that she’s telling the truth? It’s more likely she’s either saying what she thinks the listener wants to hear, or what she’s convinced will improve her standing.
I thought this was supposed to be a conservatative blog – not for purveyors of filth. Somehow we had a more healthy society without these problems before pinheads decided wallowing in filth was “art.”
But let’s make another film about some seedy subject that the voyeurs in society can become arroused to…..
You seem stereotypically greedy.
When reason fails utterly, and emotions run unchecked, Josepha is what society winds up with.
Oh, the road ahead is so very unappetizing…
You and Dalrymple, the best stories seem to come from the bottom. Be sure to check his stuff out as well, start with Life at the Bottom. Lots of resemblance, which is a real compliment, btw.
Wow – chilling and enthralling.
Robert – as you were writing this I was thinking of “Within These Walls” – and bingo – it was a good movie so your research was not for naught. I’ve always felt that the female is the deadlier of the species -
OH MY, are you trying to say that women committ crimes? You mean they murder, rape, steal, cheat, lie, falsly accuse, and fraud even paternity fraud????
Wow what a revolution!!!
How we are becoming such an enlighted society these days.
Of course this couldn’t really be happening in the USA. . .must be some other country . . . right?
OH MY
Mr. Avrech, you write incredible dialogue.
I will definitely be back for Part 2.
I’m glad you are part of the Breitbart crew!
Jeff Tacoma:
During the course of my visit to the prison, Josepha talked obsessively about Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc.
Glad you like Part I. Hope you like II just as much.
Joan:
Soon, you’ll read about CO Cindy, who had my back. This fine lady evened the odds.
Terry:
The poster is lurid, but the film is actually pretty darn good. Again, Weight Watchers just kept popping up in Josepha’s conversations.
Traffic Cop:
Not only do I do this stuff on purpose, but I also get paid for it —— most of the time.
What can I say: no justice, huh?
Heatherradish:
I am sorry that I have offended you.
O.U.:
You are very welcome. Let me know if you also enjoy Part II.
Zundfolge:
Yours truly is sitting here and cleaning my Ruger Vaquero between answering comments. Yup, after spending time in prison, also did a few weeks in Sing-Sing, my guns look better and better.
The Warden is an admirable professional. More about her later.
JC:
Josepha did influence the script. She did not, however, make it as a separate character. That’s true of several memorable inmates. But I can say that all their personalities edged their way into the script on almost every page.
I think I decided to write this series in order to make portray what I could not, for dramatic reasons, in the film.
Damncat:
On a certain level, many of the inmates are “institutional personalities.” Real life defeats them at most every turn and rigid prison society gives them the structure they need to thrive.
Greg Marquez:
No doubt I was being played by Josepha and all the others. But I was aware of it, and that awareness of my lack of awareness made something of a difference, with a few of the inmates.
There were a few inmates who just rolled right over me and I didn’t have a clue.
I readily confess that I’m no match for a sociopath. As I indicated in an earlier comment, Corrections Officer Cindy helped me navigate this confusing and scary culture.
Oh Navel, Navel:
The Gitmo terrorists constitute a whole other level of evil. Organized evil cannot be compared to the random sociopaths in prison.
Indeed, a long, hot shower, and then a call to my wife Karen and stay on the phone with her for as long as she’d put up with my kvetching.
I’d then toss and turn for hours trying to get some sleep, feeling excited about peering into this foreign landscape, and at the same time gripped by gut-churning anxiety.
Rob Crawford:
You’re right on target. See comment above to Oh Navel, Navel.
Alex:
I sincerely believe that if you take the time to read the entire series and screen the film, Within These Walls starring Ellen Burstyn and Laura Dern, you’ll see that my POV is Conservative. In any case, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.
PGG:
…and lack of fathers. Almost every inmate I met grew up in a house without a father. This was the unifying theme, above all else.
Alice:
Thanks so much for the kind words.
Flownover:
Thanks for the tip. Will check out his work.
Julie:
Hope you feel the same about the upcoming installments.
Steven Barr:
Later in this series, the warden talks to me about the drastic change in the types of crimes women in America now commit and the horrifying violence that is all too common in what she labeled, “post women’s lib America.”
Robert Howell:
Thanks so much. I keep a diary and make comprehensive notes, so the dialog is pretty darn close to what was said.
I’m honored to be part of Big Hollywood.
[...] To read Part I of this series, please click here. [...]
"Her body is a living canvas of lurid images. Some are of her Lord on the cross, suffering horribly, with copious amounts of blood spouting from shoulder to knuckle.
Alongside the traditional religious imagery …"
Robert, notwithstanding the long Christian tradition of crucifixes and icons, I don't think tattoos of Jesus spouting gallons of blood fall into the category of "traditional religious imagery."
I'm just sayin'.
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