10,000 Violent Women and One Screenwriter, Final Chapter
by Robert J. Avrech
Note: Links to previous chapters can be found at the end of the article.
“My ladies will probably try and slip you some letters, ask you to mail them on the outside. Do not do that. It is contraband, you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“One or two might try and hug you goodbye, in that hug, there might be an inappropriate touch. Resist the temptation.”
“Yes, M’am.”
It’s my last day as visitor slash researcher in the prison. I’m being debriefed by the Supervisor, a tough, no-nonsense lady who still manages to retain her femininity—and sense of humor.
“You got what you wanted?”
“Yes, thank you. Can I ask you a few questions?”
“Ask, but I may not answer.”
“Your opinion of the Pet Program.”
She sighs wearily: “It’s fine.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“Mr. Hollywood, I’m dealing in numbers here, big numbers. I got thousands of mis-creants within these walls. In the program, five, maybe six women. What does that solve?”
“Five, six women.”
She waves her hand as if swatting away a fly. She has no time for singular redemptions, she is dealing with multitudes.
“Was it always like this?”
“Meaning?”
“So many female prisoners?”
“Oh, no. When I first started in the system, this prison was a backwater, a few hundred shop-lifters, petty felons, check forgers, disorderly conduct drunkards, your basic sad prostitute junkies.”
“And now?”
“Hard-core killers. More like men.”
“And that’s because?”
“Drugs, gangs. Almost all my ladies are mixed up somehow in the drug trade. Oh, sure, they don’t have fathers, there’s that too, and they all pick loser troll boyfriends who just beat hell outta them. But it’s the drug world that puts ‘em over the line.”
Irene Dunne and Helyn Elry-Rock in Ann Vickers, 1933
“Would you legalize drugs?”
“I will not answer that question.”
“Fair enough. How about this: would you decriminalize certain classes of drugs?”
The Supervisor chuckles: “You trying to lose me my po-sition? Move on Mr. Hollywood.”
“You have any hope for rehabilitating these women?”
She bursts into laughter: “Get outta my office.”
As I leave, I suppress an overwhelming urge to salute.
C.O. Cindy is waiting for me outside the Supervisor’s office. My baby sitter, as I’ve come to think of her, walks me across the massive yard, towards the shed where the animals are trained as companion dogs for people with severe physical disabilities.
“You’re awfully quiet, Cindy.”
She shrugs.
Her helmet of red hair kicks light in the bright morning sun.
Cindy spots an inmate sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette, eyes closed, head tipped back.
“Wait here,” she says to me.
Cindy approaches the inmate.
“You’re supposed to be haulin’ garbage.”
“I’m takin’ a break.”
“Get back to work, skank.”
The inmate crushes the cigarette between her fingers, stores the butt in her pocket, coolly glares at Cindy.
This is the first time I’ve seen Cindy be anything less than respectful towards an inmate.
We continue our walk back to the dog-training shed.
“What was that about?”
“I’m doing my f*****g job, Robert, y’got a problem with that?”
Silence all the way to the shed.
Dog training is not going well today. The atmosphere is strained. The inmates, normally giggly, relaxed and chatty, are impatient as the dogs make mistakes and drop on their bellies, not sure what their beloved masters want from them.
I step outside.
I know exactly what’s going on.
“I’m sorry,” says Cindy.
I turn around. “It’s okay. I understand. I’ve been here a while now.”
“We got used to you.”
“Now I’m leaving.”
“You are.”
“I have to write the movie.”
“Do you know what you’re going to write?”
“I’ll find out as I write it.”
“Like I know what that means.”
“Cindy, I want to thank you for all your help. You’ve been, well, unbelievable.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“No, really. I couldn’t have done this without all your help.”
“You really wanna thank me?”
“I do.”
“Tell me one true thing about yourself.”
I look at her long and hard and offer her my core.
“I have been in love with my wife since I was nine-years old.”
Cindy squints and searches my face:
“No f*****g way.”
I nod, assuring her that it’s the truth.
“Is that like normal?”
“Um, probably not.”
Cindy grins: “What’s your wife’s name, what’s she do, what’s Mrs. Robert look like, do you guys have kids?”
“One question, Cindy. I answered it, right?”
“Jesus f*****g Christ, you are a piece of work. And by the way, stop making that face every time I say f**k. What, the little lady never lets loose?”
In fact, Karen’s a lady and she never curses—beyond an occasional, blistering, Oy-vey.
Inside, I bid goodbye to the lovely Eden. I wish her good luck. She does not try and slip me any contraband, does not try to hug me. Not one of the inmates touches me inappropriately.
They are all perfect ladies.
Every single murderer.
Cindy accompanies me to the front gate.
“I been thinking,” she says.
“About what?”
“Doing something else.”
“I’m happy. You should. You don’t belong here.”
She holds my gaze.
“’Cause I’m like this fine sword, right?”
“Right.”
She shakes my hand, gives me that shy smile.
“Robert?”
“What?”
Cindy starts to say something, then just shakes her head and mumbles:
“Nothing, nothing.”
I climb into my rental car and drive away. The last I see of C.O. Cindy is her image in the rear-view mirror. She waves to me, hitches up her thick leather utility belt and heads back inside prison.
Back home.
FADE TO BLACK
For this is
THE END
To read Part I, please click here.
To read Part II, please click here.
To read Part III, please click here.
To read Part IV, please click here.
To read Part V, please click here.
To read part VI, please click here.
To order a copy of Within These Walls, nominated for the Humanitas Award, starring Ellen Burstyn and Laura Dern, please click here.
Copyright © Robert J. Avrech
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26 Comments
"It's the drug world that puts 'em over the line" – drugs ARE a problem, but I don't think they're THE problem. As the prison supervisor noted, "they all pick loser troll boyfriends who just beat hell outta them…" Women like Eden hook up with brutal losers and do drugs because they're severely dysfunctional. Their parents didn't care jack about them; neither did the schools that they may have attended for a short while before dropping out. The few successes that have occurred in rehabilitating women like these have been due to committed people working with these women one-on-one, not buying their excuses, but forcing them to confront and change their personal behavior. As these women are often unpleasant and downright dangerous, this is extremely difficult work. My hat's off to the committed people – volunteers – who work with these women; they've got real guts.
C'mon, man! I've been glued to this series of posts, and I want to know what happened to Cindy and Eden?
You've got me interested. I'm going to get the movie asap; but based upon your posts alone, I think you've got an even better movie-in-the-making if it's based on your personal research experiences.
Kudos! Great series!
In fairness to the Supervisor, she really wasn't blaming drugs. In conversation, and I guess it got lost in my awkward transcription, it was the toxic family, absent fathers, etc. that were singled out. Notice, the Supervisor never mentioned poverty.
Glad you enjoyed the series. I did not stay in touch with Cindy beyond receiving a note in which she told me that she really liked the film. I wrote back, thanking her, and wished her the best for the future and told her to let me know how her life is going. I never heard back form her.
Not one of the inmates I met had a father—almost all were abandoned, and of course none had stable relationships with men. I believe that the nuclear family, mom, and dad are the bedrock on which to build a functioning society.Most interesting: in prison, the women built surrogate families with one masculine women as daddy, a feminine mommy and a child inmate. It was an eerie sight. Unfortunately, these families often provoked all sorts of jealousy and violence.
Universal child care is just lib-speak for Soviet style social engineering.
When my liberal Hollywood friends tell me that my arguments—about most anything—are too simple and they are being, ahem, "nuanced," I know immediately that evil is about to be enabled and excused.
Another example of the results of "progressive" social engineering can be seen in (formerly) Great Britain. Over 44 years of massive welfare "benefits" have RUINED the "working" and lower middle classes. "Thomas Dalrymple" (a pseudonym for Anthony Daniels, a psychiatrist who has worked in the British prison system) has detailed these horrific effects. His articles are like awful multi-car pile-ups; you want to turn away, but you continue to read on, horrified, but fascinated. Now President Obama wants to roll back welfare reform and put us back where we were in the '70's – watch the crime rates soar!
A great series, Robert – and the way you have written this my mind can see it perfectly – the ending scene is like a good 1940s movie! On not having a father – I think that is a large part of the problem – gangs fill this need for many I believe – but drugs – this trust I am involved in – the recipients had a mother and father and they lacked for nothing – but got involved in drugs early in their teen years – in and out of jail for stupid things like minor drug sales, driving without a license (not excusing the crimes but can you believe ruining your entire life and going in and out of jail for this stuff?) The only way the parents could have a normal life was to shut the children out of their lives.
Something I heard that always stuck with me- is that life is nothing more than choices – we all make some good ones and some bad ones but we are what we are today through our choices – good and bad…I think a bad environment can put tremendous pressure on people to make a bad choice – but it is still their free will.
Another trustee and I were discussing this yesterday – genes or environment? I'm sure the argument could be made for every inmate you saw there there there is another woman who had the same background who managed to leave that…
And I am sure that for the guards – like C.O. Cindy – prison experience can affect them, too…
Thanks for the series.
Most people live in a social bubble of their own making, but liberals more so than anyone I know, except maybe for Satmar Hasidim.
My wife and I spent many years in the Cancer Center at Cedars Sinai here in L.A. We met hundreds of Brits Canadians and French who came here for treatment because their health care system are so callous and such massive failurer.
Thanks so much for the kind words.
The reason I spent so much time in the series on Cindy is because she was a prisoner too, and no one paid any attention to her. The prison was stuffed with do-gooders catering to the prisoners—many just complete sociopaths—and the CO's were treated like invisible people. It is wrong and unjust and enraged me.
Great series, my friend. And a film you have every right to be proud of.
Thanks so much. Now, what do I do for Big Hollywood?
I've loved this series and am sad to see it end. Mr. Averch and Mr. Nolte (who doesn't post nearly enough) are my favorite writers here.
Very glad you like my series. I'm with you, John does not post enough, but hey, he's The Man, Editor-in-Chief, a man with responsibilities, a man with a Blackberry.
Most Americans still have problems wrapping their arms around th concept of female crime. So much of it has traditionally been of a social nature- drugs, spousal violence, fraud… but as we head boldly into the gender norming Brave New World they are morphing into the male world of crime. This may sound a bit simplistic, and perhaps it is- but you rarely see a female sociopath who had a loving relationship with a positive male figure- i.e., her dad.
Until we get our heads out of our rear ends and realize that a commited loving relationship between a man and a woman where the needs of the children are out ahead of the wants of the parents we will continue to struggle as a society. Universal child care will just further the alienation…
Mr. A—This was some spectacular writing. I know it’s close to screenplay format, which (obviously) is your métier, but as prose, you’re delivering the paradoxically stripped-to-the-bone and muscular goods. That ain’t easy. Well done, and thank you very, very much for this series, which may be my favorite thing on Big Hollywood to date.
You are very kind. So glad my style gets to the heart of my prison experience. Look for my next series. I like this Dickens serial form. It keeps me sharp.
R. Avrech: The End. Fade to black.
Me: (Flinging myself on floor, screaming, crying) No. No. Noooooooo!
Thank you!
You're very welcome. Now, pick yourself up form the floor, brush yourself off and stay tuned for my next series:-)
Also sorry to see it end. How do you feel it transferred from the written page to the screen? Did the actresses match the prisoners in a believable/realistic way?
I was very lucky. The network loved the script and gave my first draft a green light very quickly. My director, Mike Robe, and I saw eye to eye on everything. The actresses did a fine job of getting under the inmate's skin. All in all, one of my best page to screen experiences. I'm that rare screenwriter: no complaints. Happy and proud with the final film.
Fantastic series. I must get a hold of the movie. If it's as good as I guess it is, I must buy it. I love to see my movies over and over, the good ones, of course.
Glad you enjoyed it. Let me know how you like, or don't like my movie.
Maybe I missed something in your articles, but where did the nun in the movie come from?
The woman who founded the Pet Program, Sister Pauline Quinn, is a Dominican Nun. And that's the part played by Laura Dern.
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