Chapter 16: Nevaeh — Jailbirds In Flight

When we first arrived, I thought Nevaeh was a bit dozy given the amount of time she spent napping in her bunk, until one day, as she walked by, she said to me, “I overheard that conversation you had with Monica. You were right. I told her so.” She’d been keeping one eye open, vetting the newbies to see if we matched her metrics. Since then, she’s offered the kind of protection that can only be earned. She’s always looking to answer her question of, “Are you for real?” As in, are you who you say who you are? Do you talk one way with these people and another with those? She vets hard but once she gives the thumbs-up, you know you’re in good company.

I watch her the way she watches me. My closest friends are scattered around the globe; many I’ve never met in person. We ask a different question: Do you have what it takes to change the world? The fearlessness, compassion, skill, grit, humor, intimacy. The ability to follow your compass, no matter what. A few days after Nevaeh started The Art of Soulmaking workbook I’d lent her, I thought of some questions for her. The book is structured with readings followed by integration exercises to have readers uncover parts of themselves they don’t always look at. Since we’d both passed each other’s vetting process, I decided to go for it. I walked over to her bunk and handed her a paper. “You might not speak to me after reading this, but here.” You said twice that someone said that you are brilliant *and* lazy.

What is the source of your laziness if you follow it back to the origin? What would your life look and feel like if that quality were lifted? I don’t know the rules about such things but if you made the vow, “no matter what,” I’d back you. She came over to me a few minutes later with tears in her eyes and said, “I’m not gonna cry.” Then mouthed the words, “Thank you.” Later that day, I found her response on my bunk. 1. The laziness comes from my college professors. 2. If laziness went away, my life would be more structured and disciplined. I was spoiled growing up the youngest in my family. My mother emphasized education but I didn’t have to do any chores.

I was intellectually smart, exceptional. I could get A’s without working hard. I cut corners a lot which led to my destruction. It’s always a risk to touch those vulnerable places. You can hear the sensation as you get close, the extra acceleration in how someone may mention a topic before glossing over it without going deeper. But Nevaeh had played back. I left her another note: And if you were more structured and disciplined? I was sitting on my bed when she came over this time, paper in hand. It stayed folded as she took a seat next to me. “I’d be working on Capitol Hill,” she verbalized her response now. “Maybe a senator or a congresswoman.

I have a degree in Criminal Justice. I wanted to be an attorney, a prosecutor actually. I did an internship at probation and parole. But then I saw how bad felons were being mistreated, and that the majority of them were African American. Then one day they’re bringing in somebody for a probation violation report—it was my cousin who was addicted to heroin. I was the one who had to write up the report. I was devastated. I left not too long after, got a sales job instead.” She continued on, telling me about growing up in the church, how it was her whole childhood. She became church secretary as soon as she could hold a pencil. All-day Sunday services, then cleaning the sanctuary on Monday, choir on Tuesday, Bible study Wednesday, board meetings on Thursday, missionary work Friday, choir again Saturday.

She loved God, and Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Peter, Paul. Really, she loved everyone in the Bible. But then her body started waking up. “My hormones were racing out of control and no one at church explained what to do about any of that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Other than don’t kiss a boy because if you do you’re going to end up pregnant. And don’t kiss a girl or you’re going straight to hell with gasoline drawers on. No forgiveness for that.” I could imagine her, 15 years old, burning in a church pew. I could feel the intensity in her sitting across from me, those two forces aimed against each other: desire, and everything the world does to try to force it down. “My favorite verse is I Corinthians 13:4-8: ‘Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, love never ends.’” Her eyes closed, chin nodding in time with the rhythm. “And, here I am, an impatient, erratic, arrogant, boastful, proudful, irritable, resentful woman who rejoices in wrongdoing and all in the name of love. I’m enduring a lot of bullshit in the name of love. Love for who? Love for what?” Her exasperation looked around for an answer. “Like really, what the fuck? Love is within and it moves through me, but it took me a long-ass time to realize and recognize love.” “What’s it feel like when you recognize it?” I asked, grateful for the river beginning to pour out from behind the door she had kept closed so long. “Oh, you know what that was like.” She smiled, settling into the flow.

She went on to tell me her love story. “Everybody sends a stand-in to the first date. I sent in my ‘sweet Southern church girl.’ He sent his ‘quiet provider with a strong backbone.’ Time goes by and the real ones arrive. That was my toilet-bowl boyfriend.” “Your…wait, what?” I asked, laughing, not quite sure I’d heard her right. “Oh, he hates when I call him that,” she replied, laughing along with me. “He’s always saying, ‘I have a name!’ It was when I was locked up in Philly, it’s an old building. People talk through the plumbing. You flush first so the line clears. Then you lean in and sound carries through the pipes, cell to cell. At first all you get is a voice and a tone.

You can lie about the facts but you cannot fake that electricity. That is how I met him. “Eventually, we got to know who we really are. I cuss and yell. Turns out he’s soft and tender. I yell at him but he does not yell back. He says, ‘Okay, baby, calm down, I got you.’” She laughed from low in her throat. “Tender. Tender like dough.” “He’s a good one,” she said, “they’re not all like that. I’m in here because of another man. My first love. It was a whirlwind romance.” She paused, remembering. “But that whirlwind ended with an indictment.” I nodded. It wasn’t the first story I’d heard like this, a wayward romance that ended up somewhere those first innocent flirtations couldn’t have guessed. “My lawyer comes in with that indictment and it says in bold letters United States of America vs.

Nevaeh Chris. All I could think was, How the fuck the whole U.S. government versus me? I got convicted. Sat in court while the judge called me a ‘master manipulator.’” “You get remanded to prison on the spot?” I asked. “Nah, they gave me some time before I had to turn myself in.” She heaved a sigh. “My daddy was scared to be late. We drove in days early and waited in a motel like we were catching a flight we could not miss. We bought toiletries I couldn’t bring in with me. We took shots we should not have taken. Still had tequila on my breath when I turned myself in. They put me through the drill and parked me where they could keep an eye on me until I sobered up.

The women made space, told me it would be alright, and it was. Not easy, but alright.” Nevaeh shook her head at the memory. “Last time the Feds came, I acted like I did not care. Told myself I was camp status, easy road. Pride talking. God does not love that version of me. I do not either.” She paused, letting it sink in. “County held me. Philly held me. None of it broke me. It did scrape off the shine in the places that needed it. I realized I was running from charge. Not the kind on paper. The kind that flows through you when you are supposed to stand in the front and take the heat. Leaders get looked at.

I didn’t want the eyes. But the eyes came anyway.” “You still carry that charge,” I said to her, my voice steady. I could feel it sitting with her, listening to her story. That same undeniable charge that coursed through her from that little girl at the church all the way to now. “I tell people I do not like women. Truth is I love women. There is a difference. My spirit mama told me there was oil on my head.” She caught herself and translated. “Anointed. She meant I have a responsibility on me whether I sign up or not. When I do what I know is right, I can sleep. When I run my own hustle, the night grows teeth.” She looked down at the paper she was still holding in her hand. “If I tighten the bolts, the lazy knot loosens.

I know exactly what happens. I get structure. I get discipline. I make the speech I have seen in my head for twenty years to a room full of women I did not think I even liked. Turns out I am a popular loner,” she added, amused. “I can be quiet in a crowd and still hold the room. I can walk into any yard and be okay.” She met my eyes and let the words land without decoration. “I can be or do anything.” She said it as fact, not charm. Her hand went suddenly to her thigh. “I keep feeling like my phone is vibrating in my pocket. I haven’t had a phone in almost two years. But suddenly, I feel it all the time.” “It’s almost like home’s calling,” I mused.

If I’d been talking to someone else, they might think I’m crazy. But I knew she’d know what I meant. “Yeah,” she said. “And this time, when I answer the call, I do it the right way. I submit to what I know is right, not just whatever is loudest.” She slipped the folded paper into the pocket of her sweatpants and stood, steady and unhurried, like she had already begun.