Chapter 25: Kay-Kay — Jailbirds In Flight

It was a big day socializing with Miss Wu. She made tea sandwiches, three kinds. In a photo, they would look impossibly elegant. Inside, though, one was Spam, the second was commissary sausage, and the third was tuna. It was lovely. To balance all that talking, Rachel and I did three back-to-back 45-minute meditations. Beautiful. Replenishing. Warm golden light, warmer than the showers, quietly filling tight places. I could have stayed there all night, but dinner was called. It was hotdogs and tater tots, so I skipped it on purpose, a small act of discipline that felt good. I told Rachel what I see in the women’s ecosystem. It can be an endless carousel of comparison, the old “jealous gods” game where everyone leaves little calling cards to top the next woman.

There is always someone more something than you. Even your best asset gets stacked against someone else’s. If you are short, you may crave height. If you are soft, you may crave edge. Here is the antidote, I told her. Do what we do here. Keep a steady practice. Be warm with everyone. Help where you can. Stay out of the drama. Drama trades at a premium here; if you do not trade in it, nothing hooks you. Things pass through your field without pulling you into the undertow, and your chances of landing in solitary drop. Men have it different. They cannot disengage as easily when the storm starts. In those exchanges, their role is small. Too often they are like fire hydrants, left with messages other women want seen: “I am prettier.” “I am lustier.” “I am softer.” “I am more wife material.” And the carousel keeps turning.

Later we sat with Kay-Kay, who speaks no English and works in the laundry. Some women slit their sweatshirts up the middle to make cardigans. Kay-Kay wears her brown one proudly, oblivious or indifferent to the big white letters across the back that say “Detainee.” Every so often someone yells, “Kay-Kayyyyyy,” and it means one of two things: Either she did not show up for recall and is strolling the common area, or a cockroach needs to be handled with her shower shoe. Wherever she is, she pivots, tracks, and prepares to strike. Miss Wu must have told her we were good so Kay-Kay opened to us. Looking at me, questioningly, she crossed her arms and squeezed her shoulders as if hugging herself like she was cold.

Sensing my lack of understanding, she ran out and returned with a thermal shirt for me. I thanked her but, deciding that wasn’t enough, she ran out again, returning with a jacket. Then, a smile across her face, she looked at me and my new layers, satisfied with her generosity. I do not know her whole story. Here is what I know. She was on house arrest for seven years with an ankle monitor. She got a call that a relative was dying. She kept calling her probation officer and got no response. So she finally cut off the monitor and went to her relative. Kay-Kay arrived too late. Her relative had died. And afterward, she was brought here. “She blames herself.

Depression,” someone explained, miming the motion of eating. “For depression they gave medicine that makes you blow up.” The weight gain is obvious and cruel. And still, everything in her gives. She knits like a woman on a mission. Her hats and slippers are everywhere. She especially loves to keep people warm. Rachel and I are now among the ones receiving the kind of care that, in a strange way, is what brought her here in the first place.

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