An 'A' Cup of Tuna

   My husband Joe and I were on a break from one another.  This break began on Monday, January 9, 2006 and lasted for four years.  I guess we were lucky; most couples can be together for a lifetime and grow mentally apart for just as long.  What made our situation unique is our separation wasn’t instigated by another woman, it wasn’t the ‘I’ve seen the light and I’m miserable with you,’ it wasn’t even the ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’  Joe and I were separated by barbed wire, bars, and many, many rules created by the State.

    His trip through the correctional system started off in downtown Brooklyn, on Jay Street in the new courthouse.  While apart from my husband of seven years, I became closer than ever to a person who would normally be the most unlikely of suspects…my mother-in-law.  From our first introduction, we got along great.  We both loved to write, we both had a sense of humor, and we both loved (and loved to kill) her son.    

   She stands a grand 4’11 in her uniform attire, a smart black pant, and a white button down shirt.  If she’s really feeling crazy, she’ll mix it up with a loafer in an animal print.  She is petite, but her laugh is obese.  Her high pitch tone and robust personality make her the magnet in the room at any party or social event.  On your side, she is a woman with the wisdom of the world.  If you unfortunately finds yourself in the opposite corner of a boxing ring with her, look out-she’s a Chiwawa pup in a pantsuit.

   It had been a few days after Joe had delivered his allocution and he was taken into State custody.  His head was slumped down and the guard’s arm was around him, delivering him from his family in the courtroom, to a cage at a different location. 

   I had put it in my head, from the time of his accident that Joe would be away from us for a while.  The focus needed to be that I wasn’t alone, and we’d all get through this.  My mother-in-law was inconsolable.  She is a spiritual woman with whole hearted faith in G-d.  She believes that G-d rules the world, but SHE controlled what she cooks and what you would eat when in her presence.   Some Jewish mothers believe that chicken soup is the cure all for everything-Joyce Chabbott’s version is tuna on pita.

   On Wednesday she moped into our home with three enormous tins of food.  She unwrapped   the foil from the tins revealing enough for a family of six; there was couscous, spinach quiche, yogurt salad, and mini-pizzas.  She sighed longingly when my one year old Alan and I just played with our food.  “Joey could pack away a plate of this, would run to the bathroom to empty out and come back for more.” 

   I am more disgusted and disturbed than reminiscent when she tells me this.

   “What are they feeding him?  I DEMAND to know!” She insists, but as she grounds herself, she sees me shrug as I bite into a pizza.  Mom realizes that I am not a burly prison guard-I am just ‘the wife.’   The wife of a convicted, jailed, felon; I am no longer a novice as to how the criminal justice system works, but still a newbie at corrections.

   It is Thursday afternoon, our first time here at Manhattan Detention Complex check in.  Located on White Street downtown, the drive took us all of twenty minutes from Brooklyn.  Not knowing what to expect, we walk into what resembles a small office building. 

   There is a short stocky officer with a big mustache and bigger attitude.  Our goal from here is to make it from the small check in room, to the larger waiting area behind his desk and through the metal detector.  Before he will listen to anything, we need to fill out a visitor’s form and show proper i.d.  Then, we wait. 

     Visiting days are based on the first letter of the inmate’s last name.  Visits in M.D.C.,  or the Tombs as the residents call it, were twice a week and every other Sunday.  It’s easy to see who the regular visitors around here are based on the desk officer’s expression.  To some young ladies, he smiles widely, to other men, he points a scolding finger and his strait eyebrow is a warning.  He has no experience with us, so for us, he’s just there to look generic and authoritative. 

   We fill out the paperwork and sign in.  Now we’re just waiting for our names to be called so we can move into what we later see-the bigger waiting room.

   Mom walks up to the desk, which is just a glorified, wood, bridge table.  She talks like she’s going to the main office in middle school to check on her son.  “Hi, I’m here to visit my son.  I just wanted to see if someone could take this back to him so he can eat.”

   He fails to contain his bemused expression, even from behind his black mustache.  His lips and eyebrows contort.  “Lady, you can’t bring anything in with you during the visit.”

   “How ever do you expect him to eat?  There’s nothing in there for him.”  Mom replies.

   “Regulations.”  Mustache points to the sign behind him.  Along with the list of stun guns, zip guns, syringes, razors, nail clippers, tobacco products, and explosive devices-food and candy are prohibited. 

   “What ever shall I do?”  Oh no-mom’s going into Little House on the Prairie mode.  Let’s get the bonnet out; she’s talking like a distressed Mrs. Ingalls.  “I’d like to speak with a supervisor.” 

   I step in and smile at Crusty Mustache.  “It’s her first time here.”  I explain pulling my mother in law back (Like I’m the established professional in all of this).  It is now as I back her into the far corner of the small room, the horrible fluorescent lights making us both look haggard, and in need of a touch up. 

   “Mom, there is NO customer service here, if you start up with them-they’re gonna throw us out!!!”  I plead.

   “They don’t THROW people OUT of jail!”  She is physically standing there with me, but I’ve already lost her.  There is a brief glint in her green eyes.  She resets her attitude-and it worries me.

    Mom starts pacing back and forth, stretching out her tucked in white shirt, pulling it out from her black pleated pants.  She looks like the Hulk attempting to rip out of the shirt she’s wearing, with no success.  Mom pulls at her bra straps as she paces faster and faster-now she leans in and whispers to me.  “He’s watching me.  Listen carefully, I need you to go into my bag…”

   I watch and listen attentively as crazy eyes and raised brows are trying to put me under her trance.  “I want you to give me the sandwich and the bag with the half sour pickles.  Pass them to me slowly and carefully.”  Mom instructs me quietly.

   “Mom…mom, what are you doing?”  I ask, motioning for nothing.

   “Finding a way to feed my son.”  Mom’s gone from the Prairie to the wild frontier.  Ripping off the bonnet and now carrying a musket.

   I never pictured our first visit to Prison as a lost episode of ‘I Love Lucy,’ but that’s exactly what it was turning into.  My mother-in-law is Lucy, desperate to get a sandwich past the officer at check in so that Little Ricky can have some food in his stomach.  It is not by choice, but I am Ethyl.

   I’m choking back my laughter, and at the same time panicked because I know she’s serious.  The very idea of my mother-in-law walking passed this officer nonchalant, her size A cups heaving with; left cup-tuna on pita, right cup-a dripping dill pickle, is absurd.  I don’t think any visitor could be foolish enough to try it.  I also don’t believe there’s a prison guard dumb enough to let a visitor walk by with one enormous breast and the other pointy and dripping dill juice, without stopping them for further inquiry.

   Violating any of the rules here could mean prosecution-or even incarceration.  I’ll be damned if I’m going to prison over her sick obsession to feed my husband.  I make this clear to her, as she continues her attempt to stretch out her bra cup.  Mom stops.  She frowns at me.  She tucks her shirt back into her pants and smooths her hair back away from her face.   I’ve disappointed her.  I know I will do this countless times during the course of Joe’s incarceration.

   Admitting defeat, and refusing to let any guard get his hands on her ‘made with love’ tuna on pita, she walks over to the trash can, holds the bag of lunch high above her, on her tippy toes and cries out, “If my son can’t have this…than nobody can!!!”  She smashes the brown bag lunch into the enormous can,  like the sacrifice of a virgin by its tribe leader.  A small crowd formed around the garbage can, not knowing what they were looking at.

   After making our way past mustache, through a metal detector, a body scanner, and a body search from a female officer-I think mom understood my point. 

   Mom didn’t think it through, what would she have done had she carried it all the way into the visitor’s room where Joe awaited us?  How would she have passed it along to him?  

  Better yet, had he eaten the sandwich first and then found out how mom had smuggled it in, the sandwich and pickles smashed up against her bare bosom…that could have been catastrophic.   That may have turned him off from tuna, and maybe all dairy and fish products forever....And THEN what would I feed him…what would I do?!

   Until our next visit, I will do my best to keep myself from crying, do my best to stay strong, even do my best to keep my mother-in-law from smuggling ‘unauthorized food and candy’ into prison.  More importantly, I aspire to break free of being cast (in any FUTURE EPISODES) as Ethyl in the lost episode of ‘Feeding time for Little Ricky.’