The Pink House. Trish MacEnulty

      

      Advance Praise

      “MacEnulty writes with sympathy, wisdom and—an unexpected blessing—humour.”

      —The Guardian

      “MacEnulty shows us the hardships of prison life, the ways of coping, and the compromises in a way no outsider could. We believe what she tells us, as she draws on what were her own experiences on both sides of the system. Switching between the inner vision of each of her characters with skill and ease, she develops the story in spare and immediate prose.”

      —Tangled Web

      “MacEnulty’s strong writing ability brings it above the emotion to form a full bodied story that leaves a lasting impression. She is able to lead readers into the lives of her characters by slowing revealing their stories, unfolding the details one by one to open a panorama of survival and substance. She draws tears and cheers for her women through deft plotting and in depth character development, a triumph of heart blended with talent. A winning combination.”

      —Radmore, Front Street Reviews

      “This multi-dimensional novel explores the characters with insight and compassion.”

      — Catherine Holden, Shape Magazine

      “It’s terrific ... perfectly paced ... riveting”

      —The Times

      “This is a cracking novel well worth seeking out...first class.”

      —Daily Express

      “A spare, disciplined prose that no one will be able to read without thinking of Hemingway. But MacEnulty has made the style her own.”

      —The Observer

      The Pink House

      The Pink House

      Trish MacEnulty

      Apprentice House

      Loyola University Maryland

      Baltimore, Maryland

      Copyright © 2016 by Trish MacEnulty

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).

      First Edition

      Printed in the United States of America

      Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62720-103-2

      E-book ISBN: 978-1-62720-104-9

      Design: Apprentice House

      Editorial Development: Valerie Jean

      Editing: Karl Dehmelt

      Published by Apprentice House

      Apprentice House

      Loyola University Maryland

      4501 N. Charles Street

      Baltimore, MD 21210

      410.617.5265 • 410.617.2198 (fax)

      www.ApprenticeHouse.com

      [email protected]

      This book is dedicated to

      the memory of my beautiful friend,

      Kitty Gretsch.

      Our share of night to bear,

      Our share of morning,

      Our blank in bliss to fill,

      Our blank in scorning.

      Here a star, and there a star,

      Some lose their way.

      Here a mist, and there a mist,

      Afterwards – day!

      — Emily Dickinson

      From the Journal of Nicole Parks

      I promised Lolly that I would write the story of my time in prison. She said I should call it a memoir, so here it is. Some of it is from my journals, and some of it I remember though there is plenty I have forgotten, thank you very much. But what I can’t forget is Lolly Johanssen and what she taught us in her classes. Lolly is the person who inspired me to be a writer. Some people go to prison and end up finding God. Lolly helped me to find me.

      I was in prison for possession of narcotics and for carrying a concealed weapon—an unregistered firearm at that. But what you need to know about me is that I am not, nor have I ever been, a dope fiend. I have never done any drugs, have never stuck any drug-type substance up my nose or in my arm, and have never even smoked a blunt. To tell you the truth, I pity addicts because their lives do not belong to them. They belong to the drug. I should know because even though I never touched drugs or smoked a nasty cigarette in my life, I had my own addiction: to a man. A smooth as melted chocolate, sweet-between-the-sheets man named Antwan. And that’s how I wound up in this place – this prison with its pink buildings up in the middle of Nowhere, North Florida. Sometimes we joke that it’s a big old pink palace, and we’re all a bunch of ladies in waiting, waiting, waiting.

      In some ways prison is just like any place else; there’s a game to it. You can be all cool and rebellious and you can do every single day of your time and then some if they can figure out more charges to put on you. I have seen that happen to many a stupid-ass woman. They sneer at the C.O.s and refuse to do their work and get written up and locked down every day. They know they are the shit. I decided right away that wasn’t the way I wanted to play the game, and I got put into a different category. See, even those people who run the prison are willing to cut you a little bit of slack, well not exactly cut you slack. Let’s see. How can I say this so that even if it isn’t factual, it might be a little bit true? There’s a few things, a very few things, that they offer to inmates that aren’t so bad. It’s mostly for show so they can say they’re trying to rehabilitate us. If you can get it in their minds that you are one of those who won’t cause any trouble and will make them look good, then you can get in that certain category of inmates who are eligible to take programs. We were a small group, and it wasn’t like it looked like a big privilege to the others. I mean, going to a writing class? Most of them would rather slam their heads into a brick wall. But me, I knew that anything a little different from the everyday same ol’ same ol’ would be good. And I had always liked to write. I kept a journal all through middle school about all the stupid little fights with girls and the crushes I had on various boys. Then in high school my English teacher helped me get a scholarship to the University of Miami, and I was the first one in my family to go to college. Now, I am the first one to wind up in prison.

      I come from a respectable family of AME Zion church-going, hard working folks, and I had destroyed their dreams for me. I was their A-student girl, the one who was going to be some kind of professional, a lawyer or something. Unfortunately, I was learning about the law the wrong way. Now, what I wanted more than anything else was to get back on track, to earn the respect of my momma and daddy and somehow regain a portion of all I had thrown away. So when the lady asked if I wanted to take a poetry class, I said, “Yes, ma’am. I’d like that very much.” And I somehow felt as if I might get a piece of my life back, a small piece.

      So there were twelve of us out of a population of 670 women and the class was on Thursday evenings -- same time as the NA meetings, but you already know that I didn’t have to go to that. They didn’t have Antwan Anonymous meetings. That first night we stood at the fence of our zone, watching the poetry lady walk up to us. She was a tall skinny white lady with short dark hair and she limped as she carried a satchel case over her shoulder and some kind of box in her hands.

      “She walks funny,” someone said. “She got a club foot?”

      When she got up to us, she smiled this big wide smile as if she knew all of us really well and she was so happy to see us. We forgot