Love, Justine

Friday, 9/20/24

4:37pm

I never wanted to be a writer. From the time that I was old enough to think, all I’d ever wanted was to be a veterinarian. I loved everything about animals, big and small, and I was fascinated by them and their various styles of communication. I also understood them better than I understood most people, who were a mean, spiteful, sorry lot, as far as I could tell.

I was born as one of a set of identical twins to a teenage mother who neither knew she was having twins nor wanted us to be born at all. I was the second of the pair, born after a midwife peered into my mother’s vagina and proclaimed, “There’s another one in there!” after she birthed my sister, Elizabeth. 

And so it began. 

My miserable childhood, which begat my miserable adulthood. As I write this, I am sitting on a metal rack that serves as a “bed,” located in Bravo-Bravo Unit of SCI-Muncy, a state prison in Pennsylvania for women (and several transgender men, I should add). I am 43 years old, and like I said, I never wanted to be a writer.

After I escaped from my horrific childhood, complete with an abusive, aloof mother, and a sexually abusive step-brother, I moved in with a best friend, Maybe, when I was 16. I had a job at the local veterinary office working for a large, Jewish tyrant, Dr. Ronster, who didn’t seem to like animals at all, as far as I could tell.

I had a car of my own, so I was doing as well as I could for myself. I went to high school during the day and worked at night. Wash, rinse, repeat, until I went off to college at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania for Biology/Pre-vet. 

I was on my way. 

Until I wasn’t. 

Somewhere along the way, I had realized that most veterinarians’ lives were spent performing spays, neuters, and giving vaccines, which seemed about as boring as dirt to me. This plus the fact that I couldn’t seem to pass Chemistry II or pay the rent for my one-bedroom apartment off campus, while majoring in “Beer and Boys,” as my mother said with a snort. I couldn’t figure out why she cared at all, because it’s not like she had offered me one red cent to help pay for it.

In any case, it was around this time that I met Bobo the Sperm Guy (I’m sorry [not sorry], but this is the only way to accurately represent the role that this man played in my life). I was 19, and had decided that I wanted to get out of stupid old Indiana, PA, and go pursue a veterinary technician education and license, since vet techs get to have all the fun anyway in the veterinary world.

Bobo just happened to be my ticket out. We had decided that we were in love–he was unhappily engaged to another woman at the ripe old age of 26, which he conveniently left out of all conversations with me, so we hit the road for greener pastures in the way of Scranton, PA, where there was a vet tech school.

This was not well planned.

When we got there, we rented a beautiful little Victorian apartment, and both got jobs–me at a pet store and he at a plastics factory. We brought along my two cats, Bruiser and Jewel, and about 70 snakes and other various reptiles. (Did I mention that Bobo was a bit of a reptile enthusiast? Crazytown.) 

I immediately went to the local college to apply.

Then–disaster.

I had no money to pay for this college, and had just assumed that I would get financial aid. The nice financial aid lady patiently asked me if I was a veteran? No. Over 24 years of age? No. Married? No. Well, how about a Parent Plus Loan? 

This is where your parents cosign a college loan for you…I called my mother. I can still hear her screeching about how she, who worked her whole life, wasn’t about to pay for my education after I dropped out of a perfectly good college where I had financial aid based on her and my father’s income!! 

Long story short, we got married.

After knowing each other for only four months. This was not my proudest moment, made worse by the fact that all my mother could say to me, mere moments before walking down the aisle, was, “You don’t have to do this, you know.” I didn’t say what I wanted to say, which was that if I wanted to go to college, YES I DID.

And who cares anyway? 

I was a whole grownup, after all. I was 20, and since when had she ever cared about me anyway? 

Never, as far as I could tell. 

Funny how she wouldn’t cosign that college loan, but she paid for the wedding she didn’t want me to have.

Huh.

I feel like this is a good place to stop and insert a journal entry or two from when I first got to SCI-Muncy:

3/18/24

Monday

4pm

Welp, they moved me from the SA Unit to BB, which is an open unit. I have two cellies, Burgundy and Daisy. Burgundy talks about God a lot and how things happen for a reason. She says I look really sad. 

I am really sad. 

Daisy doesn’t say much of anything. We were volun-told to go take trash out (low men on the totem pole), and when we passed F Unit, the woman leading us said, “That’s where they store the minors.”

Now THAT’S sad.

The U.S. doesn’t discriminate. They’ll warehouse anybody. 

I found a book here called, “Lies My Teacher Told Me” by James W. Loewen. It’s about American history. Seems appropriate, because it’s Women’s History Month.

So, Burgundy thought it would be funny to tell us–with a completely straight face–that the lady next door, Frankie, “Sometimes snaps out,” and starts throwing things because she thinks people are looking at her! Then she tells us that we have to tell her that we know. It’s like the most awkward initiation ever. 

Of course it wasn’t true.

Gotta love being the newbie in prison. Now they’re talking about “dick-docking” and “shrimping,” which are basically two of the most disgusting things I’ve ever heard of. Of course, they might just be making it up to get a reaction out of me and Daisy.

Who knows. 

Who cares.

Good night.

3/19/24

Tuesday

7:32am

Lockdown. I assume they’re searching, because Burgundy is frantically stuffing things in her bra. I haven’t even peed this morning. Or eaten. Or taken meds.

This sucks.

And I was supposed to have a phone call at 9:45am. Sheezus. There’s an old guy CO skulking around gangster-like and imitating Dobby from Harry Potter.

Very strange. 

Now he’s having an argument with the next cube over about whether or not Black or White people cook fried chicken better. Then, abruptly, the CO said, “I gotta go. I have CO shit to do,” and left. At least the CO’s aren’t complete assholes on this Unit, like on SA.

Burgundy gave me some coffee and an e-cigarette. That’s a relief. I guess I’ll read. Nobody knows the reason for the lockdown. They just brought the kitchen workers back on the Unit. I guess no breakfast for us today.

Or meds.

7:58am

Count time again.

8:22am Gave us meds on the Unit. Not looking good for a phone call. Burgundy is cleaning her slides with a toothbrush. 

Hm.

No Search yet. Weirdly, Maintenance is here.

10:15am

Still lockdown. No phone call. Ugh. Maybe I’ll write Motorcycle a letter. I think I have two envelopes left. What’s the next thing I’m going to miss out on? Kiosk at 12:15pm. 

Motorcycle, 

Well, I would have been able to call you this morning, except we’ve been on lockdown since 7:30am. No one knows why. I thought they were going to search, but they haven’t yet. It’s after 10am. 

Thankfully, I got moved to B Unit yesterday, and my new cellie Burgundy hooked me up with coffee and an e-cigarette. These pods hold four people, but we only have three in ours, and there’s one whole side that’s empty. There were a lot of empty cells on on S Unit too. I’ve never seen this prison so empty. 

Burgundy gave me this notepad too, so I can write, which helps.

Burgundy is very Christian. She’s always talking about how blessed she is and how everything happens for a reason. My other cellie, Daisy, has seven kids and doesn’t say much of anything. We played Scrabble last night and I won every game.

I’m dying to hear your voice and know how you are. I miss you very much. I’m reading a memoir about a woman who was born in prison called, “Prison Baby.” It’s pretty good, but I’m still very bored. 

I wonder if this population would be open to interviews. The only thing that makes me nervous   is that they all seem pretty chummy with the CO’s over here. I don’t want someone to tell a CO and get in  more trouble, although it’s not technically against the rules. 

All I know is that they make up their own rules in prison. 

At Cambridge Springs, everybody hated the CO’s and called them “the cops,” so I knew no one would have any reason to tell them.

Here the CO’s joke and laugh with the inmates (on this Unit, anyway), and know their first names; People always told me that General Population was way different than Blues, but I’ve never gotten out of Blues before this. Just got classified, then shipped out. 

You know, like cargo.

Like we were things, and not human beings. 

“This one goes in this box and that one goes in that box and whatever and whatever.

We weren’t people anymore.

Whatever.

I knew that from the jump.

Maybe they were punishing these other people, but I had been there, done that, and gotten the fucking T-shirt to prove it.

Anyway, they already gave me two programs that I have to complete while I’m here, so I don’t think I’m going anyplace.

Please message or write me if you have any news. I love you very much and I miss you like crazy.

Gem told me that she got into a fight with Paul. I haven’t contacted him except to tell him to give you my stuff.

Love,

Justine