The Two Names That Stopped a Prison Fight

Nicole Daedone has been in federal custody for fifteen months. This is new writing from inside — a chapter of Ride or Fly, the book she is writing there. Names and identifying details have been changed.

It was a freeze frame. Like a wet finger in a socket this sizzling jolt moving through the collective, sparks held mid-air. Mind assessing in a timeless dimension. Oddly beautiful in the midnight half-lit naked bared expression on each woman’s face.

And yet, if contact is made, Lisa’s metal fist on Juanita’s head or Juanita’s foot into Lisa’s groin — the comet of consequences hit for all. They go to SHU. We get the squeeze, increased air conditioning to 60 degrees, more shakedowns, regulation, surveillance. In the blur of instinct that can drive this dorm, causes and conditions are rarely linked. Here, we live inside of the now to such an extreme that consequences do not fit in the frame.

Lisa is, for better or worse, one of mine. As mine as they come anyway in the kaleidoscope that is each woman’s shifting territory of personality and principles. She comes to meditation half the time and heaves a sigh then proceeds to sleep for 15 minutes. I’ve always thought she comes for the refuge because release is frowned upon; tears are signs of vulnerability that cannot be afforded, like baring your neck to a pack of wolves.

Except. Except when it comes to their kids.

A woman gets a free-tears pass if she gets news about her kids; nine times out of ten, that the kids are slipping down the same slope that brought the women in here. And the various outcomes—baby daddy’s mothers vying for custody, detention hearings, silence.

Andre and Nia.

Two kids.

Lisa’s kids.

The photos she tried to swagger over to my bunk with but could not conceal a girlish joy. The “Oh Lisa they are beautiful” response. Both missing a tooth. In their Sunday best. Genuinely precious. The “before” picture you hope remains through the trials of the motherless life they will live. She spends all her phone minutes on those two kids. No sweet-talking men. No hustlers. Her two kids.

Mind connects with action in a place beyond thought. A body, this body, stepping between the two women. A calculation below consciousness, because had I thought for a moment, there is no way in hell.

“Lisa,” voice low and steady. “Andre. Nia.” Her eyes, black like tunnels leading nowhere, get a light at the back. She comes out of her stupor. Her blackout.

Wednesday will be the first time her ex brings the kids to visit in months. But if she allows the momentum of that fist to move forward, she will be in SHU.

It’s like a shot of Narcan. Those words. She comes to. What was stone, cold, and hard melts. It’s over. Every woman, as if a foot from the ground, lands. Juanita pulls back her legs to signal she’s done.

Only motherhood trumps the terror. The same conduit of fear that ran through the room now pumps with a mother’s milk. No shame. No embarrassment. It’s done.

I walk her back to her bunk. She sways a bit like she’s drunk. Or like a spirit left her and she can scarcely make it to the bed. In another world she’d collapse and sob. Here she, full uniform, boat shoes and all, crawls under her Brillo pad blanket, pulls it over her head, and shakes. Rach pulls her shoes off. I put my hand on the outline of her shoulder and squeeze. A great thank you and the silence of a near escape.

Ride or Fly is the book Nicole Daedone is writing from inside a federal women’s prison. Subscribe and the chapters reach you as they’re written.

Her first book, Jailbirds in Flight, covers her first six months at MDC Brooklyn: jailbirdsinflight.com