Fed Baby

On the track, Rach and I are logging miles—five to ten a day. Thirty-two laps make a mile. Darla, who left last week and runs marathons, once did fifteen miles here. We were inspired. We talk a little, mostly we churn the wheels of insight. Nevaeh and Lyric stroll in their lane. I overhear Lyric saying to Nevaeh, “That’s how you do it,” pointing to us. “Look, they don’t even talk, they just walk. Fast.” Mind you, this shifted their walking not in the least. They are there to go through the motions of walking that serve as a backdrop for their ongoing conversation that needs to change sets every so often, from poker to betting on the football game, to lying on Lyric’s bed.

We pass the two of them on the track freeway and do the equivalent of a light honk. Lyric’s ass is round, her tits are round, her moon face is round. And her belly is round. She’s seven months pregnant but is more active than the skinny 22-year-old who doesn’t wake up until 7 p.m. and then glares at everyone that they would dare make noise prior to that. As we pass, I ask Lyric, who is so fluent in “hood” language that she could hold a Hood Linguistics Ph.D., “Is there a slang word for ‘inmate’? I’m playing with book titles.”

“Jailbirds?” she suggests.

“I like that,” I tell her. “Flight.”

Lyric brightens, her smarts shining through. Around here, compliments are suspicious; attention is a rare currency, and it’s almost always transactional. I keep it moving.

Lyric stands out here, and not just because of her pregnant belly protruding through her prison uniform. She reminds me of an inner-city honors student at a crossroads—the question is, which game does she want to play? But here, in a federal prison, the options are different. The choice isn’t between the familiar and an Ivy League scholarship; it isn’t a choice in your external circumstance. The question is whether you want to play any of the “outer games” or whether you want to master the inner game. Lyric’s got a grade-A game and outside these walls it could get her whatever man and whatever security or diamond jewelry he offers. The trouble is, she’s bored.

“Don’t be number one at the number-two game,” I tell her. “The number-one game is inside.”

“That’s a million miles from here,” she says, but she hears me.

On our next lap, she grins, still turning over possible book titles. “Fed Baby.“

“What’s that?”

“Means you ‘made it to the feds, baby.’ Big-time now. Not just county or state.”

“I like it,” I say. “Let me think on it.”

By the next lap, Lyric and Nevaeh join us and after a few times around the track, Lyric and I find ourselves paired off. Up to then I’d mostly heard Lyric; she travels with her own laugh track. We trade ideas back and forth; it turns out we’ve watched all the same strange and esoteric Instagrams and podcasts, had all the same fascinations with them: “Oh, you haven’t heard the Telepathy Tapes? You gotta check it out.” Cities build public squares so people can bump into each other and cross-pollinate. This is ours.

She tells me she’s worked as a stripper and, to her surprise, I have too. She says she’s been with a lot of men, “But I ain’t a ho, if you know what I mean.”

“I am,” I deadpan, letting her peek behind the polite-housewife façade. She cackles. A door opens.

The story spills. “Yeah, I got pregnant by another guy. My guy’s here—got arrested before me. I met someone else. I don’t even like him. Thought I was pregnant, test said no, then I get here—test says yes. I can’t tell my man; his mama just died. We gotta go to court together soon—maybe I can hide it.” The belly that leads us around the track suggests that won’t be an option.

“You have to tell him,” I say, too pragmatic for the moment.

“Yeah, but…his mama…” The sentence trails off. In here that usually means: I’m afraid of losing him, but no one says it directly. Softness is dangerous. You have to shine like you have options, money, a plan.

Three days later, they scheduled a bail hearing for Lyric. It feels like a miracle; the women cried in sympathetic joy and relief with her. She’s due in two months. Nonviolent crime. Already served real time. They have to send her home on confinement. There’s gratitude for the many prayers made by all the inmates here for this to happen. And, still in her womb, Lyric’s baby is present in the dorm with us. Blessed by the hope of forty women. This baby’s already made it to the big times—not county, not state, this is a fed baby.

◆

The night before Lyric’s bail hearing, we all gathered to say goodbye. Nevaeh led a Loving Tree, an exercise from The Art of Soulmaking where one person receives love, in the form of reflections, from others. The women shared their experience of Lyric—her brightness, her laugh, her humor, her perseverance in carrying her baby through trial, through months in prison, and now hopefully to freedom. All the favorite prison dishes, from cakes to nachos, come out for the party. When one woman wins, every woman shares that win with her.

But at 7 p.m. the next day, Lyric walked right back into the dorm. A cold wave of horror rippled through the dorm. She’s due in nine weeks.

“You okay?” I ask as she passes.

“No. I’m fucked up,” she says, rare emotion cracking the mask. She crawls into bed and disappears under the blanket.

The next day, she explains the situation. She was denied for home confinement but there’s still one last chance; she might get into a pregnant-women’s facility, but there may not be one near her family in New York. It may not even be possible until December, when the baby’s due. If she delivers inside, they’ll take the baby.

There’s no way to show her how my heart breaks without making it worse. This isn’t a hugging place. I try to send what I can through my eyes, careful not to stare. “Oh, Lyric. I’m sorry,” I say. She hears me.

“I don’t want to lose my baby,” she says, tears rising to her eyes. “It’s the system. They’re trying to help—but this is messed up.” Her words tumble out, so I have her slow down and breathe.

Here’s the clock, the way it actually runs: Lyric is twenty-nine weeks pregnant. Once she hits thirty-six weeks—November 5—transport is off the table. She gets sentenced on October 15 and then after her sentencing, the Bureau of Prisons’ designation center in Grand Prairie, TX, usually takes six to eight weeks to place you. She needs it done in three to four. There’s a program called MINT—Mothers and Infants Nurturing Together—that could keep mom and baby together, but only a few sites are operating, and she has to be designated and moved in time. If Grand Prairie doesn’t move quickly, she’ll deliver at a hospital and the baby will be taken.

Now I got it. This is what I call the impossible glitch: not bad people, just bad timing inside a rigid machine. The story that outsiders love is that officers are cold; what I see most days are people with their hands tied, trying to help through glass. For all of the “family values” we hold as a nation, the federal carceral system is still lacking. This woman is in prison for fraud, which is no small thing, but it is not violence. That this child might be born motherless breaks my heart to no end.

“I’m trying to get someone at MINT to reach the BOP directly,” Lyric says, wringing her hands. “Sentencing guidelines say zero to thirty months. I’ve already served six. I just want to be with my baby, Han.”

I was there the day she chose the name—she wanted royalty and reverence in one breath: Han Christian D.

Han, for an emperor. Christian, for faith. D for her family line.

So this is my prayer, right here in the noise and too-bright light:

Han Christian D, may it be that you spend every minute of your early life in your mother’s arms. May you know how loved and precious you are and the lengths that you, a child whose mother considers a miracle, were granted the miracle to be raised by her. That is my prayer.

Until then, we hold Lyric steady. We walk the track. We braid her hair. We sit with the clock. And when her switch flickers, we lend her our light.

Read more in Jailbirds in Flight