Episode 2: Prison Wives Are Just Like Military Wives

In this episode, Myra  counts down the days until her husband's release and gets into the complexities of solitary confinement - clarifying misconceptions, while describing the harsh realities her husband faces, including loss of personal belongings, the strain of isolation, and the impact on his mental health. Myra shares how she and her husband communicate through coded letters to avoid censorship, maintaining their connection despite the oppressive environment.

Myra paints a vivid picture of life as a prison wife, emphasizing the ongoing struggle against the dehumanizing aspects of the prison system. She draws parallels between military spouses and prison spouses, noting the unique challenges faced by those with incarcerated loved ones. 

EPISODE CREDITS

Intro voices in order of appearance: 

Lex Ward

Kassandra Voss

Joellen Terranova

Davonna Dehay

Episode: 

Myra: La Tisha Conto 

Myra’s Husband: Ronald Auguste

Commercial Voice: Benita Robledo

CO Johnson: Dalina Michaels

Tearful Visitor: Davonna Dehay

Tads: Jessica Andres

Visit the Involved Podcast website to learn more about its creators, find resources for learning and support, and view full credits. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:14 Myra updates listeners on the status of her husband, clears up listener confusion, and discusses the reality of going to the hole, and what day to day life is like for them when that happens.
• 9:03 Content Warning: Explicit language about sex. The anatomy of a prison love letter. Myra discusses their letters to each other, and what his routine is like when he is in the hole.
• 16:40 Commercial Break: Ideal Date
• 17:35 Myra plays a game while she’s waiting for visiting to open to discuss the similarities between prison and military spouses.
• 20:19 Myra takes you inside the visiting intake room, and helps out Tads - a prison wife newbie.
• 26:00 Myra introduces the Family - the group that meets every Thursday who support each other.
• 27:21 Outro. Myra wraps up the show and teases episode 3 where she will discuss how being a prison wife is like being famous and why the prison spends so much money on bottled water.

Transcript

Intro 

Myra: 235 days until my husband comes home. 

Myra rolls up her window. 

Myra: He got out. Of the hole. Not out out. And you might be thinking wow, that seems like a short time to be in the hole. And you are right. Because the hole is not the thing you've been conditioned to believe it is through movies and shows and cops. You probably think the hole is where they put  individuals who stab somebody on the yard, or assault a cop. 

Myra: Breaking in to clear up some listener confusion. @justintoitive asked me why I refer to cops if he is in prison? I was shocked honestly that anybody but my parking lot carhort is listening to this. I appreciate questions. So, @justintoitive - ah, I get it - we call everybody cops. You might refer to them as correctional officers but there is nothing correctional in their nature. They’re cops. I promise. Anybody who works in a prison is a cop. Well, incarcerated individuals hold the most jobs in prisons, so they don't count. They aren’t cops, but some of them act like they are, but that’s a different story for a different day. 

Myra: Most of the time people are going to the hole because cops are investigating something. Some informant rats on somebody, or somebody is worried about having to pay back some money so they’ll send a kite to I&I –  

Informant: Incidents & Investigations - yeah, they think they’re the CIA, 

Myra: When they aren’t playing Call of Duty, you can find them making up elaborate sting operations to destroy people’s lives, using the lies they’ve been told by their informants who have a lot of incentive to tell them whatever they want to hear.  

Myra: Going to the hole is extremely disruptive. They shackle you, then they pack up your shit usually because even if you get out soon, you don’t go back to your house, you have to move into temp housing 4 to a cell. And wait for a house to open. This time they took him for 4 days - conveniently timed for a weekend – so no visits while I&I investigated the issue. Seems that somebody showed up here on a chain bus Thursday, saw my husband in the yard and checked in. 

Myra: Okay, I know I am going to get some questions on this. Checked in means that you fear for your safety, so you basically put yourself in the hole. You go to a cop and tell them you're scared or something and then they put you in the hole.  It probably means that you showed up on a yard where you fucked some people over and you need to save your own ass. In my husband’s case, it meant that this guy owed him some money. So he checked in, said he’s scared of my husband they investigate, and they let him out because as much as they want to make something stick against my husband they can’t prove that this guy has anything to worry about. Everybody owes money in here, some people take it seriously, and some people, like my husband, know that it’s useless trying to collect. 

Myra: So here I am 9 days later, waiting outside in the parking lot for them to flip the sign so I can visit my husband again. Mmmm. Here comes the CI&IA now, it’s the main guy – Murphy. With his little snitch puppy. Cats would never. Every visit we get sniffed by that dog, and he never turns up drugs. He should take a whiff of the COs, then he’d probably hit something. Dogs just gladly get up every morning and go to work for cops. Cats would never do some shit like that. Because, sweet listeners, Cats are abolitionists. 

Myra: I got here late today so I am going to have to do some speed walking to be able to get a good pole position inside the visiting room. 

Myra: Well, the sign should be flipped by now, and it’s not, so I am guessing there is a delay. They do count just before visiting and if count is messed up visiting is on hold. So I get less time with him, but more time with all of you I suppose. I got his letter today. Do you want me to open it? Of course you do. 

Sound: Envelope ripping, paper sounds

Myra: The anatomy of a love letter - solitary confinement edition

Myra: The greeting. Now, this is a personal preference, but my husband and I begin our letters the same way. Every single time. 

Him: Hey baby

Myra: My Love

Myra: The opening 

Myra: When he writes from the hole the opening paragraph of the letter needs to do two things: reassure me that he’s okay, and explain the circumstances – as best as he can – in case he isn’t able to get phone privilege. Mail takes forever, so by the time I receive the letter - which is now 9 days later - this will be old news or it will be the first I’ve heard from him in at least a week. 

Him: By the time you get this you will know I am here because I sent word to Trix to have his girl call you. And I’ll be able to call you tomorrow morning…

Myra: And he’s right, Trix’s wife called me the night they took him. So, my anxiety level dropped, and by the time I received the letter it was old news. That isn’t always the case, sometimes if they put him on phone restriction and he isn’t able to send word with somebody I can spend at least a week not knowing what happened to him. He’s just disappeared by the DOC. 

Myra: He let’s me know the routine. He’ll have a.m. yard time, which is just him in an oversized dog kennel – that he helped build by the way - feeling the sun – if it’s out, and calling me on a shittier than normal prison shitty phone. What you have to understand about the hole is that it’s the prison’s prison, so everything in it is the shittier version of the crap the prison gets. 

Him: They came and got me this morning just before visit. Cops wouldn’t tell me shit. 

Myra: His love letters from the hole have to do so much more work than a usual love letter. Of course some things are always standard. We always talk about what we want to do to each other’s bodies when we’re finally able to be in a room together without restrictions. Actually, I imagine love letters for most couples are generally the same as our non hole love letters. Catching up on news, pledging their undying love for one another, and then thinking of creative ways to say I want to f*ck you. Or, I guess they don’t have to be as creative. We have to get past the mail cops. Nothing too explicit. So no words like f*ck, sex, whatever the mail cop is feeling like on that particular day. How much do they want to enforce policy

Myra: I mean, most couples don't have a cop reading their letters before they go out, they aren’t worried that somebody will deny the letter for explicit material, or just toss it and act like they never saw it. What do we say when we want to say I want to f*ck you. We have to say - 

Him: I want to feel the weight of your thigh on my shoulder as you grip the back of my head in your hands. 

Myra: We’re basically romance novelists. So, yes we do all that, but also, love letters from the hole need to establish a timeline and gather evidence. In case. 'Just in cases' we say to each other like that sweet moment in Love Actually. I love that film I don’t care what anybody says. Don’t @ me. But when we joke 'just in cases' to each other we know there is a very dark meaning behind it because what we mean is Just in cases… he’s killed, as many incarcerated people have been, and the DOC tries to say he died by suicide. Just in cases… he’s beaten severely… just in cases… well, there are so many scenarios all out of our control… we just focus on gathering the details

Myra: And he knows that the details, as horrific and terrorizing as they are, help to put my mind at ease. Because if we, the loved ones, don’t have any details we will fill them in for ourselves. It’s a specific kind of torture knowing the person you love most in the world is in the hands of people who don’t think he’s human. So he describes it all to me. They take him away in shackles. A cop comes in to pack up his shit. Imagine your worst enemy packing up your house while you were away. Everything that is precious to you, handled by people who loathe you. Do you think you’ll get all your stuff back? Do you think that letter you received from your wife - the one that is most precious to you because it was the first letter she ever sent you – do you think that will be waiting for you when you get back? 

Myra: So this next part of the letter fills in the details. After they get him he’s put in the cell that could be his home for a week or a year. Who knows. At this point he doesn’t. So, to keep himself mentally well he gets on his routine. My husband has been down for 18 years. He’s done about 5 years of that time in the hole. Sometimes the stints are a few days, sometimes they are a year and a half. The routine keeps him sane. Mostly. Like he says ‘Everybody loses their shit in the hole.’ But if he keeps to the routine he has a better chance of staying mentally healthy-ish. 

Myra: The routine goes: Wake up at 7. 

Myra: sidenote this supposes that he wakes up from sleep, but as the fucks at the DOC thinks it cool to keep people in the hole under 24/7 fluorescent lights it’s nearly impossible to actually sleep when you’re in the hole. 

Myra: So he gets up from bed at 7 is more like it. Eats breakfast, which consists of; a breakfast boat, two pieces of bread, a peanut butter packet, and jelly packet that came frozen and he has to warm them up with his hands, a powdered milk packet, and a small kid cereal box. All sugar. Everyday. Not enough calories for a 185 pound man made of mostly muscle, but it’s all he will get until lunch. There is no commissary allowed in the hole, so he won't get any extra calories. He'll take a bird bath, because he's only able to shower three  times a week. He'll work out. Reads, and then lunch. Lunch is a sandwich, an apple, and some kind of a potato salad, macaroni salad disgusting thing. After lunch he'll write a letter. Then he reads again, then it’s dinner. He’ll work out again and by 7:00pm he’s starving. So, It’s the catch 22 – working out makes you hungry, but not working out can make you lose your mind. At night he’ll exchange kites with people on the floor if he knows anyone. Play chess with somebody. Or sign a conversation to somebody on the floor. I mean, when I say he is playing chess with someone, he's yelling moves that he is making a chess board out of paper in his own cell and then yelling moves to somebody else down hall. They aren't actually interacting with each other face to face. 

Myra: The third part of the letter he asks questions about what is going on with me. What is happening in the world. Telling me he loves me, he’s sorry and this will not be forever and to not worry about him. As if I could ever stop worrying. The worry is constant. The worry consumes me. And then I cry, because at this point all I can think is that there are so many people in cages treated this way, treated like garbage, and one of those people is the person I love most in the world. 

Myra: He signs the letter the same, always. Always yours, Ps. I Promise. Because Tracey Chapman's The Promise is our song for obvious reasons. 

Myra: Despite what you see on TV in terrible shows written by people who talk to cops about what happens in prison, a lot of times the hole is a basically a babysitter while they figure out what to do with you. In the meantime, he loses his house, he loses most of his privileges, he loses yard time, loses weight, loses contact with his loved ones, and loses touch with time. It’s torture. There is no justification. Solitary confinement is torture. The end.   

Myra: We’ll be back after a word from our sponsor. 

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Myra: Listeners, Lets play a little game while we wait for these cops to get their shit together and open visiting. I’m going to make a  statement and you tell me which type of wife I am talking military wife or prison wife. Ready?

Myra: Our loved ones disappear without warning. 

Myra: We don’t know when or if they’ll be able to call.

Myra: We receive letters that are censored because they need to keep certain things from us as to not get into trouble with the people who control their life. 

Myra: Our loved ones have to obey, never question, and stifle all emotion, so when they come home they are emotionally cut off individuals who suffer in silence. 

Myra: Our loved ones come home with PTSD, night sweats, night terrors. They suppress emotion, and are often triggered sensorily. 

Sound: Game show buzzer 

Myra: Okay, did you guess both on all statements? If so, you are a winner. Like I said. Prison wives are a lot like military wives, without all the thank yous. 

Myra: The way we’re unlike military spouses is that if my husband ends up dead nobody is telling me shit until they get around to it. And they sure as hell aren’t draping a flag over his coffin. Actually, that’s wrong, because they do have a whole veterans unit here in the prison, they get up every morning to salute the flag while the country they sacrificed life and limbs for treats them like garbage. But I am pretty sure they still get a flag when they die, maybe. 

Myra: Also nobody looks at a military spouse strange for marrying somebody who willingly signed up to go invade and occupy countries, murder men, women, and children, but everybody looks at you sideways when you’re a prison wife. 

Myra: Update on the delayed visiting situation. We now have a lady out of her car walking up to the door to see what’s going on. Based on what you learned last week do you think A. the cops are going to tell her what’s going on or B. the cops are going to tell her to get back to her car and give her nothing. 

Myra: I just want to get inside. Which is a whole other world you have to navigate. The parking lot has rules and tactics, and so does the visiting intake room. Which reminds me, I never finished telling you about the maniacs and their coatless bodies. So, after we do the whole herd of the relentless thing toward the door, we all squeeze into the visiting intake room. Here, it’s a mad dash to put your things in a locker. The locker is a 1x1x1. So basically one foot all the way around. So, there’s room for a mid sized purse, keys, and maybe one light coat. You see where I am going with this? For a lot of parents they just can’t give the kid a coat because they wouldn’t be able to fit it in the locker. And if you have multiple littles, forget it.  

Myra: And the sign is flipped and we’re off. Let’s go on a field trip. 

Sound: She’s quickly turning off her car, and getting out and speed walking to get into position. 

Sound: Moving inside the room. 

CO Johnson yelling: single file. Single file line or I cancel your visits. 

Myra: Johnson is working today which means two things 1. The processing in will be slow. She’s been doing this a long time, which means she knows what she’s doing when it takes her 10 minutes to process one person in. 

Tearful Person: But I drove 400 miles, and I was told my special visit was approved. 

Johnson: Not my problem. Not in the system. Next. 

Myra: 2. She will cancel visits. She doesn’t give one single f*ck how far you came for your visit. 

Myra: Before you place your things in the locker you have to put money on your key card – this is the key that allows you to buy food and drinks for your loved one from the vending machines inside. if you’re a pro you know to load the key on your way out, but if you’re new you don’t know any of this. You are overwhelmed with people pushing, and maneuvering for line position, So, people save places in line, people argue about whether that’s fair, people make decisions about whether to help people that are struggling based on whether somebody will hold their place in line. 

Tads: Does anybody have a quarter?

Myra: Oh, and you need a quarter to use the lockers. Some of this info is on the DOC website, but by the time people get here they are so overwhelmed for obvious reasons, they are visiting people they love in a horrible place, so you'd think they’d be forgiven for forgetting some of the helpful info the DOC posts on their archaic, outdated website. 

Sound: quarter going into the slot, and locker slamming, audio cut.

Sound: car trunk opening

Tads: Oh my gosh, you are a lifesaver, thank you so much I am so thankful. Thank you. 

Myra: Okay, go back inside, get back into line in front of Brianna. Brianna is wearing a maroon turtleneck. I know this is all really new and overwhelming, so I want you to show up to our meeting Thursday night. Just a few of us get together and talk about things like this. And I really think it will be good for you. And no 3 inch heels. Ever. They think you’re going to shank them. 2 inch is the max allowed so that your shank is less dangerous. 

Tads: Okay, got it. I will. Thank you so much. 

Myra: And stop crying. Seriously, you have to stop crying. 

Tads: Okay. Im sorry. Thank you so much - 

Myra: Myra. 

Tads: Thank you so much Myra. 

Sound: Trunk closes, back into the car. 

Myra: Well listeners, As much as I wanted to get in there and see him, and I actually got a really good position in line, I just can’t leave anybody to fend for themselves in there. That newbie, Tads, was lost from the moment she walked in with her too high heels. See, if you get in line, and the snitch puppy doesn’t alert to you, and you have all your shit together with the key card you still have one more hurdle:  the metal director. They are looking for two things: weapons and titties. If you have boobs, you can basically wear a turtleneck. Newbie, Tads, is brand new, She came in wearing a beautiful dress and high heels. And, as she blurted out to me after the cop told her she couldn’t come in-

Tads: This is the first time she is going to see my husband in almost two years. 

Myra: They measure your heels, and if they are more than 2 inches you can’t wear them in. This has nothing to do with safety, this is just about policing the loved ones. Policing of women’s bodies, which is something this country starts when they are in elementary school. The real bullshit is when you get stopped for a shirt you wore the week before in with no problem. Can’t wear a bra with an underwire, searched. Can’t wear bobby pins, or Robert pins, or even bobby junior pins for that matter- you’d have to take them out. If you don’t have a shirt they will give you an ugly super oversized shirt. You don’t have shoes? They’ll make you wear shower shoes. Could they be helpful, yes. Do they want to be? No. They want you to look like a disheveled mess when you get back there. 

Myra: Which is why I always keep about 3 pairs in my car – 7 8 9s – simple ballet flats. Brianna keeps the 10s 11s and 12s, and MaLea keeps a closet in her trunks. Because these motherfuckers want you to go in there looking like a mess. But as you learned in last week's episode. We take care of each other. So even though I want to see my husband, I have to help the newbie. And the family will take care of the newbie. The family is my life line, a group. We meet every Thursday night, it’s ritual, and ceremony, and sustaining. Their stories are not my stories to tell. But I will say this. Brianna, SoPhie, Malea, Bill, they sustain me, uplift me, and keep me focused on what needs to happen. They always always always have my back. 

Myra: Okay, I am going to go back in now, get past Johnson, get past the snitch puppy, get past the metal detector, and give my husband a short hug and an even shorter kiss, because you know law and order. And then hold his hand and buy him some food and watch him eat and just know that we’re the lucky ones, because he will be coming home. 19 years is a fuck ton of time, but it’s not forever. 

Myra: Tune in next week, where I’ll let you know how being a prison wife is like being famous, or, more like infamous, and fill you in on why the prison has to spend a bunch of money on bottled water. 

Myra: As always, you’re welcome and I’ve been great.