Episode 6: The Breakdown of a Prison Visit

In episode 6, Myra takes us through a visit with her husband in prison. She describes the process of entering the facility, the emotional connection during the visit, and the mundane activities a visit includes. Despite the restrictions and surveillance, their love provides a temporary escape from the harsh reality of prison life. Myra also discusses the challenges of obtaining public records related to prison infractions and highlights the hypocrisy of law enforcement attitudes towards socialism. She addresses common questions about prison abolition and shares personal anecdotes to illustrate the emotional toll of visiting loved ones behind bars.

Intro voices In order of appearance: 

Lex Ward

Kassandra Voss

Joellen Terranova

Davonna Dehay

Episode: 

Myra: La Tisha Conto 

Myra’s Husband: Ronald Auguste

Female Visitor: Davonna Dehay

CO: Dalina Klan

Male Visitor: Jeff Gander

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:14 Myra presents ‘The Breakdown of a Prison Visit.’
• 11:17 Myra plays the game Two Truths and a Lie to reveal the truth about holding cops accountable, and discusses Public Records Requests.
• 14:50 Myra answers listener questions.
• 17:18 Outro. Myra wraps up the show by teasing the next episode where she will talk about ‘short time.’

Transcript

Intro

Myra: 132 days until my husband comes home. 

Myra: Listeners, with all this added commute time I have to get my husband’s new digs, I have a lot of time to think. Most times the thoughts are random-

Myra: Why did Jello pudding pops go away. 

Myra: 6 cats is really just two sets of three cats.

Myra: Why are all those cows standing in a line?

Myra: Today however, the thoughts were very specific. On my way over I realized I have spent so much time talking to you about everything outside of the prison, and haven’t actually talked anything about much inside. Specifically… Visiting. So… Buckle up sweet peas and Sour Bs, we’re going inside a visit. Well, Inside the recollection of a visit because I am not allowed to record inside – even though they are allowed to record me, but I digress. Without further adu … the breakdown of a prison visit.

replay of audio from an earlier show of a CO yelling in the entrance room

Audio Stops.

Myra: You know this part.

fast forwarding through the audio. 

Big Door opening and closing. 

Myra: So after I get through checkin, I open the door and see him standing there waiting with open arms. Okay, not exactly. Because before that, I have to go out of the lobby area, make my way across a walkway – its outside, fenced in and should I get the idea to jump the fence, I would be met with coils of barbed wire at the top. At the end of the walkway… another door. None of these I open on my own, of course, they are all opened by the watchers. As the final door opens into the visiting room, a symphony of sounds hits me –, the strings (high pitched children screaming), the brass (Cops yelling), the drums (hitting on the table) all working (not) together to produce the sound of… noise really. Aggravating noise. But then.. I see him. Last prison I waited for him, this prison he waits for me. So, as I enter the room, he stands, the way Darcy stood for Elizabeth – and the noise fades to almost nothing. (sound goes down to nothing) The trick… is to be in love. It’s cliché of course, but truly when you are in love there is almost nothing that can penetrate that love bubble created by gazing into your love’s eyes. (sound comes back in – but lower and dull) well, we’re not in a bed and breakfast in Vermont at Christmas time. We do the best we can in a prison, but some of that shit penetrates.  

Myra: : I reach the table, he cups my face with his hands, gently pulling my lips to his lips.

Myra: We kiss hard and hug tight.

Computer Voice counting down: 8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1

Myra: For 8 seconds. For just like a fairytale… if my sweet prince dare kiss me longer than eight seconds, they will turn him into a toad. Or infract him, and forbid him to see me ever again - or however long his visiting privileges are suspended. The cops actually have stopwatches, and they commonly write my love up for these infractions, so much so that we filed a Public Records Request on visiting room infractions to see if we were being targeted.

Myra: Spoiler, we are, but more on that later.

Myra: We are now one of 100 tables in the middle of this small room, and like I said, we tune most of it out with our sound proof love shield, but some of it penetrates. I’m not just visiting my love, I am also visiting table 45.

Woman: We’re not gonna be up next weekend, your sister’s having her baby.

Myra: And Table 2

Kid: Dad, are you going to grandma’s for papa’s party?

Myra: It takes me a second to adjust to the ambient conversation invading our space, but I settle in, and we officially begin our visit.

Myra: I say hello, my love. He says –

Him: Hello, my love.

Myra: Hand holding is the only form of touch we're allowed  are from now until the end of the visit. So he holds my hand like he’s holding my body, like he’s holding my face, like he’s holding my waist. He taps out a kind of morse code we’ve developed, his thumb taps and runs along the back side of my hand, all indicating desire, happiness, comfort, frustration, and sadness.  He squeezes my hand with varying intensity to say I love you, I want you… I wish we were the only two people in this room. With one hand firmly locked in place, we’re left to eat, drink, play cards, with our other hand.

Myra: I focus on him. I so rarely get to see him, when I do, the words he says are secondary – we have phone calls, and letters to convey the words. So instead our visits are a great deal of just looking at each other. We are that annoying couple staring into each other’s eyes, drunk on love, feeling the way magic hour looks. I notice his arms, the way his veins appear when he squeezes my hand. The gentle way his thumb caresses the back of my hand.

Dad at Table 13: Well if the Seachickens get their shit together we might just lose a playoff game this year.

Myra: The loud table snaps us out of our trance. I go and get him food. He’s not allowed at the vending machine, so I go for him. It gives me a chance to catch up with some of the others visiting loved ones. 

Myra: The vending machines are stocked with garbage. Correctional Industries garbage. Premade burgers, hot pockets, chips, and about four salads. Thankfully today there is a salad available when I get to the machine. It costs $5.50. I will buy two of these, some chips, some hummus and pretzels for myself, two waters, and sometimes a Butterfinger for him and by the time leave I will have spent about 25 dollars. I watch as mothers with children pay upwards of 40 dollars a visit to feed their kids because the DOC doesn’t allow us to bring in food. It’s a racket. 

Myra: I’m back at the table and I watch him eat. I love to watch him eat. I love to watch him do anything really. He eats quickly, and when he is finished he wraps everything up neatly, and then decrumbs the table by pushing everything onto the floor. It’s something I notice, and something that reminds me he lives in a place that he feels no way like his own. He doesn’t care about it in the least, so the crumbs go to the floor. 

Myra: We visit from 12 to 7. We talk, we laugh, we stare into each other's eyes and we just enjoy being next to each other. The visits are honestly the most peaceful normal part of it all because when we are together we can forget how terrible it is. 

Myra: When it’s time to leave we get one more stopwatch hug and kiss. 8, 7, 6… you know. He has to sit at the table until I leave. I watch him watching me. When I leave the room I can see through the door as he finally gets up to stand in line to go back to hell. His little reprieve over until we see each other next week. When they moved him they didn’t think about him - or me. They didn’t think that I would have to drive each way – sometimes in the snow – that our visits would go from a few times a week to once a week. If they cared about are loved ones, and they cared about how are loved ones would be when they reintegrate into society they would do everything they can to keep them near us, allow visits several times a week, and let families bring in their own food. If not for the adults at least for the children. But they don’t do any of that because they don’t care about delivering our loved ones back into society as whole humans. Because they don’t even consider them to be human. 

Myra: So that’s a visit. Kind of anti-climatic right? Because of all the bullshit that goes on in our lives with our loved ones locked up, the most mundane part is just sitting next to them. Forgetting for a moment there are eyes, ears, listening devices, cameras, all on you as you kiss, hold hands, laugh, not cry, and be in love. The more in love you are the more you can forget and so that’s probably why we love so hard. It takes the edge off. Because as soon as our visit is over I get to go home, but he has to go through the humiliation of stripping down, and bending over so some dipshit cop - who knows its his cop buddy bringing in drugs - can make sure my loved one hasn't brought in drugs. He treats the person I love most in the world like he’s less than human. And after all that, then he goes back to a cell. To wait until next week when he’ll gladly suffer the humiliation to see me again. Fuck prisons forever. 

Myra: Another thought I had today on the drive over is how cops run around talking shit about socialism, but they are some of the biggest beneficiaries of socialism. They get pensions, healthcare, they love that they have a strong union even though they think anybody else’s union is scum. They have worries, sure. They worry about overtime (so they can get a boat) and they worry about their spouses finding out about all the extracurricular fucking going on with all the other cops. You know what they are absolutely not worried about? Consequences for their despicable behavior. Do you know how I know? Public Records Requests. Let’s play two truths and a lie to give you a little more information about Public Records Requests. Ready?

Myra: One. Stemming from the Freedom of Information Act (AKA FOIA) enacted federally in 1967, all 50 states implemented their own version of the law to ensure that people were able to obtain information from public agencies. 

Myra: Two. Each state has it’s own laws about how quickly they must respond, what material – or even branches of government – are subject to exemption, and how much money you have to pay for the records. 

Myra: Three. Public agencies, specifically the department of Corrections welcome these requests and make it easy to file the requests and willingly comply with these requests. 

Myra: Alright. Where’s the lie. If you said one or two I feel like this might be your first episode and you need to binge episodes 1 through 5 - and like a stomped tomato – ketchup. If you said three, you are correct. The DOC makes it difficult and tedious to get these records. And once you get your hands on them it isn’t hard to see why. It’s pretty disgusting and heinous the kind of emails and text messages cops send back and forth to each other when they don’t think anybody requesting their information. Last year, we were being retaliated against in the visiting room so I requested public records of all infractions stemming from the visiting room, and all correspondence between visiting room cops over the previous 6 months. You need to be specific in your request because they will only give you exactly what you ask for. One of the saddest emails I ever read was from a cop talking about how he didn’t like the way an incarcerated individual was making his kid do his homework, and so he speculated the incarcerated individual had ADHD, and in the email threatened that next time he might just call CPS and let them know about the person and maybe get his kid taken away. Imagine for a moment you are locked up, your kids come to see you, and the cops use those visits to retaliate against you because they don’t like the way you do things. A runner up to that is the email chain about the cop who made an incarcerated individual stand naked while she went to go on break because she was giving him a urine test, and quote ‘ 'thought he needed to think about the way he was acting.' 

Myra: Did they give me these records right away? No. Did I have to sue them for them. Yes. Did we win? Yes. Is this routine? Winning? No. Their withholding of records? Yes. Let’s move onto something less depressing. I’m exhausted. 

Myra: Let's do some at mes. they aren’t email, they aren’t generally asked in good faith, they’re just randoms @ing me on twitter. 

Myra: First, and I get this question more than any other when I talk about PIC abolition. What would you do with the rapists? My serious answer to this unserious question is: What do we do with them now? It seems the only time people are interested in punishing rapists is when you talk about abolition. They certainly aren’t interested when women speak up about the harassment they face in their daily lives – from their male coworkers, their male coaches, their male pastors. I guess if I want to be trite I could say – why don’t we do what the Catholic church did? Transfer them to parishes out of state. Or even more grotesque send them to South America where they are free to harm children that people don’t care about.  Or we could do like what so many people do and just cover it up, tell the people who have been harmed that telling would ruin this young man’s life. We could even elect them to be president. So, my point is, we already keep people we deem important and valuable in society out of prison when they harm people. We do it everyday. Men with high rates of violence against women are in the armed forces and law enforcement. High rates of hurting their wives. What are we doing with them? Besides giving them bigger budgets, and covering their asses. So the next time you ask a PIC Abolitionist what we would do with all the rapists, think about what you’re doing with all the rapists now .  

Myra: Or, let’s ask what the prisons do with their own when sexual harassment is reported. In the case of Theirway Heights, they ignored it until it goes to court and they have to pay out 175.000 to the complainant.  

Myra: Another @ me I get pretty often is ‘you seem so detached.’ I have to be. I had to say goodbye to my best friend Rodgey, my cat – and then in order to get a hug from the only person who could comfort me, I had to come to visit, and not cry. Because If I cry I will be asked to pull it together, and if I cant I will be asked to leave. So, All kinds of news is delivered at tables every visit. Your mom died, your dog died, etc. And silent tears that don’t make anybody else uncomfortable is all we get because you know we wouldn’t want people acting like prison is sad. 

Myra: Okay, so that was even more depressing. So, on that happy note let me say goodbye. Be sure to join us next week where my dissociated emotionless self will tell you what short time is and how it’s the scariest time of his entire incarceration. Until next time, I’ve been great, and you’re welcome.