Can I Just Scream For a While?
Visiting my mom in jail is…triggering
“Terus? You don’t do any work over there in that area mom?” I nodded towards the makeshift work stations by the entrance, where inmates could make clothes, jewelry, and macarme.
My mom frowned and shook her head. “Nggak.”
We were separated by a wire-mesh fence. This was new. We used to be able to sit together, I could massage her calves as she shared the latest prison gossip with me. It used to be full of lovers and children and friends bringing home cooked food and groceries. Tears, hugs, laughter used to fill the air. Today it was just me, and one husband visiting his wife.
“So what do you do? What can you do?”
“They want me to do gardening, tapi mami nggak mau di panas.” She shaped her fingers into the bill of a cap and squinted upwards. She shook her head with disgust at the thought of being burned by the sun.
“Why not mom it’s so good for your mental health! The dirt in your hands, get some sun on your skin?” I tried to sell it, smiling earnestly in the hopes that she would find the motivation to do something, anything, to keep her mind busy in this miserable institution.
“Mama maunya masak, tapi nggak di kasih.”
“What! Why not? You’re such a good cook they would be so lucky to have you in the kitchen!”
“Yaa, naripadana..nggak boleh pegang pisau nanti dipikir I want to kill somebody,” she scoffed. But the bags under her eyes revealed deep resentment.
“That’s so stupid! That’s so stupid. Meanwhile the real murderer is out there already, probably raping little girls who knows where.” I couldn’t contain my exasperation. This was all so fucked.
“Makanya,” she muttered, “Mungkin sudah 10 kali lipat dia buat lagi.”
“Do they know where he is? Where he went after he got out?”
She shook her head.
One of the young jail guards, a pretty, fresh faced girl no older than 23, touched me lightly on the shoulder. “Waktunya sudah habis ya Mba.”
I couldn’t bother to be polite. Ten minutes had gone by in a flash.
“Iya,” I said dismissively. I turned back to my mom. “There’s nobody even here! I don’t understand these rules mom everything is getting more and more stupid.”
My mom grimaced in agreement. I didn’t know how to direct my anger, I didn’t know what to do or say anymore, so I brought up the one thing I thought would one day fix all our problems.
“Can you just let me sell the Pekanbaru house? Then we have money to pay them, to get you better food, to stop living like this.”
“Ya when I get out we will sell it.”
“No mom not when you get out, just let me sell it now! So we can stop living hand to mouth!”
“Who is gonna buy it? Do you even know?” She was getting upset. But fuck it, I was getting upset. She was living in a space and time where nothing moved or changed. I was the one out in the real world, functioning as her ATM whenever she needed food, medicine and clothes. As much as I felt bad for her, I was so angry with her too.
“I’m just saying, if you agree to let me sell it, then it doesn’t matter who buys it. At least we’ll have some money. You will have some money.”
“Wait until I get out, and then we will sell it. You cannot do anything without me.”
This argument again. As if notarists and lawyers and power of attorney didn’t exist. As if every single corrupt politician, judge and prosecutor involved in her case weren’t going to do everything in their power to stop her from going on parole. She was being delusional, and selfish, and cruel. When Yvonne had found a buyer for the house three years ago, she refused to sell. She was hoarding assets that could have helped alleviate our suffering - and for what? Yvonne sacrificed so much for her…I was seeing red, I wasn’t even listening to her anymore. When I tuned back in, all I caught was,
“Yvonne never read the bible-”
“The bible didn’t pay for your food every week! The bible didn’t do anything, Yvonne working her ass off is what helped you this whole time. Yvonne made sure you didn’t have to eat rotten vegetables and stale tofu and could pay the other girls to do the dangerous jail chores you don’t want to do!”
“But if Yvonne read the bible more maybe she still alive,” my mom protested.
“What’s so good about being alive mom?” I knew it was a stupid thing to say, especially from the other side of prison bars, but I searched her eyes for an answer regardless. “Everything is getting more expensive. Life is so damn hard. Maybe Yvonne is happy, in heaven, where everything is peaceful.”
The jail guard popped her head over my shoulder, this time with more urgency. “Waktunya sudah selesai mba.”
My mom’s bottom lip was quivering. There was so much pain in her face. I was such an asshole.
“Okay, I’m sorry, let’s talk about it more next time,” I said.
She nodded.
“Eat the french toast I made okay, tell me if you like it.”
“Okay, okay, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I usually thanked the guards and smiled politely as I left, but today I hated them all. I hated everything. The sun was too bright when I stepped out. It didn’t make sense.
I wanted to scream and release the blur of heated emotions inside of me, emotions I couldn’t even recognize. Resentment towards my mom, rage towards the new prison restrictions, guilt for not doing more to stop Engeline’s murderer from potentially repeating the same sickening crimes. He was out there somewhere…running free on this island.
Why can’t I do more? Be more? Yvonne, I’m not the one who should have lived. I’m a fucking loser, sis, I can’t even keep a job. Why did you leave me… it’s not fair.
It’s not fair, poor me, my life is so hard. Except it really isn’t. I’m in the top 10% of the most privileged humans in the world. I know this. Liam likes to remind me this, even though I already know it. It’s kind of hard to explain ‘I’m just going through a bit of a hard time right now’ without divulging a season’s worth of True Crime.
So come on Christina, get your shit together and do something with your life.
I would love to, Christina, but right now, all I want to do is scream.
Can I just scream for a while?
