The wife of an incarcerated man shares her thoughts and
an excerpt from her book, “Secrets of an Inmate’s Wife.”
“The voices of the other bus riders faded as exhausted
and irritated children fell asleep as well as most of
the women. I took out a notebook and pad and began to
write a letter to Eric.
“Dear
Eric, I am on my way to see you and so much is going on
in my head and heart. So many emotions I feel like I am
about to explode. I look around me and I don’t belong
here. Why did you destroy us? What we had was so
perfect. I . . “
I ripped up the letter into tiny pieces. I could not go
on. It was turning into the hate and bitterness I did
not want him to know I was feeling. I closed my eyes
and slept the rest of the long ride upstate to Comstock
Correctional Facility because I didn't want to think
about anything else. Everything I thought about now
seemed complicated and sad because this situation made
everything complicated and sad.
It was six o'clock in the morning when the bus driver
announced that we would be at the prison in ten
minutes. When my eyes adjusted to the morning I looked
out of the bus window and there were high mountains
everywhere. Just miles and miles of nothing but
mountains and it was really an awesome sight. It was
beautiful and peaceful and had I not been on a bus going
to a correctional facility I would have really been able
to enjoy this scenery. But because of the situation,
all it made me realize is that my man was truly very far
away from the Harlem we both knew and from the apartment
we had in Queens where I thought that so many of my
dreams would have been fulfilled. As we pulled into the
prison parking lot, I gathered up my leather book bag
that held my identification, toiletries and the latest
book that I was reading.
I got off the bus with the children and all the mothers
that were left alone to carry the load after their men
went to prison. I thought to myself, so this is what
happens when men go to prison and leave women alone.
The women lug tired and frustrated children up to the
prisons early in the morning and they take their own sex
starved lonely bodies up, too. To suffer for a
situation they had no control over. A situation they
did not help create. Women, always paying a debt they
didn't owe. I stopped and looked up as soon as I got
off the bus. Comstock Correctional Facility was an
extremely large building. It was ugly too, like all
prisons. What could be pretty about gray-cemented walls
and barbed wired fences? The wires and the high walls
were simply there to keep men in and keep families
out.”
Excerpt from
“Secrets of an Inmate’s Wife”
African-American male incarceration is constantly on the
rise. This creates a rise in the number of women who
must become both mother and father to children and many
will live in poverty because they cannot take care of
their children without financial support from the
father. But there is no fighting for child support when
the father is incarcerated. There are also many women
who will choose to stand by their incarcerated husbands,
boyfriends and children’s fathers. That decision will
cause them to embark on a journey that will change their
lives forever. They will enter a world they never knew
existed, the world of the incarcerated and the women who
love them. They will visit the prisons and meet other
women who also visit the prisons and they will be
misunderstood and ridiculed by loved ones who do not
understand why they would choose to wait. Not too many
people understand why these women can’t let go. But can
love be turned on then off like a running faucet? Can
it be played like an instrument and then put back into
its case? Or can love be balled up like a piece of
paper and then thrown away? No! Love cannot be turned
off, closed up or simply discarded because some times it
is just too difficult to do so.
For women like me, it was too difficult to let go. Often
we think that if we stand by our men then, perhaps, they
will see that their lives is worth so much more than to
be inside a prison where there is no power and no
control over ones own life. Prison is volunteer
slavery. The auction block is the courtroom where
countless of men are shackled and handcuffed, sent to a
hole called prison and told when to eat, sleep and use
the bathroom. While incarcerated a man cannot earn a
living, he cannot support his family, often he can’t
even gain any real skills and this simply should not
be. So many people suffer when men go to prison. But
nobody thinks about the family that he leaves behind.
They don’t see that we are victims, too. In my book I
share all that I went through as a result of my
husband’s incarceration and my decision to remain in a
relationship with him in spite of it. The way that I
hid what I was doing from others, all of the secrets I
kept as a wife of an incarcerated man and the secrets of
other women who have shared their thoughts with me on
that long ride up to the prison is in this book. Late
at night when we ride the prison buses, it is then that
we can let go to each other, to share with the only
people who truly understand since they are doing the
same thing. “Secrets of an Inmate’s Wife” is
about this experience and so much more.
You can read Gary Johnson's interview with Jaki McCalvin.
This interview was conducted in October 2004.
BMIA Exclusive!
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Jaki McCalvin
What Happens When Brothers Go To Prison and Leave Sisters Alone?
In 2004 we
started a section on the site that dealt with black men
in jail. As a result we started getting "jail mail" and
letters from women who were married to men in prison. As I
read the mail and other material about the incarceration of
black men, I never once thought about the women who are affected and left
behind. Some of these women are mothers who are thrust into the role of
being a father to their children. With one tap of the gavel, some of
these women have gone from housewife to sole financial provider. Others
have been pushed into poverty because of a lack of financial support.
These women are known as “prisoner wives and girlfriends.” Many of these
prisoner wives/girlfriends have decided to “stand by their man” and endure
a life of ridicule from some of their friends and family members. They
keep their love alive with conjugal visits in trailers on the prison
grounds, letters, phone calls and even smuggling drugs for their man.
Many women fight with themselves about whether or not they made the right
decision to support their man.
Why would a woman marry a man that’s not coming out anytime soon? Wanting
to learn more about this phenomenon, I turned to Jaki McCalvin. Jaki
is a prisoner wife. She’s also the author of the book,
“What
Happens When Brothers Go To Prison and Leave Sisters Alone?”
The book is a true story about Jaki’s life as a prisoner girlfriend to
prisoner wife. Readers follow Jaki from the courtroom as Jaki’s boyfriend
is sentenced to 12 years in jail, to her first ride on the bus to the
prison, to her marriage in a prison chapel.
I spoke to many prisoner wives and girlfriends before posting this article
and decided to start off this series featuring Jaki McCalvin's story.
Jaki’s story, although, personal and unique to her situation, was also
representative of several of the women that I spoke with. Like many women
before her, Jaki could not turn her love off like a faucet.
There is so much that takes place in the lives of women who choose to
stand by African-American men after they become incarcerated.
To her credit, Jaki was willing to tell her story in the form of an
interview. We had several conversations before and after this interview
and I give her all the credit in the world because I believe that by
sharing her story, she is doing the work of others.
For me, this was a different kind of story. According to Jaki, this is
not limited to being a black woman. “Many women will be able to relate to
many of the issues that I faced,” says McCalvin. To learn more about what
happens to women when their man goes to jail read our feature interview
with Jaki McCalvin.
The Jaki McCalvin Interview
BMIA:
Jaki, let’s get right to it. What happened when you’re in love with your
then boyfriend, Eric, a man who goes to prison and leaves you alone?
J. McCalvin:
I learned a lot. I became a part of a world I never knew existed, the
world of the inmates and the women who stand by them.
BMIA:
What does the reality of your man going to prison do to your psyche?
J. McCalvin:
It is similar to what a person feels like when a relationship ends. I
went through shock and disbelief, deep sadness and confusion because I
didn’t know what I should do. I asked myself over and over where do I go
from here?
BMIA:
What is Eric serving time for?
J. McCalvin:
Criminal activity related to drug addiction. My husband became addicted
to drugs, like so many men. And drugs changed him. It destroyed
everything that we had built, like it does in any relationship where one
person or both people are involved in drugs.
BMIA:
Tell me about your background. (Age, part of the country you were born,
level of education, etc.)
J. McCalvin:
Well, I was born and raised in Harlem, NYC. I grew up in the projects.
I’ve had training in many things from acting, freelance writing and
currently I’m working on a degree in African-American studies. Right out
of high school I went straight into an advertising company while attending
college at night. From there I worked at a theatre-licensing agency
associated with CBS, I also worked at Fleet Bank as an Administrative
Assistant to the Department Head. I’ve always had great jobs where I
learned a lot. When I was in High School I was in a special program for
four years for gifted young writers after one of my English Teachers read
a poem that I wrote. We had to write a simple poem about a dog. Most
students wrote about their dog, or that they liked dogs. I wrote a poem
called, “Nobody’s Dog.” It was about a lonely abandoned dog, frightened
and hungry, waiting for scraps. I don’t recall all the words but it was
deep and I guess the teacher thought so, too.
BMIA:
Would you say that you have or had low self-esteem?
J. McCalvin:
I never thought I did. Maybe I could have since I let so many people have
a front row seat in my life. It may not be low self-esteem but the way I
was brought up. I was a middle child to two sisters, one who always has
so much drama going on in her life and my oldest sister had Lupus since
she was three. She died a few years ago, I loved her so much. But I took
care of her a lot during childhood and so I think I just got used to
taking care of people and putting my own needs on the back burner.
BMIA:
Generally speaking, would you say that women who wait for and support men
in prison suffer from low self-esteem?
J. McCalvin:
The women I meet and see don’t look like they suffer low self-esteem.
They just love and stand by their man. If a woman’s husband can’t find a
job and she supports him, is she suddenly suffering low self-esteem?
Maybe she just loves her man through the good and the bad, the ups and the
downs. But let me add this. I did an interview about this issue for a
television program recently and when this question was asked, the sister
with me answered it this way, “The low self-esteem comes from having to
hide it, that’s what tears you up. Because you are put down so much by
others.” I think her answer was very accurate.
BMIA:
How did you meet Eric?
J. McCalvin:
I met Eric at a club. He was a real good dancer and that made him very
popular in our neighborhood, so I knew who he was, had seen him around and
had admired him for his popularity long before I actually met him.
BMIA:
Do you feel that Eric was honest with you before he went to prison?
J. McCalvin:
He didn’t tell me he had some things on his record from childhood and
other dustups with the law as a teenager.
BMIA:
Do you believe him now?
J. McCalvin:
I believe that he has finally grown into the man God wants him to be.
Talk is cheap. I see what changes he has made. Even in prison, in a
situation so violent, he rehabilitated himself. He held a position as a
coordinator for several years for the Alternative to Violence Program in
prison. A position that was never held by an inmate in that prison
before. He has character letters from Prison Pastors and outside people
he worked with in the program. I have a lot of respect for him because he
has been through a lot and not only is he enduring it but he is educating
himself and maturing in ways that free black men don’t even do. I have
learned a lot from him. Sometimes it takes a whole lot for a man to
become the man God wants him to be. I believe in what I see and I believe
in change, in what God can do in any of us.
BMIA:
Did you ever hear that “inner voice” in your head that warned you that
“something wasn’t right’ in the relationship? If so, did you ignore it or
act on it?
J. McCalvin:
If I did not think I could change a man I wouldn’t be a woman. But I’ll
also say this, my father did not teach me about men. He did not tell me
what to look for. I looked for love and found it. Also, when you grow up
in Harlem or in any ghetto, the men you meet have the same
characteristics. They all have a tendency to be violent. I ignored any
warning signs because I believed like many women, that if I loved him
enough he could be the man I needed him to be. But I have learned that
what really changes a man is a man that is ready for change.
BMIA:
What’s it like to be sitting in a courtroom and watching your man get
sentenced to serving time in jail?
J. McCalvin:
It was devastating, my heart felt ripped out. I knew my life was going to
change drastically because he wouldn’t be coming home for a long time.
BMIA:
Do you see yourself as an advocate for prison wives and girlfriends?
J. McCalvin:
I have so much to say about this issue and the things I have experienced
and the things I see when I visit the prisons. I have so much fire in
side of me concerning this topic and what I want to tell black men and the
women that visit the prisons regularly. I want to hug sisters who wait
and tell them that I understand and to do what is right for you. I want
to tell them to forget what the world thinks. But I also want to tell
brothers that a change has to come. So I guess I am.
BMIA:
What is a prisoner’s wife?
J. McCalvin:
A prison’s wife is a strong woman, a caring woman. She is a woman who
loves, perhaps, deeper than she should. A prisoner’s wife is someone who
loves unconditionally and knows that love can’t be turned on then off like
a light switch, not real love. She is a woman that has to constantly deal
with negative criticism from her family and friends and society because of
her decision to wait.
BMIA:
Do you have the opportunity for conjugal visits? How does that work in
terms of the atmosphere or environment? (Guards outside the door)? How
long is a typical conjugal visit?
J. McCalvin:
It’s where you get to spend two days and nights with your man alone inside
a trailer just like the ones you can purchase to own. Outside the
trailers are small play areas for children, picnic benches and grills for
barbequing. Inside the trailers are completely furnished. You go in
Saturday morning and leave Monday morning. Or you can schedule a Thursday
morning until Saturday morning visit. Either way, the visit is just two
days and nights. You supply all the food you want to cook and eat for the
whole trailer because once you are there, unless something happens, you
don’t leave. The guards are not outside the door. They are in high
towers above. There is a phone inside the trailers and when it rings, the
inmate must answer it. That is how they take attendance. Sometimes the
inmate has to stick his head out the door and wave to the guard in the
tower. That’s another way they check the attendance. Other than that,
you are alone with your man. Some inmates have their mothers and fathers
and other families visit and the family members seem to have so much fun
cooking and just being with this person that they miss so much.
BMIA:
What is it about being a prisoner’s wife that the general public does not
see or understand?
J. McCalvin:
The general public seems to think that prisoner’s wives are uneducated or
crazy or suffer low self-esteem. They think that we think it is ok, what
our men have done. But we do not condone criminal activity. If anything,
we are trying to help these men realize that they need education, they
need to read more, and they need to change their ways of thinking. That
is what we do and those of the wives that don’t need to start doing this.
Society needs to also see that the wives and children of prisoners are
victims, too.
BMIA:
Talk to me about “prison games.” How is “the game” played?
J. McCalvin:
The prison games I refer to in my book is the ones where inmates meet and
get involved in relationships with women that they consider unattractive
but they do so in order to get the women to come visit (a visit is better
than no visit). They get these women to buy them food, put money in their
accounts and buy them expensive sneakers. You see a lot of brothers get
these gullible white women to do this for them. Then eventually these
women marry these guys who they think love them, but these brothers are
just looking to get "some" on a conjugal visit and they don’t care what
color it is. I don’t like how they play with the hearts and heads of
women like this. Some brothers get released and they don’t even bother to
let the woman know because it was just a game, a prison game.
I’ve seen brothers
play two different women, stringing them both along. One comes up on a
Sunday and the other comes up on Saturday. They never meet and never have
any idea the other is coming. One is his wife who he usually has conjugal
visits with and the other is the girl that he is promising to marry one
day. More than anything I hate how they waste these women’s time - women
who could be getting involved in relationships that are real and lasting.
You see it all the time and everybody’s laughing behind her back because
you know what that’s all about.
BMIA:
How do you reconcile or deal with the lies?
J. McCalvin:
You tell me one person who says they have never lied to their mate in
order to keep certain negative information about them a secret and I’ll
tell you that person is not being for real.
BMIA:
How does prison affect the children, friends and family?
J. McCalvin:
Children have no fathers and they resent their fathers for that. My
husband has a daughter from a previous relationship and she was honest to
admit to him that while growing up, she hated that he wasn’t around.
Other family members and friends must learn how to go on without that
person. It’s as if they died because everybody isn’t going to visit the
prisons. My husband’s mother has never been to see him, never. So she
hasn’t seen her son in more than ten years.
BMIA:
How do you explain “Daddy’s absence” to the children?
J. McCalvin:
I give that responsibility to daddy. He needs to tell them because it’s
not my crime, it's his.
BMIA:
What do you say to yourself and do to get you through the day-to-day
existence of living with your man in prison?
J. McCalvin:
I’d like to think that my life concerns more than just him and the
situation he’s in. It’s when you don’t understand that, that it becomes a
real problem. When you visit so much your own needs are lacking and your
kids are not taken care of because you are always up there. That’s a
problem. There was a time when I put too much into this, but not
anymore.
BMIA:
Do you have any particular feelings toward the criminal justice system as
it pertains to black men in America?
J. McCalvin:
The criminal justice system is unfair to black men, who get more time for
the same crimes white men commit. White men can afford the best lawyers
and buy themselves out of prison, black men can’t. That’s another reason
why there are more black men in prison than whites. But also, prison
takes away power and control. It is a form of slavery that,
unfortunately, black men are volunteering for in record numbers. The
overseer is the judge, the slave masters are the correction officers.
This is the real deal. When my husband stood before the white judge in
his shackles, I mean handcuffs. I thought to myself, damn, this white man
has so much power.
Prison is also a
business. In most states where there are prisons, the warden lives in the
area, the cook, the correction officers, the man that distributes the food
and other supplies from his own business that he started when he realized
there was a need because of the prisons, they all live there and they all
profit off of the large number of inmates in their all white town where
the inmates are usually mostly black.
BMIA:
Why do you wait? I don’t mean to be rude or make you seem as if you’re
crazy, but I would really like to get some sense of the logic that drives
a spouse’s behavior in this situation.
J. McCalvin:
Allow me one chance to flip a question. Would you stand by your girl or
wife if she got cancer or became paralyzed or made a mistake that landed
her in prison?
BMIA:
If she were sick I would stand by her. The prison thing is not as clear.
It depends on what she was in for.
J. McCalvin:
Could you just drop that deep beautiful love just like that?
BMIA:
No.
J. McCalvin:
God calls special people to do special things. It took a special kind of
woman to be Christopher Reeve’s wife. Tell me why I should walk away,
because he made a mistake? I don’t know anybody who hasn’t made
mistakes. I just know a lot of people who never got caught. (Laughs)
The bond I have with my man is probably stronger than what a lot of people
have who are out here. I also got friends who have never found real love
during the entire time my husband has been incarcerated. Some are married
and divorced; some have gone from men to men. One of my best friends
decided she’d rather be gay now because of this. I got another good
friend who have been with so many men looking for love in all the wrong
places that I’ve lost count. Most of them have one or more kids by
different men they are no longer with. I don’t want that.
BMIA:
Jaki, if a woman commits to waiting for her boyfriend, and he’s serving 20
years, what does that “waiting” encompass? What happens if you meet
another man? Is there an “unwritten rule” about the “do’s and don’ts” of
how one should behave when your man/woman is in prison?
J. McCalvin:
It’s no different than any relationship you are in. If you choose to
wait, then wait. Don’t disrespect a brother just because he’s in prison.
Be true to him or just walk away. Trailers take away some of the sexual
frustrations. Most of the women are not looking for other men so they
don’t meet them. When they do they simply tell the man that they are in a
relationship, because they are. If they decide they want to get with the
brother then they tell the inmate that they can’t wait, that they’ve found
somebody else. There is no unwritten rule. I don’t think anyone should
be disrespected regardless of where they are. Anything other than this
would be the flip side of a prison game.
BMIA:
Talk about the network of women you’ve met whose men are serving time in
prison?
J. McCalvin:
I’ve befriended a traffic officer, a woman who works in a prison in the
offices. I’ve met nurses, administrative Assistants for large and
prestigious firms. I’ve met legal assistants. I’ve met hard working,
respectable, educated women. We are just women who simply love who we
love. You can’t fit us into one category therefore people should never
stereotype us.
BMIA:
As the years go by it is easier or more difficult to visit your man in
prison?
J. McCalvin:
What makes it easier is that I continue to grow and understand more and
more about who I am and my purpose, I have learned that his incarceration
does not con
