Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday [64]
A prison is no cinch for the warden and the matrons, either. And like the inmates and everybody else, they come good and bad. Some of them are fanatics, sure: bitches who have to feel superior to somebody and can only get their kicks by booting somebody in the ass.
But there were honest dedicated people working there who really tried to help you. And they’re the ones I prefer to remember. Like a wonderful Negro matron who was really sharp and pretty-looking. They wouldn’t let her wear make-up and sharp-looking dresses. She was only twenty-eight or twenty-nine. Her husband had died and she had a little girl to support. She studied and went to school and passed the exams.
She almost lost her job about eight times because she was nice and gave the girls a break. She made them go by the rules, but she was always ready to stretch a point in their favor. If the girls played records loud, she’d ask them to shut it off for the night. She had thirty-five to fifty girls in one cottage from twenty years old to sixty-five, and she handled them, and had to handle them, like a bunch of kids, whether they were whores, addicts, car thieves, forgers, murderers.
I was out and gone before the joint got famous for prisoners like Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally. When I was in the joint the big rub was that there weren’t really any celebrities around except me.
The warden and the head matron were very good to me and all the girls. The head matron quit shortly before I left; she was in her fifties, had been in the racket since 1929 and was tired. She wanted to buy a farm and live there where she could see something of her man. Don’t forget, a guard has to live in prison, too, even though they get paid.
At the end, the toughest part is where they offer you all the narcotics you want. This is supposed to show whether you’re really cured or not. They offered me the stuff and I found I didn’t want any, and that was a great kick. But with all the doctors, nurses, and equipment, they never get near your insides at what’s really eating you.
All the time I was in, this artist’s representative, Ed Fishman, used to call the warden long-distance from Los Angeles every day. Fishman promised to do big things for me when I got out. I found out later he was just trying to con me into working for him, but it was great for my morale while I was in to have someone wooing me, if only in a business way.
When it came near time to get out, Fishman told me he had plans for a big concert at Carnegie. And he took over all the arrangements for my coming-out party. Fishman told me there would be reporters waiting in New York, so he suggested I get off at Newark, where he and Bobby Tucker would meet me. I wanted to duck publicity if I could.
There is nothing in Alderson, West Virginia, but a jail. If you get on a train there, you can be up to your ears in mink or you could be wearing a nun’s habit, and you wouldn’t fool anybody. They’d know you were just fresh out of jail. I didn’t care, though, how many people knew I was fresh out. As long as I knew for sure I was. I had never cared what the hell people thought, and jail hadn’t changed that none.
It seemed a long ride on the train, but finally they called Newark. When I got off, faithful Bobby Tucker, the doll, was waiting there for me, and my dog Mister was with him. I knew Mister wouldn’t recognize me, or damn few others. I had gained so much weight and I just plain didn’t look like the girl who had left town ten months before. I was trying to be real cool so nobody would know, in case there was anybody there looking to spot me.
Man, how cheap I played that dog! He not only recognized me, but in a flash he leaped at me, kicked my hat off, and knocked me flat on my can in the middle of that little station. Then he began lapping me and loving me like crazy.
A damn woman let out a scream. Others panicked, began to holler for the police to protect them; there were screams that a mad dog attacked a woman. Pretty soon there were plenty of lights, cameras, and action.