| First times, all over again
This first visit was unlike the remaining visits, which are chronicled in my journal. As it became clear that he would live--although "damaged"--the feel of his hospital room began to seem less oppressive. On the first visit I wore my hat and coat inside, but that subsequently was not allowed. Also, my remaining visits took place in a small room, a "Visiting Room," with a large table and chairs and a guard posted at the door. The guard would escort me to the Visiting Room, passing Kenyatta's room along the way. Kenyatta would see me and follow with his catheter and I.V. pole. We sat at the table, opposite each other. I usually came for the 5 to 7 p.m. visit, which included his dinnertime. We both marveled at the fact that he was eating non-prison food for the first time in twenty years, regularly eating things he liked. Milk shakes. Chicken. I enjoyed watching him eat and he enjoyed watching me watch him. As I observed him walking with the I.V. pole during one visit, I said, "The mighty has been brought low." "I don't lahk that," he responded. On several visits, he described hearing a sound and "feelin the movement of the ventilation system grabbin hold of me, my spirit, n carryin me into this time warp." We wondered if it was related to the sound of the subway that fateful early morning of his arrest. His hospitalization was an unforgettable period. My issues--as a woman, as his love, as an "activist"--all played out during The Illness. For example, getting the warden's approval to see him at St. Agnes when I was not "immediate family"--many folks had asked why we didn't get married so we could at least have "trailer" (conjugal) visits and opportunities to spend time together in an intimate environment. For a long time, Kenyatta and I never talked about marriage; we just knew we wanted to be together. I felt he was opposed to it because it required some form of "cooperation/participation" with his captors--and his stance was one of non-participation. Our refusing parole was a form of non-participation. I flirted with the idea of marriage mainly because I saw it as validating my self-worth: "Yeah, I can get a husband." But the idea of making love on prison grounds, under the prison tower with guns at the ready, was a big turn-off. Then my idea about marriage shifted to wanting to get married when Kenyatta came home. But then I realized that it was the same ole need to prove something. For the first time since his imprisonment in 1974, I saw him in a non-prison environment. And in spite of the hovering guards, it was a positive experience. There were so many "firsts" for us during this time. "Firsts" for certain foods for K. For me, spending evenings on the Metro North train with the commuters, getting off at White Plains, taking a taxi to St. Agnes Hospital. Whenever I had taken the Metro North to visit Kenyatta at Fishkill, most of the other passengers were black and Latina women and children. It was just the opposite taking the Metro North to White Plains: The passengers were primarily white men. Watching the "regular" visitors coming and going at St. Agnes, I thought about the "prison ward" upstairs. I was slightly anxious each time I visited about Kenyatta's condition and whether the sergeant on duty knew I had permission to be there. St. Agnes has a beautiful chapel whose interior reminds me of St. Alphonsus, the small black Catholic Church in my North Carolina hometown. I was once a Catholic girlchild terrified of sex and hell, and at the same time thrilled by the idea of both. That dangerousness, that duality, imprisoned me as a child--and imprisons me to this day.
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First times, all over again |