Chapter 24: Char’s letters
“FROM:OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR
DIRECTIVE 437
TO:ALL CORRECTIONAL PERSONNEL
RE:WORDS!
DATE:{BLACKED OUT}
WORDS! These are the weapons of our adversary. What looks like a simple word can carry many meanings. Letters from wives, girlfriends and family members often appear innocent but are not. Pay special attention to “love letters.” Exercise your right of censorship to its fullest. Inmates do not have the right to subvert us. They will stop at nothing. You must be vigilant and on guard against even the most innocent looking adjective or adverb. Do not be lax when confronting a complex sentence, especially the subjunctive. For in the twists and turns of the tiniest phrase, the misplacement of a comma, the use of a semicolon instead or a period—all of these have the greatest potential for subversion.
A case in point: the correspondence attached (re: J. Jennings, 8867-147). She says, “I love you.” Watch it carefully. You ask, “Is it code?” Consider. The “I” is upright and can indicate the prison tower. “Love” means heat and can mean the furnace room which is adjunct to the tower. “You” may stand for “U” indicating that around the tower behind the furnace there are some guns, explosives or other devices. Never fail to check out these insidious clues!
Again, she writes: “I will keep the child.” This sounds like an innocent statement. One filled with affection and love. But who is “the child”? It means something within, something inside that is growing. For subversives it may mean “The Revolution.” Here she is informing him that the Revolution continues. “I will” may mean “Eye Will” or a nickname of an inmate. Check out any “wild eyes,” “willy eye,” or inmates with last name of “Ewald.” There is no end to the contortions subversives will use to foment trouble.
“The Sisters disagree”—clearly her revolutionary cadre. “But I love them more because they still accept me although many see me as an unbridled individualist.” This means that she’s readying to go on a solo mission, one of high risk because “love” to these radicals means a willingness to die heroically. “The child has always been a child and not a fetus. You have always been present to me, right from the moment I realized I was pregnant.” This sounds a bit poetic, even romantic but “pregnant” means ready to explode—she’s planning a bombing! “I have in every way renounced Catholicism and all its male oppressions …” Need more be said? She’s going to bomb a church or assault one of the hierarchy. The Vatican must be alerted!
As to his Uncle, who is also known as Uncle Sam! Although his letters contain only one word, it is fraught with meaning. “Tetelestai.” While it appears to be Greek, and in that language means, “It is finished,” Chaplain Cray says that it is the last word Jesus spoke. But don’t be fooled by this pious reference. Note that it is for certain an anagram. There are an infinite number of words which can be combed from it. This Uncle is a clever man, and there is definitely some cryptic meaning to his sending just this one word, month after month after month.
This Uncle is a political turncoat and considered by many of his former allies to also be a religious apostate. Do not underestimate him. He has immense connections.
Consider some permutations: dropping one of the e’s, you get, “Let’s eat it,” “Tie last tee,” “Ale test it.” Is this gibberish? Hardly. “Let’s eat it” is definitely a code for a drug shipment. Here, experts say, is a perversion of the words of consecration in the Catholic Mass, “For this is my body.”
“Tie last tee” is, in this vein, a reference to “Thai” in his drug connection. Possibly meaning that they have concluded the contract by “tying the last T”—a version of “jotting the last i.”
And “Ale test it” is a reference to their testing laboratory—possibly in Alabama (“Ale-bama”). All in all, the phases of an international drug shipment can be discerned. Needless to say all of his notes have been copied and turned over to the DEA.
Be on your guard. Words are not words! Words are time bombs, ready to explode at anytime. CENSOR widely. CONFISCATE whenever possible.
In conclusion, in this light, it is appropriate to reroute both correspondents’ mail (re: J. Jennings, 8867-147 and Char Clark) using the powers granted to you. END”
{written in long-hand}
“May 18, 1971
Dearest Jared,
I am at a loss as I try to write this letter. It’s been months, now. I know you’re angry. We left—it was a disaster pure and simple. I didn’t know who you were. Are you still the Jared I know and love? I didn’t know if you wanted me to write, I don’t know. I waited for you to make contact. I felt that you had to work all this stuff through, about the pregnancy I mean. I know your Mom visits regularly, but I haven’t talked with her or your family since then. I had to figure it all out on my own. Then the Sisters—several who are in contact with Sean and Matt and others—told me that they were moved out. I thought—some heard that you were moved back into isolation, I mean, the Hole. Did that happen? Where are you? Another horrible thought—that the censors are destroying my letters or yours or both. You bastards! Read this and know that I’m making a copy of this and keeping it for when I can give it to him myself! And Jared, if you do get this, wherever and whenever, know that I love you.
But not knowing whether they are holding up my letters or whether you are hurt, what’s going on in your mind, or if you’re still crazy mad at me, I’m sorry if that is so. I tried to be as honest as I could during our visit, and my letters have been full of love. It’s true, they are me, Jared. Me trying to love you as I do love you!!! Will always love you. And because I love you I am writing this. Please, please open that big dumb head of yours, and that wonderful heart! They haven’t killed that heart? Jared, Jared, Jared, what is happening?
Let me make this clear—I am keeping the baby. Better, not “the baby” but our child, our son or daughter. I bet it is a daughter! I want you to know why. Let me say it as it really is. I’m having this child, our child, because I love you and am also committed to the Sisters. It’s both. I’m not doing this just for you, or just for me, or just for the child, or just for the Sisters. Not true. I am doing it for all of us. Can you understand that?
I’m having this child because I can. This is my act of solidarity with all my Sisters who must abort because they can’t have a child. I am blessed with a community that supports me, and I can, with my job, support myself. What I want you to understand and what I have told the Sisters is that I am becoming a mother because I support my Sisters’ right to abortion. We women must be able to choose—not be commanded. So I want you to understand this criticism in the right light, and from our Catholic perspective your commanding me is a sin! Yes, that stupid, ugly word “sin.” Here, it actually applies!!!
Do you see that? Have you been able to get rid of all that Catholic crap? Think like me for a moment. Think like a woman. Feel like a woman. For God-dess sake do that, please. Just become me, pregnant for a minute and think it through. Feel the oppression. Then maybe then you’ll understand all I’ve been going through.
Let me say that there’s been and there is a male conspiracy to destroy motherhood. Right, “conspiracy” is the right word. Males do gather together in rooms. Those Cardinals do it in Rome, Rabbis in their temples, the Communist males do it in their Party, guys get together in beer halls and corporate boardrooms, and they do plan it out. You know this better than me. In fact you told me this, yourself!
Do you remember when you told me you used to believe in the “ontological inferiority” of women, and that only that argument with Jill Farry made you doubt yourself? Tell me, how did you learn that? In a classroom, right! What is the university but a conspiracy for male dominance? Whose history do they tell us? Who do they cite as the great writers, and what do they write about? And theology! You know that, Aquinas and all those other “guys”!!! What else can anyone call it but a conspiracy? It’s so blatant. So out in the open. So terrible
!!!
And what is it all about, this conspiracy, but control over birthing, baby-making, motherhood? The males tear the baby from the mother’s womb, name it after themselves, and dedicate it to their male god! Can it be any more blatant!!!
I WON’T, I CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN!
If we women are to turn things around we have to, like Cleaver used to yell at the Panthers, “Seize the Day!” Right, we must. And so, this child, our child is ours in a larger meaning of that word. She or he is to be born by a conscious act of mothering, one not made in fear of the male. Not afraid of being disowned because illegitimate. Ugh, what an ugly word! Don’t you agree?!!!
And my not being afraid of being a single parent (translate, “without a man”) is because I am not single. I have you. I do, don’t I?!!
Can we ever not be parents, together, the two of us, no matter what?!!!
And we have the Sisters. But you will come to know what that means.
I must tell you, the Sisters have shown me the holy side of mothering. Despite what the press says, no and I mean NO woman wants an abortion. Not want it, maybe needs it, but not want. You know I mean healthy women, not drug addicts and all that. Listen, we have developed a ritual for aborting. I know this might be hard for you to handle given your past, actually our past. But mothering means bringing life out from death and bringing life to death. We’re not afraid of Death. That’s one of the most important things. Think of it like yourself. You went into that draft board because of Life, and you knew it meant dealing with Death, possibly even being killed. Having a child is the same. So, with the ritual, the Sisters and I talk with the child, touch the child, love the child, send her deep feelings of erotic bonding, right, of strong lover’s energy!!! Oh, it’s simply wonderful!!!
I know your need for ritual. What happens here is we talk about the father. You know why I am not naming you, please, please do understand! But we bring your heart and your energy to the child. See, you are fathering, will always be fathering this child, because fathering, just like mothering, is personal and collective, better to say communal. Oh, I do so want you to father this child!!! DO, DO DO!!!!
Each day more and more people know me as a lesbian. I know that word is difficult for you. I know how much you struggle over supporting your gay brothers. Maybe it is different for you. I just don’t know. Gay men ARE males. Sometimes that’s more than I want to accept, myself. But for me, I cannot be the Char you love UNLESS I step forward and affirm being a lesbian. I know you, and you will try to intellectualize this, talk about historical moments, and—you know I say this with love—be a bit bombastic about it all, but LISTEN! I want you to take this into your heart, take it through your mouth, whirl it around with your tongue, savor it and let it slide down into your heart . . . LISTEN TO ME!!!!
What’s important is the now, my being a lesbian in EVERYTHING I do. How I think and talk and walk. My politics, my religion, my music, my food, the papers I read. Dig it? How I walk. Walk proud!!! I am a full person ONLY when I say “I am a lesbian.” Can you understand? Can you feel what I’m saying?
While you can walk beside me, you cannot walk in my footsteps. That’s just how it is. Cruel as it might sound. Know that I do want you beside me. But I and my Sisters must walk our own path, in our own footsteps, making our tracks.
Maybe you’ll burn this or tear it up or even throw it down the toilet—DON’T!!! If you do, you will lose me. Know, I don’t want you to lose me. I want you to love me. But only as I am, not as we were told to be.
Jared, listen to my heart, I do not understand all this, but with the Sisters I find the strength to share this with you. I believe that YOU can only find yourself, become who you truly are, IF I do what I am doing!!
Now, you may say “That’s paternalistic” or I guess maternalistic, but don’t do that. Listen, this is the mother of your child speaking—WE want to become “we,” but it means all of us must change, be born with this child. She or he is calling us to be together in a truly revolutionary way. I hope—so, so hope that you can hear this and be with us.
Maybe this is its own end. I don’t know. If you do get this and don’t write back, I guess it IS the end. But until I see you and hear it from your lips, until then you are part of this new conspiracy. You and I and the Sisters—and the child—parts of the Lesbian Conspiracy.
NOW, THAT KILLS YOU, MR. CENSOR, DOESN’T IT!!!
I love you. I am your Sister.
Char”
“Jesus, her handwriting’s hard to read! What should I do with this?”
“Stamp it to hell. Bury that puke where it belongs!”
“Fucking queers, ain’t they!”
{Censor Stamp}
(note from Uncle Sam—on Stationary)
Samuel Jennings
TETELESTAI
(scribbled signature)
“Here’s another one.”
“They come regularly.”
“Does he think we’re idiots? Just one word, and we’re not supposed to suspect something?”
“Just deal with it as usual.”
{Censor’s Stamp}