Sunday, 5/9/10 - Mom

Like a good son, I went to visit my mother today. After all, it is Mother's Day.

I didn't bring her flowers but I did bring her favorite chocolate cake that I made from scratch and decorated all by myself.

Mom likes my cakes so I bring one every time I visit.

I visit Mom every weekend and every weekend it's the same routine.

"What's in the box?"

"A cake."

"Open the box, please."

They look at the cake and always crack the same stupid joke: "There's no file in that cake, is there?"


I have been visiting Mom here for three years and they all know that I bring a cake every weekend. I don't think they care much about security; I think they make me open the box so they can see what kind of cake it is.

I sign in then pass through the scanner while the cake rides a conveyor through an xray machine. They won't find anything, I have seen to that.

Once through security, I head to the visitation room. Mom meets me there.

This is not some TV show, this is reality and in the real world you can visit your mother in prison without being on opposite sides of a glass partition.

The visitation room is a combination rec-room and cafeteria: there are couches and TV's on one side and tables and chairs on the other.

Coffee is over by the vending machines. After kissing Mom hello, I pour us each a cup and take them back to our table.

On the way in I asked the guard for a knife, forks, plates and napkins. He brings the forks, plates and napkins and places them on the table for us but the knife he holds. I open the cake box and tell him to cut two pieces.

I indicate the size of the slices by drawing lines in the air above the cake. He cuts the pieces then uses the side of the knife to serve the slices onto the plates.

Mom thanks him, picks up her fork and takes her first bite. I just nod at him letting him know that we are good and that he can go.

We eat quietly for a few minutes before Mom asks, "Chocolate, huh?"

I reply in the affirmative.

She doesn't look happy but she does understand that chocolate means that this is the last delivery and from here she has to set the whole plan in motion. If things go well, she will be out in a couple of years. If not, well, she was in for life anyway...

As cliche as it sounds, the cakes were the conduit that we used to smuggle things into the prison. Not files like in the movies - God knows I wouldn't want my mother spending years filing the bars on her cell. No, I was sending in knives. Not ordinary knives but ones made out of cardboard.

They are every bit as strong and sharp as metal but, because they are cardboard, they pass through security without being detected and to the eye they look like the folds in the corners of the cake box.

We use ESP and the color of the cake and the decorations to communicate the plan. Chocolate cake with chocolate icing means it's time to make things happen.



...

As the only child to a single, working mother, I spent a lot of time in daycare or, as I got older, by myself. When Mom was around she did her best to make our time togehter... well, I could say "fun" but "interesting" would be a better description. Unlike most kids, I really enjoyed spending time with Mom.

One game that Mom taught me was called ESP. We would ask someone to tell one of us a secret and throughout the course of a normal conversation the secret would be transmitted to the other person. The trick was in subtle hand signals. If a word in our conversation was part of the "secret" then we would use signals on our right hand. If a word in our conversation was related to, but not directly part of the secret, we would signal with the left hand.

We would tell people that we had a special bond and that we were so close that we even shared our thoughts. We got so good at the ESP game that we could communicate almost anything without anyone knowing how we did it.

Being able to communicate like this was how we were able to devise the plan to get Mom out of jail.

...

At first Mom resisted. All I got was a closed right fist, meaning "No". I ran out of ideas and just resigned myself to the fact that my Mother was going to spend the rest of her life in jail and if I wanted to see her it would be in the visitation room on weekends.

On one visit she signaled that she wanted to know more about the plan.

I went through it once again and she signaled that she would think about it.

The toughest part for her to accept was that it took killing a man to get her in here and someone else could die getting her out of here.



...

The plan was simple: get enough knives into the jail and into the right hands and let things take their course.

Mom had told me early on about a group of women who were planning a breakout. The only thing they needed were weapons. Something to let the guards know that they were serious about getting out and if anyone stood in their way they were going to get hurt.

No one was anticipating real trouble - grab one guard as hostage, wave a few knives around, the rest of the guards back off and the women run out the front, into the woods and away. Not a big deal.

Now, don't get me wrong, Mom is not going to hold a knife to any guard. In fact, while all of this is going on Mom will be sitting in her cell.

We get her out when she turns state's evidence and reveals how the knives were made, right there in the jail, along with a list of who was involved and how they tried to recruit her.

If no one gets hurt in the breakout then we should be able to get her out in a couple of years. If someone gets killed, it may only take a couple of months. Not that I am hoping someone gets killed but it would be nice to have Mom out of this place.



...

Mom signals back that she is ready and lets me know that she will try to make things happen on Monday.

I let her know that I will be praying that everything goes well.

She's not happy about this but she trusts me.

She's a good mother.

I finish my cake, take the last sip of coffee, wipe my mouth and stand to leave.

I give her a big hug and tell her, as I always do, that I love her.

The guard opens the door to let me out. I look back and Mom is being let back into the main prison by a guard at the other end of the room. She is carrying the cake box and she looks older and heavier than I can ever remember. There is a smear of chocolate icing on her left sleeve and I realize that she doesn't look very nice in an orange jumper.

I turn and head through the doorway, down the long hall and out into the daylight. All the time I am thinking about how this happened. How did my mother wind up in jail?



...

But I know how Mom ended up here.

I should tell you that Mom didn't kill anyone. I am positive that Mom didn't do it.

I know that because I was the one who killed him.

Mom knows this and she knows enough to get herself out. But her getting out would mean that I would be going in and she is not going to let that happen.

Mom got life in prison for my crime but I guess for a mother life is a small price to pay for one of her children.