With Love, From Inside
by the Dropped Keys Theatre Company
Sam Aupperlee, Henry Baratz, Leah Block, Myah Bridgewater, Tyrice Bullitt, Jordan Danski, Maranz Davis, Taurean Flowers, Arin Francis, Talley Marita Glynise, Nathan Goldberg, Jeffrey Dale Hilburn, D’Artagnan Little, Ashley Lucas, Steven Lucas, Myles Mathews, Mary Heinen McPherson, CC Meade, Gary Mitchell, Sarah Oguntomilade, Clemente Peña, Shaylarena Eugene Plaster, Adam Rogers, Richard Strong, Jack Weaver, Cozine Welch, Casey Wilcox, and Steven “Swerve” Wilcox
SHOW OUTLINE
SCENE NINE: PRISON GUARDS’ HOLIDAY PARTY
SCENE TWELVE: PRISON SUPERSTITIONS
SCENE THIRTEEN: LOVE IN THE PRISON LIBRARY
SCENE FOURTEEN : TEACHINGS FROM THE MUSKRAT
SCENE FIFTEEN: THE HENDRICKS UPDATE
SCENE SIXTEEN: LETTER ABOUT MAMA
LINK TO SOUND DESIGN BREAKDOWN
COLOR BREAKDOWN:
PROJECTION QUEUES
LIGHT QUEUES
SOUND QUEUES
We see an empty stage full of (14) chairs. Downstage left is a Cozine’s special chair and his guitar. Downstage right there is a mailbox. Several letters are hung on the back wall of the stage. The ones that include maxims are numbered.
Cozine enters. He takes us in. Then one by one, Cozine takes all the envelopes without numbers off the wall.
He takes this large stack of envelopes and walks over to the mailbox.
He puts them inside (with love).
Cozine sits in his special chair. He picks up his guitar. He begins underscoring “Burn My Bones.”
One by one each member of the cast enters and grabs a letter from the mailbox. They each open them. These are all the letters from Scene 13 and start being read aloud to themselves in an overlapping/montage.
As each actor finishes their letter, one by one, they all sit.
We are left with Cozine.
Cozine sits playing guitar and singing the chorus of “Burn My Bones.” One actor (NATHAN?) takes their letter and walks it over to Cozine and returns to their seat. Cozine opens the letter, looks at the audience, and begins.
COZINE
You know, I used to hate the guitar and everything it represented. To me, guitar meant a future no power on earth could shape for me, a mother no judge or jury would let me hold. I couldn’t see beyond the bruising wound of loss to see the lifeblood pumping beneath. But, my mama, my
COZINE (CONT.)
mama LOOVED the guitar. Her father, my papa, taught her when she was just a little girl. And she would always tell me,
“Baby, your Papa saved my life when he gave me that first guitar. It may not have saved me from being here, but it kept me alive long enough to have you.”
We would talk and talk and talk, stretching those scant 15 minute calls from Scott’s Correctional Facility and later Women’s Huron Valley into poetic lectures on everything from fingerpicking jazz rhythms to how a guitar made with the right type of wood and feel could make even fumbling fingers find the soul of song.
Her music was magic, but her words were CREATION. As a little kid, I would wait day in and day out by our mailbox. And with each new parcel of her love my mama would teach and raise me.
And I would pour over her letters, scribed in a perfect, flowing script that I’ve never seen matched by another’s hand, filled with a wisdom that seemed too ancient, too anchored and too beautiful to be confined in such an ugly ass place like prison.
She would alllllways ask to be sure I got her letters.
Especially when the “2nd Look Legislation” was waiting to be passed. This bill was finally going to be a chance for her judge to be able to review her sentence, her excellent conduct while inside, and her increasingly poor health over the years–everything over the last 35 years and, there was such a sense of urgency from her. And I can’t lie, after over 30 years it finally seemed possible. Finally seemed real. A chance to see, again, to be again, a family.
And for that whole year before she passed on, once a month she would send me: Mama Drama’s “newsletter.” This boutique periodical was filled with the thoughts and plans and parts of her that she collected for me. My favorite parts of the newsletters were the STORIES. And I still don’t know if they were true… but why would I let a fact get in the way of a good story, right? She would have names and characters. A little script, if you will. And always, always in these letters and stories she shared with me a whole world of life and living going on inside of these dead walls where she would say that…
“the lights are always on, but it’s a very dark place.”
Her newsletters made me realize that we weren’t the only family in this situation. I started volunteering with prison activist groups like the American Friends Service Committee, Nation Outside, and Safe and Just Michigan. Lots of letters from folks inside come through these places. When I would sit and wait for my Mom’s letters, I eventually started keeping track of everyone’s - not on purpose, but as if there was something inside of me that just had to. If I didn’t do it, who would?
COZINE (CONT.)
But enough about me, that’s not what y’all came here to see. Right? No? Maybe one of you?
Anyway, the best parts of all her stories were the morals, so I thought I would share some with you today. You know, the moral of the story? But don’t worry, this isn’t some fairytale bullshit. These are my mom’s stories brought to life by her life maxims— rules to live by. I would read them over and over again. They were my favorites. Hands down.
Looks knowingly at the audience with a smile. Now with letter #1 in hand.
So, why don’t we start at the beginning?
PROJECTION C: PROJECT SLIDE #3: THE FIRST MAXIM.
COZINE
A wise man is a teacher to a few, but everyone is a teacher to a wise man.
Maranz enters hurriedly. He is on his way to a PCAP workshop.
Paul (Adam)
Hey man. You got a sec.
Maranz (Nathan)
I’m actually / on my way –
Paul
Great. So I’ve got a little situation goin’ on with Stewart right now. You know Stewart? Always on about capitalism and shit
Maranz
I do, but now –
Paul
Yeah. So, Stewart stole my noodle the other day. And I just don’t really know what to do… you know I don’t really wanna make it worse than it is. So I just was wondering if maybe you could say something to him. Maybe not from me but just you know so he knows I noticed it was gone?
Maranz
Sure, dude. I’ll say something when I see him. I just gotta go to workshop right now.
Paul
Thanks man. I’ll see ya.
Maranz starts to exit. Stewart enters.
Stewart (Henry)
Hey! Chi!
Maranz
What's up?
Stewart
I need you to do me a little favor.
Maranz
Is this about the thing with Paul?
Stewart
Uh yeah… he already told you that?
Maranz
I think maybe if you just give him his noodle back or maybe buy him something else…
Stewart
That's fucked up . No, I bet he didn’t tell you what happened. So about a week ago - yeah, I think it was last Sunday, so yeah, about a week ago, Paul asked to borrow my notebook and some of my gel pens. He wanted to write a letter or / something and now
Maranz
I’m actually in a bit of a rush right now-
Stewart
Wait. This is important to the story. So basically he was only supposed to borrow that stuff for the day, and well, it’s been a week, and I still haven’t gotten it back, so I just figured I’d take some of his stuff cause he likes to take mine.
Maranz
Did you ask for your notebook back?
Stewart
No.
Maranz
Maybe you could just let him know you want your stuff back and give him his noodle back. I have workshop right now, maybe the two of you can figure it out?
Stewart
Mhm… I already ate them. Maybe you could just ask for it back. (spots PAUL across the yard) Yeah, he’s right over there could you just…
Maranz goes back to Paul.
Paul
I saw you talking to him.
Maranz
Yeah, there was something about a notebook and some gel pens you borrowed so maybe you could just give them back to him. I really gotta get going. Workshop is like the only thing I have for myself.
Paul
Well, that’s how I feel about my noodle. Can’t you do something? You’re so good at settling shit.
Maranz
Man you should just talk to him and explain how you feel. Look. Here he comes.
STEWART joins MARANZ and PAUL
Stewart
Hey.
Paul
What’s up?
Beat.
Maranz
I feel like maybe we should just clear the air right now. You both have taken things from each other and maybe we can just return those items and put this all in the past.
Stewart
I told you you could borrow my notebook for the day. And it’s been a week.
Paul
I thought you said that I could have it?
Stewart
No, man. I needed that back.
Maranz
See, it’s all just a misunderstanding. Sometimes we don’t see things as they really are, we see them how we want to see them.
Paul
Oh my bad. I have it in my locker. I can get it back to you tonight if you bring my noodle back. I know it was you who took it.
Maranz starts to slip away unnoticed.
Stewart
Uh… yeah I guess if you wanna bring my stuff by later I can get you your noodle back.
Paul
Cool. Chi, you – Chi? Where’d he go?
Stewart
I don’t know. I think he was saying something about workshop?
SETTING: A community circle inside a prison, perhaps a PCAP workshop.
ASHLEY
I had to go to prison to get married. The women I met inside convinced me that it was the right thing to do.
I was visiting a theatre workshop called the Sisters Within inside Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in 2009. A group of university students was going into the prison each week to devise plays with the incarcerated women. They were telling each other love stories as a way to begin working on their next play. When it was my turn, I told them about Phil.
When I was sixteen and he was seventeen, we went to the Washington Journalism Conference in DC. There were high school kids from all over the country there, and we were separated into groups for the week. My group was standing in front of the Washington Monument and needed someone to take our pictures. Phil was passing by with his group, and he was the unlucky soul who we bombarded with twenty-five film cameras so that we could all have the same picture.
Later that week, we ended up sitting next to each other at dinner. I didn’t know that he hadn’t had the money to pay for his meal, so he was stuck eating just the free dinner rolls. He took a bite out of one and acted like it was talking to me. We laughed all through dinner and then went with each other to the dance that night. He thought I was cool because I knew how to do the macarena. On the bus ride back to the 4-H club at the end of the night, we were still talking up a storm. I have no idea what I was saying, but in the middle of a sentence, he kissed me.
The next day I had to fly back to Texas, and he returned to Michigan. We wrote letters to each other every day for a year. Almost exactly ten years after we’d first met, we reunited in Milwaukee and called it our “second date.” We’ve been together ever since.
SISTER WITHIN (Sarah)
Um, so what are you waiting for?
EMPHATIC SISTER (Leah)
Girl, he has basically already put the ring on your finger!
WOMAN IN THE WORKSHOP (CASEY)
It would be wrong not to marry that man!
A cacophony of sounds arises,
everyone shouting remarks that Ash should marry her boyfriend until….
EMPHATIC SISTER
What is holding you back? I swear that if I wasn’t in prison, I would marry him for you!
ASHLEY
Well, nothing really except for the fact that my father is in prison, and I can't bear the idea of walking down the aisle and him not being there to witness it.
Silence, as this moment sinks in for the entire room.
WOMAN IN THE WORKSHOP
I understand. But he would not want you to put your life on hold for him.
SISTER WITHIN
I’ve been locked up for twenty years now, and my daughter got married without me present.
Did I feel any less love on that day? Of course not.
EMPHATIC WOMAN
Okay, so here’s what you do! You hold a spot somewhere at the wedding where your father should be, and you’ll both know that he’s right there with you.
ASHLEY
Okay. I will, and I’m going to hold a spot for all of you, too.
The Sisters surround and embrace Ash as the scene changes.
Wedding music plays–on Cozine’s guitar or sound cue.
Someone puts a veil on Ash.
Wedding Guest enters with a big, beautiful sign and puts it on a seat next to Mary.
WEDDING GUEST
Special delivery for the mother of the bride!
Ash slowly walks down the aisle.
Smiles at her mother,
then drops a pair of keys by the chair the sign is in front of.
ASHLEY AND PHIL
I do!
Shift in lights/sound
Cozine is handed letter #2. He opens it.
COZINE
(To himself:) Oh, this is a good one.
Respect your body when it’s asking for a break. Respect your mind when it’s seeking rest. Honor yourself when you need a moment for yourself.
Cozine hands the letter to Mary.
She “reads” from it.
LIGHTS UP ON MARY
MARY
This is the story I took out of prison. This is the story of the pit.
I arrived at Florence Crane Women’s Prison, which was once a turn of the century state school. One of the guards told me that she was a real estate agent, and for years, she was not able to sell any property within a hundred miles of where we sat because the land was contaminated with bird droppings from the rainforest in South America where the farmers went down and made a business out of shoveling up the shit and spreading it all around the local farmland. The prison had a strange smell. If you put a cup of water in the microwave to make coffee, it came out with salt and these little white crumbly things on top of it. The water looked oily and smelled. None of us knew what was in it, but we knew it wasn’t safe.
On top of that, the place was covered in asbestos in the ceiling tiles and in paper wrapped around the pipes. The visiting room had signs on the walls that said, "Do not drink the water.” And I noticed the guards didn't drink the water or eat the food given to prisoners.
Time went on. I was there almost 12 years. And I found some things out from my friend the lDiane, who was like the FBI. I mean, she was all over the prison. And she came to me one day and said, “You're not going to believe this one …. There's big bags of water softener in the basement next to the water tanks, and they're adding salt to the water on top of the nitrates from the fields.” I said, “Holy shit!” No wonder women are having periods for two and three months, miscarriages, strokes, cancer, hepatitis, you name it. We were always sick.
Then one day there were pipes broken in the front yard, and water was all over the place. They started digging a pit as big as an Olympic sized pool. Then they hit the sewage pipe, and the pit filled with raw sewage you could smell everywhere. The only good thing about it–I shouldn't say this, but I’m going to–it was that the guards had to pass it for shift change.
It was the summertime when you could smell the manure that they laid on the fields on top of the smell of the pit. There were flies and mosquitos everywhere. There were outbreaks of hepatitis C and tuberculosis. And the women had very little protection or health care.
During this same time, we had been trying to get someone to stop the terrible sexual abuse that had been happening in the prison. Women were being assaulted and raped in the back closet and
MARY (CONT.)
the basement. It was hidden upstairs, and it was in the laundry room. That went on until the feds walked in one day.
So, one day they called me to the Control Center for a visit. So I'm like, "A visit? I'm not supposed to have a visit today." I walk in, and there stand two attorneys from the Department of Justice, wearing Savile Row suits. One shakes my hand and says, “I'm your new attorney from the Department of Justice. I'm here to inform you that we are going to represent you on a sexual assault class action lawsuit, and we're very glad to meet you.” So the litigation began and they started taking depositions of the women who went to the control center one by one and testified about how they were assaulted and what had happened to them.And these were people that never talked about anything. My own bunkie never told me anything about being raped until we were home for years. You just didn't talk about it because it was so dangerous. But it was an open secret, like the fact that we were being poisoned by the water. I thought that if we were getting legal help with the sexual assault case, we ought to get someone to stop them poisoning us with the water, too.
So I started gathering evidence about the water and gave it to the Department of Justice, and they came back to me and said, “Mary, I'm sorry to inform you we can't do anything about the water because it’s so comprehensive and involves the whole community. We would have to file on behalf of everybody for 100 miles. We don’t have that kind of money, and we’re already handling a sexual assault case worth billions of dollars.”
The prison was so toxic that they had to close its doors on November 1, 2000 and move all the women out, but they couldn’t afford to tear down the building because the environmental clean up was too expensive. Florence Crane Correctional still stands shuttered and empty next door to the Lakeland Correctional Facility where 1,500 men are still held captive.
When I came home, I went to funeral after funeral of the women who had come before me. They died of strokes, hepatitis, and rare cancers the the women of my generation are dying quickly. We buried our friends, and the prisons buried the records. When the feds came in, we saw nurses from the prison using wheelchairs to take our medical records out the front door and hide them in the trunks of their cars. The official records of our poisonings have all been destroyed.
And so the story of the water and how they poisoned us was not told in court. That story was never told anywhere but here.
Mary closes the letter.
Perhaps another one is opened? Or some sort of visual/auditory transitional queue?
Lights? Sound?
Peaches and Cookie in their beds. Peaches struggling to breathe.
PEACHES (Arin)
Cookie? Cookie, I need help. I can’t breathe, Cookie. They took it. My lung. They have it.
Peaches rolling over in a daze.
COOKIE (CC)
Come again? Didn’t hear you right.
PEACHES
The guard took my lung, Cookie. I’m serious. I watched her walk off with it.
By now it’s probably on its way to the truck bound for somewhere that’s not here.
Need your help, Cookie. Find my lung.
COOKIE
Oh my god. Stay with me, Peaches. Focus on your breathing, slow, in and out, in and out.
Doofus guard begins to drag a bin across stage.
Cookie hears and begins to call out.
Hey! HEY Officer D!
DOOFUS (Casey)
…
COOKIE
Stop! Please, stop! Something is in that bin that shouldn’t be.
DOOFUS
Huh?
COOKIE
Peaches’ lung! You’ve taken Peaches’ lung! I don’t know if you did it on
purpose. I don’t know if she’s even still breathing right now,
and I need you to check for it immediately in that bin.
DOOFUS
(Opening the bin, glances) Nope, no lung. Only trash.
Doofus continues to walk away.
PEACHES
HELP. ME.
DOOFUS
Why don’t you bring her up to the infirmary? Get her a kite.
Make sure she fills it out though. Can’t have you doing it.
I’m on my way up there right now with this bin.
COOKIE
Can you help me carry her?
DOOFUS
Uhh. I’m a little overwhelmed right now, if you can’t tell.
Doofus shuffles along to the infirmary where
she dumps the bin at the feet of Doc.
Back in their cell with no help,
Cookie begins to lift Peaches to her feet.
DOC (Leah)
Ahhh, Doofus, right when I need you the least, you always seem to show up.
My break’s just started; well, technically it never ended. I love a slow day. You got any extra medical supplies?
DOOFUS
Nope. Just trash.
DOC
Alright screw it. We never have what we need. Go ahead and throw that yonder by the
dumpster. It’s not like we’re saving any lives today.
Doofus shuffles away with no regard, passing
Cookie and Peaches on their way to the doctor.
Peaches sees the bin passing by and clings on to it,
Doofus doesn’t notice and continues to drag
bin and Peaches toward the dumpster.
Cookie unsure of what to do, rushes to the
Doctor. Peaches falls to the ground.
COOKIE
HEY! HELP! We have an emergency!
DOC
WOAH! OUT! Get out!
You wait by that door with your kite until I’m ready.
COOKIE
NO, NO, IT'S NOT FOR ME!
WE HAVE A PERSON IN CRITICAL CONDITION!
You’re the only one I know who can help!
DOC
(Poking her head out the door) Oh shit, she doesn’t look too good.
DOC
\Alright, you can come in.
Peaches crawls to the door, helped by Cookie.
Doc holds out her hand.
Kite?
COOKIE
Here!
Hands her the kite.
DOC
No, no, no. This is no good. She needs to fill out her own kite, okay?
Run along and go get another. Lay down here while we wait.
Cookie rushes off, Peaches and Doc sit in silence,
only sound is Peaches’s breathing.
DOC
That sounds bad. Yup, I’ve been there, bad, bad cold.
Usually goes around this time of year.
PEACHES
No lung.
DOC
You can’t keep coming down here because you’ve got a little wheeze.
PEACHES
No. No lung.
You stole it.
DOC
What did you say?
Cookie enters, presents kite.
COOKIE
Here!
Peaches scribbles on the kite.
PEACHES
AAHHhuHA
DOC
Okay, okay, but this is a one time thing. None of the
other doctors around here would be doing this for you.
They don’t care about the practice.You’re lucky I do.
Doc begins to inspect Peaches’ lungs.
DOC
Oh my. Oh. God. Doofus! COME BACK HERE WITH THAT BIN!
Doc, Peaches, and Cookie making frantic noises, arguing.
Doofus shuffles on back.
DOOFUS
Huh
COOKIE
WHERE IS IT?
DOOFUS
The lung?
DOC
YES!
DOOFUS
I threw it away like you told me to.
Cozine is handed letter #5. He opens it.
COZINE
When the past calls, let it go to voicemail. It has nothing new to say.
GENERAL WASH LIGHTS UP. SPOTLIGHT DOWNSTAGE LEFT DOWN.
PROJ H) PROJECT SLIDE #8: COFFEE SHOP.
TAUREAN (Jack/Myles/SAM)
My dreams are what got me through my time inside
And seeing them come true on the outside has been mind-blowing.
One year ago today I opened I’m So Cookies and Coffee,
The first 24-hour cookie and coffee shop EVER – as far as I’m concerned.
I knew it was a good idea from the reactions I was getting from the college kids,
but to see how the press reacted blew my mind…
Back to the day
MAYOR (CC)
Welcome one and all to the grand opening of I’m So Cookies and Coffee! I am honored today to present the scissors for our ribbon cutting! I happen to be a huge fan of both cookies and coffee myself!
Hands giant scissors to Taurean
MAYOR
Take it away, Mr. Flowers!
Taurean cuts ribbon.
REPORTERS (Casey, Arin)
(overlapping)
How’s the big day going?
How long did this take you?
Any plans for expansion?
How are you going to run this by yourself?
What is I’m So Cookies and Coffee going to look like in ten years for you?
TAUREAN
(picking one reporter to ask a question so he can hear)
Alright — Yes you! (pointing)
REPORTER 1 (Arin)
So what were you up to before “I’m So Cookies”?
TAUREAN
Umm, yeah… I’ve just been making plans for my shop for a while just… planning planning planning!
REPORTER 2 (Casey)
Of course, but what were you doing to support yourself?
Surely you hadn’t been shut away somewhere all that time, had you?
TAUREAN
You’d be surprised! Alright! That’s all the time I’ve got!
Back to the present
TAUREAN
I’ve never been so tongue-twisted in my entire life!
Trying to avoid the “I was in prison” conversation on live TV is something you only know if you’ve experienced it.
I commend those who don’t hide from the fact that they were in prison, but I just want to move on.
Anyway, about six months ago, business was doing so great, I hired my first employee!
Tauren and Khalil greet each other with a long-winded/ intricate handshake,
signifying they’ve known each other for years.
TAUREAN
Okay, so you know where everything is now. Do you think you're set to open up the shop today?
KHALIL (Henry)
Course, Flowers! I’ve got it covered – give people who want cookies coffee and give people who want coffee cookies. Simple! No
Taurean gives Khalil a look like, “Don’t screw this up for me, bro.”
I worked the kitchen when we were inside – remember! This is a piece of cake – or should I say cookie? – See what I did there?
TAUREAN
Alright, man! No time for jokes! There’s a huge line of customers coming! Get ready!
A line of customers rushes in excitedly chattering.
Welcome to I’m So Cookies and Coffee! How can we serve you today?
Abruptly, a guard interrupts the scene.
GUARD (Sarah)
(unfriendly)
Flowers! You’re standing too close to the volunteers! If I have to tell you again, I’m ending this workshop.
Everyone freezes.
The stern-looking woman leaves.
The students back away from Taurean and Khalil.
TAUREAN
(defeated) Um.. so yeah..that’s the dream. I know it sounds crazy.
KHALIL
Nah, man, it's not crazy! I see it already: you and me, cookies and coffee, twenty-four-seven! I like the way you think, Flowers!
Everyone echoes their agreement.
TAUREAN
This ain’t a place for
flowers or their dreams. There is no
sun. We never get
rain. The only-dirt-we-got is concrete.
The only-pot-we-got is
the type that lands you here.
Ain’t no
room to grow before you’re
treading on someone else’s ground. All the
seeds you got are
confiscated and drowned.
This
ain’t a place
for Flowers.
Everyone in workshop snaps.
Cozine is handed letter #4. He opens it.
COZINE
Anyone who is comfortable spending time in solitude is a powerful person.
Several actors circle around CC, repeating “Anyone who is comfortable spending time in solitude is a powerful person.” During the following monologue, CC performs a movement piece.
SOUND QUEUE 1 GO
GENERAL WASH LIGHTS UP. SPOTLIGHT DOWNSTAGE LEFT DOWN.
NARRATOR (Myles reads while Cozine plays instrumental music underneath.)
“The Hole” by Richard Strong
Being stuck in a prison cell is similar to being in a living hell.
You are crying out for help but have no one to tell.
Trapped alone and forced to face your fears by yourself has a
traumatic effect on your mental health.
The days are long and the nights are cold,
the toilet you use is 3 feet from where you sleep,
the walls are full of mold.
Hearing people scream all night, it is impossible to sleep,
you are put on a “dog leash” and walked to a caged shower only two times a wejek.
The food is cold and old
so you barely can eat,
but the mice and spiders grab whatever food falls to your feet.
You become too numb to cry, so you close your eyes and pray that you die.
The only question you can ask God is “Why?”
The days and nights alone make you feel empty,
I thought “segregation” was outlawed in the 1960's!
Before you are even thrown in the cage,
you are stripped naked and shackled like a slave.
After spending time in “The Hole,”
I will never be the same,
the treatment in segregation is inhumane.
If good people stand by and watch the wicked oppress, who is to blame?
I am out of the hole and I still pray, but now I pray for change...
ADAM (MAYBE ARIN AND SARAH IN HARMONY?)
(Sings)
If I had my way
If I had my way in this wicked world
If I had my way
I would tear this building down!
Lights on Cozine. Suddenly, he gets an inclination to open another letter. It could come from the back wall, or from the mailbox.
It’s a letter from his Mom.
COZINE
(to the audience)
It’s from my friend Calvin who’s a poet inside the walls. This dude can write!
You know, birds are assholes.
Yeah, you heard that right.
Birds are assholes.
Wait . . . well, okay,
Seagulls are assholes.
Not all birds, I don’t think. Though
I have heard some pigeon stories from Mound Correctional
that give me pause.
But I don’t want to
indiscriminately hate
on a whole section of the animal kingdom, so
just seagulls then.
I realized this while walking to chow
(cabbage casserole)
when I noticed an intentional
swoop to their flight maneuvers;
the intent behind the action as
clear and calculating as any
expertly executed bank, roll, or dive.
From on high they
hop from atop their perch
on the 50-foot light pole,
dive low over our heads like
Maverick and Goose buzzing the flight tower,
and then glide high
up and over the fencing that
binds us here, that keeps us confined to this place.
And as they sail over that
razor-wired concertina CONstruct
I can swear that I see them look back over their
dingy, white-plumed wings,
a glint of humor in their too intelligent eyes,
as they knowingly do
that which we cannot.
The sounds, the noises they make?
Laughter.
They make fun of us.
And then,
as if insult alone just isn’t enough,
as if they just have to work more salt-rub
into our
already too tender egos,
what do they do?
They shit on us.
Yep,
we the unsuspecting inmates
lined up outside waiting for our
morning/mid-day/late afternoon
serving of gruesome gruel,
they shit on us,
laughing their tail feathers back
up and over
to the other side of the fence.
Out of our reach, they shit on us.
Hmmm. Were they sent from Lansing?
Does the MDOC have a contract with them, too?
I shared this epiphany, this
enlightened moment of clarity, this
glimpse of insight into the nature of our avian antagonists
with my big homie one day.
And what did he think?
“Uh-oh. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest,” he said.
“That’s you, bro. You on that bird shit.”
Yeah.
Maybe.
Cozine takes center stage.
COZINE
They called it the Second Look Legislation.
Cozine stares out.
This bill is a way for judges to revisit long prison sentences in the state of Michigan to see if someone should be resentenced. It meant the people who put you here - the ones who took mama away - admitted they coulda been wrong. That mama really didn’t deserve to be stuck behind bars like that. I was so glad they were finally recognizing her for what she was. I only wonder why it had to take ten years.
Cozine is handed letter #3. He opens it.
COZINE
Never forget three types of people in your life: 1. Who helped you in difficult times. 2. Who left you in difficult times. 3. Who put you in difficult times.
GENERAL WASH LIGHTS UP. SPOTLIGHT DOWNSTAGE LEFT DOWN.
Setting: The large home of a senior prison guard during the annual MDOC holiday party. SOCK PUPPETS.
BOSS (Jack/CASEY)
Thank you, thank you! Alright first things first. We have some new folks joining us this year, so let's quickly go around and say our names and where we work.
I’ll start! I'm Mr. Boss. I’m the Director of Prisons. I work in the Lansing offices, and I am the most important person here.
FROTH (Leah)
Hey-o, I’m Froth, and I’m at Body Odor Correctional, or BOC for short.
MUSCLE (Cozine)
I’m Muscle. I work with Froth at BOC. Bros at BOC, yo!
Froth and Muscle high five in a funny sock puppet way.
RON (Adam)
Ron. Hell Hole Correctional.
CELESTE (Nathan)
Hey, guys. I’m Celeste. I work at Highly Questionable Correctional.
FISH (Henry)
Hi, I’m the Fish. I work at Seriously Really Miserable Correctional.
BOSS
Alright, let’s get through some quick logistics, and then we can celebrate the holidays!
Pulls out a little puppet sized piece of paper.
There have been an absurd amount of reports of inmates being caught with drugs recently. Last year we caught 35% of our inmates using drugs. This is close to the national average. However, this year we caught 1,973 inmates out of 1,974 inmates using drugs at BOC. That literally means only one inmate was not caught using drugs this year. Why might this be? That every inmate but one was caught using drugs?
FROTH
What?! No way! That’s a lot…!
MUSCLE
(approaching Froth not so surreptitiously)
Hey, man. Give me the stuff. I’m getting a call from a customer outside.
Froth passes a bag of white powder to Muscle and tries to hustle him out the door
while pretending she’s still totally focused on what the Boss is saying.
FROTH
Geez! Wow, Boss! That’s crazy!
BOSS
Froth, would you happen to know anything about this?
FROTH
You know… I don’t, you know? You know, I knew I was high–it was high; I didn’t think it was this high… Wow… you know?
BOSS
(light heartedly) No, we don’t know. Is there anything you suggest we do about it?
FROTH
You know… It’s probably all the visitors and volunteers hiding drugs in their shoes! Right, Muscle?
Muscle is back.
MUSCLE
Yeah. Totally, Froth. It’s the visitors hiding shit in their shoes! That’s how the drugs are getting into BOC. It’s like every visitor coming in there is wearing shoes, man. Even those church volunteers. Every last one of them people is wearing shoes! That’s gotta be it!
FROTH
Yes! From now on all visitors should be shoeless! Wait! No! That would be gross for our visitors. Wait! Then we should make the inmates be shoeless, so that they can no longer hide drugs from us!
BOSS
Oh? Unconventional… but I like it. This is why we keep you around Froth. So from now on our inmates will be shoeless.
FISH
(excited to help) Can’t they just hide shit in their other clothes… or their socks?
The sock puppets gasp!!!
ALL BUT FISH
(together)
THEIR SOCKS?!?!?
(overlapping with one another)
Who would use SOCKS that way?
It would be CRAZY to put drugs in SOCKS!
Only those nasty prisoners would think to do something like that!
Degenerates! Freaks! SOCK ABUSERS!
FROTH
Clearly these strip searches aren't as effective as we thought! So, I suggest we get rid of the clothes… entirely, except for the socks, of course. The prisoners can’t hide anything if there is nothing to hide them in.
RON
This makes my job easier.
BOSS
This is brilliant. I love it. No more shoes and no more clothes! It’s so great when we make big policy decisions at the holiday party!
Alright now’s the time where we award Warden of the Year! This year’s recipient has knocked it out of the park! He has managed to give out four hundred thousand major misconduct tickets over one calendar year. That is almost one ticket a day for each inmate for a whole year at Hell Hole Correctional. For this, we award Warden of the Year to Ron! Way to go, Ron!
RON
Thank you. You know we have a saying at Hell Hole: The more tickets, the more time. The more time, the more dime! Thank you very much.
CELESTE
Pardon my interruption, but this “no clothes” thing is making me a bit uncomfortable. I don’t see how this can work, logistically and ethically speaking.
FISH
(excited, as if he solved it on his own)
It stops the amount of drugs that get in!!!!
CELESTE
Well, respectfully, your logic is completely flawed. First of all, we live in Michigan. Typically, four months out of each calendar year are record breaking winters, and they’re gonna have to wear something then. Also, like you (FROTH) mentioned earlier, it might be someone from the outside bringing the drugs in. If anything we should give the inmates more clothing and do stricter searches of everyone entering the prisons!
Celeste looks pointedly back and forth between Froth and Muscle.
FROTH
(as if he knows what CELESTE is getting at)
I don’t understand. It's pretty simple. No clothes. No drugs.
CELESTE
With that logic we should make the visitors be naked, too—and the guards. Let’s all be naked! Naked party! Who cares?! No clothes! No Drugs!
MUSCLE
If the math is mathing!
BOSS
You know what? That’s a pretty good idea! No more clothes for anyone!
Boss throws his little sock puppet hat in the air.
Ron looks delighted!
All the others are very worried.
FROTH
Wait a minute! What?
CELESTE
Hold on. I was only–
BOSS
If clothes are banned from being inside, then no one can hide drugs or bring anything in! This is perfect!
FROTH
WAIT! But what about us?! Those inmates can’t see us like that!
RON
I’ve been suggesting this for years…
Ron sock puppet takes off his vest and tie and throws them away.
FISH
(nervous) Yeah, wait a minute. I don’t like where this is going.
FROTH
Exactly!!! Now how will we be able to sneak in the drugs?!!!
All puppets turn dramatically to look at Froth. Muscle runs away.
FROTH
Oh shit…
CC
Hey! You’ve got to read this one! People in prison can celebrate anything!
Cozine is handed letter #7. He opens it.
COZINE
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.
GENERAL WASH LIGHTS UP. SPOTLIGHT DOWNSTAGE LEFT DOWN.
One inmate awakes. He sits up with his hand on their heart
and begins to sing quietly with the music:
VETERAN (Adam)
(In almost a whisper)
…Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
o'er the land of the free…
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL (Henry)
I don’t get it, man. How can you be patriotic while they’re keeping us in this cage?
PEACEMAKER (Nathan)
Shut up, man. He’s a veteran.
VETERAN
I served my country proudly, and I would do it again.
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
They took you away from your family, sent you to overseas to kill and get killed, and now they’ve taken you away from your family again and thrown away the key. You are seriously brainwashed. This imperialist regime is only interested in using you as a cog in the capitalist machine. Get your head out of your ass.
Veteran is about to punch Cellblock Intellectual, but Peacemaker intervenes.
PEACEMAKER
Cool it, guys. It’s the fucking Fourth of July. Whether you believe in it or not, it’s a holiday–at least something different for a few hours. Fireworks! Hotdogs! All that shit. Now celebrate or shut up!
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
I do like hotdogs, but this is still some bullsh–
Inmate A looks like he might want to jump Inmate B again.
PEACEMAKER
Hotdogs, guys! If you kick each other’s asses, there will be no hotdogs in the hole.
Inmates A and B resign themselves to a truce.
All walk up to the gate of their cell.
They wait for it to open. Beat.
GUARD (O.S.) (Jack)
DOORS!
We hear the cell door open.
They (speed) walk out of their cell.
ALL
(All pause wherever they are running to look at each other and then to the sky.)
FOURTH OF JULY!!!
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
Get in line! It’s hotdog time!
PEACEMAKER
Wow! It even smells like the Fourth of July! Meat grilling outdoors! My family has this huge party every year with hotdogs and hamburgers, and my wife makes red velvet cupcakes with little blueberries on top! It’s the bomb! I used to always be the one behind the grill.
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
I’m sure you’d do a better job than these fools who are probably burning our hotdogs just to remind us–
VETERAN
It’s the day for American pride! And we’re American! So don’t we get to celebrate, too?
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
I'm not an American right now. We literally live in a cage. The state has stripped us of our rights and freedoms and made us government property –like livestock or a commodity to be traded! I cannot…No, I will not pretend that the imperialist overseers are ever going to grant me admission to this ‘utopian’ meritocratic state that supplies the very freedoms that they are working so hard to deny us.
Veteran very obviously displays his irritation.
VETERAN
We live in the best country in the world, and don’t you forget it. You think you’d be more free somewhere else? I fought and bled for everything we have, and now my son is in Afghanistan so that every last one of us can have a country to be proud of.
A beat.
Cellblock Intellectual rolls his eyes.
Peacemaker attempts to break the silence.
PEACEMAKER
Let’s eat, guys!!
VETERAN
Yumm!! Hot dogs!
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
Alright, let me have one!
They all take a bite. They all realize how disgusting the meat is.
PEACEMAKER
Huh
VETERAN
Weird
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
It’s like that time they gave us all food poisoning at Thanksgiving.
VETERAN
Only the DOC could make a hotdog this bad!
All start laughing in a painful kind of way until they can’t catch their breath.
ALL
Fourth of July!
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
Fireworks! I can see them! I can see them!
They run all over the stage, even into the audience, through the rows cheering and yelling, looking into the sky.
PEACEMAKER
Where??
The inmates must remain far away from each other. They can not connect or touch.
Some of them can see the fireworks, some can not.
VETERAN
I can’t see them.
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
(Pointing,)
They’re on the left! Over the fence!
PEACEMAKER
(Still trying to see the fireworks.)
The tower is blocking my view.
ALL
(Overlapping)
I SEE THEM!!!
THEY'RE BEAUTIFUL!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
They all begin singing the national anthem.
They run to each other and hug and cheer, looking into the sky.
We hear the sound of fireworks.
VETERAN
Fireworks! I can see them. They’re so far away.
They all separate, trying to look for the fireworks.
They begin to look in ridiculous places such as under chairs or in their pockets.
They are looking for freedom but cannot seem to find it.
CELLBLOCK INTELLECTUAL
I can’t see them anymore.
PEACEMAKER
If you try hard enough…
VETERAN
(Soft, almost a whisper)
Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave
o’er the land of the free
They stare out above the audience.
A long beat.
Cozine reprises the star spangled banner?
GENERAL WASH DOWN, SPOTLIGHT ON MARY
Cozine is handed letter #9. He opens it.
COZINE
This one’s from Gary! This dude is awesome!
Don’t forget, while you’re busy doubting yourself, someone else is admiring your strength.
SPOTLIGHT ON SARAH. SPOTLIGHT DOWNSTAGE LEFT DOWN.
Gary (Sarah)
I already know you got a lot of questions. You wouldn’t be the first.
I tell people about my son, and the first thing they wonder is how a geriatric like myself got an 8 year old.
Then, I show them his mother, and the real confusion kicks in.
How’d such a pretty young gal agree to be with the likes of someone like me?
I know that’s what you’re thinking.
You’re wondering what must be wrong with her
To make her want to carry my child.
To be honest with you,
I’m not sure the answer to that question myself.
I reckon it’s my musical fingers.
You know, the way I hold my guitar.
Anyway, whatever bug bit her must’ve left her body soon enough
Because I haven’t been able to see my boy in years,
And that woman won’t speak to me.
But then I met a guy in here
Who told me I had legal rights to my kin
That I had the right to see my son.
Now I’ve heard a lot of mumbo jumbo about my rights over the years
About what’s allegedly owed to me as citizen,
As a human,
But God knows I’m not really much of either of those in this damn prison.
So I never let myself fall sick with that hope disease that plenty of brothers get
Because I know it only leaves you even more broke and bruised.
Anywho somehow I allowed myself to believe this guy
About my darn parental rights.
Thought I would lawyer up or something.
Gary (Sarah) (CONT.)
And I fought, and I fought, and I fought hard,
And sometimes I didn’t even know why I was fighting to see this kid I didn’t even know.
But it was all worth it anyways.
They tell me I’m the first man in the state to gain parental visitation rights while locked up.
Ain’t that something?
And let me tell you when I got on that video call
And I saw a boy
With my big ol’ nose
And my eyes
And my bushy eyebrows,
I thought there really must be a God in heaven.
Who else could make something so beautiful
Out of a messed up guy like me?
A beautiful boy who calls me papa.
Ain’t that something?
A shift in lights/sound.
GENERAL WASH LIGHTS UP.
MARY
This is a story I took out of prison–the story about prison superstitions.
Very early on in 1976, in the old Detroit House of Corrections for Women–we called it DeHoCo–I learned and saw how superstitious prisoners were in that place and how much they believed in and saw the spirit world. It was said that DeHoCo was haunted by the prisoners who had died there and by the folks that were maimed and cut in the canning factories.
The women at DeHoCo believed that if a bird flew in your house, someone was going to die. They took that very seriously. I could hear screaming when the birds came in.
Those women would also tell you that if you were leaving prison, you better take your shoes with you because if you left them with anybody, you would return to wear them on the prison grounds again.
I was transferred to the Florence Crane pool Facility. It was a turn of the century state school, and it was clearly haunted. The first women sent to the prison were supposedly sent there for good behavior, but actually they were made to clean the prison before the rest of the women arrived. In the basement, they found little bloody straightjackets that had been used on the children. Tacked to the wall, they found an old, yellowed newspaper clipping about a twelve-year-old girl who had been raped and killed by one of her caretakers at the school. She haunted the place. Sometimes if you looked out at the parking lot in the moonlight, you could see her.
There were some women working in the yard who saw small bones underneath the swings where the kids used to play. The women wouldn’t work out in the yard anymore where they thought children’s bodies were buried.
One of the guards told me that the property next to the prison had been a Civil War battlefield. She thought some of the ghosts who haunted Florence Crane had been killed in the Civil War.
One night, I laid in my bunk as a ghost come across me, flew over my bunkie, and left. We looked at each other with our mouths open and didn’t tell anyone because we knew they wouldn’t believe us.
The most meaningful superstition to me was the dropping of the keys. This happened very rarely because guards hold onto those keys. They’re usually attached to their waist. They are critical to their survival as a guard. It was believed that if a guard dropped their keys right next to you, you would be released and go home. I saw it happen to a woman I knew, and sure enough, she went to the l mom parole board and got a date to go home. Later, a guard dropped her keys next to me. I couldn’t believe it. It was like the gates of heaven opening. I knew I was going home. I’d been serving three life sentences, and all of a sudden I received a commutation from the governor and walked out the door.
Keys are a symbol of power, of hope, ownership, and pride. I’m proud of my house key because now I can open my own door, and the keys aren’t being turned on me.
Cozine is handed letter #11. He opens it.
COZINE
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
GENERAL WASH LIGHTS UP. SPOTLIGHT DOWNSTAGE LEFT DOWN.
Reader and Friend enter the law library
READER (Arin)
(out)
Cookie and I have a bunch of work to do and thankfully today’s the day we can go to the law library.
(to friend)
You have a call out for the law library right?
FRIEND (CC)
Yeah, I think I’m just gonna work on my appeal for a bit
READER
I know me too… wait who is that?
FRIEND
Oh I think I saw her here last week.
READER
[out]
The thing about the law library is that this is where everyone’s best flirting gets done.
Yes, real work happens here. Incredibly important work. Work that I have a feeling won’t be getting done today.
sees Beautiful sat at a table across the law library
FRIEND
Ooh she’s cute.. You should go talk to her
READER
I should, right? Okay go go go!
They exchange flirty glances with each other over the books they are reading, each person looking away once they’ve caught the other person’s eye contact
READER
(confidently, to the audience)
I have an idea… this is gonna work
Reader crosses and “accidentally” drops her book on the floor in front of Beautiful.
Beautiful and Reader both reach for the fallen book at the same time.
While both holding the book…
BEAUTIFUL (Sarah)
(sultry)
Whatcha reading there?
READER
Um. (gulps)
(to audience) I have immediately forgotten the title of this book.
(to Beautiful) It's about this Russian… Catherine the Great
BEAUTIFUL
Oh? Catherine the Great?
Reader sits down.
READER
Yeah, except she’s not even Russian. She’s German, but she like dethroned her husband and … (then looks to the audience)
She doesn't care about Catherine the Great, and I know she doesn’t care about Catherine the Great, but I think if she stops looking at me I might die. So I keep rambling about Catherine the Great, and maybe she’ll stop me and say something like –
Beautiful pulls Reader’s chair closer to her and leans in .
BEAUTIFUL
I think you’re pretty ... great.
READER
(unintelligible noise to Beautiful)
(to the audience)
It’s working …
(back to Beautiful, frazzled)
So um… what are you reading?
BEAUTIFUL
It’s a book about … (gets distracted) … ugh ugly Barbara!
READER
Huh?
Ugly Barbara walks in with a stack of books.
READER
Ugh. Ugly Barbara.
Ugly Barbara then accidentally drops her stack of books.
Reader and Beautiful look over at her.
Ugly Barabara waves.
Reader and Beautiful put on fake smiles and wave to Ugly Barbara, who exits.
Reader and Beautiful then look back at each other.
EVERYBODY
Ugly Ugly Barbara
READER (to the audience)
The dating pool’s giant here… and yet…somehow she’s the one getting around…
We both had. . . anyways. (shudder)
Reader looks back at Beautiful and they hold intense, perhaps absurd, eye contact.
READER
(to Beautiful, after visibly working up the courage)
You’re really pretty
BEAUTIFUL
I am, aren’t I? You are, too. You wanna be my girlfriend?
READER (to the beautiful)
Yes.
(to audience
Yes!
(to the beautiful )
Yes!
(to audience)
It worked!
Cozine is handed letter #6. He opens it.
ADAM
Hey everyone so glad you can all be here today! So in our last workshop we asked you to bring in a story that helps you get through difficult times. So today we are going to take those stories and see if we can put them on their feet. Does anyone want to go first?
SAM
Sure. This is a story that gets me through. As a member of the Ojibway nation, the teachings of my ancestors guide me through life and have taken on new meanings in prison.
COZINE
Don’t give up on the person you’re becoming.
GENERAL WASH LIGHTS UP. SPOTLIGHT DOWNSTAGE LEFT DOWN.
SAM
Once upon a time, I was a Muskrat who lived by myself in the woods. The other Muskrats would want to play with me , but I was only concerned with myself and building my home. And so I did just that.
I would build every day and night. Chewing on giant logs until they were the perfect shape for my house. I would chew on the right side; my mouth would get sore. I would chew on the left side; my mouth would get sore. It was like either way I couldn’t win. I then realized that it was easiest to chew in the middle, and so I did. With this new method, I was able to keep going. Once I finally had enough logs to protect myself, I went to feel my front teeth and realized that they’d grown! I used to have little baby teeth but after everything I’d worked so hard for, I had to evolve.
I was surprised, but I realized this was going to have to be my home for awhile.
One day, a windstorm picked up in the forest. It tried to stop me, but I couldn’t stop building. As I worked, the gusts only got bigger and stronger, and before I knew it one of the trees fell right on top of my thin and round little tail.
CASEY
OUCHIE!
SAM
I turned around to find my old tail gone. In its place was a HUGEEEEE flat tail. I was in pain, so I ran to the nearest mud puddle and plopped my tail in to get some cooling relief.
CASEY
Ahhhhh yes, that's much much better!
SAM
Even with a broken tail, I didn’t stop working. I couldn’t. I was longing to have my old tail back, but as I kept working, I realized my new tail was actually helping me. I could use it to pack in leaves, mud, and twigs. What I had resented was helping me lay the foundation.
Finally, my time working was done. I could come home.
With my new big teeth and flat tail, I decided the name Muskrat no longer fit me. I needed a new name – one that represented all of the obstacles I had overcome.
So I decided my name would be Beaver! Because I wasn't the same person I was before I had to build a home for myself.
Cozine begins to draw as the young boy.
HENDRICKS’ MAMA (Myah on voice over or video)
My mama called me for the weekly Hendricks update this afternoon. And let me tell you that boy has not changed. He is four now and more talkative than ever, which hurts my head, but, hey, apples don't fall too far from the tree, right? She puts Hendricks on the phone, and he immediately jumps to telling me about how he learned the letters k and m.
“Well what about L Hendricks!”
“L? I don't care about L right now!”
“Boyyyyyy.”
I have always admired his strength. He has no pressure to be anyone who he is not, until the day society pressures him to be. I tell him I am in prison because little black boys aren't given the permission to be innocent in today's world. I tell him I am in prison because I know that black men make up 53% of Michigan’s prison population, so it's no secret that he could end up right where I am. I tell him I am in prison, but sometimes I wish I didn't.
“Mommy, we had a show and tell about our parents today!”
It's 8 am, and all the parents flow into the small classroom.My mama finds a seat at the end of the back row because she knows Hendricks will make a scene if he sees her. She squeezes her thick thighs onto one of the elementary school chairs as she spots him sitting in the middle of a clump of his classmates on a rug shaped like a map. Everyone gets up and shares, but of course, my boy is the last to go. “Best for last mommy!” he always says. He stands up holding a large piece of paper in his hand. He unrolls the paper to reveal a colorfilled image of he and I outside, with one of those little corner suns the kids like to draw. I would always tell him that the sun is round, Hendricks, but you can only say so much. He begins to describe the picture starting with “This is my mommy!” He pauses, staring at the paper. We are running through a field of orange and blue flowers with grass up to our knees. On one side of us, his favorite basketball lies in the grass, on the other is a black and white smudge which I can only assume is our dog oreo. Birds soar through the sky, and there are metal bars around me…. Metal bars? Why are there metal bars?
“Times running out, Hendricks,” the teacher warns
He calls out, “and she's in prison!”
“Times running out, Ansley,” the guard demands.
Mama, tell Hendricks I love -
Cozine sees the back of the paper.
He reads the letter.
COZINE
Dear Mr. Welch,
I am writing to you as the warden to offer you my sincere apologies following your mother’s death on the 22nd of April 2022.
Every death is a tragedy and that deeply affects families, staff and other prisoners, ensuring the safety and wellbeing of those in our care is a priority…
Cozine trails off.
He crumples the letter up.
He takes us all in.
He plays a slow, sad tune for a while then begins:
When it happened, I
remember Papa
Saying…Your mama didn’t want to die, boy
She wouldn’t give up her second chance to see you
She had been to that prison doctor, over and over again
—had just come back earlier that day.
She was holding on. Holding on for you.
The boy raised between razor wire
and paper cuts, pat downs and Jpay pictures,
blood and love.
I thought my mother symbolic:
Her sacrificial body laid at the base of the temple of my need of a Mother to hold
Light casting love shadows and promises of bounty.
Her release, my rope to climb. Or to hang.
But still my tether to always, always.
What Papa said, all of it: what happened and how they tried to save her.
The procedure to release her body to us, now, now that she’s no longer in it.
But I didn’t get it. I couldn’t because it didn’t make sense.
The 2nd look legislation bill - the one that could bring her home - it was getting passed. .
Like, it even talked about her music and poetry like she was finally coming home.
We were so close!”
To the realization that
Close is never close
enough
when decades are measured in the inches of ink
scrawled on a judgment of sentence when
almost only leaves you empty handed
And all I can hear is her saying,
“I paid my debt, baby. As sure as the
songs I sing to you,
I paid my debt. They gotta
let me go.”
It felt like Time.
Endless time.
Eternal.
Heavy, like that. The seconds ticking by were whispering to me.
Minutes
That made these moments… make sense
In this new world of
afterwards. Of
after her words.
Perhaps Cozine cleans letters?
Holds some? Looks at them?
Opens the mailbox and is lit by it?
Crumples the paper?
Rips it?
SPOTLIGHT ON COZINE.
Cozine is handed letter #10. He opens it.
He cannot speak. He is sad.
Mary looks over at him.
SPOTLIGHT ON MARY.
MARY
Cozine, You don’t have to accept the things you are not okay with.
COZINE
Thank you, Mary.
COZINE OUT
MARY
This is the story I carried out of prison. The story of the rats.
Florence Crane Women’s Prison in the 1990’s was overrun with rats. All kinds of rats: huge gray Norway rats thought to be carried by ships in the UK during the great migration, shiny sleek black rats believed to be local, furry fat brown rats as big as cats named for the prison doctor Naylor.
I decided to do something about the rats. I learned rats can procreate every 22 days. They can chew through brick and steel and wood. But filing grievances with the prison staff didn’t work. They did nothing.
When it rained, I could hear the rats climbing up the drain pipes and running across the ceiling over my head.
Ensemble scratches.
I could hear rats in my locker eating my commissary at night.
Eating noise.
I could hear their sharp squeals of joy as they communicated good stuff to their fellow rats.
MARY (CONT.)
Ensemble squeals.
I called my sister Jean for help. The next thing I knew a huge maintenance truck pulled up by the kitchen, and several men moved all of the garbage dumpsters before another crew hauled them away. The work crew began slamming cement hammers into the platforms the dumpsters sat on.
Ensemble stomps in unison.
Rats began pouring out from every direction. I could hear the kitchen guards screaming.
Ensemble screams!
They were everywhere. I refused to go to chow.
Ensemble screams again!
The men ended up putting out these black boxes with rat poison inside. Then we had bleeding rats everywhere. The yard was a bloody mess. But before long, no more rats.
I called Jean and asked, “What did you do? They got rid of all the rats!”
Jean said she called the warden and said l and her yard was overrun with rats, and she was calling the governor’s office immediately.
The warden said she would take care of it.
I just wanna know why she didn’t do it twenty years earlier.
Ensemble sighs.
COZINE
Like I said, LOTS of letters from folks inside come through here. Just as I sat and waited for my Mom’s letters, I kept track of everyone’s - but this time it was on purpose. Every letter I got fueled the flame inside of me that just had to. Some kind of purpose. If I didn’t do it, who would?
GENERAL WASH LIGHTS UP. SPOTLIGHT DOWNSTAGE LEFT DOWN.
Moment with the mailbox?
14 performers on stage each read their letter and one by one. When they finish, they drop the letter to the floor, and then their keys, beginning to litter the stage.
Letter #1 (Shayla) Read by Mary
Most people do not understand what it is like in this place. Let me show you with my words.
It is like coming to a black hole of no hope and no love.
You live repeating the same day over and over again.
You’re just a number, and there is no one to help.
It’s hard to find, but there is life in the dark that no one sees.
I have so much hope in me. If you need some, just ask, and we can find a way.
Letter #2 (Tyrice) Read by Sarah
There are some smiles in life that hold no meaning, but then there are other smiles in life that mean more than the world. And within these very brief moments we shared with each other in those rooms…. [those smiles] were the greatest. There aren’t many times in a day that I do get to smile, but the ones I did get to share every Saturday, will be hands down the most memorable. And truthfully, I miss y’all already.
Letter #3 (Maranz) Read by Nathan
All that being said, I had to thank you. I’ve been in here for 23 years, and after a while, after experiencing prison and everything in it for as long as I have, everything starts to fade into ‘nothing.’ Thank you for giving me something, and to be clear - that something is not the class. That something is your students. They have been for me like rain.
Letter #4 (Cozine) Read by Leah
I got the books this week and donated them to my library call-out Friday.
They should be on the shelf within the week.
I really believe they will be responsible
for sparking someone’s sense of self-worth,
someone’s realization that their thoughts and work
can be a conduit to something more, something beyond this place.
Letter #5 (Swerve) Read by Adam
Each and every one of us has the opportunity to use our art to change the culture when it comes to the conversations this country has about justice, impacted people, and carceral settings … There wasn’t a single moment when I shared my story, whether it was about my heritage as a Native American or my struggles inside prison - when I didn’t have the full and earnest attention of everybody in the room. A less modest person might attribute that to their stunning good looks or hypnotic charisma. I know it was because each of you came into this with a welcoming heart. And in Indian culture, a welcoming heart is a gift straight from the creator.
Letter #6 (Poppa) Read by Cozine
Precious, I’m sorry that I could not keep my promise not to ever leave you again.
I did not want to, and I know you understand this.
But it doesn’t make it any easier on either of us. Does it.
Letter #7 (Shayla) Read by Sam
Thank you for giving me something that I will hold onto for the time I have left in my life…You saved me without even knowing you did. The understanding, hope and care you all [gave at] just the right time. I thank God for you all coming into my life. For letting me see some light in the dark.
Letter #8 (D’Artagnan) Read by Casey
Life is not promised to us. Anything could happen.
We are not guaranteed to grow old.
I don’t feel sorry for myself.
I feel grateful that God continues to bless me
with good health and life each morning.
It doesn’t get any more fortunate than that.
Thank you for responding to my repetitive letters.
And thank you for allowing me into your world.
Letter #9 (QUEEN) Read by Henry
I’ve learned unconditional love that
I can share with you.
Love shines, grows inside of here.
Love doesn’t discriminate. It advocates
And demonstrates.
Love welcomes you when you least expect it
On the inside of here
Or on the outside out there.
So welcome love
Just like this
Letter #10 (Clemente) Read by CC
I could have talked with you forever. I feel our conversation is unfinished,
and I wish I could continue where we left off.
I am a good person,
and I hold so much beauty within my heart and soul,
but yet here I am trapped with no one standing by my side.
I know you are very busy, and I took up a lot of your time already.
Thank you for everything, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Letter #11 (Dale) Read by Arin
Have read some good books lately, probably more than normal
because of the lack of sleeping,
but it keeps my mind occupied and me out of trouble.
Not much else to ask for in life at this point.
Just remember, I miss y’all and think of y’all daily.
I know I do not communicate that well lately,
but never doubt that I miss y’all.
Remember how much you have changed my life,
and I know you are continuing to do the same for others.
It is only a small part of what makes you so great.
Letter #12 (Poppa) Read by Ashley
There is a Russian proverb that simply says, “Life is hard.”
And so it is, but we can find happiness in this world also.
Especially someone who is talented and wise as you, my daughter.
There is so much in life to enjoy.
So don’t dwell on the sad things in this life.
Don’t be dragged down by sorrow.
Take a lesson from Granddaddy and enjoy each day
just because the sun came up that morning.
Search for the good in people.
You will not always find it, but the search is worthwhile.
I love you dearly, Precious Baby.
Letter #13 (Jordan) Read by Jack/Sarah/Myles
Who am I? Michigan Department of Corrections #569827. I’m a criminal. I’m a crook. I’m a low-life degenerate. I’m a lost cause, a waste of life. I’m an animal. A menace to society… That’s if you let them tell it. Opinions are like you know whats, everyone’s got one. See, I don’t allow other people to speak for me…Not a judge, jury, prosecutor. Nobody passing judgment gets to sum up my existence…
Who am I? I am strong. I am intelligent. I am courageous. I am a believer. I am a protector. I am my mother’s son. I am a future father. I am a taxpayer. I am not much different from you. I am somebody that matters. I am Jordan Christopher Danske, a name not a number. I’m not a criminal with a past. I’m a man with a future.
PROJECTIONS TURN OFF. (OUT)
Cozine Goes into the beginning of “Burn My Bones.”
“BURN MY BONES” IS A SONG THAT COZINE IS GOING TO SING AFTER READING THE POEM ABOVE.
The whole cast hands out letters.
Cozine puts down his guitar. He walks center stage and gathers up all the letters from the ground, one by one. The stage lights begin to dim. Cozine walks over to the mailbox and opens it. A light shines from it, illuminating his face.
We sit in this moment for a long beat.
BLACKOUT.
FULL WASH ON STAGE COMES UP FOR CURTAIN CALL.
SOUND QUEUE 5 GO (POST SHOW MUSIC)
PROJ P) SLIDE #6, SHOW TITLE CARD
END OF PLAY.