That shut me up. Jesse started dressing in the dark. I turned on the light and moved so he couldn’t see me blink back the tears. “Where are you going?” I asked, but he gathered his clothes in one sweep and opened the bedroom door.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come here.”

“No, Jesse. Don’t say that.”

“I’ll go. I’m sorry if things got out of hand.”

“Please stay, Jesse.”

“I’ll call you later.”

The front door eased shut behind him. His fast feet hit the stairs. I was too ashamed of myself to look after him or say anything more. But all night I couldn’t sleep for Jesse, then Phillip, then Jesse again crowding my mind, a rushing D train in my head.

There was only one thing to do. Ride out to see Phillip. I called in sick the next morning and went to Port Authority for the early bus going upstate. Comstock Prison is about two hundred miles north. Maybe Phillip could help me figure this out. Ruella, girl, you really messed up this time.

The first year he was in I wrote and asked about his room. “What room, Lil’ Sis? This ain’t no hotel, it’s a goddamn prison.” He described the place. “It’s a cell, a goddamn 10 x 12 cell and nothing but bars and electronic locks and feet scuffling on the grated ceiling walk that separates the floors and reminds you that you’re never alone.”

After looking at the huge tan-brick building fenced in on all sides and counting row after row of bars on windows I had to say, you’re right, Phillip; no rooms. Cells. C-e-l-l-s. “You still want me for your hero, Lil’ Sis?” he wrote. “Being heroic and black ain’t easy. ’Specially if you a man. Ain’t nothing here but men. Black men, Puerto Rican men, even one or two white boys. You’ll see what I mean when you come next Visiting Day. I missed you the last time.”

I didn’t write him back. I didn’t visit. Truth is, until now I was scared.

The visitors’ room crowded quickly with women, mostly those from the same bus I took which ran from the Greyhound Terminal in Saratoga to the prison grounds several miles away. They were weary women. Some brought their children along. Others looked like young marrieds and were not much older than me. The younger ones wore tight blue jeans and loose, open tops. The mothers, perhaps, or wives of older inmates wore shawls or closed sweaters. Everyone was chattering and crowding into their assigned booths behind a glass wall.