Orange Is the New Black

country from Russia at the age of three. She was married out of her parents’ house at eighteen, to a Russian gangster. Their life together had included all the excessive disco splendor of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, and several years on the run from the feds. “The feds tried to nail us every which way… my husband would just laugh. Well, if they want you bad enough, they’re gonna get you. They don’t ever give up.” Her husband was in prison somewhere down south, and her children were grown now. She had lost everything, yet managed to take a dozen years in prison and hold it all together and make the best of it. Pop was cunning and exuberant. She was kind, but she could be ruthless. She knew how to work the system and also how not to let them break you. And they were always trying.
    Pop’s grown children came to visit her every week, along with several other family members, murmuring in Russian. The visiting room was the only place I ever saw her in regulation khaki uniform—otherwise she was always in her checked kitchen pants, burgundy smock with “Pop” embroidered on the breast in white yarn, and a hairnet. But for visits she would always fix her hair and put on makeup, so she would look ladylike, girlish almost.
    Anyone who received visits on a regular basis usually maintained at least one uniform exclusively for these occasions—one that fit well, was kept pressed and stain-free, and in some instances was specially tailored. It was against prison rules to alter clothing in any way, but that never stopped anyone from trying to find ways to make the drab men’s uniforms a bit more flattering, a bit more feminine. Some women would iron patterned folds into the backs of the boxy, billowy shirts. Everyone knew which inmates had sewing skills, and you could trade commissary goods for a better fit—the Spanish mamis particularly liked to wear their pants tight, tight, tight. I was thrilled when someone gave me a pair of the most desirable flat-front Dickies, which had been taken in at the waist and tapered narrow at the ankle. The inner thighs were threadbare, but my fellow prisoners clicked their tongues approvingly as I sashayed to my visits. “P-I Piper!” my neighbor Delicious shouted appreciatively. “Brick House!” Larry agreed, his eyes popping when he first saw me in the tight pants.
    Hair was at least as important as unis. This was not an issue for a blond, straight-haired gal like me, but for the black and Spanish women, it was the source of endless preoccupation and countless woman-hours. You could generally tell who was expecting a visit by the state of their hair. There were frequent disputes about chair time in the salon room, played out against the overpowering smells of perm solution and burning hair. The electric supply for the room was insufficient for the demand, and the circuits tripped all the time. But reprehensible DeSimon refused to do anything about it. “They oughta close that so-called ‘beauty salon’ down,” he snarled when the gals in the shop suggested that the electric crew might work on the wiring there. “It’s not working on these convicts!”
    Once a prisoner completed her coiffure, she could move on to makeup. Approximately a third of the population wore makeup almost every day—out of habit, as an effort to feel normal, or to be more alluring either to a staffer or another inmate. It was bought at the commissary or, in the case of one ex-stockbroker who was addicted to Borghese, smuggled in via a visitor. Before she left for the drug program, Nina gave me a little heart-shaped compact, the kind you might find at a dollar store, and I experimented with lurid eye shadow colors. A significant percentage of the Spanish women had tattooed eyeliner, lipliner, and eyebrows, an effect I found unnerving—I associated it with Meatpacking District transsexual hookers. The tattooed brows never matched the real brows, which then had to be plucked or shaved, and with time they would fade from black to blue.
    Almost everyone expecting a visit would present themselves pressed, coiffed, and painted on the landing next to the pay phones, where you could see your loved ones approaching up the hill from the parking lot. Those who weren’t expecting visits would plant themselves on the stairs anyway to observe the comings and goings, as a source of vicarious entertainment—they could generally identify any regulars on sight. “Oh, there’s Ginger’s kids!