Orange Is the New Black

copies of
SPIN
but had never actually heard in the endless repeat of classic rock vs. hip hop vs. Spanish radio that is the soundtrack of daily life in prison.
    Best of all was a recurring weekly show,
90s Mixtape
, which compiled the best songs from every year of the 1990s, one year every week. The 1991 top ten included Pavement, N.W.A., Naughty by Nature, Teenage Fanclub, Blur, Metallica, Nirvana, and LL Cool J. Those songs made me think of Larry and of the trouble-seeking girl I had been when they were first released. Running around the track, I relived every song I had heard in the background when I was running around the globe, a careless and ignorant young girl, launching myself into trouble so deep that it put me on this prison gravel eleven years later. No matter how stupid, how pointless, how painful my current situation was, as I listened to
Mixtape
every week I couldn’tdeny the love I still felt for that reckless, audacious fool who was still me, if only in my mind.
    M AY 17 was Larry’s and my anniversary. The wretched fact that we were separated and it was all my fault was impossible to deny, but when I found the right Hallmark greeting in the free collection handed out via the chapel, I felt a tiny bit better.
    This is you, Baby,
such a fine black man—
Who knows who he is
and knows where he stands.
Who doesn’t have time
to play any games,
Who’s earned my respect
and gives back the same.
Who gives of himself
to build up trust
And commits his heart
to big dreams for us.
Who can heat me up
and then love me down,
And within his arms
all my joy is found…
    And on the inside:
    This is you Baby
such a fine black man.
This is me loving you—
hard as I can.
    Joking aside, the sentiment was all true.
    I spent an evening in my bunk composing what I would write onthe card. It was our eighth anniversary of dating. I told him how quickly that time had passed, a quarter of our lives spent together. How all the risky choices we had taken together were the right ones, and how I couldn’t wait to come home to him, the only man for me. I promised to keep counting sunrises until I could be where he was, anywhere that might be.
    O NE DAY when we got to work, DeSimon stepped out of his office and locked the door. “Today we’re going to practice with the lift,” he announced. What the hell did that mean?
    The lift turned out to be a mechanical hydraulic lift. I tried to figure out what it might be used for—all of the buildings were pretty low-lying, and the FCI itself was only a few stories tall. DeSimon shed some light on my question. There were a handful of area lights around the grounds that were hundreds of feet high. The lift was used when a bulb or fixture on one of them needed attention. “Oh, hell no!” said Jae, who was trying to get transferred to the warehouse. “No motherfuckin’ way are you getting me up on that!” The rest of the crew were in agreement with her.
    But we still had to go through the elaborate process of setting up the lift properly—essentially a metal platform a few feet square with a railing that went straight up in the sky when you pressed a button. If you screwed up one of the safety measures, it was easy to imagine the splat on concrete.
    When we had finally done it properly, DeSimon said, “Who wants a ride?” A few intrepids—Amy, Little Janet, Levy—climbed onto the platform and pushed the button, each stopping long before the lift reached its full height, then coming down. “Scary!”
    “I want to try!” I climbed onto the platform, and DeSimon handed me the control button. Up, up, up—my heart beat hard as I left the concrete behind, the faces of six women and a beard upturned to watch me. Higher, higher. I could see everywhere, for miles farther than I had imagined beyond the confines of the prison. Maybe I could see my future from up here. The entire platform wasswaying in the breeze, as I kept my finger on the button. I wanted to go all the way up, even though I was clutching the railing with white knuckles and the blood was pounding in my ears.
    At its highest extension the lift stopped with a jerk, scaring me even more. A little half-cheer rose from my coworkers, who were shading their eyes to see me. Women were coming out of the other shops to have a look. “She crazy!” I heard someone say admiringly.
    I peered over the railing that I was clinging to, grinning. Mr. DeSimon appeared to be trying to hide a smile in his beard. “Come on down,