Prisoner Jackie is demure chaos.

One half Peruvian, one half Mexican, Jackie’s parents produced a beautiful boy.

But Jackie was not satisfied . . . she added breasts.

Jackie is a trans cellmate who is also deaf and mute.

Dealt a hand some might fold, Jackie raised the ante and called God’s bluff.

She learned how to sign as a child before entering school.

And she is effortlessly polite. For every kindness, for every morsel of commissary food, she signs ‘thank-you’ by putting her fingers to lips and gesturing towards the beneficiary, very much like blowing a kiss.

Jackie’s effect is part Lauren Bacall,  part Lou Reed.

Put your lips together and blow, for a walk on the wild side.

In the testosterone stew that is men in prison, Jackie is the sassafras that thickens the gumbo.

Case in point, Native American prisoner Rocky.

He wrote Jackie, “I haven’t cum in so long. Can I lie next to you?”

A note at once vulgar and chaste, Rocky was discovered by a guard one morning pulling his T-shirt on over his naked chest as he exited Jackie’s cell.

There was never a hint from either party that anyone was forced to do anything.

BUT…

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.

Rocky was banned from our pod by the prison’s administrators.

______________________

Perhaps you are aware that gospel is an enthusiastic alternative to gangs when confined behind bars.  It is more than the numerous bibles placed upon shelves by our pious brethren.

People in lockup find Jesus as casually as hussies find well-to-do senior goats with more money than sense.

Amen brother, amen.

And so it came to pass that my cell mate, Oliver Howard, introduced Jackie to the Lord Jesus Christ. And like the dust stirred by the desert winds of a Sonoran haboob, Jackie’s curiosity sprung spinning like a dirt devil.

Mr. Howard was all in, going so far as to purchase three books on how to sign.

Soon Jackie was reading Howard’s religious tracts: “Overcoming Worries—Turning Fear Into Faith,” as well as, “Poor Choice’s and Missed Opportunities: The Mistakes of King Saul.”

Lest you think  Christianity is a simple matter,  you should know that Oliver Howard’s proselytizing summoned fire and brimstone upon  his head.

Another foot soldier for God in our can, Carlos Montoya, accused Howard of perfidious blasphemies,

Montoya is devout and witnesses to convicts in our yard as a fellow sinner.

Brother Montoya strongly objected to Brother Howard’s ministering to Sister Jackie.

“I don’t want to do Bible study with you,”  Montoya informed Howard.

( Wasn’t sister Jackie a child of God?)

As a lapsed Catholic, I am not part of God’s jury in this fracas.

I merely took notes.

Despite the spotlight on Elliot Page, Laverne Cox, Caitlyn Jenner and Chaz Bono,

For most of the prisoners, Jackie was their first brush with a trans person.

Seems to me, the word of God defies any grammarian’s simple diagram.

Here a parable. There a parable. Believers have options.

So it is no mystery to me that from Salem, Massachusetts to Coos Bay, Oregon, so many church steeples strike for the heavens.

And when I came back from an hour in the sunshine on the basketball court, a new fish had joined our coral reef, a second trans prisoner.

A straight up guard told me he didn’t care how they identified: the trans prisoners were men.

“We don’t house no women,” said officer Rufus Jones.

If you say so, boss.

Meanwhile the new fish wanted to know if the old fish wanted to get high on some ground up scrip pills.

That’s what I was told. But it’s not like I was invited to par-tay. I was merely informed that Jackie declined .

( Because ) “Someone thinks she’s all that and a bag of potato chips. And she ain’t.”

C’mon now.

All God’s children are not the same.

All God’s children are the same.

Read more by Lacey, here. And please watch, “How the feds destroyed Backpage.com and its founders,” a 40-minute documentary on the Backpage case by Reason magazine.

Please also see:
Within the Barred Bunker: ‘The Navajo Singer,’ by Michael Lacey
and
Within the Barred Bunker: Michael Lacey Writes from Prison
and
Within the Barred Bunker: A New Prison Column by Michael Lacey, ‘A Memorable Day’
and
Within the Barred Bunker: Michael Lacey and the ‘Prison Spa’ Program
and
Within the Barred Bunker: Michael Lacey on His Heart Attack in Prison
and
Within the Barred Bunker: ‘What Sustains Thee,’ by Michael Lacey