In the 1950′s I spent two years in the Federal Peniteniary for Women in Alderson, West Virginia.  I was in a big dormitory the other prisoners called ‘High Power’ because it was where they put women who were considered dangerous, according to some definition none of us really understood other than it included those imprisoned for political crimes.  In that category were Tokyo Rose, whose real name was Iva Toguri d’Aquino; Axis Sally, identified in the press and various histories as Mildred Gillars but who was born Mildred Sisk, the name I knew her by; Blanca Canales Torresola, who led a small uprising in Puerto Rico by a group that wanted independence from the USA, and who is now all but forgotten; and two communist women whose names I never knew, victims of Senator McCarthy’s communist witch hunt.

If you’re wondering what I had done to land myself in ‘High Power’, I was convicted of “…failing to declare for the purpose of having import duty imposed, 6.5 ounces of uncut heroin.”  I’m not kidding; that’s what the indictment said.  In those days, 6.5 ounces of pure Mexican brown was considered a  large load, but it would be small by today’s standards.  I have wondered ever since whether, if I had declared the heroin at the border in Mexicali, I could have paid the duty and gone on my way.  And I never figured out why I was considered dangerous enough to be in ‘High Power’.

Lots of irony in all this, because none of these women were ‘dangerous’ by any standard other than the federal government’s.

Iva d’Aquino had the room next to mine, and at night, after lights out and everyone was locked in their rooms, I would hear footsteps coming down the hall, heard Iva’s door being unlocked and then closed, and then for various amounts of time I would hear voices through the wall although I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

The visitor had to be one of the guards, who the prisoners called “screws”, perhaps the one on duty at night, but it could have been someone else as well.

Unfortunately, Iva disliked me (I was pretty much a mental case at the time) and I never talked much with her.  But what is interesting is that the day I left on parole, I was standing the hall saying goodbye to other prisoners and Iva walked right by me and started down the stairs without so much as looking at me.  Unwilling to be snubbed, I called out to her, “Goodbye, Iva”, and still without looking at me, she said “There are no goodbyes in this world.”

Years later I published a book about my life on the street and in prison (Sing Soft, Sing Loud) and I found her address and sent her a copy.  She never acknowledged it.

To be continued…