Photo is from Flickr.com and is not a photo of Maggie herself.
Written 5-21-06
Maggie wanted to look her best today. She was able to select somewhat newer prison blues so there is a color match between her pants and her top, the top stenciled “DOC”. She purchased a new white undershirt and new white tennis shoes from Commissary. This is a Cook County Jail woman at her finest!
But Maggie looks awful! She is ashen white, without color. Her slim stomach has been tied up in knots for two days. She has been without sleep. Her long, thick brown hair is tied in a pony tail. Normally her pony tail accentuates the perfection of her features, her huge eyes, and her mesmerizing face. Today it reveals a beaten woman, her face lined by years of cigarettes and crack and innumerable beatings, and tortured by days of anguish.
Awoken at 4:15 AM by the clanging on the bars of her cell, Maggie is told to shower and eat breakfast. Her cellmate, the Bull Dyke, wishes Maggie good luck in Court, but is also sad that she might lose Maggie.
Awaiting the bus to Court, the women are briskly handcuffed by a guard. In the early morning mist and darkness, Maggie notices a strange hooded figure affixing shackles to some of the women, but not to all of them. The figure is ominous, yet powerfully alluring. After shackling Maggie, the figure arises and hands Maggie a rose, a long-dead black rose. The rose emits an aroma of death and decay.
Maggie looks into the eyes of the hooded figure. The huge dark eyes draw her in. Maggie is forced to peer into the abyss, into the horror, into the depths of human despair and misery, for she is peering into the eyes of the Lady Cocaine herself.
The women are ordered forward into the bus with the steel bars, the school bus converted to a steel cage on wheels. In the morning mist and darkness, they trudge silently, heads bowed, all with hands cuffed behind them, many with clanging shackles. The hooded figure glides silently beside them, head bowed, hands clasped behind her back, shepherding her ward.
Iron bars guard the pathway to the bus. As the morning mist condenses, streams of tears flow down those bars, tears for the women now passing, and tears for the thousands of women witnessed over scores of years, as the women head to Judgment.
Earlier that morning the Judge had called a 402 conference where testimony can be heard without cross-examination and without Maggie being present.
In that conference, the State’s Attorney goes after Maggie very hard, listing her several offenses, her lack of conforming to previous probations, her jumping bail, and the fact that she was a fugitive for a year. He demands a four year sentence.
The Head of the Probation Department is brought in, and he urges that Maggie NOT be granted probation. She has shown up at only two appointments throughout her earlier probations.
Mike’s heart plummets, as he knows that all the accusations are true. He assumes that Maggie is done for.
Maggie’s attorney makes the legitimate case that Maggie needs rehab, not punishment.
Mike tells the Judge of Maggie’s constant beatings as a child, her fleeing into a marriage with a Latin King drug dealer who hooked her on coke, then crack, and the Vice Lord Ace who continued her crack addiction and beat her so severely that he cracked her skull, kicked out her teeth, and caused her heart to stop beating. The Judge’s eyes light up as the real name of the Ace is stated, for this judge is the Ace’s probation judge.
Mike tells the Judge of Maggie’s life in January of this year. Homeless, nowhere to go, feeling without purpose or a base in this life, she turns to more and more crack. Her legs now twitching, sometimes convulsing, she must snort heroin in order to come down from the crack highs. Maggie needs the heroin for yet another reason. It causes her to pass out for eight hours, then sixteen hours, as Maggie can no longer take the pain of being conscious. She is becoming incapable of functioning.
The Judge announces his decision to those in the 402 conference, and her attorney goes to the holding cell to tell Maggie.
The handsome black judge, robes flowing downward from his broad shoulders, orders Mike to stand beside and a little behind Maggie as her fate is formally announced. The judge notes that, over the years, Mike has not missed one of Maggie’s court dates. Mike’s eyes well up with tears.
Maggie reappears and stands before the Court, tears streaming down her face, sobbing gently. Tears are also streaming down Mike’s face as he stands with her. She is asked if she understands the implications of her plea and if she has made these decisions of her own free will. The Court waits as Maggie attempts to get enough composure to choke out a “yes”.
Although all already know the sentence, everyone is breathless and quiet as the sentence is formally proclaimed. Mike is awed at the power installed in this man. He could have increased the sentence all the way up to sixteen years, he could have let Maggie walk free tonight, or could have ordered something in between.
Tears flow as Maggie is sentenced to four years of intense probation with the toughest of probation units, the one handling Chicago’s gangs. She is sentenced to rehab and to random drug drops. She has no additional prison time, as her prison sentence is time served.
Maggie and Mike are overjoyed. Both hope that a new life awaits Maggie.
In a shadowy corner, a hooded figure flashes a confident smile.
Late Friday afternoon, May 5, 2006, Maggie is released from Cook County Jail. As she steps outside the Jail and into the Light, two paths await her.
One path leads to reconciliation with her mother and sister, reunion with her children, rehabilitation, and someday a loving relationship with a non-addict near her own age.
The other leads to the only life she knows, to her old crackhead friends, to quick highs, to the intensity of street life, and to personal destruction.
Which path does Maggie take?
Is that a hooded figure walking behind her?
Does the spring breeze carry a whiff of death and decay?
Does Maggie stop to pick up a black rose?
