Berte was beautiful that night, 

               the night of the graduation party,

Tall plus high heels, her hair all swept-up, her jacket black as midnight, tight fitting, her coffee skin peeking out here and there. 100% Puerto Rican woman. Puro boriqua.

    Dylcia was in prison that night,

          the night of the graduation party, 

but it was her sons graduation party, so for her to miss it,

for her to not be there,

felt like:  no … No …  NO! 

but also:  prison! 

so…

at least / at most / the only thing she could do

was to call.

Oje, okay then – hook up a speaker-phone!

the first time she called,  the party quieted down.

Dylcia could be heard by everyone,
talk to everyone,
hear everyone;
the shouts of saludos and felicidades,
all our messages of love and support
for her
for her son.
She could just be a mom.
A normal mom.
For once.
For a moment
For an imaginary moment.

the second time she called,  the phone was passed around hand to hand.  Like … she was mingling. I talked to her.  My girlfriend talked to her. The brothers Kahlil and Eli called her “Mama-D” and told her they loved her.  Piri the poet, read a poem to her. 

She mingled.

(if only…)

the third time she called,  the party was heating up.  We tried the speaker-phone again. but maybe half the people listened. 

Maybe.

the fourth time …
… cuz in prison, the max for every call is only 15 minutes, then the phone cuts off. Done. That’s it. Pay again to call again. Hope no one else wants the phone…

… the fourth time the party was full-on. No way the musicians, the dancers, the talkers, the flirters, the laughers would stop or quiet, so the musicians played, the dancers danced and the laughers laughed and Dylcia said:
                   let me just listen

and she listened to the crowd and the dancing and the music

and the Puerto Rican rhythms

which she loved so much.

When the 15 minutes ran out, it it was her friend Berte who was holding the phone.

     CLICK…

     and then that hissy silence that means the call is truly over, the line is dead.

Berte got thoughtful and gently laid the phone down.  She stood up from the couch and walked into the kitchen and found some privacy by squeezing her face into a corner where two cabinets met and started to cry.

     Berte was Dylcia’s friend.
     Inside.
     For five and a half years.

Cell mates, when that meant four women to a cell.

4 women – forced to live together in a space the size of bathroom.

Eventually, in the kitchen, Berte stopped crying, backed out of the corner only to stagger over toward my girlfriend where she found more privacy on my girlfriends shoulder, buried her head there and began to cry all over again.

“She was the best friend I ever had,” said Berte.

“It was the most love I ever got in my life,” said Berte.

Berte said she’d rather be

     Inside
     with Dylica

than living this hard life
on the outside.
It’s hard on the outside, said Berte.

It’s hard.

Berte was beautiful that night, her hair swept up, her jacket black as midnight, but that did not stop the tears.  My girlfriend held her.  She cried and cried until she finally didn’t need to do it anymore.

a true story 

from the time while making 

The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez-Gomez