Doing Time on the Outside: Incarceration and Family Life in Urban America

Chapter 9. Doing Time: Lilly & Arthur

Chapter 9 Doing Time: Lilly & Arthur Lilly is ‹fty-one. She was married with three children by the age of nineteen when her husband left her. A single parent without a high school education and functionally illiterate, she has worked as a beautician , a construction worker, a cook, a daycare provider, and at a host of other odd jobs to support her family. Her oldest son, Arthur, is thirty-three and has three children of his own: one son, Arthur Jr., now seventeen, and two daughters, Renika and Lawanda, ages ‹fteen and thirteen, respectively, the younger of whom has cerebral palsy. Like many prisoners, Arthur relies on his family for support in many ways: not just emotional support and acceptance but ‹nancial assistance and the care for his three children. Lilly is Arthur’s closest family connection and provides the most emotional support and monetary assistance to him, though his sister, Cheryl, and his great-aunt, Roseanne, also help out. Lilly also helps to care for Arthur’s children. Arthur has been incarcerated since the age of eighteen for beating a man in a ‹ght over a girlfriend. His son recounts the story this way: He went up there to see a girl and, in the process of him seeing the girl, the people jumped him. They jumped him one time, he let it go. He told his brothers, “Naw, it’s all right, it was a fair shake. Boom! One of them tried to hit me, I hit him, beat him up, and they jumped me, and I left. That was that.” But then he went back up there, and, like, they ain’t say nothing or do nothing. Then he went up a third time, and they jumped him again. But this time they put him in the hospital, so his brothers and them was, like, “Man, when you get out, we gotta go take care of Doing Time on the Outside 114 them, because they, they’re playing around.” So then they went back up there. Then they got to ‹ghting or whatever, and then my uncle Ray* pulled out a gun, and it was, like, “Man, I ain’t ‹ghting no more!” Boom! He just started shooting. And then once that happened, they went home. Arthur was arrested and, when he refused to identify his uncle as the shooter,† the prosecutor decided against cutting him any deals. The Roseanne Cheryl Billy Lilly Tamika Arthur Arthur Jr. Renika Lawanda Ray Lalisa male female incarcerated most affected deceased primary household secondary household romantic marriage separated divorced Fig. 11. Lilly and Arthur’s family * In many families, family members call extended relations by names that imply closer ties. Arthur Jr. calls Ray—his father’s mother’s brother—his uncle. † While the victims knew both Arthur and his brother, they were unfamiliar with and unable to identify his uncle. 115 Doing Time judge sentenced him to eight to twenty-four years.* The conviction was for assault with intent to kill. Arthur is serving additional time for an assault while in prison, which he claims was in self-defense.1 He has just successfully appealed additional charges for an altercation with a guard but has another year before he is eligible for parole. Arthur was held in the D.C. Jail during November and December 1999 while his appeal was heard but is now being held in a privately contracted facility in Youngstown, Ohio. Prison Worries Arthur’s incarceration has taken an emotional toll on Lilly. While she can be upbeat and optimistic (often unrealistically so), she often cries and becomes depressed thinking and talking about her son. While dif‹cult to measure, the pain of losing a loved one to prison is the most palpable cost to many relatives. When I asked Lilly to describe what it was like to have a son in prison, she told me, It’s like a loss. It’s a loss that if you ever had something, a favorite something, and you lose it, that’s how it is for me. I got him, and I’m glad I got him, but I miss him tremendously because I can’t talk to him all the time. Just not knowing if he’s okay, you know, something could have happened to him. No words really can describe it when you take somebody away, and they’re not dead. You can talk to...