My Life in the Women’s Halfway House, Part III: Meeting My Criminal Roommates

The next thing I really remember was being left alone in my room to unpack. The house director, Astrid, had showed me to my bedroom on the second floor and informed me that I would be rooming with a girl named Heather. Beyond her name, I knew nothing about my particular roommate. However, a cursory glance around the room gave me enough insight to conclude that Heather probably was a little different than my peers back at Colorado College, the small private liberal arts college I had been attending for the last two years.

As an initial matter, Heather appeared to be a total hoarder. Her stuff was endless and everywhere. Clothes were spilling out of five of the six drawers in our shared dresser and the closet wasn’t much better. She had peculiar things, too. Stashed away in the closet was a collection of dismantled electronics that included a few cd players and a portable television. On the window seat next to her bed were large plastic tubs filled with knick knacks and crafty items – glitter, glue sticks, scented stationary, rainbow gel pens, etc. I also counted six alarm clocks, all set to different incorrect times, between the room’s two nightstands. And the dresser was littered with enough makeup, perfume, nail polish, and hair dye to sink a battleship.

Ugh. It was hitting me that Heather probably wouldn’t have much in common with the people I was used to at Colorado College and this fact made me incredibly uncomfortable. I mean, for starters, no one wore make up at CC. CC was a pretty granola place. The students were very into the outdoors, being natural, and engaging in more important things like social activism and resistance activities. Make up and dressing up to attract the attention of the opposite sex were not only shallow and unnatural, but indulging in these activities also showed that you didn’t take women’s rights very seriously. In fact, if you played into the perverse beauty myth of Western society at all, you were greasing the wheels of the patriarchy. This meant that at CC you wouldn’t find someone who had a dresser full of makeup, nail polish, and hair dying kits. And you certainly wouldn’t catch me with those things. Being a women’s studies major, I took dismantling the patriarchy especially seriously so, obviously, I knew the dangers of make up (and shaving, for that matter). Looking at all of her stuff I concluded that Heather was clearly not a feminist. I immediately and self-righteously condemned her for being so superficial.

Plus also weird was the fact that, even though Heather had crap everywhere, I did not see any evidence whatsoever that political or social activism was a big part of her life. You see, I was used to being around socially and politically engaged students who were dedicated to fighting systemic racism, discrimination of all kinds, global warming, and a variety of other social and political ills. At CC, we made sure we plastered “Celebrate Diversity” and “Free Tibet” stickers on our Nalgene water bottles and Apple laptops and, in our classes, we spoke passionately about the issues that were most personal to us. Being largely ignorant to a number of political and social ills, I chose the most obvious cause and became a feminist – women’s oppression was easily identifiable and, as a woman, I could definitely get sufficiently pissed off about the oppression of women to be taken seriously and thereby accepted by my classmates.

But, some students had far more sophisticated pet causes and I was jealous of them. For example, a girl from Iowa named Killian was working to fight the privatization of the prison system and advocating for greater prisoners’ rights. Her cause was obviously so much better than mine and she was respected accordingly. It never dawned on me that there was something weird about the fact that Killian would urge the rest of us to increase our sensitivity toward the nation’s incarcerated population while simultaneously derogatorily referring to Colorado Springs residents who did not attend CC as “townies.”

“Heather obviously does not take the issues very seriously,” I thought to myself. Mind you, I wasn’t sure what the “issues” were exactly, but I didn’t see any political stickers on any Nalgene water bottles and this concerned me. In fact, I did not even see a Nalgene water bottle. This was so weird. At this point, it was apparent that Heather was going to be nothing like the enlightened and engaged students I was used to at CC.

All of these observations about my new roommate were freaking me out. I felt lonely, homesick for the world I knew, and I was filled with dread about the next however many months I had to be at this miserable house. The anxiety inside my chest got a foothold and started to snowball into a full on panic attack. But, my meltdown was abruptly cut short by a voice coming from the doorway.

“So you’re the new girl Julie, huh?” I looked up from where I had been staring at the floor and saw a short, round-faced girl with shoulder length blonde hair and big droopy doe eyes. “I’m Jill. My room is right next to yours,” she said warmly. She must have been able to sense that I was on the verge of a major freak out because she continued on reassuringly. “I know. It’s weird here at first! It doesn’t help that you’re rooming with Heather, either. She’s a total tweeker. I’m heading to 7-11. Wanna come?” she asked.

I managed to hear 7-11 and tweeker. I did not know what a tweeker was (eventually I would learn that a tweeker is someone who is a crystal meth addict – tweekers like to take things, like televisions, apart and they are notorious for collecting odd kinds of junk and being hoarders), but I knew that I could chain smoke on the way to the 7-11. “Sure.” I replied.

After Jill and I got permission from the director to make a quick trip to pick up some sodas, we headed up the block to the nearby convenience store. As soon as we got out of the house, Jill began interrogating me. “So, what’s your story? You’re from Colorado? Why would you ever come here on your own or come all the way out here? Why would you want to live here?” Jill asked bluntly.

I got the sense that she thought it was strange that I moved to San Francisco for my secondary sober housing, so I scrambled to explain myself. “Well, I don’t really know I guess. I went to rehab for drinking too much and they said I had to live in sober housing for six months that was somewhere other than where I was living before rehab. I thought that sounded kind of horrible, so I figured I wanted to at least be somewhere cool when I was doing it. I tried to find sober houses in New Zealand at first, but I couldn’t. So San Francisco sounded like the next best thing,” I said trying to make my decision sound completely normal and oblivious to the fact that the New Zealand bit made me sound like a total brat.

Jill was a little surprised by my response and it showed in her face – although this could have simply been the fact that Jill always had a look of surprise and wonder. She had big, vacant, moon-shaped eyes that, to me, suggested she was born slightly mentally disabled. “Wow. Well, that’s not really the way most people end up here. That’s weird!” she said giggling at me. Her laughter struck me as a bit inappropriate and odd.

“What do you mean that’s weird? How do most people end up here?” I asked her confused. “I mean, isn’t that why most of the women are here? To get sober and live full and good lives in recovery?” The fact that Jill was still laughing was starting to frighten me.

“Uhhh … it’s just kind of weird that you just came here, I mean. And especially all the way from Colorado. Most of the girls live here because their PO’s make them when they’re coming out of prison,” she said with a hint of judgment. “But, that’s not me,” she quickly pointed out. “No one’s making me be here. No way. I’m here on my own – mainly because my public defender thought it would look good before my court date.”

What the fuck. I was taken aback and did not know what to say. This new information did not comport with what the director of the house, Astrid, had told me about the place when she was doing my phone interview two weeks earlier. When speaking with Astrid over the phone, she described the residents as women dedicated to their sobriety and healing from the pain that led them to develop a dependency on drugs or drinking in the first place. I got the impression that we were going to do healthy things together – like sunrise Tai Chi classes in Golden Gate Park and discussing our feelings and journaling together. I was in no way prepared for the fact that the majority of the house’s residents were here involuntarily, i.e. because they were just getting out of prison or trying to avoid prison in the first place. The fact that the house’s residents were all entangled with the California corrections system was also for some reason completely omitted from the house’s website.

“Oh. But Astrid made it sound like this was supposed to be a place for like recovering people who are wanting to live healthier, more spiritual, emotionally balanced lives? Like we’re all here to live without drugs or drinking and support and encourage each other, right?” I asked nervously. “Plus, we have all of that group therapy and those meetings and we bond and share our lives and our struggles and triumphs, right?” I asked not realizing how naïve and pathetic I sounded in that moment.

Jill obviously found my understanding of the house and my panicky vulnerability to be humorous. “Ha! That’s so Astrid. I mean, that’s part of it I guess, but most of us are here for other stuff, too,” Jill explained. “Plus, Astrid was probably not telling you the full story because she wanted to say she got a girl to come here on her own from out of state. She’s been bragging about how she got you to come all the way out from Colorado to live here – thinks it makes her look good at her job,” Jill continued. “And as far as the group therapy and the meetings, I mean it’s mostly B.S. The therapist we have is a joke – she’s a total food addict and every time she is here, she smuggles out a box of our cookies before she leaves. We’ve caught her a bunch of times. The AA meetings are okay. But usually the house dog, Crosby, walks through the living room and farts and ruins it. The house program is kind of just a bunch of shit.” Jill explained.

I tried to contain my shock for the remainder of our trip to 7-11, but my head was spinning as I tried to make sense of everything Jill was telling me. Prison? PO’s? Does that stand for parole officer? And what is a tweeker?! And what the fuck? Our certified addictions counselor therapist steals?! And a dog interrupts our therapy sessions and meetings with his farts?!?

This was all too much. I was dreading returning to the house. It was now after 5 pm and all of the women would be getting home from work soon. I was terrified and dragging my feet as we ascended the steps to go back inside. I needed another cigarette and badly. Luckily, Jill was a smoker, too, so we went down into the smoking area in the basement as soon as we got back inside.

As we headed down the stairs, the basement was noisy and a group of about seven women were talking over each other all at once. Suddenly, a voice shouted out above the others and I realized that the voice was speaking to me. I looked up to see a short, portly, frizzy haired redhead who was wearing an oversized stained t-shirt with a giant duck on it that read “I’m Quakers!” She was talking a mile a minute and barely pausing to breathe between sentences.

“Hey! What’s up Colorado? How’s it going? Are you settled in? Did you see I cleaned out some space for you? I’m Heather your roommate! It sucks that I had to get a roommate – I like having it all to myself. But there should be a couple drawers for you and some room in the closet. And I cleaned the room, too, so you should be glad about that. That’s good that Jill took you out. You know you can’t go anywhere without one of us for the first month, but Jill’s on permanent disability for mental health stuff, so she’s around a lot and can take you out during the day.”

I guess this was my tweeker roommate. She seemed really intense and she talked faster than anyone I had ever met. And she had a way of commanding the attention of the room when she was talking, too. I could tell immediately that she was not someone you wanted to fuck with. Given that the whole room stopped talking when Heather spoke, it seemed to me that Heather was the alpha dog in this house. And because she made sure to let me know that she was not at all excited to be getting a roommate, she clearly gave very few fucks about what others thought about her.

“Yeah, so when we’re done smoking, I’ll show you around the room and where you can put stuff. You’re lucky you got me. I’m the HBIC in this house. The head bitch in charge. And if I like you, I’ll look after you,” Heather said to me matter of factly.

“Oh, shut the fuck up with that HBIC shit Heather! You’re a fool tweeker,” another woman chimed in. “You shut the fuck up Cynthia. Nobody’s got this house on lockdown like me. And you know it,” Heather sharply shot back. The room was silent for a minute and then the women began laughing. “You’ve got a mouth on you, I’ll give you that Heather,” Cynthia conceded while backing down.

So, these were my roommates. It became immediately clear that we probably weren’t going to hold hands in a circle and meditate together or practice sunrise yoga while sipping chai tea like I had imagined we would. We probably wouldn’t talk about how to fight the patriarchy or how best to celebrate diversity either. I had just entered a new world that could not have been any more different than that to which I was accustomed.

I did not know what to say in response to any of the conversation that had just transpired in the basement. My brain was on overload as I tried to take in my new situation. I felt like I needed to say something in response to Heather, though, given her generous offer to show me the ropes. But, when I opened my mouth to speak, all I could manage to get out was “Okay, but what is a tweeker?” The room immediately erupted in laughter. “Ohhhhh girl. That’s cute. You aren’t in Colorado anymore,” Cynthia said shaking her head.