3rd Wave Feminism & Woman's Prison

“Feminist” is a term that I have struggled with my whole life. When people have called me this, I feel very insulted, stripped of my own independence and humanity. Stripped of the personal struggle created by being unable to relate to both the mainstream ideals of womanhood and the third wave feminist movement’s demands that I reject feminine qualities altogether.

Many third wave feminists have rejected “Woman’s Prison”, and me as well. They write me letters thanking me for my “tough’ film, but mention their disappointment about how I was not “tough” enough at the end. These so called feminists are at the center of my inner conflict. These are the women who have bullied me for being feminine, criticized me for adoring fashion or loving my Barbie Doll collection passionately, rolled their eyes at my Anna Nicole Smith pictures. These are women who said that in order for women to be successful they must become men, “think like a man”, be tough like man. In order to be successful you cannot embody any feminine characteristics. To look and act feminine is weak, is wrong, is a recipe for failure.

However, feminine is what I am. I am alone here in my skin; belonging to no one but myself. I do not want to be a poster child for any movement. I speak for myself and only myself.
Yet when faced with the reactions from the third wave feminists, I noticed the familiarity in tone. Surprisingly, their disapproval blends with the misogynist voices that raised me in South Bend, Indiana.

I grew up in an extreme environment. My father’s side of the family regarded feminine appearance with vulgarity. To be feminine, was weak. To cry or show emotion was wrong. My body was gawked at and ridiculed. It was embarrassing to be around any of them. Women were often referred to as sexual objects in front of me as a child. It was disgusting. Fashion was escape, and fashion was punch in the face to my father’s distain for femininity. Yet, my father was always convinced that fashion existed solely for women to seek male approval. How wrong he was. Fashion belonged solely to me. It was the way I owned my body, the way I expressed my love of self and color. Picture a fashion forward child, Katie Madonna Lee, presenting her new outfit to a group of rowdy men watching Notre Dame football. Not exactly my audience.

So when the mainstream labels me as a feminist filmmaker, I am insulted. If they only knew how so many women’s groups have rejected my film for not fulfilling their agenda, and me for being “soft.” One film critic who is a third wave feminist, wrote, “I had an even greater problem with the final sequence of the heroine's spirit freed in death, which completely undercuts the toughness of the film in order to give it a falsely up-lifting, audience-friendly ending. [Julie Ann Mabry] should have been buried behind the walls and should have left it to us and our individual belief or non-belief in an afterlife to supply the emotion,” The critic suggests an ending that would fulfill her political agenda. She also suggests that I am “tough”. And that tough is some how a quality that I should be proud of. Determined, dedicated and committed are better words to describe any director’s approach to a film.

At a first reading of the script, I was told by a fellow male collegue that I had a political feminist agenda. When I wrote the film, it had nothing to do with a political agenda or feminism. There is no cause in the film besides the cause of the characters. I wrote a story. I was empathic to Julie Ann Mabry’s life and I wrote about it. It was told through her point of view. And unfortunately, in her life, all men had failed her. But most women did too.

So there I am again. A ping-pong ball, being thrown back and forth in a cultural debate that I never wanted to be apart of. The status quo calls me feminist. And yet the feminist groups reject me.

Both are failing to see that I am a person, a person that has no message about politics or social issues. I write stories. I am an empathic person. I do not know how to fix the world besides being an honest person in one’s day-to-day individual relationships. Both the mainstream and third wave feminists are in cultural disagreement, yet, both the mainstream and the third wave feminists will judge my work by my gender.

Both groups forget that "Woman’s Prison” is not a political prison piece, although prison is used as a storytelling device accurately, it is a mother/daughter story. “Tommy Boy” is not a film about large corporations buying up small town, mom and pop companies, it uses that as device to execute a story of Tommy following his father footsteps. I did not make a message, I made a movie.

The critic reminds me how the third wave feminists failed me and women altogether. Once they decided that success as a woman should be measured by one abilities to think like a man, and that feminine qualities were weak, they became misogynists themselves.

I loved the feminine; I loved my dolls and my clothes more anything. And I couldn’t wait to find others who embraced this passion as well. However, something very strange happened when I turned into a teenager. Suddenly, women were copying my father’s reactions to my outfits and personality. Older women, and young feminists informed me that I had been brainwashed, most likely by Madonna. They told me that I was too smart to be wearing wigs and purple spandex. As if this thing that I loved, (fashion) degraded my intelligence.

These women talked in fancy tones and presented themselves as accomplished women. They would frown upon my sensitivity and appearance, patting me on the head for falling into my “social conditioning.”

I naturally liked beautiful things and I did cry when I watched Titanic. And Footloose, And even Short Circuit. I was being bullied by women for being completely feminine, just as my father ridiculed me. The feminist circle would look down on my friendliness as flakiness. Scoffed at me like old men at a cigar bar. Truly it was a gross reaction by “accomplished” women. They were brutes. They saw their femininity as weak and sought to scold me for being effeminate.

I was very confused by the role to play and the emotional place that I should be in. It was a difficult life in Indiana because of its extremes. If embraced fashion, I would be harassed and even beat up. There was a choice that had to be made: if you want a boyfriend then you give up yourself to please them, a choice made by both women and men. I didn’t want to do anything outside of my own motivations, I’d say. My father would shout at me, “You are never going to get a man with that mouth of yours.” I decided to hold my breath until I could move.

Experiencing such hatred towards feminine qualities has made me realize that I am not apart of any movement, only my own movement towards self-actualization. The feminists or brutes back in Indiana will neither accept my blond hair, body or fashion. They both detest the feminine and regard it was weak. However, weak was never a feminine quality, nor a masculine quality; it is just a human flaw that has potential to spout in every human being.

An Introduction to the Opposites

Although I am not a devout practicer of yoga, I will compare film making to the process. You must hold your self in a very uncomfortable position, and breathe. Most of this pain, that you will experience making a film is emotional, soon leading to physical. However, it is the realities that you discover which will cause you most the emotional distress.

Film making is the play on opposites. And I find it hilarious.

It takes a million dollars to make a film about poverty. When I was taking "Woman's Prison" to different producers, they all mentioned that the film would cost at least one million dollars. I mentioned that I did not want established stars to be in the film, I wanted all unknowns. Still, they insisted. This million dollar price tag on a story about poverty seemed ridiculous, especially since my goal was to make a completely honest film about the subject matter. And I did.
Drive and passion carried "Woman's Prison" to completion not a million dollar budget.

A studio may make a film about being poor white trash, but you can bet that almost everyone on the set has little or no experience living as such. Most of the film business is saturated in wealth, ran by people from comfortable means not impoverished backgrounds. Which is reasonable when one must face the demands socially and emotionally of the "business." However, this gap leads to the misrepresentation of poverty and how it translates emotionally and intellectually to people. Absolute poverty is not just something that exists in Africa and South America. Absolute poverty exists in South Bend, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan and in East St. Louis, and its not only black people, yet white people as well. These are American third world nations.

Growing up around such lives motivated my decision to make "Woman's Prison" under the circumstances that I did. It was important to not tack on a comfortable ending to this story just because most would not "believe" that Julie Ann's circumstances were possible. The truth is "Woman's Prison" does not even touch the iceberg of these invisible lives. The media's inability to allow these women to been seen or heard humanely only adds injury to the situation.

Film is a chance to correct dangerous misconceptions about poverty and the choices it presents. It is humanity's chance to share honest emotion and be introduced to new perspectives collectively. It allows dialogue to happen and puts audiences in other people's shoes. Which is why every filmmaker has a responsibility to create work that is honest. Shock is over. Honest and sincerity are the new trend.

Film is the process of delayed gratification. Contrary to watching a film, which supplies instant gratification in a hour or two, shooting takes weeks and editing takes even longer. Overall, it takes months to see the finished result. By the time the film is finished, gratification is the tingling of a invisible limb.

When Indie films were a blossoming art form in the early 90's, they were made for almost nothing, by unknowns, with unknowns and were greeted with great admiration. However, now an "Indie" film is considered made for 5 million dollars and casted with a star who has taken a "pay cut." And what was once considered "indie", controlling content, making a film with passion, is now considered "amateur." Yet, this is such of the opposite of what "Indie" should mean. Indie should not only be about famous people making their own films. "Indie" should be about the story and passion attached not the Hollywood name attached. "Indie" should be independent of status quo and formula.

All this said, I am not done making films and working in film. These realizations are only little cramps after one has ran a mile. Although, I will say, the toll that film making takes on your body and mind is not something to play down. The process continuously triggers my sensitive nature and burdens my conscience. However, film needs a new perspective now more then ever.

Most people would have walked away and settled on being a gaffer or an assistant to producer rather then do what I do. If you settle into that position you luckily avoid humiliation of the Indie process. You are treated with basic respect from your fellow peers and receive instant admiration from the public who may ask what you do for a living. There is not such public admiration coming at you when you have given up your phone service to pay for kraft services or are vomiting on set from stress.

However, then you have to live with your artistic conscience knowing it missed out. I have to know what it feels like to have the film come through me. And while the process is an uncomfortable one and forces one to be instantly 50, I will say that if you have it pestering inside, the only freedom you will ever have is in making the film. There's no easy way out.

So practice film yoga. Learn to breath while holding an uncomfortable position for a long time. When you are finished, you may be sore but its only because you just moved a mountain.

Pain is Temporary, Film is Forever

June 9, 2009,

I no longer feel broken. I am in awe of what we created. I want to live now, and repair so that I can continue onward in this process. I did not know, but waiting on the other side was the life that Julie Ann and Susan both deserved. A life without the haunting of violence or poverty. At the end of the film, Julie Ann's only freedom is her death, and this film was how I freed myself. And now, I have exchanged despair for the truth of myself to exist. For the first time, I am surrounded by the positive things that Indiana has given me. Those things, my Mother, my close friends will always outweigh its ugliness.

Always.

The Emotional Toll of "Woman's Prison"

Before I set off to make "Woman's Prison" I was completely ready, there was no doubt in my mind that making this film, in the summer of 2008, was exactly what I had to do. And even during production, I attacked each day with a bolt of electricity surging through me. However, that all took a turn once I finished the film.

Now, I do not know why I made the film. After a visit to the heart specialist ordered by my doctor, I question if it was worth it. As I laid there, listening my heart beat back and forth, it was true, my heart was broken. My emotional symptoms were now physical.

And the reason for this heart break was that I faced my mortality making this film. I felt everyone place their burdens on me for 11 months. It was constant taking. As the demons that created the content slowly made their way out, my physical defenses were dissolving as well as any rationality. The dark energy of the film entered me and would not leave.

It was not as if we just made a film about women in poverty, I was filming the movie in the city that had been responsible for much of my emotional turmoil and negative energy. Seeing youthful girls without emotional baggage from from New York enjoying Indiana and not immediately seeing my past experiences, made me feel more alienated and isolated. I sought to rid myself of the violence of my adolescence , yet that violence resonates within your being forever. And seeing a person living out the life that I escaped, triggered on going panic attacks for the next 11 months.

The panic attacks had much to do with the fact that content of the film was not self contained to set. So many women we worked with lived Julie Ann's life. In one case, an actress's boyfriend would not let her come to set to shoot her scenes. How could she argue with him, she did not work, she did not pay rent, she cooked and cleaned and lived in his house. We lost a day of shooting due to her troubled relationship.

I carried the burden weight of those possible fates back to New York City, believing that the hardest part was over. I had no idea was going to be exchanged in order to finish the film.

My life was on hold for 11 months. There were moments so tense that I do not even remember them. Sleep was interrupted with nightmares reliving production traumas. My face was covered with red patches of dry skin. Purple bags outlined my eyes. My two pairs of jeans spouted dozens of holes. The only human contact that I had was with the post production staff, making me emotionally needy and cynical. I passed out on the subways trains. Images of Holocaust victims and Detroit poverty ran uncontrolled in my mind. I knew how bad life could get. I did not need any well off white person who grew up in the suburbans to tell me about who was being cheated. Their ramblings triggered my anxieties and worsened my condition. As they extended their hearts to residents of Bed-Stuy, they seem to lack the immediate compassion to notice that the person in front of them was experiencing this first hand. However much guilt motivated them to preach, they were certainly was not being cheated, just lazy.

And these encounters contributed to my isolation. While I was able to see how others were feeling, most people I ran into on a daily basis were only out for you to be an audience for their hangups. Now when you are in a normal, healthy state of mind, this is fine to deal with. Yet, when you are having images of slain populations flashing in your mind, you do not need to hear self absorbed left wing rants masked as compassion. You need to watch soap operas or Disney movies.

As post-production dragged on, anger and resentments at how things occurred on set bubbled to the surface. I felt neglected by my crew in the face of a particular problem person on set. I realized that while I envisioned having a whole female crew as honest way to make the film, I had not foreseen the fact that people in general fear and respect father figures and do not respect a woman without some intimidating male presence protecting her. I would pay for this during production.

The main lesson learned, sexism is not carried out by men alone, but by women--by women who have never been able to take out their anger on men. Rather then take out their rage on men, they will target each other because they are allowed to and by assaulting other women they will not harm their chances to gain approval from men.

And since most girls do seek approval from men, the boys put girls in check. Had I had a male assistant director, there would have been less gossiping, needless flirting and rantings. My male AD would have put a certain actor in his place when he sat in car for a half hour and yelled profanities at me. The fear of another male would have kept his behavior respectable.

All of these realizations took a toll on my body. Late in post-production, I went to see a doctor for a physical and she asked "Why is your blood pressure so high?" and I said, "it is?" and I paused. "My left side of my face is numb and tingling." I was having a mini stroke.

When you are under the creative demands of directing, you must be completely surrounded by protective people. There must be buffers away from excited crew or emotionally burdened actors. And this lack of protection took its toll on my health, both physical and emotional. Worse, was that my even though my ailing health was visible, the reaction from my superiors and peers ignored those signs. No one was taking into account my sickeningly body, therefore I continued working until I became sick with pneumonia and took four days to sleep. When my sickness was seen, I was ordered to "take care" of myself, which is more of burden then something that I could actually do. There was no time for my body to exist, or there to be any delays. Money was extremely tight. I subleted my room for 11 months and slept on my couch. I ate the frozen vegetables and noodles three times a day.

I turned in the film on April 17. New York City's noise and busyness felt as if it was attacking me. I started screaming and jumped in my car and left. I cried the whole 11 hour drive to Indiana. Not because, I was emotionally hurt but because I felt nothing. These were new tears, tears that I cried because I wanted to be a human again and I had no idea where to start. I wanted to experience romantic love without thinking about domestic violence. I wanted to find people that were not so selfish and obsessed with celebrities, that could appreciate things for just existing. I wanted a genuine friend who did not want anything from me. And as music played on the radio, songs that used to inspire, amounted to nothing that I could believe in anymore. My heart was broken, and it happened to break because I followed it.

Why Not Me?

There is always hope when you leave. Julie Ann learned this from her mother, Susan. And cars offer you the best kind of hope. You can get away from abuse, from boredom, just by skidding off onto the road.

Julie Ann’s favorite moments were in a car. They would sing The Judds' together when they were driving to one more temporary place to live. Susan always made light of those situations; as if they were just parts that life would eventually skip over and soon forget on their way towards something better

But eventually, you have to pull over and turn the car off. You reach where you are going and realize that nothing has changed. Julie Ann could always tell when Susan was thinking about that.

Susan Mabry was only 14 years old when she gave birth to Julie Ann. Naturally, with many emotionally immature teenagers, Susan was excited about having a baby. The actual birth part was a bit intimidating, still Susan was excited about playing house.

She didn't realize all the possibilities that were going to disappear once Julie Ann was born. That she was skipping over adolescence, skipping over moments to herself, moments of infatuation, of romance with music or art. Susan had no idea that she just traded freedom to live a burdened existence.

Yet, what Susan had before Julie Ann was born was not exactly freedom. Susan never knew her dad; her Mother had three daughters by three different men. None of the sisters looked like each other besides for the fact they all bleached their hair. Her Mom, Diane waitressed at a bar and at a diner, the girls grew up having their mother’s part time boyfriends forming terrible examples of manhood. Despite this, Susan was still a smart and sweet girl. She wanted to grow up and be a model or someone that would be worthy of being interviewed by Barbara Walters.

Since Susan shared a room with all of her sisters, she didn’t pray, instead she silently told God her thoughts as little prayers. Before she went to bed, she’d tell God a thought prayer of walking Barbara Walters through the run down neighborhoods she grew up in, watching Barbara’s expression of surprise upon hearing all Susan had overcame just to be sitting next to her today.

Susan would smile to herself. She knew she was different, was special. She was different from her other sisters. Marsha and Leigh were just not as pretty as Susan. They did not have the ability to adapt that Susan did, or the ability to entertain. Marsha had a wild streak yet that had to be tamed so she could take care of her sisters, occasionally. Leigh took after her father and looked too much like him too. Leigh had dark arm hair that she shaved off, and always was the reason for the bathtub clogging up.

In a strange way, she saw having a baby with her boyfriend John Douglas Mabry as freedom. It was not a modeling contact or a lottery ticket, but it was a direction in life however burdened it would be.

She wanted out of the house that always smelled like beer and fish sticks. Where she always felt threatened by one of her mother’s boyfriends. She felt that even she did not pregnant by John D, that something terrible would have happened to her if stayed in that house, like it happened with her sister Marsha. That was the only time Susan ever left Indiana with her family. They had to drive to Chicago to get it taken care of.

After that, Susan never felt safe in that house. Her body never felt safe at all. She wondered when what happened to Marsha would happen to her. Would she too have to go into that building and come back a different person?

Susan didn’t fully understand what Marsha went through, because Diane would not tell her. She only sat in the backseat, catching glimpses between the two. Diane smoked the whole time and did not care one way or other that Marsha cried. Diane did not say one word besides “You are going in there. I just won’t have this.”

Diane walked Marsha into the building, quickly came back out, taking the girls to get ice cream. Susan kept innocently asking why Marsha was in that building and why couldn’t she go too. Diane told Susan she was getting her teeth fixed. Which gave Susan a life long fear of Dentists. Marsha walked out of the building as a broken person.

Diane handed Marsha an ice cream cone. Marsha vomited. Susan covered her nose.

When Julie Ann came into Susan’s life, it was a chance to start over. Unlike her own life, Julie Ann would have a father and know him. Her daughter would be in school, would have her hair done, and would be an only child. And Susan would never, ever cheat on John Douglas. Sooner or later, Susan would be discovered by a photographer and she would become a model or soap opera actress, take her family to Hollywood, where Julie Ann would always go swimming and go to Disney land every weekend.

All of these things, Susan planned to have happen. She never thought that maybe her mother had a similar plan too. Didn’t Diane start out as something more as well? Susan believed her mother was always failure, that she just had been careless, not naive.

Life works out. Susan thought as she packed up all of her things. Leigh helped with the last of Susan's bags into John D’s car. Marsha did not say a word to Susan.

Susan’s plan would have worked out fine, if there were not such as thing a health insurance, as bills, or as hunger. John D was not ready for the reality either. He was a 18 year old man-child, who himself needed a mother too. While Susan would never escape having child now, he was free to moments of escape. His body did not change forever, his skin not break out due to stress; his nipples did not lactate in public. Lucky for him, irresponsible men do not turn off females in Indiana, therefore he always found women to slip his escapism into.

Yet, unlike him, Susan was seeing that she had gotten it all wrong. She had just fooled herself into thinking there would be a way out. There would never be. This was it.

Her thighs and hips would never be slender again. Her body betrayed her dreams. Her midsection hung like loose skin batter over her sweatpants. A glimpse of herself in the mirror made her realize there was no modeling contact in sight and the only dream she could ever have was her baby.

Depression grew in place of her future plans. John D did not help, he yelled at Susan. He claimed that Julie Ann was his child and he could take her when ever he wanted to, even though Susan was still nursing. John D quit giving Susan money for baby food and diapers. Susan knocked on neighbor’s doors asking if anyone needed any housework done.

Lucky for Susan, once you’re beauty is no longer a threat; women befriend one another in times of need. This is how Susan Mabry met Miss Alice. Susan started out dusting and cleaning, well, actually, Miss Alice had to teach Susan how to dust and how to clean, but once she learned, Susan was a pro.

Susan did not know how important her relationship with Miss Alice would prove to be. As John D and Susan’s home life fell apart, Susan would run to Miss Alice for safety, taking Julie Ann with her. For years this went on, until John D strangled Susan so badly that Susan could not speak for two weeks.

He was not trying to kill her. He was just trying to own her.

In many ways he did. Without skills or even a grade school education, Susan was financially dependant on him. Her only real skill was being pretty and now that was gone. The wear and tear of motherhood and poverty aged her ten years. Susan knew she could not leave him.

Having foresight, Miss Alice set Susan up with a small garage apartment in Oklahoma. She would pay a year’s rent so Susan could save money and get a head start on a brand new life. Most importantly, it was far enough away for them to get away from John D and start over.

And Susan always thought to herself, "Why not me? Why can't I have a chance at something better? Why do we have to live this way? We were meant for something better I just know it." Susan thought this as they drove off in the night.

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Both were the same, only one had more freedom to move around in the cage. And just that little ounce of more, led to her undoing.

It was not that he did not love her, he loved her in the unusual way that older boys tend to fall smitten with much younger females. It must be clarified, since this type of love is not general, it is romantic and special and somehow completely separated from the sexual lust that traps humanity. There is a magic in it, the way there is in the lyrics of Sweet Child of Mine. Inside of a tormented man, his love is pure for this girl. It relates to something that he loved so long before, in that short span of honesty that only exists in childhood.

I received this particular devoted admiration at age ten from teenage boys at the bowling alley, an affection that was often denied to their girlfriends, was freely given away to me. It was not in a perverse way, it was actually sweet yet motivated by some sort of desire. The first love I received from the opposite sex was a kiss through Axle Rose's lyrics, a quiet, devoted gaze that put poetry to everything I did, and kindly ignored their girlfriends. And the way that these teenage boys loved an ten year old Katie Madonna Lee, was how Butch Yoder loved Julie Ann Mabry.

He loved her because to him, she was pure, untouched by the world outside. And what drove him to hold her hand was that he wanted to protect her from the things that corrupted his heart. The lust in his heart was to live out a kind gesture, such as moving the hair from her face, listening to her giggle when sang to herself, and to keep her always the way he saw her.

And this desire to keep her the same, to keep her pure, is exactly what made him burn with sexual lust. He lacked the foresight to understand his emotions and did not suspect that once he crossed that boundary, his feelings of respect, of protecting her, would change. Now, she was corrupt, she was no longer the pure little thing that he rescued from a meth party thirty miles from South Bend. He was angry that that she let him do such a thing to her, even though, at the time, his motivations were romantic. Suddenly, she had fallen like all the girls, lurking outside, in rooms willing to do anything to keep a man, willing to do anything just to get attention, she was all the girls that he had vulgar and short encounters with. Those encounters he had because he could. And there was something in him just as ugly and gross those moments. But he longed to be redeemed from such actions, and he saw Julie Ann as that possibility to be pure.

He felt that disappear, and to him, it was her fault. She should have known what his true nature was. She should have known that he would turn on her. And now, he hated that she changed, that she would reach for him and anticipate lust. He cringed. No longer would he be curious and fondly think back on her on the way to work, about what she was doing, and how she sang to herself and talked about her cousin Britney. She, like that house had become a burden, all were dependant on him. She was no longer the wide open space out his window. She was another bill, another responsibility that he wanted to escape from.

That was how he met her. He was at Lonnie's house, a house that all types of invisible lives flocked to. There, they'd do all activities that invisibility grants a person, such as unlimited drug use and irresponsible sex. There's no slate counting sins or time when you're not a part of the world. And Butch found himself there in this hole in time.

There is an expiration date on life in Indiana. There is an unspoken deadline ticking, and you must leave by the time you are twenty one or time has you. It it because at certain age, time drops you and there you are. Time holds a strange pace within the state lines, and nothing can make your presence known anymore. And Julie Ann was still safe from what he and everyone else in the house had discovered. That now life only amounted to paying bills and escaping momentary from it, by any means.

At one time it was not like this. There was mystery, possibility out there in the wide open mouth of Indiana. He'd used to be able get lost out there and never want to leave. He used to fall in with every bit of it, and felt life pulling him towards something special. But time had taken that away. Maybe he had waited for too long before leaving, maybe he wanted a glimpse of what all the smart kids with money weren't sticking around to see.

The thrill to living was gone. There is a life that happens to everyone else in the world and there's a life that happens here in Indiana. Television shows confused him. No one on television ever looked as tired and dirty as the people in Indiana. They had clean houses and nice hair, they had places to go, and the threat of being homeless never seemed to loom over their whole existence. He wondered where those people lived and if he moved there, if he be as clean and full of things to do and people to see.

He thought to himself. He should have left and moved to some city, found some density there that would have kept him living. And here, watching girls that never had dads sort meth until they chewed their teeth out, was not life. But it was all there was besides television shows and church. So he went, attempting to forget too about how he ended up living out his mistakes and his shame for staying in a place that never would offer him anything but frustration.

And then Julie Ann wondered in, and in her he saw that was something he could effect, something that he could discover. She, unlike all the naked girls around him, was untouched by her parents mistakes so far, she was unaware of what life amounted to here. And he felt something pierce his heart that had been gone for so long. Which was why he wanted to get her away from Lonnie's house.

She looked confused and lost, looking for her cousin Britney, he urged her to leave and offered her a ride. Which a shoeless Julie Ann accepted upon being called "Amish" by a methed out hag. Butch led her to his "piece of shit" car, a 1980's Grand Marquee passed down to him by deceased grandparents. He watched through his peripheral vision, Julie Ann nervously fidget with her hands, and hide her smile. She was nervous. And that made him feel like he was giving her something special, as if she would go home and remember every piece of this moment.

And she did. In that car, as the morning broke over the industrial cornfields in South Bend, they both were given a freedom only offered in car on a lonely highway. To each other they were new and perfect, and the colors of the sky complimented these feelings, and allowed a silent romance to take place. They were free to each other. Butch Yoder was free from his rented house, and the person attached to the activities at Lonnie's house. He was a new person to Julie Ann and himself.

Julie Ann leaned out the window. And touched the radio. Her hair blew wild. Butch quietly agreed with all of it.

Julie Ann was touched by the familiar feelings of freedom she had with her Mother, Susan. They were always on the run, running away from a bad situation, running from homelessness. And the only time they had to be happy or free was inside of a moving car with the radio turned on. They'd be safe momentary, and get to watch the wide open space be beautiful instead of it be a threat to them.

Freedom. She fell in love with him for giving her this. She fell in love with him because it was like touching the moments with her mother, that no one besides Britney would let her talk about.

By the time they reached Julie Ann's Aunt and Uncle's house, she had forgotten all about Britney. She forgot all about the fight that took place earlier. Julie Ann happily touched the texture of the seat and stared at Butch's beautiful face. She never wanted to get out of the car. She wanted to buy red shoes and a tight jeans, like the girls had on at the party. She wanted to rip the "Amish" dress off and dance in secular clothes. Julie Ann gazed off in his direction and didn't notice the police car sitting in the drive way.

"Looks like you got some punishment after you." Butch matter of factly stated. Shocked, Julie Ann froze, she knew she could not enjoy anything. Everything good in life had to be met by some horrible punishment. And now she was going to go off to jail, just for being in a car with a boy.

"What should I do?" Julie Ann blabbed. But before she was given an answer, Aunt Marsha's hands ripped out the door and shrill cries cut off anything Butch could say.

"Get out that car! Where were you?" Aunt Marsha grabbed Julie Ann's face and said, "Britney is dead, where were you?"

The outside world had been leaking in for a long time. It was the smell of mildew growing on the wall, water dripping from a roof that there was no time or emotional motivation to fix. There was work, a job that he went to, as well as an excuse for why he could not move, why he didn't have time to do anything besides watch television.

If Julie Ann had entered his life briefly and then wondered back home, he would have surely loved her forever. Curiosity over the potential she'd blossom into, would keep his mind engaged, replaying fantasies about the time he'd pay a visit to the grown woman, Julie Ann Mabry. And she would have something to give him that no other lady had, she would be both a child and a woman to him. She would be both pure and both sexual. He could be with her and not feel as if he was corrupting a child, rather he'd feel that he was connecting equally. They could have a life that they watched on television sitcoms, where families joked with each other in clean, middle class houses. And all the feelings of being lost would be gone.

Photos by Catherine Berry.
From the feature film, "Woman's Prison".