III.
“You don’t take a shower after 9 o’clock.”
Last winter, I visited Detroit to take the measure of the Gray Wastes. Michigan, with an incarceration rate of 628 people per 100,000, is about average for an American state. I drove to the East Side to talk with a woman I’ll call Tonya, who had done 18 years for murder and a gun charge and had been released five months earlier. She had an energetic smile and an edge to her voice that evidenced the time she’d spent locked up. Violence, for her, commenced not in the streets, but at home. “There was abuse in my grandmother’s home, and I went to school and I told my teacher,” she explained. “I had a spot on my nose because I had a lit cigarette stuck on my nose, and when I told her, they sent me to a temporary foster-care home… The foster parent was also abusive, so I just ran away from her and just stayed on the streets.”
Tonya began using crack. One night she gathered with some friends for a party. They smoked crack. They smoked marijuana. They drank. At some point, the woman hosting the party claimed that someone had stolen money from her home. Another woman accused Tonya of stealing it. A fight ensued. Tonya shot the woman who had accused her. She got 20 years for the murder and two for the gun. After the trial, the truth came out. The host had hidden the money, but was so high that she’d forgotten.
This story is from the October 2015 edition of The Atlantic.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 2015 edition of The Atlantic.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
After the Miracle
Cystic fibrosis once guaranteed an early deathbut a medical breakthrough has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected. What do they do now?
WILLIAM WHITWORTH 1937-2024
WILLIAM WHITWORTH, the editor of The Atlantic from 1980 to 1999, had a soft voice and an Arkansas accent that decades of living in New York and New England never much eroded.
Christine Blasey Ford Testifies Again
Her new memoir doubles as a modern-day horror story.
Is Theo Von the Next Joe Rogan?
Or is he something else entirely?
Orwell's Escape
Why the author repaired to the remote Isle of Jura to write his masterpiece, 1984
What's So Bad About Asking Where Humans Came From?
Human origin stories have often been used for nefarious purposes. That doesn't mean they are worthless.
Miranda's Last Gift
When our daughter died suddenly, she left us with grief, memories and Ringo.
BEFORE FACEBOOK, THERE WAS Black Planet
An alternative history of the social web
CLASH OF THE PATRIARCHS
A hard-line Russian bishop backed by the political might of the Kremlin could split the Orthodox Church in two.
THE MAN WHO DIED FOR THE LIBERAL ARTS
Chugging through Pacific waters in February 1942, the USS Crescent City was ferrying construction equipment and Navy personnel to Pearl Harbor, dispatched there to assist in repairing the severely damaged naval base after the Japanese attack.