Barker, Kylie

[Mama]

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• NAME:Kylie Ann Barker
  
• ALIAS: Mama
  
• BIRTH DATE: August 13, 1970
  
• AGE IN 2006: 36
  

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• LOOKS:
  • Height: 5”9’
    
  • Weight: 149.5 lbs
    
  • Hair Color: Black
    
  • Other Details: Mama appears comfortable in her prison blues. She wears them as though they are made of a far richer material than simple cotton, and her blouse usually has the top two buttons undone. Mama has long, black hair and dark brown eyes. She has a long nose and a firm jaw; however she has a large smile that can often fool people of her benevolence. Mama only smiles when she wants something though, so although she smirks often, it’s when she flashes those pearly whites that one should be truly wary. Mama does not wear any jewellery, though she may use it for bartering.
  
  
• PLAY BY: Claudia Black
  

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• OUTWARD PERSONA: Mama is confident and in control. She is first and foremost a business woman, ruthless and shrewd, looking to stay ahead in a dog eat dog world. She uses intimidation and seduction most frequently to get what she wants: intimidation is used for the people of lesser value, while Mama seduces those of important status. To the working girls of her prison gang, Mama is attentive and fiercely protective. To the girls she tries to rope in as prostitutes she is the embodiment of warmth, understanding and kindness – everything a mother is to a lost child. To her enemies Mama is a malicious and unrelenting force of rage and hatred. Her revenge is slow burning, and she can hold a grudge for ages, biding her time until the right moment to strike.
  
  Mama does not often have sex with other inmates outside her gang of girls, unless they display extreme wealth, power and/or influence inside or out of Fox River. When she was first incarcerated, and before her transfer to Fox River, Mama was a simple working girl for another woman. Before that she was a prostitute in the Southern states, and from her past experiences Mama now makes herself less available to men and women – picking through the riffraff to those that she actually desires, or she deems worthy enough. Her unattainability makes her desirious as Mama flirts and seduces often, whether it is to make customers of the other Fox River inmates, or to get something that she wants.
  
  
• DEEPER DETAILS: The protectiveness within Mama can, and often does, turn towards obsession. She looks on each girl within her gang not only as a means to more money and power, but also a display of her skilful manipulation. Thus to lose a girl to death or simply because she does not want to be a part of the gang anymore, is a tremendous thing for Mama. It is more than the loss of the person from the group, but Mama views it as a loosening in her obvious control over her girls. If they can be allowed to be hurt by another’s hands, or leave through their own free will, clearly Mama is not in as much control as others believe she is, and for Mama, to be out of control is to be weak. She would happily slaughter any inmate who hurt or killed one of her girls, and the young woman who sought to leave the gang would in all likely hood be beaten and left visibly scarred.
  Mama does care for her girls (and the few young men who join her gang though there are never very many of them). She often justifies the gang’s existence as a realistic means to protecting the virtue of beautiful men and women who would otherwise be raped endlessely and likely killed. At least this way her girls get to choose who they sleep with, and they are well protected from the harm of unwanted company.
  
  Beneath the ugliness of her character there is a vulnerability to Mama that very few ever see. She adores children and it is her greatest regret that she will never have any outside of Fox River. She has a weak spot for young women of small stature, brown hair, brown eyes and a childish manner as they remind her most of her late younger sister. Mama also often thinks about love, and like freedom, its unattainability. In prison no two things could be more impossible to acquire. However, most of her life spent on the streets and working as a prostitute, Mama has not had many instances of love. As a result she will at times take up various lovers in Fox River (again only those who stand out in the extreme from the rabble either through their power, wealth or charms. If they have only looks to rely on, said inmate must ooze charm, otherwise they don’t stand a chance.) These affairs never last long though. Mama either grows bored or her obsession turns to extreme jealousy, in which case Mama can become volatile.
  

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• CAREER: In prison Mama is a pimp, though she prefers the term madam.
  
• LOCATION: Fox River
  
• CRIME: Possession and selling of hard drugs, prostitution, attempted murder
  
• SENTENCE: Sixteen years with chance of parole after thirteen years.
  
• TOOLS OF THE TRADE: A sharpened tooth brush as a shank is Mama’s favoured weapon. However she always keeps a razor blade hidden somewhere on her person – usually between her wrist watch straps.
  
• AFFILIATION: None, business dictates she mediate between all ethnic groups.
  

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• BIRTHPLACE: Birmingham, Alabama
  
• FAMILY: Kelly Ann Barker born Kelly Ann Harris , mother, 55; Benjamin (Ben) Mark Barker, father, 58; Samantha (Sammy) Grace Barker, sister, deceased at age 9. Grace Jocelyn Harris, aunt, 62.
  
• FRIENDS: Robert Young, though she hasn’t spoken to him since she was sixteen – if Mama needed something he would likely be someone she turned to. Anthony Brun, a former lover, if Mama spiralled back into drugs and drink, she would likely turn to Anthony. Rebecca Éloise Delovely (known simply as Delovely) is currently in a woman’s prison in Chicago. She taught Mama everything she knows about prostitution as a business, and how to survive prison life.
  
• SCHOOLING: Dropped out of high school in grade 10.
  
• HISTORY: Kelly and Ben Barker had had an on again, off again relationship for years. Their drug habit kept them together most often and also resulted in some of their most violent fights. Their marriage was common law and at the age of nineteen, Kelly became pregnant with their first daughter Kylie. Despite their dysfunctional relationship, Kelly and Ben loved each other and their daughter when they were able to. From birth Kylie was accustomed to vying for her parents love, seeking to drag it out of their drug induced stupors. She loved her parents unconditionally, thinking that their intoxication was a game – when they were high it certainly made them more playful. For the first eight years of Kylie’s life she was the centre of her parents’ attention, and very much Daddy’s little girl. The birth of Kylie’s little sister Samantha, always called Sammy, marked a change in this balance. Kylie now had to share the spotlight with her little sister, and often felt that her parents paid more attention to Sammy than to herself. This would be the root for Kylie’s jealous and obsessive nature. She quickly came to loathe her sister and sought to belittle her as much as possible.
  
  Sammy, regardless or perhaps oblivious of her elder sister’s hatred, followed Kylie around like a puppy. Over the years Kelly and Ben’s relationship deteriorated to shouting matches and violent arguments. As a result Sammy turned to Kylie for comfort and slowly, reluctantly, Kylie gave it. In 1983 Kelly left Ben and took Kylie and Sammy to live with their Aunt Grace in Vancouver, Canada. Aunt Grace lived in a dilapidated apartment in East Hastings, working nights as a stripper at The Cecil and a waitress at Whitespot during the day. Kelly brought her family to Grace’s doorstep, vowing only to spend a few nights. A few nights would turn into years.
  
  Kylie and Sammy were enrolled at the local high school and elementary school, though as Kelly fell into addiction, Kylie would slowly take over looking after Sammy. Due to Grace’s work schedule she was absent often and unable to help with the emotional burden placed on Kylie’s shoulders. Kylie began experimenting with alcohol around the age of thirteen and that quickly led into the world of drugs. Shortly after her fifteenth birthday Kylie, enraged by her mother’s near constant drug induced stupors, left home. She took Sammy with her, vowing to return to Birmingham, Alabama and finding her father again. However, having only worked menial jobs and having little money to her name, it wasn’t long before Kylie was unable to feed herself or Sammy. Kylie called in favours with various friends, though her light fingered habits usually had them kicked out after a few days. Kylie then took herself and her sister to a nearby shelter, where again she was caught stealing from the other residents. Kylie sold everything she stole and alternated between buying food for herself and Sammy and bus tickets in the hope of getting back to Birmingham. Between her boughts of thievery, Kylie turned to prostitution.
  
  They spent three months, from November to January, living on the streets. In this time Sammy quickly became ill. It was from this illness that she would eventually die at the age of nine. Over the years Kylie had become fiercely attached to her little sister, proudly stepping into her role as big sister and promising always that they would get home to ‘see Daddy’ again, and all would be well. Sammy’s death rocked Kylie, as she had believed that no matter how bad things were they would surely look up, and at least they had one another. She blamed herself for her little sister’s death, painfully aware of her inability to provide and protect Sammy as she had promised to do.
  
  Kylie turned hard to a life of drugs, alcohol and sex. At the age of sixteen she met Robert Young, aged thirty-two at the time, while contemplating suicide. He ultimately saved her life by convincing her to have lunch, and later opening his door to her and allowing her to stay with him. This worked for a few months before Kylie fell in love with him. As Robert was an honourable man who truly cared for Kylie, he rejected her. Furious and confused – as she had only experienced love through blurry one night stands – Kylie left and turned back to life on the streets. She would eventually make it to Birmingham at the age of twenty-three, where she found her father, a deteriorated old man far older than his actual years. Remembering her childhood as a content one, Kylie stayed with Ben for a year in the hopes of reliving those happy memories. However, Kylie’s frequent drug use and bitter nature over Sammy’s death made her a hard woman to live with, and she quickly turned her anger on Ben. She blamed him for not trying hard enough to make Kelly stay – that perhaps Sammy would be alive if he had loved them all enough. Ben, who had always mourned the loss of his common law wife and daughters, threw Kylie out of the house.
  
  From the ages of twenty-four to twenty-seven Kylie was in and out of prison, doing the odd stint for the possession and selling of drugs. She travelled throughout the States, prostituting herself to pay for hitchhiking, food, shelter, etc. At the age of twenty-nine she met Anthony Brun, a Chicago native who owned his own place and had a constant stash of drugs around his place. For this reason alone he quickly became a good friend of Kylie’s, it wouldn’t be till later that they realized there was more to their acts of sex than instant physical gratification.
  
  Kylie was arrested at the age of thirty-one after she attacked the man who was paying her to sleep with him. His request that she dress up like a little girl touched a nerve. Her past sentences regarding drug possession and selling added to her bid.
  In prison Kylie became affiliated with Delovely and her gang of working girls. By this point Kylie was accustomed to using her body to get what she wanted, and her ruthless, shrewd nature had her quickly climbing the family ranks. Delovely, seeing potential in Kylie, took her under her wing and taught her the nature of business not from the lowly position of whore, but from as a business woman. At the age of thirty-four Kylie was transferred to Fox River Penitentiary where she took up the alias Mama and quickly established a successful brothel within the prison walls.
  

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[Sara Tancredi]

A P P R O V E D