Bebe Malloy

About the Job

Bebe Malloy White, Irish-American Residence: Inwood, Manhattan Occupation: Former construction site flagger / bouncer Currently working night security at a self-storage facility Bebe Malloy is a survivor who learned early that fear invites violence she stopped broadcasting fear. She is blunt, unfiltered, and sometimes offensive, not because she enjoys cruelty, but because politeness never protected her. Her humor is gallows humor. Her confidence is forged, not natural. Jail didn’t make her hard. It just confirmed something she already knew about herself. She doesn’t romanticize incarceration. She despises it. But she respects the hierarchy, because hierarchy kept her alive. Bebe walked into jail as a woman with a temper. She walked out with a reputation, one she doesn’t fully recognize but can’t shake. She understands, uncomfortably, that she benefited from fear hers and others’. The protection she provided came with leverage, and leverage came with moral compromise. In jail, masculinity equals safety. Femininity equals vulnerability. Bebe learned to harden her voice, stance, and energy and hasn’t fully learned how to soften again. She finds herself repelled by women who never had to fight for space, safety, or silence. She doesn’t envy them, she doesn’t understand them. She grew up with three older brothers in a working-class Long Island household • Learned early: if you don’t swing first, you don’t swing at all • No illusions about romance, sisterhood, or fairness • Arrested on a nonviolent charge that spiraled due to priors and bad representation • Served two years upstate • Never joined a gang • Never partnered sexually for protection • Became known as someone who “stood on business” • Released quietly, no parade, no therapy, no decompression She returned to a city that moved, on but her body didn’t. Bebe needs to believe strength saved her, not luck. If strength saved her: • Her choices make sense and her aggression was justified.