The Story of Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell Gets Unmade

October, 1999

When the lights clicked on the morning after my name had been called for boot camp, I was still alive.

The day was spent in frenzied preparation, getting the librarian to sign off that I'd checked in all my books, the disciplinary office that I hadn't gotten in further trouble. I gave away the stuff I'd gotten from commissary that wasn't on the list of boot camp-approved items, which was most of it. The rules there were extremely strict.

The gifts went a little way toward softening the other girls' anger at me." You screwing the warden or something?" Maryann asked as I reluctantly handed over my precious coffee. "I've been in this joint, this will be my fifth time, and I've never seen anyone busted up to minimum and then out to boot camp half so fast as you."

I thought about Kasey waiting back in maximum...and Monica. I winced, wondering if I'd ever see her again. "I wish I was screwing someone, but I'm not. It must be some mistake or whatever. I'm not complaining, though."

She studied me thoughtfully and shrugged. "Must be because you're all little and cute. You probably remind someone of their daughter."

I glanced around uncomfortably. There were plenty of young and cute women here, though there weren't many white ones. "Must be," I said.

The ten chosen women were woken at four the next morning and marched into the pre-dawn chill, holding our small cardboard boxes of possessions. The guards took us to a storage bunker. Standing amongst the supply bins, we stripped and changed into orange jumpsuits, then stood in line to be shackled hand and foot.

As the horizon began to glow a dreary grey, they herded us onto a bus and drove south on I-5. Though I'd only been in prison a few weeks, I was overwhelmed by the bright signs of the businesses along the freeway and the roaring river of cars. I peered at the grim faces of the commuters as they whizzed past, feeling like I existed in a dimension separate from theirs.

The sky was patchy grey and heavy with rain by the time we reached Steilacoom, where we were given life jackets and transferred onto a 30-foot motorboat. I sat on a wooden bench, the damp air blowing my hair across my clammy cheeks. The woman next to me squinted happily into the wind, her long fingers fiddling with the end of her bleach-blonde braid. "I miss my boat," she said wistfully.

"You have a boat?"

She smiled. Her lips were thin, but she had creamy, freckled skin, high cheekbones, and beautiful brown eyes that glittered with intelligence. "I did," she said. "I think they took it. The cops, I mean. Either that, or my ex has it now." She still smiled, but there was grief and resignation behind it. "What you in for?"

"Delivery of heroin."

Her mouth formed a comical "o". "Heroin? You? You look so innocent." Those long fingers left her braid and fussed with the collar of my jumpsuit, smoothing it over my shoulders. "You look about six years old. I could have a kid older than you, probably, if I had kids." Her fingers went back to her braid, her lips back to her faint smile. She regarded me down her well-formed nose. "I'm Jane."

"Tinkerbell," I said.

Her eyes darted to the badge clipped to the breast of my suit, and she laughed. "You're one of those people with a nickname. I love it."

Land rose out of the grey, choppy sound in front of us. A rocky shore approached, overhung with the tangled branches of alders, ocean spray, and vine maples, their leaves tinged with autumn's first blush.

The boat turned southwest into an inlet, startling a flock of grebes. They flapped into the grey sky, piping in alarm. We slowed, our wake sloshing against low limestone cliffs, and a pair of tiny deer crashed through the undergrowth bounding across a grassy meadow toward the tall forest of pines along its border.