September, 1999
Monica, Kasey and I trudged round and round the perimeter of the fenced yard, the mid-September sun warming our skin. We'd spent all day in a series of windowless classrooms having every aspect of our beings analyzed by psychological, academic, and I.Q. testing. This would supposedly help the DOC determine whether to put us in maximum, medium, or minimum security (or the psych wing); our placement in classes and jobs; and eligibility for programs such as the boot camp.
I was running on no sleep and my head felt like it was full of cement. I'd probably failed the tests so badly that they'd stuff me in the high-security ward for cracked-out insane mental defectives. At the moment, though, I was outside in the sun with my new friends. The last haze of the Pacific Northwest summer lingered on the horizon, and the balmy air was scented with pine and sweet, drying grass. My dopesickness was fading, and I felt great; at least during the day. I still dreaded the nights with a vengeance, when I would lie on my lumpy cot, my brain buzzing like a jackhammer while the blasts from my roomie's freakish nose reverberated off the concrete walls.
"When I'm walking I strut my stuff, and I'm so strung out," Monica sang. "I'm high as a kite, I just might stop to check you out." Her footsteps halted and she gave me a significant look.
"Let me go on," I sang with her, dancing and twirling, "like I blister in the sun. Let me go o-ooon. Big hands I know you're the one."
We giggled while Kasey stared at her feet. I doubt she'd ever heard of the Violent Femmes.
"Ladies!"
We turned. The guard we called Chichis stood at the corner of the yard with her knuckles on her wide hips. Beside her was the slight, dark-haired woman who had given the I.Q. test. She was staring straight at me with a furrow in her brow, and I felt a pang of embarrassment; maybe the test really had somehow revealed my dangerously freakish nature and they were about to shove me in a boxcar and ship me off to the zoo.
"Those of you who want to know your I.Q. test results, line up," Chichis bellowed.
Most of the new arrivals swarmed over, Monica skipping off to join them, but I hesitated. The dark-haired woman was frowning at me even more intently now. I decided whatever it was that made her look at me like that, I didn't want to know. I turned away and started walking the perimeter again.
"You're not going?" Kasey asked, trotting up beside me.
"Naw. You?"
"Naw, I don't give a shit. Those tests don't mean anything, anyway."
We trudged across the pitted blacktop. I was enough of a nerd that I did give a shit, and I didn't think my heart could handle finding out I was actually of average intelligence, or worse.
Kasey startled me out of my thoughts. "A lot of girls have girlfriends in here." I followed her gaze to two women sitting in a corner of the fence sharing a cigarette, their knees touching.
"Yeah."
Kasey looked at me sidelong. "What do you think about that?"
I shrugged. "Doesn't bother me. I like girls, actually, it's just that most of them scare me." I'd given up identifying as bisexual in college when the scene had gotten too political and militant. Dudes were easier to figure out emotionally, and you didn't have to work so hard to get them off.
Kasey grinned, her bare gums glistening in the sunlight. "Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, either. If people love each other, they love each other." She watched me closely. "If you had to choose a girlfriend in here, who would it be?"
I kept my eyes on my feet, shoving my balled fists into my tight pants pockets. "I wouldn't choose anyone. It's too much drama."
Kasey's face fell. "Yeah."
I avoided her glances as I remembered Monica's half-crazy smile, and wondered what her perfect skin would feel like under my fingertips.
***
After dinner that night, Kasey, Monica, Doris, and a few other women played cards in the dayroom while I read aloud from the short story I'd been writing. Monica smirked, and a couple of the others rolled their eyes, but Kasey watched me with rapt attention.
My narrative was interrupted when the guard we called Puffy strolled out of the booth, putting his hands on his womanly hips. "Listen up!" His voice reverberated in the huge space, and the room quieted. "Those whose names I call, line up. You're being taken to your new placement in minimum."
There was a chorus of excited whispers. Kasey and Monica sat at attention, though it was pointless for them to hope: most girls waited at least two months for placement. The lady across from me, who had a life sentence in maximum for murdering her abusive boyfriend, slumped lower in her seat, shuffling the cards.
"Bastion, Leyla!" Puffy shouted. "Chavez, Sarai!"
My eyes fell back to my story. I wondered how long I'd be in this weird place. The outside world seemed further away than ever.
"Rogers, Grace!"
My head snapped up. A few of the women at the table blinked and scowled.
"She only been in here like a week," a girl named Pasha said, glaring daggers at me. "I been waiting five months now."
They all watched as I rose slowly to my feet, my brow furrowed. Kasey's eyes were wide and empty. "I...I don't know why..." I said.
Monica's beautiful lips quirked in a faint smile. "Go," she whispered, and nudged me with her knuckles.
I went, leaving them to stare after me. Pasha muttered something about cute little fucking white girls, but whatever privilege it was that had gotten my name moved up the list, I wasn't about to protest.
***
I sat on a bench in the minimum security dayroom next to a lady named Maryann. She was a friend of Doris', and I suspected she'd been told to keep an eye on me.
We sipped our coffee. There was coffee in minimum security; you could order Folgers Crystals from commissary, and I was quickly becoming addicted to the caffeine buzz.
Maryann jabbed me with her bony elbow and spoke out of the corner of her mouth, her voice low and gravely. "See that lady over there?" She signaled with her eyes over the rim of her cup.
I followed her gaze to the doughy woman furtively attempting to iron her half-cooked ramen noodles into tortillas while the guards weren't looking. I glanced away quickly and nodded at my knees, taking another chug from my cup.
"That's Chrystal," Maryann said. "She's a rapo. Molested like fourteen little kids or something."
I cringed. "Ouch." We exchanged a knowing glance.
"You gotta watch out for those rapos," Maryann said with a decisive nod. "You and I should stick together, like we're girlfriends, so they don't bug us. Especially you, since you look about eight."
I snorted and shrugged in what I hoped was a noncommittal way.
Two women came in from the dark courtyard, their hair damp with the dreary, late-September drizzle. They whispered with their heads close together and peered at something cupped in the brunette's hands.
The dozen women in the dayroom collectively glanced back through the windows of the guard booth; they were chatting and paying no attention.
"What is it?" Maryann whispered.
The brunette grinned her pixyish, snaggle-toothed grin and tiptoed over. She opened her hands and we saw it, its delicate sides pulsing like a shiny rubber bellows with each breath.
"Ooh!" I whisper-shouted. "I love frogs!"
The woman grinned wider, her brown eyes shining with childlike delight. I felt a pang of sadness; I couldn't remember what she'd done, but I'd heard she'd been in this place thirty years.
Thirty years. Much longer than I'd been alive.
"What's going on out here?"
We all flinched. The guard nicknamed Magnum PI had stepped from the booth and was regarding the brunette imperiously down his roman nose. The brunette pulled her hands protectively to her chest, and Chrystal hurriedly stashed her contraband tortilla up her shirt and stepped away from the iron.
"Let me see it, Emma," Magnum said gently.
Emma's chin fell. She cradled the frog tenderly one last moment, then hesitantly gave the guard a brief glimpse of it before quickly closing her fingers again.
Magnum's mustache twitched in hidden amusement. "Put it back outside."
Emma gave him an anguished glance. He raised a thick eyebrow. Her face closed up with hopelessness, and she scampered back out into the dark drizzle on her gangly, skinny legs. I watched through the window, her stooped form illuminated in the floodlights as she tenderly placed her pet back in the grass.
She straightened, then stood in the rain with stooped shoulders watching the frog hop away. I squeezed my eyes shut as an unbidden image formed in my mind: its tiny, fat body exploding into a wet spatter of flesh as it squeezed through the chain link that marked the prison boundary. The crack of the gunshot sounded afterwards, too late to reach his disintegrated ears.
The guards were instructed to shoot us if we tried to escape. We were trapped here, some of us forever. I hoped the frog would make it out, at least.
I hugged myself as I pictured him blown apart by a sniper bullet, again and again.
"You okay?"
I opened my eyes to find Maryann gazing at me worriedly. I straightened and gave her a quick smile. "I'm fine."
"Okay, ladies," Magnum said. "Those that don't need to go to the pill line, back to your rooms. Lights out in thirty."
We all rose, grumbling. I headed for my dorm while Maryann went the other direction to pill line. The harried prison psychologist had asked me probing questions and tried to diagnose me as bipolar, and with something called PTSD. I didn't know what either of those things were, exactly, but I knew those diagnoses would keep me out of boot camp. So I had stoutly denied any mania or delusions, told her I had moved beyond any supposed trauma, and refused all medication.
I waited in line at the sinks and brushed my teeth, then climbed up onto my top bunk and listened to the other women settling in for the night. This place wasn't so bad, actually. It was sort of like a fucked-up boarding school. We had classes to go to, and the gym was pretty nice. We had a grassy yard we could be out in pretty much whenever we wanted, except during meals and after lights-out. You could get gummy worms from commissary, and I'd checked out a Burroughs novel from the library.
I slipped my trusty earplugs in, muffling the evening gossip and grousing, and fell into a dream.
***
I talked Maryann into going to the gym with me the next day. "Come on. It's good weather. We can walk the track."
She rolled her eyes but agreed.
The guards marched us across the grounds on twisting sidewalks, between lines of maples whose leaves were just starting to tinge orange. The place looked like a college campus, if you could ignore the razor wire. Maryann nodded at a sunken cement basin between the barber shop and the rooms where they held classes. "I guess there used to be a swimming pool there, but they drained it when some lady got drowned."
"Fuck. Someone just drowned her? In front of the guards and everything?"
The woman in front of us turned around, raising her eyebrows. "Guards can't watch all the time. They don't pay attention." She grinned at the woman next to her. "Remember when Sharon stole those scissors from the barber shop?"
The other lady laughed, shaking her head. "Yeah, I remember that. That was fucked up."
"Did she stab someone?" I asked.
"Naw. She cut that bitch's hair though. Held her down and chopped it off. Looked awful." The women hooted. I tugged at my cropped locks, glad my haircut couldn't get much worse.
The guards dropped us at the gym. Maryann and I strolled around and around the quarter-mile track. A woman walked alone in front of us, her posture straight, her round ass swaying primly. She had blonde hair almost down to her ankles. Maryann nudged me. "That's Mary Kay Letourneau," she muttered.
I covered my gasp with my hand. "The teacher who banged her student?"
Maryann nodded. "They had to shut down all the phones the other day because she called him. I guess they're really in love. She's had two of his kids, and he wants to marry her when she gets out."
I watched her round the corner of the track. She was very pretty, her skin smooth and golden, but her eyes were wide and gave the distinct impression of dottiness. "I'd check myself into the institution before I boffed a twelve-year-old," I muttered.
Maryann shrugged uncertainly, watching Letourneau through narrowed eyes. "I don't know. If they're really in love like that, where she's willing to go to prison for years because she can't stay away and he's willing to wait for her, maybe it's society that's crazy."
I chewed my cheek, squinting at my friend.
"Hey! Tink!"
We turned. Monica waved at me from the door of the gym building, Kasey next to her. "Come play pool with us!"
"Okay." Maryann smirked at me; she knew I hated pool with a passion because of how bad I was at it.
I spent the whole game watching Monica bend over the table, sinking every ball while I only sunk one. I had a crush on her, sure, along with a few other people, and I supposed I loved my husband. But there was no one I'd go to prison for. That sort of love that people talked about—love strong enough to overcome all obstacles—I supposed you'd have to be as crazy as Mary Kay Letourneau to believe that existed.
My cue glanced off the ball, sending it spinning impotently to knock against its neighbor. Still, it'd be nice to love someone and be loved like that.
***
"Mail call!"
I put down my Tony Hillerman novel and watched the guard flip through his stack of letters. Mail call was either the best or worst part of the day, depending on whether I got mail. "Rogers, Grace!" he called. Happiness bloomed in me as I jumped down and skipped over. "Two for you today," he said.
I grabbed the envelopes, one of them fat, and one thin, and hopped back over to my bunk. The fat one was from Gabe, and the thin one was from his best friend, Fred.
Fred was tall and broad-shouldered, with rakish golden-brown hair and blue eyes, and looked sort of like Mark Hammill. He was a neat freak, in stark contrast to Gabe. Best of all, he didn't do heroin. I ripped his letter open first.
Dear Gracie, he said. Things are pretty boring here. Mostly I've been making a lot of pizza for fat people.
I grinned. Fred raked in tons of money growing weed, but still kept a full-time job as a line cook. I wondered what it would be like to date someone with a work ethic. But Fred had had the same girlfriend for years—a crazy bitch named Jessica.
Then the next line caught my eye.
Jessica moved out. I guess she had some other dude.
"No way," I breathed, my heart pounding.
She took my cat with her, so I'm very lonely. I got a new kitten and named him Burroughs. He has pretty green eyes but I got him from some crazy-haired meth tweaker so he had a bad flea problem. I took him to the vet and took care of it, though, so he's much happier.
I smiled to myself. It was sweet, how he took care of that cat in order to deal with his heartbreak. Gabe dealt with heartbreak by getting wasted. Plus, if he had a flea-ridden cat, he would have tried to treat it with some mountain-man concoction of pennyroyal steeped in whiskey. The cat would have lost all its hair, and Gabe would have ended up with fleas, too.
It would be nice to have some other company, though. I hope you are doing okay in there. I hope when you get out things are better for you. Maybe you could come and sprinkle some of your Tinkerbell fairy dust on me.
Sincerely,
Fred
I read the letter over and over, then curled around my pillow, my heart aching. I'd been talking to people since I got into minimum, and the average wait time for boot camp seemed to be around eight months. I'm sure Fred would have another girlfriend by the time I got out—someone without a prison record or a history of addiction.
Suddenly my confinement seemed endless and unendurably lonely.
"Okay, ladies!"
I sat up, quickly wiping my eyes. Magnum PI swaggered in with a clipboard and stood in parade rest position. "I've got a list of people being shipped off to the boot camp program the day after tomorrow. The following females please come forward. Aceves, Marla. DeGrasse, Africa..."
The girls whose names he called squealed and danced, hugging their friends, and my stomach curdled with sick jealousy. How many groups would I watch head off before my turn came?
"Rogers, Grace!"
I blinked. My mouth fell open to voice an incredulous protest, but then I closed it again. Magnum kept reading names.
Slowly, I sat up. I hardly noticed the looks of jealousy and disgust from my fellow prisoners as I climbed down off my bunk and joined the group forming around the guard.
The other recruits regarded me with a mixture of curiosity and bitterness. "You sure she's on the list?" one woman asked. "She's only been in this unit like a week, and I've been waiting six months."
"Yeah, it's been ten months for me," another girl said.
I shuffled my feet and hugged myself. Magnum shot me a strange little smile before raising his eyebrows at the others. "That's just the way it goes sometimes, ladies. Now, I've got some paperwork for you..."
He began handing out packets. I clutched mine, thinking about Monica and Kasey still waiting back in maximum. I wasn't about to question my luck, though.
If I could avoid being murdered in my sleep by jealous inmates, and could make it through the (reportedly very difficult) boot camp program, I'd be out in four months.
I squeezed Fred's letter, which was still in my hand.