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The booking officer completed her process. "You want to make any calls, there's a pay phone in the next cell."
"I can't think who I'd call anyway," I said, absurdly grateful that everyone was so polite. What had I expected, curses and abuse?
Padding along in my sock feet, I was taken down the corridor to the ID bureau to be fingerprinted. A second set of photographs were taken, front and profile this time. At this rate, I could put together a little album for Mother's Day. It was 2:13 A.M. by the time I was escorted to the drunk tank, a cell maybe fifteen by fifteen feet. A ski
Bibia
"Hey, Ha
"Heather."
Bibia
"Nice to meet you," I murmured dutifully. I didn't have a clue about jailhouse etiquette. The ski
Bibia
Nettie, the black woman, looked to be in her late thirties. She was tall, with broad shoulders and breasts the size of torpedoes. Her hair was big and brushed over to the right, where the bulk of it stuck out stiffly as if blown by a hard wind. The black strands had a gray cast from all the split ends. She wore blue jeans, an oversize white T-shirt, and white crew socks. Bibia
The other inmate, the white girl, was scarcely more than twenty, wearing an ankle-length organza dress and a corsage on one wrist. She was crying so hard it was impossible to figure out what her story was. She sank in a huddle and buried her face in her hands. She and Nettie both reeked of booze. The black woman paced restlessly, staring at Heather, who kept wiping her nose on the hem of her dress. Finally, Nettie stopped pacing and nudged her with a foot.
"What's the matter with you, blubbering away like that? Hush up a minute and tell me what's wrong here."
The girl lifted a tear-streaked face, blotchy with embarrassment. Her nose was pink, her makeup smeared, her fine, pale hair coming loose from a complicated arrangement on top that looked like it had been done professionally. There were little sprigs of baby's breath tucked here and there like pale dried twigs. She paused to lick at a tear trickling toward her chin and then told a garbled tale of her boyfriend, a fight, being left pe
The ski
Nettie, offended, turned on the woman, whom she apparently knew. She fired a dark look at the huddled form. "Mind your own business, bitch." She patted Heather awkwardly, unaccustomed to mothering but identifying with her plight. "Poor sweet baby. That's all right. That's just fine. Now don't you be upset. Everything's going to be all right… "
I stretched out on my side, my head propped up on my hand. Bibia
"How come you're so down on the police?" I asked.
Bibia
"Why'd the cops kill him?"
"It was just something dumb. He was in a little market and lifted something minor – a package of meat and some chewing gum. The store manager caught him and they got into a tussle. Some off-duty cop pulled his gun out and fired. All for a pack of ground beef and some Chiclets for me. What a waste. My mother never got over it. God, it was awful to watch. She married some guy six months later and he turned out to be a real shit, knockin' her around. Talk about bad karma – the cops killed him, too. She'd kick him out. He'd disappear and then show up again, all contrite. Move in, take her money, beat the crap out of us. He's drunk half the time, doing 'ludes and coke, anything else he could get his hands on, I guess. If he wasn't pawing at her, he was pawing at me. I cut him once, right across the face – nearly took his eye out. One night, he got caught breaking into an apartment building two doors away from us. He barricaded himself in the place with a twelve-gauge. The cops swarmed all over the neighborhood. Television crews. SWAT teams and tear gas. Cops shot him down like a dog. I was eight. It's like how many times I gotta go through this, you know?"
"Sounds like they did you a service on that one," I said.
Her smile was bitter, but she made no response.
"Your mother still alive?"
"Down in Los Angeles," Bibia
"Not anymore. I've been on my own for years. I thought you were going to do my numbers," I said.
"Oh, yeah. What's your birthday?"
The date I was using on the fake ID was a match for mine. "May fifth," I said, and gave her the year.
"And me without a pencil. Hey, Nettie? You got something to write with?"
Nettie shook her head. "Not unless you count Chap-Stick."
Bibia
She looked at me for confirmation.
"Weird," I said, for lack of anything better.
Nettie shot us a look. She had one arm around Heather, who had leaned against her for warmth. "We're trying to get some sleep here. Could you keep it down?"