by Linda Nelson
She dialed her home number…
A tone sounded…
“The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check your number, hang up and dial again,” said a recording in a woman’s voice.
What?
Karla couldn’t believe that she had dialed the wrong number. She gave it another try and got the same recording again. Once again she became distraught. There was no way she could have forgotten her own phone number.
With one more try, she once again got the same message.
This was unbelievable. How could this happen to her on top of being arrested with Carol?
She went to make another try and got a different message. Now she was going to have to place collect calls. What was she going to do?
There was only one person she could think of that she knew the number of that possibly could help her. That was her old neighbor Jan.
Karla dialed the number and waited to follow the prompts over the phone. She stated her name when the voice on the phone told her to.
As soon as Jan’s voice came on the line Karla immediately began pleading with her.
At first Jan thought that it was some sort of prank call. Why would Karla be calling her collect? That wasn’t like her, but then maybe something had happened to her. So she accepted the charges.
“Karla? Is that you? What is wrong? Where are you?”
“Jan, thank god, can you help me, please,” Karla said in-between sobs. “I’m in jail.”
“Jail? Where? What happened to you?”
Karla had to talk quickly. Her phone time was almost up.
“I’m somewhere in North Carolina. I tried to call home, but I couldn’t get through. There is something wrong with the phone line. Can you please let my dad know where I am?”
“Tell me again, where are you?”
Karla quickly asked one of the other girls sitting at a phone close by. They curtly told her what jail she was at. There was only one minute left for the call, so Karla had to talk fast. She relayed the information over the phone to Jan just before getting cut off. Now all she could do was hope that someone would be able to help her.
As soon as Jan got off the phone with Karla she immediately called Mr. & Mrs. Centon. She too got the same tone and message as Karla had done. She thought how odd this seemed.
Jan knew she had Brian’s cellphone number written down somewhere. She found it in her phone directory and immediately dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Jan, your old neighbor.”
“Oh, right, Jan, how are you?”
“I’m doing great. I hate to have to bother you, but I just tried to call your home phone and it says it is out of service.”
“Oh, Humph, I guess Laurette never made the payment like she was supposed to do. But that doesn’t matter anymore anyway. You can call me whenever you need to on my Cellphone. I am no longer with Laurette.”
“Wow, when did that happen?”
“Yesterday; I had it with that woman. She has done nothing but cause grief for Karla and me.”
“Speaking of Karla, that is why I am calling you. I just received a call from her, and she is quite upset. I don’t know what happened, but she is in Jail.”
“Is she in the Brantwood jail?”
“NO, she is down south, in North Carolina.” Jan paused, “I have the number you can call to talk to her.”
“All right go ahead and give it to me. I will call her, but I’m not going to bail her out. It is time she learns that if she is going to be around that kind of crowd then she needs to take what she gets.”
Jan didn’t like Brian’s remark. She gave him the phone number of the prison over the phone and decided right then that she was going to take charge. There was no way Jan was going to let the system make a criminal out of Karla just because she didn’t know any better than to keep that kind of company. If no one else was going to be there for her then, it was about time Jan did the big sisterly thing and step up and support Karla. She certainly needed a real friend and that was what Jan was, a real friend.
Carol let the officer lead her to a cell just like the one Karla was in. She had half expected to be in the same block as Karla, but that didn’t happen. Instead, they put her in one with a different bunch of girls of different color. Unlike Karla, though, Carol was not intimidated by any of them and she freely let herself become acquainted with her new roomies.
Most of them were in for many different reasons ranging from bounced checks to theft and drug usage. A couple of the girls were there for assault, but not one of them was a murder. Carol had lots of street smarts anyway, and she knew how to carry herself when she was among others like herself.
After about an hour of being in the cell, she was given the opportunity to call home.
She let the phone ring, just in case her mom was having trouble coming to the phone. Carol was glad and surprised to have her dad answer the phone instead.
“Hello,” she said when the phone finally stopped ringing in her ear. A distinct click was heard on the other end of the line of someone picking up the receiver in order to answer the phone.
“Carol, is that you? Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for the past few days,” her dad, Doug replied. “Something happened to your mom, and you need to come home right away.”
“What happened to her?”
“She has had some sort of drug overdose, and she may not make it through the night. She is on life support.”
Carol’s heart sunk, and her stomach knotted up in a ball. Tears began to well up in her eyes. Even though her mom was such a bitch she still loved her just the same. How could this happen to her?
Her voice shook as she told her dad, “I can’t come home. I’m in jail in North Carolina.”
“Carol how could you do this? Your mom needs you right now.”
“But dad, didn’t you hear me? I’m in jail. I can’t get out unless you bail me out… and then I will have to come back down here to appear in court.”
There was a moment of silence before her dad replied, “Give me the phone number for there and I will contact a lawyer for you and see what I can do.”
“Okay, it’s …,” Carol replied with the phone number and address for where she was being held.
Quickly she added, “Dad, what did Mom O D on?”
“They found an empty bag of Cocaine on her. Apparently she had gotten a hold of a bad batch of the substance. The doctor said he did not expect her to live because of it.”
“Oh,” was all Carol could think of to say to her dad in response. She knew that had been her bag of Coke. That was the bag her mom had stolen from her room just before she had left with Karla and the boys on this road trip. If her mom hadn’t taken the bag from her, and Carol had stayed home and had used the substance instead of her mom, it would have been her lying in the hospital dying instead.
In a way, her mom had saved her life. There was no way Carol ever would be able to let her dad know that her mother had gotten the substance from her. If he knew, she would be blamed for sure by her dad for her mom’s death.
“I have to go, Dad – please give Mom my love, and I’m sorry for this mess,” Carol voice trembled while she held back her tears.
“All right, I will be in touch soon.”
“Love you Dad.”
“I love you too, Carol.”
As Carol handed off the phone to the next inmate, she pondered about Karla. She knew she was pissed at her for getting her into this mess and landing in jail of all places. But then again, no one forced Karla to come along. She could have stayed behind, but she seemed all for going on this Road Trip. Did she honestly think this was going to be some sort of family vacation or what?
And, how was she to know that guy Rod was going to turn out to be some sort of whack job. Whatever that stuff was he had used was beyond her. Carol had never heard of Bath Salts before. If it made one that crazy, it wasn’t for her. She was glad she had not accepted
a hit from him after seeing what it had done to him.
Hopefully Max was going to be all right, and Karla was going to be able to be bailed out like her. She was sure Karla would forgive her over time when she realized that it wasn’t Carol’s fault for their winding up in jail.
A guard came to the cell door and opened it to let the girls out for their dinner. “Guess what is for dinner today,” the guard announced to the inmates.
One pitiful looking Hispanic seventeen year old asked, “I don’t know – what is it?”
“It’s Thanksgiving, so what could they possibly be serving today?” The guard replied.
“I would be happy with just bologna like any other day,” Carol said sarcastically as she followed the rest of the group to the cafeteria. But at least this year, she didn’t have to cook the turkey for her mother like she had to do so many times in the past. All she could think about was how their Thanksgiving had been so dysfunctional a year ago with the fighting between mother and daughter, an end to its continuous ritual that she was not sure if she was going to miss or not, knowing her Mom was about to die on Thanksgiving of all days out of the year to pick.
Either way it was going to be another miserable Thanksgiving for Carol.
Chapter 19 – Why?
After they had their meals, the girls were led outside to a large fenced in courtyard. The fence was about two or three stories high and was made out of electric and barbed wire fencing. The barbed wire was strung across the top to deter escapees.
Karla never thought she was going to see Carol ever again. She had not had any contact with her since they had been separated from each other on the first day they had arrived. It was now day three since their arrival.
The whole time Karla kept running scenarios through her mind on how she would react if she ever did get to see Carol ever again. She was still pissed at her and how she had gotten her into this mess.
Karla had opened up to the girl who kept referring to her as Baby Girl. She told her the whole story about how they had come to be in North Carolina. She even told her about the incident a few months back when she had met Carol.
The girl, whose name turned out to be Shawna said, “She don’t sound like much of a friend to me. Why do you hang around with her? She sounds like trouble is her middle name.”
“Well I used to think she was my friend up until now. Now all I want to do is kill her.”
“If you’re thinking about getting even, this is not the place to do it. They will lock you up in solitary for a week if you go after her.”
Karla said nothing in reply. She had already made up her mind.
Shawna studied her face. She could tell Karla was premeditating her revenge on the girl. Hopefully she didn’t carry it out while she was in here. This was not the place to do it. But she had a strong feeling that the stupid girl wasn’t about to listen to anyone. Not even her. Hopefully she didn’t force her hand to have to resort to snitching on her. But with a sentence of one year in Juvenile Detention, Shawna would do anything to score points with the guards. Snitching was not beneath her if it meant a reduced sentence.
Two weeks went by.
Jan was in the process of posting Karla’s bail, but she couldn’t take it anymore.
Every day she went outside to be in the courtyard with the other girls she could see Carol. Each time she saw her it only made her stew more over her revenge, even if Shawna had advised her against it. She couldn’t keep letting Carol get the best of her. It was now or never.
“Karla, where are you going?” Shawna called after her. She tried to keep pace with her, but it was apparent to what Karla’s intent was.
Shawna looked toward where the guards were and signaled to one of them. They were not anywhere near where Carol was. Apparently they seemed not to fear that a fight was about to break out.
Shawna then motioned to a couple of her friends to follow her, keeping a good distance behind Karla so they would not look like they were going to be involved in the altercation that was about to happen.
As soon as Karla was about ten feet away from Carol and Carol’s back was turned, Karla burst out into a run making it obvious to the guards about what was about to happen.
Shawna and her friends formed a small semi-circle around Carol and Karla shielding them from the eyes of the guards. This only seemed to attract the guards’ attention even more.
Karla lunged at Carol without any warning and jumped onto her back and began to pound on her head with her right fist while she held onto Carol’s throat by the crook of her left arm.
Carol knew how to fight. She had been fighting on the streets since she was in second grade. She was the one who had been bullied when in grade school and turned into a bully to maintain her own protection. One had to learn to defend them self at an early age, or they would become the victim instead.
Immediately her instinct told her to bend over, flipping Karla over her back and onto the ground making her loose hold on her throat.
The sudden flip caused Karla to have the wind knocked out her, and she landed with a “Humph.”
Before Carol could react anymore, the guards were on them.
Carol was dragged away and led back inside the building.
Karla was grabbed by a guard on each side of her. She tried to fight them off but to no avail.
“Don’t keep struggling. You’re only going to make it worse for yourself,” said one of the guards.
Karla looked over her shoulder to see Shawna standing there. She had the look of “I told you so” in her eyes as she shook her head at Karla while the guards led her by her.
The look only infuriated Karla even more. She wanted to spit at everyone. The guard, the inmates, at anyone near her, her mood was that of venom. All she could feel was anger.
Anger at her Mom. Anger at her Dad. Anger at Carol. Anger at Rod. Anger at Max. Anger at everyone…
Her life had been turned totally upside down in a matter of months. This was not how it was supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to be in jail.
Why did her parents have to go and move to Brantwood in the first place?
Why had Sarah and Jody stopped calling her? She hadn’t heard from them in months after the episode with Gerry.
Why had she even gone to that party in the first place? It wasn’t fun like she had thought it was going to be. Instead Gerry took advantage of her and she was drugged and had overdosed on whatever it had been that they had given her.
Now there was one at the school who blamed her for Mitch’s death. They also blamed her for Gerry being in jail, that person was Maggie.
Karla knew it wasn’t her fault for what happened to the two boys, but tell that to Maggie, she wasn’t about to listen to any reasoning. Karla knew she hated her passionately.
Why had Carol even bothered to try to become friends with her? Why had she waited so long before telling her she was sorry?
Why did her mother have to drink like a fish?
She hated it when her mother drank, and she drank all the time. It made her mean.
Why was her dad never around? Was he really working late? Or was he somewhere else? Was he having an affair the whole time?
All these questions popping into her head only made her madder.
Then the guards pushed her into the cell. That’s what it was too. It was just a cell.
No bed. No windows. No, sink. There was just a cold hard floor with no blanket. That was it.
The door was locked behind her. This too didn’t have any open window. There was just a slider that was controlled on the other side of the door where food and water could be slid through from time to time.
In fact, there was no way to tell time in this place.
All Karla could do was to sit on the floor and lean against the cold hard wall and study where someone else may have tried to scratch marks into the wall across from where she was sitting. Somehow they were sanded away some time ago.
Sitting there in the dark, all alone only added fu
el to Karla’s anger.
It didn’t just bring tears to her eyes. They were tears of anger. There was anger so deep it could be deadly. She longed for her revenge, and she knew that she would get it eventually. It was only a matter of time before she would be able to carry it out against Carol.
What happened to Max?
Was he still alive?
Hopefully Rod got what was coming to him for what he had done to Max.
Why didn’t her home phone work?
What was taking Jan so long with that lawyer? Hadn’t it been two weeks since she had arrived here?
What were they talking about when they said the court was back logged? There couldn’t be that many people waiting to go to court? Could there be?
How long were they going to keep her locked up in here?
Why did the food here make her feel sick to her stomach all of a sudden?
And last but not least, when was the last time she had her period? She couldn’t be late, could she?
What would she do if she was pregnant? She didn’t even know if Max was alive.
Why had she let him talk her into doing it without the condom? He almost had gotten it on. Why had she given in?
The memory of that night was still vivid in her mind. He made her feel so good that night. He had been so gentle with her, so caring. Not like he was with her that day on the road when they had to walk for miles, and he was downright mean to her. Not like that at all.
She laid her hand upon her flat stomach and wondered, could she possible be pregnant? Was that why she was feeling so sick?
Chapter 20 – Forgive or Forget
Carol couldn’t believe Karla tried to jump her like that. What was she thinking?
Could she truly have been that pissed at her to risk being sent to solitary? It certainly wasn’t very bright of her to try picking a fight.
For one thing, Carol was sure she could have easily had taken her. She hadn’t lost a fight in years.