by Andrew Birch
“Come on”, she said, “Let’s get you dressed.”
The bus ride was short, but fascinating for the little girl. She loved the city and looking at all the people scurrying about, some with the newspapers they’d bought in the dispensers that fascinated her so much. They passed the bus yard, but its lines of old dead junk buses just sat there, that confused Lol, all those seats just waiting there with nobody to sit on em. Eventually, they came to the stop near Desiree’s house. It was in what Lol had heard called a black neighbourhood. That was, all the residents were black. Not that Lol noticed anything like that, she was too busy looking at the people, some just hanging around, some speaking to Desiree, some others bent down and said hi to Lol. Feeling happier than usual, Lol found herself saying hi to a whole bunch of people, who always commented on how smart a little girl she seemed for her age, and what a beautiful southern accent the little one had.
Desiree’s house certainly was smart, with the little white fencing instead of the cold stone of the children’s home. Two little girls, Desiree’s nieces, played on the grass on newer cleaner versions of the little trike that Lol sometime splayed with.
“Now”, Desiree said, kneeling to the little girl’s height, “you be a good girl, I’m walking to the corner to pick Aunt Delicia up and get some groceries. You three play nice for a while till I get back. Winston is home if you need an adult.”
Lol didn’t know who Winston was. The little nieces, Oprah and Jennifer terrified Lol as they came towards her.
“You want to play bikes”, said Oprah?”
“Nah”, said Jennifer, “We can play bikes later. Let’s play princesses. You can be the princess cos you’re blonde and pretty”.
“Yeah”, said Oprah, I’ll be a prince.”
“You can’t be a prince cos you’re a girl”, replied Jennifer, “you can be her maid servant.”
“What d’ya wanna do”, they both asked Lol
Lol shrugged, and remained quiet
“C’mon”, said Jennifer, let’s go inside and braid each other’s hair. To Lol’s surprise, Oprah took her hand and the three of them went inside into Desiree’s house. Lol had never been in another house before. There was no cupboard for her shoes to go; in fact they all kept their sneakers on in the house, a concept that was pretty alien to Lol. Desiree was a full half hour. In fact she was a half hour on purpose. Oprah and Jennifer were sensible for their age. They were under strict instructions to treat Lol kindly, and to play nice with her, which they would have done anyway, without the lecture. They were good kids. And so when Desiree crept back into the house, she could hear three children voices, and not two. And then the happiest sound she’d heard for a long time. Lol laughing. The little girl laughed a little, her southern twang showing through even in her laugh. Desiree crept into the kitchen to leave the three to it. They played for a while, and for once in her life, Lol felt like an actual princess, whatever one of those was.
In the kitchen Desiree and her Aunt talked about the little one,
“I just feel sorry for her, you know, Delicia?” she said
“I know” replied Aunt Delicia, I can see that, but it’s bad for her, you know?”
“What’s bad””, replied Desiree, “giving a poor little mite a day of happiness. I ain’t ever heard the little squirt laugh before.”
“Yeah, and when she gets home to that dumping ground tonight, she ain’t never gonna laugh again. Before today, she didn’t know what normal was. You just give her a taste of it, now she’ll know when she gets home how crummy her life really is.”
I didn’t think of that”, said Desiree crestfallen.
“The other women who work there probably had to learn that lesson the hard way too”, Delicia said comfortingly, “unless you’re planning to adopt that little mite, then you gotta stop introducing her to this kind of stuff.”
“I can’t adopt her”, Desiree said sadly, “wish I could. Can you imagine what Sean would say if I came home one night with a white kid in tow?”
“Somebody else’s white kid”, added Tilda.
Little Lol knew none of this kitchen talk. She played happily upstairs with Oprah and Jennifer until lunch time. Lol still didn’t eat much, but she had a little, and they rode the bus together back to the home. Two things stuck in Lol’s mind about the day, years later. The strangest of things. The first was the bus depot, where all the old scrap buses sat sinking into the mud, abandoned. That fascinated Lol, all those seats with nobody sitting on them except alley cats and tramps. The second thing that stuck in the little ones mind was an old guy she saw near her bus stop, just sitting there with his battered green trench coat pulled up around his neck. He had a grizzled appearance, and had long unkempt greying hair and a beard. He was wearing something like tinfoil on his head, and his trousers were half mast, with dirty grey sneakers on his feet without socks. Lol wondered if he was cold, and stared at him as they hurried past. He stared back with crazy looking eyes, and Lol looked away, suddenly afraid.
“Don’t you mind old tinhat”, Desiree said as they hurried along, “he’s harmless. Won’t hurt you.”
Lol decided that he was ok in her book then. Mikey and Allie looked normal, and they had hurt her quite bad. She looked up at Desiree,
“Just cos you’re pretty or smart doesn’t mean you’re good, does it?”
Desiree looked at the five year old, startled.
“That’s quite a profound thing to say for a little thing like you”, she said surprised, “don’t you have some deep stuff in that pretty head of yours?”
Lol shrugged.
“You’re right though”, said Desiree, “Some of the nicest people I know are homeless, or poor. I volunteer down at the 4th street mission every Monday and Friday, and those guys in there are the gentlest souls I’ve ever met.
Lol was surprised by this. She couldn’t imagine Desiree with anyone else but her, and the children. She was suddenly jealous that Desiree gave her attention to someone else.
***
Chapter 5. At the Top
Funny what goes through your mind in solitary, looking at four blank walls. I didn’t often remember that stuff from when I was a little kid. Some of those memories were painful ones. That had been the first time I had ever clapped eyes on the one they called Tinhat. I’d come to know him better later in my life. The painful bit was not knowing that was the last time I’d spend a full day with my Desiree. Sure, she still came down after that, but less, and she didn’t bring me presents or let me go with her to do the shopping, or go to meet her nieces. I didn’t know why, but I guessed it was because someone had told her that I was a bad little bitch. So I just stayed quiet and hung around on my own. Course, that all changed a bit after, cos I had to go to school. That was all right at first, I Iearnt to write and read properly. I mean…I could already read a fair bit, but I learned to do it properly, and spell and draw and things. That got boring real fast. I hated the stuff about history and the presidents and Jefferson and Washington and crap like that. Who gives a fuck about some old dead guys? Not me, and I started to bunk off. In fact, I was out of school more times than I was in. I was out so much that the volunteers in the home would give me money to get groceries and stuff for them to bring back. They knew I wasn’t in school, and didn’t give a shit. I was trustworthy with their money though. Made me feel useful, and at twelve years old, felt like I was an adult already. Not that I rushed back with the stuff they wanted. It would be dark before I got back. At first I panicked a bit that some school guy would come try and cause a row for me and try to drag me back to school, but nobody ever did. And so I stopped going all together. I’m not a dumbass though, despite what people say. I can read and write and I know maths and stuff it’s just the other bullshit I’m not interested in. Like reading a book that’s fiction. Some guy made it all up in his fucking head, so who gives a shit? Find me a book that tells me how to do shit, and I’m there, but a whole load of made up crap, I’ll probably use it to light my cigaret
tes with.
I wasn’t in solitary for long. I was right when I’d known there would be repercussions. My ten years with probably release after five had suddenly turned into a twelve years with a minimum of eight. I had to pretend to be real sorry for blinding Diane in her left eye and causing her so much pain, not to mention the problems Alicia had been having when I fractured her skull. She was having headaches and blackouts and shit like that. SO there I was, sat in the governor’s office, my hands cuffed to the chain around my waist and my feet in shackles.
“…and you now have to try and regain some of that trust. Not only with us, but with your fellow inmates. It’s not going to be easy”
The Governors voice droned on and on, and I stopped listening. The haircutting woman, I’d forgotten her name…the one who had sheared all my hair off into this stupid buzzcut, told me that a smile can win more people over than a scowl. And so I didn’t scowl. Not that I smiled either, I had this weird thing when I smiled that made people afraid of me, more so now I had a little confidence. Ha! Diane was blind on one eye now. Fuck her. That would teach her. Now they would see what a proper top dog could do in a place ripe for the picking like this one.
“Are you even listening, Taylor?”
“Uh sure”, I replied, “and I’m real sorry for what I done, sir”, I replied, casting my head to the floor. This was the part of the establishment that couldn’t be bought, or changed. This was the system that had to be worked around. And so I worked it best I could.
“It’s just…after the attack, and having to come here in the first place, I guess I lashed out. So now I have extra years to think about what I did, huh? Plus, none of my friends in there are gonna trust me for a while now.”
“Very true”, the governor said nodding, “I’m glad to hear you made a few friends. You’re here for a long time; they’ll help you through it. You’ll just have to earn that trust back.”
“I’ll try my best sir”, I said in my best downcast voice, “I know it’ll be hard, but I won’t let you down again.” This time I gave him my sweet smile. He wasn’t convinced.
“Hmm” he murmured, “just be aware that here, as in society, there is a structure in place. That structure protects society. Nobody likes change. Especially when the structure works.”
“What when it doesn’t?” I asked, “what when the structure has me beaten and touched up in the bathroom in my first week by three people who should know better than to fuck with me?”
That all came out so fast it surprised him. Flustered, he thought about his answer,
“Those allegations are very serious”, he said, “If you have any proof of an attack then there are certain channels. Be aware there may be repercussions.”
“I just don’t want to cause any more trouble sir”, I said trying to appear contrite despite my outburst, “and I’m sorry for destroying your structure.”
I grinned to myself. Destroyed. Not damaged. Destroyed. I had obliterated his fucking structure.
“You’ve certainly caused some trouble to say you’ve only been here for a short period of time”, he admitted, “I trust things will be a little quieter from now on.”
“I’ll be a good girl, sir”, I said, “You can depend on me”.
I gave him my sweetest smile, and he had the look. That look. The look of fear when a predator who has been stalking you finally looks you in the eye.
He brushed it off suddenly, shuffled some papers on his desk, and spoke,
“Well”, he blustered, “I think you’re ready to go back into the main population. One thing first though.
I wondered what that was.
“Apologise to Diane. And mean it. Not your ‘I’ll be a good little girl’ bullshit. A proper apology. She’s still in the hospital so I’ll have you escorted down there. When you’ve apologised, I’ll let you back, and we’ll draw a line under it.”
I thanked him, and was escorted out, clanking and shuffling in my steel fetters.
“Keep her away from me”, she screamed.
“Governors orders”, said the tall black guard, “You two need to make peace”
“Peace”, Diane screamed, “the little hellcat blinded me!”
She was a mess. The left side of her face were heavily bandaged. Apparently, the rod had caused her to have major nose problems, and made her lose her eye. She was lucky to be alive.
“Now” said the guard, “I get that there’s bad feeling, and that you two will never be friends. But there needs to be peace. You’ve both got a long time to spend in here. Taylor here is sorry for what she’s done. Aren’t you?”
“OH yeah Diane”, I said, smiling sweetly, “I’m real sorry for what I did, Diane. I know I can never make it up to you, but I’ll do everything I can. “
“Just keep away from me” she stammered.
“I’ll even help out with your work” I said.
“There”, said the guard, “so you’ll have a bit of money when you get out of hospital. How’s that?”
Diane smiled weakly.
The guard satisfied that, in my chains and shackles, I couldn’t hurt anyone, went to the bookcase and picked up a “sports illustrated” magazine.
“I’ll keep business running don’t you worry about nothing”, I whispered to her.
“Alicia and D will murder you as soon as they get a chance” she murmured.
I cocked my head on one side,
“That’d be pretty dumb” I said in my sweet southern drawl, “if we do it my way then we all make a nice pot of money and run this joint as we want, do it your way and you lose that other pretty eye and end up getting a nice white stick for Christmas.
“Just stay the fuck away from me”, said Diane again. She was scared of me. I could see it in her one remaining eye. Scared, even with me having both hands and feet in shackles, she shrank away from me. Junkyard alley cat wins again.
“I guess you learned a lesson”, I said quietly as the guard was coming back, “pull an alley cats tail and it scratches your eyes out”
Soon, I was back on the wing. Things were different now. People gave me a wide berth. I was trouble with a capital T. I was the one who’d taken the mighty Diane down, and fractured big Alicia’s skull with my own tiny skanky head. Nobody knew what to make of me. The lesbians at first thought I was one of them, what with my new butch haircut, but when one felt my ass, I told her that if she touched me again, I’d cut her fucking hand off and make her eat it. My hair soon begsn to grow out anyway into a sexy blonde pixie cut. Alicia looked like she wanted to murder me, but she recognised something in me, something that meant that if she tagged along, she’d be the bodyguard of the new top dog. Me. Top fucking dog after a few weeks. This was gonna be fun. Big D was different. She was huge, and with a butcher haircut than mine had ever been. She looked like a fucking marine. But she was surprisingly gentle. She looked more like a guy than any woman I’d ever met. I think she fancied the ass off me. She said sorry for taking part in my beating, and had argued against Diane doing it. She said she loved my new haircut, the new me, she called it.
Over the next few weeks, things changed. I was in charge on the floor now, I had respect. But there was still a problem. Respect built on fear is bullshit. It means you’re always keeping on eye on your back for the knife in the dark, always watching for the next young pretender. I was kidding myself if I thought I could last ten years on top. Eventually, I would be in Diane’s place, getting older in here and some young kid would come and smash my skull in. No, it had to be different. Like I said, rule by fear is bullshit. Rule by respect is much better. And so I changed things. Instead of taking fifty cents from the women, I took a full dollar. But for that dollar, the women got free toiletries and female hygiene shit. You see, when I was at work in their crummy call centre, I got to know a guy who worked in a pharmacy, someone who could get stuff out the back door for me. So I got him to give the stuff to Bruce, who brought it to us, with a small fee for each of them and a huge profit for me. Profit th
at I kept hidden in a small secreted cupboard in the art room, which I was in charge of cleaning. Big D had to do the meet with Bruce, I wasn’t a trustee remember and most likely never would be, and despite being good, I still wasn’t trusted with important things by the ‘management’.
Bruce was contracted to bring us other things too. Through Big D, I gave him an address to go to and collect some phone cards, fake ones that we could distribute in the shop. The extra profit of course, was split between the shop trustees and me. Finally, there was the coke. That took a personal meeting between Bruce and me, something that would have got me time in solitary if I’d have been found out. But I wasn’t. Big D kept watch. It was going to be a risk for Bruce, my contact in the city was a volatile individual, and he lived in the middle of the black neighbourhood. I wasn’t even sure if my contact Zimo would even remember my name, or just shoot young Bruce first without question. But he didn’t, and we got a regular supply of stuff. That made me the most profit, but it was risky, and was the one thing that scared the crap out of me. If I’d have been caught with any of the other stuff, it would have been a misdemeanour, caught with drugs then I was solid fucked. But the money was good. Even with these bitches on only $4.50 a week, it meant I could live like a queen, and only work one day a week myself if I chose. Mainly I worked just to call all my contacts. The guard watching us never gave a fuck, never said anything if he noticed. Diane’s way had been to involve a guard to bring stuff in, you see. I didn’t like that, neither did the guard to have his source of blow jobs cut off mid flow, but I didn’t give a royal fuck. I told him that if he didn’t go quietly and do his job, I would make Diane squeal and he’d be suddenly finding himself on the wrong side of the bars. I didn’t do business with guards. Not ever. Like I said, they were unpredictable and would always side with their own kind when the shit hit the fan.
And Diane. She was quiet, real quiet. She’d lost it all, but was pretty glad to have not been killed. She, like all the others, feared me. That continued for a while, and I began to get pretty pleased with myself. I had Alicia and Big D by my side pretty much all the time, and the rest of the inmates were pretty much contented with their new ‘leader’. Even the guards began to respect me, and open doors for me when I came by. Fucking hilarious or what? Like I said, I’d rather be a princess in hell, than a pauper in heaven. Then came Marybeth. That was the one thing I remember about my time in prison, the one thing I can’t forget, not ever.