by Eve Rabi
“Yeah. She may have attitude, but we’re all in the same sinking boat. Her boat is probably better because I think she may have lip gloss and mascara.”
Leeanne’s eyes widen. “Moisturizer! Lipstick! Dear Lord!” Hope surges in us. “What if she doesn’t want to share?” Leeanne asks.
I shrug. “We smack her around a few times and roll the bitch for it.”
“Yeah, I think I can take her,” Leeanne says.
“Mmm.” I silently work out the odds – the prisoner is around five feet nine, while Leeanne … I look at her and frown. She’s like five feet nothing.
I don’t think so.
***
Three nights later, around 3 a.m. I’m awakened by a knock on my door. It’s Reed and Bygone.
“Did I wake you?” Reed asks, leaning against my door post, giving me that special smile he’s been giving me these days.
Duh. It’s 3 a.m. – course you did. “No, no, no,” I say, giving him a sleepy smile. “Wassup?”
“Just wanted to let you know that the new prisoner is staying with Leeanne tonight.”
I rub my eyes. “Yeah? Why?”
“Oh, she’s had a run-in with one of the men.”
“Oh!” Alarmed, I quickly say goodnight, then rush to the inter-leading door separating mine and Leeanne’s room.
Without knocking, I barge in. To my horror, the new prisoner sits on Leeanne’s bed sporting an ugly shiner and cuts to her face.
“What the hell!” I say, horrified that someone could beat her like that.
Leeanne holds an icepack to the prisoner’s black eye.
“Can I get you anything?” I ask.
She waves me aside and lies back on the bed.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Some prick tried to get into my pants, that’s what happened,” the new prisoner says.
“Shit! Who?” I ask, moving closer.
“I dunno. Some dipshit! Nabul?”
“Nabil?” Leeanne corrects.
“Whateva!”
“What’s your name?” Leeanne asks.
“Darla.”
“What you doing here?” I ask. “I mean, how did they …?”
She sits up and starts talking. “See, I’m an entertainer. I tour Iraq – move from city to city.”
“Wow!” Leeanne and I chorus, thrilled to meet a real-life entertainer.
“You famous?” Leeanne asks.
“Yeah, of course! Everyone in Iraq knows me and I’m booked waaaay in advance. I make a shitload of money.”
Leeanne and I quiver with awe as the prisoner regales us with how important she is. What a woman! Star struck, that’s what we are.
As morning breaks, we learn a few things. Darla is actually Darryl, a transvestite, working as an entertainer in Iraq to save for a gender-defining operation and … and this is a big and – to support a cocaine habit.
Our star struckness, dips.
“The pay has to be good because, who dares venture into war-fucking-torn Iraq? But these dignitaries and dickheads of state who come to Iraq to see what they can steal –these pricks need to be entertained, so I give them Shirley Fucking Bassey, Celine Dildo Dion …” She clicks her finger left to right and back, “Whateva their pleasure baby, whateva! And they love it. I get to stay in the best digs, have security all around me ...” Her face suddenly darkens. “Wonder what happened to Nathan and Munna, the guys assigned to protect me?”
Probably killed for helping infidels.
“See these guys,” Darla says, “They’re not familiar with transvestites, and Nabul …”
“Nabil,” Leeanne and I chorus.
“…the fuck face who tried to rape me – he learned the hard way when he crept into my bed in the middle of the night. “I want a pussy! I want a pussy! I want a pussy!” she mimics. “What a cockhead!”
Leeanne and I hoot with laughter.
“He got such a fucking shock when he slipped his hand down my pants and felt my dick instead. Then the fucker got mad. Began to beat on me. Big mistake. Because after that, I kicked the shit out of him. I mean, I can handle myself.” She leans forward and grins mirthlessly. “I grabbed him by the nuts and made him squeal like bacon-in-da-making, I did! No one fucks with me and gets away with it. Then he began crying like a girl. ‘Heeeelp meee! Heeeelp meee!’”
Leeanne and I collapse with laughter.
Minute by minute, Darla was turning out to be a colorful and entertaining roommate.
“She’s so cool,” I say.
“Awesome!” Leeanne says.
“You should have seen him – it was pathetic!” Darla continues. “I just held on for dear life and squeezed. I mean, why must I always be the one entertaining others? Let him entertain me with his pathetic screams. In Arabic too!”
“You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you,” I finally say, wiping my eyes.
We are really thrilled to have Darla around. She’s cheeky, loud, obstinate, defiant, and argues every order.
“I don’t give a shit about this Sheriff,” she sneers. “And since when does Iraq have a Sheriff? I thought Saddam was the big cheese here.”
“Saddam was captured last December,” Leeanne says. “Don’t you read the papers? And it’s Shariff, not Sheriff.”
“Whateva!” Darla says dismissively. “His long arm ain’t gonna hold me down.”
To our delight, she refuses to wear her scarf, saying it damaged her hair extensions. She turns to Reed. “Steve, the only time I use a scarf is when I have to tie someone up in bed, before I blow them.”
Reed turns the color of Darla’s crimson lipstick and never mentions the scarf again.
“It’s Reed, not Steve,” I say.
“Whateva!”
And she insists on wearing high heels while working in the ward. From what I see, I’d say that nobody knows what to do with her, and most of the time, she is left alone.
As the weeks go by, Darla’s amusing behavior mutates to plain offensive, and her lack of respect towards everyone around her eventually makes her unpopular with everyone in the bunker. The men dislike her and what she stands for and they make fun of her, but she doesn’t give a crap.
The man who treats her really badly is Riyaard, Omar’s son. The asshole goes out of his way to publicly humiliate her, jeering her and mocking her in front of the men.
But Darla being Darla, fires right back to him. “Yeah right, you fucking faggot!” she taunts. “You need a good screw from me and you’ll come right!”
After a stunned silence, the men around heckle Riyaard. When Riyaard raises his thumb at her in a clicking motion, I need an antacid.
“Darla, shut the fuck up! Stop calling him ‘faggot.’ He’s not gay.”
“Oh yes, he is.”
“Darla, he’s Omar’s son. Omar will kill you for even thinking …”
“I don’t give a shit what he thinks. Hey, d’ya think I’m losing weight?”
I groan with exasperation.
Did I mention she is obsessed with weight – hers and everybody else’s.
“I can’t eat this crap!” she says, eyeing her rice and beef with disdain. “And you shouldn’t eat carbs either or you’ll never lose that fat, Tegan.”
Self-absorbed bitch probably hasn’t realized I’m pregnant. I look at Leeanne, who rolls her eyes.
“Megan,” I mutter.
Self-absorbed and fake. Her beautiful baby-blues – contact lenses. Her long, poker-straight hair – extensions. Her perky breasts – implants. Fake! Fake! Fake! She’s as real as a wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s. But meaner. Way meaner.
You want to see her come alive? Put her in front of a mirror. She can’t pass one without striking a pose, puckering up, or simply gazing in awe at the magnificent creature staring back at her. Unfortunately for me – her favorite mirror is the one in my bathroom, so she’s there all the goddamn time.
“I’m gonna write a book when I leave here,” she announces, standing sideways in front of the mirror
and sucking in her gut. “I’m gonna be America’s most famous trannie. Gonna be roooolling in the dough.” She grows thoughtful for a moment. “Someone really hot better play me in my movie.”
But in spite of her meanness, we secretly live for Darla’s antics. We never know what she’s going to do next, but we know one thing – it will be entertaining for sure.
“I ain’t scared of you, Butchface,” she snarls at Shaida.
Butchface. Now that’s way better than Bitchface.
Shaida grabs a lamp and threatens to throw it at Darla.
A fight between Shaida and Darla – whoo! Hoo! Maybe I should get some popcorn. For me, the fight between these two bitches would be a win-win situation. I mean, considering Shaida had me thrown in the dungeon, and Darla calls me Tegan and is downright disrespectful and nasty to Leeanne and me, both of them could do with some ass-whipping.
“I’ll kick the shit out of you,” Darla snarls, undeterred. “Bring it on, sister blister.”
Butchface and Darla square off, and just when a punch-on is imminent, Reed steps between them and takes Darla aside.
Reed the spoilsport.
“Darla stop,” he whispers. “You’ll be thrown into the dungeon. You need to calm down and beha–”
“Why you touching me?” Darla says. “You want some? Huh? Huh?”
Reed yanks his arm off hers and holds both palms up in a motion of surrender, his face bush-fire red.
It doesn’t help that the men around him laugh and poke fun at him now.
I would like to kick Darla in the nuts for doing that to him. But I won’t because Darla’s got makeup and toiletries which I can’t wait to get my paws on. Fickle, I know, but hey, it’s been a while since I held a makeup brush in my hand.
She really does have tons of wonderful makeup, amazing hair products, and expensive facial creams that guarantee to erase wrinkles and reverse the clock on life. But to our utter disbelief and shock, the bitch refuses to part with a single thing. Not a tiny bit of Cotton Candy lip gloss, not an ounce of Satiny Silk moisturizer, not a smidgen of Shea and Frangipani body butter.
“What am I, the fucking Avon Lady?” she flings over her shoulder in response to our pleas for some.
“Bitch!” Leeanne spits, her eyes mere slits.
“Okay Darryl,” I say. “You know what – take your stuff and shove it.”
“Don’t call me Darryl!” she snarls. “Never call me that! I am Darla, you fucking retard.” With a glare, she storms off.
Leeanne looks like she’s about to combust.
“Don’t get mad, get even,” I say, simmering quietly.
That afternoon, when Darla’s back is turned, Leeanne snakes up to me, hand over her mouth. “Keep watch,” she whispers.
“Okay,” I say evenly. “Bring me the detangling conditioner for hair-with-a-history.”
“Okay.”
“And the metallic bronzer.”
“Okay.”
“And the stubby powder brush.”
“We’re gonna have to stash it,” she says.
I grow thoughtful for a moment. “Reed’s room,” I finally say. “She won’t look there. If we’re questioned, we mutter something about Butchface being a kleptomaniac.”
Leeanne’s cherubic face cracks into an executioner’s grin. “I like the way you think, soldier girl.”
“I like it too,” I say, trembling at the thought of shimmering bronzer in my hand.
Chapter Seventeen
“He wants you to deliver this in Arabic,” Leeanne says, handing me several pages and looking stressed.
She’s back to being a nun these days. Or trying to. Has a scarf fashioned into a nun’s head gear, wears two huge crosses around her neck, dangles a string of beads in her hands all the time and threatens to pray to the Lord for just about anything. I say nothing, because I understand it’s her coping mechanism. We are, after all, POWs in Iraq.
“Why? What’s wrong with English, Sister Leeanne?” I ask, scanning the pages.
“Well, Megan dear, I didn’t question the malevolent Omar. Let’s just do as he says and all will be fine. The Lord …”
“Okay, okay!” I say.
“I’m to help you, so without further ado …”
While Leeanne and I pour over the speech, Darla stands in front of my bathroom mirror and examines her face. She uses two pencils to lift up her brows. After a while, she pushes up the tip of her nose with one of the pencils. “That’s the nose I want,” she says, more to herself than to us. “The Nicole Kidman nose. Well, the young Nicole Kidman – the one who stole Tom from Mimi, not the one who got dumped for the Spanish …hey Tegan, how come you have a whole room to yourself, while she and I have to share one measly room?” she asks.
“My name is Leeanne!” Leeanne whirls around, her rosary beads flying out of her hands, the big crosses around her neck becoming airborne and threatening to concuss her. “Not fucking ‘she’! Don’t call me ‘she’! I am fucking LEEANNE!”
“Whateva troll!”
“Leeanne calm down,” I say, picking up her beads and placing them in her hands again.
“Okay, okay.” Leeanne takes several deep breathes and prays feverishly with her beads. “I relapsed, that’s all.” She closes her eyes and prays.
“I’m gonna put this in my book,” Darla threatens. “How unfair I was treated, and how Tegan got special privileges because she was screwing around.”
I’m just about to tell Darla to fuck off, when Reed saunters in. At the sight of my heartthrob, my anger vanishes.
“Why don’t you ask Reed that question?” I say, flashing him a smile. “He’s like the hotel concierge here.”
Darla sticks her neck out of the bathroom and glares at Reed. “Why does she get a whole room to herself, Doogie Houser?”
“Because I say so,” Reed replies arrogantly.
It’s obvious he doesn’t like Darla. I don’t blame him after the way she embarrassed him in front of the men.
Most of the men here dislike her not just for being a transvestite, which is a crime in Iraq incidentally, but mainly because her attitude stinks.
“Ooooh,” Darla says, “her blowjob was that good?”
“Darla!” I screech.
With an audible sigh, Reed pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Whateva!” She returns to her pencils and mirror.
Leeanne shakes her head from side to side, then focuses on the pages in front of her.
“Language lesson,” I explain to Reed. “Gotta give this in Arabic.”
“Can you help, Reed?” Leeanne asks.
“Sure,” he says and lowers himself into a chair. For a while he corrects and aids with pronunciation, etc. After a few minutes, obviously bored, he rolls up tiny bits of paper, and when Leeanne is not looking, throws them at me.
I smile but try to focus.
He throws more bits of paper at me.
I sigh and look at him. “Don’t you have a tall building to fly into or something?”
He grins and links his fingers behind his head while Leeanne laughs.
After a while, Reed takes a sheet of paper, fashions it into a paper plane and throws it at me.
When I move my head, it lands in my cleavage.
He punches the air triumphantly, and for a minute I get a glimpse of what he probably was like when he was young.
“If you’re that bored, you could translate more,” I say.
“Sure. I’ll spend the night translating the Oxford dictionary for you and give it to you in the morning? How’s that?”
I chuckle and hand him the stuff that needs translating. “Better start now, then.”
A short while later, he hands Leeanne some handwritten pages. I read them and nod. “Easy peasy, pumpkin easy.” I look at Reed. “Important question: how do you say, fuck you Bitchface?”
He grins. “‘Fuck you, Butchface,’ I guess. I think she’ll get you, Ms. Saunders. Just remember to add gusto to your verbs.”
; We laugh out loud.
I hand him a few phrases I’ve been struggling with in the ward. “Help me here, please.”
“Sure, let’s see …”
While he sits and translates, I secretly study him. The rough stubble and the scars on his face give him that dangerous air that some women find irresistible. Not me though. Not into bad boys. Besides, he just appears dangerous. He can be a pussy at times.
“You ogling me?” he blurts, his head still bent.
I jerk upright. “I am not!”
He turns his head to the side to peer at me.
“You wish,” I say, in what I hope sounds like a sneer.
Leeanne shakes her head from side to side and either mutters under her breath or prays – I can’t tell.
He resumes his translating and finally hands me some pages. “I’ve added a few more. Thought they might be useful to you.”
“Okay good,” I say and scan the translations.
I have to bandage you. Would you like a blanket? I think you’re very pretty.
I frown and glance at him.
The glint in his eyes tells me the sentence is not a mistake.
Suppressing a smile, I read on. Here is your medication. I really like your smile; it can light up the whole of Iraq. Time to take your blood pressure.
I place my palm over my mouth to suppress a giggle.
Leeanne’s eyes dart between the two of us.
I think about you a lot. I know the deal and I shouldn’t, but I do. How do I stop?
Slowly, I raise the pages to hide my flushed face. Through the pages, I feel his eyes boring into me. God this is embarrassing! Can’t remember the last time a guy hit on me like this.
Eventually, I lower the pages and force my eyes to meet his, which are dancing. “These are …” I chew on my lower lip as I struggle to maintain eye contact.
He jerks back and cocks his head to one side. “You shy?!”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“No! I mean, yes! I mean … what … what was your question again?”
He throws his head back and laughs. “You are shy.” He nods. “I like that, Megan Saunders.”
I quietly turn beet red.
He stands up. “Now, read them often and try not to forget them, kitty,” he says in a dubious voice. “I have to get my beauty sleep.”