by Ed Kurtz
This, then, was the hole. And judging by the pulsing agony in her left shoulder and hip, Irma guessed that she had been thrown down into it.
Slowly, she raised her head; it felt like a safe had been dropped on top it. Every bone in her body seemed to ache, her vision was blurry, and she could still hear whatever it was scratching away in the corner. She almost regretted the way she acted in Warden Steele’s office. Almost, but not quite.
With great effort and strain, Irma sat up and leaned her back against the slimy wall below the small window. She watched the corner with half-closed eyes until its occupant at last emerged into the pale light: a large gray rat. The rat paused in the light like a performer on a stage and raised its head to sniff at the humid, fetid air. Irma looked at the rat, and after a moment it looked back at her. Its long, white whiskers twitched. Irma said, “I’m your new cellmate.”
The rat scampered back to its corner.
“See ya.”
The thin shafts of light dimmed over the course of the late afternoon and evening, eventually vanishing altogether as the hole became shrouded in total darkness. Irma slept on and off, an hour or two at a time, always waking with a degree of shock that she was still down there. The rat continued to make noise in the corner, but it did not come near her again.
Halfway through the morning of her first full day in solitary, she was startled by a gruff voice at the window. It said, “Hendrix—chow.”
She started to get up to retrieve whatever it was the person planned on handing down to her, but instead she saw the grinning face of the guard who helped Sandy knock her out in Steele’s office, who tossed an apple through the bars. Irma lunged to catch it, but the apple landed in the shallow, stagnant water at the low end of the hole, where it broke apart.
The guard said, “Bon appétit, Hendrix,” and was gone.
After two days and nights without another visit from the guard or anyone else, Irma’s twisting stomach finally convinced her to see about the apple. She found it in the failing light of her third evening in the hole, picked it up and examined it with slitted eyes. The apple, or what was left of it, was brown and mushy, dripping with putrid water. Irma wrinkled her nose and padded softly over toward the rat’s corner, where she gingerly set the rotted fruit on the ground. She then returned to her place beneath the window, and just before the last of the light abandoned her, she saw the rat skitter out to sniff at her gift. Apparently satisfied with it, the rat began to chew, and it went on chewing until Irma could no longer make it out.
In her best Cagney, she drawled, “You dirty rat.”
She punctuated this with raucous laughter, though soon the laughter devolved into tears. She wiped her eyes and stifled her sobs, hoping to hell no one could see her at that moment. The last thing Irma wanted was for Steele or any of her underlings to believe they had broken her. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than the hole to break Irma Hendrix.
In the dead of her sixth night in solitary, Irma sat awake, unable to sleep. She had not heard the rat for more than a day and began to worry that it was either gone or dead. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak, and her lips were so chapped that they felt as though they were peeling off. She smelled bad. She was lonely.
When she heard the voices from the yard through the barred window, her ears pricked up and she listened. She knew right away that they belonged to Sandy and her cohort, but just the sound of another person was enough to soothe her mounting anxiety. So, Irma stood up, directed her ear at the window about a foot above her head.
“…bad out there,” she heard the cohort say.
“Ah, fuck ‘out there,’” Sandy growled. “In here, we’re fine. If them crazy bitches—and let me tell you, some of them bitches is plenty crazy—can’t get out, then ain’t nobody out there is gettin’ in, neither.”
Irma scrunched up her eyebrows. Who the hell would want to get into the pen?
“I don’t care what your dickhead brother says,” Sandy went on. “But there ain’t nothin’ out there but junkies and weirdoes, maybe some of them hippies protesting some shit or other. Christ, if it was really as bad as he says it is, don’t you reckon President Carter’d have done something about it by now?”
“The fuck is that peanut farmer gonna do? Smile at ‘em?”
Sandy guffawed. Irma closed her eyes as if it would make the listening easier. She was burning with curiosity as to what, exactly, the other guard’s brother had told her.
“The streets are rough, man,” Sandy told her peer. “People get fucked up sometimes. Not like in here. In here, we’re in charge—you and me. There’s a…a, uh—”
“An order,” the guard put in.
“Yeah, an order. Shit, maybe Alfonse did see a guy get his damn guts ripped out, I don’t know. But I’ll be goddamned if something like that’s gonna happen in here. Not on my fuckin’ watch.”
Guts ripped out? What the hell was going on out there? Irma had seen some shit in her time; she sure as hell wasn’t from Bel Air, but she certainly hadn’t seen anybody have their guts ripped out. That was something. That sounded bad.
“’Smile at ‘em,’” Sandy said, chuckling. “That was pretty good.”
The other woman laughed as well, and they walked off together, their voices dwindling in the distance. Irma sank back to a crouch and ran her fingers through her tangled, greasy hair. The ambiguity of the guards’ discussion was maddening, even a bit frightening. Something was happening on the outside, that much was clear, unless…
Irma frowned.
Unless they were deliberately speaking so as to be overheard, planting creepy thoughts in her head to make her afraid. It sounded right, like something a no-account thug like Sandy would do, even if she wasn’t bright enough to think of it all on her own.
“’Guts ripped out,’” Irma whispered aloud, a hint of derision in her voice. “Stupid bitch.”
She wrapped her arms around her knees and dropped her head, and, after an hour in that position, she finally drifted off to sleep.
—Four—
The Big Doll House
The morning siren blared and Arkansas winced, though she was already awake. After three years in the joint she had learned to wake up just before the siren’s blast, and she did so every single morning, but it still managed to startle her most of the time. This time around she had been thoroughly enjoying a hot dream about her and Billy Dee Williams in a whirlpool bath only to wake up to the grunting sex transpiring in the bunk directly above her. It was a three woman cell, one of whom had been in the hole for a week, so when she heard the huffing breath and soft, scratchy moans—not to mention the rhythmic juddering of the thin mattress above her—Arkansas could not help but think Irma had come back in the night and for some unfathomable reason was fucking the hell out of Wanda Johnson, their sullen cellmate.
But of course that made no sense at all. Irma didn’t go for girls at all, never had, and even if she were a dyke, the last pussy she’d be interested in would surely belong to Wanda. The woman never antagonized them to the extent of Pam or Big Lou, but she was silent and shifty, kept to herself. More than that, she was ugly as sin.
So, with the siren blasting and Sandy screaming for every goddamn mother’s daughter to get the fucking lead out, the two rutting chicks gasped and fumbled for their olive prison dresses, and the next thing Arkansas knew a strange woman had leapt down to the floor beside her. She was short and dark-skinned, her hair in tight cornrows, and she offered a sneer at Arkansas before scuttling off to Irma’s bunk.
Arkansas scooted to the edge of her own bunk and shot a steely glare at the stranger.
“Who the fuck are you?” she hissed.
“Go fuck your daddy,” the woman snarled back.
Arkansas raised her eyebrows and felt every muscle in her body tighten, winding up to launch at the mouthy bitch, when Sandy came round banging her nightstick on the bars and hollering, “Come on, you lazy cunts! It’s chow time.”
The slog to
the mess hall was uneventful, but Arkansas kept her eyes on the new fish the whole way. She had to be fish, because if she’d ever set foot in D Block for two seconds in the last four years, Arkansas would have known about it. That in itself did not particularly bother her—new fish came and went—but why in the name of Jesus was she sleeping in Irma’s bunk and playing clambake with ugly Wanda?
After she got her slop and smacked the tray down at her usual spot, Arkansas spotted the fish sitting at the same table, a few seats down. They shared an unfriendly glance before the fish broke it off, stabbing a brown potato square into her mouth and acting too cool for school. Arkansas pursed her lips and leaned over to the chick beside her, a burly country cracker called Nan who tended to say nigger like she was talking about the weather. Nan had gotten more than a few beatdowns in her first few weeks for the offense, but eventually it was mutually understood that the dumb redneck cow simply didn’t know any better. These days she usually just got told off, and she still didn’t get it.
“Who’s the fish?” Arkansas whispered to Nan.
“That bitch is crazy,” Nan said matter-of-factly, her thin mustache white with milk.
“But who is she?”
“I don’t know her name yet, but they brought her in kinda late last night. Processed her and everything, threw her in with the rest of us animals. I couldn’t sleep none, so I heard her goin’ on about all sorts of crazy shit you wouldn’t believe.”
“Try me.”
“Laughin’ her ass off, she was. Surprised you slept through it.”
“Laughing? What about?”
“Shit, that loony twat was all blabberin’ about the world burnin’ down, how she was glad to be inside ‘cause the outside turned into hell.” Nan narrowed her eyes, looking over at the fish for a second before leaning in closer still to Arkansas, her breath stale and sour. “Said she saw dead folks walking around like they was living. Said she saw her wife get shot in the head and get back up again. You ask me, she oughta be in the psych ward, not in here.”
“Sounds like,” Arkansas said foggily, uncertain of the vague shiver working up her spine.
Just then, as if on cue, the fish exploded into peals of shrill laughter, pounding her fists on the table and shaking all over. Heads spun to face her all over the mess hall and the women seated around her quickly moved away. Arkansas stood up and saw a pair of guards at the far end of the room get mad and start sauntering over.
The fish threw her head back and chortled, her eyes wide and glossy with tears.
“Stomachs all ripped open, eyeballs hangin’ out, you can cut ‘em or shoot ‘em and it don’t make no difference to them! I seen a pig empty his gun right up close in a motherfucker’s chest and that son of a bitch kept on, man, he kept on ‘til he got that pig but good! Ate up his fuckin’ neck!”
“Aw, shut up,” someone groaned. “You full of shit.”
“The fuck I am,” the fish howled. “You ain’t been out there, but I seen it! I seen it! Hell’s comin’, you dumb cunts! Hell’s comin’ and bitches like us, we’re fucked ‘cause the devil’s’ll come for us, first. It’s too late for you, too late for you, too late for—”
A guard’s stick cracked against the back of the fish’s neck and she let out a mournful moan as she collapsed to the ground, knocking over both her chair and her tray. Slop sprayed across the table and floor like vomit, and though the fish was down the guard gave her another solid strike with her nightstick for good measure. A couple of inmates cheered, glad that the lunatic was silenced, but Arkansas felt her stomach flip. Beside her, Nan chuckled.
“Had it comin’, the stupid nigger.”
Arkansas scowled, spun around and slapped her hard across the cheek.
“Why don’t you learn to watch your fucking mouth?” she screeched.
Nan’s eyes welled up, shocked and hurt.
“What’d you do that for?” she whined, rubbing her cheek.
“That’s fucking it!” one of the guards screamed. “No yard time for ya’ll, not today! Back to your cells, let’s go, let’s GO!”
A low roar of groans and complaints rose from the inmates as another three guards piled into the mess hall to help herd the women back to the block. Some bitched and some jerked away when the guards prodded them, but they all went peaceably for the most part.
Back in her cell, Arkansas lay on her back and stared at the small crimson stain on the underside of the top bunk that was there when she moved in. Wanda was already asleep up there, and the fish hadn’t come back, though she hadn’t expected her to, not after the performance she gave in the mess hall. Every once in a while the walls closed in on a girl and she snapped—she had seen it a dozen times or more—but never before to a new fish, not like that. And it wasn’t like she was scared or angry the way some of them got; this one was reveling in every whacked out word she screamed, like it was the best thing that ever happened to her.
Except that it didn’t happen. Couldn’t have. It was just crazy talk.
Arkansas closed her eyes and turned her thoughts to Irma. A week in the hole and already somebody else sleeping in her bunk. It didn’t make sense, unless…
“No,” she said out loud, resisting the notion. Nothing happened to her. She was just sitting in solitary, waiting for it to be over so she could come back and everything would be normal again, or at least as normal as things could be on the inside.
Wanda rasped, “Shaddup.”
Arkansas wanted to get up and pull her down to the floor, stomp her foot on Wanda’s face, but she swallowed her rage and waited for her heartbeat to stop thumping so hard. Things were tense enough without exacerbating the situation.
Some girls called D Block the Doll House. But lately, since the throwdown in the showers, Arkansas felt like it wasn’t anything more than the motherfucking pen.
—Five—
Escape From Hell
Irma awoke to a heated argument in the yard above her. Instantly she recognized the voices of both participants: Sandy and Warden Steele. The weak light oozing through the bars in the tiny window was purple; dawn, she decided. The voices rose ever higher, shouting over one another. Irma sat up and her stomach squeezed like a fist. The last thing she’d eaten was a brown banana dropped down to her a day and a half ago. It had taken all of her willpower not to puke it back up.
“…shouldn’t have never let her anywhere near gen pop,” Sandy was yelling somewhere past the bars. “Now all of ‘em are talking…”
“Let them talk,” Steele growled. “As long as they’re under control, I could care less what goes on out there.”
She said out there with disgust, a disdain for anyplace that she did not control.
“Those things are at the fucking walls, Ilsa!”
“Warden Steele,” the boss seethed. “Mind your place, Sandy.”
“And the inmates are getting twitchy as all hell,” Sandy went on, ignoring the scolding. “I reckon some of ‘em take stock in what Crystal was saying. Some of ‘em are acting like there ain’t no rules anymore.”
“Then you had better teach them otherwise,” Steele said. “Any way you can.”
“But if they get in—”
“Damn you, they won’t get in! Man the watchtowers and shoot any that get near! What in the hell do you think we have rifles for?”
Sandy made a clucking sound, at which the warden snorted. Ilsa stood up on her tiptoes, straining to get as close to the bars as possible.
“No matter what happens out there,” Steele said grimly, “I will maintain order in here. This is my island, Sandy. My fiefdom. I’m in charge, and I don’t care if Satan himself rises up out of hell, because he’s not taking this prison away from me.”
After that, both women were silent; the matter was settled, the conversation closed with the finality of Steele’s words. Irma listened to them traipse off through the dewy grass and slid back down to her usual crouch. Wild thoughts shot through her brain in broken fragments, ideas of a bad world gone wor
se, of the ground opening up and flames rising higher than the buildings in fiery towers of hell.
When the telephone rang in Warden Steele’s office the day she threw Irma into the hole and she was told what was happening out there—for that had to have been what that call was about—she dismissed it. Now she accepted it, but held fast to her ability to keep it out. But Steele was a fool, everyone knew that, too big for her britches and possessing of a grossly overinflated sense of her own power. If things were as bad as the snatches of talk Irma had so far heard, she gravely doubted that Steele would be able to keep it at bay for long. And when the shit hit the fan, she had no doubt that no one would think twice about the naked, starving girl in the dark, dank hole.
She had to get out.
* * * * *
Mail call came and went. Nothing for Arkansas, never was. Wanda got a lingerie catalogue she was slavering over in her bunk. All that remained was a battered gray envelope addressed to Irma. Arkansas tucked it under her pillow for safe keeping.
The day dragged on and they weren’t let out again until chow time came along once more. The bars slid open with an ear-splitting buzz, the inmates filed out, their furor from the morning long dead. Crystal was not in evidence in the mess hall. Nearly everyone whispered about her, about what they heard from someone who’d heard what might have become of her. Some were saying she was strapped to a bed in the infirmary. Nan suggested she had been beaten mostly to death and shipped off to the nearest hospital. When this particular line of conversation grew tiresome, the whispers turned to what she’d said that morning. About the dead.