by Susanne Beck
The next morning, my mother’s friend slipped her foot into her shoe, then let out a scream loud enough to wake the dead. By the time I made it to the ground floor, my mom and her friend were screaming, had brooms in their hands, and were running around the house chasing after a tiny, terrified chipmunk who’d picked the wrong shoe to sleep in.
Ice was always a wonderful listener and seemed always keen on having me tell her of my childhood summers in our cabin by the lake. By the faraway look in her eyes, I think I’d finally managed to get her to at least try and visualize the place that brought me such a sense of peace and serenity.
She always seemed calmer and more open after listening to my tales; softer, somehow. Her pale eyes would take on a deeper, more vibrant hue and the sharp angles and planes of her face would smooth out some as she looked tenderly in my direction; that child I’d seen in the photograph not far under the surface of the woman grown. It was a part of her I so much wanted to know. But like a clear pool whose depths aren’t fully known until you find yourself up to your neck in them, there would be layers upon layers of mystery and emotional armor I’d have to patiently pry my way through to get to the soul underneath.
There were other times that she’d come and watch me play softball, her eyes raking over the field and its players, that blasted enigmatic smile painting her lips. I learned quickly to force my attention onto the game or risk fat lips, black eyes, and the unmerciful razzing of my teammates. There were times when I could almost feel the heat of her gaze upon me and I had to actively resist shifting out of my stance to turn and meet that smoldering gaze with my own, knowing it would be my undoing if I did.
The kisses we’d shared in her cell woke an animal I hadn’t even known was hidden inside me. My nights were filled with images both erotic and tender. My days weren’t all that much better, truth be known. There were times I thought I’d explode from the pressure, the pieces of me left to flutter down in ribbons of frustration.
But, if there’s one lesson I learned well in the Bog, it’s that patience is a virtue. And when I put my mind to it, I can be truly virtuous. My name is Angel, after all.
Too, there were times when the smile on her face would gauge the lightness of her mood and I’d try to draw out her feelings and plans for the retribution she promised for the warden and her betrayer. Try as I might, I could never get any hints from her and knew well enough to back off or risk retribution of my own. Still, I couldn’t help but worry about the drastic measures she might see fit to bring forth in her quest for what she considered to be justice, albeit of the most base sort.
In reality, there was nothing to keep her from going directly after Morrison. She was, after all, a lifer with no hope, at least in her own mind, of ever seeing freedom again. I think that thought must have been tempting in the extreme for her at times, especially on Sundays when we would all be forced to sit through three hours of his pious preachings, knowing all the while the vile creature which lay beneath the vestments. Why she didn’t take that road, I have no idea. It doubtless would have been easy for her and, really, what more punishment could she possibly receive?
Another avenue I considered was the one that comes most easily to the mind of almost any prisoner, whether it be in the Bog or elsewhere. Escape. Talk to any ten inmates of any prison around the world and nine will admit to having thoughts of escape. And the tenth will be lying. It was the thing you talked about over meals and thought about when the darkness of the prison night came home to roost in your cell.
Almost every inmate could tell you at least a dozen ways to leave the Bog without benefit of parole. And, truth be known, some of these ways even stood a good chance of success. This was the Bog, after all, and not Alcatraz. Corinne, who was the most in the know about such things, stated with authority that there were twenty one successful escapes from the Bog in the years since it had been turned into a women’s prison. Of those, fifteen were eventually recaptured, two were killed outright and the remaining five were never heard from again.
The most popular and successful escape route, though horribly cliched, was the old ‘slip out in the clean-laundry basket’ maneuver. Two of the five inmates who weren’t killed or recaptured chose this route for their dash to freedom. In 1966, however, the prison lost its State laundry contract and that closed off the laundry avenue for good.
Tunneling was out as a means for escape. The Bog is aptly named, as it sits on many acres of swamp land. Tunnels crumble and fall apart, filling with water almost as soon as they were dug. To date, again according to Corinne, twelve inmates have drowned attempting to tunnel out of the prison.
The award for the most idiotic escape attempt, and one which was very nearly successful despite its stupidity, goes to a woman named Slick. Unlike the Bog, she was not aptly named, for she was anything but. Slick worked in the auto shop and by all accounts, she was a good mechanic. She was also a crazed and dangerous killer who would stop at nothing for the chance to escape. One evening, as she was putting the finishing touches on a State Police cruiser, she decided to hide beneath the tarp covering the flooring of the back seat and leave the Bog in style. The guards rarely inspected the police cruisers, figuring the patrolmen who drove in them would be in the best position to know if anything was out of place in their own vehicles.
What Slick forgot, however, in her zealous, if not overly bright, planning, was that the backseats of police cruisers don’t have door-handles. Nor does the thick plexiglass shielding the front seats from the back allow for easy passage from one compartment to the other. When the officer who drove the car got back from his briefing at the station, he found, to his great and amused surprise, an escaped inmate all boxed up and awaiting her return trip to the Bog.
Guard dogs specially trained to sniff out the human scent and the advent of electronic garage door openers ended the chances of escape through the auto bays once and for all. Each car was inspected as if it were waiting at a boarder crossing and anything seen out of place was immediately attended to.
Corinne told me that in the ten years since that incident, there had never been a successful escape attempt. Some women still tried to climb over the fence or slip out with the visitors, but no one ever made it off the grounds.
Even if that hadn’t been the case, I had my doubts that escape was something that Ice would ever seriously consider. She was the rare inmate who truly believed that she belonged where she was. And even if she was incarcerated for a murder she didn’t commit, her sense of guilt over crimes she had gotten away with continued to weigh on her heavily. She believed justice had been well and truly served in her case and seemed content to stay where she felt she belonged.
But I also knew that however long it took, somehow, some way, Cavallo and Morrison would also have justice served to them on a platter no doubt stained red with blood. And that was what worried me.
Another worry, though one more annoying than frightening, was the continued intrusive presence of my own little shadow named Digger. It seemed that no matter where I was or when I was there, Digger was always somewhere in the near vicinity. To be honest, my routine of library, softball, library, meals, library, cell wasn’t that difficult to figure out, but it was still disconcerting nonetheless.
I tried talking to her. I had Corinne try talking to her. I had the Amazons try talking to her. Nothing worked. She seemed to be one of those people who couldn’t see the facts in front of their face. It got so bad at times that I seriously considered asking Ice to intimidate the ever loving hell out of her, but my more polite side kept that tucked down deep to be used only as a last resort.
Still, Digger did manage to have some use for me and so I put up with the constant frustration of having a living shadow and kept telling myself that at least she wasn’t Psycho. Or so I hoped.
Digger was, not to put too fine a point on it, a neat freak. The inside of her cell was clean and sparse as a monk’s and her uniforms were always just so; wrinkle-free with perfect creases. It often amus
ed me how she would spend several minutes during a softball game brushing the resilient fabric after sliding into a base to avoid a tag.
As a cleanliness nut, she was a natural in the janitorial jobs so abundant in the Bog. Let’s face it. It’s a rare woman who enjoys swamping out toilets for a living, but Digger did it with a smile. Other inmates had taken to calling her "June Cleaver" behind her back and it was the cause of much teasing in our own little corner of Hell.
Her tidy tendencies didn’t escape the notice of our warden, who also seemed to ascribe to the notion that cleanliness was indeed next to godliness. When it came to pressed suits and swept floors, that is. The man’s soul was as dirty as the bottom of a New York taxi.
In any event, never one to pass over an easily used and abused resource, the warden appointed Digger his personal housekeeper, which meant, of course, that she was in the perfect position to pick up and deliver juicy little tidbits that Morrison let slip during the course of his daily business. And believe me when I tell you that Digger was very good at her job. Suffice it to say, William Morrison had the cleanest brass doorknob in all prisondom. Of course, Digger kept it well polished with her ears and eyes, but he didn’t need to know that.
* * *
The morning of the first inaugural Inmate/Guard softball game dawned with the proverbial "three H’s" in attendance. Hazy, hot and humid. The sky was a flat, monochrome gray and the air was thick enough to be cut through with one of Psycho’s knives. At nine in the morning, the temperature was already eighty-two and climbing. I had decided, spur of the moment, to come out a couple hours early to get in some extra batting practice, knowing our pitchers would be out practicing as well.
As I stepped out into the sauna the yard had become with the rising of the sun, I silently thanked our team captain for lobbying for the uniform I now wore. Instead of the thick, heavy polyester of my prison jumpsuit, I had on a simple cotton T and loose-fitting cotton shorts. Sweat immediately beaded between my breasts and at my hairline. I had pulled my hair into a loose tail for the game and vowed once again to get it chopped off at the next opportunity.
A body brushed by my side and I almost soiled my new shorts as I whirled, hands up in a defensive posture. Digger jumped back, a chagrined smile on her face, her hands also raised. "Sorry, Angel. It’s just me. Musta been thinking about the game, huh?"
I returned the smile, though weakly. "Uh . . .yeah, Digger. You just startled me." I fought hard to keep the annoyance from sounding in my voice. "What are you doing out here so early?"
"I figured you’d want to get in some last-minute practice, so here I am." Her grin widened as her eyes roamed over my body. "You look real nice, Angel."
I looked down at myself, seeing places where my sweat had glued the cotton to my skin in dark patches. There was already a ‘V’ forming between my breasts and I resisted the urge to cover myself up. "Thanks," I managed. "So do you."
In truth, I didn’t think it was possible to get cotton so white and absolutely wrinkle-free, but somehow Digger managed it, as usual. Unlike me, her sweat didn’t dare stain those pristine garments. I chuckled inwardly as I imagined her yelling at her pores, demanding they stay shut nice and tight for the duration.
"So," she said, fidgeting slightly to break the silence, "you ready to kick some guard ass?"
"Sure." Switching my mitt to the hand closest to Digger, I started across the grounds, taking the still air and the muggy, slightly swampy smell that hung on the mist surrounding us. Our pitchers were looking warmed up and ready and I stood just outside the foul line, watching and cheering them on for a moment.
Players from both teams began to drift onto the field, calling out to one another in shouted greetings and good natured ribbing and kicking up the dust to hang in the still, humid air. Another body came close, but instead of brushing by me, it moved forward until we were almost touching. Two strong hands settled onto my shoulders in a grip I recognized and a low, sultry voice sounded very close to my ear. "Give ‘em hell, Angel." The hands gave my shoulders a brief squeeze before a head swung briefly around into my field of vision, depositing a soft kiss to my cheek. "For luck."
A subtle shifting and the figure was gone, leaving behind a wonderful scent and me, staring dazedly at nothing with a flush rapidly darkening my face and wondering why in the world I had thought the day could possibly be lousy.
"Was that Ice?" Digger said from beside me, her voice filled with hushed awe.
I blinked in annoyance, the spell Ice had woven over me temporarily broken. "Yeah, that’s Ice."
"Wow. That is so cool! Hey! Do you think if I asked, she’d give me a kiss too?"
Before I knew it, I had whirled around to face her. "Don’t even think about it."
Her look of surprise was so comical I had to bite back a bray of laughter. "Let’s just . . .go practice, alright?"
"Yeah. Sure. Anything you say, Angel."
* * *
The game was fast and furious from the start. The guards had an excellent team with pitcher who could thread a needle with a softball and could set your bat on fire if it got in the way. Their batting was good too, as was their outfield, who had rifles for arms. Their only weakness was their infield and I set out to exploit that as best I could by peppering line-drives up the gap between short and second, a particular sweet spot of mine anyway.
Our strength was our infield. Though annoying, Digger was an outstanding first-baseman, well earning her nickname by digging out a few errant throws that might have gone on for extra bases had she missed them.
It was the top of the fifth and the score was tied at one apiece when I bobbled what should have been an easy double-play ball, then managed to get it stuck in the webbing of my glove, thus allowing both runners to advance. In a fit of frustration, I threw my glove down on the ground and stomped around, much like a child having a tantrum, which, I suppose, I was.
In the middle of my tirade, I felt a pair of eyes on me and I whirled, expletives still spewing like sewer water from my lips. The torrent ceased abruptly as my gaze locked with Ice’s, allowing the calmness and confidence in her eyes wash over me like a soothing balm. I suddenly forgot why I had gotten so angry in the first place and felt a blush of embarrassment creep into my cheeks, heating my ears. Her eyebrow arched as a smile played across her lips. She gave me a brief nod before deliberately breaking the lock of our gazes as she looked toward the batter’s box, studying the new guard who’d stepped up to the plate.
Bending down to pick up my glove, I murmured my apologies to my teammates and readied myself for the next play, bolstered beyond belief by the confidence one woman had in me. Taking a few deep breaths, I leaned forward in a crouch, my glove before me flexed and ready for anything.
When the blistering line drive came at me, I felt my glove raise in an almost unconscious reaction. It sunk quickly, but I managed to scoop it up on one hop and this time I didn’t bobble it. Standing up quickly, I stuck my mitt out to tag the runner leaving second for one out, stepped on the bag for the second out, and threw the ball to Digger who caught it a split-second before the runner crossed the bag for a triple play.
You might have thought I’d won the World Series the way my teammates dog-piled on me, screaming their fool heads off. Even the guards applauded and shouted their congratulations. Once again, Digger came to my rescue, threading her way through the pile and pulling me to my feet. Though I welcomed her help, I gently resisted her attempts to brush me off, not wanting her hands on me any more than necessary and figuring I’d earned the dirt I wore.
The bottom of the same inning, we managed to get a jump on their pitcher, who was tiring. Digger doubled into the gap between left and center field to start us off. Trey, who had forgone gang loyalty to offer us her strong bat, smashed a towering hit almost to the fence in straight away center, but the outfielder had her played perfectly and caught the ball with ease. However, Digger tagged and advanced to third, beating the throw by a hair. The next woman got out on a
short pop fly that barely cleared the infield and left Digger no room to run.
And so it was my turn. I suddenly felt that good kind of nervousness that you get deep in your gut when the game’s riding on you and your teammates are cheering you on. I looked over at the woman I now considered my lucky talisman, and got a half-grin and a pumped fist for my efforts. Returning the grin, I stepped into the batter’s box and dug in.
Everything telescoped around me. The crowd’s shouting grew dim and far-away. My eyes were only for the opposing pitcher, who was giving me a feral smile of her own as she nonchalantly tossed the ball up and down in her hand.
My hands were sweaty on the bat’s handle and I twisted my grip several times to solidify it. Then I took a few experimental swings and dug my toe further into the loamy dirt as I chanted the silent litany of "eyes steady, shoulders square, easy swing".
When the pitch finally came, it floated to me on an arc so lovely and graceful and perfect that I could have sworn it had "please knock the crap outta me, Angel" stitched into its hide. And so, of course, I obliged. The ball impacted my bat right at that perfect spot where the feeling in your hands and the sound of the contact lets you just know you did good.
It flew from my bat, just barely avoiding giving the pitcher a haircut, before again splitting the gap between short and second, then hitting a wet patch of outfield grass and just . . .dying. The short-stop, second baseman and centerfielder all converged on it, missing a three-way collision by the barest of inches. Digger floated home while I took second with ease before the ball finally made its way back to the pitcher, who tipped her cap at me before turning to deal with the next batter. I couldn’t help the grin that spread its way across my face nor the turn of my head to meet the pale eyes of my silent supporter. Receiving another brisk nod and a quick wink for my efforts, I felt as though I were floating on air.