Finally, Roderick came. There was no picture, just the sense of him, raw and familiar at the same time.
I’m an alcoholic, I told him.
I know, he said.
I told him about the black man singing on the corner, the last day I ever drank. Like a knife slicing through the canvas of the universe. A light. A sound like no sound I ever heard. Black man singing “Amazing Grace” on the corner of Front Street and Magnolia. Suit and hat, frost on the ground and no gloves. Blasting it out straight to God. Everybody on the sidewalk stopped. Maybe there was a red light, I don’t know. Someone said, “He should make a record. He could make a lot of money.” He sang it over and over; maybe that was the only song he knew. I never heard the human voice sound like that. It was inhuman. A God. A Love. A Big Love. So big I could just see the tail end of it, and that shook me up. He didn’t even take his hat off for money.
That’s love, said Roderick. You’ll get used to it.
“Henry,” said Florida. “What was wrong with that gas station?”
HENRY STOOD OUTSIDE the processing room wearing Florida’s pocketbook over one shoulder and mine over the other. They wouldn’t let Florida carry her bag into the ladies room, and I was handcuffed. I was wearing the bright orange pajamas I had been issued.
“I like this uniform better than the old zebra suits they used to use,” said Henry, making conversation. “Orange is a good color on you.” Gently, he touched my wrists. “Are they tight? I think that fellow was new. The older officer just wanted to show him how to handcuff a prisoner, in case he ever had to. They were using you as an example for procedure.” Again, he pressed the cold metal against my skin. “Aw, you’ve got all kinds of room in there. You could get out of those in a minute if you had to. Now don’t you try that. You’ll get in big trouble. But in case of emergency, if there were a tornado or a fire . . . I asked them if they had fire escapes and they said they did, but I don’t see any.”
“What are y’all talking about?” asked Florida, returning from the rest room with sharp clicks of her heels on the tile. She took her purse from Henry’s shoulder. “I always tried to get you to wear orange. That’s your color.”
“We were talking about fire escapes.”
“Henry, they can’t have fire escapes in a jail. They don’t want people to escape. That black girl was so ugly to me in the rest room. I ought to tell somebody. I guess she’s just doing her job, guarding everybody, but I don’t think it would kill her to be a little more courteous.”
“Black woman,” I corrected.
“Her name is Yolanda. I asked because I was going to report her. Louise, you stay out of her way. Meaner than a snake. All I said to her was, ‘This commode is stopped up. You might want to take a look at it.’ She jumped all over me! Told me she was not the cleaning lady; she was the guard. Big fat old thing, too, about to pop every button on her uniform. You stay away from her, Louise.”
“They can’t keep her locked in here if there’s a fire,” said Henry. “Of course they don’t want inmates escaping, but they have to have an evacuation plan. That’s the law. Why, there aren’t any windows in here. She’d smother to death in the smoke.” When I touched his hand, my cuffs clinked.
“I can’t look at those chains on you,” said Florida. She turned her head away. “Do they hurt?”
“They don’t hurt,” said Henry. “I checked them. That fellow put them on real loose. He was just demonstrating the procedure to a rookie.”
Sniffling, Florida went through her pocketbook looking for a Kleenex. “I brought some crackers. I don’t know if anybody is hungry or not. Henry, go up to that window and see if she can bring crackers inside with her. I’m not talking to these people again if I don’t have to. That black lady was so rude to me. Just awful.”
A guard approached us with a clipboard. She wore mahogany lipstick and had ironed her hair into sausage curls. On her holster, she carried a baton and a pistol. “Frances Louise Peppers?”
“She’s right here,” said Henry, standing up tall.
“Excuse me just a minute,” said Florida as she stepped between the guard and me.
“Ma’am,” said the guard.
Florida put her arms around me. My handcuffs clinked against the zipper of her purse.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the way.”
“I love you,” said Florida. “You don’t know.”
Henry wrapped his arms around both of us.
The guard tapped her pen against the clipboard. “I need the prisoner to identify herself. You’re obstructing her.”
“Tell her who you are,” said Henry, brushing some lint from my back.
“Can’t you take those things off her wrists?” asked Florida. “They bother me.”
“We will ma’am. Once she’s been processed.”
“They will,” said Henry, handing his handkerchief to Florida. “This is just how they organize everybody. This place would be a madhouse if they didn’t.” Two tears ran down his cheeks.
“You telling me,” said the guard in a softer voice. “Are you Frances Louise Peppers of 711 Mount Zion Road, Counterpoint, Georgia?”
“I am.”
“Y’all can hug once more, then you need to come with me.” Henry pressed me so hard against his chest I couldn’t breathe. He kissed me on top of my head. When Florida kissed my cheek, I tasted her tears on my lips.
Finally, the guard took my arm. She led me through a grated iron door into a cell block. Pulling out a ring of keys, she unlocked my handcuffs and then the door to Cell 11. Inside the cell, the concrete-block walls were painted the color of scrambled eggs. On top of a steel bunk bed, a female prisoner, with a shaved head and good tattooed on one arm and evil on the other, sat reading a magazine.
“That’s Gabriella,” said the guard. “She’s a little strange, but she don’t bite. Gab, this is”—she looked at her clipboard—“this is Louise.”
“Thrilled,” said Gabriella without looking up from Southern Living. I took a tentative step forward and stopped. Breathe, I told God. Breathe, damn it.
“Proceed on in there, Louise. I ain’t got all day.” The guard jangled her keys, and I passed through the pearly gates.
A SHANNON RAVENEL BOOK
Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2001 by Melanie Sumner. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
E-book ISBN 978-1-61620-231-6
Also by Melanie Sumner
Polite Society, Stories
The Ghost of Milagro Creek, A Novel
The School of Beauty and Charm Page 26