Elke had disappeared, her braids just one color among so many, absorbed into their midst of the group claiming the stairs. Pearl kept looking, kept hoping the tenuous connection remained.
“She done forgot you, boo.” Betty gathered up the cards and games and put them in the box. “No sense lookin’. She gone.”
The speaker crackled to life. “Lights out. Fifteen minutes.”
In tune with the world of the quad, Betty’s uncanny sense of time baffled Pearl. How long did it take before becoming attuned to the ebb and flow of prison life, until the rising and setting sun and moon were no longer needed to define and divide the minutes and hours of day and night?
“Night, boo.” Betty touched her shoulder, squeezed gently and ambled to her cell.
“See you in the morning, Betty.”
The tide was headed out and Pearl let it wash her up into the confines of the cell. She had not expected to see or hear the iron door clang shut on her and the bolts thud into place behind her, and here she was. With four days down and no end in sight, there was nothing to do but go with the flow. Fighting the tide was not possible and there was no sense clinging to hope. The job was gone and someone else would sit in her chair tomorrow and type the letters and reports. There was no going back, only forward—or rather, there was only marking time like a human metronome.
Tamara lay face-up on the bunk, hands tucked behind her head, asleep and faintly snoring as Pearl got undressed and rinsed out her things. Her trousers felt coarse and she felt exposed without underwear, naked. In the darkness with her faced turned to the wall, Pearl dragged a finger down the hard, unyielding surface of the wall. Nothing showed, not a mark. One fingernail scraped down the wall and behind the mattress to the rubber baseboard. Scratching harder and exploring with the tip of her fingers, at last a rough mark teased the sensitive skin. She scraped repeatedly until a faint gouge remained. Three more gouges lined up beside the first. Trailing fingers across the marks, she counted in a whisper: one, two, three, four. Tomorrow five and another after that six, and another and another. No, best not to think too far ahead.
Fingertips resting at last on tangible evidence of the passage of days and nights, Pearl tucked the other hand between her legs and fell asleep.
Ten
A forearm cramp woke Pearl before the lights came on. Her left hand was cold and the fingers numb from holding them against the wall all night. She tucked her hand between her legs wincing from the pins and needles of returning circulation.
Tamara stirred and mumbled in her sleep then calmed, her breathing settling into a more normal rhythm. There was no way to tell how long until roll call, so Pearl gave in and tried to go back to sleep. Eyes, heavy with undreamed dreams, drifted shut and she floated to the edge of sleep, dozing and becoming a part of the silence.
The sharp snap of the lights and the order for roll call startled her awake. Tamara’s bare feet slapped the floor and then shuffled to the toilet. Another morning, Tuesday morning. Happy New Year. Pearl scratched a diagonal line across the four vertical gouges in the baseboard, five days and counting, and the day began. Roll call, breakfast, cleaning and then to Betty’s table for the first round of dominoes.
A sense of anticipation hung in the air. Everyone passed by the table and sent longing looks toward the door. Tuesday was canteen day and the natives were restless. Pearl was restless, too, but not for canteen. She wanted her name to be called, to leave, go to court, be pronounced innocent and go back to the Quarter to her friends.
“They knows better. Keep up they checkin’ and ever’body goin’ hafta wait.”
“Pardon?”
Betty laid down another tile. “Canteen. They all knows they gots to wait, but there they be jammed up ‘gainst that do’.”
“Is there a specific time?”
“Ten o’clock jes’ like ever Tuesday. Don’ make the time go faster or them deputies come quicker checkin’ the do’ like dat.” Betty sucked her teeth, sniffed and rubbed her nose. “Now I be catchin’ somethin’. Prob’ly a cold or some such. I hates a drippin’ nose.”
“What do you do when you get sick?”
“They takes care of ya. Charity hospital if you real bad and asp’rin if you ain’.”
It never occurred to Pearl to worry about needing to see a doctor since she was seldom ill, but now it added one more item to a growing list of problems to consider. She sniffed and found her nose and sinuses clear. That was a change. Come to think of it, she had not had any problems with her sinuses since she got to New Orleans. At least that was one thing to be thankful for. She would not need medical attention any time soon. I hope.
A commotion in the vestibule between the quad and outside hall door was a signal for everyone to gather. Those from the picnic tables stopped at the edge of the guard station. Stragglers from the cells emerged and raced down the stairs and the braiders and groomers from the stairs hurried to climb down and wait. An expectant air hung over the quad. It reminded Pearl of the bell and Pavlov’s dogs, an image strengthened by a few dragging forearms across their mouths. Betty remained unaffected, making each move with care and thought and studying the hand when another tile was added.
Deputy Walpole had been replaced by another guard: medium height, medium build, medium color, rather nondescript, except for wide green eyes that were open and friendly in a smiling face. That was different. She consulted her clipboard and called the names. Pearl crossed her fingers under the table and held her breath.
“Bennett, Markson, you’re rolling out.”
That was unusual, and so were the whoops of joy.
“Osgood, Perez, O’Neil.” She stood at the quad waiting for the day’s catch, turned around at the door as the women filed past to receive their chains and handcuffs, and handed two paper bags back to the women leaving.
“Looks like they bein’ moved. ‘Bout time. Getting’ kinda crowded,” Betty said.
Air seeped back into Pearl’s lungs. She was going nowhere and she wanted to scream, to cry, to rage, to give up and just go back to the cell, so she did. Piddling around straightening the sheet, smoothing out the wrinkles in the pillow and sitting heavily on the stool, she looked in the mirror. One deep furrow creased the smooth skin between her eyebrows, but her eyes were dry. A smooth, unlined face stared back at her, a face without hope or fear or worries or life. She wanted to lie down and never wake up again, but her heart kept beating, lungs kept pushing out and taking in air, and she went on.
Then the tears started, slow, scalding tears, and she got up and laid down on the pallet. Tamara bustled in. “Get up. Canteen coming soon.” Pearl didn’t even bother to answer, so Tamara grabbed her arm and tugged her off onto the floor. “Can’t sleep now. Too much to do. Better make that bed first.” She flounced off, turning around at the door long enough to make sure Pearl was out of bed.
“Get off my back, Tamara. You’re not my boss,” she said, twitching the covers into place. Tamara stood and smiled at her and Pearl never wanted anything more that to slap the smile off her face.
“But you’re up,” she said and disappeared around the corner before Pearl could act on her anger.
“That . . . that--!” Then it hit. She had deliberately made Pearl angry enough to want to do something, to slap Tamara for sure, but to get up and stop feeling sorry for herself. Pearl didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She chose to go back up to Betty’s table and watch the spectacle of canteen. That is what her life had been reduced to, waiting to watch women get bags of goodies to eat.
Through the window in the door, Pearl saw a cart piled with paper sacks, some the size of lunch bags and others large enough for groceries. The shuffling, rustling and mumbling grew a little louder, a flood held in check by rules alone. Pavlov’s dogs were hungry. The bell had rung and they wanted their reward. The deputies checking the cart took their time counting and checking items against the list on a clipboard. The deputies smiled, more self-satisfied quirks of the lips than any sign of happiness or
good will, children teasing dogs in a cage, dragging out the inevitable. No one moved away from the central area of the quad, and they did not dare get closer.
When the door opened, a communal sigh rippled in the silence and the crowd drew away. It did not seem possible for the slow moving deputy to move any slower, shuffling across the floor as though taking a Sunday stroll after a heavy meal. It must have been a very heavy meal, probably included bricks or maybe cement. Even Pearl who had no stake in the outcome, chafed at the delay. Just get it over with already. The deputy checked the clipboard, picked up a sack and checked the clipboard again. She looked around at everyone, balancing clipboard and sack in either hand and waited. “Ardmore.” Another communal sigh broke the silence. It had begun and was over too quickly.
Martha’s slippers shuffled faster than usual when she retrieved her grocery sack and headed down to the cell to count the loot in private. Betty’s name was never called and she went on playing dominoes oblivious to everything and everyone else. “Yo’ move, boo.”
Pearl turned back to the game. There was nothing there for her either, although she was acutely aware of the feasting. Fragrant smells assaulted her. The tang of vinegary dill pickles set her mouth watering, stomach cramping as the aroma of sugary snacks assaulted her studied disinterest. Did ice cream ever have such a thick, sweet perfume before? Betty tapped the table and Pearl turned around. “Yo’ turn comin’, boo.”
“Isn’t it my turn now?”
Betty cracked her gum and played a tile. Pearl followed suit. An unbidden thought tickled the edge of memory. After all that junk, they would have no appetite for lunch. For the first time in five days, Pearl wondered what was on the menu. She was hungry.
In the first few days, as Pearl found her way through the shark-infested waters, she showed no fear. She was curious about everything, but wary of showing too much interest or getting caught in the swirling undercurrents. When it came right down to it, she was uncertain where she fit into the ebb and flow of this cloistered life and a bit afraid of sticking in so much as a toe to test the waters. She watched everyone and no one, more aware of the women than she seemed, yet closed in a bubble of separateness that allowed information to flow in like nutrients passing efficiently between cellular walls: blood, nourishment, oxygen and information.
Betty answered her unspoken request for help and freely gave guidance with silent equanimity, offering Pearl sanctuary in a no-woman’s land where even the brashest and boldest of the inmates never ventured without invitation. Betty neither welcomed nor spurned anyone’s advance, but her status gave her a certain power that the women tacitly deferred to without question. No one knew the circumstances or reasons for the murder, just that she had murdered a man who was stronger and more powerful, turning his own weapon against him. Only to Pearl had Betty offered her story, in some small part because she knew Pearl would not judge her and would simply listen and absorb the details, saving them for something yet to be done. “You’ll do somethin’ wif it. I knowed it from the fus’.”
Betty was different, but it became apparent that many of these women were likely more than they seemed. Elke and Sabrina were different, not the hungry, sex-starved nymphomaniacs she had always been told women like that were. What they shared was deeper and more intimate than anything Pearl had felt, except in dreams. What they shared was romantic and fragile and she was stunned by the revelation. Neither showed any signs of being more man than woman, just two women, both pretty, both likely buzzing with offers for dates on the outside, and both together, except now they were separated by the system.
First, Betty, an uneducated construction worker, and then Elke and Sabrina’s sweet and tender love, broke through her prejudice and reserve. Martha with her bold acknowledgement of her crime allowed Pearl a glimpse of something different in these women she never believed existed. They showed all the same traits as the vapid women she disliked and avoided, but these women had layers and experience she was only beginning to appreciate. Had she been wrong? They preened and pranced and talked trash like any other silly female, and yet they were so very different. What set them apart?
As Tuesday flowed into Wednesday and then Thursday, Pearl opened herself further, allowing the conversational tides to wash over her, picking out the bits and pieces that seemed most interesting. She stayed on the fringes away from direct contact unless invited, an attitude that both baffled and delighted the other women, imparting to them a sense of dignity and importance they felt nowhere else. Each day they shared the benefit of long experience, offering to teach and guide Pearl to people who would help her get re-established once she returned to the outside. Pearl was not as sure as these women seemed to be that she would ever see daylight again.
The prostitutes offered to set her up with good paying clients, regulars whose tastes were more pedestrian. “You look like the vanilla type.”
“What do you mean, the vanilla type?” She was not afraid to seem ignorant, but it was becoming increasingly obvious in many ways she was an innocent.
“Straight sex, a little talk, no kinks.”
Pearl blushed. “You’re probably right.”
“Too right.” They giggled. “Definitely vanilla.”
They regaled her with tales of exotic preferences and johns who liked just a hint of spice, far spicier than anything she had ever considered. Handcuffs and riding crops and Latex underwear left her blushing furiously so she changed the subject. They mapped out which pimps were more interested in getting and keeping a girl strung out and which ones were reliable protection from more predacious procurers, didn’t take too big a percentage, and offered more autonomy and independence as long as the pimps got their cut.
Thieves outlined scams and hinted at connections for payroll check schemes so lucrative the bosses drove the girls from bank to bank in limos and town cars while they changed into expensive wigs, designer clothes and high fashion makeup to match the IDs they carried. It was all part of the deal to minimize the risk and maximize the profit.
“Your face is memorable, but with the right makeup and disguise, you’d be a natural for the high class stuff. When you’re rich, people don’t look in your eyes. Don’t want to be caught staring. All they see is jewelry, clothes and attitude. They see you walk in and they be all over theyselves like slaves. Girl, cain’t do enough to show they gots plenty of class and you got dat cold.”
Pearl was awed by the breadth and extent of crime that flourished on the outside on the very same streets where she had sold plasma three times a week and hocked the few precious items left from her life before New Orleans. By now, even those few trinkets were gone. It was doubtful Laura would have carted Pearl’s few belongings from place to place with her own. What little she had left was probably scattered to the winds by hotel maids or in a dumpster somewhere.
Everyone wanted to help her out, everyone but Maureen. The queen made it clear she would tolerate no rivals, especially not a “naïve, middle class, educated, uppity, white bitch.” She wasn’t the sharing kind. That was fine by Pearl. She had no interest in making herself more conspicuous. She wanted the whole ordeal over, to be bailed out and return to the streets, unscathed and intact, and maybe a bit wiser than before. She did not want or need to get on Maureen’s bad side and end up with a sharpened plastic knife or toothbrush stuck in her ribs—or neck. Deep down, she believed she would get out eventually, although as each day passed without her name being called, she was beginning to doubt it. It seemed best not to think about her situation. Focus on the here and now, and for now that meant studying Maureen from a safe distance and keeping out of her way. Maureen, it seemed, felt the same way.
Maureen accepted adulation as her due, her sovereign, god-given right, and she took it with casual indifference. Adoration was one thing, but messing with her fellow inmates, most of whom she treated as lower than the dirt beneath her shoes, was out of the question. One did not mix with servants and sycophants. One merely recognized their presence occasionally
and allowed them to worship.
Pearl did not figure as sycophant or servant and Maureen did not consider her as an equal, although the gulf of education was obvious. If she was not an equal in Maureen’s eyes, and that is what mattered, or a worshiper, she was nothing. Maureen did not have the words to define what she felt about Pearl.
Pearl did not act high and mighty as some women did who came in determined to take over, and she was not a cold-blooded murderer like Betty, who was outside Maureen’s sphere of influence, untouchable and sacrosanct. Pearl was something else, someone who awakened protective feelings, but did not really need protection. She was a puzzle Maureen was not keen to solve. That would require too much effort and she wasn’t about to expend any more effort than was absolutely necessary.
Deciding the best idea was to stay away from Pearl, and far out of Betty’s reach, Maureen kept more to herself than usual. Something about Pearl made her feel like unearthing her secrets from the hidden darkness, a propitiating offering, an intimate confidence. She could not afford to allow anyone to get that close. Instead, she watched while the rest of the women granted Pearl the benefit of knowledge and skills no outsider should know, information Maureen somehow knew Pearl wouldn’t use even though she listened with quiet respect. She thought it was a supreme waste of time and talents. Pearl, Maureen decided, was dangerous. She saw and heard too much. Worse, she paid attention.
Pearl was not quite an outsider and she wasn’t yet an insider. She was something none of them had ever seen up close before. So Maureen watched and cruised past the shallows expectantly, waiting for the next person to stumble out of the shoals and into deep water where she could savage and shred them as a warning to upstart middle class pretenders. It was how she dealt with doubt, and she was unsettled.
Friday meant tuna sandwiches, but that Friday was different. Pearl set down the tray, confusion clear in her eyes. The entrée was crab. Cold crab, but crab all the same.
Among Women Page 9