Fresh Fish
©2008 Gordon Highland
“Open two-three-seven.”
An electronic buzz like hair
clippers, and the corrections officer swings the door into the cell. A lump of
cornrows and malnutrition in institutional denim feigns sleep in the bottom
bunk.
“Wake up, princess.” The officer
raps her baton on the sink. “New celly for ya.”
The princess sighs through her nose
and concedes a lingering eyeball. She scoffs at the offering and rolls away.
A snicker escapes the officer.
“Chow’s at 4:30, so you got about forty minutes to housewarm.” She backpedals
into the hall and barks for the close.
The new inmate is but a gnarled
young face, one of her Hispanic chins balancing the mountain of folded linens
and garments in her arms. Three of everything, topped by a pillow. She remains
at military attention.
Silence. Prison silence, strained
with distant echoes of the raving and withdrawing.
Finally, “Who you roll with?”
bounces off the rear wall.
New Girl sinks into the plastic
chair, life’s inventory in her lap. “Qué?”
“Your girls, felon. The ones who’ve
got yo wet-ass back. La Raza? Border Sistas?” The princess props up on elbows
and measures her. “Nah, nah, you Queens, I bet.”
She shakes her head. “Nogales.”
“Tell me you ain’t one a them Latin Queens,” she baits with a
smile. “All tatted up with they crucifixes and shit–”
“I–”
“–slappin’ the white right off any
gringo ho dare tread in they barrio?”
“Who–”
“They was layin’ low for a while, I
hear, waitin’ on word comin’ down from outside.”
“I’m not … familiar–” Multiple
syllables now expose her Spanish accent.
The princess deadpans. “Well you’d
best get yoself some fuckin’
familiar ’fore you done gone staked the wrong table out in the cafeteria now,
you know what I’m sayin’?”
“But I have only been in for–”
“Eight days. Ten.”
The fresh meat swallows and
fine-tunes a pucker in one of her towels.
“What.” A grin curls around the
princess’s cheek. “Yeah, I seen you down in the fishbowl goin’ in and outta the
SHU all week. Posin’ for they camera, showered up real nice, gettin’ that
knappy-ass weave trimmed. Shit, you still got ink on your fingers, little girl.”
“The shoe?”
“Special Housing Unit. Processing.
Damn, act like you been here.”
“How long does this make for you?”
“Sixty-nine months and four days a
convict. That’s what a second strike do.”
The cinder block walls bleed ivory
paint. Barren, all. A spotless sink with nary a sundry strewn. No evidence of
life except envelopes and handwritten pages upon a waist-level shelf that
passes for a desk. And a formation of tennis shoes for every day of the week
that noses from the shadow of her bunk like a collector’s garage.
“You have much experience. Where go
your last room– er, celly?”
“You mean, what if I shivved her
with my toothbrush of justice while we was watchin’ BET out in the pod? Or did
they strap her to a cart for throwin’ her own shits at me? Hm?” She lets her
words digest, then softens. “Well maybe you ain’t noticed, but we all assholes
and elbows up in here, and you just lucky my number fell outta the piñata.
Hardcore bitches here on C-block … ain’t no place for a mother of fifteen.” One
gold bicuspid gleams in a mouth of white.
This impossible biology renders the
new girl speechless.
“Welfare fraud. This time,” she
clarifies.
“Why does the CO call you princess?”
Princess thumbs to the rack above.
“That mattress ain’t gonna dress itself.”
“They told me your name was Odessa.”
“They. They.
Well to you it’s gonna be Mami. We
comprendé?”
“Odessa is a very beautiful name.”
“Yeah, well.”
“So why princess?”
“You gonna unpack yo gear, or I
gotta listen to yo Minnie Mouse ass all night? They doin’ a head count any
second now and I ain’t even got no product bagged.”
“I am on the bottom.” She nods to
the occupied bunk.
“Just ’cuz you is a bottom don’t mean you get no bottom, fish. What part of ‘sixty-nine months’ did
you not just hear?”
“It is not my ears, it is my back.”
She produces a folded document from her pocket. “I have a pass.”
“This ain’t The People’s Court. I
ain’t got to read no motion just cuz you slipped a disc out in the lettuce
fields.”
“You will not … or you can-not?”
“I got a degree, bitch.” Odessa
cranes her neck. “Three years in Hospitality Management. So you wanna measure
dicks, you in the wrong block.”
“I am sorry,” the fish says, eyes
down. “My husband, he no like you people very much, and I try to break this
habit.”
Odessa glares. “I’m gonna let that
one slide in the interest of self improvement.” Her own enunciation improves as
well. “But the fact remains that I’ve earned the right to sleep within leg’s
reach of the ground.”
“We have no rights here.”
“The right not to break my black ass
in a six-foot drop.” She laughs.
Fish doesn’t. Instead, a lightbulb.
“Yes. This is how I get note.” She points to the form.
Oddessa’s eyes bug. “Oh, hell no. Fo’ reals?”
“At county. Please, I do respect
your señor– uh, how you say?”
“Seniority.”
“Yes. But I cannot climb up there.”
“Well I guess you gonna be nursin’
that back a yours on the floor then. Ain’t nobody wanna be a top-bunk punk,
’cuz that shit brands yo ass in here, I tell you what.”
“There is much to learn from you. I
am thankful.”
“Yeah, I’m the ma-fuckin’ oracle of
Longridge, you’ll soon find out.” Odessa harvests her prey with her eyes.
“Lemme get a look at you; stand up. You got a name? Fish is only good for a few days. Starts to stink, ya
know.”
Fish piles her inventory on the mail
and it topples immediately. Brushes down her shirt for inspection. “Neva. Neva
Minjarez.”
“Mmm. I like that.” She twirls her
index finger for a three-sixty and is obliged with tiny-intervaled rotations
that bring a lascivious smile. “You thick, I ain’t gonna lie. Studs around here
don’t go much for the ghetto booty. But we can work this.”
“Studs?” Neva’s voice cracks.
“You a femme, I a stud.”
“You mean the women, they wear–”
“Oh, not so much wear, but you seen the shit folks cut each other with,
right? Well, we crafty when it comes to the meat substitutes, too.” Odessa
laughs.
“I will not do that.”
“Oh, don’t worry, baby girl. Ain’t
nobody makin’ nobody do nothin’. So what’s the reals, then, bean dip? Got
yoself a cholo, or what?”
“My husband, I told you. He die.”
“Lemme guess. You took him down. Put
Drano in his chalupa or someshit.”
Neva swallows. “He what you call a
stud. I tell him, God will not forgive. I tell him and I tell him.” She
sniffles, tearing up. “He bring one time a, how you say? Femme. And they both
make me do very bad things. Try to teach me with her, make me a part, guilty
maybe.”
Odessa connects the dots. “And you
weren’t into it.”
Neva raises her hands to her face,
fingers splayed. “When she sleep, I sit on her chest and strangle with these. I
push very hard on throat….”
Odessa’s mouth draws flies.
Neva is a whimpering heap now. “And
Javier. Javier … when he wake he run after me and I use pan from kitchen. His
nose break and they say the pieces go up into his mind.”
“Holy shit. Why didn’t you
disappear?”
“I tell them that my head not right,
that he change me and make me loco,
but they no believe my plea. And now I here forty years. Dios mio!”
The princess clears her throat and
fluffs her pillow. “You know, Neva, I tell ya what, being yo first day and all,
I think a good night’s sleep right here down low might be the best thing for
you.”