Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing(48)

I’m obsessed with knowing the time. No windows. No sun. No moon. The lights never go out. I can’t sleep. I can handle the noise. Mostly. Baby screams are the only screams you don’t get used to. Mostly. No babies here. Mostly. Where I used to get locked in rooms, I’d hear the babies cry. Soundtrack of a sex-cult commune. I thought that was the worst thing. They used to lock me in rooms. To read and pray and think about my sins and write about what I’d learned. I’d hold on as long as I could. Then I’d break. I think now, I was dumb as shit. All I had to do was cry and tell them I was sorry. They’d let me out. I was proud of holding out. Stupid. But I had things to read there. There’s nothing here to read. Nothing to write with and nothing to write on. Those rooms, there was a light switch on the wall. But here the light above my mattress, above the cinder block bed, shines in my face.

   I know it’s still night because they’ve set two meals in my feed slot since the hard-boiled egg for breakfast. A deputy comes through. Keys jingle. Everyone in power has keys. Everyone in power knows the time. I ask the time. Like I do every time. And this time, like last time, I’m ignored.

Time is what they’re taking from us. We’re doing time, but most of the inmates haven’t been convicted of a crime. And when we’re free, it’s the time we’ve lost. Time at work and time at home. The time passes, and someone loses a job, and someone loses a home, and someone’s kid has a birthday, takes a first step. Time we have to make up, but it’s gone. My brother gets married and I’ll miss it because I’ve lost time at work.

It’s Deputy Day-Day. He shouldn’t be here if it’s night. Maybe I counted wrong. Maybe it’s morning. He’s talking to the voice three cells down. Tells her to get up. He has to read her charges. She was in gen pop, but she kept food under her mattress. Thirty days, even if she makes bail. She has thirty more days. Her bail’s two grand. No one has two hundred for the bondsman. The voice who hid food got a fifty-dollar ticket for turning right on red that she couldn’t afford to pay. They suspended her license, but she still had to get to work. So she drove. Suspended license. She doesn’t belong in a cell. She’s been here three months.

I try to see out the slit in my door. I can’t see the deputy.

“Deputy!” It’s the voice with the kidney stone.

   “Why the fuck are you screaming at me?”

“I need a nurse.”

“Take that shit off your light.” A rustle. I’d tried that too, covering the light.

“I need a nurse.”

“The nurse doesn’t work weekends. You know that.” It’s the weekend. I know that now. Then, “Stop your fucking screaming or I’ll put you on loaf.”

Keys jingle.

“Deputy.” This is me.

“What.” A challenge, not a question.

“She’s passing a kidney stone. She needs to be in the hospital.”

“Mind your fucking business.” There’s a smear of dried brown mucus on the glass. I don’t get too close.

“You know you can get sued,” I say. The voices are right about me. I’m this fucking white.

“I said mind your business. She’s been screaming since she got here.”

“And that proves what exactly? I need to speak to your supervisor.” I’m on the phone with the billing department. There’s a discrepancy. But I’ll speak to the right person and the discrepancy will be fixed with an apology for the inconvenience.

“You want the loaf too?” I can smell his coffee through my slot. He sees me look. I’m not looking at his coffee. I’m trying to see the time on his wristwatch. I came in wearing contacts. I came in with a wristwatch, but they took the watch and left me with my contact lenses. I peeled them off my eyeballs the second day. Nowhere to store them. No saline. They’ve hardened into crinkled glass. I play a game with the lens chips sometimes. Flick one at the other across the concrete floor. I didn’t say it was a fun game. For years after, I won’t wear contacts. You never know.

   Everything’s a blur without my glasses. Including the face of his watch.

“You want me to put in an order for you? Soy, right? No sugar?” Day-Day laughs.

“What time is it?” I ask.

He’s already walking away. “You got an appointment or something?” He says this over his shoulder and laughs at his joke. I wonder how to start a prison riot. I wonder how to make a shiv, but I think you need a toothbrush. His keys jangle down the hall.

The voice with the kidney stone says, “Thanks for trying. He’s a cunt.” (I’m paraphrasing. I’m not bilingual, but I get the gist.)

“What’s ‘loaf’?”

“Punishment food. Like one of those energy bars you people eat. ’Cept made of shit and mashed cardboard.”

I don’t want the loaf. I don’t even like energy bars.

I hope the nice deputy’s working tonight. I try to punch the wall again. But I pull the punch before impact. My hand knows the pain now. I’m a coward.

When I was a kid, Grandma got us a few free lessons at a dojo. The karate instructor broke a cinder block to show us what karate could do for us. I think now the cinder block in the dojo was fake. No part of these cells is destructible, nothing but the contents. The toilet and sink are formed of a single hunk of gray steel. You could flush your entire mattress down the toilet. Nothing clogs. The water rushes like it’s propelled from a jet engine. I’ve been flushing my used pads.