Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing(52)

Brett said it was no big deal. He would send the extradition order as soon as he was back in the office. The marshals would take over before it mattered anyway. No sweat.

The county cop shrugged. The intake deputy shrugged. They said it was on Brett. Brett smiled, shook everyone’s hands—pleasure doing business with you. (Dumb as fucking white.)

Three days in, when they gave me a chance to use a phone, I called the only number I knew by heart. Autumn told me she loved me. She told me she was sorry. She told me she called my boss. My boss said Officer Foreman already called him. Foreman told my boss I’d be in jail thirty days for a violent assault. He said he tried to come see me, but they wouldn’t let him in because I’m not an inmate here. I don’t get visitors.

   Autumn said she’d try to find a lawyer. I told her to call my sister. My sister would pay for it. She said she wouldn’t be able to find a lawyer on the weekend. I asked her to drop off my pills. My Wellbutrin. My Prozac. No chance they’d let me have Xanax. I started to hear the electricity in my brain. I asked for Officer Foreman’s number. Officer Foreman said the marshals had thirty days to transfer me. She’d let them know in thirty days. I asked to speak to Brett, her supervisor. She laughed and said good luck. The line went dead.



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Day 2, day 6. Who gives a shit. The nice deputy doesn’t work tonight. I stash my oatmeal creams under my mattress and hope for tomorrow. I’ll know it’s tomorrow when they push a tray through my feed slot with a hard-boiled egg and a Styrofoam cup of generic cornflakes. Everything tastes the same. The deputies come through every morning to take inmates up to the courthouse. Orders are shouted. Stand up. Turn around. Walk backwards slowly. Are those too tight? (This is a very funny prank. No matter the answer, they tighten the cuffs.)

The voices take the opportunity to shout through the feed slots. “I need to talk to my lawyer. I need to use the phone. I need to see the nurse. My court date was three months ago. What time is it?” No one cares.

I don’t yell through my slot today. First days, sure. Every chance I got. “I’m supposed to be transferred to D.C. The marshals are supposed to come get me. I need the phone.”

I peel my egg slowly. I try to save the skins. Maybe I can write on the skins if I figure out something to write with. But the skin sticks to the shell. I think, Egg skins make good bandages. I laugh. It’s very funny because they don’t make good bandages. But that little piece of advice was in a Family book for kids. We’d try to stick egg skins to the mosquito bites we’d scratched bloody. They always got infected anyway, or because we’d introduced salmonella. Who knows. I think I’ll stick egg skins to my knuckles. The voices say I’m getting another day if I keep being foolish. I apologize. I tell the voices I don’t remember what I did this time. It scares the shit out of me. I’m crazy enough to hurt someone. I’m crazy. I hurt someone. I beg them to keep me here so I don’t hurt someone again. I cry. I tell the voices I’ll try harder. Let’s pray.

   The nice deputy comes to my slot, says I have a lawyer. She brings me to a visiting cell and the lawyer tells me he’ll get me out.

I tell him he can’t let me out. I tell him it’s not safe. He says it’s his job. I tell him I called Officer Foreman. She told me they have thirty days to transfer me. Foreman said don’t worry about work. She’d let them know I wouldn’t be back.

My lawyer writes this down like it matters what I say. He says I’ve been charged with stalking and felony assault and says, don’t worry, it’s just so they can plead you down. I ask what I’d plead down to if it were a misdemeanor; he says probably disorderly conduct or they’d just drop it. He says I shouldn’t be here at all. He says they always think they can get away with this shit. And I want to ask him where he thinks he is. Who is “they”? I want to ask if he hears the voices too. Just my luck. A lawyer as crazy as me.



* * *



—

   It’s daytime. I’ve been keeping track of time with cornflakes—one cornflake, one meal. I hear metal squeaking. This sound is new. Anything new is exciting. It takes me a minute to realize I’m hearing wheels. The wheels stop and I see blue hair. I come to the window. And I forget about the mucus smear and caress the little window. An old woman with blue hair has a book cart. Blue-hair lady says I can have two books. She jerks the cart to show me the spines. I want to run my hands across the spines like I used to do in my grandma’s house, over her leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannicas. Pull one down. Flip to a page. Sit down right there on her pink shag carpet and read. Blue-hair lady says she doesn’t have all day.

I can’t see the titles. I ask what she’s got. “I don’t have my glasses.”

She says she doesn’t have time for this. I’m terrified she’ll push the cart away. I panic. “Just the thickest books. You choose. Please choose.” Everything I say now sounds like begging. I am begging. “I just need something with a lot of words.” Maybe I’ll finally read Infinite Jest in jail. The deputy escorting blue-hair lady opens my slot. The lady with blue hair hands me Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper. And David Baldacci, The Winner.

I read the Baldacci back in high school. I don’t care. I’ve forgotten the plot. I know a man saves a woman because it’s David and that’s what he writes. But I don’t care. I’ve never read Picoult. I hug the books to my chest. I sit on my bed mat and do that, just hold them a while. I open The Winner and smell the pages. I lick the pages. I’m weeping. I tell the voices I have books. I’m rich. Maybe I won’t go crazy. I already am. This is hysterically funny to me. The voices tell me to shut the fuck up.