In the female prison
There are seventy women
I wish it was with them that I did dwell,
Then that old triangle
Could jingle jangle
Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
CHAPTER 1
Ree asked Jeanette if she ever watched the square of light from the window. Jeanette said she didn’t. Ree was in the top bunk, Jeanette in the bottom. They were both waiting for the cells to unlock for breakfast. It was another morning.
It seemed that Jeanette’s cellmate had made a study of the square. Ree explained that the square started on the wall opposite the window, slid down, down, down, then slopped over the surface of their desk, and finally made it out onto the floor. As Jeanette could now see, it was right there in the middle of the floor, bright as anything.
“Ree,” Jeanette said. “I just can’t be bothered with a square of light.”
“I say you can’t not be bothered by a square of light!” Ree made the honking noise that was how she expressed amusement.
Jeanette said, “Okay. Whatever the fuck that means,” and her cellmate just honked some more.
Ree was okay, but she was like a toddler, how silence made her anxious. Ree was in for credit fraud, forgery, and drug possession with intent to sell. She hadn’t been much good at any of them, which had brought her here.
Jeanette was in for manslaughter; on a winter night in 2005 she had stabbed her husband, Damian, in the groin with a clutchhead screwdriver and because he was high he’d just sat in an armchair and let himself bleed to death. She had been high, too, of course.
“I was watching the clock,” Ree said. “Timed it. Twenty-two minutes for the light to move from the window to there on the floor.”
“You should call Guinness,” said Jeanette.
“Last night I had a dream about eating chocolate cake with Michelle Obama and she was pissed: ‘That’s going to make you fat, Ree!’ But she was eating the cake, too.” Ree honked. “Nah. I didn’t. Made that up. Actually I dreamed about this teacher I had. She kept telling me I wasn’t in the right classroom, and I kept telling her I was in the right classroom, and she’d say okay, and then teach some, and tell me I wasn’t in the right room, and I’d say no, I was in the right room, and we went around like that. It was more exasperating than anything. What’d you dream, Jeanette?”
“Ah…” Jeanette tried to remember, but she couldn’t. Her new medication seemed to have thickened her sleep. Before, sometimes she had nightmares about Damian. He’d usually look the way he did the morning after, when he was dead, his skin that streaky blue, like wet ink.
Jeanette had asked Dr. Norcross if he thought the dreams had to do with guilt. The doctor squinted at her in that are-you-fucking-serious way that used to drive her nuts but that she had come around on, and then he had asked her if she was of the opinion that bunnies had floppy ears. Yeah, okay. Got it. Anyhow, Jeanette didn’t miss those dreams.
“Sorry, Ree. I got nothing. Whatever I dreamed, it’s gone.”
Somewhere out in the second-floor hall of B Wing, shoes were clapping along the cement: an officer making some last minute check before the doors opened.
Jeanette closed her eyes. She made up a dream. In it, the prison was a ruin. Lush vines climbed the ancient cell walls and sifted in the spring breeze. The ceiling was half-gone, gnawed away by time so that only an overhang remained. A couple of tiny lizards ran over a pile of rusty debris. Butterflies tumbled in the air. Rich scents of earth and leaf spiced what remained of the cell. Bobby was impressed, standing beside her at a hole in the wall, looking in. His mom was an archeologist. She’d discovered this place.
“You think you can be on a game show if you have a criminal record?”
The vision collapsed. Jeanette moaned. Well, it had been nice while it lasted. Life was definitely better on the pills. There was a calm, easy place she could find. Give the doc his due; better living through chemistry. Jeanette reopened her eyes.
Ree was goggling at Jeanette. Prison didn’t have much to say for it, but a girl like Ree, maybe she was safer inside. Out in the world, she’d just as likely walk into traffic. Or sell dope to a narc who looked like nothing but a narc. Which she had done.
“What’s wrong?” Ree asked.
“Nothing. I was just in paradise, that’s all, and your big mouth blew it up.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Listen, I think there should be a game show where you can only play if you do have a criminal record. We could call it Lying for Prizes.”
“I like that a lot! How would it work?”
Jeanette sat up and yawned, shrugged. “I’ll have to think about it. You know, work out the rules.”
Their house was as it always had been and always would be, world without end, amen. A cell ten steps long, with four steps between the bunks and the door. The walls were smooth, oatmeal-colored cement. Their curling snapshots and postcards were held (little that anyone cared to look) with blobs of green sticky-tack in the single approved space. There was a small metal desk set against one wall and a short metal shelving unit set against the opposite wall. To the left of the door was the steel toilet where they had to squat, each looking away to lend a poor illusion of privacy. The cell door, its double-paned window at eye level, gave a view of the short corridor that ran through B Wing. Every inch and object within the cell were sauced in the pervasive odors of prison: sweat, mildew, Lysol.
Against her will, Jeanette finally took note of the sun square between the beds. It was almost to the door—but it wouldn’t get any farther, would it? Unless a screw put a key in the lock or opened the cell from the Booth, it was trapped in here just as they were.
“And who would host?” Ree asked. “Every game show needs a host. Also, what kind of prizes? The prizes have to be good. Details! We gotta figure out all the details, Jeanette.”
Ree had her head propped up and was winding a finger around in her tight bleached curls as she looked at Jeanette. Near the top of Ree’s forehead there was a patch of scar tissue that resembled a grill mark, three deep parallel lines. Although Jeanette didn’t know what had caused the scar, she could guess who had made it: a man. Maybe her father, maybe her brother, maybe a boyfriend, maybe a guy she’d never seen before and never would see again. Among the inmates of Dooling Correctional there was, to put it lightly, very little history of prize-winning. Lots of history with bad guys, though.
What could you do? You could feel sorry for yourself. You could hate yourself or you could hate everyone. You could get high sniffing cleaning products. You could do whatever you wanted (within your admittedly limited options), but the situation wouldn’t change. Your next turn to spin the great big shiny Wheel of Fortune would arrive no sooner than your next parole hearing. Jeanette wanted to put as much arm as she could into hers. She had her son to think about.
There was a resounding thud as the officer in the Booth opened sixty-two locks. It was 6:30 AM, everyone out of their cells for head-count.
“I don’t know, Ree. You think about it,” Jeanette said, “and I’ll think about it, and then we’ll exchange notes later.” She swung her legs out of bed and stood.
A few miles from the prison, on the deck of the Norcross home, Anton the pool guy was skimming for dead bugs. The pool had been Dr. Clinton Norcross’s tenth anniversary present to his wife, Lila. The sight of Anton often made Clint question the wisdom of this gift. This morning was one of those times.