I spent a sleepless night. One woman was chain–smoking, the one next to me on the floor spewed curses as the ashes floated on her, while a third roommate moaned over the fate of her baby. Roaches paraded across us all night. We were transients; they owned this room.
In the morning a matron came into the cage, forcing all of us to our feet. The lights in the room were too bright, but when I shut my eyes the room around me spun in nauseating spirals. I held on to the wall for support and felt my stomach heave. I didn’t want to throw up, not on myself, not in public, but I couldn’t hold it in.
“Jesus Christ, you whores come in here with a load on and then foul up the cell. Come on, wash it off, put these on, let’s get going.”
I was cuffed to another woman who’d also been sick. We were taken to a tiny toilet where we cleaned ourselves as best we could. I put my head under the sink tap and let water run through my hair and mouth until the officer dragged me away.
“You there, Warshki, get moving.”
“I need a doctor.” I coughed hoarsely. “I have a concussion.”
“You need clothes. Put these on. You’re riding out to Coolis.”
“Coolis?” I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper. “Not Coolis. Only arrested, not convicted.”
The policewoman pulled me away from the sink. “You have a bad fall or a rough john or what last night? Put this shirt on.”
The shirt was a bright yellow that made my eyes smart. On the back was stamped IDOC—Illinois Department of Corrections. “Your detective Lemour, he’s got to be the roughest john in Chicago. This was all his handiwork. I’m not going to Coolis. I’m waiting for my attorney. Post bond.”
“Look, Warshki, I don’t have time for games. I got four girls to get on a bus, including you, and you’re not in shape to do anything but say yes, ma’am. It’s a holiday today, no bond court; your lawyer if he calls will be told where you are. Coolis has the overflow jail for Cook and Du Page County, and we are filled to the brim with all you girls turning tricks up and down the city, so you get a bus ride in the fresh country air, which is more than I’m allowed on the nation’s birthday, let me tell you.”
I put the shirt on. I didn’t know what other choice I had. I had been so sure Freeman would be here this morning to post bail that I was too disappointed to react. Only four of us out of the cage were being sent to Coolis—did the others get a free pass, and if so, why?
The matron cuffed me back to my bathroom partner and marched us out to the street, where an old white bus painted with the Department of Corrections logo waited. Our escort exchanged a few jovial words with a guard as she handed us over to the state. I got my watch back and the six dollars I’d had in my jeans, but my keys were a potential weapon and were handed to the guard in a sealed envelope together with my paperwork.
Rogers Park was the last stop for the bus, which had picked up women from various lockups on the west and north ends of town. There were twenty–nine of us altogether. The guard pushed me into a seat, attached leg and hand shackles to me, connected them to a central pole, and signaled to the driver to take off.
As we lurched west to the expressway, the diesel smoke and the hard seats made my empty stomach heave again. A pregnant woman two seats in front and on my left begged the driver to stop, in halting accented English. No one paid any attention. She threw up, trying to cover her mouth with her manacled hands.
“Can you stop?” I called through my bruised lips. “There’s a sick woman in here.”
No response from the armed guard.
I shouted again. Several prisoners stamped their feet. A guard yelled through the loudspeaker that they would halt the bus and make us stand at attention on the side of the road for an hour if the noise continued. Everyone subsided, including me—I didn’t want to be the one who made this group of women stand in the midday sun.
“Fucking assholes,” the woman next to me muttered as the bus waited in line to get on the tollway. “Don’t let you go to the john, then bounce you around hard enough to make you pee over yourself.”
She wasn’t talking to me, and I didn’t answer. She’d kept up a stream of invective since the guard attached us. She was twitching, her eyes a telltale yellow. As the day wore on, flecks of spittle appeared around her mouth, but she couldn’t stop talking.
At noon we halted for a rest stop at the place where Mr. Contreras and I had our picnic with the dogs two weeks ago. We were unshackled two at a time, the bathroom closed to the public while we were escorted in. It was hard to walk past the people stopping for food or walking their dogs, their jaws gaping, trying not to show how avidly they were staring.