“Miss Ruby? Who is she?”
The CO snorted. “Miss Ruby thinks she’s Queen of Coolis because she’s been in prison a long time, at Dwight eight years before they opened this place. She cut her husband into little pieces and put him in different garbage cans around Chicago, claimed it was self–defense if you can believe that, but the judge didn’t buy it and gave her thirty years. Now she’s a churchgoer, and the lieutenants and some of the CO’s treat her like she’s holy. And she has a lot of influence on the young girls, so it doesn’t pay to go up against her.”
We had reached my wing. The CO signaled to the guard behind the control panel to let me through. She stood on one side of the airlock and watched it close around me. When the door on the other side opened to decant me onto my floor, she took off again.
The wing had a shower room in between the cell block and the guard station. I knew the guards had cameras trained on the showers, and they also could come in on unannounced inspection, but I needed to rinse off my sweat and blood: Angie had given me some pretty serious bumps. When you’re in the middle of a fight—or game, for that matter—you don’t notice the cuts and blows. It’s only later, when the adrenaline is wearing off, that you start to ache.
I didn’t have any soap. I had learned this morning that even the most basic toilet items like toothbrushes and shampoo had to be purchased from the commissary and that I had to have money deposited in a trust account at the prison before I could buy anything. It was a nice little racket, like a company store for sharecroppers. You’re there, you’re a captive market, and they can charge you whatever they damned well want. Even if my five remaining dollars would have covered the cost of basic toiletries, I was told I couldn’t open my trust account until after the holiday weekend.
I dried myself with the threadbare square of gray toweling I’d been issued when I arrived yesterday and put my pants back on. They smelled pretty unpleasant, but at least they fit.
At five we were all ordered into our cells for a head count and then escorted down to the dining hall. I hadn’t realized yesterday that you had some control over what went on your tray and that salads were available on request. Tonight I asked for a salad and extra bread and rolled lettuce up into a sandwich, which I ate while walking to the table. I tried to eat some of the overcooked meat and beans on my tray but still couldn’t deal with the roaches. I suppose if I had to stay here any length of time I’d learn to overlook them, but I was still too finicky in my ways.
Within five minutes of my sitting down I’d been identified as the woman who “took out Angie.” A woman across from me told me I’d better look out, Angie was one of the West Side Iscariots and they were panting for revenge. Another one said she heard from her girlfriend that I used karate to wipe out Angie and could I teach her how to do it. One woman, with a dozen braids done up in colored ribbons, said Miss Ruby told a lie to save my hide, but three others spoke up hotly.
“Miss Ruby never told no lie. She spoke the truth, she say Cream here did not pull a knife, and she say Cream and Angie just playing basketball, not fighting, which is the gospel truth, right, Cream?”
“It was the most physical basketball game I ever played,” I said, which somehow satisfied her.
The woman with braids said, “No, it’s true—Angie, she dissed Miss Ruby, stole her shampoo out of the shower, so Miss Ruby, she was lying in wait to teach Angie a lesson, that’s why she stood up for the new girl. Even though she’s white.”
That started a hot argument, which raged as if I weren’t there at all: was I white or Spanish or black? The one who’d nicknamed me Cream insisted I was black. With my olive skin and dark curly hair I could have been anything; since there were very few white faces at the tables, they assumed I was part of the majority culture, although most of them decided I must be Spanish.
“Italian,” I finally explained. There was more argument, over whether Italy was part of Spain. I let it flow past me—I wasn’t there to conduct geography lessons. In fact, I had a feeling that the less I flaunted my education, the better off I might be.