“OOOOO.”
Eventually, the sounds blend together to make words. MMMMM-AAAAAHHHH-SSSSSS makes moss. And T-RRRRRR-EEEEEEE makes tree. I don’t even hide my grin. It’s a thrill to rediscover these things in this place, surrounded by so much concrete and metal and recycled air. I read the words and in this cell, the forest blooms to life again, the earthy smell, the way the sun filters through the boughs of pines, the feeling of never being alone.
Chapter 29
“I never been to Disneyland,” Angel says. She sits cross-legged on the floor beside my bed, pushing black plastic beads up over the tail ends of her cornrows.
“That one isn’t going to work,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because, of course, I’ve never been to Disneyland. I’ve been to about four different places in my whole life.”
Angel and I are playing a game she and her friends from school used to play. If I had been to Disneyland, I would’ve taken a drink from my water cup. The first person to pee loses. Angel said it works better with something besides water, but this will do.
“Fine,” Angel says. “I never . . . met my real dad.”
I laugh. “Unfortunately for me,” I say, levering my drinking cup from the floor with my stumps and pouring water into my mouth.
“I NEVER KISSED A GIRL,” comes a voice from down the skyway.
“You are not playing, Rashida,” Angel shouts.
“Why, though?” Rashida calls. Her cell is one down from ours. “Tracy’s at therapy and Wendy won’t talk to me cause I traded her Skittles. I got nobody to play with over here.”
Angel grunts. “All right, you can play. But it’s Minnow’s turn.”
“Did anybody drink at mine?” Rashida asks. “Have either of you kissed a girl?”
“Come see for yourself,” Angel says.
I hear Rashida throw her plastic water cup at the bars of her cell, and a guard’s gruff voice asking her just what exactly she thinks she’s doing.
“I never pulled the trigger of a gun,” I say.
Angel’s smile cocks to the side. She picks up her cup and drinks.
“That reminds me,” Angel says. “I’ve been thinking about genetics.”
“How do guns remind you of genetics?” I ask.
“Nobody wants to listen to this boring shit, Angel!” Rashida’s voice calls.
“Rashida, why don’t you go back to huffing shampoo fumes and shut up!” Angel shouts. “Anyway, genetics. You know how we inherit traits from our ancestors? It’s supposed to take thousands of years, but I’ve seen it happen way quicker. You pick up things you don’t even realize. My mom taught me to shoot straight and not give a fuck what anyone thinks. Only things she did, besides how to get meth stink out of clothes. And I never met my dad. He was probably some petty criminal my mom slept with at the shelter in exchange for a cigarette. So I count myself lucky. I got to decide exactly how I was gonna be. Most of these girls have learned from somewhere to apologize for existing. It’s written on their genes, I swear. Just listen to them, even if they don’t say it, practically everything that comes out of their mouths is the word ‘sorry.’”
She looks over at me and I can tell she’s thinking I’m one of those girls who apologize for existing. Even if I hadn’t lost my hands, I doubt I’d ever be the type to shoot a gun without being scared of the noise.
“It’s hard,” I say. “Not always knowing what’s right.”
Angel’s face scrunches. “How do you not always know what’s right?”
I hunch up my shoulders.
“Give me an example,” she says.
“The Prophet always told us stories. They were meant to make us afraid.”
“Like what?”
“You really want to know?” I ask.
“Entertain me.”
“All right,” I say, sifting through memories. “This one time, it was winter and I was fifteen. It was late afternoon, and already black as night, and I stood on the side of a frozen pond, pounding an awl into the ice for water to scrub my family’s clothes.”
Around the awl, my fingers had already turned blue. This was an all-day endeavor, breaking the ice, hauling the water one leaking bucketful at a time, and repeating the process eight or ten times. Like all of my chores, I was left to complete this on my own.
A clanging noise shattered the quiet. Instinctively, I dropped the awl, pushed myself from the ice, and started running, ignoring the creaking in my knees and my aching blood-emptied fingers.
When I arrived, the courtyard teemed with blue-clad bodies. A cold hand slipped into mine. Constance peered up at me with her giant icy eyes. The Prophet stood at his porch, clanging the bell that hung there, a big ferocious grin playing across his face. “Behold!” he shouted above the clanging. “God’s power in action!” He craned his neck up.
High in the blackness, a small light the size of a nail head shot across the dark canvas of sky. A trail of light faded behind it and burned out.