For Good

by Karelia Stetz-Waters

  “If it were a city”—Marydale stared at the black ink on the pads of her fingers—”I could leave.”

  “You had a choice about the behavior that put you in here,” the woman said. “Even though you’re here on a parole violation, you’ll be treated like the other inmates. You work. You keep your house clean. You get in trouble, you go to segregation.” The woman regarded her over the top of purple reading glasses. “Do you understand?”

  “I think I should be in jail, not prison.” Marydale was careful to keep her tone level and her eyes down. “I don’t know why I got remanded to prison. I haven’t had a hearing.”

  “They closed down the women’s jail.” The woman looked at a file on her desk. “You’ve been here before. I’m sorry to see you back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marydale said reflexively.

  “Okay,” the counselor called to a guard outside the door. “She’s ready.”

  A female guard appeared and nodded to Marydale to follow her.

  “Everything comes off this main corridor,” the guard said as they walked.

  The floors were shined to a high gloss. The air smelled like cheap detergent, clean but cloying at the same time. High above their heads, fans—painted the same dull yellow as the ceiling—rotated furiously.

  “You walk on the right.” The guard continued her lecture undeterred. “Hands to yourself. No moving around the prison unless you’re on work assignment or have a pass. You probably won’t be around long enough to get one of the good jobs.” The woman paused at a guard station and took a couple slips of paper off the counter. “Kite forms.” She handed them to Marydale. “If you get sick, you need to make a phone call, you want to report bullying, you kite the guard on duty. They’ll pass your message on. You can read and write, yes?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Make it legible. They’re not going to send someone back to ask you what you wanted. Count is at midnight, three a.m., five a.m., seven thirty, noon, four fifteen, and nine p.m. Ten, noon, and nine on the weekends.” They had arrived at the block. Three stories of barred cells looked out at the desert.

  “A13,” the guard called to the guard station.

  Someone pressed the button that unlocked cell A13.

  “Rae. That’s Julie Kelso.” The guard pointed to Marydale’s new cellmate. “Kelso, get her set up.”

  Marydale froze in the doorway. The cell felt chillingly familiar: two bunks, one seatless toilet, a plastic mirror, a hand broom tucked against the bars so they could keep their house clean. Above the sink were installed shelves, their thin metal edges surprisingly sharp in a world where paper clips were contraband. There wasn’t enough room on the floor to do a push-up.

  Kelso lay on the bottom bunk. “Stay out of trouble for a couple of weeks, and you can probably get moved to the dormitory,” she said, without looking up from the battered People magazine she was reading. “If you don’t like the cell.”

  “Wait,” Marydale said to the guard. “I need to write a kite.”

  “What do you need a kite for already?” the guard asked.

  “I need to call my lawyer.”

  From the bottom bunk, the woman said, “You’re lucky if they care.” Marydale guessed the woman was about twenty, but she looked older. Her bleached-blond hair was growing out, and the roots were dark rings counting the months.

  “Write it up and give it to me at count,” the guard said. “Kelso, loan her a pencil.”

  Marydale felt a hand on her back, and she stumbled into the cell. The bars closed behind her. Kelso dropped the magazine she was reading and glared at Marydale.

  “You been here before?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Kelso slipped on a pair of flip-flops from beside the bed. Then she knelt down and opened the two drawers beneath her bunk. From one, she pulled a sweatshirt and some menstrual pads. She crammed them in the other drawer. “There. That one’s yours.”

  “Thanks,” Marydale said. She touched the two-rung ladder to the top bunk. “May I?”

  “Whatever.” Kelso flicked a page of her magazine. “I don’t got a pencil though.”

  The dark blue mattress was stained around the seams. The blanket was rough, like the padding movers threw over wood furniture. Marydale lay down and crossed her arms over her chest. You cry too much, Scholar.

  Marydale woke to the sound of footsteps. She had been dreaming about the distillery. She was late to work, and Aldean was outside, stomping on the deck of the Tristess to wake her. She sat up quickly, almost hitting her head on the ceiling above her bunk before she remembered where she was. The women in the cells above hers were calling out insults and invitations to someone coming down the breezeway.

  Marydale swung her legs over her bed. She had been cold under her blanket, but the air outside her blanket was freezing.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Somebody’s getting a visit,” Kelso said.

  “A lawyer?” Marydale asked. She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice.

  “Not a lawyer. They got special rooms for that.” Kelso peered out the bars. “It’s the new parole boss. He’s in here all the time, givin’ people shit. He’ll be gone before I get out of this shithole though.” She flopped back on her bunk. “He’s just some dumb—”

  “Rae! Visitor!” The young female guard’s voice was too deep for her small frame. “Wake up, Rae!”

  Reflexively, Marydale came to the bars, wrapping her hands around the peeling metal. A moment later, she saw a familiar figure striding down the breezeway toward the guard. Marydale stepped back.

  The guard softened her voice to a conversational tone. “Here she is, Mr. Holten. I can’t believe you caught her. I can’t believe the bitch who killed Aaron almost got away.”

  Marydale must have made some sound because Kelso said, “You all right?”

  Marydale shook her head. The cell tightened around her. She wanted to press her face into the corner of the wall, to throw her blanket over her, to pull the drawers out from beneath the bunk and break them against the blunt edge of the toilet. She didn’t move.

  Ronald Holten ambled up to the bars, the guard hovering at his elbow. He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Marydale Rae,” he pronounced slowly.

  His hair was still dusty blond, and he was still handsome, his lips smiling without actually radiating any cheer. It reminded Marydale of an African folktale she had read about a village girl who fell in love with a handsome man who lured her into the wilderness. Once in the bush, his head slowly transformed from a man’s head into a bare white skull, with teeth that chattered and smirked even when he was sleeping.

  “On abscond,” he said. Everything was a drawl. “For years.”

  Marydale stared at his mouth, willing her face to reveal nothing. “I had permission from my PO.”

  “Did you?”

  “I paid my supervision fee every month. I wouldn’t have paid it if I was trying to hide. I have phone records. I called in.”

  “Your PO wanted you to go up to the big city so you could make friends?” Holten continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Couldn’t find any of your type out here, could you? Apparently she had a lot of special arrangements with her cons, but she’s not working for us anymore.”

  He touched the plastic badge clipped to his shirt pocket. DIRECTOR OF PAROLE, TRISTESS COUNTY.

  “I have a business. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Marydale protested.

  “You didn’t get a transfer.” He strutted back and forth in front of her cell. “You didn’t transfer because you couldn’t keep your nose clean.”

  “I couldn’t keep my nose clean because Cody Densen wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  “Oh, we’re supposed to leave you alone? Is that how it works? Maybe I should let you set up a meth kitchen, maybe get some kids to sell for you? Finance your lifestyle.”

  “I didn’t sell drugs!”

  “What did you do in Portland?”

&nb
sp; “I run a distillery.”

  “Oh, and you don’t sell drugs.”

  “It’s fifty dollars a bottle. We sell to restaurants.”

  The first round of inmates was heading out to breakfast.

  The guard yelled, “Stay to your left,” as the inmates filed around Holten.

  Marydale held Holten’s gaze. She knew she shouldn’t. Deference was the only defense. Nod. Smile. Agree to everything. Then palm any stray piece of thread or wire, a bolt, the broken plastic handle off a pair of scissors. Watch the cameras. You gotta learn the dance, Scholar. But Marydale couldn’t push her rage down far enough.

  “I wasn’t allowed to date. I wasn’t allowed to be friends with people like me.” The blood pounding in her ears erased the sounds of the block. “You can’t live like that. That’s not the way the rest of the world works, and if you lived two days in a town where people didn’t marry their fucking cousins—”

  “Rae!” the guard warned, as though Holten needed her protection.

  Marydale remembered Kristen pleading with her. What happens if we’ve been together for two and a half years and then we get caught?

  Holten stepped closer to the bars. She could smell his minty breath.

  “People like you,” he said. “Listen to me, Rae.” She could see his skull-teeth clacking in his head. “I don’t give a shit that you’re a fucking dyke. You killed my nephew. You killed a Holten.”

  “It was self-defense and you know it.”

  “Maybe I do. I knew Aaron. I knew what he was like, and I say more power to him. I’m just sorry he didn’t finish the job.”

  Marydale stepped back, bumping into the sink.

  “As far as you’re concerned, I’m your PO now.” The cadence of Holten’s voice was light. If Marydale had overheard the tone and not the message, she’d have thought he was discussing the Tristess High football team. But his eyes were little slits of black lava rock. “I am judge, jury, and prosecution. I don’t care what some hug-a-thug parole board said when they let you out. You’re right where you should have been all along, and I’m going to make sure you stay this time.”

  10

  At the seven-thirty count, Marydale held a kite form out to the guard.

  “Please,” she said quietly. “I need to call my lawyer.”

  “Don’t they all,” the man said, folding the paper and putting it in his pocket, but he returned about an hour later. “You’re in luck. I got your lawyer on the phone.”

  Marydale felt the cold light of the block grow a little bit warmer. Kristen had found her. She’d called.

  “Cell A13,” the guard yelled to the control station at the end of the block.

  The latch clicked open. It was so easy—just a press of a button—yet she was not even allowed to push the bars open after the electronic lock had been released. The guard had to open the bars and lead her to one of the telephones mounted on the wall by the guard station. Marydale touched the receiver.

  “Well, pick up,” the guard said.

  Her hands were shaking. “Hello?”

  “Marydale.” Kristen sounded oddly formal. “This is Kristen Brock from the Falcon Law Group. The prison monitors all calls except confidential communication between attorney and client. Do I have your permission to represent you in your upcoming hearings?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?” Kristen asked, her voice gentler.

  “My taillight was out. Ronald Holten works in parole. I think he fired my PO.”

  “That’s not okay. I’m going to look into that,” Kristen said. “They can’t have a relative of the victim supervising a parolee. I’m going to file a complaint today. I just started the DataBlast case,” she added. “It’ll take a week, maybe two, but I’ll be there as soon as I finish. I wish I could be there now.”

  “You’re going to make partner.” Marydale could feel someone watching her with more than the guard’s paid-by-the-hour attention.

  “In the meantime,” Kristen said, “I’ll need you to write down everything you remember about your case.”

  “You mean the taillight?”

  “No. Start with Aaron, when he first threatened you. You shouldn’t have been convicted. I’ll think of something. And I’ll be there soon. I promise.”

  Marydale heard someone on the other end of the phone line call to Kristen.

  Kristen said, “In a minute.”

  “What is it?” Marydale asked. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the courthouse.”

  “You almost done, Rae?” the guard called out.

  “Kristen?” Marydale said. It was a plea. It was a prayer. “I love you.”

  “I will call you tomorrow,” Kristen said. “I love you, too.”

  Slowly, Marydale returned the receiver to its metal hook. It felt like closing a door to air and light.

  A few prisoners were lingering by the guard station. Marydale felt someone’s eyes on her, as demanding and inescapable as a hand on her shoulder. She looked up.

  It was like seeing Kristen at the bar in Deerfield only in reverse; instead of hope suddenly surging through her body, it was fear and a cold, clammy feeling of being fondled from afar. Gulu stood by the wall, pushing a mop slowly back and forth across the shining floor. Hello, baby, she mouthed. And Marydale wanted to run back to her cell and close her eyes and close out the walls around her.

  Gulu called to the guard on duty. “Sir, I’ve got to move a pallet of floor wax. My back’s killing me. Would you send Scofield or Oberlan out to help?”

  The guard’s face said, You really think I’d fall for that? But he already had.

  “Inmate.” He pointed to Marydale. “What’s your name again?”

  “Rae,” she said reluctantly.

  “Go help Clarocci with her wax.”

  I got you, Gulu’s eyes said.

  Marydale followed a pace behind Gulu as Gulu led her down the wide central corridor to a supply pantry. Behind a wire mesh grate, an older woman with a tight helmet of box-dyed curls watched four television screens.

  “Name?” the guard asked from behind her mesh window. “What do you need?”

  Gulu flashed her custodial pass. The woman pressed a button and the door beside them opened. The guard glanced at Marydale.

  “Station said I could bring her to help me lift up a crate,” Gulu said.

  The woman pushed a sign-in clipboard through a slot beneath her window. Marydale wrote her name and showed the woman her ID badge.

  “Five minutes,” the guard said, and returned to the gray-and-white screens at her station.

  Inside the large supply room, Gulu ducked behind a shelf stacked floor-to-ceiling with bottles of cleaning fluid shrink-wrapped on pallets. She leaned up against one of the shelves.

  “Were you talking to your girlfriend?” Gulu asked.

  “You said you needed floor wax,” Marydale said.

  “Chester and Tia saw you at lunch, said you didn’t even come over to say hi. You too good for us now?”

  “I’m not looking for any trouble.” Marydale folded her arms.

  Gulu came closer. “You were always trouble, Scholar.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Only thing I’ve ever wanted.” Gulu’s face was inches away from hers.

  “You say that to all the girls.” Marydale knew it was only half true.

  “We could pick up where we left off.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Did you miss me, Scholar?”

  The answer was once and not anymore, but that was too complicated to explain in the minutes afforded by a guard’s lethargy.

  “No,” Marydale said.

  Gulu grabbed the back of Marydale’s hair and yanked her into a grinding kiss. Their teeth collided. Marydale smelled the familiar stink of prison breath and cheap toothpaste. She knew better than to fall back or protest. She did not need to look for the camera to know that Gulu had positioned them in a tiny, perfect blind spot.

  “I
thought you’d at least have come back around to say hello, put a little something in my commissary,” Gulu said when she pulled away.

  “I have a girlfriend,” Marydale hissed.

  “What’s going on in there?” the guard yelled.

  “We’re almost done,” Gulu called out.

  “Three minutes,” the guard said.

  “She straight?” Gulu asked.

  “You’re straight!”

  “Not in here, and I’m not getting out anytime soon, so…” Gulu planted her hand on the shelf behind Marydale’s head. “Anyways, you always liked the straight girls. So tragic.” She laughed. “And that’s not what I meant. Is she straight.”

  “She’s a lawyer,” Marydale said. It felt like holding up a talisman to ward off a loaded gun. She saw Kristen in her gray suit and her tortoiseshell glasses. Kristen cared, but she was so far away, farther than the miles between Tristess and Portland. There was a distance between the prison parking lot and the cells that could not be measured on a map.

  “Well, shit, a lawyer!” Gulu said. “She gonna come and save you? I heard you got out of Tristess. This girl gonna come down from Portland and visit you on Thursdays? For how long? You gonna sit around and cry for her? You know Ronnie Holten’s in charge now. He’s got a hard-on for everyone, but he loves you.” Her smile tightened. “She’s not coming, Scholar. And if she does, she won’t stay.”

  Gulu took a strand of Marydale’s hair and twined it around her fingers, then gave a sharp pull. “I’ve been here long enough. I’ve seen girls like you come and go, and I know. I can smell her on you. City girl. Big lawyer. Maybe that’s why you fucked her, told yourself you loved her. But once you’re in here, you can’t go back. But we could still be something, Scholar. You were always special.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “You’re not getting out, if that’s what you’re hoping.”

  “It’s a parole violation,” Marydale shot back. “They can’t hold me forever.”

  “You think so?” A split second later, Marydale felt Gulu’s arms clasp around her. She thought Gulu was going to kiss her again. Then she felt Gulu’s fist connect with the bottom of her rib cage. Gulu pushed her backward, hitting again and again…but not hard. The blows weren’t the attack; it was Gulu’s screams that were dangerous.