A couple of girls near the door, the worse for drink, turned and took in the situation. The smaller of them began to babble. Her friends gripped her by the shoulders, pushed her through the entrance door and disappeared after her. Mickey grabbed the telephone from its little shelf under the bar and began to dial.
"Have the riot squad in here if we don't watch out," she said to nobody in particular. "Better let the boys on the beat bust it up."
Bake said, "Oh, God," and looked around wildly. Someone emptied a half-filled glass of water on the victim's face. She lay absolutely motionless.
"Out cold," Mickey said.
The whole thing had taken perhaps a minute, certainly not more than two. Half a dozen people at nearby tables had seen it, and sat staring. A buzz of talk rose and swelled. Frances looked at Bake, unbelieving. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. It was like a bad dream. Everything seemed suspended for a moment.
The jukebox clicked, changing records, and the oompah-oompah of a polka filled the room.
Someone screamed. A high-school girl in the rear of the room burst into loud hysterical sobs.
A group of customers got to their feet and headed for the door. Others, released by their movement, began milling around, trying to see what had happened.
Mickey began to pick up used glasses, keeping her eyes on the door.
Two uniformed policemen suddenly filled the doorway. Mickey said in a whisper, "Oh, those bitches." The few customers who were still dancing, unaware of what had happened, jerked to a standstill. Two girls in the far corner, who had been standing locked in each other's arms for the last five minutes, froze into immobility.
Frances' first reaction was one of pure unbelief. The men were so husky and ruddy, so masculine, that her eyes wouldn't accept them in this place. Then she realized, with a shock of awakening, that the two cops had already gone into action, as if this situation were routine. (Which of course it is, she reminded herself.) They were lining up the customers and herding them out of the door, single file. Ignoring complaints, feminine screams and muffled curses, they worked efficiently from table to table. As the taller of the men turned his back she saw that he wore a cartridge belt and a service revolver, an ugly snubnosed thingstandard equipment for the city police, even traffic cops had them, but it had never occurred to her before that a policeman might actually shoot someone. Anyone. Her.
Her mouth was parched and tinny tasting. She retched dryly, then stiffened as the shorter officer stopped beside her.
"This the one who started it?"
She looked into his small eyes, uncomprehending. Mickey shook her head. "No, she's all right."
"I'm sorry, you'll have to come too. You," he said to Mickey, "stay till the ambulance gets here, will you? I can't move the victim, she might be hurt bad." He gave Frances a hard look. "Come on, come on, what are you waiting for?"
Bake, of course. She realized, in stupid surprise, that Bake was nowhere in sight. She said, "Me?"
"Yeah, you."
She followed him on rubbery legs, numb and unbelieving.
The paddy wagon was backed up to the curb. A dozen spectators had already gathered on the sidewalk. "It's a raid." "Sure, a lot of queers." "Somebody prob'ly pulled a knife, some of those babies are tough." A young girl, pregnant, clinging to her young husband's arm, looked at Frances with curiosity and pity. Frances gave the look back, cold and hard.
The two cops herded them in quietly and quickly, like farmers loading livestock. Frances, almost the last in, found standing room between a small girl in her late teens and a sulky butch in denim pants and one gold hoop earring. Some of the women were stolid, some crying. One was giggling hysterically against her friend's shoulder.
She twisted to look, hungry for a glimpse of Bake's face, feeling that she could bear anything if Bake would only look at her and smile. But Bake was not there.
"One thing," the butch with the earring said matter-of-factly, "they don't generally search you on a morals charge." She patted her shirt pocket. "Any of you fellows got any reefers, you better get rid of them on the way in, just the same. Some of those goddam matrons got itchy fingers."
"In where?" her high-school friend asked.
"Jail, stupid. The pokey. Did you think the mayor was having a reception for us, or something?"
I've been arrested, Frances told herself. The words had no meaning. She braced herself against the jolt as the vehicle started.
CHAPTER 12
Frances’ mental picture of prisons had been culled from the movies. Grim gray fortresses surrounded by high walls, on which armed guards were mounted with machine guns; circling searchlights; a concrete yard where uniformed convicts marched silently under guard. Sing Sing, Alcatraz, Joliet.
The wagon jolted to a stop in front of a red brick structure no bigger than a supermarket or a firehouse, indistinguishable from the other buildings on the block except for small barred windows set high in the walls. The butch with the gold earring caught Frances' look as she stepped down, a little stiffly because her legs were still cramped with fright.
"Precinct station, a hick dump. I'll be out of here before you can say scat."
"Wait till I get in touch with my lawyer!" The plump middle-aged woman beside Frances pulled her fur scarf closer around her throat, looking disdainfully at her fellow prisoners. "They can't do this to me."
"The hell they can't," the butch said.
"Quiet, please. No talking. Line up by two's."
The smell hit you as you went in, before you got a clear view of the room. Like the county courthouse back home: tobacco, sweat, plumbing, lysol. Frances followed the others into a large almost-bare room and stood waiting patiently for further instructions.
The taller cop slammed the door shut and lounged against it, looking bored. The girl with the earring said, "Might as well be comfortable. They take their good old easy time in this dump," and sat down, her feet apart.
There were wooden benches along the walls, some old-fashioned kitchen chairs, a few folding chairs. That was all. The walls were painted light green up to about eight feet and cream above, both colors dingy, the green defaced at shoulder level by pencil scrawls and streaks of lipstick. The floor was littered with cigarette butts. In one corner a semi-partition hid the sight but not the smell of a lid-less toilet and a small round washbasin, both badly in need of scouring. A metal wastebasket overflowed with crumpled paper towels, but the dispenser above the basket was empty.
"Crummy dump. You'd think they'd clean the can, anyhow."
"These dumb cops aren't used to anything better. Prob'ly live like this at home."
"The dumb matrons are the worst."
The woman unlocking the door looked angry. She also looked stupid. Middle-aged, thick-hipped; if she had worn a blue apron dress instead of the uniform of a police matron, Frances would have taken her for one of the women who come out after dark to clean office buildings. Her thick face was framed in a frizzy permanent. "I'll take your cigarettes and liquor. Any of you ladies got a switchblade on you?" Nobody answered. She ran her hands over the jacket pockets of a girl who might have been a secretary or a saleswoman.
"Get your dirty hands off me before I hit you."
"That's no way to talk." But she stepped back.
The taller policeman, standing inside the door, said, "I thought you girls liked to smooch each other."
"Anyhow, I've never been low enough to go out with a cop."
"Hush, Barby, or they'll never let you go."
"So what?"
"Names and addresses, please."
"I want to call my lawyer!"
"Later. Give your correct names and addresses, please."
"What book do you suppose she memorized that out of?" The butch with the gold earring said, "I knew a cop that was mentally normal, once."
"What happened to him?"
"He got fired."
But most of the women were silent, from fear or caution. The ones with regular jobs in the stra
ight world, Frances guessedthe ones who had the most to lose.
Bake's desertion stung like iodine on an open cut. I ought to be glad she isn't involved, Frances thought. The words had no meaning. All that mattered was that Bake was not there.
"Where's your girl friend?"
"I was alone." The lie was automatic. She gave the name of a girl she had disliked in high school, and a made-up address. The matron wrote it down, without comment.
When she had gone out again, locking the door behind her, the girl with the gold earring moved over beside Frances. She didn't look sulky now but spunky, as if she had found something to fight for or, at least, somebody to fight with.
She said, "You were with the one that started it, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"What prob'ly happened, she got out through the washroom and down the alley."
"What happens now?"
"They call the families. Some of them will come around and bail the girls out. Might be twenty bucks, might be fifty, might be a hundred. Depends on a lot of things. The rest come to trial in a week or so."
"On what charge?"
Her new friend smiled ironically. "Ohdisturbing the peace or something. Legally they can't fine you till you're charged with something. But a trial's too much bother for the cops that made the pickup, they have to appear in court and all. So they let everybody out on bail." She looked around at her fellow prisoners. "Most of these babes will be out by tonight. They figure it's better to pay than get their names in the paper and maybe lose their jobs."
"But a citizen has rights."
"Not if she's one of the girls. Don't you know how straight people feel about us? They got it fixed so you can't fight back."
Frances was silent, remembering the company guards with the bulging holsters and the MacAllister boy with the flesh rotting around the bullet hole in his leg. Yes, they would have it fixed.
It was full day now. The window squares were bright, striped with the black of metal bars against the sun. A man in uniform came to the door and called a name. The high-school girl who had been with the butch turned and gave her an imploring look, then followed him out.
"Christ," her friend said, "am I glad to see her go! My steady girl would kill me if she found out."
Others left one by one. Frances could visualize the whole thing: ringing phone, husband or father jumping up to answer, the search through drawers and pockets for money. (Would they take a check?) She was stubbornly glad she hadn't given Bill's name.
After a while the matron came in again and made a big to-do about counting off by two's, breaking up obvious couples. Frances and a thin nervous-looking girl she hadn't noticed before were led down a hall lit more or less by fifteen-watt bulbs and shown into a cell about nine feet square, with cots along two walls and an uncovered toilet. There didn't seem to be much to say. They sat down and waited. Finally the matron came back with two trays on which were plates of food, spoons and forks, plastic tumblers of water. "You can keep the water glasses."
The food was greasyfried potatoes, hamburger, canned peas, a slice of bread with a square of butter on top. "They have it sent in," Frances' roommate explained. They ate in silence.
The afternoon stretched ahead endlessly. She sat up on the cot, fingering the mattress covered in striped ticking and the folded gray camp blanket. No sheets. Wish I had a book, she thought; never go anywhere without a book after this. Nobody had examined her pocketbook; she dumped its contents out on the cot and looked for something that would help pass the time. After she had filed her nails down to the quick and made up her face, which felt dry and gritty, there was nothing else to do. Her hands felt sticky. There were a small enamel basin and pitcher on a stand in the corner, but no water.
"They'll bring you water tomorrow, before breakfast. Shower twice a week."
"How do you"
"Been in before."
Suppose I never get out? she thought wildly. It was silly, she knew. But it was all she could do not to rattle the door and scream, like somebody in a Grade B movie.
She thought about the girl with the earring, who now seemed like an old and cherished friend. From down the hall came a sound of hysterical crying, then a burst of hysterical laughter, quickly hushed. The matron came around gathering up trays, dishes, silverware.
Frances said, "I want to make a phone call."
"I'll ask the sergeant."
She had a five and three singles in her billfold, and perhaps a dollar's worth of change in the coin purse. She folded the five small and held it out. A gleam in the policewoman's eyes assured her that she was on the right track. She shoved the money into the woman's hand, looking the other way.
"My friend will take care of everything when she comes."
The matron went away.
She waited. Recite some poetry, like in the dentist's chairit makes the time go faster. When I consider how my light is spent. The world is too much with us, late and soon. From thee have I been absent in the spring. National Sonnet Day, she thought, giving it up because she was too tired to remember any second lines.
"Uh, miss. You can call your friend now."
"Thank you."
The phone was down the hall, an old-fashioned wall style instrument a little too high for her. She stood on tiptoe, and dialed Bake's number with a trembling finger. The ringing went on and on.
"Hello?"
Wonderful relief flooded through her. Her knees shook so that she had to lean against the dingy wall. "This is me."
"Oh."
"Look, I'm in jail. I don't even know where it is." She looked toward the matron, who was frankly listening. The woman gave the address. "They're letting people out on bail, or something. I don't even know how much.
"Probably fifty," Bake said, as though it mattered.
"Will you come over and get me out?"
"Look, baby, I'm sorry as hell about this, I feel like a traitor, running out on you… But it wouldn't have done you a damn bit of good if they'd taken me along, now would it? I'd have been charged with assault or something. She was out cold." She stopped. Frances waited, digging her nails into the flesh of her hands. In the background, at Bake's end of the line, someone asked a question. The voice, vaguely suspended in mid-query, sounded familiar. Bake answered indistinctly. Then she said, "Look, baby, I haven't got any money. And even if I did I couldn't walk in there. Somebody might identify me."
"What am I supposed to do, stay here the rest of my life?"
Bake said reluctantly, "I don't like this any better than you do, but it looks like you better call Bill."
"Oh, I can't!"
"He'd come down and bail you out, wouldn't he?”
"I guess so, but I couldn't do that."
"Well, what else can you do?"
Bake said, "I'm worried sick about you, baby. Call me the minute you get out, will you?"
Frances hung up without answering.
The matron asked, "When will your friend get here?"
Frances looked at her. Malice overlay her thick features. "As soon as she can." She wanted to cry, but there was no place where she could be alone.
The cell door swung shut behind her.
Supper was soup and meat sandwiches. Her cellmate refused food with a mute shake of the head and lay down on one of the cots, pulling the scratchy blanket up and turning her face to the wall. Frances ate absent-mindedly, her mind a turmoil of bewilderment and raw, bleeding hurt.
Why? Why had Bake done this to her? She felt that nothingnot disgrace, not the fear of jail, not even the danger of being identified and tried and imprisonedcould have kept her from Bake if their roles had been reversed. Besides, it was impossible for her to imagine Bake timid or frightened. Bake, who drove better half-drunk than most people did sober, who walked for miles and disciplined her good sturdy body, who thought things out clearly and spoke her mind without any reservationsthis wasn't a girl to take flight from trouble.
Maybe if I could understand, Frances thought miserably, i
t wouldn't hurt so.
She must have had a reason. She'd come if she loved me. I couldn't do this to her.
If I could only figure out why she did it. She must have had a reason.
"You got any water?"
Frances handed over the glass, only half aware of what she was doing. The girl said, "God, I'm thirsty," and took it in trembling hands. She handed back the empty tumbler and lay down again, her face turned away.
The lights in the hall burned all night. Like a hospital, Frances thought, remembering Bob's birth and the time she had her appendix out. The women in the next cell were whispering together; she could hear their voices, but she couldn't make out the words. She wished she had someone to talk to. At last she took off her shoes and lay down, uncomfortable in her clothes but not wanting to undress further in so public a place or to touch the grimy blanket.
She slept finally, too exhausted to stay awake but uncomfortable and conscious of the harsh mattress cover and matted stale-smelling wool blanket. Her skin itched, her face felt dirty. She wanted a bath.
She had been awake several times, falling back into an uneasy doze each time, when the sound of crying jolted her wide awake. Her cellmate was walking the floor, moaning, clutching her arms across her front.
Frances said, "What's the matter?" There was no answer. "Are you sick?"
The girl turned a drawn face to her. "My stomach hurts."
A policeman came to the door of the cell. "What's the matter here?"
"She doesn't feel good."
She hardly expected him to do anything about it, but he did; he went away, and came back in a few minutes with a stocky young man who, although in shirtsleeves and badly in need of a shave, had a doctor's air of being in command. He turned on the light in the cell, took the moaning girl by the shoulder and turned her around. He pulled down one eyelid, then the other; rolled up her sleeves and looked minutely at her thin upper arm.
"Oh, Christ, another one. Come on, honey, we'll give you something to make you feel better."
Frances asked, "What's the matter with her?"
"She needs a fix, that's all. Your girl friend?"
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