Criminal

by Terra Elan McVoy

  I tried to focus on what the newscaster was saying: “. . . still unclear what led to this important breakthrough yesterday, but county police are saying that the arrest of suspect Denarius Pavon is a ‘huge milestone’ in the case regarding the murder of Deputy Palmer on August twenty-forth. Currently Pavon is being held at the county jail and awaits determination of his bond. A trial date is yet to be set, and investigators tell us they are still compiling evidence in this controversial and very disturbing case. For now, I’m Kelly Douglas, for Channel Two Action News.”

  I had my hand to my mouth. I only knew it when Priscilla put her own hand on my wrist, urging me to bring it down.

  “Killing a cop,” she said, calm, “is serious. Everyone’s seeing that now.”

  I knew what she meant. She meant the girls in here but also the other guys in jail with him now. Some of them proud, sure. Glad the cop was dead. Some of them scared of what he might do. But some of them—maybe most of them—willing to squeal to make things worse.

  Suddenly I was filled up again. Filled up to the very edges of everything.

  With fear. For Dee.

  THE NEXT DAY WAS EVEN HARDER TO GET THROUGH. Harder to get away from all the thoughts.

  Bird, turning away from me.

  Dee getting put in that cop car.

  My own hand, tossing those guns in the glove box.

  Doug telling me I was guilty.

  Dee’s mouth all over my body, unable to get enough.

  Cherry in the doorway, leering, glassy eyed.

  Jamelee, so proud of herself, bouncing in that swing.

  My own voice, pleading with Dee in the parking lot at his gym.

  The blue rest stop sign, moving toward us so fast.

  Detective DuPree, writing down everything I said.

  That terrible letter, wilted and worn in the plastic bag.

  Dee’s face—in pleasure. And scowling, too.

  Wiping down the inside of Bird’s car, so careful.

  Kenyetta in the kitchen. And pushing me across the yard.

  Dee, smoking a cigarette. Dee, smiling down at me at the fair. Dee, telling me to shut up, lie down, do what he said. Telling me that he loved me.

  Dee.

  Dee.

  Dee.

  Dee.

  • • • •

  They were calling my name. From under a deep curtain of sleep I heard it, Nicola Dougherty. My eyes yanked open. For a minute I thought it was all already over—they were taking me to prison forever. Maybe they’d even kill me. I wondered if I’d already gone to trial and had sleepwalked through the whole thing.

  But it wasn’t that. It was only the beginning.

  In the bunk below, Priscilla shifted but stayed silent. They were calling other names, other girls in the block who had arraignments today too. One of the guards appeared in front of our cell.

  “Come on, Nikki. Time to load up.”

  I didn’t know what time it was, but it was earlier than regular wake up. The guard told me to put my hands through the bars so he could cuff me. The metal around my wrists was heavy in an already-familiar way, and I wondered how many more times I was going to be feeling it.

  He unlocked the door and slid it open, and I moved out into the hall, where there were four more girls from our block, waiting. Everyone was tired and sleepy, not talking or looking at each other. Serious.

  We were led through a series of locked hallways and then out into the yard. It was cooler outside than I expected, and goose bumps leapt along my arms. I hadn’t been outside since I got here, and I wasn’t sure, feeling the big open air around me—even in this fenced-in space—if I liked it. It was open, but not. Outside, but not. Even the dawning sky looked grim.

  We waited. A few other women were led out. It was strange to see people so much older than the rest of us. One of them started talking to a girl from my block. They knew each other. From outside. They were bawdy and laughing, and we could hear everything they said, gossiping about friends who had called in from the outside. It was like they were in the salon instead of jail.

  “Ladies, we ain’t going nowhere until you all quiet down,” the guard said, though more in a reminding way than a mean one.

  Another couple of women were brought out, and then a tall, thin guard with a shiny bald head nodded to everyone, and we were told to line up against the wall. I got separated from the others from my block and found myself next to a woman I was surprised to see was pregnant. She saw me glance down at her belly, and she patted it.

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling a little.

  “How long have you been here?” I couldn’t help blurting.

  “Oh, I didn’t get this in here, don’t worry.” She laughed. “It happened before I knew what a sorry-ass rat bastard her daddy was. Before I hit him in the head with a brick and set fire to his house.”

  I didn’t know what to say to this. Partly because I didn’t know if she was lying to seem tough. Was I supposed to ask if he was dead or not, if the house had actually burned to the ground? I didn’t know how to chat idly with people about the crimes they’d committed. Didn’t know if we were even supposed to discuss anything. Everyone around me had been swapping stories like it was nothing—not even if they were innocent and in here anyway. I still wasn’t sure I’d done anything myself. But I definitely didn’t know how to be breezy about it. I didn’t know what there was to laugh over.

  “Wish these bitches would shut up so we could just get on with it,” the pregnant woman muttered next to me. “My name’s Maya, by the way.”

  She held out her hand. Nails bitten down, severe.

  “I’m Nikki.”

  “I saw you,” she said. “On the TV.”

  “Oh.” It was embarrassing. And a surprise. I wondered if Bird had seen too.

  “You really kill that cop?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Yeah. I get it. Don’t worry. I didn’t really set fire to Omar’s house either.”

  I nodded, but I noticed she’d left out the part about the brick.

  We started moving then, back into the building and down a different hall than the one we came out through. More locked doors, more guard checks and counts, into a giant freight elevator, where we were made to turn around and face the back. Around me everyone was chattering, energized by each other’s company. One girl talked loud and proud about how she and her sister tricked for drugs, how bad she was feeling on the detox in here. How she couldn’t wait to get this all over with so she could get back to “the life.”

  “Bullshit loudmouth,” Maya whispered beside me as we moved out of the elevator and along another hall, this one leading outside to an underground parking lot where one of those white prison buses was waiting for us, lights blinking on top. “She’s just saying all that so people will think she can bring in a score from outside. What she’s gonna do is end up getting her ass beat.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Plenty of fools like her.” She looked at me. “This ain’t my first time in here, you know.”

  I nodded, trying not to seem either surprised or too much like I’d expected as much while we took our seats.

  Things quieted down on the ride, everyone remembering how tired they were. I watched out the small holes in the metal covering over the window, thinking about what was about to happen. I didn’t want to have to say I was guilty, get up there and look like a criminal. But from how Doug explained it, that’s what I was. So I might as well get on with it. Begin my new life of everything being over.

  We arrived at the courthouse, again in an underground deck, and were led out single file through a hallway and into a smallish auditorium, with rows of wooden benches and a screen set into the wall in front of us. Being in a new place got everyone buzzing again.

  “All right, y’all quiet down so we can get started,” the tall bald guard said. For a few minutes, though, no one shut up, just kept talking and giggling. Maya grumbled beside me but didn’t say anything clear. I wonde
red if she was uncomfortable, being pregnant and on this wooden bench. I wondered how long we would have to sit here.

  After a few more times of being told to quiet down, the room settled, and up on the screen popped a video of an old, bag-eyed judge. He swayed forward and back while he talked, explaining what was going to happen—that we’d be read our charges and asked for our plea. Bail, in some cases, would be amended. The whole thing took much longer than it seemed it needed to, his explaining, and then we had to watch it again, dubbed over in Spanish. It was odd, watching this old white guy with red-rimmed eyes speaking so seriously with Mexican coming out of his mouth. It wasn’t enough to be funny, though.

  We were told to stand up and that we’d be heading into the courtroom. Absolute silence was demanded. Anybody showing any disrespect would be taken to a holding cell until everyone else had been heard. A curtain of seriousness seemed to fall over everyone’s shoulders as we moved down the hall toward the larger room.

  It took a long time for the three women ahead of me to get into the courtroom, and when I finally crossed through the door myself, I understood why. Something had gone wrong inside. More guards were against the opposite wall, moving some male prisoners from the hearing before ours through another door. Their faces were tense. I was surprised they were even letting us in. Clearly, it was all a miscommunication that might get someone fired. Or hurt.

  As if the tension wasn’t already bad enough, across the room someone started yelling. A fight. It felt like everyone behind me squealed and tried to push in to see all at once, but the ones ahead of me had stopped, blocking everyone. One had her hands over her mouth, laughing. Guards started yelling, reaching for pepper spray. Over all the noise a guy was screaming out, “You bitch! You ugly, stupid, worthless bitch! I’ll kill you, bitch, I swear I will kill you.”

  Behind me, two girls got hauled aside by guards. More deputies came in from somewhere, trying to force everyone into order. I wasn’t sure if I should stay where I was standing or try to move into a seat. There was so much confusion. You could hear other male prisoners in the outside hall, jeering too. But suddenly, for me, it was like the rest of the room was in silent slow motion. All I could focus on was the guy over there screaming. Two, three guards wrestled him down to the ground. His face was red and the tendons in his neck were tight. His mouth twisted in hate as he yelled over everything, “It was never you! It was never you, you hear me? It never stood for you.”

  It was so strange, watching him. Like a kind of distorted reality. He looked like a crazy man spitting out nonsense. But at the same time, only I knew that he was making perfect sense.

  Because it was Dee there, on the ground. And the bitch he meant was me.

  • • • •

  I don’t remember after that. After I saw them hauling Dee away, his face contorted like that . . . It was like a wall went down in me. On me. In front of me. Something. I heard what was going on, but I couldn’t react. Couldn’t feel anything at all. The other women in their orange, standing up, hearing their charges read, answering in some way. Different lawyers up there next to them. Even Maya going up to the podium, saying—something—then sitting back down. Doug a row or two behind us, I knew. Watching me. Trying to signal me. But everything inside me was static, white noise. Nothing.

  Someone called my name.

  Doug stood next to me in his big jacket. Smelling like Old Spice.

  The judge read something and asked did I understand.

  And I must’ve somehow said, out loud, yes, because more was said. Something about money. And how did I want to plead.

  But all I could see was Dee running toward me, between those houses, majestic and brave. Red hair flying. His face cackling with glee, and then collapsing with bliss above me, and finally crumpling, just now, into utter disgust. Over and over I saw him, his face, playing out in front of me in a constant spool.

  And the only thing buzzing in my ears: Bitch, it never stood for you.

  BACK IN JAIL. THE CONFERENCE ROOM. DOUG ACROSS from me, freaking out. Everything in me numb—nothing but hopelessness and shock. Doug asking had I stayed silent on purpose. Did I understand what a not-guilty plea meant, how this made things so much more complicated. I watched his mouth, mostly, his overlapping teeth. Eyebrows that needed to be shaped. Recent shave. His lips moving around in words that came out to me as only, Bitch. And, I hate you. And, It never stood for you.

  ANOTHER DAY. I SWAM THROUGH THE FOG IN FRONT OF ME only because I had to. Treading water that had no temperature, only heaviness. Doug came again. Something about more information, talking to more detectives. More evidence. But I couldn’t talk to him. He left, frustrated, and the part of me that could pay attention to anything outside of me didn’t blame him. But he didn’t need to take it personal. I wasn’t talking to anyone else around me either. I just followed where the current of the routine was making me go. Wake up. Clean up. Breakfast. Showers. Common room. Lunch. More common time. Outside. Dinner. Reading. Lights-out.

  Dark. It was finally dark. But still I could see all those horrible things, hear the words Dee said. I pressed my eyes harder and harder, but it was all still there. And then there was a squeal of metal, and a strong hand went over my mouth. Knees clenched at my rib cage.

  “You gotta cut it out.” I couldn’t see her, but Priscilla’s breath was close. “Don’t you fucking dare become a ghost in here with me. I’ll shove you down the stairs myself. You think you the only one? Sad? Missing? Lonely? Regretful? You’re already like an infection. Everybody sees it. That’s why no one’s talking to you. You need to toughen up and find something to do with yourself. Otherwise you’re nothing but a sack of cement in here, sinking. And if you’re not careful, we’re all going to kick to get away from you. Including me.”

  She was squeezing my jaw, tight. I could barely breathe. I felt her lean close, closer. Like she was going to bite me. Or kiss me. But she just pressed my face in her hand and lifted my head up, then slammed it down into the pillow. Hard enough to bang the metal underneath.

  “You make me sick,” she huffed.

  Then she was off me and down the ladder, and everything was dark.

  DID I SLEEP? NEXT THING, IT WAS LIGHTS ON AGAIN, GUARDS calling. Time for morning cleanup. Without looking at Priscilla, I climbed down from my bunk and took the ammonia bucket, moved around the cell, wiping everything down. I pulled my covers as tight as hers. It took a while, because most of me didn’t want to move. And I didn’t want to touch or even look at Priscilla.

  Something about what she’d said last night must’ve sunk in, though, because in the showers I realized I could actually feel the water on my skin. Showering was still a strange experience—there were only half walls to the stalls and no doors, and the guards stood watch as we turned back and forth under the spray—but the pounding water felt good against my scalp. The suds flowed down and over my belly, around my ankles. And I could finally feel it.

  Of course Dee was still behind my eyes all morning, everywhere. It was impossible to let go of him. But under that—over it?—was Priscilla breathing close to me. The bruise on my ribs that her knees had made. You’re a cement sack, sinking. I looked over at her, ashamed she thought that. And I knew, innocent as she looked working her crossword puzzle, she had no fear about taking me down before I took her down first.

  So I stared at the TV with a few of the other girls, not ready to do anything but at least aware of my surroundings now. Aware of how normal everyone still acted in here, like it wasn’t a big thing. Aware that maybe I should start thinking of it that way too.

  Somewhere between breakfast and lunch, they called out girls with last names in the first half of the alphabet. Visitors. And they said my name.

  Immediately my heart jumped—Bird. Bird had come to see me. The resentment I’d felt toward her immediately melted. All I wanted was to see her face. Even if she hadn’t forgiven me fully yet, she was here now. And maybe bringing news about the investigation. Maybe she wanted
me to know that turning myself in had gotten them to stop asking her questions. Relief and gratitude washed through me. Bird. I could see her so clearly in my mind it brought tears to my eyes. Bird was here, and everything would be better.

  When I got there, I thought they’d brought me to the wrong compartment. Who was this blond hag already crouched over her receiver? Someone else’s sister, mother, or friend. But then she looked up. And she was Cherry.

  “What are you doing here?” I spoke first.

  “I’m not happy to see you either, puss. How you think it feels to a mother, learning from Bo her kid got arrested, thanks only to some goody-goody neighborhood ‘This Week’s Nabs’ sign he saw while buying cigarettes?”

  “Someone told me it was on the news.”

  “Hell if I know whether you were, but that bohunk you used to hang around with sure was. You could hear the cops slapping each other on the back for miles, catching his rotten ass. You know what your bail is?”

  I struggled to remember what the judge had said at my hearing. What else Doug told me while he was spazzing.

  She didn’t care what my answer was, though. “I don’t have it, no matter what it is. So, you’re just gonna have to sit pretty in here awhile, little miss, till they decide to let you out. You know how long that’ll be? Sixty days? Eight months? Whatever it is, you might have to start working on those hand jobs you’re so famous for.”

  She winked at me. My stomach twisted.

  “So was it all you? Or just him?”

  “They think I . . . I mean I told them that . . .”

  She flapped her hand, dismissing me. “It don’t matter whichever way, honey. You got a lawyer?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She leaned back. “Ma’am. You’re so cute. Ma’am. They already got you trained good, huh? Suppose it didn’t take too much, after what your old man taught you.”