Criminal

by Terra Elan McVoy

  I nodded at that. “How much longer do you have?”

  “They don’t know.”

  “Because of your lawyer?”

  “It’s a lot of waiting. Working things out—with the family.”

  “Your own people?”

  “Family of the kid.”

  I was thinking how to ask, How old? when she looked over at me.

  “Not that you’ve asked, or seem to care about much more than yourself, but they say I hit this college kid on his bike. Guy pumping gas at some convenience store says he saw it. I was driving drunk, that much I know. The kid was in a coma at first, but then he died. I don’t remember anything about that night. All I remember is the next day, seeing the dent in my car and thinking I must’ve hit a tree, feeling lucky I hadn’t killed myself. It could really have been a tree, but it probably wasn’t. I’d already had my license suspended from another time. So, it’s more than one thing.”

  “Is that why you go to the meetings? After dinner?”

  She nodded.

  “Do they help?”

  Again she shrugged. “Anything that gets you straight with yourself must help a little. Though a lot of the time it’s boring. And actually feeling things sucks.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you until now.”

  “Eh.”

  We walked awhile, quiet. I watched girls hanging out in groups in the middle of the yard, several of them shooting hoops. You could hear their shit-talking from the far end of the fence, though it was muted. Sounding more like little girls on a playground. There were other pairs of people walking laps, like me and Priscilla. One lone girl, her head shaved near bald, was doing chin-ups at one of the bars.

  “Somebody died because of me, too.” It felt strange to say it out loud. To be acknowledging it at all. “Not me, really. I mean, I wasn’t the one with the guns. But I drove. I helped. And then I didn’t tell anyone. So I might as well have shot him.”

  She nodded once. “That’s how they see it.”

  “Thing is . . .” I was breathing hard, but it felt good, the blood moving in me. “I think that’s how I need to see it too.”

  “If you want to get better, it’d help.”

  I snuck a glance over to see if she was being sarcastic. She wasn’t.

  I WAS STILL UNABLE TO SIT WITH ANY OF THE THINGS INSIDE me for very long, even though talking to Priscilla had helped. So did writing to Jamelee again later, at least until I started in on how I felt about Nicole and Dee. The last thing I wrote was I want to punish her. It’s not right, but I want to punish her almost more than I want to punish him. I want to take him away from her forever. I want to blot out the sun. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to think. And then I felt worse because I knew I could never send it.

  Sunday morning there were services at eight a.m. if you wanted to go. Cam and Bindi had asked me last week to come with them, and today was the same thing. Like they were kids inviting me to a birthday party the way their eyes were all bright about it. I hadn’t been to church since my grandma died and wasn’t sure I wanted to start in here. Last week I just shrugged, and their smiles fell. After giving them no kind of answer again this time, I sat there, picking at powdered eggs and feeling mean. But then I started laughing at myself, thinking about church. All those mornings Bird had wanted me to come with her, me complaining it was too early. When her services weren’t even until ten forty-five.

  A pause came in the conversation between Cam and the girls on her other side.

  “Are they real . . . preachy?” I asked.

  “What, service?” Bindi piped up. “Oh no. It’s nice. You sing and hear the message of the day and get to reflect. And, you know, see other people. You should really come. Just try it, at least.”

  I glanced at Priscilla. She was watching me, and I couldn’t read what was on her face. I wasn’t sure what was on mine, either. But when Bindi and Cam stood up to clear their places, along with a few other girls, I stood up too.

  “Good luck,” was all Priscilla said as I followed everyone out.

  • • • •

  The “service” was in one of those rooms they used for classes on Tuesday nights. I was surprised to see a small electric piano set up. A young guy with thin brown hair and a scraggly beard stood in front of it, greeting everyone with this gentle smile. I wasn’t sure what to do. The chairs were arranged in a circle, which didn’t seem very churchlike to me, but there being a keyboard in here didn’t seem very jail-like, either.

  Cam ran right up to the piano guy, pulling me along. She gave him a big hug and introduced me to him, then to practically everyone else in the room, lots of them women not from our block. Like during my arraignment, it was strange to see women older than the rest of us, to remember that there were all kinds of folks in here. But each of them nodded at me and smiled, said they were glad to see me here. In the blur of friendliness, it took some work to remember that all of these ladies—even one who looked like she could be somebody’s grandma or kindergarten teacher—were being accused of something awful enough to get them in here. And maybe a lot of them had even done it. Had put themselves, somehow, behind these bars. Just like Cam, and maybe Priscilla.

  Just like me.

  A fiftyish looking woman came in then, unwrapping a shawl from around her shoulders and fluffing out her very frizzy hair.

  “Sorry to be late,” she said in this airy way. Not like a preacher at all.

  Everyone took their seats, so I did too. The woman with the shawl—she smiled and introduced herself as Anne—passed around half sheets of paper with the write-up of what we were going to do. On the back a song was written out, including the notes we were supposed to sing.

  It was sort of like other services I remembered, but without as much standing up and sitting down and with much shorter prayers and not anything it seemed anyone had memorized. There was a prayer where, if you wanted to, you could ask out loud to be readied to hear the Word. After that Anne read something from the Bible: the story of Jesus and some midget tax collector hiding in a tree. She spoke some about it and—this was strange—asked our opinions. Some women had a lot to say. About being forgiving to people who were seen as oppressors or outcast for some reason. One woman talked about seeing Jesus as a real friend, somebody to invite to dinner. I didn’t say anything and only barely listened, thinking instead about all my dinners with Bird and sometimes her family or friends—dinners I was never going to have again.

  The keyboard finally trilled out some notes, and everyone stood up and turned their paper over to sing. I didn’t know how to read music, so I was only mouthing the words. Some women in the circle had their eyes closed and were rocking back and forth, their faces raised to the ceiling. Even Bindi, who was usually pretty quiet, had a strong, clear voice. Cam’s mouth smiled wide and she winked when she saw me looking at her. The piano got louder for the last verse, and so did the voices. I’d stopped even pretending to sing. Instead I just stood there, staring. Amazed at all these women, looking so free.

  AFTER LUNCH, I WALKED WITH PRISCILLA AGAIN. WE DIDN’T talk a lot at first, though she did ask me about service. Mostly, I just wanted to move around. We both did. When I asked her where she got the crossword puzzles from, though, I was surprised when she told me it was her girlfriend.

  She saw the look I was trying to hide on my face.

  “Don’t worry,” she scoffed. “You’re not my type.”

  “No, it’s not that.” I frowned, shocked she thought that might be what I was thinking. I had just never met a lesbian before.

  “What, then? You want me to draw you a picture?”

  Again, her roughness was unexpected.

  “I was just thinking, it must be hard for you. Being separated from her.”

  This time she was the one to look surprised.

  “I mean,” I went on, “I was in love with somebody too—desperate love—but there’s no way we can . . .” So many images of Dee blinked in my mind, some of them still making me feel breath
less. And in pain. “Anyway, it’s not like he’s out there, waiting for me.”

  She nodded. “I think it’s harder on her, though.”

  I laughed.

  “No, really,” she continued. “I mean, it sucks in here. It sucks not being able to do what you want, go where you want to go, live your life. It sucks everything being on total hold for you, for God knows how long. It’s not not hard one single day. But you can put your head down about it, you know. Just put your head down and move forward, one foot in front of the other, and work through it. Day after day, you’re chipping away at it.”

  “It’s still dead boring. And the food . . .”

  “Yeah, but you see how it goes. How it can go, anyway, if you’re not an asshole.”

  I laughed again.

  “But out there, in life, people are doing things. Learning things. Seeing and experiencing movies or plays or, hell, just having a bad day at work. And you’re not there to talk to about it. You can’t share it with them. Sure, there’s letters and the phone, but it’s not the same. And sometimes knowing isn’t any better. It’s thinking about the things I’m not getting to do with Lexi that’ll eat me up when I let it. But then she’s the one out there having to do them. Without me.”

  I thought of Bird, alone in the house with Jamelee and no one else, save the ones who visited. Which was plenty, but like Priscilla said, it wasn’t the same as having someone there at the end of the day to talk to about all the fools you’d seen since breakfast. Someone to cook for you or help with errands. It wasn’t the same as going to bed knowing there was someone else in the house. Or someone to stay up with late into the night, eating popcorn you made on the stove and watching a bad movie together just because you have to see what god-awful thing happens next.

  When I went to the police, when I told them what happened, I thought I’d been thinking of Bird. And I was. But I hadn’t pictured how my being gone would change things for her—not really. I hadn’t thought about all the smaller, harder things she would have to face without me around. I hadn’t thought—at all—that she might miss me.

  It was enough, almost, to make me stop walking altogether and just sit down and cry. I’d lost Dee and I’d lost Bird too, but now it hit me how Bird had lost me. Lost me, probably, a long time ago. When Dee came back and I started hanging on every word and movement and expression of his again, undoing all of Bird’s hard work after he left the first time. How I filled the house up with my chatter about him, my crying over him, bringing him in even when I knew she didn’t want me to. She lost me as soon as I let him become the only thing I wanted or needed instead of seeing I might already have quite enough, right there in that house.

  “Yeah,” Priscilla said, seeing my face. “That whole really feeling things? I warned you that it sucks.”

  FIRST THING IN THE MORNING, I CALLED DOUG. I TOLD HIM I wanted to talk about what Dee’s prosecutors had requested. He said he had court but would try to get there before dinner. I told him to be sure to, because he was going to like what I had to say.

  While I waited for it to be afternoon, I did more hair. But I’d gotten smart about how it worked. It was important to have people liking you in here—for real reasons, not the ones they’d all liked Dew’ann—but I also needed to start getting paid.

  It wasn’t like I wanted anything illegal or too complicated. Just other food, toiletries from the commissary. So far, after braiding only three girls, I’d scored deodorant, cocoa butter lotion, two combs, and three packets of strawberry Pop-Tarts. And the braids I did weren’t all that complicated. Seemed like, mostly, girls just wanted something different done.

  Which I could understand now, in more than one way.

  DOUG WAS ABLE TO GET A MEETING WITH ME, HIM, AND THE other two lawyers the next day. I still didn’t like Hampton, but at least this time I had something to say to her.

  “I want to help.”

  I THOUGHT AGREEING TO COOPERATE, AND TELLING Hampton my whole story (and then telling her again, into a recorder), would’ve made things simple, but it was a lot of waiting after that. Weeks, then months. I got a job to pass the time and keep me a little more active. Me and another girl mopped in the dining hall after everyone cleared out and two other girls swept the floors. A few others wiped the tables and loaded the dishwashers. All of them but Chelsea were nice. It wasn’t fun work, but it was something to do, and we had a good enough time together. Especially at Thanksgiving, when there was a huge meal and we got to decorate. The little bits of money—twelve cents an hour—did add up eventually. It was a supplement to my doing hair, anyway, which I got better and faster at.

  I wrote to Jamelee too, but I never sent any of the letters. Didn’t keep them either, after a while. At first I thought the better way it made me feel, writing them, wouldn’t last unless they went out in the world to her. But then Bird’s voice came into my head, “We’re done with you,” and I’d realize there was no point. Sometimes this thought made me stop writing for days. But eventually something would happen that would make me laugh or think, and I’d be back at that notepad, scribbling. I don’t know when the switch came over me—feeling good after writing even though no one but me would see it—but eventually it did. But I still wrote Dear Jamelee at the top of the paper.

  Christmas came—presents brought in from some church group for all of us, and the guards helped us decorate a tree—and Priscilla finally got a trial date. She chewed her fingernails about down to nothing every minute after that, nervous and weary, reminding me of myself when I first got here. But I wasn’t going to jump on her in the middle of the night, the way she did me. It wouldn’t work, first of all, and besides, she didn’t need any more scaring. Instead we walked together. Sometimes she talked. Sometimes we just went around and around. I was better at matching her stride. My legs and my lungs were getting to be almost as strong as hers.

  New girls came in. Others left. They had their trials or finished their terms, and then they were out the door. Including Bindi, who finally got her case settled out of court. Cam was really sad to see her go, so me and Priscilla had a project on our hands for a while, trying to keep her spirits up. Eventually we figured we ought to start a card game of our own since Bindi had liked that so much. Priscilla said what we were playing was Gin Rummy, but it wasn’t much of any rules I’d known before, except the whole laying down sets of three. A new girl, Rae, came in, and we invited her to join us, though we had to explain the rules again to her almost every hand.

  I thought of Bird plenty. Almost every day, for various reasons, and especially at the holidays. Someone would tell a story that I’d think Bird would like, or laugh just like Kenyetta used to, or there’d be something on TV I’d wonder whether she was seeing. I thought about how her business was doing, how she was getting along now without me. Who she’d gotten to help take care of Jamelee, or if maybe Jamelee was in day care now. I thought about sending her letters. Apologizing for always choosing Dee over her, for not understanding that she just wanted better for me. And sometimes I wrote them. But just like with Jamelee’s, I didn’t put them in the mail. No matter how bad it hurt, I knew I’d done enough to Bird. I didn’t need to disrespect this last thing she’d asked of me.

  AND THEN, FINALLY, HAMPTON CAME TO VISIT. IT HAD BEEN a long time since I’d seen her, and when she walked into that conference room, something about the tired look on her face gave me a flash of pity for her. It was clear how hard she working, on this case and probably others. It didn’t make me like her any more, but it made me feel . . . something.

  “How are you doing, Nikki?”

  “Good.” And then, “Thanks for asking.”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Yes, it has.”

  “There’s a lot to wait on in a case like this.”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  We looked at each other. Both of us, maybe, a little more accepting.

  “Well, while it may not seem so from your perspective, we’ve been progre
ssing.”

  She stopped as though I should say something, but I didn’t know what. I just nodded.

  “And we’re at a crucial point now where more of your help would be vital.”

  I looked at Doug. I’d told Hampton forever ago everything I knew. What more could she need from me now?

  “There are still some things that aren’t quite lining up. From the witness testimonies, mainly. Walking through the crime scene with one of our detectives could be very . . . instrumental.”

  I felt Doug looking at me. But I didn’t want this decision—to go back there, to live through any minute of it—to be about my case. I had thought about Dee. Of course I had. I had thought about him and Nicole and what happened. Bird. The entire thing. But picturing any of it now didn’t give me the dragged-around-and-back feeling it used to. Instead I was mad. At him, and her, and mostly myself. When Dee had wanted to get together again last May, I’d thought it meant I’d been right all along, that my love for him—our love for each other—had some purpose. But now I just saw what an idiot I’d been, what an idiot he obviously thought I was. Which he should have. Because I was an idiot. I was stupid enough to let him ruin my friendship with Bird and my entire life—to help him kill someone—when he didn’t even care.

  But I wasn’t stupid anymore. My addiction to Dee was over. And I was going to do whatever I could to keep him away from her—anyone—forever. When I first told Hampton my story, I thought I was doing it to get back at Nicole for being the one he loved. But after these long months, all of that seemed silly. Helping lock Dee up wouldn’t do anything worse to her. If she’d really asked Dee to do it (I was never going to be sure; it was nothing I could prove), she had to know, being a cop’s daughter, that he was going to get caught. So if she asked him to, she can’t have believed they would stay together. Dee rotting in prison the rest of his life may have been part of her whole plan.