Among Women

by J. M. Cornwell

  “Ain’t you never had no crab afore?”

  “A long time ago, but it was hot.”

  “This from the mayor’s banquet fo’ new year.”

  Keeping track of the days was easy; dates were harder. “But crab?”

  “Mayor do have some good eats. Don’ spare no expense.” She broke the claws from the body, cracked one open and sucked out the meat. Juice dribbled down her chin. “There be some good eatin’ from the ball on Mardi Gras. Big doin’ that, but it be a while befo’ that come.”

  The red claw bent, cold juices running down her hands before it cracked. Pearl sampled a bit of the meat. It was good if cold and a bit spicy like everything in New Orleans. Betty piled the claws on the side of the tray after thoroughly sucking them clean, flipped the crab over and pulled off the outer shell. She scooped out spongy gray material that looked like a wet wasp’s nest. Creamy yellow bulged from the rear of the crab and Betty smiled as she spooned it into her mouth. “Eggs,” she said around a mouthful. “Shoulda throwed this momma back, but she dead now.” Pearl checked the crab and didn’t see any yellow egg sacs. “That one be a male. Go on, open it up.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Betty pointed out the difference between the bottom of her crab and Pearl’s. “See that?” Pearl nodded. “Female ain’ got no thang.”

  “You mean that pointy thing like an obelisk?”

  “Don’ know nothin’ ‘bout no obylist. That thang.”

  “Okay, I see.” Pearl pried off the shell.

  “Scrape out them lungs. Don’ wanna eat ‘em ‘cause they poison.”

  Using a spoon to scrape out the gray mass, Pearl finally had a clear view of the insides. Little globs of yellow sprinkled with red powder dotted the insides.

  “That be the fat. Go ahead on. It be real good.”

  Pearl gingerly picked up a claw and nibbled a bit of the meat. It was cold and sweet and good. She took a bigger bite, chewing and smiling. It was very good. Cayenne pepper tingled on her tongue as she ate. It was better than the crab she had as a child living in Maryland and just as good as the crawfish Cap bought her once. She wondered what it would have tasted like hot and fresh from the steamer. Before long both crabs on the tray were soon nothing more than broken bits of shell and small piles of lungs. For the first time in days, Pearl had enjoyed the meal and felt nearly sated. Too bad the mayor didn’t have more banquets.

  Settling back in her chair and cupping both hands over her middle, Betty burped loudly. “Didn’ leave no crawfish for us. Shame. I do miss me some crawfish.”

  Considering how much had been brought to the jail, there must have been hundreds of crabs boiled up for the banquet, thousands, and desserts. Oh, how she missed dessert. She figured it was best not to think about what she was missing, and had been missing for weeks, and just enjoy what she had. Live in the moment.

  When she returned, Tamara passed Betty’s table softly singing a vaguely familiar tune made weird and wonderful by her ethereal voice. Pearl looked up as she passed, struck silent, her hand poised above the discard pile as she listened to the eerie melody. Betty cracked and popped her gum, sucked her teeth and gently tapped Pearl’s hand. She released the card unaware anything else in the world existed outside of the sound of Tamara’s voice. “She has a beautiful voice.”

  “Don’ talk much.”

  “She talks enough,” Pearl mumbled.

  Betty discarded and shuffled her hand. “But she do sing. Sound like an angel when she do. Otha times that voice done brung up the hairs all aquiver when she - Well, you finds out come the full moon.”

  Tamara disappeared around the corner of the guard station.

  “Is it my turn?”

  Betty nodded.

  Picking up a card and quickly discarding it, what Betty said finally registered. “What happens during the full moon?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “You can’t see the moon. The windows are painted over.”

  “Some things you feel even when you cain’ see. You find out soon as the full moon done rise.”

  The hairs at the nape of Pearl’s neck prickled and goose flesh raced up her arms, over her shoulders and down her spine. She wasn’t certain she wanted to find out what Tamara did during the full moon, but, like everything else that had happened to her since that night in the French Quarter, she wouldn’t have any choice in the matter. She had a hard enough time sleeping some nights. Lunacy took on a whole new and ominous meaning. The thought of being locked in with Tamara during a full moon was unnerving. What could be worse than what she had already experienced? Were the bars to keep them in or something worse out?

  Did Tamara grow hair and fangs? Did she turn rabid? It suddenly occurred to her that the walls of their cell were cleaner and the paint fresher than the other cells. What did the paint hide?

  “Lights out in ten minutes.”

  It couldn’t be that late. Was it? Pearl did not want to go to her cell, not without knowing how near full the moon was?

  “Does anyone have an almanac?”

  “What that?”

  “An almanac. You know. A book that tells when to plant and when to harvest, the first day of spring or the longest day of the year, the population of Paradise Falls, Louisiana.”

  “Oh, one of them books that tell you when the moon be full.” Betty chuckled. “Nope. Never seed one in here. They got ‘em up at the penitentiary, but not here. Don’ need it.”

  The television blinked off. Conversation stopped. Groups broke up. The women moved toward the stairs, some trudging up and others filing down the short stairways on either side of the quad and into the lower hallway. Pearl helped Betty put the games away, postponing the moment she would have to go to her cell and hear the heavy steel door clang shut and the bolt slam into place, locking her away from the marginal freedom of the quad and in with…. She didn’t know what. She didn’t want to know.

  The speaker crackled. “Lights out!”

  “I see you in the morning. Sleep tight, boo.” Dark chuckles rang hollowly in the almost empty quad.

  The trip from the quad to the cell was too short. She pulled the door closed behind her, wincing as the bolt shot home with a solid thunk. Her cellmate was a humped shadow against the wall.

  Unwilling to take off her clothes and rinse out her clothes, Pearl got into bed and pulled the blankets around her, only her eyes and nose visible as the lights shut off. She felt the scratches on the wall. Seven scratches, seven days. The air cooled and she shivered, not so much from cold as apprehension, sneaking a look at the pallid green light glowing through the bars. Was the moon full or was there still time to ask to be moved?

  The silence crowded against her, insinuating, cold and insistent. Something shifted. She wasn’t alone. Of course, she was not alone, not with Tamara sleeping less than five feet away, Tamara whose breathing suddenly sounded harsh and erratic.

  Did Tamara just growl? Get hold of yourself. Her heart tap danced in her chest and the crabs threatened a repeat performance. Swallowing the bitter crab, she changed position to face Tamara’s bunk and curled into a ball, eyes straining to see in the darkness, her feet braced against the desk legs. She gripped the blanket in both fists and waited for morning as the minutes tick-ticked away in the night, sand going through the hourglass one grain at a time. Time stretched like a huge rubber band, stretching, stretching, stretching, until it . . . broke.

  Eleven

  Lock down.

  Cell doors clanged shut against the murmurs of the other inmates bedding down, getting situated, fussing over who has whose pillow and whether or not someone stepped on the mattress on the floor. It was the same almost every night, the last high lapping waves slowly receding into the ebb tide that comes with the disappearance of the sun, felt even in the sunless world they inhabited. The moon first grasped and then eased its forceful grip in an eternal dance with the Earth, exerting its influence on the inhabitants of the blue and green world.

  Although
unable to see the moon, it held sway over emotions and fertile tides, a low inaudible hum that exerted a force to which none of them were immune—not the guards or the inmates. Tempers were as short as the supply of pads and tampons dwindling beneath rising demand, each woman’s body subtly shifting flow to match everyone else’s in the closed world of the quad. It was a slow process, waxing and waning until each one blended into the lunar stream. Newcomers who were in and out within days or a week or two never experienced the shift, never felt the changing tides, and everyone else took it for granted without question.

  A deep ache inside Pearl spread slowly through her like water on thirsty sand, unconsciously aware of the full moon rising beyond the barred green-painted windows. She shifted on her pallet unable to find a comfortable position while Tamara prowled from desk to sink to bunk, bare feet stealthy on the tiles. One step to the desk, three to the sink, and five steps to the bed. One step, three steps, five steps, over and over.

  The lights outside the cell door blinked out as the door by Betty’s table crashed against the frame and electricity sent the bolt home to seal them away for the night. Scattered whispers disappeared like cockroaches into the walls until the only sound was Tamara prowling: one, three, five whispering steps across the tiles, and one, three and five again. She prowls restlessly until suddenly there was silence and the rough rasp of breathing, first even and slow, and then faster and faster. Pearl’s heart thumped in time to the quickening sounds, her breath catching, nearing hyperventilation, matching pace with Tamara’s. Pearl swallowed and consciously calmed her breathing, counting, keeping time, silent and watchful, waiting, fingers searching out the marks on the wall, her talisman against the dark and danger. Cloth fluttered to the floor, the thin tink-tink of a metal zipper’s teeth hitting the tile. More clothing rustled down, lying like ghostly shadows on the desk, the sink, and the bunk.

  Up against the pallid green light that made the bars darker and more solid, a naked figure slid hands and arms up and up the black steel bar, embracing the cage like a lover. Head thrown back, hair streamed along the deep curve of her spine, over buttocks, and down to brush hamstrings and knees; she was bent almost double. Face turned to the ceiling, she opened her mouth and howled, lunging up toward the window and sending her chilling call through the black honeycombed mesh. Breasts up thrust, nipples pointed toward the night beyond, she howled again, sending frozen daggers flying beneath Pearl’s flesh, racing toward the hot, hard center to stab and stab again at waters barely held in check from the shuddering grip of fear.

  Tamara howled again, a cry of triumph, a primal call of recognition, a promise of return and freedom that stirred Pearl’s blood and wakened an urge to join her voice to the eerie song. She swallowed hard and remained silent, afraid, wary of every sound beyond the locked steel door that imposed limits on her freedom, the tangible limits of the world that had cowed her heart and soul until tonight. There was no loneliness or longing in Tamara’s voice, only the certainty that she would be soon free, a promise called to someone—or something—outside the concrete walls and barred, reinforced glass, someone free to roam the night, something waiting for her.

  Pearl trembled at the audacious thought that, even after so many months consigned to this limbo, Tamara believed in freedom. Six months lay behind and six months more lay ahead before her name would be called and she rolled out. Listening to Tamara howl, Pearl questioned that certainty.

  Looking up at the shadowed silhouette, face toward the ceiling, body tense with effort and yet graceful in the pallid green light playing over the planes and hollows and curves of Tamara’s body, Pearl reached for and held onto the faint hope that freedom was possible, unscheduled and unplanned freedom. It was obvious Tamara believed enough to howl her defiance and triumph into the frigid, silent night.

  Every whisper, every sound, every creaking, ticking, muffled thump outside the door sent ripples of fear through Pearl. Surely the deputies could hear what’s happening. What would they do with Tamara when they came to investigate?

  She spared a look behind her, wanting to warn Tamara to be quiet before someone heard. Can they not hear? No, she mustn’t disturb Tamara and so she waited, but no one came.

  Darkness muffled all sound and sharpened Pearl’s dread. Warily, she got up and knelt beneath the heavy metal mesh cross-hatching over the tiny window in the door, rising slowly until she could peer through the bottom row of holes along the metal sill. Higher and higher she rose, muscles quivering in her thighs from the strain, until she could stand and look out the window to the floor of the empty quad. Nothing moved. No one stirred. Strangled snores sounded above her and down the corridor. She couldn’t see into the guard station; the view was blocked by the upper tier. Tamara was safe. She was safe. Either no one noticed or the guards didn’t care, or maybe howling at the moon was allowed, probably even tolerated. There were no neighbors to complain and no animal control to call. There are loopholes in the limits. I wonder how far they go.

  Pearl laid down on the pallet, curling up beneath the scratchy blanket, pulling one big toe from the ragged hole in the bottom of the sheet, clasping her hands, and folding them against her chest as she closed her eyes, murmuring a childhood prayer. “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” She counted breaths in and out, in and out, until returning heat generated by exertion, a pounding pulse and the need for rest loosened tensed muscles and uncurled clenched fingers and toes until she slipped into a dreamless sleep caught in the ebb and flow of inexorable night tides, grateful for the exhaustion that comes with too many sleepless nights.

  Steel clanged on steel and a strident bark of command yanked Pearl from sleep. “Tamara Fitzgerald, you’re rolling out.”

  Fuzzy-headed with strange fading dreams, aching to dive into the deep end of sleep, Pearl covered her head with the pillow and clutched it around her ears.

  “Tamara. Rolling out. Five minutes.”

  Bare feet slapped the floor, followed by the rustle of clothing, snaps clicking into place, a zipper ripping. Her cellmate was leaving. Tamara was free, is free. Pearl pushed the covers down to her chin and looked toward the wall bunk. In an excited flurry of movement, the contents of the drawer were examined and most tossed into the trashcan. The rest were laid neatly on the desk. The cell door clanged open and a deputy tossed in a bulging grocery sack that Tamara coughed and dumped on the mattress. She rummaged through the contents, laying them out on the bunk. Gathering items from the desk, she stuffed them into the sack, changing clothes in a blur of motion, dropping the issued blues onto the bunk.

  “I thought you had six more months.”

  “Guess not.”

  A red linen dress with a fitted waist floated down over emerald green satin bra and panties foaming with creamy lace. Stockings glided over pointed toes and trim ankles, up the smooth curves of gracefully muscled calves and thighs and onto garter hooks before sliding the silk clad feet into crimson heels. The smell of fine leather filled the air. A choker of pearls separated into decades by rows of diamonds clasped Tamara’s long white neck and matches the moon-shaped pearls hooked in both ear lobes. The sweeping curve of twin barrettes thick with alternating diamonds and pearls held dark hair away from the perfect heart of her face, transforming the howling night demon into a society debutante.

  She folded down the paper sack and tucked it under her arm, stooping by Pearl’s pallet to offer both hands. Pearl hesitated before taking Tamara’s in her own as she sat up. “There is not much time left. Do what you were meant to do.” She kissed Pearl’s cheek and walked out, the door clanging shut behind her.

  “Watch out for Letty,” she whispered through the grate.

  “What?” But she was gone.

  Heels tip-tapped down the corridor, clinking on the metal stairs and rapping across the tiled quad. A door slammed. The lights went out. Darkness clamped down like a wind racing across a low valley and measured breathi
ng punctuated by grumbling and snores faded once again into silence. She was alone and the night seemed so much bigger.

  Pearl listened with sleep-heavy eyes until she too was caught up in the rhythm of night and sleeps.

  Metal squealed, lights cracked the darkness and voices snapped. Pearl roused reluctantly, shuffled to the toilet and let the icy metal jolt her senses awake. Briefly unaware she was alone, she went through the door rubbing the sleep from her eyes, waiting blearily while a deputy counted each body leaning against the cold cement bricks or wavering on unsteady feet. She went back inside long enough to slip on her shoes and followed the straggling line toward warmth and food. Not until she returned to the cell and picked up the broom did she realize she was alone in a space that seemed too large and empty.

  She had become so used to sharing the chores and sidling past Tamara as they cleaned in silence once she learned the daily drill. Pearl was stunned. Tamara was gone. She left last night.

  The vision of a wizened hag hiding behind a tangled cloud of hair and turning into a polished and proper princess was not a dream. It was real. Tamara knew. She knew she was free before the guard came to get her. She knew.

  Pearl was alone.

  “Strip both beds.” A husky guard thrust clean sheets at her. “Roll up that mattress.” She pointed to the pallet on the floor.

  Pearl nodded and deftly changed the sheets before the guard changed her mind. She arranged the things Tamara left behind—toothpaste, lotion, deodorant, the comb she seldom used, and tampons—on the desktop. Cold fear sluiced through her. She was never getting out. Her file was lost. She was doomed to shuffle obediently through the years, an institutionalized zombie no one missed and no one remembered, someone who had once lived on the outside. Nobody would look for her. They had all forgotten she existed and walked the streets. She was missing in action, a soldier dumped near a battleground, captured and quickly taken prisoner before she could sign in with her new commander, lost and presumed dead. Missing in action. Unknown and unknowing, a number on a list fed and housed with hundreds of others, without a name or designation other than prisoner, without a number to recognize her. She slumped to the bed. The dirty sheets slid from nerveless fingers to the floor.