Taking a deep breath, Pearl folded the paper sack and dropped it into the trash. The blank yellow paper and the pen waited, but she could not face it yet. She swiped both hands down the sides of her blue cotton pants and debated whether to walk away or begin. The blankness waited for ink in swoops and swirls of black. No, this was the moment she had waited for all weekend. Maybe if I sit down, get comfortable, something will come. Facing the blank page brought nothing. The stool was too hard. No amount of shifting helped.
She picked up the pen, touched the point to the paper and . . . nothing. She moved to the bed, sat cross-legged, perched the pad on one knee, uncapped the pen, and . . . nothing.
Okay, I have to start somewhere. The date went in the upper right corner. To whom could she write? No one she knew had a fixed address, so no letter.
Ownership, she must claim the paper. Careful block letters on the cardboard back marked the wide, empty gray expanse. Squiggles turned to careful slanted spirals the way she first learned to use pen and ink in the third grade; she stopped midway on the page. There was no bottomless ink well and little money left to buy more pens. It would be a sin to waste what few resources she had. She turned the tablet over.
The date looked forlorn without anything beneath it, anchored solidly at the top, the chain of letters attached to nothing, leading nowhere.
No, she was not ready yet. She needed time.
Time!
If she kept putting it off, she would never do it. She had time; what she did not have was time to waste.
The pen rested on the paper. A blob of black ink spread, tiny tendrils stretching out like blood through the skin of the paper. Just one word. Another word would follow and another, but she had no words. After all this time, everything that had happened, and she had no words.
It was not a test, or maybe it was. She was no longer sure. If it was not a test, what was it?
Ludicrous.
Frightening.
Enlightening.
One word and the rest will follow. It does not have to be a perfect word, just a word, any word. The first step along the yellow page road.
We came across the Mississippi River on a bridge of light
Fifteen
The lunch bell sounded a reprieve, a breathing space. She was not hungry, but it was something to do, a brief procrastination before hunting down words and facing the blank page. There was time, altogether too much time.
Back up on the quad, she watched a game of dominoes between Joo-Eun and Betty. Maureen prowled near the door, two bulging grocery sacks forgotten on the floor behind her as she circled and paced. She did not like being left out, something Pearl didn’t mind at all.
She told herself the break would be good for her, give her a chance to warm up her muscles, make fresh observations—if such were possible—before beginning to write. This was much different than the one off job of writing that biography in Florida. That was more transcription than writing. Pearl wandered over to the picnic tables where the hippie girl gathered the cards one-handed, her right arm limp by her side. She dragged her unresponsive flesh up and dropped it on the table, using her withered arm as a wall against which to cut and shuffle the cards until she was satisfied they were well mixed before dealing.
“Wanna play? This is Maria. I’m Lainie and you already know Martha.” Pearl nodded at each and sat down.
Pearl partnered Lainie and Maria partnered Martha in hand after hand, pausing long enough to eat sandwich and salad, return the trays and pick up where they left off. On the way back to the picnic table, Pearl noticed Maureen still paced and circled at a safe distance from Betty’s table, eyes dark with storm warnings and impending squalls sent in Betty’s direction.
Pearl thought about asking Maureen to join them, but decided against it. It would do Maureen good to see Joo-Eun as an individual making her own choices rather than someone who owed Maureen a favor for carrying her to the guards when she fainted. Joo-Eun probably didn’t even know what had happened. It was certain Maureen had not told her. There had been no chance once Joo-Eun had returned from the hospital, and no one else would tell her for fear of angering Maureen. Stalemate. The stalemate wouldn’t last for long. Either Maureen would speak up or Joo-Eun would roll out and the stand-off would end.
More and more, it seemed to Pearl that, except for those scheduled to go on to the federal penitentiary and Angola, most of the women were in and out in quick order. In the short time she had been in jail, she noticed a steady stream of incoming and outgoing inmates. She wished she were one of the quick timers.
Instead of rejoining the game, Pearl thanked Lainie and the others for inviting her and went back to the cell where empty paper waited to be filled. She had the urge to get some of her thoughts down and now seemed as good a time as any.
Beyond the cell door, endless hours passed under the glare of fluorescents and the faint lightening and darkening of the green painted windows as she pondered the page. Minute followed minute followed hour followed day in an endless round of cards and dominoes, and it crawled where she sat and waited, pen poised above the page. Beyond her silent battle, furtive hands slipped along blue clad legs. Minnows drifted in ever changing schools herded now and then by sharks and through it all Maureen paced and circled, expectantly waiting and watching.
Well, I’m not going to sit and wait any longer. She went back upstairs; the quad was nearly empty. Soft sounds trickled from the television and actors flickered in shades of black, white and gray across the tiled floor. Through the bars of the railings, Pearl could see into her cell where the yellow legal pads lay on the desk, the black felt tip pen lined up beside them. She would have to face it sooner or later and there was not much time before lights out. Might as well be now. If she could wrest a few words from behind the barred doors of her mind, put away the past instead of rubbing at it like a worry stone, she might be able to face the future that yawned ahead. That was part of the problem—facing the future.
There was no telling whether she had a future or not. Not knowing wore away at her, time dripping moment by moment and day by day like a leaky faucet on a sleepless night. Chinese water torture. She needed to find something to occupy her mind, an outlet for the fear, abandonment and creeping despair that eroded her mind and hope. The only options were to succumb or go mad. She was tired of cards and dominoes, but there was not much else to do - until now.
Pearl got up and marched downstairs, sat down and picked up the pen. She twisted off the cap and let the point rest on the paper for a moment as the thoughts jostled for attention . . . and as the ink met the page, the words flowed. One word after another in stuttering sweeps of the pen, hesitating, gathering force and movement until the words poured out in a rushing torrent that cramped her hand from the unaccustomed activity. It had been so long since she had held a pen for more than a signature or quick note. Fingers more familiar with stroking the keys of a typewriter or data entry keyboard cramped and stiffened. Like riding a bicycle, it all came back to her. The cramping gave way to a dull ache and then to warm familiarity as rusty old muscle memory took over.
First, came an outpouring of questions and observations and feelings of anxiety, fear and confusion and then came the wry sense of humor that had always sustained her when things were difficult or dangerous. After more than ten years of burying all emotions in the depths of mind and heart, Pearl swam through the shallows, paddling around the edge of the vortex and, taking a deep breath, plunged into the heart of the darkness.
Through the raging torrent, she dove deeper and deeper down to where the silent shadows hid her pain, anger and fears, down to those submarine creatures of fantastical creation that had not seen the light in far too long, shedding the past the farther down she dove. All of it came pouring out onto the paper. She had learned not to leave herself vulnerable to discovery or to put dread mythology and occult thoughts on paper so they could be easily read and used to hurt and maim, yet here she was doing just that—giving up the secret longi
ngs and the pain.
There were dark and dangerous thoughts and memories too deep and too unused to the light to coax out, but they came eventually, unwilling at first and then gratefully. Layer by layer and species by species, the past fountained out and onto the paper in tidal waves until Pearl was spent. I feel lighter, freer somehow. It was a wondrous feeling. How good it feels to finally tell someone, even if it is a piece of paper. Several pieces of paper were covered with twisting, swirling symbols, so much in such a few pages: six front and back. There were more empty pages waiting. Pearl turned the page and set the pen to the first line and stopped. Stories swirled beneath the pen’s black point, not her stories, but the stories she had heard from Betty, Maureen and Joo-Eun. Now that she had hit her stride, it seemed important to set down their stories, things to remember in the years to come when everything is crashing down, to remember there was a time when things were worse and she had reached the bottom of her soul’s reach.
Whatever she had endured, no matter how hard, many of the women she shared this space with had it worse, and so she began to write about Betty’s rape, Maureen murdering her husband and Joo-Eun’s battle for control of her own life. Images coalesced on the blue-lined yellow pages and she jotted down questions in the margins.
It was easier than she remembered to paint portraits of these women with whom she shared the endless days and cold, silent nights. Almost as if the writing had never left her, had waited on an island in the mental stream for a chance to be seen and rescued, she picked up where she had left off ten years before. It had been the same with drawing and painting.
Brushes, charcoal and pencils untouched for years, picked up once again, showed the passing years in the details and shadows that ran in precise lines and deftly executed shadows. A more mature technique emerged on the pages. Time had not diminished the ability, but rather enriched it, as she had been enriched by experience, happiness and adversity. There was no hesitation or stiffness about the exercise, none at all, and there had been only a momentary doubt that gave way to the flood of words that filled the lines. The gift and the abilities were intact, stronger and clearer than ever before.
A bright bubble of elation filled Pearl, followed by a brief sadness. Would Betty mind if she did not play cards or dominoes all day? As much as she wanted to tell the stories of these women, she did not want to jeopardize her growing friendship with Betty. Would Betty understand? After a moment’s consideration, Pearl thought she would. I’ll ask her tomorrow.
As if magnetized, the pen sought the next empty page and she wrote, oblivious to the wan green light fading beyond the bars and wired glass.
“Hey. Hey! You want your dinner?”
Pearl looked up. “What?”
The hippie girl Lainie stood halfway between the wall and the cell door. “Dinner. You want dinner?” She glanced toward the guard station and back. “Dinner.”
“Oh. Sure. Right.” Reluctant to stop, Pearl gathered up the filled pages, straightened them and slid them in the back of the tablet.
“I’ll take your dinner if you don’t want it, but you have to get it.”
Pearl capped the pen with stiff fingers and got up. Her back and shoulders ached from sitting for so long. She needed a break. “No, that’s all right. I’m coming.” She stretched, hands low on her back, and arched backwards, massaging the tense muscles. Lord, but I’m stiff. She rolled her head, bent over and touched the floor, spreading her fingers as wide as they would go, reaching outward and crooking them into fits. She felt the stiffness give way a bit.
“Come. Don’t come. Suit yourself.” Lainie walked away.
“Wait a minute.” Pearl hurried after and caught her on the stairs. When they got in line, Pearl leaned over the girl’s shoulder. “Thanks for reminding me. I appreciate it.”
“You’re always so polite. They teach you that at home?”
“Didn’t your parents teach you?”
The lank mousy hair swayed back and forth across Lainie’s face. “Oh, they tried, but it didn’t take. Don’t care much for all that Emily Post jazz.” She took a couple steps backward and walked side by side with Pearl. "Not often someone like you ends up in here. It was inevitable for me. Just ran out of luck.”
“What’d you do?”
The girl turned toward Pearl. “That’s right. You were already in holding when they threw me in there.” She faced the front of the line. “I was stupid. That’s what I get for thinking. Momma always told me thinking was not my strong suit and I should find someone to think for me.”
“That wasn’t very nice. People can be cruel. My mother said I’d never amount to a hill of beans. Looks like she was right.”
“Whatcha gonna do? Hell of it is, they were right. You’d think they had a magic crystal ball the way they go on.”
“Or maybe they just keep hammering away until we become what they want us to be.”
“With a sledgehammer.” Lainie stuck out her left hand. Pearl took it and pumped it twice.
“For true,” she said. They laughed at the same time.
“If you’re interested in stories, I got a doozy.”
“So I’ve heard. Word gets around.”
“Don’t it just?”
They got their food and Pearl pulled out the chair at Betty’s table. Lainie hesitated and leaned in close. “Think she’ll mind?” she whispered.
“Ask her. She doesn’t bite.”
Betty looked up at Lainie and then back down at her tray, more interested in the food than the conversation.
“Maybe later.” Lainie disappeared around the corner of the guard station at a fast walk and Pearl started to rise.
“She be back. That one been circling like a buzzard for days waiting for an openin’. She cain’ wait to say her story. She be back.”
Pearl shrugged and ate. Something told her Betty was right. Lainie had not shown up at her cell before, but she had hovered on the edge of things wherever Pearl was for a couple days. She would be back.
And she was, right after dinner when Pearl started down the stairs.
“Still interested?”
Pearl didn’t need to ask about what. “Sure, if you want to tell me.” She followed Lainie back to the first picnic table and sat down next to her. One look up from beneath lowered lashes, peering from between lank strands of hair and everyone at the table went back to their own conversations.
“Like I said. Thinking ain’t my strong suit. Momma was right about that, and oh, how she was right. When that pig flagged me down all I could think about was what was in the trunk. If I’d’ve been caught with that, I’d’ve been sent up so fast.”
“But you were caught.”
When she smiled, tiny fingernail moons of decay bracketing several of Lainie’s side teeth marred the sharp, rodent-like shape. It was the smile—of a well fed weasel contemplating the open chicken coop door. “Not till after they chased me all over the parish. All those pigs squealing after me in the air and on the ground and they didn’t catch me for a long time. Nearly got away.”
“Why did the cop want to stop you in the first place?”
“That’s where thinking wrong part comes in.”
“Okay. So what happened?”
“You gonna to write this all down?”
“I can remember it.”
Lainie shrugged. “All right by me.” She shifted closer, checked to see if anyone else was listening—and they were, without being too obvious about it—and plunged ahead. “I could’ve saved myself some trouble if I’d’ve stopped. They don’t look in the trunk for a busted tail light. Only give you a warning before they let you go. But I didn’t think; I just put the pedal to the metal and got the hell out of there.”
“That was why the cop stopped you, a busted tail light?”
“Yep.”
Sixteen: LAINIE
The sudden glare of colored lights in Lainie’s rear view mirror blinded her; she blinked. The cops were behind her. If she stopped and they found what w
as in the trunk, she’d be done for—if Spence didn’t get her first. Without hesitation, she tromped on the gas with her left foot. The 1974 Pontiac Catalina hesitated for a second then lurched ahead quickly gaining speed as the 455 Cleveland engine coughed and then roared ahead, rapidly gaining speed. A siren whined behind her, the cruiser getting smaller and smaller in the mirror.
Careening around clots of slower moving cars on Chef Menteur Highway, she maneuvered in and out of traffic, putting distance and steel between her and the cops. Soon, the steady beat of a helicopter sounded overhead and the whine of a single siren became a chorus. Her hip ached from the unaccustomed angle of her right leg, but she could not shift the dead weight of her right leg off the hump of the drive shaft, at least not while trying to outrun the cops.
A command to stop barked from a bullhorn somewhere above her, probably from one of the helicopters. The downdraft buffeted the top of the Catalina as they swooped lower. Cars slowed and pulled to the sides of the road. The Catalina shot forward, the needle of the speedometer trembling at a hundred twenty miles per hour as the car barreled forward.
Just in time, she spotted the roadblock. Six shiny new cruisers barred the way. Palming the wheel with her left hand, she thumped and bumped through the wet grass in the neutral ground, the rear end skidding a few feet before digging in, grass and dirt flying up behind her, obscuring the back window.
Among Women Page 14
